collin peterson thinks the usda has a better understanding. >> darren samuelsohn, thank you for the update. >> happy to do it. >> the house is in recess until 9:00 p.m. eastern time. earlier, they passed a defense programs and policy bill. when members return tonight cannot debate on $32 billion in spending next budget year for the interior department and environment agencies and programs. it no votes are expected tonight. tomorrow, we will get votes on the interior spending bill as well as climate change legislation. live coverage when the house returns on c-span. more on that climate energy bill from today's "washington journal." "washington journal" continues. host: we want to recommend -- we want to welcome representative rick boucher. the issue of captain trade is in the news, but briefly explain what that is about -- the issue of cat and trade is in the news, but be fully explain what that is about . guest: they would receive emission allowances, they could trade those on the market. they could purchase offsets for entities where the emissions could be reduced at perhaps a lower pric

and i'm sure you don't, but what can you say about if you have had a chance to look at how fda and the usda work together or don't work as well together as they shouldn't, what can you say about adjusting the concerns that gave rise to the legislation that would put it in a single entity? >> well, a couple of responses to your important question -- what is clearly as the new fda commissioner i have a person i mention priority to strengthen food safety within the fda and i think there are many things that we can do to strengthen our program to improve accountability to raise the issue as high priority. part of strengthening food safety within fda is strengthening the coordination with critical partners as well and that certainly means with usda and i look forward to a productive working relationship with them and also means strengthening the working partnerships with state and local public health organizations, and is married and partly also involves working with other international agencies and government, foreign governments, because i think we are going to see the percentage of food comin

marine corps tattoo on the guy's leg and mistakes it for the usda would do you call that, it doesn't make the me to any better. [laughter] i've got some editors and editors are strange. you know, of course they are evil but -- [laughter] -- strangely enough, the higher you go, the nicer they tend to be, or the more kind of -- it's absolutely the opposite of any other business i have ever been in, which is the boss is the guys that get to the top are usually guys that have got the most -- cost the most throats but in my experience the guy is on top have always saved me from the throat curse or else i would be doing something else. i've got a fence. [laughter] it's a good offense, but it doesn't make good neighbors. [laughter] i kind of cheated a little bit. i got a guy that went to the zoo and was petting a polar bear. h is just sitting here by itself. i, i have a lot of i's, intercourse. [laughter] and one specific instance of intercourse mrs. dexter takes this opportunity just before the over one starts, just before the yodeling goes, she takes the opportunity to inform me that we ar

and the stipulation that was entered into is the usda relies on exhibitors -- >> well, you can see he was so wrapped up in the details that chief justice rehnquist became very annoyed and told him, you know, to stop it and then he kept going. went back to stipulation 57. and it, unfortunately, it just kept going in that vein. he never really took on the first amendment argument that was very crucial to the case and, in fact, he again got so impassioned about the fruit that he was -- his clients grew that it was a real embarrassment and we can go to the third clip, not the second, the third where he was arguing that his clients grow green plums and the ads really should have been been about green plums because they have a bad reputation. people think green plums are unripe and will have bad affects on people. so you can play that. >> and give them to your wife and you're thinking to yourself right now you don't want to give your wife diarrhea. >> i don't want to give my wife green plums. >> i've never seen a green plum. >> and he was directing to justice scalia i shouldn't buy green pl

although the usda has not devoted any time or resources to complete an economic analysis of how this bill will impact farmers, the heritage foundation has. a recent study revealed that by the year 2035, the average income for farmers will be decreased by 57%. and also

problem or potential of this legislation and creating overlap with the fda jurisdiction and requirements to do things versus courage usda requirements to do things in our food supply? >> we don't see any jurisdictional issues of public health. fda has the statutory authority now to regulate the fresh produce industry. we do suggest strongly there be a good coordination with the u.s. department of agriculture and education, enforcement and certainly one of the keys to implementing this bill will be an effective structure with fda working with usda and state and local agencies with compliance, enforcement inspections that needs to be strengthened but not a jurisdictional issue of competing authorities the. >> minder standing at the production level could agricultural practices are the primary preventative tool and mechanism for dealing with it at the production level. do use the perhaps updating or improvement on those agricultural practices standards as they apply to fruits and vegetables is important and is there anything hear that will prevent that from taking place? >> yes, sir, that is an extremely important part. th

of many of the issues we're discussing in terms of prevention and in terms of cost of the health care system. usdastudy from 2001 found that if half the babies in the u.s. were breast fed for six months we would have savings of $37 6 billion on just three leading childhood illnesses. as many of you are aware, breast milk conveys some protection against certain viruss. it has some components within the milk which are very significant in terms of brain development. so it's a very, very important nutrient. this bill does two things. it lowers the hurdles that women face in continuing to pump milk when they return to work by asking employers provide flexible break time and asking them to proceed to provide privacy. those two issues are the simple things that can be enormously stressful for women returning to work. i can tell you the experience of my wife mary when our son jonathan was born 13 years ago. she was returning to work in a health care environment. she's a nurse. she was returning to a hospital, but she had to go to her employer and say to them, can i have permission to have flexible break t

whether it is the fuel for the tractor, fertilizer, or delivery of food, agricultural uses a great deal of energy throughout production and processing although usda has the devoted anytime resources to the analysis of how the bill will impact farmers, the heritage foundation has. a recent study revealed that by the year 2035, the average net income for farms will be decreased by 57%. i 2035, gasoline and diesel cost will be 58% higher and a letter grade 90% higher. residents and oklahoma can expect their grids to increase by $300 million. why are we doing this bill? so the u.s. can lead on climate change in the world? we can lead when china and india have refused to participate? we can lead when europe is willing to do have a what this bill calls for? we can meet with the rest the developing world is unable to do anything at all? some of my idealistic colleagues will say we have to set a standard for the rest of the world. i say, i will not make my constituents for -- poorer so others can get richer at our expense. this is the wrong bill. this is the wrong time and the wrong reasons. i reserve the balance of my time. >> gentleman far oklahoma res

the test of common sense. unless agriculture offsets are express dihi defined, farmers will never see benefits from this legislation. even if those offsets are defined and usda is given the authority, it's hard to see how agriculture will overcome the increased cost of using this cap and tax system. in the best-case scenario under backman-markey a farmer could mitigate 10% to 15% of the cost, in the worst-case scenario, farmers and ranchers could find themselves unable to use the offset market at all and have to cover all the cost. unlike crop farmers, ranch operators have few opportunities to accumulate carbon offsets. much emphasis has been placed on our nation's economic recovery since the market perhaps of last fall this bill is almost certain to destroy any chance of economic recovery if enacted in its current form. congress should be allowed to obtain sound technical analysis and address this legislation's many flaws. if further legislative debate is denied we must defeat this bill. congress rarely gets things right when we have ample time to consider changes but has never made good decision when rushed by arbitrary timetables. congress should abandon

fertilizer for the crops or the delivery of food to the grocery store, agriculture uses a great deal of energy throughout production and processing. although usda hasn't devoted any time or resource to complete economic analysis of how this bill will impact farmers, the heritage foundation has. a recent study from the heritage foundation revealed that by the year 2035 the average net income for farms will be decreased by 57%. and also by 2035 gasoline and diesel costs are expected to be 58% higher and electric rates 90% higher. for example, residents in oklahoma can expect their electric rates to increase by nearly $300 million. so why are we doing this bill? so the u.s. can lead on climate change in the world? we can lead when china and india have refused to participate? we can lead when europe is willing to do half what this bill calls for? we can lead when the rest of the developing world is unable to do anything at all about climate change? some of my idealistic colleagues have to say we have to set atandard for the rest of the world. but i say, i will not make my constituents poor, poorer so that others can get richer at our expense. my fr

the feather wars. roosevelt's game wardens, out of his first four usda, department of agriculture, federal government wardens, two of them were murdered down there. i write about the murder of a guy, bradley, in my book. there's two -- here's the first guy t.r. is putting in. two are killed because it was like a feather mafia going on in the industry here for women's fashion. craigle stays on the job, and he was so proud -- i went and i didn't unfortunately get to put this in my footnotes in my book, for length reasons. i went to his an tess or thes' homes in florida. they showed me his first badge, theodore roosevelt's badge he gave him, and his shotgun. his double barreled shotgun, he pointed at anybody pointing at these birds. t.r. dice, theodore roosevelt died in 1919, january, and he lived on in the 1920's. hardy comes down in a yacht by pelican island and roosevelt said nobody's allowed to even set foot on pelican island. hardy and his yacht guys are playing cards, going on a golfing trip in the 1920's, he's president, they approach pelican island. he comes out on the boat and pointed a gun at the pres

want to thank the gentleman for his work in improving the definition of biomass in the bill and just as with many usda conservation programs, forestland qualifies for this program and it's our intent ta it be included. they could be used to provide incentives to private forestland owners who may not otherwise qualify to participate in the ag offset program. i'll continue to work with the gentleman and he can be assured this will be include. mr. >> i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. barton: i want to tell me members if you haven't made your deal yet, come to the floor. what we're seeing is unprecedented, we're making deals on the floor. i want to commend mr. waxman, at least he's now doing it in public. that's -- it's unprecedented but at least it is transparent. with that, i want to yield -- two minutes to mr. stearns of florida. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. members are reminded to address their remarks to the chair. the gentleman from florida is recognized for two minutes. mr. stearns: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent that my entire spee

basically the offset program is something that will pay farmers and landowners to do environmentally friendly conservation practices, agriculture, planting trees. and collin peterson thinks that usda has a much more keen understanding of these things than e.p.a. >> darren samuelson of environment and energy daily. thanks for the update. >> happy to do it. >> there's still time to get your copy of c span's 2009 congressional directory with information on house and senate members, the cabinet, supreme court justices and the nation's governors plus district maps and how to contact commitees and caucuses. it's 16.95. online at c-span.org/products or call 1-877-on-c span [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] . >> there will be more from the newly released tapes saturday afternoon on c-span radio. >> now we have a hearing on stimulus spending. the house transportation committee heard from federal officials about airline, train, and highway spending. the committee will come to order. and this is the second of a series of oversight hearings that i have committed as to undertake at the outset of the recovery act. in

usda and fda. and who should really have what responsibility, or should we as a nation put all food under one agency and work cooperatively with the agony to do something like that. we have is a discussion draft that has been cleverly drafted only within the jurisdiction of our own committee, and so what we end up doing is are we exasperating a problem. and so i'm interested in your leadership. you are representing an administration, and so i am interested in your best counsel to us and your willingness to work with leaders of other agencies to truly protect the american people. any other .. i make is as of late has been beating up on fda. i would say the fda, the individuals that i met and the ones that you have the privilege to lead are some pretty fine and capable dedicated individuals. in the last, gosh, 16 years, 17 years that i have been here, whether it's been republicans in control or democrats, we continue to pass legislation that leaves more and more responsibilities upon your core missions. and so here as you are challenged to maintain the gold standards not only with pharmaceuticals but also include, you know, we're ab