[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12286]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     AMERICA NEEDS A FARM BILL NOW

  (Mr. WALZ of Minnesota asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WALZ of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a very simple 
message from rural America: we need a farm bill, and we need it now. 
With the current farm bill set to expire at the end of September, it is 
crucial that we continue to provide certainty to one of the few bright 
spots in our economy over the past decade. It is all the more crucial 
to our farmers that we do this as they are staring at cracked, dried-
out soil resulting from one of the worst droughts in modern history.
  The newspaper Politico looked back 50 years--longer than I've been 
alive--and found that never before has a farm bill been this close to 
being passed and been blocked by House leadership. This is absolutely 
unacceptable.
  Southern Minnesotans can't afford to deal with the uncertainty that 
follows out-of-date policy extensions or lame duck sessions. Lame, for 
sure.
  Don't kick the can down the road. The Senate has passed a bill. The 
2012 farm bill passed out of committee on July 12 with a bipartisan 
vote of 35-11, saving $36 billion for the taxpayers.
  My farmers in southern Minnesota are up before dawn working until 
after dark. We are leaving at noon today. We have 17 days between now 
and November 6 to work here in Washington. That is so unacceptable. No 
one will agree to that. Pass the farm bill. Pass it now.

                          ____________________