members of the panel to make very much short statements avoid your entire written statement because then we are going to have a dialogue that unlike washington is a little less scripted we are not going to ask necessarily for or if staff asked at any time they may come in with their own questions so we are not going to be handed questions forever to try to ask as they were intended to be asked in fact the way we view it is that  staff came prepared if they have questions that either they came with or that they come up with we want to make sure we have that dialogue you will not be sworn in this will be unsworn testimony although it is being recorded so you still making a statement to congress but the usual what i call the tobacco lineup will not occur if you would like to rise and raise your hands and have that picture taken we can out of courtesy now i am ranking in agriculture chairman issa as well you should be chair in waiting we do begin with a mission statement and i will read that and then i will yield to the gentleman from here for his statements the oversight committee mission statement is we exist to secure two fundamental principles first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second americans  effective government that works for them our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy this is our mission and with that i am going to because i think that is the way we bring government to the people and listen to people i would just like to say that you have got a very distinguished panel here of people that really know this business you are sitting in the salad bowl capital of the world and it is more than  through april and that spike goes up every year so that could affect when relating to this high unemployment at sometimes reaching twenty percent in this county i think it is seventeen percent in january of this year that it has an effect but there are a lot of issues here and i appreciate not just the regulatory issues with epa but i think we also have some issues of trying to provide a stable workforce through immigration reform  and very interestingly and hopefully some of the speakers will talk to it is that they are very interested in creating some regulation across this country so that people will grow fresh produce in a practice that they call the leafy green marketing order which is an industry created regulatory process and they are champions of it and hopefully we get some national regulation to support californias effort here but with actually a seventh going on in new york as we speak nationally unemployment is at nine percent and does not appear to be moving in any great speed in either direction as congressman farr said unemployment here has gone from twelve to seventeen percent and although some of it is seasonal not too long ago the unemployment rate was dropping into the four and five percent here and only rising to the seven or so percent but we are not here to talk about unemployment per se we are here to talk about impediments to job creation at americanjobcreators com we have been collecting employers and concerned citizens like you your stories of exactly what government has done or failed to do that has led to your not being able to create jobs or create products and wealth that ultimately help others create jobs in washington bureaucrats often score success based on number of jobs created now this works fine when you add another one hundred or one zero people to epa it does not work so well when you have the henry ford model that ultimately if you can do better with less less because pesticides eliminate the loss of crops so that you can in fact get a better yield or better in some form of automation that might in fact reduce the amount of people allow for a better product delivered more competitively against the rest of the world and ultimately create wealth which will create high paying jobs as it has done in america for generations we are here today to talk about and to hear about when we call something a forum or a hearing we probably should once in a while say no it is a listening session and remind ourselves to quit talking and start listening today that will be most of the case we will encourage succinct answers but full answers and if you have additional ideas that you want us to know even if the question is not per se  d we want you to give it congressman farr and myself and the committee we want to go back with the kind of ammunition that is more important than the petty debates that go on in washington we can all debate about whether it billion in agriculture we are not looking at dollars we are looking at american families who feed american families america being able to feed itself is one of the three underpinnings of a great economy you must be able to feed yourself manufacture the core elements necessary and mine those items necessary to allow you to create wealth many countries have succeeded having only two out of the three no country has ever succeeded by being quote a service economy accordingly the committee is in fact most interested in those three underpinnings mining manufacturing and agriculture yesterday we were in  santa clara where the things we manufacture often cannot be touched but they touch our lives and for that we are truly grateful for that series of hearings but today we are interested in talking to the people who historically for generation after generation have fed the highest quality produce to americans and today often find themselves unable to use the land that they have for so long farmed with would like to recognize our panel of witnesses ambassador tom nassif is the president of the western growers association mister jim bogart is the president of the grower shipper association of central california grower and actually from southern california so with that ambassador nassif you are first i will make the disclosure that tom nassif is in fact the deacon of my church chairman representative farr and members of the committee staff thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today this morning i would like to shine a light on the impact and consequences of lawsuits brought against the environmental protection agency and other federal agencies by environmental groups that are reaping taxpayer funded attorneys fees and resulting in a de facto rulemaking process that is harmful to farming and of questionable benefit to the environment the system is broken and congress can fix it many of these lawsuits never actually go to full trial many are never appealed by the federal government and some of those that do receive an unfavorable ruling by a judge give interveners no choice but to sign the settlement agreement to ease the onerous and outrageous consequences of these settlements often when nonprofit environmental organizations sue the epa and other governmental organizations such as the u s fish and wildlife service and the national marine fisheries service for failure to comply with the endangered species act it is not unusual for the federal government to settle the suit and avoid the full trial as the epa continues these practices and pays the associated attorneys fees which run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per case legal questions associated with environmental laws such as the endangered species act are never adequately examined and answered and worse the settlement agreements put in place have adverse economic consequences for agricultural businesses and with no evidence of protecting endangered species this is a defective way to make public policy as the epa and the environmental groups that sue it often work out the details of these settlement agreements without the farmers and the agricultural industry at the table to comply with the settlement agreements or injunctive orders from the court the epa and other agencies impose regulations without meaningful input from stakeholders without considering the economic impact on the nations farmers or workers and with little regard to the intent of congress when the law was passed as multiple lawsuits are settled and the resulting biological opinions are issued from u s fish and wildlife or national marine fisheries service the process and schedule leave little time for engaged input by the impacted stakeholders a top concern to agriculture in california and elsewhere is the increasing number and adverse impact of these lawsuits involving the endangered species act while this committee is familiar with the struggle between farmers and federal fish agencies in california for water i would like to make the committee aware that there is also an increasing negative impact on agricultures use of crop protection tools such as pesticides please know that we are not seeking deregulation for pesticides far from it incentivized to use the least amount of pesticides needed to produce a crop pesticides cost a lot of money overuse harms the land and its productivity but all crops need pesticides whether conventional or organic just as the human body needs medicine when it is attacked by harmful bacteria and viruses rather this testimony seeks to shed light on a broken regulatory system one that has been hijacked by the interest groups on one side in a manner that keeps the interest groups on the other side agriculture of the process this is fundamentally wrong and contrary to every tenet of our regulatory system in these settlements agencies are essentially putting in place restrictions or stipulations in a manner that replaces or overrides the transparent and public rulemaking process this not only sidesteps the authority of congress it also results in environmental regulations that are often redundant humanly impossible to meet expensive and of questionable benefit to either endangered species or the environment it is an underhanded way of changing the rules on the nations farmers that circumvents congress and the stakeholders currently the center for biological diversity and the pesticide action network north america are suing epa because they say the agency is violating the endangered species act when it registers pesticides under the federal insecticide fungicide and rodenticide act according to the more than four hundred page court document detailing the complaint environmental organizations say epa is failing to adequately consult with other agencies regarding the effect of nearly four hundred epa registered pesticides on more than two hundred endangered and threatened species nationwide the court documents list over twenty seven thousand four hundred different combinations of active ingredients in pesticides and species each of which could require consultation this case could cause severe economic harm and loss of jobs to tens of thousands of farmers and cripple their ability to grow americas source of food and fiber on more than one hundred and twelve million acres of farmland across the country not just in california as this case heads toward a potential settlement we recognize that the process is leaving out the voices and rights of people and industries with a stake in the outcome those who will be expected to devise and pay for remedies and mitigation of a situation which may or may not be able to be remedied as the  fiber commodity production and other affected pesticide users and applicators this committee can help facilitate this we ask that this committee investigate this process and recommend corrective action or legislation thank you mis you this morning my name is jim bogart i am the president and general counsel of the grower shipper association of central california we are an agricultural trade association representing over three hundred growers shippers packers processors here on the central coast the process concerns me as much as specific regulations as you know california is the number one agriculture state as measured by gross receipts and we grow over four hundred different crops and exports are critical part of our industry being able to keep input costs down is critical to our business as well as our ability to compete in global markets particularly given the energy costs we are experiencing one of the concerns i hear most from farmers and others in california agriculture relative to the epa is that they really have a lack of understanding of the impact of their regulations on our industry one of the greatest shortcomings of the epas regulatory approach whether it be related to air water dust et cetera is a lack of thorough cost benefit analysis during the development of regulations impacting agriculture it is vitally important from a public policy perspective to have epa thoroughly explain the costs as well as any potential benefits of their proposed regulatory actions before they take them therefore i would urge this committee to require epa to consult with the office of the chief economist at usda on any regulatory matter that will greatly impact agriculture and to allow all of us in the industry an opportunity to comment on the analysis before any rule becomes final i believe that a more clear vigorous approach by epa to conduct a cost benefit analysis would be extremely helpful to averting regulatory activities that are overly burdensome or duplicative in terms of regulatory activity that many in the agriculture community see as burdensome and d