Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I listened to my good friend from Texas talk about deferring yet again to the Ag Committee, that somehow this payment goes to the Brazilian cotton industry and not to the cotton farmers, a distinction without a difference I would suggest.
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. And Mr. Chair, on that note I, too, commend what my friend from Wisconsin is doing. I look forward to the comments from my friend from Arizona. If we're serious about reform and saving money, it's time to move in this area.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following new section:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay the salaries and expenses of personnel of the Department of Agriculture to provide benefits described in section 1001D(b)(1)(C) of the Food Security Act of 1985 (7 U.S.C. 1308-3a(b)(1)(C)) to a person or legal entity in excess of $125,000.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, these are challenging budgets and difficult economic times. But unfortunately, there really are alternatives to slashing environmental payments and nutritional support in the farm bill. There is an alternative to reform and modernize.
The last farm bill pretended to start limitations in payments. But exempted from the modest limitations in some areas were market loan payments, loan deficiency payments, and commodity certificates not capped. This means that entities can virtually receive unlimited title I dollars under the current law.
Mr. Chairman, it's important for us, as we are dealing with trying to reduce the strain on the Federal budget, to do so in a way that is strategic. The amendment I propose would establish a $125,000 payment limitation in total. Now, this will save two-thirds of a billion dollars.
Bear in mind that we are now cutting existing environmental contracts if this bill came forward. The majority of farmers and ranchers in this country still receive nothing, 62 percent receive nothing. In my State of Oregon, it's 87 percent of the farmers and ranchers. It's time to start with modest restrictions on government subsidies.
There are a wide range of areas in this budget. As it's working its way through the House, we're going to see very dramatic reductions, almost a third in transportation. We sliced $1 billion from sewer and water programs to State and local governments. At a time of record high farm commodity prices, this would be a time to place this modest limitation.
There's actually a question whether or not some of these payments even go to farmers at all. In 2009, some of the entities that received title I handouts--the Fidelity National Title Institute received over $4.85 million. Almost $3 million went to the Mercer County Abstract Company. The American Marketing Peanut Association received largesse from the Federal Government worth over $3.98 million.
These aren't the small family farmers that I think all of us would like to support.
In this day and age, it's embarrassing to be giving away $4 million of taxpayer money in 1 year to a private, for-profit company when I think what we should be doing is concentrating on the support for America's farmers and ranchers. We have the opportunity, with this amendment, to take a step in this direction.
I would strongly urge that my colleagues join with me in adopting this amendment establishing a $125,000 overall limit, and be able to start saving two-thirds of $1 billion and send a signal that we're serious about reforming spending.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate his kind words and thoughtful analysis.
The approach that we are taking here is to put an overall limit of $125,000 in addition to what we are talking about. This would have only affected about 6,500 entities in 2009. It is an appropriate step forward.
I hear some of my colleagues concerned about changing the rules for a few thousand people who are getting huge amounts of subsidy. You know, this bill will change the rules for tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers who would otherwise get environmental protections, payments for environmental programs. In fact, some of the existing contracts would be abrogated.
Now, there are going to be lots of changes going on. I hope that we start now beginning the process of agricultural reform and making clear that we want to start by putting some overall limitation during a time of record high farm prices. There is never a good time to do it. I think the time to do it is now.
I look forward to a spirited debate on farm bill reform. I hope at some point we are able to actually do some meaningful reform, as acknowledged by even the proponents from the committee. We have got lots of problems with the existing bill. We could do a better job. It is complicated.
Well, this isn't complicated. This is straightforward and direct, and I urge an ``aye'' vote in support of the amendment.
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's words, and I appreciate his courtesy.
I listened with amusement to my friend from Georgia talk about his concern that we're going to be importing food from overseas if we have some reasonable limitation on these title I payments.
The food, which are the fruits and vegetables that the people in my State raise--and I met with a bunch of them this last week again--get zip. They get nada. We're cutting back on the research funding for them. We're cutting back on marketing. We're cutting back on helping them comply with the environmental requirements that they want to meet because they're good stewards of the land. We're making it harder for them to do the work of producing food for America. Yet we're having lavish subsidies for five commodities, which is where 90 percent of the money goes.
If you really cared about protecting the food supply, we'd redirect it. We'd save this $650 million, and we'd put it where it would do more good.
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I rise in support of my colleague from Wisconsin in this proposal. I've been in this Congress having watched three farm bill reauthorizations, and each time we find that there is expression on the floor of this Chamber for actual reform. We've asked for limitations. We are told well we just don't--the floor doesn't understand; it's too complicated. Well, it is complicated and twisted because this is an effort to try, through the complexity, to layer efforts here that cheat the American consumer, that hurt the environment, and pose serious problems for international trade.
And my friend from Wisconsin is correct. We were talking about this in the last farm bill, and we got our comeuppance, but instead of responding responsibly in reducing or eliminating the illegal cotton subsidies, we're shoving upwards of a half-billion dollars to the Brazilian cotton industry, and I'll be prepared to argue, it benefits cotton farmers. So we're subsidizing two countries because we fail to reach our responsibilities now.
I sincerely think this is wrong. I think $147 million could go a long way towards helping the part of American agriculture that grows food that we categorize as specialty crops who are dramatically shortchanged.
I would like to yield the remainder of my time, if I could, to my good friend from Wisconsin, the sponsor of this amendment.
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