those have helped make american agriculture a resounding success. for those who believe in the free market, this is a prime example of that power. technology may get all of the attention, but america has long been an agriculture power house. agriculture continues to be a major sector of our economy and a primary u.s. export. in fact, we export so many more agricultural products than we import that the sector is the largest in which we see a trade surplus. congress has ignored the needs of the sector. we have been educating our children in other areas. at the same time, the immigration laws have made it impossible to fill the void with foreign legal workers. despite the need for workers on a permanent basis, our immigration laws have made 5,000 green cards available per year for people without bachelor's degrees. that is 5,000 per year to be shared by landscapers and hotels and many other industries who hire such workers. the temporary program has not done the job. any employer will say the program is slow for fast-moving harve harvests. a recent surv

rather, americans through habit and education have progressed beyond agriculture to other occupations. americans no longer have the desire for agriculture work. agriculture is a lifestyle occupation. many farmers see their children move into other occupations. i can speak from experience with three sons. two are home farming with me and one decided to move on to other things. agriculture needs a timely solution to fill the gap between the currently legally authorized workforce and the agriculture needs of the nation. it is estimated that agriculture employs between 900,000 and 1.2 million unauthorized workers with special skills and abilities. any solution must address the following. first, a workable solution must deal with the industry's ongoing need for a future workforce. must agriculture work is seasonal, intermittent and demanding, agriculture does not attract a domestic workforce. secondly, users have not been able to use the h-2a program but let me be clear. we strongly support an overhaul for those that have been able to utilize it. i respectfully request that the study relea

with the determination of the american farmer, all agriculture can comply, compete, survive and thrive if the federal government would institute common sense labor policy reforms. americans are blessed to enjoy a safe and affordable food supply. so fortunate, many americans never give a second thought to the food they consume and where it comes from or what life could be like if the food security was lost. we must never take farmers, farm workers or food supply for granted. in order to continue to deliver fresh food to the consumer, farmers need a rational and workable guest worker program to provide a legal work force. a program that works is critical if our nation intends to secure the viability of our farms. especially those that grow fresh fruits and vegetables. in previous testimony, i described the most onerous problems with h 2-a. the program is flawed and costly. it is too expensive and cumbersome. most farmers lack confidence that the federal government running the program will meet the obligations on time. my prior testimony, i also recognized practical solutions that agricul

. >> so, you know, the cap and the american specialty agricultural act is 500,000. should it be higher? maybe. let's pass that and get started. i know that if our country makes a commitment and puts the right statutory language in place that we can build a program that works for farmers and is accountable for workers so, yeah, we can have a program that treats workers well. >> thank you mr. wicker. mr. chairman, i see my time is up. >> yes, you'll have a chance for a second go round. the gentlelady from texas is recognized for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman and the ranking member for courtesies extended. just have comments and a quick question and then a pointed question to mr. goldstein if i could. i have been working on these issues, i'm not from any of the states of the particular witnesses but certainly i join my colleagues in the importance of trying to address the questions dealing with farm workers and in addition i have seen the plight of many of the farming community, large farming communities as relates during these harsh times the loss of product,

and items that you purchase on an ongoing basis to see whether you might be able to support american agriculture or the agriculture in your district and in your area that is providing the feed stock, if you will, for these new bio-based products. we are also engaged in rural communities in retrofitting homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient, using some of the resources that we have through our programs. we are very much involved in financing windmills and solar and renewable energy opportunities in rural areas through our reap program. we had over 22,000 projects usda has funded over the last three years in this arena. the last point, we are working with the department of energy, the interior department to try and see if we can streamline the process by which transmission lines, at least those relating to transmission lines over public lands, can be permitted more quickly. we recognize and appreciate that you can produce all this renewable energy, but if you can't get it to the cities that need it because the transmission system is not equipped, then it does very little good to g

exports across the american economy from agriculture to manufacturing are expanding rapidly. americans are saving more and bringing down their debt levels. the financial sector is much stronger shape helping to meet the growing demands for credit and capital. these improvements are signs of the underlying resilience of our economy, resourcefulness of american workers and businesses and they're signs of the importance of the swift and forceful actions we took with the fed to stabilize the financial system and pull the economy out of the worst financial situation. we face significant challenges particularly for the average working family in this country. americans are still living with the acute damage caused by the crisis, the unemployment rate is still very high. millions of americans are living in poverty, still looking for work, suffering from the fall and value of their homes, struggling to save for

exports across the american economy from agriculture to manufacturing are expanding rapidly. ericans are saving more and bringing down debt levels. the financial sector is in much stronger shape helping meet the growing need for demand for capital and for credit. now, these improvements are signs of the underlying resilience of our economy, the resourcefulness of american workers and companies, and the importance of the swift and forceful actions we took to save the financial system and pull the economy out of the worst economic crisis since the great depression. i want to emphasize this. we still face very significant economic challenges. particularly for households and families across the country. americans are still living with the acute damage caused by the crisis. unemployment rate is still high. millions of americans are living in poverty still looking for work, suffering from the fall in the value of their homes. struggling to save for retirement or to pay for college. and we face as you both said, unsustainable fiscal deficits. in the face of these challenges, the pres

according to the department off agriculture . americans are the average number of children per household has dropped to 1 point .that's not enough to reppace the dying populatioo. &pit's no surprise... seeing as it now costs 14-thousand dollarssa year to raise a child. of hose people still having children... a growinn number of them are having them out of wedlockkthe research groop "child trenns"... finds caucasian women in their 20's... who haae some college education but ot a 4-year degree... are among the fastest-growing group.but research finds the majority of college graduates are still it's your last day to get those energy efficienn ittms in maryland witt no state tax. taa. joel d. smith is at best buy in towson, to show you how to save even more, if pou aat today. good morning joel d. 3 3 3 a man in sweden is lucky to be alive after snow trapped him in his car for átwoá montts. pplice say the man was "bareey alive" when &pauthorities pulled hhm from tte car on a road in the northern part of the country. he tood ops he had drivee of

judy filed a blog post exloring one bright spot in the american economy: agriculture.at on the rundown. and on our world page, we hear from an activist in syria about the continuing violence in homs. all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll have the latest on the g.o.p. presidential race. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

. >> so, you know, the cap and the american specialty agriculture act is 500,000.hould it be higher? maybe. let's pass that and get started. i know that if our country makes a commitment and puts the right statutory language in place that we can build a program that works for farmers and is accountable for workers, and so, yeah, we can have a program that treats workers well. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i see my time's up. >> yes. you'll have a chance for a second go-round. the gentlelady from texas recognized for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman for courtesies extended. i just have comments and a quick question, and then a pointed question to mr. goldstein, if i could. i've been working on these issues. i am not from any of the states of the particular witnesses, but certainly have joined my colleagues in the importance of trying to address questions dealing with farm warningers -- farm workers, and in addition, i've seen the plight of many of the large farming communities as it relates to during these harsh times, the loss of product, if you will, in the fie

but american officials caution the agricultural sector against relying solely on trade partner for growth. >> but you still have to have a diverse portfolio. you don't want to be over reliant on one customer because that one customer could pull the rug out from under you. >> reporter: but for now china is rolling out the welcome mat for food grown in america. during xi's visit this week, china signed agreements for the largest soybean deals ever made in a single foreign visit offering another sign of china's big appetite for u.s. grain. andrew batt, "nightly business report," des moines, iowa. >> susie: dreamworks animation is heading east, far east. the creators of animated films like "kung fu panda" and are partnering with two chinese media companies. oriental dreamworks will launch in shanghai later this year developing and producing animated ams. dreamworks will owt venture. "kung fu panda 2" was china's highest grossing animated film last year. >> tom: here's what we're watching for next week. our market monitor guest is alan lancz, editor of the lancz letter. on the economic calenda

states ensures that the majority, the republicans, have imposing a de facto natural gas tax on american agriculture, manufacturing, chemical, steel plastics by allowing our gas to be exported. here's what t. boone pickens says about the idea of exporting american natural gas. here's what he said. "if we do it, we're truly going to go down as america's dumbest generation. it's bad public policy to export natural gas." our natural gas is six times cheaper than asian. it is three times cheaper than european. what are we doing exporting it? we should keep it for our own farmers, for our own industries for our own consumers. that's how we put ourselves on a path toward energy independence. i agree with t. boone pickens. we should keep our natural gas here. we should not be following the republican energy plan of drill here, sell there and pay more. if we sell this natural gas around the world the department of energy says the pry's going up 57% here because -- price's going up 57% here. the same dynamic exists in the keystone portion of the bill where republicans have failed to include any assurances th

states ensures that the majority, the republicans, have imposing a de facto natural gas tax on american agriculture, manufacturing, chemical, steel plastics by allowing our gas to be exported. here's what t. boone pickens says about the idea of exporting american natural gas. here's what he said. "if we do it, we're truly going to go down as america's dumbest generation. it bad public policy to export natural gas." our natural gas is six times cheaper than asian. it is three times cheaper than european. what are we doing exporting it? we should keep it for our own farmers, for our own industries for our own consumers. that's how we put ourselves on a path toward energy independence. i agree with t. boone pickens. we should keep our natural gas here. we should not be following the republican energy plan of drill here, se there and pay more. if we sell this natural gas around the world the partment of energy says the pry's going up 57% here because -- price's going up 57% here. the same dynamic exists in the keystone portion of the bill where republicans have failed to include any assurances that eve

you know, the commercial officer that could be there to help guide american investments, whether it be in hydrocarbons or agriculture or you name it is not going to be renewed. and throughout the world, and you know, i've had many conversations with major american operations, but also with small and medium-sized businesses in our country. we are trying to double exports in, you know, five years. we're close to meeting that goal. we have to keep upping the number so that we are always on our toes. that's where a lot of the new jobs are going to come from. as senator lugar pointed out, we still have a lot of people hurting in our country, and although thing we're making progress, we want to accelerate that progress and we have to get into those markets overseas and it's difficult for many american companies to navigate through that without expert help. >> that clip from yesterday's foreign relations hearing. we will have senator clinton the's testimony before the house committee coming up at 1:15 eastern, about 15 minutes from now on c-span3. we'll show you a portion of hearing from earlier today on cruise line safety

department of agriculture the americans spending the next two days eating 100 million pounds of chickenop of cupcakes. talk about a game changer. the owner of a new york bakery calls the chicken wing cupcake a savory treat. buttery cornbread, blue cheese frosting and, of course, the key ingredient a juicy looking wing. quite a surprise for a sheriff's deputy in the seattle area when a wallaby hopped in front of his car. you can see it on the cell phone video there look at that. the officer took. the sheriff's spokesperson says the deputy thought it was a kangaroo. the wallaby is in the kangaroo family but it's smaller. cops and animal control workers returned it to its owners. they say they have recently moved to the area and their pet apparently wanted to check out its new hood. before we go, our team's top five things of the day. number five daniel ratcliff harry potter sometimes he showed up on the set drunk. number four, a new study claims it may be harder to start using twitter and using email than quitting cigarettes and using cholg. army general ordering a general court martial f

chief oil and gas trevor reese jones big oil a million dollars to the dixie rice agriculture big agribusiness and americans for prosperity according to media matters they've received over five million dollars in the koch brothers the richest of the rich people and the biggest of the big industries are the ones actually running this election in florida over thirteen thousand television ads have been run on behalf of mitt romney gingrich's only aired two hundred and most of those romney ads were not paid for by romney or his campaign they came from a super pac called restore our future and guess who is the one of the top contributors to restore our future. surprise wall street billionaire hedge fund manager john paul's now romney isn't running for president wall street and the hedge fund managers who want to protect their capital gains tax loopholes are the ones really running for president so tonight mitt romney is going to give a big victory speech but the real winner the big one or wall street. after the break america's infrastructure is collapsing literally it's collapsing but congress continues to bulk

500,000 people who apply and to be interviewed in the offices to get to american farms in time to avoid the destruction of agriculture. the idea of a cap is not even worth discussing because it won't work. there aren't enough people to apply. we have to talk about how do we help the people who have worked in the field to gain a legal status that allows them to continue to work which we need them to do, but also allows them the dignity and rights that they should have so that they can be treated fairly? i certainly would not suggest any of the individuals here aren't fair, but that happens in the wide world that we live in and people need bargaining power and they need the capacity to stand up for themselves which you can't do if you're living, you know, in the shadows if that's how we want to describe it. so i do understand that immigration is a subject that has become to my mind almost irrationally hot as a topic in america when we just should be thinking of what's the right thing to do for our country? and when i think about how our country has been strengthened by immigration, my grandfather was an immigrant. and

applause ] >>> hosted by our time-warner cable partner, american history tv is in beaumont, texas this weekend to explore its history in agriculture. when oil was discovered there in 1901, the population grew from 9,000 to 30,000 in just three months. learn more about beaumont, texas all weekend long on american history tv. >>> gladys city as we call it, it was part of the boom town -- by 1976, there was nothing left of what was the original gladys city, which was just across the highway from us about a half mile, so as a project for the bicentennial, it was a project to try and preserve the history and memory of gladys city. gladys city is named for a young man in a sunday school class, we call him our dreamer, he's the one that came one a lot of the ideas for gladys city, and home run name was gladys bingham, and she was in his sunday school class and he was very smitten by her and he named the city for her. when petillo originally envisioned the city, it was really what he called -- or what could be called an industrial utopia. by the time spindle top came in in 1901, i like to say that there was no more time to be perfect and

it's so when he talks about the importance of agriculture and the fact that 87% of what we consume is american grown, i mean, that's a very important part of the economy and job growth and, you know, the whole -- i call it making it in america. i think we think more of manufacturing. it also involves your agricultural sector as well. that's not what i was here to talk about. i just couldn't help it with the garden state. >> four congressmen. what i wanted to -- i just wanted to briefly say, with regard to the issue of renewables. ivan unabashed supporter of renewables. so it's very hard for me to not be excited and i've asked you to help us, i really regret the fact, larly in the last few months. so it's soul power or hydra p power. i mean for the most part in new jersey, in a lot of renewable portfolio standards, a certain percentage of your energy has to be produced from renewables. and i regret the fact that, you know, we have the tax credit actually expire on december 31st for solar, which i think was extremely unfortunate because you need these incentives. and of course when we tried to p

productivity has improved exports across the american economy from agriculture -- productivity has improvedxports across the american economy are expanding. americans are saving more and bringing down debt levels. the financial sector is in much better shape, helping to meet the growing demands for credit and capital. these improvements are signs of the underlying resilience of our economy, the resourcefulness of american workers and businesses, and they are signs of the importance of the swift and forceful actions we took with the fed to stabilize the financial system and pull the economy out of the worst economic crisis since the great depression, but we still face a very significant economic challenges, particularly for the average working family in this country. americans are still living with the acute damage caused by the crisis. unemployment rate is still very high. millions of americans are living in poverty, looking for work, suffering from a fall in the value of their homes while struggling to save for retirement. for these reasons, the president's budget calls for additional supp

agriculture industry to. the federal level. food safety and the health of american citizens and raj i just want to jump in because i want to show you something that might exemplify all this take a listen to cooking show host paula deen on the today show i was diagnosed three years ago and i will go on a regular physical exam with my doctor that i had type two diabetes and i'm here today to let the world know. that. it is not a death. i'm working with a very reputable pharmaceutical company. so we don't have that much time raj unfortunately but here's an example she's been diagnosed with diabetes and if you've seen what she's cox it's not hard to figure out how that happened so now she's going about this you know going on about this great pharmaceutical company that's going to treat her which she has agreed to work with now she is making money off of her own illness and so are the pharmaceutical companies we just have a little bit of time but this is another example of this problem of this obesity industrial complex absolutely less than one in three kids belong today

agricultural, civilian retirement savings. it has tough choices. how can the president go to the town hall of look at average americans who are being affected, how can they be asked to do that at the same time they say the most fortunate americans do not have to contribute at all? i think when you looked at what it takes to get the public and general support for a balanced budget agreement, you have to have that type of shared sacrifice for this to be in acceptable to the public at large. >> you talk about getting rid of the bush tax cuts. is there a reflection in the budget? >> in the budget we have we returned to the pre-bush tax payers. for the people above 250. the only exception to the president had previously was he had not led dividends go all the way back to the clinton era but in this budget he decided that was something he could not afford. in terms of tax reform, he could not lay out what the rates would be, because that was something he would have to work out, but i think what the president has made clear is it needs to be reform that leads to a tax code as progressive if not more progressive than it would be if you let the bush tax cuts

it certainly is in my part of the country where i represent an agriculture economy. american families are looking at gasoline prices that literally have doubled since this president took office. yet, here his secretary of energy, the very guy who is to guide energy policy in this country, in front of a house committee as recently as yesterday, when asked about the overall goal, says one of the overall goals is to -- whether the overall goal is to get the price of gasoline down. he said no. it squares perfectly what he said four years ago when he indicated that we need to figure out how to somehow boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe. that is an amazing, amazing statement. i think probably almost incomprehensible to the american people in terms of what it means to their daily lives, because they are the people who ultimately in their pocketbooks have to deal with the consequences of bad policies and bad policies that raise the price of energy in this country makes it more difficult for them to balance their budgets and to be able to continue to enjoy a standard

american soybeans. china is already the top market for u.s. agricultural goods. still, the u.s. trade deficit with china has been a persistent economic and political problem for the two nations. president obama met with xi on tuesday. the next day, speaking in milwaukee, he talked tough on trade with china. >> i'm not going to stand by when our competitors don't play by the same rules. it's not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours just because they're getting heavy subsidies from their government. so i directed my administration to create a trade enforcement unit and it's only got one job-- investigating unfair trade practices in countries like china, making sure we've got an even playing field. because when we've got an even playing field, i promise you, nobody is going to out-compete america. >> brown: on the republican campaign trail, china has been a common target. former massachusetts governor mitt romney. >> china has stolen our intellectual property, our designs, our patents, know how. it's hacked into our computers. it's manipulated its currency. i think