vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 56, the nays are 41. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, there will now be two minutes of debate prior to a vote on the tavenner nomination. will the chamber please come to order.

the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be a sufficient second. there is a sufficient second. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

quorum callquorum vote:

the presiding officer: have all senators voted or wishing to vote done so? if not, the vote is 91-7 and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motions to reconsider

senate's action and the senate will resume legislative session. mr. reid: mr. president, i now move to proceed to calendar number 73, s. 954. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 73, s. 954, a bill to reauthorize agricultural programs through 2018. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: mr. president, i rise this evening to discuss a disturbing pattern of behavior, a culture of intimidation that continues to emerge from the obama administration. for the past few days, after headline after headline has revealed one new controversy after another.

in every case, americans are right to wonder what kind of leadership led to this and just how far this culture of intimidation goes. americans need to learn the extent to which this misconduct has occurred by the heavy hand of the executive branch of government. the first indication was on friday of last week and it involved the internal revenue service issuing an apology for targeting conservative groups seeking nonprofit status and treating conservative groups more harshly than other groups. these groups were excessively scrutinized if they used the words "patriot" or "tea party." as we would later learn from the inspector general report, not only were these groups targeted,

but senior officials knew about it for at least a year and made no report to the congress. it has also been confirmed that confidential information about some of these groups was leaked to the liberal nonprofit group propublica. the whole situation disgraces the basic constitutional freedoms to which every american is entitled. it is appalling that americans have been deliberately targeted for i.r.s. scrutiny based on their political beliefs or affiliations. no american should fear arbitrary government harassment simply because of the expression of his or her views. the administration needs to be held accountable for its failure to protect americans. an apology is not sufficient in this instance, mr. president.

an internal inspector general investigation talking about mismanagement errors will not suffice in this instance. the acknowledgment that mistakes were made and that the changes need to be made -- that changes, indeed, need to be made will not in and of themselves rebuild the public trust that has been broken. particularly troubling is that the i.r.s. is not the only agency where these types of abuses have occurred. americans are also right to be outraged by the news that health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius has been fund-raising among the industry people she regulates on behalf of the president's health care law. as reported in "the washington post" on may 10, secretary sebelius has gone hat in hand to health industry officials asking

them to make large financial donations. presumably these donations are being collected in order to pay for an advertising campaign in the media, including television. further investigation is necessary to determine the extent to which these solicitations constitute a conflict of interest. it's curious that the secretary of health and human services is seeking support from the health industry now when these affected parties were largely ignored or in many cases intimidated during the debate on the president's health care law. meanwhile, questions remain about the administration's handling of the september 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi that left four americans dead, including ambassador chris

stevens. during his recent news conference, the president tried to deflect serious concerns about altered talking points by calling it a political side sh show. i don't think the american people are going to be convinced that it's a side show. the real side show is the president's attempt to distract from an unraveling narrative that began with the administration's wrongly casting blame on an inflammatory youtube video. subsequent testimony from state department whistle-blowers who came forward despite administration forward has only expanded the controversy surrounding the administration's apparent misrepresentation of the terrorist attack to the american people. let's not forget to it was president obama who promised after he took office that his

administration would be the most open and transparent in history. it is increasingly clear that the president's rhetoric does not match this reality. whether these scandals continue to make mainstream news, our questions and inquiries will not stop until we get answers. the administration's conflicting story lines and blame game are inexcusable in the wake of serious allegations. in america, those in power are not above the law and those responsible must be held accountable. a member of this body on the other side of the aisle asked publicly on the radio this morning, what does it take to get fired in this town? a good question coming from the other side of the aisle. what we are continuing to see, mr. president, is a culture of

intimidation, a pattern of big-government heavy-handedness and overreach by the administration. what is lacking is credibility and integrity from those elected to serve. each scandal is distinct in its grievances but not isolated in its impact. a new yorker article published yesterday by amy davidson noted -- quote -- "the obama administration's strange belief that if it can just get -- if it can just find the right words, that reality will comply and bend to meet it, that its challenges are so extraordinary that the use of any exceptions built into normal processes should be regarded as unexceptional." americans deserve direct, straightforward answers and they deserve the facts. they deserve to know why the i.r.s. deliberately targeted

conservative groups and gave liberal groups a pass. why secretary sebelius solicited the health care industry to help implement obamacare. and why the administration downplayed the atrocities in benghazi and pressured fact witnesses to say -- to stay silent. it's time for the president and his inner circle to provide a full explanation. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: good evening. i just waiting for a chance to say a few words on the floor, on the phone with a -- a

conversation with somebody's who's run a couple of very successful companies in -- in our country. i don't know if he's a democrat or republican but it was an interesting conversation. and we talked about how economy's coming along and we talked about how the companies that he's especially interested, how they're doing. and we sort of looked ahead. but one of the things i asked is what do you think we could be doing here, where we're working in our nation's capitol, in the u.s. senate? and he pretty much said there are three things we need to do. he said, we need to ask -- answer maybe three questions for us. one, can we govern? can you govern? in a divided washington, a divided congress? he said, number two, can -- can you be -- can we be as a nation fiscally responsible? and the third thing he said, can -- can you provide some certainty with respect to the tax code so we actually know what taxes are going to look like? not just this week or this month

or just this year, but how about for some certainty going -- going forward? i think there's a lot of wisdom in what he -- what he said. as some other folks have been talking about here on the floor today when we weren't passing the water resources development act bill -- good, bipartisan bill. i think a responsible bill. an encouraging step, if you wi -- will. but in between, we have had other people talking about on one side or the other moving forward on a budget. some have talked about other issues that are in the news these days. i just want to follow up on some of the earlier conversations today with -- with respect to demonstrating that we can govern, that we can be fiscally responsible and that we can provide some certainty with respect to the tax code. folks that might be listening in to what's going on in this senate this afterno m

not know the way the budget process works. this is budget 101. in my old role as state treasurer for delaware and governor, in delaware, we have two budgets. not one but two budgets. we have an operating budget and we have a capital budget, a brick-and-mortar budget. the brick-and-mortar budget is for schools, k-12, it's for postsecondary education, infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, prisons, that kind of thing. but we have an operating budget as well. here we only have one. and for, gosh, i would say about 30, 40 years, actually, the way that we are supposed to run our finances as a country basically call for the president to submit a budget, usually in february, one budget, not two but one budget, and the congress is expected to come in and pivot

off of that budget and create what we call a budget resolution. the senate passes a budget resolution, the house does. the idea is to be able to do that sometime in april, and hopefully by the end of april to agree between the house and senate on that budget resolution. people think that a budget resolution is a budget, but it's not. it's a resolution. it's, if you will, a framework for a budget. it's not actually signed by the president. it's something that we worked out. it provides the foundation, if you will, on which to pass a number of -- maybe a dozen or so appropriations bills that cover everything from agriculture to transportation. and the budget resolution provides, if you will, a framework for any revenue measures that we might need to pass as well. in order to get as close to a balanced budget or to meet some kind of responsibilities for running our country. but the idea is to -- for the senate to pass a budget

resolution, the house to pass a budget resolution. we create a conference committee and work out our differences. now, for the last four years, our friends in the republican party delighted in accusing the democrats of never passing a budget. what they meant, we never passed a budget resolution, the framework. i think of the budget resolution as a skeleton, a skeleton, the bones, if you will, but we put the meat on the bones when we pass the dozen or so appropriations bills and whatever revenue measures are needed. that's the meat on the bones. and then eventually we have a full budget. right now, as our colleagues know, we're -- we have passed in the senate a budget resolution several weeks ago. it called for deficit reduction. it didn't balance the budget over the next ten years, but it further reduced the budget deficit and put us on a path to -- if you will, to stabilize our debt and to get us on a trajectory where debt as a

percentage of gross domestic product is starting to come down. not as much as i would like, not as much as the presiding officer would like, but actually get us headed in the right direction. but it was a 50-50 deal. 50% of deficit reduction on the spending side, 50% on the revenue side. actually, ironically, the last time we had a balanced budget, 1999, 2000, 2001 in the clinton administration, erskine bowles, then the president's chief of staff, a woman named sylvia matthews, now sylvia matthews burwell, they worked with the senate to come up with a deficit reduction plan in 1997. four balanced budgets in a row. their deal, work it out with republicans was a 50-50 deal. 50% was on the spending side, 50% was on the revenue side. this year the senate-passed budget resolution, it was passed with all democrats votes, no republicans, but it's a 50-50

deal. half of the deficit reduction is spending, half on the -- the revenue side. over in the house, they have a different approach. and the republicans in the house argue with some justification that they get more deficit reduction accomplished. and you might quibble with some of their assumptions. they assume the repeal of obamacare and they also assume that even though they're going to repeal it, that the trillion dollars in deficit reduction that c.b.o., congressional budget office says flows from obamacare over the next ten years, the affordable care act, they still assume -- even though repealing obamacare, they still assume a trillion dollars in deficit reduction. i don't know if that's entirely consistent, but that's part of their assumption. so anyway, the -- so they end up with a deficit reduction that is dependent solely on the spending side. no revenues. it's just all on the spending side. so they pass their budget resolution, we passed ours.

they passed theirs with i think almost all republican votes and we passed ours with almost all democrat votes. well, when that happens, the idea is to say here is the senate budget resolution, here is the house budget resolution. why don't we create a conference committee. i used to think of it as a compromise committee where some of the senators, democrat and republican, some of the house members, democrat and republican, gather together and work out the differences between the two budget resolutions. that's what people sent us here to do. as the presiding officer knows, i -- i like to sometimes ask people who have been married a long time what is the secret for being married a long time. and i usually ask this of people who have been married 50, 60, 70 years. i get some really funny answers. i got a great answer about a week ago. a couple had been married 55 years. i asked the wife and husband, i said -- i asked the wife what's the secret of being married 55 years, ma'am. she looked at her husband and said he will tell you that he can either be right or he can be

happy but he cannot be both. i thought it was pretty funny. he said something to the effect, he said when you know -- when you know you're wrong, admit it. when you know you're right, let it go. pretty good advice. i think the best answer i ever heard to that question what's the secret of being married a long time, i have heard this from a number of people, the answer is the two c's -- communicate and compromise. think about that, the two c's, communicate and compromise. and i think that's not only the secret to a -- an enduring union between two people, but i think it's also the secret to a vibrant democracy, communicate and compromise. and it's kind of ironic that our republican friends after beating us over the head for four years for not supposedly passing a budget -- although if you looked at what we put in place in some of the legislation, some of the laws, we actually did have a budget and we had spending caps and directions for -- to reduce spending in a lot of different categories. saved well over a trillion

dollars as a result. but it's ironic that the very people who criticized us for not passing a budget have now here in the senate made it impossible for us to create that conference committee, that compromise committee between the house and senate and take the next logical step of reconciling the difference between the senate-passed budget resolution and the house. it's not going to be easy to do that, but we need to get started. and the -- if you think about the way we spend money, i want to commend the chair of the budget committee. she has had some very sad losses in her family. we extend our sympathy there. i just want to commend you and your committee for taking on a tough job, one of many tough jobs you have taken on, and to give us a budget resolution that we can go to conference with. we just want -- i just want to have a chance to do that. i want to just mention this and i'll yield. we had a bunch of realtors in. say this to senator murray, we had a bunch of realtors in from delaware today, and they wanted to talk about the budget and how

we're doing. i explained that if you think of the federal budget, i think it was a pie, i think it was like a piece of pie or a chocolate pie or something, but i think it was a pie, and the way that i explained it, i said over half that pie is entitlement spending, and that's things that we're entitled to by virtue of our age, our station in life, our service, medicare, medicaid, social security, some of our veterans' benefits. but only half of the budget -- that pie for spending, over half of it is entitlement spending, and it's growing. another roughly 10% to 15% of that pie is interest on the debt, and with the interest -- with the debt growing, interest on the debt, thank god the interest rates are low right now or that would go through the roof. interest on the debt is -- continues to -- to maybe creep up. you add those two together, it's about 70% of the pie that we're thinking about, and so that leaves another 30%. what's in the other 30%?

well, the whole rest of the federal government. the whole rest of the federal government. and that included -- about half of that 30% is defense and about half of that 30% is everything else, from agriculture to transportation, everything in between, law enforcement, the courts, prisons, federal prisons, f.b.i., education, housing, environment, everything else is in that 15%. the difference between the senate-passed budget resolution and the house-passed budget resolution, the house would make some changes in entitlement spending. we do some of that as well. they do more to try to reduce spending. the -- the real difference is what happens with that 15% of -- we call it domestic discretionary spending, and the other 15% in discretionary spending is defense. but they would take in their budget resolution in the house that 15% over the next ten years and take it down to roughly 5%,

5%. and that is everything in the federal government other than defense and entitlements and interest. that's everything else. that includes work force development, starting with early childhood education programs, head start, all the way from kindergarten up through high school, programs especially promoting the education in stem, science, technology, engineering and math, postsecondary education. it includes infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, everything broadly defined in infrastructure. it includes investments in research and development that can create products and technology that can be commercialized and sold all over the world. all of that stuff -- and the rest goes down to about 5%. i don't think that's smart, i don't think that's smart for growing the economic pie because of things -- the areas we need

to invest in in our work force. we need a world-class work force. we need terrific infrastructure much better than our decaying infrastructure. and the third thing we need is to invest in r&d that can be commercialized. in any event, we have a difference in priorities here. the senate-passed budget resolution is not perfect but it's i think a very good document and a good starting point, and the republicans have their ideas, some with merit, some not, but the next thing we need to do, we need to meet. we need to create that conference committee and we need to go to work. to let the chair of the committee and her counterpart over there, senator sessions, do their job, along with their house counterparts. they can't do their job until republicans in the senate agree to let us form the conference committee and go to conference. we need that to happen. and rather than just talking about and pointing fingers at one another, we actually need to do that. stop pointing fingers, join hands, see if we can't work this out. with that said and done, mr. president, i will conclude and yield back to the chair of

the committee -- yield back to you and again with my thanks to senator murray for the leadership that she continues to provide for all of us. thanks very much. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to ten minutes as if in morning business and following me the senator from rhode island to speak for five minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you. madam president, i want to thank the senator from delaware who just spoke about the fact that we are now 53 days since passing the senate budget, and we are pushing very hard as democrats to keep this process moving and get our budget to a conference committee, and i appreciate his coming out and explaining why that's so important, and i agree with him. we really believe that with all the urgent challenges that we face today, there is every reason to get to work right away on a bipartisan budget deal, and there is no reason to delay this until the next crisis.

but, mr. president, we have come out here now seven times and asked for consent to go to conference to work on the budget with the house, and seven times the senate republicans have stood up and said no, we don't want to go to work on budget. now, given how much senate republicans have talked about regular order over the last several years, we are rather surprised on this side that they are now resisting this very important next step in this bipartisan negotiations. and by the way, it's not just democrats who are saying they want to go to conference. there are quite a few senate republicans who are surprised as we are that they are not allowing us to go. my colleague, senator mccain, said blocking conference is and i quote incomprehensible and -- quote -- insane. senator corker said that to -- quote -- keep from appointing conferees is not consistent. and senator -- said and i quote, he would like to see us go to

conference now. now, mr. president, i sincerely hope that the republican leaders in the senate will listen to the members of their own party because we have got a lot of problems to solve and we have got to get started. you you know, our children today need a world-class education to succeed in the global economy, many graduating here in the next several weeks. too many americans are out of work yet or still underemployed and our national infrastructure is quickly becoming an obstacle rather than an asset to our competitiveness. and we need to responsibly tackle our long-term deficit and debt challenges and make our tax code work better for our middle class. the debate about all of those challenges couldn't be more important. so we should start working here towards a bipartisan budget deal that works for our families and our economy, and we should do it as soon as possible, and engage the american people in a thorough and responsible debate.

that's why, mr. president, i, frankly, was very disappointed to see that today instead of meeting to discuss moving towards a bipartisan conference between the house and senate, house republicans are meeting to discuss what they will ask for in exchange for not tanking the economy a couple of months from now. instead of moving with us towards the middle and joining us at the table ready to compromise, they spent their afternoon debating what to write on a ransom note and saying if they don't get what they want, they're going to allow the u.s. to default. that is an unprecedented event that would devastate our entire economy. mr. president, i think a lot of families across our country are very concerned that house republicans haven't learned any lessons at all from the past two years, and that we are looking at more brinksmanship, more governing by crisis, and more harm for our american families and our businesses.

now, house republicans are even telling us that they're willing to put foreign creditors before our seniors and our veterans and our businesses in claiming somehow this plan will protect the economy. but, mr. president, that's absurd. a default is a default. if the federal government pays its foreign creditors but defaults on its obligations to our families and our communities, the results are going to be catastrophic. rating agencies would rightly see that as a serious abdication of our responsibilities. our fragile economy would be seriously threatened and people across the country would lose their faith again in our government's ability to function. so fortunately i think and i hope it won't come to all that. republicans themselves have been saying that default would be a -- quote -- "financial disaster for the global economy." and -- quote -- "you can't not raise the debt ceiling." just a few months ago, republicans acknowledged how

dangerous it would be to play games with the debt limit and how politically damaging it would be to play politics with the potential economic calamity and drop their demands. so, mr. president, what has changed since then? why are republicans once again issuing this empty threat that does nothing more than rattle the markets and increase uncertainty across our country? maybe house republicans think since we won't hit the debt ceiling until later than we originally expected there could be less pressure to get a deal and more opportunity for them to extract some kind of political concession? mr. president, that is the wrong way to look at this because even though we know they're going to reverse course eventually, the republican strategy of creating uncertainty again and trying to push us towards another crisis has terrible consequences

all of us remember when the the republicans demanded economically damaging policies leading to a downgrade of our nation's credit. job creation slowed to a halt. consumer confidence plummeted. and out of that summer came sequestration. that was a policy that was meant to serve only as a trigger, and, in fact, was only implemented because republicans were focused on protecting the wealthiest americans and biggest corporations from paying even a penny more in taxes rather than working with us with a deal to prevent sequester, and now what do we have? sequestration. and it's forcing families and communities across the country to cope with layoffs and cuts to services that they -- things like childcare and public safety. just yesterday, mr. president, we learned that d.o.d. civilian employees, many of them who are veterans, by the way, are going to be furloughed. so we've got to replace

sequestration. we need to do it with a balanced and responsible deficit reduction plan, but we also have got to stop lurching from crisis to crisis to crisis that allows those kinds of policies to be enacted. there is absolutely no reason to double down on an approach that has those kinds of effects on the families and communities we serve, and on those who bravely served our country. so contrary to what we are now, unfortunately, hearing from the house, i believe that with more time to reach a fair bipartisan agreement and have all the more reason for us to move to a conference quickly and get a budget agreement. let's get to work. our country's challenges rather than looming artificial deadline or crisis should guide this debate. and this shouldn't be controversial. there are responsible leaders on both sides of the aisle who agree. so i hope, mr. president, that senate republicans will listen to the members of their own party who are calling for a

conference and bring us one step closer to negotiating a bipartisan budget deal in a responsible way instead of insisting that we run down the clock. i know there are factions in our government that believe that compromise is a dirty word, and that getting a deal won't be easy. but i continue to believe it can and needs to be done. because alongside those who refuse to compromise, there are responsible leaders who came here to show americans that their government works. it would be deeply irresponsible for the house to continue delaying a conference and for senate republicans to continue to cover for them, especially if they're doing it for political reasons or to keep the negotiations out of the public eye or to, what i've heard, avoid taking a few tough votes. so i urge republican colleagues to reconsider their approach. join us in a budget conference ready

with us towards a bipartisan budget deal that the american people deserve. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, it's my understanding that senator reed is going to be speaking next and i'd like to ask that i be recognized as if in morning business at the conclusion of his remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. first let me rise to commend senator murray for her extraordinary leadership on the budget committee and in so many other ways in this senate. but she did a remarkable job in bringing together a budget that responds to the urgent needs we see in the united states today. to create jobs, to strengthen the emerging economic recovery. in fact, to provide even more momentum for this recovery, much more because in my state of rhode island, despite certain gains, we're still at roughly

9% unemployment. unacceptable. we have to do more. and the first step on that path is to move this legislation to conference. and that is what senator murray has spoken about and that is what is so critical. 53 days ago under her superb leadership, the senate passed a budget. the budget invested $100 billion, for example, in targeted jobs and infrastructure package, and would start creating new jobs quickly, and that's what my constituents need, indeed when i go back to rhode island that's what people are asking about, where are the jobs? it would also begin in this infrastructure package to repair crumbling roads, bridges, help prepare workers for the 21st century. all these things are absolutely essential to our present economic problem with job creation, and our future productivity and our future ability to be competitive in a

very challenging world. our budget -- the budget passed by senator murray would end the economically damaging sequester and make the tough and balanced choices we need for a sound fiscal policy. house republicans also passed a budget, so the next step in regular order is to go to conference. now, admittedly the house republican budget stands in stark contrast to our budget, and it's clear that we have a lot of work to do to reach an agreement. for example, the house republican budget calls for a total of $4.6 trillion in cuts, it voucherrizes medicare, it would leave the sequester in place and calls for tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest americans. i believe these and other choices in the house republican budget would be a very bad deal for the people of rhode island. but these are the kind of differences that must be and can only be resolved i think effectively in conference, and,

again, the first step is to appoint our conferees to go to conference and to begin the difficult discussions and negotiations to provide the american public the answers that they're looking for. so now it's past time to avoid a conference with the house. and there is at least not only the chance but i hope we can negotiate a bipartisan agreement with our republican colleagues in the house of representatives, with our republican colleagues here in the senate, to move the country forward. unfortunately, despite the insistence over months and months and months by republicans in the house and in the senate that we go to regular order, that we have a budget, that was the biggest problem they were talking about for many months last year and the year before, well, now we're looking for regular order and they're looking the other way. that can't go on. we have to get to conference. we have to take the next step. can't delay.

we have 11.7 million americans out of work and looking for jobs. we have to address the sequester. as senator murray said just yesterday the secretary of defense announced hundreds of thousands of personnel will be furloughed, civilian personnel from our military forces. that will not only disrupt their lives which is the first great toll, but it will also disrupt the efficiency and the ability of the department of defense to fully capable to carry out its missions. these are critical issues. again, we have to make sure that the full and complete credit of the united states, faith and credit of the united states is not jeopardized by another manufactured crisis over the debt ceiling. and again that is on the horizon. so we have to deal very soon with all these issues and the logical and appropriate step is to go to conference. we have a lot of work to do. let me also say something else. i'm encouraged that i've heard

that the leader is prepared to call up for a vote the nomination of richard cordray to head the consumer financial protection bureau. this is critical. a well regulated marketplace is y good for consumers, it gd for companies and had to this economic recovery, this certainty, this knowledge that consumers will have the information they need to proceed. also i presume prum that we'll have a vote with respect to the pending doubling of the student loan interest rate. last year we avoided this by pushing it forward a year. we have another deadline july 1. we have to ensure students don't face another crippling increase in interest rates they pay on student loans. today student lending is a huge burden on the generations that are coming up and, in fact, could delay our economic progress by a decade or more as students can't buy homes, can't buy cars, they are saddled with

this debt. we have to keep our eyes on that, too. we just can't lurch from crisis to crisis. the first thing we do, the immediate thing we must do is invoke regular order, go ahead, let's go to conference, let's start dealing with the issues that affect the people of america. let's start serving their primary concerns, creating jobs, a stable economy and doing that in procedures that we have adopted and used for decades. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, it's very rare that we have an opportunity to do something that's really in -- to the benefit of our country in terms of our protection that doesn't cost anything, if anything, it makes money, and it's something i'm going to share. it's a bill that i introduced today. which is senate -- s. 965.

let me kind of give you a little background here to let you know why we're introducing this. and why the iran sanctions implementation act of 2013 is significant. first of all, it's imperative that we know -- because most people don't understand this -- that iran's source of revenue comes from oil exports. now, this is something that one of our fine senators here has had as one of his efforts to come up with something that is going to effectively embargo the country of iran. and we've had a lot of countries that, for example, we don't import anything from them but they do have a very large supply of -- of oil. today the iran exporting is

exporting about 1.25 million barrels of oil a day. that amounts to somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million a day or about $3 billion a month. the influence of iran is something throughout the middle east that it ranging from yemen all the way to sudan to hamas to hezbollah to lebanon and mosque to syria. one of the concerns i've had for a long period of time is that iran is -- one of the things that the president did that i think we're going to live to regret is four years ago he did away with our ground-based interceptor in poland. when this happened, that was set up to knock down missiles that might be coming from the east into the united states. now, we have 44 ground-based interceptors on the west coast and i'm comfortable we can knock down anything coming from that way. but from the east, we don't.

it would take, you know, one -- maybe one shot. it would have to be fortunate. from the west coast. anyway, the reason i bring this up and why it's pertinent to the legislation that we're introducing right now is that the -- our intelligence has shown us since 2007 that iran is going have a -- a -- the bomb, the weapon, the nuclear capability and the delivery system to send something from iran by 2015. now, if we had been -- stayed with our effort to have the radar in the czech republic and the ground-based interceptor in poland, we would be well prepared to protect ourselves. however, that was not the case. so i look at iran -- and i lot of people don't agree with this; i may be the only one who will say this, but i think they are the greatest threat we have in the middle east. you know, we -- we all talk about syria and the problems that are taking place in syria, the 70,000 people that have been

the victim of assad's barbaric slaughter eople. and we know that iranian security and intelligence services are propping up the assad regime by advising and assisting the syrian military forces, providing essential lethal military supplies and building pro-government military. i'm going to read something right now that i just received to quantify what -- how much iran is doing to -- to assist syria. and this was in the magazine "economist." it said that iran reportedly sent $9 billion to assad to see it through sanctions on syria. in other words, several countries, including us, had sanctions on syria -- on -- on iran and, of course -- and this was -- this is one reason -- or sanctions on syria and this is

one reason that we were sending money over there. and that tells us that our sanctions on iran are not nearly as tight as they should be. now, that was in the "economist." so it's a very serious thing. lebanese hezbollah, iran's proxy, is participating in a direct combat role aligned with iranian strategic interests in syria. we know that syria provides crucial access to iranian proxies that include hezbollah, hamas, and the palestinian islamic jihad. iran is continuing an extensive and expensive and integrated effort to maintain syria as a base of -- for -- for fu furmeng future regional instability. iran is all in in syria as evidenced by the frequent presence on the ground in syria of iranian force commander major general hassam sulemani.

suleman si on thni is on the u.y and u.s. security council watch list for allegedly involved in terrorist activity and proliferation of missile technology. so this is the -- how serious that situation is over there. a subordinate to sulemani, brigadier general hassan shatteri, was a senior iranian commander and was killed in damascus countryside. the death of iranian generals on syrian soil is a strong indication of iran's commitment to the regime. now, further, we know that iran has supplied syria with ballistic missiles and chemical weapons. the assad regime in syria, which is presently the greatest throat stability in the middle east, is being propped up by iran -- greatest threat to stability in the middle east, is being propped up by iran. and this is the reason for -- i would at this moment, i see that the majority leader is here. if he would like to make any statement, i'd be very glad to

yield to him. mr. reid: mr. president, my -- i appreciate very much the usual courtesy of my friend from oklahoma. appreciate it very, very much. i have a brief unanimous consent request. i ask that the senator's statement appear not interrupted in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that on monday, may 20, at a time to be determined by me, after consultation with senator mcconnell, the senate proceed to the consideration of calendar number 73, s. 954. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: mr. president, th the -- iran is able to do this because it earns $3 billion a month in oil revenue. now, if iran -- and this is a key point here -- if iran did not have access to this money, its ability to influence the region would be significantly curtailed. in other words, they cannot pose a threat without their oil revenues. so the reason that we have

threat from -- and the problems that we have in syria is because the mean is being sent to syria, the source of that -- the money that is being sent to syria, the source of that money is oil revenues. and it shows that the -- the effort that we've made in syria -- in iran is not really enough because they have access to that much -- that much -- that many resources. fortunately, the international community has generally recognized this. last year senator kirk of illinois led the senate in the consideration of sanctions against iran's oil trade. at that time, iran exported 2 1/2 million barrels of oil a day and kirk sought an outright global embargo against the iranian oil. during the debate, however, many members of the international community stated that they would not be able to wean themselves off of iranian oil quickly enough to comply with the sanctions without causing a significant shock to oil prices

and, in turn, their economies. so these are countries that would like to have complied with sanctions against iran but they felt it was not in their best interest to do so. so the sanctions were amended to require the international community to significantly reduce their reliance on iranian oil. that legislation passed through the senate i and iran's oil exports have since fallen by about half. so instead of the 2 1/2 million barrels a day that is -- that is going out, it's down to 1 1/4 million, down to about half. now, this is a significant reduction. with the iranian regime intent on harming the united states and our allies, we've got to do all we can to tighten sanctions and more fully isolate them. our nation doesn't have -- doesn't import oil from iran and we haven't for a number of

years. we embargoed them a long time ago. but despite our abundant untapped natural resources, we remain the largest oil importer in the world and so we have a strong role to play in making the iran oil embargo as effective as possible. now, natural gas has always been a major u.s. energy resource but it is just a few years ago that the energy industry believed that the united states was not -- was on the verge of becoming a major natural gas importer. permits were issued and facilities were under construction to handle the massive amounts of natural gas we were expecting to import to meet the domestic energy demand. then came the development of the -- the -- of two critical technologies. one is horizontal drilling and the other is, of course, something we've known about for a long time, hydraulic

fracturing. now, hydraulic fracturing, mr. president, was actually developed in the state of oklahoma, in duncan, oklahoma, where i'll actually be this coming weekend, way back in 1949. and, by the way, it's very safe. there's never been a case -- a confirmed case of groundwater contamination by the use of hydraulic fracturing. but when all this came -- all of a sudden, we had a huge boom here in the -- in the united states. this is all on private land. i want to make that very clear. because of the oil and gas industry developed and perfected these methods, which are environmentally safe, we are now able to economically reach oil and natural gas in places we never thought would be possible. and production has skyrocketed. harold hamm, who i think arguably is -- is the most successful independent oil operator in america today, he's from oklahoma. he happens to be up in north dakota right now. but he's been at the forefront of these technologies and has used them to unlock the -- the

bakken shale formation in north dakota. and that's where he is actually at this time. before these practices were used there, oil development was expected to remain just a memory of the past. but with these technologies, he has -- he's turned north dakota into one of the greatest economic success stories in the nation. the change has been remarkable and it occurred nearly overnight. north dakota has grown its oil production by 300% to 660,000 barrels of oil a day in just four years. the unemployment rate in north dakota is 3.3%. you know, normally we say that 4% unemployment is full employment. well they are actually below full employment. his biggest problem that he has right now is finding people to work. a driver in the oil fields makes $100,000 a year. this is what's happening in north dakota. the promise of shale oil and gas development has spread well beyond north dakota in recent

years. it's happening in my state of oklahoma. pennsylvania. let's put this chart up here. i think that's significant. i can remember until recently people were thinking that everything has to be in the oil belt. all the oil production has to be west of the mississippi. but look at it now. this is in the lower 48 states, the shale play as that are taking place right now in places. yes, of course, we'd expect it in oklahoma. but look up here, mr. president. that's in pennsylvania. that's up there, the marcellus. and we have opportunities all over. so it's completely around all over the country, not just in the western part of the united states. and where oil and gas activity has historically been isolated to just a few regions in the country, like oklahoma and texas, they're now all over the country. because of these great domestic resources, i believe we can achieve domestic independence in a matter of months. the use of hydraulic fracturing

and horizontal drilling have caused domestic energy production to soar with the last few years. production is now over 7 million barrels a day, 40% higher than it was in 2008. bit as the congressional research service recently confirmed, all of this -- all of this production -- is on state and private land. none of it on federal lands. in fact, on federal land, in spite of the boom that has been taking place because of president obama's war on fossil fuels, it has actually reduced -- it's reduced on the -- the production is reduced on federal lands and it's kind of embarrassing because we can see on the second chart a significant amount of our nation's oil and gas resources are on federal land, which are all but completely off-limits. now, let's see, this is the wrong one. we wanted the one showing the -- this one right here, i believe. yeah. yeah. this chart shows the -- the

federal lands. now, the federal lands, this is all -- they're not producing anything on these federal lands. but look at the potential that is there of what we could do. it's -- it's -- it's just incredible to look at it. you can look at all of this land in the montana, west alaska and offshore and the yellow land is the bureau of land management land. the orange is the fish and wildlife land. the light green is the forest service land. the dark green is the national park service. and the light blue is the department of defense. and all of the outer continental shelf is managed by the federal government. oil -- that's this part over here. and oil is under many of these places. but the vast majority of it is locked up by the obama administration and no one can get to it. but we know the resources are there. they are massive. the -- all the -- everyone has agreed that it is there.

the institute of energy research recently issued a report based on the most recent, though outdated, government data about these off-limit lands and showed that if we enacted policies that allowed aggressive development of these federal resources, the process would generate $14.4 trillion in economic activity. it would create 2 1/2 million jobs and reduce the deficit by $2.7 trillion, all over the next 40 years. and why is this land locked up? one answer, it's because of president obama. he has allowed his alliance with the environmental left to run roughshod over these -- over issues as important as encourage stability in the -- encouraging stability in the middle east, though a full isolation -- through a full isolation of iran. if the president would lead from the front, the united states, acting independent, without any assistance from any other nation, could single-handedly i yield the floosingle-handedoffss

by simply expanding our own domestic production on federal lands. now, the -- this is why i've introduced the iran sanctions implementation act of 2013. my bill would require the froze establish -- the president to establish iranian oil replacement zones on federal lands so that the production from these zones will reach the 1 1/4 million barrels of oil a day. now, this is the amount, the 1 1/4 million barrels a day, is what currently iran is exporting at the current time. now, here's the point. the reason that we're talking about coming up with a very small amount, if the president wants to continue this war on fossil fuels, that's fine. if he doesn't want to really develop our potential on public lands, but if he would just take a very small amount like 1 1/4 million barrels of oil a day, and you could do it

anywhere, give him the discretion as to where he wants to do this, it could be here if he wants to do it out in the west or anwr up in alaska. it could be over there, offshore on the east shore. that's off the shore in virginia, and virginia wants to be able to develop that land. so this is enough oil to fully offset all current iranian oil exports. if the president unlox our energy potential and allows the production of an additional 1 1/ 4 million barrels of oil a day in the united states, we would reduce our imports by the same amount, and if we aren't importing this oil to the united states, then other nations -- these are the nations that are currently importing it from iran -- would be able to import it from those places where we no longer would have to. they are friendly countries, saudi arabia, kuwait, where we are actually importing oil, but we -- but they would be able to sell their oil to the other

countries like -- our friends like japan and other countries. so i guess what we're saying is we have an opportunity here, when you look at these areas here, you can see why it would be -- it should be pretty easy for the administration to allow us to just open up one of these areas. the first one would be anwr. that is right here up in alaska. you can see four potential areas, the first being anwr, the united states geological survey reported in a 1998 study the latest comprehensive study of its kind that the oil reserves there are up to 16 billion barrels of oil per day. just imagine what we're talking about there. we're only talking about coming up with 1 1/4 million barrels to offset the amount that other countries are importing from iran to stop them from doing it. it doesn't require the president

to make this area an iranian oil replacement zone, but it would allow him to do it. this area alone would provide enough oil to offset iranian oil exports for over 12,000 days or about 35 years. the second is the rocky mountain west. this rocky mountain west area here takes part of wyoming, part of utah and part of colorado. in 2005, the rand corporation estimated the oil shale reserves in this area could be as high as 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. the third is the utica shale in pennsylvania. in pennsylvania, you hear a lot about the marcellus up there. we're talking about oil now. we're not talking about natural gas, we're talking about oil. but the usgs estimated in 2011 that the reserves of this region are up to 940 million barrels of unconventional oil. the fourth area, the outer

continental shelf. i mentioned the north carolina and virginia and their legislatures have all encouraged that production. they have a lot that they can benefit from. of course, nationally in national security, we have a lot, too. so we have all of those areas. if we stop the flow of oil from iran, then we could stop the machine that finances iran's nuclear weapons program. now, many of you say that getting oil from the rocky mountains to alaska or the outer continental shelf will take years. by then, iran will no longer be a problem, but it doesn't take years to get the oil out. i mentioned a minute ago harold hamm, the guy who arguably is the biggest independent in the country. i called him up because i was going to be on a major television show one night, and i knew they were going to challenge me because the president has always said that, well, it doesn't do any good to open up public lands because if

you do that, that could take ten years before it reached the economy. so i asked him, i said harold hamm, make sure you give me an accurate response to what i'm going to ask you because i'm going to use your name on national tv and we're going to make sure -- so make sure you're accurate. if you had a rig set up right now off-limits in public land in new mexico and you were -- how long would it take you to lift the first barrel of oil and get it into the economy? he said without a flinch, he said 70 days. i said 70 days? we're talking about ten weeks, not ten years. and so he described what would happen each day. and you could do it in ten weeks. we're talking about all of this could take place in ten weeks. and by the way, i have to say that no one has challenged me on this ever since i used his name and his speculation back in -- in -- just a few weeks ago. so the bottom line is this.

i know this is a little bit complicated, but there is another reason, and the reason i think that the president would be willing to do something like this is we're not asking him to lift the restrictions on all of the public land. it would be great if he did that. just think, we would be totally independent of any other country for our ability to develop our own energy, but we are saying just find a zone where we can actually pick up an additional 1 1/4 million barrels a day. we can take that away from where we're currently importing it from friendly countries and allow them to export it to nations that are currently buying oil from iran. and i think we have made it very clear that in iran, if you want to do something that is going to have the effect of -- of stability in the middle east, you have got to get rid of iran. as i said before, iran is a direct threat to the united states once they reach what our intelligence says is going to be a nuclear capability and a

delivery capability by 2015, but over and above that, on today, we could stop them because 70% of their revenue comes from oil exports. we could stop the exports altogether with this legislation. so that's something that i would certainly hope that the president would look at and say that we're not asking for hundreds and hundreds of millions of barrels a day to be released from our -- from our federal sources. we're asking only for 1.5 million barrels a day arcs and on top of that, we don't have any obligation with this legislation to go any further. but this could be something he could do that would provide stability in the middle east and would keep iran from funding the terrorist activity that's currently taking place by assad in syria. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. -- senate resolution 142 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 142, designating may 15, 2013, as national m.p.s. awareness day. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. blumenthal: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its

business today, it adjourn until 11:00 a.m. on thursday, may 16, 2013, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, that the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and that following any leader remarks the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar 91, the nomination of earnest moniz under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: there will be a roll call vote at approximately 2:00 p.m. on the confirmation of the moniz nomination. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

the directly is $12.95 plus shipping and handling at c-span.org/shop. >> in every society, the major buildings, like these reflect the ground out of which they

grow. so major buildings reflect the philosophical economic, and political situation of that culture at the time this is an eloquent building. it reflects the movement toward the session. it reflects the use of label. it reflects the social turmoil of the post civil war era. it reflects an optimism of the new sound in the 20th century. and, of course, it continues to use and reflect south carolina today. the buildings was designed to designed to be se submit call. instead of a dome they intended a square tower rising above the roofline. you'll remember that the construction was stopped during the civil war, and the state after the war was not able to afford to build the foundations for that massive stone tower.

so what we see now on the outside of the building is a pressed metal dome. on the inside of the building, from the lobby, we look up in to what we think is the dome. in fact, it's an architect illusion that two domes inside the original dome. because the exterior of the building and the interior floor plan are not is a met call. on the outside the dome looks like perhaps the u.s. capitol dome. the on the inside it's quite a bit smaller. and different. >> learn more about the south carolina state house this weekend as booktv and americantist i are tv look at the history of literary life of colombia, south carolina. saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2 booktv and sunday at 5:00 on american history tv. by the end of 1985, the cia

is ant sei about this. they don't like what is happening. some people in the cia dponlt like what is happening. they have drown in a little bit. to what is going on. reagan has not officially told the cia to do anything like this. they get reagan to sign in december of 1985 what is called a presidential finding. a document that authorizes the covert operation. because for the reasons, i order these agencies to do this. and this, and this, and this. it's fairly specific. there were two things about this finding in december of 1985 that were highly unusual. highly unusual. the first thing is, it's retroactive. it's contrary to the law. the law states clearly a finding is meant to be signed by the president before the covert action is initiated. not after it's been going on. this finding december 1985 said

explicitly all prior actions are heart by ratified and approved. second thing that is unusual, it states explicitly, the document does, don't tell the house and senate intelligence committees about this. don't tell them. it's a very, very unusual and questionable document that reagan signs. so why can he do it? it's basically because people at the cia insist that reagan has to give them some kind of political and legal cover. >> "arms to iran" douglas looks at the iran affair an lobingture in history saturday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span 3 american history tv. you're watching c-span2, with politics and public affairs. week theys featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public

policy events and every weekend the latest non-fiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedule on our website. you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> community facilities . >> we're live with the house agricultural committee. reviewing amendment to the farm bill. about 36 amendments left to consider. they finish work on the bill tonight. however long it takes. it started about five minutes ago. >> i want to take a second to explain the rash nail. for many counties in upstate new york, the nature of the economy is that in our towns, we have farms -- farming the number one driver of our economy, but we have the supporting effort for the farmers. the way to envision this is i

a hub and spoke. hub and spoke. and so to have a threshold that this counts, the county seat when it's literally so linked to the farming itself, i think it's counter productive to the overarming effort of the rural development tight. so i want to offer this amendment to talk about the issue and to say that i know the senate is going to be a long way from us, but i thinked at the end of the day, at the end of the process, i would hope that we're going to meet the senate somewhere with regard to some kind of comprise and, you know, i think it's important we do so because of communities such as ours. >> with that i yield. >> gentleman yields back. the ranking member seeks recognition. strike the last word. >> strike the last word. involved in lowering the operation number. partly because we don't have enough money do what we're doing now. yms and we have instants where

some of these programs not necessarily, the one you're talking about now, but these threshold were used, you know, for example, to overbuild three broadband systems systems in one community when we couldn't get any broadband built in an area that was rural because they, you know, they went to where the population was so they could make money. we were trying to focus on the more rural areas, and to be parochial in my area. my biggest town in my district is 30,000 people, you know, i have 335 towns and only six of them are bigger than 15,000. you know, so what this does, in my district, it takes the money away gives it to communities that can probably afford to do this through their own tax system. we need to -- i'm willing to have discussions about this,

but, you know, we did this for a reason. i'm not sure i always agree with what the senate is doing. we have to take it under -- advisement. >> yield. >> certainly sensitive to that given that the prepond race of my district is circumstance as you describe. i have rural towns where it's not uncommon 2 or 3,000 people live in the town. my point was that, though, that the economy, the county the kingston is county seat has 23,000, but the farmers would not be as successful if they are today if they weren't able to move their goods to the county seat. i'm arguing that we take that in to consideration that . >> and i don't -- i don't have a problem with that except i don't know i've been to new york, i've been to your area -- -- . >> we thank you for that.

>> a town of 30,000 can build a community center, you know, i come from a town of 5,000, and we built a community center. probably the best thing we ever did. we did it without any rural development money. we raised money, you know, from people and so forth. my concern is that the folks that have trouble, you know, that town has 2,000 and wants a community center. they're not going to be able to do it unless they get some help. we don't have enough money to do this in the first place. if we expand this, what i'm afraid of is the people who need it aren't going to be able to get it. we -- don't have enough money to go around. so, you know, i see what you're seeing. the town of 30,000 people has the tax base to be able to do this. and i'm not sure that the government needs to help them. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. anyone else seeking

recognition? >> mr. chairman. i'm over here. [laughter] >> yes, sir? recognize the five minutes. >> i would like to speak out in support of mr. gibson's amendment that is being withdrawn, and comment briefly that i believe that with all the different programs in rural development and with the different definitions and different threshold that i think it's very important to stream line the process for our communities. and in so doing, i would withdrawn amendment 90 which is basically adopt the senate version. after speaking with our ranking member know that moving forward in to the full house and in conference that we'll be able to address this. >> gentleman yields back his time. gentleman from california seeks to strike the last word and recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, i strike the last word.

this amendment may not be the best way to get at the issue. it's an issue in my district also. more to do with geography that is the towns nearby or the cities nearby as much as the individual population in a given community. but this needs to be addressed in some way. i know, the senate is attempting to deal with it. perhaps that's a way. i look forward to working with you and the ranking member, mr. peterson, in trying to find a way in which our smaller communities, whether they are 20 or 30,000 is an issue. in my area, they have to be within striking distance of a very big city. yet they are not associated and not connected to that city in any way other than being within twenty miles or thirty miles. so they have a problem trying to access the programs that the federal government has not only this housing issue, but all of

the programs that the usda has are often unavailable because of the distance they are from a very large community. it needs to be worked on. it appears mr. gibson's amendment isn't really going to get very far here. the issue needs to be addressed. i want to work on it with you and the ranking member. yield back. >> the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. seeing no additional requests for -- the other gentleman from california moves to strike the last word and recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i won't take five minutes. suffice to say that many of us who worked with the united states department of agricultural for the last two years urging them, pleading with them, begging with them to come up with a deaf -- a new definition for rural as it

remits to the various programs that all of our rural constituencies, i think, have great justification for funding whether it be on water grants or whether it be on effort to deal with economic development. the whole list of programs under the officer of the usda when we finally produced the report on the definition of rural. in my opinion, leads a lot to be desired. simply stated, it disfranchises or disqualified a a lot of communities in the past have been able to participate. i would urge that -- and as the bill moves forward that we work on this that we try to seek a better dpef in addition -- definition of what rural means in america. i don't care if we're from the

northeast, the midwest, the south, the west. we have a lot of rural areas that get disqualified because they have an adjacent by adjacent i mean an hour or two hours to a community that has over 100,000 people. well, they are pretty rural and remote in in many of our places. i will succeed the balance of my time. to say that i think the definition here contained with the usda is unsatisfactory. i think we need go back to the drawing board. >> gentleman yields back the balance of his time. any additional request for recognition? >> yeah. >> the gentlelady from new mexico seems to strike the last word. recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, thank you. i wasn't thinking i was going to say anything about the amendment. for issues and reasons largely identified by the ranking member

member, i'm not in support of the amendment as it stands. i want to follow up on the representative's remarks. we need have usda address the issue of the rural definition. for my district, it's largely albuquerque and surrounded in short distances i by rural communities and most of albuquerque meets underserves area defer in addition for health care, unrelated economic development, and it doesn't make any sense that here usda's definition don't work and they can't subject to a different standard. it's encourage to work with us usda to have a better definition. oipt i want to echo. i yield back the row mannered of my time. >> the -- [inaudible] >> thank you. i appreciate the conversation and the dialogue and drop my

amendment. [inaudible] >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to bring up amendment 72. king, 72, please. [inaudible] >> the number again? 72. >> 72. >> 72. >> the clerk will distribute the amendment. >> clerk will distribute the amendment. and by anonymous consent the reading of the waived. the gentleman may explain the amendment whether brie paired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's an amendment that addresses rural water situation that we have in many of our states across the country. i know, it's not unique to iowa. i've been a strong supporter for rural water over the years. it's support we get the utility to out to the rural areas and the farm. the mission statement for rural water under purpose of this to

develop water and waste disposal -- continually the development and the growth of our communities runs up against the rural water service, and there's increasing difficulty in noashting within the growing municipality. because a section in the code, which essentially says that the franchise of rural water should not be curtailed or limited. which essentially protects them from needing to negotiate, they have a protection in the statute. so to resolve some of the issues, i've drafted this amendment that grants rural water 12 months to resolve the issue. and lays out in statute that the compensation would be the depressureuated value of the asset. i would tell you, mr. chairman, and the member of the committee, that even though this is a big problem in my state, and it's something we have been to be

help with the negotiations a number times, we also reached the impasse on several of these cases. i understand that's the case in multiple states up and down through the midwest. it's a problem, at this point, intractable, and the language that i have before you, although it is a solution, i'm convinced myself that it is yet the solution that we need to find. i know, we have got some weeks before we would have to make that decision. so i wanted to bring it to the dangs of -- attention of the committee and look for the allies on the committee solve the problem and the advice of the council of the chairman. it it happens to be granted, i would be happy to ask consent to withdrawal my amendment. >> would the gentleman yield? >> of course. >> of course we will work with you. you are am ,000,000,000 in the effort. it occurs all over the country. and the issue of how to protect the boar how to address the needs of the community. there nodes to be a thoughtful

answer of this. i think there are many opportunities to come up with more perfected thank language. >> thank you for i ask consent to withdrawal my amendment. are there additional amendments to title vi? the yes gentlelady from new hampshire. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do have an amendment at the desk number 94. pertaining to rural community and technical colleges. >> the clerk will distribute the amendment by unanimous consent. ..

including the rural parts of our state. in hampshire and i'm sure this is aimed for many of you and your districts across the country, our community and technical colleges play a distinct role in providing the skills and training necessary to help students to achieve their success and good stable high-quality jobs. however, in rural areas like the north country of new hampshire, our community colleges face even greater challenges than their readers evenson community. i don't know if many of you are aware of this, but there are no

federal programs, be that grants, loans or other forms of assistance specifically targeted at supporting roe community and technical colleges. the increased importance of his to to shed our areas which is why it introduces amendment. i am an the issue rhetoric secretary to develop a coordinated strategy for how we can look at existing programs at the new usda rural development and make sure they are by supporting a specific local needs of rural community at go colleges. this amendment has no cost. it doesn't change any program and doesn't divert funding our resources. what it does do is start the conversation of how we can support idle institutions that play such a large role in workforce training and development for rural

communities. i thank the chairman for his assistance in putting together this amendment and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support our rural community and technical colleges by voting yes on this amendment might yield back the balance of my time to chairman. >> the chair recognizes himself to strike the last word and is recognized for five minutes. i support the latest amendment to be a wheat farmer and horrible experience, i went through rural community college my freshman year. hooray for chemistry and hooray for college algebra they are. it's a wonderful experience for efforts at trying to do this i think showing appreciation for the vital nature of those institutions have on overall economies. and with that, i'd say that good lady should smile and let's have a vote. >> thank you, mr. chairman. are not a request he recorded

vote or voice vote? >> voice vote. >> i'm with you. >> all those in favor of the amendment number 94 signify by saying aye. all those opposed? the ayes habit. other additional amendments to title vi? the gentleman from new york. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is amendment number 47. >> the clerk will distribute number 47 in unanimous consent to sense the reading of the gentleman may explain his amendment when he is ready. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this has to do with the low-interest loan program for expanding product name. in the underlying bill, we authorize $25 million for this program, but the facts are of the program at the moment is underutilized in this dance

juxtaposed to the fact third 19 million americans right now to another access to high-speed broad and in fact 55 districts were not even 90% of the people most districts have access to high-speed broadband. for my colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, those who districts regardless or generally are districts. folks who represent rural areas. the expansion of broadband is so vitally important for job creation. it's certainly important to farmers. also for education. fortunately, we have programs that help schools get connected to high-speed broad van. the kids get home that it is a hallmark in many cases they don't have it. is also important for health care delivery because we've got rural community health clinics throughout manchester and the

way that our health care doctors -- the clinics reach out for real-time information on reading x-rays and whatnot in the absence of the high-speed broadband is impacting out or delivery. talk right now in both houses, you know, conceptual talk about immigration and among the things talked about as part of a comprehensive package would include a verify. i wonder how will farmers comply with that we don't have a proliferation of high-speed broadband? just two-seater toucan from the underlying bill authorizes 25 million for london just one program that would not utilize in the money and that we have this need. but my amendment does is adds no additional money. i want to say that again. what it does is change the program, looking for creative

ways to use the 25 million to expand broadband. what were looking to do is if one breaks 10% nonfederal money, they would be a 10% grant and the balance would be the 80% low-interest loan. when i talked this over with small companies, they believe this could make a positive difference for them using this program to expand abroad and. candidly, there's been a heavy lobbying effort against this amendment and yet people in your office in a same this money will get directed towards areas that are to have broadband. there was a gao report that came out several years ago that addressed it. i will tell you the administration has done good work in trying to listen and read and think about it and reform the program. what i want to tell my colleagues appears in february february 2013, the administration came out and they have revised the guideline.

it is clear this program is focused on underserved areas. she heard arguments and this is going to serve areas, it's in contravention with the regulation states now in addition to that statute it prioritizes to unserved in underserved areas. i'm asking my colleagues to give this consideration because we have a need to expand abroad to. i talked to critical it is to the economy and development in with her program right now not fully utilized and this may be a way we can get it done. i yield. >> the chair recognizes himself and thanks the gentleman for offering the amendment. however, i.e. and the chairman are both in opposition to the amendment. the chairman and ranking member have worked to incorporate major components of the taliban still h.r. 1639 of the base text of

the bill. it improves transparency reauthorizes program. an environment case budget, the amount it takes several steps in the wrong direction i would do even more harm to the program in the gentleman similar amendment, which this committee rejected last year. first moves away from leinster grant, removing effectiveness of a relatively small theorization for preparations by shifting pretty% of the program to grants. grants are a one-to-one ratio in which authority levels are paid back over time and allow the usda to leverage a small appropriation to a much larger broadband program. the amendment canonically reduces appropriate level. second, several other programs provide greater funds. telemedicine and essential community facilities, adding grants to the program is duplicated and severely undermines a number of projects which can refunded.

the rules of the program are finalized to go after much delay by the usda. it's premature to make significant program changes to for the industry has an opportunity to fully utilize the program. finally come in and of the organizations which represent communications cooperative midsize carriers, large national providers or the cable industry have requested the committee move away transcript of this bill. i urge my colleagues. hail to the gentleman from minnesota. >> i just want to point out this authorizes grants and service areas where there's irony providers, which is rdf i said earlier i probably had. we usually reserve grants for the neediest area but there's no service available and no criteria that would do that. so this is not a good idea and i oppose the amendment.

>> the gentleman from oregon is recognized. >> yes, respectfully agree with the chairman from new york. when you look at things i fear for rural america, nobody wants to serve the last mile and that's the problem we have. the competition out there at private companies they may consider the serious, but they're not going to serve the last mile or two. that's where this money comes in handy come over this money is unique at the end of the day. i've got my rural companies trying to provide for my district. they like stuff like this. if you have a small community, the law doesn't do you any good. you have the clerk write the bloody crown program for goodness sakes. you need somebody to help you get money going. this is a one-to-one match. but greenpeace is minimal, designed to be a loan program which is good.

they don't have the money these communities of 50,000 or more can actually handle at this point in time. this is a good ale. it's already less money. we want to serve the last mile and that's where the administration has changed is targeted and i agree the gentleman from new york is a good idea. >> the gentleman from minnesota is recognized. >> the problem is a restriction on getting it to the last mile. what we found in the past with this staff is you end up going to a the money as they go into areas verity bill. if you want to do this, put a restriction so they actually have to go to the rural area that has one person per mile. >> just very quickly i want to say when the regulations were

finalized in february 2013, 3 months ago, they made it clear this is to go beyond search area supporting statue, which says this has to be prioritized for unserved areas. just to clarify once again, this is the 25 million reauthorized not effectively using i not listen to the small companies that want to underscore that again. this is who these are targeted to that live in the communities they serve and they want to see this get done. that's the purpose of the amendment to utilize the 25 million. >> the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> a day to remind my colleagues we spent $7 billion on the stimulus program begins this exact issue in the regulations they are set on the dirt, all those kinds of things with $7 billion of the program. so keeping the program is the

better issue, plus the fact many we see tonight are the scope of the number of projects will get done. if you give 10% with the grant county got that much less gone guarantee to work with. i respectfully oppose the amendment. go back. >> who seeks recognition? settlement from california for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. fmi, every district in which the real issue is trying to get broadband into the real rural areas. this film is in the right direction. the conversation amongst all of this indicates we recognize the need, but we are going back and forth about how to quantify where and how to limit or direct money to where it is needed. it would seem to me if we could adopt the amendment and find

some way between now and when it's finalized in a conference committee to narrow the scope of fair, this really needs to be addressed in my district. i've got areas where there's broadband a small come needs. they don't have the money to reach out to the last 25 or 50 miles benazepril need. the grant program is necessary because these are very small companies that don't have good financial wherewithal to take that step and i wish it was just a mile, but it's not. so if they could adapt or get a commitment to address this issue and the concerns raised here, i don't think in opposition, the concerns of how this would work, it would be extremely helpful in my district and large parts of rural california in those areas. there are other programs that exist that would extend, but those extensions are primarily

for the high-capacity lines and that isn't what is needed in these outlying areas. so we have a real problem. if we can adopt the amendment and work with it or alternatively nodded that it, but try to solve the problem that exists in america. and i mean really rural america. we are into the road that has become prevalent 10 miles back in if there's somebody out there were several people out there were a small community out there and not to have in my district. with back on monday to see the amendment does not work on it. >> with the gentleman yield? >> i thank the gentleman. the federal communications delays in universal service fund reform is the real reason for underutilization of this program

to the uncertainty created for this long period of time while the fcc finishes the reform. until the end industry is waiting on new projects come at giving the appearance of underutilization, but i don't believe that's the case in this amendment would create underutilization by eliminating funds leverage for the purpose of enacting projects that are happening right now, but will happen once the reforms they've been living for and finally have shown progress on our put into effect. this amendment would have the opposite effect with the gentleman attends. >> reclaiming my time, i've got to have you come to my district can take a tour of rural california. >> i thank the gentleman. i would just like to say with due respect to while these universal service on, the uss, ike knowledge that a spirit of the problem.

i've talked to these companies and this is an amendment that will make a difference. to my colleague from texas, absolutely the stimulus issues repaired. there was a whole gao report and they look to the reforms of this. finally, i tell my good friend from texas, it's not being used now, so your concern but somehow it's not being used. this is an approach that is used to 25 million build out and address a need that we have. >> i yield back my time. >> the woman from new york. although some favor favor respond by saying aye. those opposed know. the amendment is not agree to. >> mr. chairman i call for a recorded vote. >> the clerk will call the roll.

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[roll call] >> are there any members who wish to vote who have not yet voted? train to the clerk will report. >> the vote is 17 days to 28 nays. thank you, mr. chairman. >> the amendment is not agreed to. for what purpose do seek recognition? >> amendment number 39 of the clerk. >> the clerk will distribute the amendment. without objection considered a set of the gentleman from north carolina is recognized for five minutes to explain the amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for the opportunity to do with the pressing infrastructure needs of rural

communities as i'm sure the chairman and ranking member on this committee are much aware wastewater needs of rural america urman and supportive for this committee to recognize me as an investment, not just the current time, but many, many years to come. in a direct $50 million in mandatory spending to address the $3.2 billion backlog in water and wastewater application. this is a step in the right direction and one that is much needed. if they if they misunderstood to understood to decimate farrm bill and met with a $120 million mandatory funding for rural water and wastewater infrastructure. as i've said, this bill would be 50 million. ust operates other programs that provide technical assistance for water and wastewater systems and rural communities small town. most of the backlog funding would be administered as loans repaid to the treasury.

or not just talking about money being spent in cannes, that money loaned out to help these communities have a talk about jobs and health care and business opportunity will never get their folks if we still have a backlog. investments and wastewater enhanced the economic health of entire communities and by doing so increase quality of life. where the current usg backlog of $3.2 billion, which paralyzes economic growth and job opportunities simply due to one of life's most recent necessities inadequate drinking water and wastewater treatment and capacity limitations. 92% of the country's 52,000 community water systems serve fewer than 10,000 people. due to limited texan customer base, rural communities have a difficult time providing safe and affordable water in many situations homebuilding, businesses and institutions cannot expand or located in area without adequate water and sewer

service. folks who know water infrastructure is one of the most basic services we as members of the house agriculture committee can provide and clearly one of the most basic needs in life. folks in rural america are taxpayers as folks in urban and suburban areas and it's inexcusable we allow these backlogs to build up and continuing don't make any effort to lower them. by lowering the backlog, we increase, we do the best we can to universally affect the need for jobs and opportunities for businesses to locate construction to occur, operational utility services has an exponential value as an investment. it wielded by the results of communities that draw euro utility services for support. in asking for support has to do with this commonsense about jobs, the economy and opportunities in rural america. i yield back my time to save

time. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman for his amendment in hisbrevity. i recognize myself and regrettably must oppose the amendment is my good friend from north carolina. there's a $3.3 billion backlog in applications for water and wastewater facilities inside a steady appropriation for an influx of $1.3 billion in funds for the stimulus bill. i help address the backlog of applications. there simply is no additional funding available. the 2000 farmville provided on funding that have no baseline from other programs. the current budget environment dictates to carefully weigh the expenditure of each dollar in this amendment does not offset the balance funding increase against other privations in the development title. the farmville continues out farmville continues

authorization or water and wastewater loans, loan guarantees and grants. but the chairmen and ranking member have worked hard to achieve balance and limited resources available and i do not support the amendment and i urge my colleagues to vote against it as well. any members who seek recognition? i be happy she recognize the gentleman from texas for five minutes. >> 50 million is a lot of money. in terms of the backlog, it is less than 2% and respect have choices other places and simply stick this on to mandatory funding unless somebody else decide wearable, out icann is not responsible. we need to make hard decisions here as opposed to letting someone else make this decision and asked authorizing in place.

i prefer we make those silly vote against the amendment. you'll back. >> the gentleman yields back. as any members seek recognition to strike the last word? generality from new mexico recognized to strike the last word and recognize her five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the dialogue on this amendment and understand the farmville is a very affect his at balancing difficult priorities, but i thought it might be useful to talk about my district in with this balancing issues are and appreciate my colleagues are bringing this amendment. in small rural communities they are today faced with the real lack of access to basic water and water systems. there are other geographic problems and make it harder to install basic infrastructure. carnaval is a community of 800 homes one-mile from a major city

in my district, albuquerque. that applies for him on, the backlog by usda prevents them from looking at any other opportunities. in my previous discussion, albuquerque who could be the fiscal agent for water utilities predominant in assisting them because they don't meet the rural definition. all three of these problems exacerbate this issue. they are shipping and are bringing in day, water from the domestic well is contaminated. consumers in that 800 person community would cost them thousands of dollars to do the infrastructure on around and all of these problems at the end of the day created a situation for these 800 families don't have access to clean, safe drinking water. i would urge my colleagues this

is not the stuff balancing issues where you want to do the right thing and make sure regardless of where you live you have access to the same things we take for granted in our communities. i urge you to say yes to the amendment and with that i yield my time. >> the general idea was that the balance over time. does any members seek additional recognition? >> one final comment if i may. indeed it is a hard decision in priority and indeed it is our choice to at least put some effort to help our rural communities to help folks paying taxes in rural america, just like the folks in urban and suburban america and that's what the committee is about. it is helping people how successful living conditions, framing conditions, health conditions and education conditions and they can't do it

if you don't get in the clean water and get out the gerardi. it's that simple. it is a choice and a priority and that's where the decision therein lies. >> the gentleman yields that. see no other requests, will now proceed to vote. the question is on the amendment or the gentleman from north carolina number 93. all those in favor signify by saying trained three. others oppose? the clerk will call the yeas and nays on amendment number 39. [roll call] [roll call]

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[roll call] >> the clerk will report the vote. >> the vote is 22 yeas to 20 re-nays. thank you, mr. chairman. >> another 39 tails. are there additional amendments to title vi? >> i have one. >> gentleman from north carolina is recognized for an amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. amendment 40 ist passout and in the interest of time.

another area we can help local communities in business and the economy is proceeding with the success of the rural entrepreneur assistance program. this rule maker entrepreneur assistance program has its own success story. help rebuild our economy strength attorneys for helping development organizations with resources they need to equip rural entrepreneurs the skills necessary to establish new businesses and continue operations of rural maker businesses. in two years of operation, this program funded with 123 programs in 41 states and provided training and technical assistance on monday to low and moderate income entrepreneurs. as an example is throughout the nation which i'm happy to provide. when i look at these businesses, this is $4 million in mandatory

funding. this amendment would ensure the 2013 farmville provides these resources. if the current noncapitalist and completely, which is expected to be come the usd is obligated for $9.5 million annually to organization. thundering would need to be in addition to gran sardi promised. my amendment would ensure the rural micro enterprise assistance program continues to make contracts and obligations already committed to these organizations in the program continues to expand for small businesses. this would also include micro-enterprise development organizations which in turn provide technical services and distribute microloans to micro-entrepreneurs. the public and nonprofit sectors have intermediary programs that can access to credit and technical assistance. current ust program such as business opportunity grants, business enterprise grants

include eligibility for public entities and often a local government serves as the major technical assistance to small business. providing eligibility to include local government says these micro-enterprise development organizations gives the flexibility to serve all parts of our country. the success of the program is a clear example of how investing euro economic development could multiply the original investment many times over. is that we'll be looking? return on investment of the people's money to see success in small business in the small business enterprises when i know in many states like my home state of north carolina, 99% are classified as small business and is even smaller, micro-enterprises can produce a larger percentage of that. as our country and everest we bought our economy, i ask for your support for the program

strengthens rural america by the smallest businesses down on main street. thank you very much. >> the gym and yells back. if any members seek recognition? the gentleman from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. hate to sound like one trick pony, but the 4 million, relatively modest amount is not provided for or outdated and expanding plans its relationship to this bill and the sponsor does not tell us what are less important than this one to take the money away from them. if only constantly do is say everything important, that puts on an equal footing in everything we doing here has the same importance. the messy point to $4 million in spending in the bill is less important than this to much are

telling us, this is the least important thing we should be doing. i would submit -- oppose the amendment simply on the grounds this is the hard choice to appropriators or someone else to make cakes that can around way too much. we need to be the ones who decide how to spend $940 billion over 10 years provided for under the base bill. i would urge a no vote on the amendment. >> with the gentleman yield? the gentleman is right in his comments in a disparate noting the effort came out of the 2000 farmville and modulate the appropriators jumped on the previous unnamed and for some of our friends not yet familiar with that, as an authorizer you come to understand because we do mandatory things, the appropriators have the tendency to take part in the mandatory money and reallocated or they

will turn and onto discretionary money and reallocated from that perspective. that means you don't have a big enough allocation, but also means we have to work diligently in the appropriations process to try and protect what we've done here with that, i agree with the gentleman from texas and would yield back. >> i just want to reaffirm. this is a long-standing problem that chairman peter senn and i have had to live with. for those of you new to this, changes in mandatory program spending. get a big photograph that we don't want to make them bad guys, but we have to take that down during the next debate. the rules of the house should be changed as the money that is the jurisdiction of this committee stays the jurisdiction in the appropriators don't have the ability to taken in spending on some e-mails. the rules right now allow them

to do that. if you adopt the amendment based on a track record occurred thus far, which are doing essentially is handing over a pile of money to the appropriators rather than keeping it somewhere else or it may be harder to take from someplace else. we know they take it from us. we should not support the amendment as a result. [inaudible] >> following up, you know, we had this problem when we are in the majority, too. really what it boils down to is people come up with good ideas and put them in the bill in 2008, but if it's an idea not widely good for sheraton something that won them out one member is putting together never get off the ground, it's easy for the appropriator to chimp that because there's no widespread support for it.

they will not ship the waste water money because there's broad support. you create a new program that one member came up with. it might be a great idea. that's what will happen with this. it will be 20 million lux at the appropriators will spend what they want to spend on. i'm not against the idea, but given the requirements, it's not the thing to be doing. i yield back. >> the gentleman yells back. >> as sponsor of the amendment, just to clarify so this is not a new idea, not just one member's idea, shared prodevelopment subcommand subcommittee recommended this end was put in the farmville into that day. i just want to clarify that. also, some of the businesses i did not take the full committee time to go through or locate several states that may be

represented. yes, it is a site and there'll be appropriators said thomas have the money we need in agriculture. when you talk about one half of 1% for agriculture, sure they will find something wrong with every program you want to. it's up to us to stand up for the guy, littlest of the guys, micro-enterprises, small businesses which are the fastest employers and fastest growing employers in the very places all of us are sent. we have a chance to choose the priorities. there is a positive track record here is the third indicated. and yes, like anything else we want to support in this bill, we have to stand up for that. i am willing to stand up for them as for your support. >> the gentleman yells back the balance of his time. see no additional request for recognition, we proceed to vote on amendment number 40 betjeman for north carolina. all those in favor signify by

saying aye. others oppose signify by saying no. the gentleman recalls for a recorded vote. we will call the roll on amendment number 40. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

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>> thank you, mr. chairman. >> amendment number 40 sales. other additional amendments to title vi? other additional amendment to title vi? seeing none. title vi road development is now closed. arthur amendment to title vii? research, extension and related matters. mr. courtney is recognized tournament. >> thank you, mr. chairman. de klerk is amendment three. >> the clerk will distribute amendment number 53. unanimous consent will dispense with the reading of the money and an gentleman may proceed when he's ready to expand number 53. >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, this amendment which i've reviewed with junior staff is again i'm offering it, but will

withdraw it. it's a straightforward amendment that would authorize the usda to critter foundation for food and agricultural research. this is a foundation modeled after successful examples to the national institutes of health, food and drug administration, which allow this collaboration between the usda in a wide range of scientific educational economic and statistical researchers should universities, industry and federal agencies and nonprofit organizations. the memo about there is the foundation to encourage, solicit private case of grand and other contributions for the benefit of our connection with food and agricultural science activities of the usda. would it be a 501(c)(3) that would aid usda research comment be chosen by secretary of agriculture and industry, academia and research that there

is an congress annually. again, this is a motto which the nah and other agencies use to leverage private dollars in an area which i believe is critical. if you look at usda sponsored research today, it is less than 2.5% of the u.s. case budget and probably not much prospect that is going to grow any time soon. but the challenge we face in this country and across the world is one that desperately cries out for research and development in terms of agricultural production levels. we look at a global population of 9 billion by 2050 and the demand for food of some thing that today could not be met. the demand will surpass what the capacity aesthetics is. we have a race against time in terms of trying to increase agricultural production and a foundation like this would

leverage nongovernment dollars under the direction of the usda to maximize and expand the research, which would also be a source of great growth for this country. again, this amendment would authorize $500,000 annually for this purpose and as we've heard another amendment, that is a ridge probably too far today. i would note that the senate farrm bill does include language, which would again plant the seeds were creating a foundation of this amendment calls for. mr. chairman, or three page single spaced list of organizations from universities fees, members on this committee can agricultural research and development universities. private-sector groups, commodity groups poised and ready to take advantage of a foundation, which

again would supplement american research to increase agricultural production. this has deep and broad support from many sectors across our country. i would have to be admitted to the record. with that, thank you for the time to explain the idea, which is going to emerge later in the process and urge everyone to take time to look at it, which again would be beneficial for all of us who care so much about food production in making sure people of the world have enough to eat and without i yield back the balance of my time. >> unanimous consent on the gentleman withdraws his amend it. is there any additional amendment to title vii research extension and related anders? >> mr. chair. >> yes, ma'am. the gentlelady is recognized. >> number nine. >> number nine.

is that title age? is therefore a street or what? >> research. >> research title, okay. the clerk will distribute number eight. the clerk will dispense of the reading. number nine. thank you very much. the chairman will attempt to find his copy of number nine and read it. just a moment. the gentlelady may proceed when she's ready. >> thank you, mr. chairman. simply put, this amendment recognizes the importance of specialty crops and i'd like to thank the chairman and ranking member for working together to write a bill to increase funding for specialty crops and i'm gratified by support from many colleagues on this committee who are cosponsors of a similar bill as introduced. crops are significant and agriculture production value at over 50 billion. this is half of all u.s. crop

production in a given year, the specialty crops aren't always given the same attention or financial support as many traditional commodities. specialty crops of economic activity, jobs and nations who supply. every state has some specialty production in mice date -- my district is no different. hundreds of crops are grown in sales each year. specialty crops from sole mission provided fresh quality foods to farmers markets. i'm extremely pleased to see programs vital to crops like the specialty crops research initiative, block grant and others are well-funded and it program and now we have a baseline going forward, which we haven't had in the past. in particular programs at the research initiative have been directly as to my district. washington state university received nsc iraq rings that he

plastic bulges for vegetable production. because of the investment, researchers develop new mulch is the not only extend the growing season, but are also less damaging to the environment and don't get disposed of in landfills. these have led to an emergence of a larger vegetable crop production in western washington, allowing farmers to grow 10 months of the year in cities six. this is especially important for establishment of workers and local food supplies. given strong support for specialty crops, i want to thank the chairman and ranking member. i withdraw my amendment and we can proceed and i yield back my time. >> are generally be withdraws her amendment in the uzbek or time. are there any additional amendment to title vii? research retention and related matters. the gentleman seeks recognition. the gentleman from illinois

seeks to strike the last word in the recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have to say that written to talk about benefits and research on the farm though. in lieu of time, a picturesque unanimous consent to submit them for the record. [applause] i believe that was only 15 seconds. the mac you're going to survive. the gentleman yield spec is time. see another amendment to title vii current research extension and related matters, title vii is close. we will now proceed to title viii, forestry. are there any amendment offered to title viii, forestry? the gentlelady from the dakotas have been amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i move to strike the last word. >> mr. chairman, amendm desk.

>> clerk will distribute number 55. by unanimous consent will be the reading of the amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the u.s. service attempted to control 130-acre berner perkins county, south dakota. this was done despite warnings of the unfavorable dry and windy conditions. they spread out of control and burned over 10,000 acres. many include passionate, handbells privately owned by rangers in my state. this is a heavy blow to the livestock industry. the service has accepted responsibility, there needs to do more to be responsive to the situation and help private landowners. my amendment directs the service to provide a map detailing offensive spots, which the districts have been waiting for. it also directs a service to open up any available land for

grazing to those affected landowners and assist them through the claims process. furthermore, the amendment instructs the service to review their burned policies to develop best practices going forward so this never happens again. on april he devoted lackey motivate to and chief table asking for assistance on this matter. i hope the memo do more to ensure the service is doing they can to right this wrong. i appreciate the chairman agreeing to assist these landowners to include the amendment to report language. either to withdraw the amendment. mr. chairman, look forward to working with you in the committee to bring relief to farmers and ranchers who suffered unnecessary losses in the fire. >> with the gentlelady yelled? >> the committee will do the gentlelady to address this issue to try and address what occurred to her constituents. with that, but generally be withdraws her am time.

>> i certainly do, mr. chairman. >> are there additional amendments to the title viii forestry? additional amendments? see no additional amend names, title viii is closed. we will now proceed to title ix, energy. another amendment to title ix energy equates the gentleman seeks recognition for an amendment. [inaudible] >> turn on your microphone, my friend. >> mr. chairman, amendment 12 at the desk. >> clerk will distribute amendment number 12. by unanimous consent to dismiss and the gentleman may proceed with this explanation for five minutes and is prepared. >> mr. chairman, i move to strike the last word.

building on the success of the existing memorandum of understanding between united states department of agriculture , energy and the navy promoting biofuels, this amendment would encourage the united states air force to develop a program providing competitive grants to existing biofuels research center for centers to develop research and development and testing of biofuels, trading for civilians and military personnel and feasibility of a full-scale bio-based aviation fuel production facility. i believe this is a very important foreign nations defense in light of the fact the air force is the largest user of fuel in the department of defense. further, we have a biofuel research center at my alma mater mr. chairman, i seek unanimous consent to withdraw amendment 12. >> gentleman seeks unanimous

consent. see no objection so ordered. >> away my time back. >> the gemini aspect of time. additional amendments to title number nine, the energy title. the gentle and from the dakotas seeks to offer an amendment. >> mr. chairman, amendment number 67 at the desk. >> the clerk will distribute amendment number 67. i unanimous consent come away the reading of the gentlelady may proceed when she is prepared on amendment number 67. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this would allow consumers access and choice. when a consumer goes to compensate some option, that is not procompetition. ethanol is at a disadvantage because consumers are not an option of whether they want no ethanol, 1% or up to 50% ethanol. ..

following -- pardon me? lee clerk will distribute amendment number three by unanimous consent. the reading of number three is way down the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. i'm going to be withdrawing this amendment through the good faith and work of the -- it's greatly appreciated