National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, one of the great privileges I have serving in the U.S. Senate is standing up every day on behalf of Montana agriculture. In fact, across the great State of Montana, signs of our State's strong agricultural heritage are at virtually every turn, from wheat and sugar beet fields, to grazing cattle and sheep. It is truly impossible to miss the expansiveness of our State's No. 1 economic driver, and that is agriculture.

Agriculture is more than just an economic driver of our State, it is a way of life for thousands of Montana families. It provides for a safe, reliable, and affordable food supply not only for our Nation but for the world. It supports tens of thousands of jobs throughout the State. Let me say that again. It supports tens of thousands of jobs in the State of Montana.

Over the past several weeks and months, I have heard directly from stakeholders in Montana--from the Montana Farm Bureau, the Montana Grain Growers Association, the Montana Sugar Beet Growers, the Montana Retailers Association, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, as well as researchers at Montana State University, my alma mater, a land-grant university. All demonstrated how their livelihoods would be negatively impacted if a single State on the east coast could be allowed to have such wide-raging impacts on jobs in Montana, as well as the price we pay at the grocery store.

I believe that a State like Vermont and the junior Senator from Vermont should not dictate the laws that govern our food and affect the prices Montanans pay at the checkout line.

Defenders of Vermont's fringe law and the ideology behind it ignore hardships on agricultural jobs. They ignore hardships on family incomes. They ignore scientific consensus. They ignore the existing transparency tools and the new ones created by this bipartisan compromise legislation.

Montanans were clear that Congress needed to act. While this bill is by no means perfect, its passage is important to prevent increased costs for businesses and higher prices at the checkout stands for families.

I have to say that I am outraged that the defenders of Vermont's law ignore these hardships. In eastern Montana, sugar beets are grown using biotech, and they are an economic driver for the State, and they are the source of thousands of jobs. The sugar beet industry contributes about $70 million a year to the Montana economy, as well as sugar factories in Billings and Sidney.

As Shane Strecker, the director of the Southern Montana Sugar Beet Growers, put it, ``Without biotechnology, the hundreds of jobs Montana's sugar beet industry supports would not exist.''

Make no mistake--this Vermont law is an attack on Montana's way of life, it is an attack on Montana's farm and ranch operations, and I am not going to stand for it. I will stand up for Montana and continue to fight to ensure that Montana's agricultural products are not unfairly and arbitrarily discriminated against. As always, I am proud to stand with Montana farmers, to stand with Montana ranchers, to stand with Montana agriculture, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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