"newsmakers" with senator stabenow. later arizona's senator jeff blake delivers his first formal address from the floor of the >> we want to welcome to "newsmakers" senator debbie stabenow. >> it is good to be with you. >> we have two reporters with us. one writes for the national journal. neil covers the senate for roll call. the senate is working on a farm bill in the house as well. why is when needed? >> we are blessed with the most affordable food supply in the world. we have a group of people that go every day and their whole business is dependent on being able to get there all the different weather conditions.

they do an amazing job. we have a stake in that. part of what a farm bill does is create risk management tools. for example, insurance. if that farmer who is banking on being able to get that corn or wheat or soy beans in the ground and it is late because of the rain or drought or some combination or problems overseas with markets, we help them be able to manage their risk to be able to stay in business. we have the safest area. we have a stake in that in a stake with giving them to manage our water and soil resources. we have the largest investment in conservation on lands owned by somebody in this country, the majority of land. that is through the farm bill. we have a stake in making sure

we do not have pesticide runoff. all kinds of issues. we want wildlife habitats and the ability for our friends who like to duck hunt and pheasant hunt or be out in open spaces to be able to enjoy that. we all have a stake in that. we have a stake in making sure we have healthy foods available for children in school, for families that when someone has something happen in their family, a disaster, they have some support putting food on the table for their family. >> if i can continue on the farm bill. the senate is on track to pass it bill monday evening next week. we are seeing the house may be taking up a bill. these are really falling apart.

i am wondering, the house did not even pass a bill. if the house can get together and chairman frank can muster of the vote needed to get a bill through, is there any hope of reconciling the differences between the two? >> i am confident we can do that. i have a great relationship with senator cochran. we have developed a great relationship in putting this together. we all have the same fundamental feeling about what is needed to support ranchers and new jobs and energy and bio energy and biomass manufacturing and all the other areas. once you get outside the big

cities in america, every community uses usda rural development to finance what they do. water, sewer, roads, small business loans, housing, so on. this is the economic arm for rural america. we have a number of areas where we are very different. in conservation, the house and the senate came together and they have a pretty common conservation title, especially crops. crop insurance, we have a number of areas where it is pretty close if not almost identical. there we have differences in the commodity title. it is closely to where the house is. then the big debate which becomes a political debate is

around nutrition and how much we make sure that there is a safety net for families that have temporary disasters in their life. >> you have mentioned food stamps. it is said the biggest difference will be over the amount of cut to food stamps. your cut is very small, only $4 billion out of a program that will probably cost over 700 billion over 10 years. the houses talking about a cut of 20.5 billion dollars. there's a lot of pressure to do it bigger. some are saying the the only way this will be resolved is if harry reid, speaker john boehner, and president obama get involved. do you think that will be necessary? how do you see this playing out?

>> i am confident we can come together. from the senate perspective, we have not cut any thing in terms of what families need who need temporary help on nutrition programs. we do not cut any standard benefits for people who really need it. i want to work with my colleagues on the way to save money. the way we are saving money is by dealing with waste, fraud, abuse situations. one area we have been able to get savings is in a misuse of our program that has been happening. to look at those areas that create more accountability, that strengthen parts of the bill. this is a common thread in terms

of a safety net program in the farm bill. with the farmer it is crop insurance. they get help when they have a disaster. in the house bill that would eliminate true millions of people from getting the help that they need during a temporary disaster. i really believe we can come together and find common ground. >> you do not believe it is necessary for them to step in? >> i do not object to the issue. we work on the dynamic to see how that works. i really do believe that if we reject i understand that this is temporary. the average family is getting help for about 10 months. even the recession we have been through, things are getting better. i can remember when michigan had the highest unemployment rate in

the country back in 2009. a lot of people who pay taxes their whole lives never thought they would need help putting food on the table. they were mortified that they needed help. they did. i am glad it was there for them. that is the best of our american values. >> one of the things that often comes up in these debates is a substantial budget savings. when leaders get involved, it is often because they want to use the budget savings created. there is a disagreement right now on how to pay for keeping student interest rates from going up. is there any possibility you can see that the farm bill could be paired with something that is unrelated to the farm bill because you have a budget savings?

>> i am so glad you raised the budget savings. thank you. that is one of the things we are proudest of. it is possible that could happen. let me also stressed that under the across the cut that people call sequester, for agriculture would be about $6 billion. we have come up with 24. we are going to do everything we can to be fiscally responsible for taxpayers so we can say there is accountability here. there is savings. what we're putting forward will work for farmers and families and ranchers and so on. it is awful fiscally responsible. every single budget did what we

did we would have a balanced budget. >> one of the top recipients of cross subsidies was the world's largest miller and marketer of rise got between 1995-2012, $554 million in subsidies. they had a profit of $1.16 billion. is that appropriate? is that the kind of thing we will see if a farm bill like yours is passed? >> we are no longer providing those subsidies. our bill eliminates direct payments. i assume that is what they are talking about in this article. i am not sure.

right now, farmers or ranchers or those that are involved in owning property can get a payment just for growing rice or peanuts or wheat if the prices are high. they still get a payment which makes no sense. we eliminate that. we will help farmers of board crop insurance, but they are not getting a subsidy. and they are getting a for the crop insurance. they do not get any payout and lest there is a problem. i agree. the other thing i would say is some of those folks, i do not know the individual circumstance. they may be in a situation that we are cutting in half the cap on payments that can be received. the payment limit is being cut in half more to an individual farmer can receive. someone has to be absolutely engaged in the farm to get any kind of payment.

you can no longer sit in an office or wall street or detroit and get in a payment when you're are not actively engaged in the farm. it is really important we keep those and as it goes through the house. >> does that mean corporations will not get the subsidies? >> the farmer gets crop insurance. the corporation would somehow have to be running an operation and have a loss. i do not know exactly the structure. they would not do something now were all kinds of people get payments that cannot be justified. we are changing that in this bill. >> this past week you put out a press release saying you had concerns about the proposed sale

of smithville foods to be chinese. you did not exactly what you're concerns were or what you might do about it. i am wondering if you see a role for the senate agriculture committee in this debate over whether the government should approve this sale. do you see this as a kind of land grab by goes on in the third world when some rich countries and buy some land in africa to provide food for their people? are you worried about american consumers? >> this raises a whole range of questions i have. this is the largest sale of a company in the united states to a chinese state owned enterprise. i am concerned in a number of ways about this from a food safety standpoint. they have a very spotty track record.

they have given banned chemicals to their hogs. there have been stories about hogs that were dumped in the river in china. they were diseased. this came from the same company. we have spent 20 years of innovation and hard work, put the public-sector jerk finding it, that is one of my questions. how much have we put into funding technologies used broadly by the pork producers in the agricultural industry that has allowed us to be leaders in the world? we have now a company coming in that will give all that american ingenuity to taxpayers. they are purchasing that. the question is this opens up more broadly a market for us.

pork producers are dependent upon exports. i totally understand that. my concern is our biggest export market in the u.s. is japan, right next door to china. what happens when you have the chinese company now owning, do we know that they will always be exporting from america? are they going to be exporting from china and our pork producers lose their largest market, japan? i have a number of questions. one of the areas we are pursuing under the treasury department, there is a group that looks at national security concerns of any kind of a purchased by foreign company. i want to know, is usda going to have a presence there? are they going to look to the fda?

what about the u.s. national security? >> in terms of the process? >> exactly. right now, they have been pretty narrow in terms of military security. we all say food security is national security. is that process going to allow for a broader review of what security is in our country? we want to ask that, urging them to have usda and fda involved in the process. there are a lot of questions. i have not said i am opposed but i have a lots of questions concerns. short-term it may sound great. 10 years down the road, what does this mean for our pork producers? what does it mean for food safety? what are the implications going forward?

this is the one area where we have a trade surplus, we are exporting more than we are importing. we have to be thoughtful. >> does the agricultural committee have a role? >> we still can hold meetings and we may. we're going to write letters. we're putting together a list of questions that we're going to to ask those involved to answer. i think it is our job to raise those questions on behalf of the public and get as many answers as we can. we are in the middle now of a 30 day process where other companies can bid to purchase the fields. frankly, i would encourage someone else, an american company, to bid.

we want this company to do well. we want them to continue employing people. we should also consider the jobs. it is very important. i do think that there are things we need to think about in a global economy. if we look at the strength of our country and the fundamentals and food security, that will be listed right up there. see, we do not go to war because of shortages of food here it we are in a different situation. we are feeding the world. it is incredibly important that we understand the significance of that. >> is the legislation needed on that front, food security? >> there are food safety laws. there are other areas that pertain to that. we will take a look at it and what that means. it is important that we get food security into the review process. that is one of the questions i have.

when you're looking at national security, what is national security? are they really looking at food safety, food access? i think it is. >> one of your colleagues, chuck grassley, a republican from iowa who was a longtime member of the agricultural committee and sits on the finance committee with you, he raised the question not only of the review process but if there is a possible antitrust consideration that should be reviewed as part of this matter because of the size of the firm. >> senator grassley is a very thoughtful member of the senate. he is someone i consider an ally on many things. i think the comments he made about the potential purchase were very important.

i share his concern. antitrust is part of that. one of the challenges for us is that if we were to look at one of the american countries there's also issues and antitrust. there are so few pork processing operations. because of the consolidation of the industry, there are a number his voice is very important and he raises thoughtful and important questions. >> to raise another issue, this is very much in the news these days. that is genetically modified foods. the fact that there were these genetically modified wheat land found growing wild in oregon. you had an exchange with senator merkley on the floor of the senate.

you made him a promise that you would oppose any legislation that would say the genetically modified plants would be grown up they had not been questioned by the court. can you talk about why that came up? >> for me it is about process. he was concerned that something not be stuck in the bill with out an open hearing and debates. he and i may not be exactly on the same place overall on the issue, but i totally agree with him when it comes to the question of the process. i am not going to support adding something that would usurp a court decision without a full and open debate. that is really what that is about. i think what is important, there are so many pieces around this

that are important, one thing that is important to continue to stress is that from a consumer choice standpoint our farm bill by expanding on organic production and research and allowing them to do marketing programs and so on, and all the range of things we're doing with organics, it is about consumer choice. i am all about consumer choice. in this case with the wheat it is incredibly important how it got there. there are concerns about one type of agriculture bleeding over into another type of agriculture, organics. they are both legitimate ways to operate. i think it is important that

they be able to operate separately. the department of agricultural is doing an investigation which is very important to figure out how they got there. when they look more broadly at the farm, and they cannot find any other seeds. it is very strange how this got there. it is not anywhere else. south korea did their own testing and said it is not there. the fda has said it was not unsafe but it was not wanted. it should not have been there. there is an investigation and i peoplet an investigation. should be held accountable. i do think we have a variety of ways in which you operate in either culture of. it is important to allow choice

broadly. that is what we do in the farm bill. that is the right way to go. >> we probably have time for one more question. >> the last question is the next item coming up in the senate. once the farm bill passes, it is full speed ahead to immigration. harry reid says he wants to get the bill done before the july 4 recess. it is my understanding the way the bill came down the last go around you actually voted against the final bill. i am curious why that was and why this bill is different. >> i did end up voting against it because there were not the limit on lower wage workers coming into our company that would supplant american jobs. there are many pieces to this.

the agriculture jobs east of it is important. i want to congratulate senator feinstein for leading an effort that really brought farmworkers together and something they feel is fair and workable with a legal system. as you look at other parts of the bill, one of the things i compliment is that they have made sure there's not some kind of a loophole that would allow a company to bypass an american who needs a job and bring in somebody from outside the country just because they can pay them lower wages. i would not support this bill if it did not create a legal process and limit it in a way that undermines american workers.

this needs to be about adding to the economy. we want to make sure it does not undermine american workers. >> debbie stabenow, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> we are back with our reporters. you have seen many agricultural bills go through congress. does the senate come together with the house and pass some sort of bill? if not, what happens? >> they will pass the bill on monday just because they got 77 votes for closure. they have so little room there if they cannot get all of those people to vote for it. i am still betting that the house and senate will come

together. if they do not, most likely they would pass another extension. there are some people who like the extension. it is not that the farm program. the thing is this is not reform. it leaves out any changes in agricultural policy that would respond to what has happened to agriculture in the last five years. it would be a better idea if they can pass a bill. >> what has changed in the last five years? what are they responding to? >> you have more popularity of locally produced foods. this bill contains some programs to encourage that, to make it easier for consumers, especially for some of the lower income people to be able to buy fruits and vegetables to afford them. we have a tremendous obesity

problem in this country. the bill would address an issue like that. it would also modernize the conservation programs. people complained they have been too complex. it would also modernize some of the rural development programs of communities when not have such a hard time modernize some of the rural development programs of communities when not have such a hard time. >> they asked of leadership needs to get involved in this they asked of leadership needs to get involved in this? >> these bills have become a built the size of the farm bill. they never really go anywhere anymore to a final conclusion without seeing the leaders in the house and the senate get together and come to some sort of a final agreement often because there is a case of the farm bill. he may be seeing a final agreement. he is faced with the question of putting a bill on the floor that will not there is a lot of leadership to determination that

plays in. senator stabenow may be able to come to some sort of agreement between themselves. whether that would sell more broadly as the opening question. >> if they do another extension, how long is it for? >> i imagine they do it for another year. i cannot imagine they do it longer than that. hopefully it will not get to that point. >> you have said everything stays in place if they do not pass a farm bill. this is something that they know about. >> the direct payments to not really go to corporations because corporations do not produce basic commodities. they are the ones that the public find offensive.

they were just continued for another year. there were no changes made to the food stamp program. >> food stamps make it the majority of the farm bill. >> close to 80% was including some other nutrition program. >> another topic brought up was smithville. does this rise to the level of something the average american is going to hear about? doesn't make headlines? >> this process is for foreign acquisitions of u.s. companies. viewers may remember that this came up before to purchase a