[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11488-11489]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE FARM BILL AND POLLINATORS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Last week's farm bill debacle in the House of 
Representatives highlighted a fundamental disconnect. My friends in the 
Republican majority felt that nutrition for poor people was not a 
priority because they were concerned about increasing government 
dependence for lower-income Americans.
  Yes, there are more people receiving SNAP, or what we used to call 
food stamp benefits, because that's how the system is supposed to work. 
After our Nation suffered a near collapse of the economy, and with a 
much larger population of over 313 million people, we would expect 
that, in the face of persistent unemployment and job loss, more people 
would be on food stamps. We want them to get this assistance. It helps 
those families and it helps the economy.
  Yet, by the same action, my friends passed the most expensive farm 
bill provisions in our Nation's history. Just like the direct payment 
program, which gave 75 percent of the payments to 10 percent of all 
farmers, the new price targets and crop insurance programs manipulate 
the market, concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, and fail to 
implement any basic reforms such as means testing and payment limits. 
The irony was not lost on

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many who watched the price tag go up and the benefits be concentrated 
in the hands of those who need it the least.
  The bill lacked meaningful reform. The long overdue elimination of 
direct payments was coupled with a lavish increase in a new 
entitlement, shallow loss provisions of crop insurance. It locked in 
the currently high commodity prices as a threshold going forward. There 
were additional direct payments for cotton and a refusal to reform 
egregious sugar provisions. Subsidies for wealthy farmers are supported 
over innovation, research, and conservation. The bill lavished support 
on those that needed it the least, while stripping out nutrition 
support through the SNAP program, because they didn't want to foster 
dependence, all while a blind eye was turned to abuses in the lavish 
crop insurance program where fraud is 50 percent higher than in the 
maligned SNAP, or food stamp program.
  I am hopeful that if this bill goes on to conference, we'll be able 
to reduce the costs, provide adequate support by reinstituting 
nutrition programs, and address long overdue reform for crop insurance.
  At the same time, there would be some provisions that could actually 
bring people together. For years, I've been working in areas of 
protecting the pollinators. There are 250,000 little species that 
pollinate our food and help create $200 billion worth of food crops 
worldwide. One in every three forks of foods that we eat is due to 
pollination, as well as the flowers we enjoy, fruits, chocolate, and 
even tequila. Many of these things depend on these humble workers. Yet 
we've watched real threats to the critical habitat for pollinators. I'm 
hopeful that we can add a simple, nonpartisan provision that will make 
a difference for these protections.
  Neonicotinoids are insecticides which have been linked to large bee 
die-offs. In one instance, it happened to 50,000 bees in Oregon last 
week. These insecticides have been banned for 2 years in Europe. I'm 
hopeful that as the farm bill goes forward, we can address putting a 
temporary ban on their sale here in the United States, taking a deeper 
dive on the impact they have on pollinators and, indeed, on the entire 
food chain for this very persistent substance that has the potential of 
affecting the impact not just of the health of bees but of our families 
as well. I'm also hopeful that we'll have a farm bill that can include 
low- or no-cost provisions like pollinating protection to bring people 
together to strengthen agriculture. These are vital parts of nature and 
of our food chain.
  In the past, the farm bill wasn't a partisan battlefield. If we can 
focus on providing help for people who need it the most, rather than 
lavish subsidies for people that need it the least, and focus on 
innovation, conservation, and, yes, pollinator protection, things like 
this can strengthen our food supply, save money, protect the 
environment, and maybe enable us to make some progress in an area so 
far that looks embarrassingly remote.

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