right now, more about the agriculture bill. we talked with a reporter earlier today. >> ellen ferguson is with "congressional quarterly"," this is the second day of work on the spending bill for food programs for the next fiscal year. how is the work going? >> they are going through amendments being offered. there is some discussion of when they will finish up when there will be a discussion on passage. >> what were the democrats protesting and why? >> they rallied around a nutrition program with women, infants, and children would

serve as the roughly 8 million women and children age 5 and under per month. there are proposed cuts to it of $600 million to $700 million. it would still be funded with the contingency. democrats argued that a cut like this at a time when the economy is still soft would mean that several hundred thousand women and children would be turned away. republicans are arguing that these are tough fiscal times and there are contingency funds should there be a surge in demand. >> what key amendments should we expect to come up during debate? >> there will be a number of amendments are being offered by republicans looking to take money out of it. looking to put it in a spending reserve fund.

it is women, infants, and children. this is a little bit faster. there will be a number of amendments offered on that. democrats will be offering amendments to take money from other places to put it into wic, the nutrition program. we will come to title 7, which is the last in the bill. there are key points that will be argued. here, there will be an order on the language that will adjust the average gross in comcome foa period of payments if you are a farmer. there will be additional

payments. this has been a flashpoint. this will be something that a number of people want change. the administration has had its own proposals that have been ignored. you will see amendments offered. the united states struck a deal to make payments to the brazilian, and institute in order for brazil not to levy retaliatory terrace on the auto industry and a number of other industries. that is a title where i think you'll see a lot of fireworks. >> the obama administration avoids objection to many aspects of the bill. we are not hearing a veto threat for the white house. >> the reduction for women, infants, and children.

the language dealing with the payments to the brazilian. we will roll back administration policies on nutrition programs. >> we thank you for your time. >> the house is expected back here shortly on debate with the 2012 agricultural department spending bill. some information about our live coverage tomorrow, and environmental committee, we will hear about the nuclear regulatory commission safety review. there are five members of the commission including the chairmen. at 7:30 eastern time, it is a

republican leadership conference. speakers include newt gingrich, who is running for the republican presidential nomination. we are expecting the house shortly for more debate on agricultural spending. >> as we wait for the house to come in, a story from the associated press. house leaders will meet to discuss the next step with anthony wiener, who will not

resign. they could strip him of his committee assignments. the new york congressman has taken a two-week leave from the house. he is in treatment at an undisclosed location. he is charged with sending sexually explicit photographs of himself to women. more debate on agricultural amendment spending. the chair: the committee will be in order. the house is in the committee of the whole house in the state of the union for further consideration of h.r. 2112 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: rural development, food and drug administration and related agencies programs for the fiscal year sept 30, 2012

and for other purposes. the chair: when the committee rose earlier, the bill had been read through page 80, line 2. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise mr. kingston: i have an amendment at the desk. the clerk: at the end of the bill before the short title, insert the following, section, each amount made available by titles one through eight other than an an amendment to be made is hereby reduced by 0.87%. the chair: the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. kingston: this amendment reduces certain accounts in the bill by.78% and fulfills the commitment which the minority and majority discussed earlier and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. mr. farr: we accept the

amendment. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from georgia, those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. and the amendment is agreed to. >> mr. chairman. the chair: for what purpose does -- >> i have an amendment at the desk. the clerk: -- >> mr. chairman, we don't have the text of the amendment. the chair: will the gentleman please send the text of the amendment. mr. young: i know you do it. would you like to see it? the chair: will the gentlemen suspend. if the gentleman would please submit the amendment to the

chair. mr. young: don't be banging that gavel too much. the clerk: amendment offered by mr. young of alaska. insert the following. section, none of the funds made available through this act to the food and drug administration may be used to any application of the federal food drug and cosmetic act for approval of engineered salmo nmp.

mr. young: i'm from alaska and we have the finest wild salmon in the world. and we have people that are trying to -- trying to approve this act and they have geared salmon. that's not natural. and our goal, as we have a supply of natural wild salmon for the state of alaska. and for this nation, because i think it's crucially important in this day, we have all those that accuse us of having artificial things, you know, pesticides, et cetera. this is a good amendment. supported by both sides of the aisle. this is not just for alaska, but california and oregon. i'm a congressman from alaska. it is important we understand. -- i call it the frankenstein

fish, should never be allowed in our markets. i have a group of individual alaska ands who make it to have this occur and be promoted by the federal government is wrong. i'm trying to save money but should never allow it to happen in the fishing industry. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman may not reserve time? mr. young: why? i'll keep talking but i'll yield to the gentleman from california, how does that sound? mr. farr: it's my pleasure to join you in this amendment. i have the best salmon caught in the lower 48 in monterey bay. we are sensitive to the fact that people are trying to mess around with the natural process and the food and drug

administration is set to approve new drugs for animals. something wrong for the fact that our food is now treated the same as animal drugs. if approved, it will be the first genetically modified animal allowed into the dinner plate. it poses threats to human health, our fishing communities and wildlife stock fish. they have no long-term studies on safety of genetically geared fish. there could be consequences on human health. studies show that the compounds may be linked to cancer and severe drug aler gist. we have seen the predominant method of raising salmon is an open net. these pens in the ocean and farm fish escape these facilities every year.

the impact of genetically geared -- engineered salmon goes on and on and on. and it would have an additional effect of lowering prices as already seen with normal farmed salmon. lower prices with declined salmon stocks would be detrimental to our fishing culture and our coastal communities. for these reasons, i support mr. young's amendment to approve funds for the genetically- engineered salmon. mr. kingston: i rise in opposition to the amendment. but i wanted to say this, earlier, during the markup, mr. rehberg raised the amendment

about using sound science and they are using sound science in a process that was approved in january, 2009 and they are going through a process right now to make sure that this product does not have a problem as respect to human consumption. i think that should be the number one issue. there are some other considerations in terms of food supply, feeding more people, which is something that we all have debated on this bill and also there is an issue with me about some jobs. so i'm concerned on this, because it does seem like a pretty major change and my philosophy in sound science. but i yield back to my friend from alaska. mr. young: i strike the last word. but thank you. i thank the chairman. i believe who has given that information was wrong.

we have a product made in the united states. why would we want someone to create a frankenstein fish to compete against a gnat traltly god-given gift and have it promoted by science. there is no science in this. in fact they were trying to do and saying they were trying to feed the world with artificial means. don't you do it with my salmon. listen to me this is the greatest thing that we have, alaska and natural wild salmon being sold in the market and the benefit they can do to have it replaced by a general itically fraveragen stein fish. what science are they talking about. they are going to put it in

traps or nets and create a fish that is fed quickly and they say can grow quicker for whom? what people are you talking about? mr. dicks, you listen. you better stand on the floor and defend this. i tell you that right now. . mr. kingston: reclaiming my time, i don't know all the ins and outs of this, but i do know the f.d.a., we're constantly getting on the f.d.a. to quse more sound science, less politics, and to have more transparency and it appears that that's what they're doing here. and they may come out against genetically modified salmon but they are just looking at it right now to determine. as respects the food supply, if you could safely produce

genetically modified fish, you could feed a great portion of the world with it. so i have some concerns on it, i will yield back the balance of my time and -- but i did want to oppose the amendment. the chair: the gentleman yields back his time the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from alaska. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. for what purpose does the gentlelady from maine rise? >> i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: amendment offered by ms. pingree of maine. at the end of the bill, before the short title, insert the following section, none of the funds may be used on travel

relating to any know your farmer, know your food initiatives or two in contravention of the agriculture and food research initiative specified in subsection b-2-f of the competitive special and research grant act 7 u.s.c. 450i. the chair: the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes. ms. pingree: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, this would combat the misguided report language written to attack local and regional food systems. by passing this amendment, we will send an important message to farmers, consumers and community leaders around the -- around the country. helow call and regional food systems are critically important. they provide economic opportunities for rural communities and healthy food for consumers. local food systems are the back bone of economies across the country. in order to ensure local food systems work to their maximum potential, congress must support

research, driving programs and devote more, not less funding to promote this work. no matter what group i'm talking to, whether it's members of credit unions or realtors or teachers, when i start talking about improving the quality of food we serve our kids, improving local food systems and knowing where your food comes from, i look around the room and everybody is nodding. across the board, these issues are important to people. and this is where there is real energy for growth in the economy. the language included in the report was designed to criticize and hamstring efforts that are under way at the usda toee cree ate jobs, to increase farm income and bolster the economy through the development of local and regional food systems. the language targets local and regional food system development in two ways. first it demands overly burdensome reporting requirements of the usda's know

your farmer, know your food initiative. usda developed this initiative to streamline existing programs authorized by congress in the last farm bill. know your farmer, know your food is not a stand alone program and does not have its own budget. creating additional burdensome reporting requirements would delay program implementation and distract the usda from addressing the economic choofpblgs rural communities. second, the report ladgewadge expresses concern with usda research, education, and extension activities associated with local and regional food systems through the agriculture and food research initiative, afri. while congress sets broad research policies for usda, congress does not usually dictate what research usda cannot do. nor does congress usually substitute its opinion of what's good science for the

professional judgments of competitive grant peer review panels. by singling out a small piece of the agricultural research agenda and by substituting the committee's judgment for that of researchers and educators, the agricultural appropriations bill report sets up a roadblock to innovation and diversity in american agriculture and growth in the rural economy. in response to this misguided report language this amendment will prohibit the usda from using funds to fulfill the additional and burdensome reporting requirements proposed for know your farmer, know your food. it would also prohibit usda from using funds to carry out activities contrary to the research priorities congress established in the last farm bill. i know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to say, it's time to cut budgets and reduce deficitsism also believe in fiscal responsibility. this is not about fiscal discipline. this is about priorities.

last year, we spent a staggering $548 billion to fund the department of defense. and an equally unbelievable $158 billion on continued operations in iraq and afghanistan. by comparison, the entire agriculture department is funded with 20% of what we spend on defense and the research priorities we are talking about in this amendment is funded with one half of one percent of the total agriculture budget. uh urge my colleagues to join me in supporting farmers, supporting local food production and consumers who want to know where their food comes from. it's good for local communs, local economies and good for our country. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? >> mr. chairman, i rise in opposition to the amendment and move to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. kingston: i oppose this

amendment and i don't quite understand what the problem is with the amendment at all. here's what it does. our bill language, excuse me. the report language which this amendment tries to strike, it simply tells the secretary of usda to notify the committee of any trips related to know your farmer initiative and include the agenda and the cost to the american taxpayers. it doesn't prevent them doing this. it simply says, let us know. and it also says put this information on the webpage system of if know your farmer is that important, why would the usda have any opposition to this at all? in fact, i don't know that usda does. i also want to say that somebody who represents rural southeast georgia, there is this nostalgic idea that somehow the further food travels the more evil it becomes, but if you look at the plate of vegetables, fresh

vegetables you may have eaten sometime today that food traveled a long way. in fact, asparagus travels a lock way. lettuce, my friend mr. farr gave me an article earlier today, i think 59% of lettuce in america comes from his one district. now we start confining that, is it monterey county? we confine it to monterey county, it might be great for the folks in monterey county but i don't mind eating california lettuce. if the california farmers do it for less money and i can get lettuce year round for less money, that's not a bad thing. i think the asthalms food traveling is a bad idea is flawed in itself. but i want to get back to this bill, report language. it simply says to the usda, let us know how much you're going to spend and why is that important? i want my friend from california to know that if you look through the usda budget request for f.y.

2012 there's not one mention of know your farmers, know your food. it's an initiative. there's not a budget request for it. if there was a budget request for it for $3 million or $30 million, then we could have something to debate about. but what it is is an initiative and all we're asking is, if you go forward with this, and we don't stop them from going forward with it, we want to know how much it's going to cost. and so i do not believe that it's bad report language at all. i strongly oppose the amendment. the chair: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> i rise in support of the amendment. the chair: does the gentleman move to strike the last word? mr. farr: i move to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. farr: i strongly support this amendment. the language in the bill, it's the most draconian language, we have never done this before ever

in an ag bill, it says the committee directs the department to provide an electronic notification to the committee at least 72 hours prior to any travel in support of know your farmer, know your food initiative. such notification shall include the agenda of the entire trip, along with the cost to u.s. taxpayers, additionally the committee directs the department to post media advisories for all such trips on its website and that such advisories include the same information. my god, we don't do this to know your soldier, know your veteran, know your schoolteacher, to anybody else in the public service to know your law enforcement, yet they're doing this for know your farm her this program, as mr. kingston pointed out, we just had the ag report come out, i'm proud that my district, one county does $4 billion worth of agriculture.

it was pointed out that 59% of all the lettuce consumed in the united states is from one county in california that i represent. part of that is this program they're doing, know your farmer, know your foot. consumers can go with a blackberry into, with their cell phone intoork a grocery store and because of the bar code there, they can zip it and it comes up the farm whore grew the food. saying this is who i am, this is where i grew it, this is how many days it takes to get to you and all the things you might want to -- if we're going to educate people about nutrition, i can't think of a more exciting way to do it. to require that the department have to essentially do this gestapo looking at every time you move, you have to report to higher authority on your initiative and on your entire trip and the agenda, we don't do that for anybody else in the federal government. i don't think we should do it for our farmers. or for our members of the u.s.

department of agriculture supporting our farmers system of i support this amendment very strongly. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman yields back his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from maine. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes visit. the amendment is not agreed to. ms. pin fwree: i request a vorded -- recorded vote. the chair: further proceedings offered by the gentlelady from maine will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentlelady from north carolina rise? ms. foxx: mr. speaker, i have an amendment at the desk designated foxx amendment number 1. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: amendment number one printed in the congressional record offered by ms. foxx of north carolina. the chair: the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes. ms. foxx: thank you, mr.

speaker. it's very interesting that i came in to the chamber at this time because my amendment also has to do with know your farmer, know your food. i am very concerned about this program because it is not an authorized program by the congress. it is something that i am very concerned that we have our executive branch off doing all kinds of things that it has no business doing from fighting wars to running programs that they weren't authorized to run. this program in my opinion conducts dupe dew publictive marketing methods by taking funds from programs that exist within usda through grants and program management activities. all of these entities within the usda already have marketing tools to reach out to applicants

in the local community and work with them. programs that issue grants from usda would not be affected or lose a single cent of funding from my amendment. let me repeat, grants and program management activities from usda do not lose a cent of funding under my amendment. rather, it -- it would strike the redundant know your farmer, know your food effort by the usda to advertise their programs and ensure that the money in the grants and in the program management activities would be spent on the activities that are authorized. i have been -- my staff has been told by people at the usda that grant issuing and farmer and consumer programs will continue to operate as normal without this duplicative effort. mr. speaker, -- mr. chairman, there's been a lot of erroneous information put out there in relationship to my amendment and i'd like to take some time to clear them up. it doesn't affect any usda grant

or program management funds already existing, and because know your farmer know your food does not issue grants, nor does it manage any programs. but it is a circumstance um vention of the authority -- circumvention of the authority and defeats the intent of congress when we're the ones who should be authorizing programs and budgets. i think that this is a program we do not need and i believe that it should be abolished because when the usda wants a program, it should be coming to the congress get authorization for that program and there is a specific violation against establishing a program in the authorization that would have set up slush funds in the secretary's office and i think this is similar to that. it allows the department to take

money from existing programs, put it into this program and spend them the way they wish to and i don't think that that is an appropriate expenditure funding that we've authorized. . the chair: the gentlelady yields back. mr. farr: i rise in opposition. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. farr: i rise in opposition because i cannot understand why you are so afraid of know your farmer, know your food. they say, well, we have to have this program authorized. we went to war without authorizing. you spent all that money. and you want to question, know your farmer, know your food. this is a direct attack on the white house initiative, which is about nutrition. we talked about this yesterday about how you have places in

this country that are food deserts. there are places where there are no grocery stores. they don't have fresh fruits and vegetables. people can't go to a local store and find fresh fruits and vegetables. this committee puts money to help farmers markets get established in the tough areas, to encourage farmers to come in and at the same time teach people who never shopped, never been to a farmers market. we tied numb food stamps and w.i.c. vouchers and spend them right there. 65% of the income that comes into that is all part of these initiatives is what people need to know. milk doesn't come from a carton and we are trying to get kids to

know something about agriculture. we are putting in school gardens. all of this is know your food, know your farmer. a and what is this? is this some kind of conspiracy that you are afraid of, people might learn where food comes from in america and there is organic food and you have choices and you don't have to eat everything that is packaged and process and full of salt and sugars and additives? what are we afraid of? to strike or tell the department that they can't do this i think -- we are trying to get people and i'm trying to lose weight and it is hard to change your character and eating habits and unless we do that, we are going to grow a lot of americans that

aren't going to be healthy because they don't know their farmer or food and if you strike this ability for the department to do that kind of outreach, we will have a less healthy america. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does from texas rise? >> i move to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. >> we have given the federal government to regulate and doing and awful lot, know your food, know your farmer is an agency going beyond what needs to be done and something i feel they should come back to congress for. and i would like to yield the remainder of my time to ms. foxx. ms. foxx: i thank my colleague from texas yielding time. and i want to respond to my

colleague from california. i'm not afraid of a program. i'm afraid of the executive branch continuing branch continuing to overstep its grouvends and develop programs that have no authorization and do the things that it has no business doing without authorization from congress. and i find it interesting that my colleague would bring up the fact that we went to war without authorization. i believe that was his president that did that and i voted resoundingly not to do that. and i want to sympathesize with my colleague from california. i'm certainly doing my best to lose weight, too. i think it's a struggle that most of us, particularly in this body have. but i can tell you that i'm not looking to the department of agriculture to give me my nutrition information. i know how to find that

nutrition information and most americans know how to do that and we don't need a special program in the department of agriculture to do that. we have got to commit to bringing government spending under control. and we're going to do everything we can. while no money will be cut from the appropriations by this program, it removes a program that's not authorized, that gives part of the department of agriculture an argument for why they need money. and i think that in many cases, what happens in these executive branch departments is that when their own entity begins to lose its need for being, they begin to look out there for what's the latest trend, what can we do in this department to justify our existence, and i think that that

is what happens in many, many cases and you get the continuation. as ronald reagan said, the nearest thing to i am mortality is a federal government program. and i think that's what happens in many departments, not just the department of agriculture. i have great respect for what the department of agriculture does. and i think it is providing vital services in many areas. but this is not an area that we need, the federal government to be involved in. we don't need this program. and i'm frankly -- my colleague asked me what i'm afraid, i don't understand why my colleague from maine doesn't want reporting? why is she concerned, because we asked the department how much money are you spending? there is no answer.

there is no cost benefit analysis. it's time that any program that says, we can't tell you how much we're spending, we can't tell you what we're doing or having any effect to be done away with. and any program that answers a member of congress that way should be immediately eliminated. and with that, i yield back. >> reclaiming just a second, and i would like to work with my doctor and trainer than the usda. the chair: jabt. for what purpose does gentlelady from maine rise? pen pen i move to -- rsh i want to engage in this conversation both about the previous amendment and my friend from north carolina's concern about this particular program called know your farmer and know your food. i have heard the secretary speak to us about his interest in

increasing the number of farms in our country and getting to know our farmers and making sure people have knowledge about where their food comes from. i have to say, it's after 8:30 on a busy night and we are still debating this bill and we have huge challenges before us and at war in two countries and i just personally have to say, i'm baffled by why we shall having this debate. this slows down research on local farming that tries to stop a local program. and i will say i kind of think back to the way i look at our country. we were based on agriculture and farming. i had the good fortune to be born in minnesota. both sets of my grandparents were immigrants and they came because it was great land, my

uncle and grandfather were dairy farmers. i went to college to study agriculture and i own my own farm. is this what america is all about, knowing your farmer and knowing where your food comes from. growing and using our land. what are in the world are we talking about. it's as if black is white and white is back. i grew up in minnesota and maine, both have rich farming hertages. we couldn't be more proud. we couldn't be more proud of having vigorous farmers' markets and having people being able to say, what is hyped this, please tell me what is growing. this is america. this is how our country was built. if there is one tragedy that is going on today is the reduction in the number of farms, the

number of families who can't hold on to their farms and don't have enough markets. if there is anything that the secretary is telling us we want people to know about their farms. we want to have local access to farming. i spent a lot of time visiting school calf teryass and many of the schools in my district buy locally. if they deal with childhood obesity, they have to get kids to eat more vegetables and have those young people know the farmers. many schools have a garden out back. i visited a school in maine recently and they have carrots and not that every lunch has carrots on the menu for those kids to say i grew a carrot. i sat down and ate with kids and they were eating kale and garlic

and showing it to me about how they grow kale and many visited with farmers and seen the farmers come down the road. i can't imagine why anyone would want to put language in that says you have to strike a program like this that's not even funded, but a way of the secretary saying, this is a good american tradition. it's a tradition in north carolina where people are proud of their farmers and maine, the average age of our farmer is going down. we have more people going into farming and more acreage going into farmer, which is the reversal of our country. this is good for our health and environment. and this is a jobs bill. that is what we are supposed to be talking about. and every young person who has an opportunity to go into farming, every family that gets to hang on to a family farm, increases the number of jobs. what do we want this to turn

into? where everything has to be trucked into around the world and carrots come from brazil and i mean this is america. this is a tradition of our country. how could we possibly think that anything was wrong with promoting or researching local fields. absolutely not? much as i appreciate my colleague from north carolina, i'm not giving up one second to talk about the fanth that in my state, we are proud of our farmers and proud of our big farms, they grow potatos and blueberries, apples, we are proud of our fishermen and more young people want to get into farming. more markets for farming and part of it is because people like to buy food locally and they are excited about going to a farm stand where you see the farmer and see where it was

grown and feel comfortable and know where it was slaughtered and know so much about it and raising our kids to say, vegetables are good for you and here they are. i can't possibly imagine why this report language was in the first place, why my colleague would want to strike everything about know your farmer, know your food. the chair: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. king: she can't -- mr. kingston: it's not authorized. the president of the united states is now bombing in libya and i voted with the cues niche amendment because i feel uncomfortable with bombing with the unsthorsed use of force. the federal government obligates the federal government to new programs and the united states congress hasn't had an opportunity to vet or vote on

them. i don't understand myself why that is a problem that we can have this transparency. as i listen to this, i thought, know your farmer, know your food, was one of these harmless initiatives but i'm beginning to think it's one big data bank. i don't know why the usda needs to know this information about the farmers. i'm wondering about that. but if we want to help farmers, and i have had the opportunity of representing lots of farmers for a long time, i'm going to give you seven things i thought about just sitting here in the course of the last speech. number one, this administration has declared war on the community banks which are the fiber and heart of small communities. that's where farmers get their loans. farmers need credit. we need stability in banking law to help farmers, number one. number two, we need consistent regulations and regulations that don't send the e.p.a. out on the

farms to play i got you. you may know right now, mr. chairman, that organic chickens, and i know my friend from california probably knows this, the f.d.a. requiring that they be raised on a slab of concrete an the usda saying, no they can't be. so two federal agencies, two different regulations for one product. farmers need regulatory consistency. number three, we need an h2a program. we have to get labor out there and a good guest worker program that works. number four, free trade agreement. we have had sitting on the desk of the white house free trade agreements with south korea, colombia and with panama and this administration won't move them that will create lots of markets for farmers. number fife, we need estate tax relief. you want to keep the family farm in the family, then get rid of the death tax so it can be passed on to the next generation. number six, you need to have a

good crop insurance program. more than any other farm program, farmers want a good crop insurance program. number seven, we need to cut the red tape out so you can get the local -- to the local market. it is impossible to sell to your local high school because of many federal regulations. the small farmers can't compete with the big folks on this. i want to say this about apples because the gentlewoman had mentioned apples, the average apple travels, right now, 2,500 miles to get to the consumer. i don't find that horrible. we have country of origin labeling laws which our committee has debated for over a decade and i don't know that it has made the world a better place. i think that consumers are drin by food safety, food taste and food price and whether it comes from new york or comes from the farmer down the street, those are going to be the driving

factors in making the decision. carrots come 2,000 miles. i would challenge my friend to look at google food mileage and look how much common, everyday food travels to get to your plate. what has it done? it's made america healthier. it's given us aban dun -- abundant food supply and given us a less expensive foot supply. if we're serious about growing mom and pop farms, i want to say this to my friend from maine, i'm very interested in working with her on that the seven things i have listed i can promise you in any poll, farmers will choose before they choose what we really need to get farmers going in america is this program that's not authorized by the congress called know your farmer. thank you and i yield pack. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the question is on the amendment. for what purpose does the gentleman -- >> i move to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. >> i want to point out that this

amendment doesn't save one penny. the chair: the gentleman will suspend. the gentleman asked unanimous consent to strike the last word. mr. kingston reserving my right to object. mr. farr: mr. chairman. move to strike the requisite number of words. the chair: the gentleman from washington is recognized. mr. dicks: i yield to the ranking member. mr. farr: this amendment doesn't save one penny. ironically, we just returned from a white house summer congressional picnic. and people ate food there and you know what? at every table, it list wrd the food came from. indeed, i remember because i went to the ice cream place, and

there was a stack of honey, honey that came from the white house. that has white house label on it. and a gift that the first lady gives to visiting dignitaries from around the world as a sample of american honey grown on the white house. we just experience -- experienced noy know your farmer, know your food not more than an hour ago. this amendment is nothing but being mean. mr. dicks: also at the white house picnic if you walked far enough down, you could see the garden with fresh vegetables, had them labeled about what was what. again, i just don't see what the harm is here. if they're taking it out of existing funds. i always thought that the farmers of america were supported on a bipartisan basis in this congress.

and that we like to know who our farmers are. so i agree with the gentleman and i hope we can defeat this ill considered amendment. the chair: the gentleman yields back? mr. dicks: i yield back. the chair: the question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from north carolina. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. the gentleman from washington. mr. dicks: i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: a recorded vote having been requested, pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from north carolina will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california rise? >> mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment.

will the gentlewoman specify which amendment? ms. woolsey: i believe it's number 20. the chair: the clerk will report. the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 20 printed in the congressional record offered by ms. woolsey of california. the chair: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. kingston: mr. chairman, i reserve a point of order on the gentlewoman's amendment. the chair: a point of order is reserved. the gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. ms. woolsey: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, for some families, many too many, as a matter of fact, the meals served as school may be the only decent meal their children get that day. especially during this current economic downturn with many americans barely getting by. more people are relying on school meals to keep their children fed and ready to learn. why, then, is the republican

majority trying to turn back the clock of school nutrition. d nutrition? why are they trying to undermine the quality of school meals by gumming up a regulatory process designed to ep sure our kids are eating healthy? mr. chairman, i'm offering this amendment because it will stop the majority's attempt to block the implementation of scientific standards for school meals. here's the back story. since the truman administration, congress and the united states department of agriculture have set standards for school lunches and breakfasts. but for most of that history, those standards have not reflected the expertise of nutritionists and other health professionals. then last year, congress passed and the president signed a bill directing usda to make school meal requirements for the first time consistent with sound science and dietary guidelines

issued by the institute of medicine. with the tom line, that would mean -- bottom line, that would mean healthier food for our kids. it would mean the cafeteria line would have more fruits an vegetables, more whole grains and low fat milk, an less sodium and saturated fat. as instructed by the law we passed, usda wrote a regulation and received over 130,000 comments. now just from the process -- now just when the process is wrapping up, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to use report language in this appropriations bill to scrap the rule and compel usda to write a completely new one. this is a stall tactic, plain and simple. better school meals must not -- can't be from this act a priority for the other side of

the aisle. they apparently don't believe we need to do anything about the epidemic of childhood obesity that's rapidly becoming a major public health crisis. so they're looking for any way to put on the breaks -- the brakes. the process has worked. we've had congressional direction and mandates. we've had open comment period and rule making based on sound science. but the end result is not to the majority's liking so they want a do-over. this is not only unnecessary, mr. speaker -- mr. chairman, but expensive. there would be costs associated with starting the rule making over, going back to square one. in one fell swoop, the republicans are showing themselves to be anti-science, anti-child, anti-public health and anti-fiscal responsibility. my amendment would stop this shortsighted and irresponsible scheme. it would prevent funds made available by this appropriations act from being used to require usda to reissue a new rule.

important advocates agree with me. my amendment has been endorsed by the national education association. the american dietetic association. bread for the world. the center for science in the public interest. and many other groups. in fact, i ask unanimous consent to to enter the list of all the groups into the record. the chair: that is covered under general leave. so noted. ms. woolsey: our children need balanced, healthy, nutritious meals. not costly, bureaucratic delays. they need this to help them succeed in school and in life. with that, mr. chairman, i ask unanimous consent to withdraw. the chair: is there an objection? without objection, the amendment is withdrawn. for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk shall report the amendment.

the clerk shall designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 24 printed in the congressional record offered by mr. royce of california. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for phi minutes. mr. royce: thank you, mr. chairman, very much. a couple of quick points here. one the administration is actively considering resuming food aid in north korea and i understand the humanitarian impulse here but the unusual circumstances of north korea make this a mistake. and make it a very bad mistake, frankly which this amendment would correct. i remember the words of one north korean defector, i had a chance to talk with him, and he said -- he said actually in testimony here before the committee, we must not give food aid to north korea because, he says, it is, in his words, the same as providing funding for north korea's nuclear program. why is that so?

because what invariably happens is they redirect these resources into support for the regime. this week, we had reports that north korea is making miniaturized versions of its nuclear weapons, ones that could fit atop icbm's and that makes his statement all that more dire about the redirection of the resource into the regime's hands. the situation in north korea is heartbreaking. i've been up there, i've seen the deprivation but this is a disaster made by the dictatorship itself and let me say, unequivocally, the food we send does not reach the hungry. so who benefits from -- from our good will? the inner circle does and their military industrial complex does. we've had hearings in which the french n.g.o. doctors without borders, we're all aware of their good work around the world they testified before the international relations

committee that the vast majority of refugees they interview say they had never received any food aid. none of the children. they had -- none of the children they had met had received food aid in the years they worked on the border this testimony is backed up by a survey, 500 north korean defective, 78.2% of them never saw foreign food aid and the reason for this is because it goes, again, into the black market, it is sold for the hard currency the regime needs for its nuclear program and other programs. now some could argue, you know what we need is more oversight, maybe better monitoring on this food. let me tell you about the testimony we've heard on that, because the north koreans, i don't think they've got a word for transparency. no matter how airtight any monitoring protocol may be, they cheat. we had a tom lantos human rights hearing where they told us the dissidents would mark all the

houses that had received bags an food and returned to collect them after the monitors had left. north koreans will always cheat. some assert the north is holding food. holding it for the future. hording a million tons of rice. that's the charge we hear from south korea, from members of their parliament, but the fact is, the fact is, that it's an asset that is converted by the north, so i urge my colleagues to support my amendment for the sake of the north korean people, providing this aid, not only allows kim jong il's oppressive regem to divert resources toward its mail tir program, one that's grown increasingly threatening but also delays the day when real structural reform will come to north korea. there's a north korean saying that pouring watt entire a cracked pot is worthless. sending resources to kim jong il is even worse, it's enabling the

regime with ouven the world's worst human rights railroads. north korea played us like a fiddle for years and conditions have only worsened. it's time for a new north korean policy so let's start now and ask my colleagues to support this amendment. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. mr. kingston: mr. chairman, i rise to forward the amendment and i want to say we have had a very difficult time -- the chair: without objection, the gentleman voiced for five minutes. mr. kingston: help secure another quarter of the bill, we would work with you on this amendment and support it. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from california. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin rise? >> mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment.

the clerk: amendment number 25 printed in the congressional record offered by mr. kind of wisconsin. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. kind: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, my amendment is very straightforward. for many years now i and a group of bipartisan members of this congress have formed a coalition in an attempt to move farm bill reform forward. to try to end these large taxpayer subsidies that are going to a few but very large agri-businesses, subsidies that are not helping family farmers, meeting the greater consolidation and production of agriculture, driving up land values, making it more difficult for new beginning farmers to enter agriculture and subsidies that are not fiscally responsible. and in light of the budget deficits that we're wrestling with, what better time to continue to move in the area of reform under the farm bill with

this agricultural appropriation bill, rather than waiting for the promise or hope that in the year or two, in the re-authorization of another farm bill, that this institution might finally come around and start making the long overdue changes? but just to show you how perverted these farm programs have gotten, recently brazil challenged our own domestic cotton subsidy program and prevailed in the w.t.o. court. now you would expect our rational response would be to reform our cotton subsidy program. to come into compliance with that w.t.o. decision. to end these subsidies that you really can't justify to our cotton producers and we'd solve this problem but that's not the approach that was taken. in fact, the administration recently set up a new subsidy program that is now going to subsidize brazil cotton producers. let me repeat that. we are spending $147 million a year in order to bribe the brazilian government so that they don't enforce the sanctions

that they're entitled to now because of our unwillingness to reform our own cotton subsidy program. that is wrong. and that's what my amendment would address. it would prohibit the use of funds in this agricultural appropriation bill going to this new subsidy program to subsidize the brazil cotton industry. it just shows you what a pretzel our farm programs have turned this congress into because of yet again the unwillingness for us to reform our own domestic title 1 subsidy programs. the answer to this is not to funnel out another $147 million a year until maybe we address this in the next farm bill which could end up costing the american taxpayer over a half a billion dollars when we can make that correction now, reform the domestic program, get up from under the w.t.o. decision, start saving money by not sending $1 happen 7 -- $147 million a year to brazil and saving some money by reforming our own cotton domestic subsidy program. that's the solution to this,

that's something that we can fix tonight, rather than continuing this facade of maintaining these programs that many of us warned in the last farm bill would be challenged and sure enough they did. and they're prevailing and now they can apply economic sanctions against us. so the time to act is now. not waiting for a year or two or whenever we're going to get around to re-authorizing another farm bill. the time to start saving some real money is this night. by passing the amendment that we're offering. we can save $147 million, we can reform the cotton subsidy program and save more taxpayer dollars and we have that ability to be fiscally responsible and start making changes tonight. i know what the argument on the other side will be. wait for the next farm bill, we'll take care of it then. well, there is a lot that we are moving forward this year already on deficit reduction. and i for one think that farm bill should also be open for scrutiny, for potential savings to reduce our deficit. but that's not what's being

offered tonight in reforming the title 1 subsidy programs, instead most of the deep cuts are coming under the conservation title, the nutrition programs, certain key investments that we have to make to empower our farmers to be good stewards of the land, to reduce sediment and nutrient flows and the impact it has on the quality of water supply that we need this had -- in this country, the protection of habitat. three out of every four farmers applying for conservation funding assistance today are turned away because of inadequacy of funds. that number will only explode because of the deep cuts coming in these other titles in the farm bill. we have an opportunity to start making some changes under title 1, the subsidy program. first by stopping the additional lare are layer ofdy that's being -- of subsidy that's been created. i would encourage my colleagues to look closely at this amendment. this is the reasonable response that we should be taking, let's not defer this decision any further, we can do that, and instead of encouraging any type

of trade war or sanctions with brazil, we should move forward in reforming the cotton subsidy program starting tonight. with that i yield back the balance of my time. and i ask my colleagues to support this amendment. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. does any member seek time in opposition to the amendment? the gentleman from texas. >> i rise in opposition to the amendment. request to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my colleague's very passionate but he's also very wrong. mr. chairman, this money does not go to brazilian farmers, that's illegal for us to do that. what it does do, it does go to an institute that promotes brazilian agriculture production. it may be a fine line to distinguish there but it's inflammatory to say it's going to brazilian farmers, that we're doing that, and he knows it and it is wrong. but it is a payment. it's a payment negotiated by the obama administration in reaction to a loss at the w.t.o. in order to buy time so that a trade war

with our trading partner in the world doesn't erupt. the trade war that is being prevented, over $800 million worth of exports to brazil, protects a wide variety of nonagricultural industries in this agreement. mr. conaway: this buys us time until the 2012 farm bill can get done. we cannot tonight nor should we tonight delve into a very complicated farm safety net program that has worked well for the american people. it's unquestioned that the american people enjoy the safest, most abundant and cheapest food and fiber source in the world, in the developed countries. and we do that because of the hard work, sweat equity and risk taking of the american ag producer. they rely in turn on a safety net that is relatively complicated and interwoven between a bunch of things that make it help. and 2012, much to the budget that we did pass says that the farm bill be written in 2012, i understand my colleague's

disdain for the process of the agriculture committee, he doesn't like the agriculture committee, doesn't like the work product that we come out with, but that's the group that knows the most about the process of the safety net. doing what the gentleman would like to do tonight would disrupt that trade agreement, undercut the u.s. trade representative and his ability to negotiate around the world because he's negotiating with a group that won't stick by their word, the 2008 farm bill put in place a five-year contract, five-year agreement with the american ag producers, goes through the 2012 farm bill, 2012 crop year, and we ought to stand behind it and defeat this amendment. so, the money does not go to farmers, it does protect $800 million a year in exports of nonagriculture exports that are important to this country, including intellectual property rights that would be abrogated if we back out on this deal that we've made with brazil. with that i respectfully request my colleagues to oppose the kind amendment as being wrongheaded tonight. thank you and i yield back.

the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? >> strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. i listened to my good friend from texas talk about deferring yet again to the ag committee, that somehow this payment goes to the brazilian cotton industry and not to the cotton farmers. mr. blumenauer: a distinction without a difference, i would suggest. i rise in support of my colleague from wisconsin in this proposal. i've been in this congress, having watched three farm bill re-authorizations and each time we find that there is expression on the floor of this chamber for actual reform. we've asked for limitations, we are told, well, we just don't -- the floor doesn't understand it. it's too complicated. well, it is complicated and twisted because this is an

effort to try, through the complexity, to layer efforts here that cheat the american consumer, that hurt the environment and pose serious problems for international trade. and my friend from wisconsin is correct, we are talking about this in the last farm bill and we got our come upance but instead of responding responsibly in reducing or eliminating the illegal cotton subsidies, we're shosking upwards of a half billion dollars to the brazilian cotton industry and i'll be prepared to argue benefits cotton farmers. so we're subsidizing two countries because we fail to reach our responsibilities now. i sincerely think this is wrong, i think $147 million could go a long way toward helping the part of american agriculture that grows food, that we categorize as specialty crops, who are

dramatically shortchanged and i would like to yield the remainder of my time if i could to my good friend from wisconsin, the sponsor of this amendment. mr. kind: i thank my good friend from oregon for his support of the amendment and for his support throughout the years in trying to lead the effort for meaningful farm bill reform. now, mr. chairman, there is another solution to this that's going to be offered by our good friend and colleague from arizona in just a little bit, mr. flake. he goes to the heart of the w.t.o. decision to find out what changes we should be making in the cotton subsidy program to get out from under the thumb of brazil. and i will support that amendment and i hope my colleagues support his amendment as well because that is the ultimate solution to this, instead of just cutting off the funding to brazil right now, but coming up with the cotton subsidy reform. now, let's remember the context in which we find ourselves this evening. cotton payments are almost at a world record high price right now. yet these subsidies are still going out. there's very little relationship right now with a lot of the subsidies under title 1 to the

grain producers and cotton producers of our country. and at a time of tough budgets, when everyone else is being asked to take a hair cut, whether you're a supporter of conservation programs or vital nutrition programs for our children and seniors, for us to not even look and consider the title 1 programs in the context of this agriculture appropriation bill, it's beyond. there's no justification to it. and these programs are outdated, they are impossible to justify with the american taxpayer, especially with the deficit reduction that all of us are interested in participating in this year. this is a small but i think significant step down the road of reform with the farm bill, finding savings that can be applied to either other programs or for deficit reduction and that's why i commend my colleague from arizona for the amendment he's about to offer. but my friend from oregon, too, will have some important amendments for us to consider. a payment limitation, limiting the overall amount of subsidies that go to our producers and, folks, this is going to

agri-business. many of whom have mailing addresses in manhattan, in chicago, in san francisco, these aren't even family farmers working the land. and they're some of the primary recipients of these agriculture subsidies. mr. blumenauer's amendments address that along with mr. flake's cutoff at $250,000 a year, that's profit. if you're an entity making a profit of over a quarter million dollars a year, should you really still be receiving taxpayer subsidies for the business that you're running? i think not. and we'll have another opportunity to consider that later tonight. . if we are serious, we should be serious about supporting this amendment tonight. and i'm happy to yield back. mr. blumenauer: i commend my friend what my friend from wisconsin is doing and i look

forward to my comments. if we are serious, it's time to move in this area. and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from arizona rise? mr. flake: move to strike the last word. i rise in support of the kind amendment. we have heard here that we need this program to make us trade compliant. many of us learned when we did the last farm bill, when we did the level of subsidies, yet we plowed ahead and did it any way. last april, our farm programs, which on their best day are out of step of reality, moved into the realm of the absurd. we had programs to fund a cotton industry in brazil and start

subsidizing the brazilians so we can subsidize our own farmers. is that not absurd? why are we continuing to do this. and tariffs might be imposed. i offered an amendment in the committee earlier on that would have taken money from the direct payments that we currently pay to cotton farmers and pay off the brazilians rather than raid the treasury. and guess what? that passed in committee, but stricken when it came to the floor. when you hear all this rhetoric about how we want to be trade compliant, we could have allowed that. we could have allowed that amendment to stick in the bill and this would have been trade compliant and they would have been paid off with not new taxpayer money. so don't believe what you're

hearing about what we just want to be trade compliant. we offered an alternative to that and it was rejected. we are asking the taxpayers to once again this year, $147 million to the bra zillians to -- brazilians to make us trade compliant. and so we are going to be doing this year after year after year, so that means we will continue to do this unless we stop it. if we pass the kind amendment fonet, we will be back and reform our cotton subsidies that will make us trade come plipet. the flake amendment took us from the cotton program. we don't need to ask the taxpayers to pay off the brazilians to continue subsidies to our own farmers. i commend the gentleman for

offering it and i yield some time to the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. kind: i appreciate his support for his leadership. and the easiest way for us to come into trade compliance isn't by bribing the brazilian government, but fixing this domestic program rather than waiting years from now for the next farm bill. i know this isn't easy and i know the committee -- i used to serve on the committee. i'm not asking anyone to do anything different. the reforms i have been proposing would require my district to take a hirecut on the agricultural subsidies and it's not easy to stand up to groups and say we can't afford it.

and with the deficits, that is what it is going to take if we are going to be serious and getting the spending under control. i know the agriculture committee has their hands full and would rather did he fer this decision but we don't know when that's going to be, but $147 million going out the door that we can stop doing tonight with the passage of this amendment and i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. flake: everybody needs to take a hair cut here if we have to get this under control, we shouldn't ask the taxpayers to pay off the brazil answer. we have a cotton industry in arizona, they may take a hit because of this. but everybody has to take a hair cut. everybody has to contribute here to getting this deficit and debt under control and if we can't start with a program like this,

i don't know where we'll start. after this amendment, i plan to offer an amendment that will go after the programs that will make us nontrade compliant and i would be glad to offer it not at all if this amendment passes. with that, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota rise? >> i strike the requisite number of words. this is a surreal debate, because i don't think we are talking about the real issue here. the cotton program isn't perfect. a lot of the programs that we have in the agriculture committee aren't perfect. freedom to farm that was passed in 1986, i opposed. it saved a little bit of money and we ended up spending 10 times the amount of money

bailing people out when it collapsed. but the problem here, we are arguing about something that no longer exists. this program that they are under no longer exists. we have fixed it two, three times. we tried to address this and never good enough for the brazilians and made changes in the farm bill. still not good enough. cotton went through difficult times. i don't have any cotton in this district. this isn't an issue for me, but we would have been out of the business. but what was going on? we had brazil using government money to increase cotton production in brazil. and this is something that isn't considered in the w.t.o. because we are agreeing to this demreement that tied our hands

and gave our competitors the ability to eat our lunch. j.b.s. took over the livestock of this country and they own 30% . nobody complains about that. you know, the brazilian government created most of this competition that collapsed the price of cotton worldwide and then we agreed to go into the w.t.o. and they promised that they weren't going to go into cotton production and we shipped our textile market to china and you know, collapsed all of our textile industry and what happened? they increased production like crazy and india, our cotton prices went down below the cost of production because of these trade agreements we got involved in. but the way they are structured, there is nt anything they can do

it but going to sue us over the step two program trying to keep our people in business. if you want to ship the cotton industry to brazil, china and india, you are on a good start to do that. if you keep on this road you are will ship agriculture to the so-called developing nations that aren't developing nations. if you have been to brazil, they are anything but a developing nation, but they are protected under this deal. is this a perfect solution? no. but we couldn't get the brazilians to work this out because they don't want to. they want to use us for trade negotiations and so forth and i don't think we could do anything to satisfy. there is more to this than people are talking about here. this isn't about saving money but making sure we can have a

safety net in this country to maintain agriculture production in the united states and not ship it all to other countries and not get dependent on foreign countries for food like we have become dependent on foreign countries for energy. i hope people understand all of the different ramifications. this isn't the perfect deal, but for the time being, this is the best solution. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from oklahoma rise? mr. lucas: i rise to strike the requisite number of words. i rise in opposition to this amendment. and want to return a moment to the focus of the discussion and want to be clear. if this amendment passes, it will, it could insite a trade war. brazil could immediately impose, $800 million on tariffs on a

variety of u.s. goods. i promise, they won't retaliate against u.s. agricultural products but other products like books, music and fill am. they will go after everybody outside of production agriculture with their $800 billion in tariffs. we can debate how we got here and our ranking member gave a good history of what led us to this point, but this amendment right here, right now, would expose the u.s. to job-killing sanctions on goods valid at $800 million. in 2010, the obama administration finalized a framework agreement with brazil that was a critical step in resolving this dispute in export credits. and yes, under the agreement,

brazil agreed to delay trade retaliation until the 2012 farm bill was developed and put together. this amendment would circumvent the legislative process in what can only be described as a happenharsard way. this amendment is a way to change policy on an appropriation bill. i can assure, i plan and we will have a full and open process when we start the farm bill debate. we'll debate the relevant issues dealt with in this amendment. and on that note, i would serve a notice for record, next week, we start to plan the process to conduct an audit. this audit is a beginning of the transparent process we used to

draft the 2012 farm bill. policy changes will be considered carefully with input from industry stake holders and constituents and within the larger context of improving the agriculture. let's return to regular order and if nothing else, remember, this bill is 13% lower than the previous spending bill. this takes us almost back in the ag aappropriations bill to august, 2006. we are giving our share in this appropriations process and everyone knows whether tease the regular farm bill next summer or if we have some great understanding on the national debt ceiling and spending the deficits, we could will have a farm bill dramatically quicker next summer and we will have a

farm bill that reflects the dramatic reduction in resources. let the ag committee craft the policy and then when we bring it to the interior, all of our friends, expert ag economists, we may be all together, you will have your shot as you've had before. but please, don't insite a trade war. please, don't ignore the regular order of appropriation and authorization. please be rational in what you do. we've got tough decisions ahead of us. we know that. we are going to do what we have to do. but let us do it in regular order. not in this fashion. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise?

>> move to strike the requisite woords. >> let me just say this, georgia is the second largest cotton-producing state that accounts for approximately 10% of the u.s. cotton production. in 2011, georgia farmers plant to 1.5 million acres of cotton. 9 average is more than $600 million. there are approximately 2,800 businesses directly involved in the process and distribution of cotton, accounting for the broader economic effects that georgia accounts for 46,000 jobs and generates economic activity of approximately $11 billion. now the opponents of these amendments target provisions in

the cotton programs that are at the center of a w t.o. trade case that brazil has against the united states. they have scheduled a series of consult tages designed to identify the modifications and policies that will resolve the case. intention is to reach agreement on carefully thought-out provisions that can be included in the 2012 farm bill. . these amendments are not to resolve the dispute. one since they have not resulted in any specific agreement and, two, since these approaches will certainly undermine the future discussions as the two countries attempt to reach a final resolution. that's fair and that is reasonable. the amendments target cotton farmers in an effort to reduce government spending.

the 2008 farm bill including the cotton provisions was fully paid for, offset and did not add one single dime to the deficit. they cite the years in which the government support for cotton was historically high. but they ignore the years when the support actually is at historic lows. we need to maintain the safety net so that it's there when it's needed but not utilized as it hasn't been recently when it's not needed. farmers understand that the current budget pressures, they understand that very well, but they expect to be a part of the debate involving all of the agricultural stakeholders and not be singled out for ad hoc budget reductions with hasty policy decisions.

these proposed amendments would nullify the base uck component -- basic component of cotton policy. if these amendments are enacted, they would take effect october 1 and as a result usda would have to change the cotton program rules in the middle of the marketing year and change them back effective october 1, 2012. this would undermine the confidence in commodity programs, especially among agricultural lenders. this would compromise the agriculture policy, a policy that has been vetted very carefully by our authorizing committees and relied upon by our growers and our lenders in making their business decisions going into 2012. the re-authorization of the farm bill in 2012 is the proper form to debate the cotton agriculture policy, not here on this

appropriations bill. we have got to do what is right in regular order. this is not the time, it's not the place and what we're doing tonight, if they go forward with this, is pulling the rug out from under our cotton farmers and our agriculture when they have made plans through 2012. it is unfair, it is not right and we should not do it. and i urge my colleagues to reject these amendments. they are ill advised. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. conaway: move to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> i'd like to speak in opposition to this. the ranking member gives a great history lesson on how this comes out. the previous farm bill passed primarily congress controlled by

your side of the aisle, created a situation with our cotton subsidies, caused a problem with brazil and we are trying to work it out. my colleagues on this side of the aisle and many of the colleagues on the other side of the aisle are also concerned that this government as a whole through the regulatory process, picked the regulatory agency, is making it very difficult and unpredictable for businesses by changing the regulatory environment. mr. farenthold: our businesses are holding back, not investing, not creating jobs. what we're about to do the same thing ourselves right here with this amendment by yanking the rug out from under our cotton farmers who have built their businesses, made their plans, based on the promise of the last farm bill. you know, i love to save money for this government, i'm none too happy to see this money going to brazil, but we basically lost a lawsuit and we're having to pay the damages. and we're going to fix it in the regular order without yanking the rug out from under the

farmers who are the backbone of this country by changing the rules in the middle of the game. give us until next year to get that farm bill out and we will address it. even though it didn't rise to the point of order, this really does rise in my opinion to the level of legislating within an appropriations bill. you know, i don't like spending the money, i don't like sending it offshore, but we cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. we cannot move the goal post for our farmers, many of whom are small, private farmers who have built their future, taken out loans, decided to buy more land, decided to buy more equipment base -- equipment, based all their business decisions on the promise that this -- promise that this government maid to them in the last farm bill a -- made to them in the last farm bill and changing the rules at this point is absolutely wrong and i encourage my friends and colleagues to vote against this amendment and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the

gentleman from oregon rise? does the gentleman move to strike the last word? mr. defazio: i move to strike the last word. the gentleman preceding me said we lost a lawsuit. we didn't lose a lawsuit. no conflict of interest, no open litigation, no legal proceeding as we in the united states of america understand it. a closed group with no conflict of interest that makes rulings and they have decided that we under this failed trade policy should pay tribute, tribute more than we paid to the pirates, $147 million a year to the government of brazil so we can subsidize our cotton farmers. now, you go home and explain that to your constituents. we'll borrow $147 million from china and we'll send it to brazil so we can subsidize our

cotton farmers. what is this all about? it is about a totally failed trade policy and at some point this congress has to take a stand. ron paul and i a number of years ago, three years ago, we do it once every five years, offered an amendment to withdraw the united states of america from the w.t.o. that will come up soon. i hope you'll all support it. it is something that binds us and is destroying our industries, our farmers and everything else that's great about this country. i voted against the w.t.o. this isn't about so much as a failed farm policy or farm bill as the gentleman outlaid. it's about totally failed trade policies. other countries want to protect their agriculture interests, they want to feed their own people, they don't want to import polluted food from china. we have opened up our country to polluted food and goods from china and brazil and every place else in the world with the w.t.o. and these trade agreements.

they don't observe them. we go and we lose this and say, we've got no choice but to pay. we have a choice. let's not pay. we're not going to pay the tribute. we're not going to borrow the money from china, we're not going to send it to brazil. let's see what they do next. and maybe we can blow up this thing called the w.t.o. and get back to something that protects our national interests. with that i'd yield to the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. kind: i thank the gentleman for his comments in support of this amendment and just one final point that my colleagues who have been supportive of trade agreements in the past, let's be honest with ourselves. if we're going to be a part of this w.t.o. organization to establish rules of trade across borders then let's not turn our back on an adverse decision that affects us. let's instead comply and bring the cotton subsidy program into compliance. that is the answer to this and let's end this nonsense of sacking subsidy program on -- stacking subsidy program on top of subsidy program to blackmail other governments who have a w.t.o. decision in their hands. and i cannot believe that this

evening when we're asking for huge unprecedented cuts in conservation programs that will affect thousands of farmers -- effect thousands of farmers across the country and unprecedented cuts with nutrition programs that will effect thousands of low income families with their children and seniors, saying, tough luck, we're operating under duff budget times, you're just going to have to do without. when it comes to a simple amendment like this, to save $147 million a year, to bribe brazil cotton producers in an unwillingness to go into the title 1 subsidy programs for cost savings then what the heck are we doing around here? it's beyond the pail that we're willing to take the deep cuts and the chairman of the agriculture committee claimed 12% cut in the farm bill but he didn't say where those cuts were coming from. i'll tell you where it's not coming from. it's not coming from these subsidy programs. it's not coming from the cotton subsidy program that's gotten us into this problem. a handful of powerful cotton

families are holding this institution hostage in order to maintain these subsidy programs that have benefited them for too long. talk about benefiting the few at the expense of the many. this is the classic example of this agricultural appropriation bill before us this evening. we could do a heck of a lot better. i'd be happy to yield back. mr. defazio: we may have some difference over the underlying trade agreement and the mandates and the process which got us to this point, but i agree, subsidies or bribes on top of subsidies is insane in these tough budget times. and i would just note that we're going to be confronted very soon with another limitation amendment on another bill where we're going to have a choice, we're going to abandon the american trucking industry to mexico who is again exacting tribute from the u.s. for a billion dollars a year worth of tariffs to try and drive our companies south of the boarder to use mexican drivers. so time and time again these trade agreements are failing us. i think it's bigger than the problem of the subsidies and the

farm bill. and this congress needs to pay attention. one way or another we're going to either get real about our deficits and what's really essential to the american people, feeding our people, clothing our people, and putting american people to work, or we're going to abandon ourselves to this failed notion of the w.t.o. and other trade agreements. with that i'd yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment -- for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> seek to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> the world has changed. it's not enough to simply buy american anymore, we have to sell american, we have to sell our american agriculture products, our technology products and services all throughout the world. mr. brady: but oftentimes when we compete we find much of the world is tilted against us. other countries cut agreements to make it tough for us to sell. that's why we are involved in the world trade organization, to ensift that other countries play by the rules. but that means america has to play by the rules as well.

we lost this case in the w.t.o. so the question today isn't about cotton subsidy or even saving money, it's about the smart way to address this issue that protects american jobs. i am very sympathetic to this amendment, paying brazil nearly $12 million a month is not the right way to resolve this issue. and i agree with that. the question -- in fact, america should simply live up to its w.t.o. obligations and insist that others do the same as well. the settlement that's in place today is necessary to prevent brazil from imposing almost $1 billion of new tariffs, new taxes on american products when we try to sell them into brazil. and it's not just agriculture products, as you heard chairman frank lucas talk, he made the point that not only can brazil penalize our ag products, they can tax and tariff a broad range of products, especially

america's innovation economy. so in your state, if you have companies that produce pharmaceuticals, medical devices, business software, technology, anything in the innovation sector of america, your companies and your workers face the loss of jobs and loss of product sales because of this issue. so, the smart way to handle this is to deal with this not only in the farm bill, but at the w.t.o. today, insisting that as we end these cotton subsidies, other countries end their agricultural subsidies as well. that is the smart way to resolve this issue that doesn't hurt america in jobs, in fact protects our american intellectual property rights in brazil and other countries. this is an issue of doing it the a smart way, i oppose this amendment, i urge our colleagues to continue to work together to resolve this issue in a smart way for our economy and a smart

way for our jobs. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from wisconsin. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. mr. kind: mr. chairman. on that i request a recorded vote. the chair: a recorded vote has been requested. pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from wisconsin will be postponed. . mrs. schmidt: my friend from california had an amendment that she did withdraw that wanted to codify into the law the usda rules regarding the school lunch program. and i won't go into the reason why it is the wrong way to go, but also to the fact that usda

was regarding the scrudges of the vegetables to one serving a week which i was shocked. but i wasn't shocked myself that had this reaction, but also the california fruit growers association. it was the national school -- national -- national school board association. it was the council of the great city schools that wrote a letter and that's why and 40 other colleagues wrote to mr. sill vack of the u.s. department of agriculture in reaction to the promulgation of these rules. i would like to enter the testimony i was going to give until she withdrew the amendment, as well as these four letters into the record and i thank you. the chair: the request will be

covered under general leave. and the gentlelady yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan rise? mr. dingell: i have an amendment at the clerk's desk. the chair: the clerk shall report. the clerk: at the end of the bill before the short title insert the following new section, section, the amounts owe wise provided by this act for departmental administration, agricultural buildings and -- mr. dingell: i ask that the reading be dispensed with. the chair: is there objection? so ordered. mr. dingell: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the chair: without objection. mr. dingell: this is a good amendment. at a time when 30 people have been grossly sickened and died in germany and 3,000 have been sickened, we are cutting food and drug's enforcement budget. the legislation would cut the

food safety budget of f.d.a. of $87 million below the fiscal year 211 -- 2011. we are witnessing now one of the deadliest encht coli outbreaks in europe and that infection is spreading across the world. my amendment has the support of centers for public interest and the national women's health network. now, it is time for us to understand, every year in the united statesu ,000 americans are killed from bad food, 1828,000 are hospitalized. 48 million are made sick. we have imported food that are causing difficulty. bat peanuts with salmonella.

food and drug has the resources to do the job from protecting the american people. we are able to inspect less than 1% of the food coming into the united states. this is a positive risk to american consuming public. the situation here is indefensible. the house last year passed major improvements in our food safety laws and we saw to it, we had a funding mechanism which was removed by the senate. but without the adequate funding that this amendment would afford to our people, we will find that they are at risk of serious health dangers from bad food and from sickness that comes from those things. we are here by this amendment

giving food and drug the resources that it needs, some $49 million to see to it these imported foods and other foods are safe. this is extremely important. and while you might say, well, i don't know if it's going to affect me, somebody in this country is going to get sick because bad food came in and because it kills people when that happens. i urge my colleagues to support the amendment. until we can get ourselves in a situation where we have proper and adequate funding for food and drug to see to it that our people are safe from imports which are causing sickness, illness and death to the american people. the budget cuts it in ways which are threatening a piece of legislation which has strengthened food and drug with the support not just of farmers and consumers, but also of the food processing industry, which

rallied around and supported the legislation along with consumer groups and all of the sources and industry, recognizing we desperately need something to be done to assure that our people will not get sick and die from imported. i urge my colleagues to support my amendment, which will adequately support food and drug and see to it our people can sleep easily after they have a full meal, knowing that the food they have consumed is safe. i yield back. the chair: jabt. for what purpose does the gentlelady from wyoming rise? mrs. lummis: i oppose the amendment. the chair: the the gentlewoman from wyoming is recognized.

mrs. lummis: we have heard how ag credit and rural housing have -- had deep cuts in this bill. and yet now, we have an amendment that would cut more from them and would impart those funds on a program that between fiscal year 2004 and the current fiscal year have experienced a net budget authority increase of $2 billion, $121% increase and over the same period, direct appropriations increases of over $1 billion or over 75%. implementation of the food safety modernization act of 2010, would require an additional $1.4 billion in new budget authority. if the president's budget request were adopted, the result would be a 156% increase for

f.d.a. since 2004. this level of spending is unsustainable. while the recommended funding level is 11.5% decrease provided in the 2011 continuing resolution, the subcommittee's overall alation was reduced by 13.4%. hence, this program suffered a smaller reduction than other programs within the budget. once again, with these massive ines -- increases in budget authority and spending indirect appropriations from 2004 and the current fiscal year and given the ag credit and rural housing have taken the types of deep cuts that are referenced in the rest of the bill, mr. chairman, i urge my colleagues to defeat

the amendment and i yield back. the chair: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey rise snr mr. pallone: strike the last word, mr. speaker. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. pallone: i rise in support of the dingell amendment. i listened to what my colleagues have said on the other side of the aisle. the fact of the matter is, it slashes the f.d.a. by $572 billion or 12% below this year. i beg to differ with the gentlewoman that this is not the time to be cutting the f.d.a.'s budget. we have had many scares and many outbreaks and we have had people die and become seriously ill and that's why in the last congress we passed the landmark food

safety act because we wanted to have increased inspection, increased scrutiny imported foods and respond to food-borne illnesses. but when i go home, i hear concern about the quality and safety of our food supply. when people guy groceries, they are very concerned about the quality of the food and whether they are going to get sick. that's why we passed the act. and it's clear we had just recently the e. coli breakout. the nation's food supply is vulnerable and the f.d.a. must be equipped to keep it safe. they have important responsibility to protect the health of the american people. to succeed in that mission, they must ensure the safety of food, but drugs and medical devices

that americans rely on every day. they need to be involved in facilitating scientific innovations that make these products safe, and affordable. i believe that american american competitiveness depends on our ability to innovate. we must fund key agencies that are essential to assisting in the development of new drugs and devices. f.d.a. places a high importance of promoting innovation. they are developing a new innovation initiative to help technologies get to market. let me share something with my colleagues. one of the staff testified recently and assured us that these cuts would prevent such efforts from moving forward. what i'm trying to emphasize is whether you look at it from the point of view from the food supply or from the point of view

from innovation, to make cuts in the f.d.a. budget makes no sense. it is crucial to job creation and people feeling safe about what they eat. and the government has to be responsible for facilitating an environment where americans can innovate. it continues new industries that will produce new jobs at home. if government abandons its role, we run the risk of too many opportunities that lead to great economic benefits. f.d.a. is an underfunded agency. if we don't give them the resources, they cannot support initiatives that save lives, create jobs and these are priorities that congress should embrace. i listened to my colleagues and we have to be concerned about

funding and we have a deficit. we have to figure out what is important. the american people have told us that food safety is a priority. that's why we passed this landmark bill last year and there has to be a significant increase in funds and in this environment even if we are going to keep the food supply safe. if we don't do that's correct a lot of economic activity is going to suffer, including innovation and what we can do to keep this country competitive. i understand what you are saying, but it is important to restore these funds and ip commend my colleague, mr. dingell, for putting forth this amendment. and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from rise? mr. kingston: i move to strike the words. and i stand in opposition of the amendment, but with great admiration for the author of the amendment, but still

disagreement. the previous speaker all tily that usda hash slashed. last year, the funding level was $3.6 billion. this year, it's $3.64 billion. it's a little bit more. it's level funding, but f.d.a. funding has not been slashed and it's important for us to realize that. number two, and let me show you something about the faled funding's history, mr. chairman. if you can see this, this chart actually goes back to 2000 and goes up to 2011, nothing but a climb uphill for the f.d.a. and people are saying, they are slashed, there isn't a dip in this funding chart. very important for us to

realize. now, second point, an f.d.a. hearing, i'm concerned about f.d.a.'s ability to do food safety and take on this big mission and here's why. you hear the figure, a very high number that we are concerned about, but 20% of those illnesses from known pathogens and come from neurovirus. the c.d.v. hhe c. tells us that appropriate hygiene is the appropriate method to promote illnesses. and it's best accomplished by thorough hand washing. . in the budget request there's no mention of neuro virus.

i believe that's relevant. second point, terms of salmonella, the second highest cause of illness is salmonella but under its authority the existing authority before the food safety modernization act was passed by the house, f.d.a. updated its own food safety as respects salmonella and they're saying that according -- this is according to their own press release in july of last year, that as many as 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths due to consumption of eggs contaminated with salmonella may be avoided. that was last year. that was before a new bureaucracy and this bureaucracy by the way over a 10-year period of time will cost $1.4 billion and hire 17,000 new federal employees. the third highest cause of food-borne illnesses is

clostridium. again, in f.d.a.'s 630-page budget request, it was only mentioned once. now, i want to say something else very important. do we believe that mcdonald's and connecticut fried chicken and any brand name that you think of, that these people aren't concerned about food safety? the food supply in america is very safe because the private sector self-polices because they have the highest motivation. they don't want to be sued, they don't want to go broke, they want their customers to be healthy and happy and come back and give them repeat businesses. now, in response to the 2006 e. coli outbreak that happened in california with spinach where three people died and 200 consumers got sickened, the california leafy green products handler marketing agreement was made.

this is a private sector agreement which has been -- which has done already 2,000 farm audits on a voluntary basis, nearly 200 billion servings of let us and spinach and other leafy greens produced under this program have been surveyed. it is a successful private sector initiative and those types of things happen all the time in the private sector. we're blind to it. but here's some numbers from the c.d.c. very important because i think america loves to beat itself up over things all the time. these numbers, mr. chairman, 48 million food-borne illnesses reported a year. 128,000 hospitalizations, 3,000 deaths. those numbers are very high, i'm very concerned about it, that's why we spend a lot of money already on food safety. but i also want to to point out -- want to point out -- the chair: the gentleman's time has expired.

for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> move to strie strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. conaway: i yield as much time as he may consume to my colleague from georgia. mr. kingston: i thank the gentleman. i just want to continue with this, mr. chairman. you have 311 million americans eating three meals a day, that's 933 million meals eaten each day , that's nearly a billion food consumption events in our country, which is over 360 billion meals consumed. if you do the math going back to the 38 million food-borne illsnesses, according to the f.d.a., our food safety rate is 99.99%. now, i want to address the 48 million, but what i also suggest to you that we can spend $45 million more for f.d.a. funding, we can spend $100 million more, we is spend $1 billion more,

but i don't think you can increase this number of 99.99% food safety rate according to the c.d.c. so in these times of very tight budgets, it's very important to keep these facts in mind. i'm going to close with this statement by the democrat secretary of agriculture, tom vilsack, and this was as of yesterday. he said, with reasonable confidence that the u.s. consumers won't be faced with the same sort of e. coli outbreak now plaguing germany and he goes on and explains why with the current food safety laws in place and the current food safety funding. and with that i yield back. mr. conaway: i yield back as well. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? >> strike the last word.

the chair: the gentleman voiced for five minutes. >> thank you very much. i yield as much time as she shall consume to the chairman, mr. dingell. mr. dingell: i want to thank my colleagues on the appropriations committee on both sides and their extraordinary staffs for their courtesy to me as we have gone on through this legislation and through the discussion of this amendment. i listen to my republican colleagues tell us how great we're doing. my good friend for whom i have enormous fondness presents us with a bunch of pictures of food. looks great. and maybe it's safe and maybe it's not. and he's got a bunch of numbers and he says it's 99.99% safe, that sounds wonderful. but what are the real facts? all right, the real facts are that at the time that this cut is going into place on food and drug's budget, 3,300 people have been sickened in germany with a

particularly dangerous form of e. coli. 30 people are dead. it is spreading across the german borders into other countries. now, how are we doing over here? well, first of all, food and drug has been starved of resources for years and has not been able to provide the necessary protection to the american people from imported food which is coming in and frankly sickening people. now, what is the situation? salmonella in peanuts, bad mushrooms from china, e. coli in peppers coming in from mexico, dairy products kills kids, kills babies and it causes all manner of health risks and dangers. bad pharmaceuticals coming in, we haven't been able to get a hold of that problem yet but i'm going to try to get a bill that will address that. and we'll try to see to it that we get a fee system that will enable us to not have to quarrel

about these moneys on the house throor. but in this country, let's look. if this is going so well and the secretary ofing a culingt is so right and my dear -- secretary of agriculture is so right and my depeer friend from georgia is correct, then we don't have anything to worry about. what are you going to tell the 3,000 people who have been killed in this country by bad food every single year. and 128,000 of them are sick enough that they have to go to the hospital. but on top of that 48 million people get sick. there is no way on god's green earth with the budget that food and drug has that they can properly and adequately protect american foods and protect the american people from the dangers of bad imported food. china is a wild west, the stuff that they're supporting -- exporting to the united states, very frankly, i'm not sure i'd

feed my hogs. now, having said these things, it's time for us to stand up to the problem and say, ok, we're going to spend the money that's necessary to keep people safe. we're talking about $49 million here. a lot of money. but how much do you think it takes to bury 3,000 americans? or how much does it cost to take care of 128,000 people that are hospitalized every year because of this? or 48 million people who get sick? and mothers who lose babies and -- because of bad milk and things of that kind and that comes in from china where they put milmede in it to up the fictitious level of nitrogen and protein. so, i beg you, let us do what is necessary to see to it food and drug has the funds that they need to do the job, to protect

the american people. i thank my good friend for yielding to me. >> i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from michigan. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. mr. dingell: on that, mr. chairman, i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from michigan will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from utah rise? >> mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: will the gentleman specify the number of the amendment. >> number 13. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment. will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 13 printed in the congressional record offered by mr. chaffetz of utah. the chair: the gentleman from utah is recognized for five minutes. mr. chaffetz: thank you. mr. chairman, this is a simple amendment to limit the subsidies

for mohair. it is something that back in world war ii we needed for our military uniforms. problem is, we haven't used mohair in our military uniforms since the korean war and yet the subsidies still continue. so this is a commonsense amendment to simply limit this. this is roughly $1 million a year to something that congress has previously eliminated. it crept back in and this limitation amendment that i offer i would urge my colleagues to vote for. my understanding is there's no opposition on either side of the aisle and with that understanding i'll yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. mr. kingston: i support the amendment and yield back. the chair: the question son amendment offered by the gentleman from utah -- the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from utah. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. and the amendment is agreed to. for what purpose does the gentleman from utah rise?

mr. chaffetz: mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk designated at number 14. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 14 printed in the congressional record offered by mr. chaffetz of utah. the chair: the gentleman from utah is recognized for five minutes. mr. chaffetz: thank you. i would hope this body would take this amendment with the same pace that we did the mohair subsidies but perhaps not. this amendment here seeks to elimb nat the cotton and peanut storage -- eliminate the cotton and peanut storage payments we have been making. i would point out to my colleagues that president obama recommended terminating this program in its fiscal 2012 budget. no other agriculture commodities receive this type of assistance. i'd like to read a paragraph that's found on the whitehouse.gov website. the credits allow producers to store their cotton and peanuts at the government's cost null nlrb prices rise. therefore storage credits have a negative impact on the amount of commodities in the market.

because storage is covered by the government, producers may store their commodities for longer than necessary. there is no reason the government should be paying for the storage of cotton or peanuts, particularly since it does not provide this assistance for any other commodity. end quote. that is the quote from the website. i happen to concur with the president on this. i hope my colleagues find this to be a commonsense amendment, to say we should not be specifying winners and losers in this particular case. we're going to offer a storage credit for just cotton and just peanuts. it's something that i think should be elimb astronauted. i'd hope the body would -- eliminated. i'd hope the body would concur. we're going to have to make changes to the way we do things. this is one instance in which i agree with the president. i'm proud to stand in support of that and would urge my colleagues to support this amendment and i'll yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? >> i move to strike the last

word. thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment -- the chair: the gentleman will suspend. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> i rise in opposition to the amendment, to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for five minutes. >> i thank the chair. mr. chairman, i rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment, to eliminate storage and handling payments for cotton and peanuts. i represent a lot of producers of these commodities and i guess it makes me a little bit more sensitive to why storage and handling is an important part of our agricultural policy and why this amendment could have potentially devastating impacts if allowed to become law. i believe it's in the best interest of our country to support domestic agriculture, if you think our reliance on foreign oil is a nightmare, imagine what it would be like if we had to rely thatch on foreign sources of food and fiber. for that reason, it's been the policy of the congress for decades to provide a safety net to help protect domestic farmers where prices are low and world

markets are unfavorable. mr. barrow: if you represent farm country or if you've ever worked on a farm bill, you have some idea of what a delicate balance it can be to use the different tools at our disposal to craft a law that meets the needs of farmers and consumers. different commodities have different economies. prices sometimes swing wildly. sometimes even biological differences need to be accounted for. for example, if peanuts are not stored correctly, they can develop toxicity that renders them useless and dangerous to the consumer. storage and handling assistance has been developed as an efficient policy for peanuts because it not only gives the farmer some latitude about is m the ag committee back in 2008 when we crafted the last farm bill. it has been the law of the land and continues to be until next year. this amendment, creates uncertainty for those farmers and threatens their jobs and

threatens the domestic production. it is bad policy and i urge my coligse to reject it. and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. conaway: i oppose the amendment. this amendment does not save one nickel in fiscal 2012. it is a bit theater. peanuts and cotton and have different circumstances and the storage is only paid if the prices drops below their loan rate. c.b.o. does not estimate for it to happen in the next decade. it is below where the current prices are and the producers pay for the stoverage costs as the products are moved to market. this amendment will cost more to debate than it will save for the

taxpayers. on it is a part of the safety net. and you have heard this over and over tonight, the ag committee is the best suited to develop a proper safety net and ag policy for this country. and we ought to stand by the ag policy once it is put in place. we put it in 2008. many tradeoffs were made between commodity trade programs and have the exact same conversations. the farm bill will come to the floor. and those who disagree will have a.m. will opportunity to come to this floor and make these arguments once again. but to to do this is wrong-headed. the ag work will get it done. the 2008 farm bill was put in place. bankers across this country have looked at that as a deal.

most folks in the business world don't back up on a deal if we don't have to. it does not cost the taxpayers money and c.b.o. estimates that the near term, the prices will not drop below 18 crepts for peanuts or 52 cents for cotton. i disagree to alter the farm bill and i would ask my colleagues to oppose the amendment and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from utah. >> mr. chairman, i ask to strike the last word. chirmente for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? >> i would like to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. >> this amendment is

ill-advised. storage and happened willing fees are an integral part of the program. on it will strike against the growers and farmers. the current marketing loan rate is $5355 per ton. there is no increase since the 2002 farm bill. with the new farm bill expected to take place next year is unfair for the program to change dramatically in the 2008 farm bill. peanut growers change their program from a supply management program in 2002 to a market and loan program. we eliminated the old quota system. this included a price reduction from $610 per ton to $355 per ton. the growers will lose even more as they suffer a reduction due

to the elimination of the storage and handling fees. peanuts are a semi-perishable commodity. it is economically unfiles i believe for the producers to store peanuts on the farm. peanuts need a controlled envoorment. pea require intense management which the farmers do not have the skills to do. to go from a loan price to a three loan price. elimination of the storage and handling program could certainly impact food safety. the safety of the product.

now, the sellers basically controls 75% of the peanuts after the peanuts leave the farmers' control. since the peanuts are semi-perishable and due to the high concentration of the shelling industry, farmers are at the mercy. sellers could possibly force the farmer to accept a lower price that will cover the storage and handling costs. the farmer then has no alternative in selling the peanuts. that eliminates the competitive edge. this could effectively lower the loan rate to producers, as i said, by $50 a ton. the storage and handling program was effectively been a no-net cost program to the government. thus, the elimination of it will not help to reduce the federal

deficit. again, we are here about to pull the rug out from under farmers who have relied upon what this congress and what this government has done in setting farm policies startings in 2008 to 2012. why we would come to this point and pull the rug out from under them, upset all of the plans. many times they have made loans, have had to purchase equipment and the equipment that was required for southeast peanut growers are varied. we have a broad portfolio, unlike the midwest. we grow multiple crops. from virginia all the way to texas, you will find that farmers will grow corn, grain, peanuts, soy beans and they will

grow cannot sonon. each of those commodities will require different equipment. and the combines costs from $250,000 to $300,000. other equipment for peanuts for grain, 150,000, $5,000. this is going to undermine the bottom line and going to remove the competitive edge tcha american he peanut growers have and will underestimate our ability. so this is very ill advised and undermine american agriculture and lessen our food security and that is the last thing that we need to do because we are

already energy insecure. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from utah. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? -- the gentlelady from texas rise, i apologize. the clerk will designate. the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: amendment offered by the gentlelady from texas, insert the following, reducing the amount available for agricultural buildings by $13 million and increasing the

amount available made available for the office of secretary by $5 million. the chair: the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes. ms. jackson lee: i thank the chairman and i thank the agricultural committee for this very long evening and as well, the ranking member along with the chairman. this is a simple amendment about food and about helping more americans get healthy food. there's not one of us that does not understand how dry and difficult a desert is. this amendment is simply about food desert about rural and urban areas. this provides a $5 million increase to the office the secretary to allow assistance to provide relief to those who are uffering from the lack of --

suffering from the lack of food quality. this is a healthy child, we would hope. that healthy child needs to have good food. this would increase the availability of healthy food in urban and rural communities through grocery stores and other healthy food retailers. fast food restaurants and convenience stores line the blocks of low-income neighborhoods offering few options. in rural areas, there may be no access. this impacts african america communities and hispanic and rural communities. this climate requires us to be able to allow families to have access to good food. we have the issues of obesity and as well, nutrition. food deserts impact many districts and i will say to you

texas in particular has fewer grocery stores per capita than any other state. 32% of all children in texas face a nutrition issue. targeting assistance to food dizz earth areas will provide healthy food to affected areas, open new areas for farmers. farmers markets are a good idea. the farmers markets are difficult to find in our community. and again, let me emphasize, this is about rural and urban areas. this initiative will provide for the ability of healthy food alternatives to 23 million people living in food deserts. these families that we care for, families, young families of the military, many of you have heard stories where families are on food stamps and they live beyond

their bases and many are back home. this amendment which will provide an $8 million gift back to the government will give $5 million to provide the opportunity for those food deserts loopholes if you will, where there are big gaps to access to food and urban areas, to have access to the opportunity for good and healthy food. with that, i yield back my time and ask my colleagues to support the jackson lee amendment that addresses the question of those addressing those who need healthy food. the chair: the gentlelady yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. kingston: i rise to oppose the amendment and move to strike the last word. and my good friend from texas

has worked diligently to find something to work out with this as i had indicated to her last night, we are trying to work on some alternatives and find a way to do it. just in the last 30 minutes i have gotten from g.a.o. that says you could cut out $30 million from this program and that it would not affect the potential of it. so right now, what i'll do and my friend from col california is rising and let me yield to you. mr. farr: i move to strike the last word. mr. kingston: you have four minutes minutes from me. mr. farr: mr. chairman, thank you. ive concerns where the money is coming from.

but i think the purpose is here, should be funded. you know, we have this whole initiative and some of it has been attacked tonight about trying to get healthy foods grown by american farmers to people in areas that are -- called food deserts as the gentlelady from texas pointed out, that there are places -- there isn't a grocery store. think of a 7-eleven and those are the kind of grocery stores. and so what this initiative is all about and it's the president's initiative is, too, is trying to get food -- it's an educational process. i think the hardest cultural -- this is what i learned from other cultures, hardest thing is to get people to change their

eating habits. we all know that struggle when we go on a diet. . it takes a lot of education and support but it also takes the need to have access to it. you need to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. they can either come to you at a farmers market or you can go to them. but if you have neither a farmers market and there's nothing to go to, you have no option and that's what this amendment is about, is getting some money into the program that will be able to outreach in getting good nutritious food to families who most need it, who without that have a good chance of not growing up healthy, high incidence of obesity, high incidence of diabetes, a high risk issues that cost a lot of money for the taxpayers when they have to go on dialysis or have to be under treat -- treatment. so we have spent many years here in the committee, and the chairman knows it very well, of

looking how do we prevent this from happening, when the choices are there. this is a preventable -- these are preventable diseases and preventable ill health situations. but we've got to reach out and do it and that's what this amendment does and i think it deserves support. mr. kingston: if i could -- i wanted to read this quote, it says the committee may wish to consider reducing the request for this initiative for f.y. 2012 by $45 million until the effectiveness of these demonstration projects have been established. and i want to say to my friend from texas, we had some talk around the but not directly addressing it, not direct hearings, but i do remember the gentleman from california -- and i think my friend might remember that the safeway i believe in washington, d.c., has some sort

of grant to operate in an area that was considered a food desert and i believe that that is one of the most profitable safeways there is. do either of you have recollection of that? >> thank you for -- i have a recollection -- mr. kingston: i do not yield. do you remember that, mr. farr? was that not about food deserts? mr. farr: yes, it was. but it's also, you remember ms. kaptur's amendment in our committee of trying to subsidize farmers markets to go into high risk areas to get it started so that it does develop a market approach and can be sustainable, but we reach out and do those kinds of things. mr. kingston: let me reclaim a little bit. g.a.o.s a reported that a variety of approaches including access to targeted foods have

the potential to increase the consumption of targeted foods that could contribute to a healthy diet but little is known about the effectiveness of these approaches and so i think what i would like to do, mr. chairman, is continue to oppose this, but knowing my good friend from texas and from california, we'll keep this as a priority, we'll talk about this, you know, the hour's late. the gentlewoman's been working on this for a long time. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. kingston: i need more focus on it before i can accept it. i yield back. the chair: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the gentleman will suspend. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. farr: strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. farr: i yield whatever time she may consume to the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee. ms. jackson lee: first of all, let me thank mr. farr and prosecute king -- and mr. kingston. i hope my friend from georgia can see in his heart that this

is a very small micros could much for a very large issue -- microcosm for a very large issue and that is that food deserts do exist. and the families that are impacted, family members from the united states military to the very youngest child, i have been fiscally responsible if that is the case to narrow this very well and i have no quarrel with individuals engaging in marketing outreach but i'm talking about hard to serve areas that include urban and rural areas where there are no chains to engage -- food chains to engage in any ben ev lent assistance. i'm also suggesting to you that if you look at the landscape of districts across the nation, just take, for example, my district is number 32 in regards to food insecurity. but there are 31 above me. the people have limited access to food.

i enjoy the point that mr. farr made about ms. kaptur's farmers market. this will infuse energy into the farmers market, this will create jobs for a limited amount of pilot resources. this is the right thing to do. this is to take a great land like america and say, we want everybody to minimally have the access to good, healthy nutritious food. so i would ask for the humanitarian consideration of my friends on the other side of the aisle. i thank the gentleman from california for his instructiveness and the work of the members of this appropriations committee and i ask my colleagues to support this amendment. the jackson lee amendment. it fills the gaping hole of the lack of food by providing resources to cure the problem of food deserts. and i yield back. the chair: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. mr. farr: i yield back, mr. chairman. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from

texas. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. this amendment is not agreed to. ms. jackson lee: i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: pursuant to clause 6 ever rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from texas will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will report the amendment. will designate the amendment. the clerk: number 23. amendment number 23 printed in the congressional record offered by mr. gibson of new york. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. gibson: thanks, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, over 50 congressional districts across our country have at least 10% of their population without high speed -- without access to high

speed broadband. my district is one of these over 50 districts. this is a significant impediment to job creation. we have farmers without access to the high speed broadband, we have many small businesses in our district, including bed and breakfasts which impact our tourism. without that access. this amendment helps address that situation. now, the underlying bill zeros out the loan program for rural broadband. this is down from $22.3 million that we just closed out a few months ago for f.y. 2011. and with the healthy respect for the leadership of the agricultural appropriations subcommittee, i think this is a mistake. i know that there have been issues with this program in the past. i have read the i.g. report. i will also say that my understanding is the administration has made progress.

since the publishing of that report. one of the things that have been said about this program is it has not been able to address the significant volume of requests and i think it's important to note that in march, 2011, they cleared the backlog of all the applications for the program and in fact there's now up to $100 million in new loan applications, showing the interest in this program. another criticism has been that this program is duplicative and that in fact that you can apply under telemedicine for rural areas and i will tell you that we have tried that in our district. with no success. and this program that i am offering amendment today, for $6 million, a loan program, fully offset, is the only program exclusively dedicated to rural broadband. and this program, this amendment, $6 million can give us access to over and support

over $100 million in loan applications. mr. chairman, this amendment will help create jobs and it will help our farmers with profitability. of course i'm biased. but i believe we've got the smartest, the hardest working farmers in the world. their issue is profitability and this amendment will help. and the c.b.o., the c.b.o. assesses this amendment as neutral and it says that it will reduce outlays by $2 million in 2012. let me say that again. c.b.o. says this amendment will reduce outlays by $2 million in 2012. and so how do we offset this? how do we provide access for farmers and small businesses, access to a loan program? we cut the federal bureaucracy, $6 million in office rental payments. now the usda is blessed with some of the most significant office space among all the federal bureaucracy and in addition to what they have here in the district.

in maryland there is additional office space of which they possess. so on top of all that there's $151 million in this appropriations bill for rental of office space, including right here on m street in washington, d.c. this is a good pay-for to give access to our farmers so that they can have access to rural broadband. to all my colleagues, i say this is a good amendment. the only amendment that provides exclusive rural broadband access. it's supported by the american farm bureau, it's supported by the new york state farm bureau and numerous chambers of commerce in my district. i urge my colleagues to support the amendment and i'd like to yield the balance of my time to my good friend and colleague from arizona, mr. gosar. mr. gosar: i'd like to thank the gentleman for yielding the time and i thank the chair. i rise in support of the -- the chair: the gentleman will suspend. the gentleman from new york must remain on his feet. the gentleman will continue. mr. gosar: i rise in support of the amendment proposed by mr.

gibson and mr. owens'. as i think it is exactly what the american people want us to do here in washington. the people expect us to be responsible with their tax money. the people have made it clear, more than clear, that the federal government is too big. our job is to look for waste, inefficiencies and bloat. the gibson-owens amendment has found such blode and seeks to remedy it. there's no doubt that the usda does good work and that the agency should have suitable workspace to conduct its work. indeed as mr. gibson has pointed out, the usda has three million square feet of prime office space on the national mall in a beautiful building that contributes to the architectural beauty of the nation's capitol. to learn that the usda also has a campus in maryland that occupies 45 acres of land is itself concerning. with all that office space currently available to the usda in the washington area and an additional 1 -- $151 million to rent office space elsewhere, why does the usda want to rent more

office space in d.c.? the people of this country will not begrudge an architecturaly distinguished office for the nation's capitol but a luxurious high rent office in addition is too much. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. kingston: i oppose the amendment and move to strike the last word. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. kingston: i want to say to the gentleman from arizona, if i have time left over i'll yield you some but you can yield five minutes if you want. mr. chairman, i oppose this. i want to start out by saying that the committee's taken a really close look at this over the years and i wish could you see from where you're sitting better the saturation level of broadband access in the united states of america. that's in the blue. as you can see, the entire country is mostly blue according to this. but i would not want your eyes to just strain from there so i can give you some numbers here.

new jersey, 100% penetration. florida, 99.9% penetration. new york, 99.8%. georgia, 99.4%. arizona, 98.2%. and i can submit this for the record, but this program is not necessary. and in a time when we're talking about saving money, we do not need to increase this account. the process is burdensome, we get lots of complaints of people who have had applications, pending for a long time, and they can't get it answered. can't get their questions answered, or they get approved but can't get the money. the eligibility is too broad. and in many areas it competes with private sector broadband service. now, the i.g. report had a number of things that they found. they found that this rural

broadband program granted loans of $103 million to 64 communities near large cities including $45 million loans to 19 suburban subdivisions within a few miles of houston, texas. that's hardly the intent of the program. the i.g. report also found out that they were competing with pre-existing broadband access in many places and found that 159 of the 240 communities associated with the loan, that 66% already had service. .66% already had service. now, there was criticism and the president said and the i.g. took a look at that eight out of the

14 had actions taken on them. 34 of the 37 applications for providers were in areas where there was already private operators offering service, 34 out of 37. when our committee took a look at this, we felt the program needed changing and did not need new money. so i must respectfully disagree with my good friends who are offering this and stand in opposition with the amendment. i yield to my freend from arizona. mr. gosar: i would like to disagree and that is, as i served a vast part of arizona, 60% of arizona which is severed by numerous amount of native american tribes and trying to get broadband service and this is the funding we want to direct

to the appropriate place and the native americans are exactly the place this can go. this is economic development they need and they are in the process to get that and trying to build that infrastructure and that is where that fund can be. and i yield to mr. gibson. gibgib i thank the -- mr. gibbs: i thank the the gentleman from arizona. there is significant need for expanding broadband. we have over 60 districts that have 10% of their population that aren't in the high-speed broadband and i want to remind my colleagues. this reduces by $2 million in 012. this program should not be zer oed out and we should have we should accept this amendment and

urge my colleagues to accept this amendment to continue to make progress with broadband and i yield back. the chair: does the the gentleman from georgia yield back? king kings -- mr. kingston: yield back. mrs. lummis: move to strike the requisite number of words. respectfully, my chairman and i disagree on this issue. i raised this in the committee on appropriations and his superior abilities to convince the subcommittee prevailed. but i weigh in on the side of mr. gibson and mr. gosar and let me tell you why. the committee chairman has it correct insofar as it gives you numbers on broadband access that

will allow you a speed of receiving service that is so slow that it is basically 20th century rather than 21st century communication. under the spode of the numbers that the gentleman from georgia has derived cover this 99, 98% coverage, it would take you nine hours to download a movie. who's going to do that? in this digital world, the kinds of data that needs to be -- in order to have the type of broadband access that my colleague from arizona would like the native americans would like to have would require a

much faster broadband service. and it is consistent with having a robust community that has real broadband service, my state is at the rock bottom, less than half of the people in my state have the kind of robust service that is typical of urban areas. the same could be said to my colleague from arizona where native americans so desperately need the opportunity to market products ofe the net. i encourage my poll situation to support mr. gibson and mr. gosar and i rise in support of their amendment. and i would yield to the gentlelady from ohio. ms. kaptur: would she find the present time to enter into a

discussion on this amendment at this point? mrs. lummis: i would skeent. the chair: the gentlelady is recognized. mrs. lummis: i would like to discuss the issue of the stock yards and the gipsa rule and i yield to my colleague from ohio. ms. kaptur: while i will not offer an amendment to section 721, a legislative legislation that prevents the u.s. department of agriculture of doing is job as instructed in the farm bill relative to fair come pgs, i rise in strong opposition to the language that is in the bill and when the authorizing committee wrote the farm bill, usda used the packers and stock yards act to restore

fairness to the markets but instead allowing the agency to do its job, congress in an unevened handed way has allowed itself to be captured by the meet industry. while they are being squeezed out of the markets, large consolidated players manipulate the rules to favor their operations and congress can't stand by silent. on behalf of the farmers, ranchers and who struggle every day as they face the task, i oppose the base language in 721 and i would like to place two statements in the record, a letter from the american farm bureau opposing section 721 and letter from over 140 rgses supporting the proposal.

the meat pack rs are scaring members with millions in campaign donations. and attempting to win on the merits of the argument, the national cattlemen's beef association, which has the right to speek out, sent out a national nlts to its members to harass the american farm bureau. this isn't the nature of well-meaning debate. i urge my colleagues to resist the misinformation and stand strong for independent producers and family farmers and ranchers. section 721 of the base bill goes further. it will stop usda from conducting a analysis of its industry. the chair: the gentlelady's request will be covered by

general leave. ms. kaptur: is it possible to gain additional time? the chair: for what purpose does gentleman rise? >> i move to strike the requisite words. mr. king: i yield to the gentlelady. ms. kaptur: i thank the gentleman. the current proposal will silence the nearly 60,000 comments on the rule because it will prevent usda from reading the record and finally it will undermine long fairness for millions of faurmers, ranchers and producers by allowing it to remain in the bill. the house is standing with the few big meat packers and against the ma thousands and thousands of producers. to understand how illogical, i refer the house to the committee

report where the committee directed the ump sd arch to issue documents and before the house began consideration of this bill. on its face the agency has complied with something before the house kfered the bill. is this proper? furthermore, i would note that section 721 were to be implemented. , the agency would not comply. if there ever was a time that the appropriations committee has overstepped its bounds this is it. this committee presented usda from implementing a provision of law. it was the same consolidated meat-packing industry, crime from the raft ters with claims which was behind the meat labeling cool delay. we have returned to the dark days recycling the same talking points. it took us eight years and we

have the right to see where our meat comes from where the people wanted. on behalf of farmers, ranchers, i pledge to continue this fight and continue eight years of delay. let it do its job and i yield my time to the gentleman and gentlelady and i thank them for their consideration. mr. king: i thank gentlelady for their attention to this matter and for standing in the best interests. and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from new york. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the ping of the air chair, the ayes have it and the amendment is agreed to. the gentleman from georgia. mr. kingston: i ask for a recorded vote.

the chair: further proceedings will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 3 printed in the congressional record offered by mr. blumenauer of oregon. mr. blumenauer: these are challengeing and difficult economic times. but unfortunately, there really are alternatives to slashing environmental payments and support in the farm bill. there is an alternative to reform and modernize. the last farm bill pretended to start limitations in payments, but exempted from the modest limitations in some areas where market loan payments and commodity certificates, not capped. this means that entities can

rift title will 1 dollars under the current law. mr. chairman, it's important for us as we are dealing with trying to reduce the strain on the federal budget to do so in a way that is strategic. the amendment i propose would establish $125,000 payment limitation in total. now this will save 2/3 of $1 billion. bear in mind that in we are now cutting existing environmental contracts if this bill came forward. there are still the majority of farmers and ranchers in this country still receive nothing. 62% receive nothing. in my state of oregon, it's 87% of the farmers and ranchers. it's time to start with modest restriction on government

subsidies. there are a wide range of areas in this budget as its working its way through the house. we are going to see dramatic reductions, almost a third in transportation. we slashed $1 billion from water and sewer programs. at a time of record my farm commodity prices, this would be a time to place this modest limitation. there is actually a question of whether or not some of these payments even go to farmers at all. in 2009, some of the entities that receive title one handouts, fidelity national title institute received over $4.85 million. almost $3 million went to a