[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8010-8011]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we have a major piece of legislation 
again

[[Page 8011]]

being considered by this Congress, the farm bill. It expired in the 
last Congress; and, due to significant political machinations and 
controversies, we couldn't get it across the finish line because it was 
too expensive, didn't have enough reform, shortchanged nutrition and, 
frankly, didn't deal with the conservation elements that Americans care 
about.
  Well, we're at it again, and the big, contentious issues remain. The 
direct payments appear to be gone, subsidies that go to farmers 
regardless of whether or not they even farm the land; but the big, 
contentious issues remain.
  The issues of subsidization have simply migrated. There's an effort 
to have a shallow-loss provision or additional crop insurance subsidies 
that may actually end up being far more expensive than the direct 
payments they're supposed to be replacing.
  There is an ongoing controversy regarding nutrition. The Senate bill 
cuts $4 billion at a time when too many Americans are, in fact, food 
insecure; and food stamps, the SNAP program, plays a vital interest in 
communities around the country.
  The House bill is even worse: $16 billion in additional cuts that 
families rely upon and, frankly, that provide $1.70 of economic 
activity for each dollar that is given to beneficiaries.
  Well, there is one area that shouldn't be unduly controversial: the 
conservation title of the farm bill. The farm bill is the most 
important piece of environmental legislation that will be considered by 
this Congress. The question is whether it will be a good environmental 
bill or a poor one.
  The conservation title deals with programs that are very, very 
important but that the private market doesn't provide, a market-based 
incentive for people to invest in. I'm talking about things that, if 
you asked the public generally, of course they are concerned about 
clean air, clean water, soil protection, wetland and grassland 
preservation.

                              {time}  1040

  But these are things that we've seen for the last 60 years. Unless 
the Federal Government steps in with either subsidy or regulation, we 
pay a terrible price, dating back to the monstrous soil erosion that 
was part of the Dust Bowl tragedy.
  Here, again, we're in a situation where the conservation title is in 
the crosshairs. It's the conservation programs that too often have been 
cut when we are in need of money. They are touted when people are 
encouraged to vote for the bill, and then those resources dissipate. 
Funding is diverted to large projects. Large, confined animal feedlot 
operations take huge amounts of this money to deal with something that 
should be part of their cost of doing business and large operations 
that could fund it themselves. It takes away resources from small and 
medium-size farmers, or drains valuable wetlands.
  There's a reason why only one in four of the applications for 
conservation programs are approved. Because there isn't enough money 
and too much is diverted. I've introduced H.R. 1890, the Balancing 
Food, Farms, and Environment Act, which seeks to change those 
priorities to be able to have more money available, targeted toward 
small and medium-size farmers and ranchers, and be able to put a 
premium on longer-term conservation.
  We have a bizarre situation now where, because of the amazingly 
bloated and inefficient farm crop insurance program, people are plowing 
up land that previously had been in conservation, land that's going to 
be eroded and that's probably going to fail because it's marginal 
cropland but they don't care because the Federal Government is going to 
pay them anyway. And the taxpayer loses twice. They pay through 
unnecessary crop insurance subsidies and they pay because they lose the 
water quality, the water quantity, the protection of wildlife habitat--
and soil erosion.
  By all means, let's have the political tug-of-war over unnecessary 
subsidization in terms of fighting nutrition, but let's come together 
on the conservation items, which really ought to be nonpartisan, 
focused, and economically productive.

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