Date: 1996-02-28
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to H.R. 2854 as currently presented to the House. and in support of three en bloc amendments which I will bs offering. Let me preface this by saying that my opposition is in no way indicative of the actions of the chairman of the committee but. rather. Mr. Chairman. in past years we have had the opportunity to prepare comprehensive farm policy in a deliberate. allinclusive manner. When we have been required to comply with budget reconciliation instructions. the House Committee on Agriculture has complied to the tune of $50 billion in savings from 1981 through 1993. However. in this particular farm bill. if you call it a farm bill. national farm policy for the next 7 years was developed by the Republican leadership. Mr. Chairman. Americans are the best fed people in the world. They have a stable and abundant supply of nutritious food and pay a lower percentage of their disposable income for food than anyother of the industrialized nations in the world. I would like to think that the House Committee on Agriculture. on a bipartisan basis and in spite of what editorial writers say. has played a constructive role in this success story. But that is no more. unfortunately. For example. last year Speaker GINGRICH. the S Republican leader. and the Republican whip wrote a letter to the gentleman from Kansas. Chairman ROBERTS. That letter dictated to the Committee on Agriculture. in no uncertain terms. the specific policy option that the committee was to choose in order to meet its reconciliation savings. No room was left for the committee to deliberate. for the committee to obtain views of farmers. of consumer groups. of the administration. That leadershipdictated policy was the foundation of what is now included in H.R. 2854. Mr. Chairman. the policy included by decree of the gentleman from Georgia. Speaker GINGRICH. in the bill now before the House was first introduced as a bill in August. In a blatant rejection of our sacred principles of open government. our committee did not hold one single hearing on this proposal and still has not to this day.- There were other hearings held to gather information. much before this time. but none on the proposal itself. Mr. Chairman. farmers in every region of this country have very grave concerns about the agriculture provisions before this House. They represent a sudden and dramatic abandonment by the Government of its role in sharing the farmers risk. Farmers are particularly concerned that a sudden withdrawal of the Federal Government may make the difference in their fight to stay on the farm. Yes. they may know that each year they will get a cash payment. but if prices collapse next year. will that payment be enough? If wheat prices fall to $2.50. how many wheat farmers will be out of business in Kansas. in the Dakotas. in Washington States? If cotton prices fall back down to 45 cents. how many cotton growers spread out all over the South and areas of the Southwest will survive? If corn prices are under $2. where will the corn belt be? What if milk prices fall to $9. How many of New Englands dairy farmers make it? Mr. Chairman. farmers will hope for the best. But if the best does not materialize and a substantial base of our food and fiber production capacity is lost. will we feel that it was worth the risk? All these questions. Mr. Chairman. and we have no answers. not even opinions. All we had in the Committee on Agriculture this year were a few votes. No discussion. No consideration of the views of farmers. the consumers. the businesses that thrive on the products of agriculture. those hearings on which we have always heavily relied. The policy before the House was not aired out in the Committee on Agriculture. it was dictated by the Republican leadership. When a bipartisan majority of our committee defeated this bill last fall. the Republican leadership nevertheless packaged it with tax cuts and health care program changes and forced it on the floor. Mr. Chairman. it was inevitable that the President would veto that bill and he did. and I agree that it should have been vetoed. Rather than acting quickly to move farm policy forward. our committee sat until the end of January and did nothing. Only in the hours before a 3week congressional break did our committee finally act. and again I respectively state this is through no fault of the chairman of the committee. The actions were held in other areas by other people. Mr. Chairman. a further frustration to us is that farm policy continues to be driven by outdated decisions. The Republican leadership continues to insist on cutting over $13 billion from agriculture programs. We know that these cuts were not conceived in the context of any consideration to good farm policy. We were cutting acting with numbers in a vacuum only. We have to attach faces and places to legislation. This has not been done to this day. Rather. the decision to cut the very heart out of farm programs was integral to the radical Republican policy of cutting $270 billion out of the rate of increase in Medicare and providing for a $245 billion tax cut. This has fluctuated. it has changed up and down. and the administration has become involved in these overall considerations. all of it outside of the realm of the members of the Committee on Agriculture. Mr. Chairman. all parties have now conceded that any tax cut will be for less. as will reductions in health care program spending as we move forward to a balanced budget. No committee in this House has provided more for a balanced budget than the Committee on Agriculture. Had every committee done what we have done. we would not be worrying about a balanced budget at this point in time. If the enormous tax and Medicare cuts have been abandoned. is it not also time to recognize that the size of the cuts ordered for agriculture should be reexamined?- Those policies were after all the driving force behind the Republican decision to cut $13 billion from agriculture. Mr. Chairman. we are in a difficult position. Time is not available to fully address the errors that have been committed in this flawed process. There will be some who would say. well. there will be a conference. Conference has limitations. limitations that restrict activity by members of the conference. Farmers who should have already made crucial farming decisions are kept waiting. The very fact that we have not acted yet has jeopardized agriculture. Action in farm policy for 1996 must be taken and taken quickly. In that light. our No. 1 priority is to make what changes we can in this flawed bill to strengthen our farm economy and its rural base. Mr. Chairman. the bill is titled the "Agricilture Market Transaction Program." and we believe that few have escaped the meaning of the term "transition": That the Federal Government will withdraw completely from its partnership with the producer in providing for the food security of our Nation. And I have just come back from .my district and other parts of Texas. and they now say that "this bill is not what we were talking about." We want to reduce regulation. we want to reduce needless spending. We did not want to say "take the Government completely out as we act in unison. together. for the betterment of America." So they did not say that we should withdraw completely from the partnership with the producer in providing for the food security of our Nation. However. if such a transition is to occur. we believe that now is an appropriate time for investments to be made with the posttransition period in mind. Regretfully. the rule does not provide for that. It is limited in scope. it is limited as to how many amendments. what type of amendments. Many of you heard the chairman of the Committee on Rules: We did this because we did not want this many more amendments from Wisconsin. and so on. Toward the end. Mr. Chairman. we proposed to increase the Department of Agricultures authority to invest in the rural infrastructure. water deliveries. sewage disposal. We propose to increase this authority to make investments that conserve and protect our natural resources. and we propose to make crucial investments in agriculture research. education and extension. Yesterday I was in my district. for a meeting of rural housing representatives and all you need to do is go down there and you will see the immense need in rural housing. and as I told them and I repeat to you today. the creature of Gd has a certain level of February 2.5. 1990dignity mandated by laws beyond. beyond our country and beyond this Chamber. The human dignity that needs to be addressed includes decent housing so that those of higher intellect have a decent place to live. Only within government can we form a partnership. Earning a minimum wage is not going to allow someone to buy housing for them and for their family. and we have hundreds of thousands of those people. but yet we are not addressing those areas. We propose to ensure that our highly productive oilseed industry. which will receive no benefit from the bills contract payments. is able to continue to compete effectively in world markets. We would delete the set level for the oilseed market loan in the bill. which is set at an arbitrary fixed amount. dealing in a vacuum. and replace it with a formula based on actual market prices. Finally. we believe that our agriculture sector is so important to .our Nation that we deserve a farm policy debate in 2002. To ensure that debate. we propose to retain permanent farm support authority. Therefore. on behalf of Democratic members of the Committee on Agriculture. I will offer three amendments en bloc. the first. authored by the gentlewoman from North Carolina . The amendment would provide the Commodity Credit Corporation with the authority to dispense $3.5 billion of its funds for rural development conservation and research. education and extension. The second was written by the gentleman from South Dakota . who has been a tremendous inspiration in this endeavor. It would set the loan rate for oilseed marketing assistance loans at 85 percent of the 5year average price for oilseeds. excluding the high and the low years. The third would strike the provision of the committee substitute which repeals the permanent farm law. Mr. Chairman. I am dismayed over this process. Our people deserve better from this Congress. We have been the partnership. The experts and the major periodicals in New York and San Francisco and Orange County. I keep reading editorials form Orange County about the farm. farm. products. farm process. farm policy. We have in my family seven grandchildren who know more about farm policy that the editorial writers from Orange County. CA. Mr. Chairman. Also. I ask the committee and the Members to stay with us on the amendments that we will be opposing. Many of those amendments that were granted are aimed at satisfying the needs of major media. They have not spoken to agriculture. They have not spoken to rural America. They have not spoken to the people. They are looking at that headline in the major periodical. Would you trust a newspaper in New York City to set the policy for the farmers and ranchers of America? And. needless to say. Mr. Chairman. of all of the matters involving the budget. we have met our commitment. Furthermore. Mr. Chairman. let me say that everything that we do as far as production in this country. manufacturing. industrial production. everything is in deficit as far as international trade is concerned. Everything is deficit. That is the free market.. It is in deficit. Dollars are flowing out. dollars we do not have. The only thing that is bringing money back. green back. green dollars back. is agriculture. The only thing that is positive is agriculture. And yet they say subsidy. subsidy. subsidy. Look at this chart. You cannot see the line at the bottom. That is how much of an impact we make on the budget. seventenths of 1 percent is agricultures share of the trillions of dollars we spent on the budget. And then here is a major one. The green is agriculture. The red is everything else. The red is in deficit. has been. Except for selling a few high tech items and airplanes. agriculture is the only one bringing money back from abroad. So saying we need a new direction. we need another this. another that. what we need is. with the help of the good Lord. a little more rain here and less rain there. and a policy that manages. I do not care how you slice it. Every company. every industry manages. manages. and we cannot go and face the world because all other countries. most of them camouflage support of their agriculture and we would be the only one that does not support agriculture under the guise of satisfying our New York newspaper who says the free market. The free market has never existed. There has always been some manipulation. There will be more manipulation. and we are shooting ourselves in the foot when we yield to those pleas for liberators so that we can be eaten by those that camouflage their intentions and their agriculture. We need strong agriculture. we need to have a program where the government participates. and this program unfortunately phases out. Yes. you will get a little money. If somebody goes to Las Vegas and they win the first thing on the machine and second thing on the machine. they say we got it. Stay there long enough and you have lost it all. This is what this is going to do. show a little money. show a little candy up front. Eventually. 7 years. we are off and away and we will be as loose as that satellite that broke from the tether up in the skies the other day. It is loose out there and heaven knows where it is going to be. We do not want American agriculture to be in that condition. So I urge Members to support those amendments that might make this a little better. oppose those that try and destroy programs that have worked. We are the best fed people in the world. we spend less money than everyone else in the world. and. oh. the sugar. sugar. sugar. We are talking about jobs. jobs for Americans. and if you open up and the world unloads all the sugar. we are not going to have a sugar program and the people are not going to have lower prices in sugar. Even now when we did not have a sugar program the prices skyrocketed. skyrocketed to the consumer. When we have held it down to a level. when we have reduced. the product at the retail store did not come down. the product that they talk about the consumer as being gouged. that did not come down at all. the soft drinks. all of the cookies. all of the candies. They did not come down at all. We kept paying the same. But yet they blame it all on the program. So. Mr. Chairman. I hope that the Members that have listened will agree with us also that we need stability. Stability can only be done in a partnership. That partnership has worked and is working. and I hope that we continue it.