Russian Investigation

Floor Speech

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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Perlmutter for yielding, and I thank him for, really, the eloquent conversation he has been having for the last half an hour about the extreme importance of the investigation that is going on and recognizing the fact that this is the 1-year anniversary, and obviously, we still have a long ways to go. This is a very critical issue, and we need to continue to support Robert Mueller and the work that he is doing, and I am very grateful for all that is going on.

May 17 is not only the first anniversary of that investigation, but it is also the day we started the debate on the farm bill. And for those of you who have been following this, you will see that this week there are going to be amendments and general debate around this particular bill. I have also been joined by a couple of my colleagues from SEEC, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, because we want to talk specifically tonight about how this farm bill harms the environment and conservation.

You are going to hear all kinds of things about the farm bill. Some of the most egregious challenges are within the nutrition title, which takes up about 80 percent of the resources of the farm bill. But it is very important to talk about the role of the environment in this bill.

A lot of people don't think about the farm bill as an environmental bill, but actually, farmland accounts for over 40 percent of our Nation's land, and what happens to farms and working forests has a huge impact on water quality, on wildlife, on environmental health, and the farm bill contains many provisions, some of which people don't often know that much about, that are important to conservation programs for farmers.

Farmers understand why it is important to care for the land that takes care of them. They know that conservation practices ensure that the resource remains sustainable while helping them to save money, preparing for environmental issues like drought and extreme weather. Conservation practices that sequester carbon in the soil, put more organic matter in the soil, have a huge impact on our ability to sequester carbon, which we all know is very important to issues around climate change.

I just want to go over a few of the highlights, or you could say the low lights, of this bill when it comes to environmental practices, and then I am happy to share with several others who would like to talk about some of the programs, and we will have a little dialogue about it.

One of the things that happens is it eliminates the Conservation Stewardship Program. These are financial incentives for farmers to implement long-term conservation practices that benefit wildlife and natural resources, which also help their bottom line. Elimination of this program is about $1 billion cut for conservation.

Also, within the program, they are folding in the Conservation Stewardship Program into another program called EQIP, and these two programs will be worked together. And while maybe that sounds like it is streamlining in Maine, we are worried that they will have far less in resources overall.

In Maine, programs have been particularly important to helping what has been a growth in small farms in our State and more resources to our farmers. People have built hoop houses, which extend our season and allow you to grow more in the early season and into the late season, helped with wells, composting facilities, a variety of other things. Now we are going to combine those programs, have less in resources, and farmers will just be fighting for far less dollars.

The bill also eliminates a lot of mandatory funding. And one program I wanted to mention was the REAP program, Renewable Energy for America Program. I think many of us really care about renewable resources and allowing our farms and rural businesses to have more energy efficiency, use alternative energy improvements. This helps to reduce their environmental impact, and, again, their costs. It is very difficult to make a good living on a farm, and that has to be factored in as well.

In Maine, the REAP program has helped install solar power, helped maple syrup producers reduce energy costs, generated energy from biomass, built more efficient processing systems, built an anaerobic digester, and so much more. So this is also a very critical program that is now going to be changed in the way it is funded, and that means we can't count on it going into the future.

There are a lot of policy riders--and I am hoping my colleagues will talk about a few more of them--that will hurt farmers and the health of rural communities in many ways, and these have no place in the farm bill.

One of them that I have heard a lot about from my constituents--and there is a lot of talk about--is the King amendment--the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King)--that would preempt local and State laws, which would preempt many of those laws that impact pesticides and animal welfare.

Now, Maine, where we are a very outspoken State, we believe in agriculture, and we care deeply about the environment. We already have 30 communities that have local pesticide laws restricting pesticides. That would be eliminated under this because they would be preempted.

We have other laws about crate sizes, breeding crate sizes, puppy mills; any of those kinds of things that regulate animal practices, States would no longer be allowed to do. This is not a good States' rights issue. It is bad for the issues that we care about, and we should not allow this amendment to pass.

There are also a variety of issues that would impact the Endangered Species Act. Now, we are lucky in Maine. Since 1978, when the impacts of DDT had reduced the number of bald eagles to about 20 nesting pairs, once that was eliminated and there was no more DDT, fast forward to today, in the last count, we have 500-plus bald eagles in our State. Almost everywhere in our State you can see a bald eagle out there fishing, doing its work.

Well, the language in this bill would say that when reviewing pesticides and herbicides, there would no longer be any requirement for the EPA to consult expert wildlife agencies to identify and minimize impact to endangered species. Many of us are deeply worried about the effect on pollinators like bees and butterflies, which are critically important to agriculture. We can't exist without pollinators, and this is a terrible time to put them in further danger.

I will just mention one more and then yield to a couple of my colleagues who are ready to speak. One provision in the farm bill would undermine the National Environmental Policy Act, that is, NEPA. Again, those are critically important reviews that go on in anything that we do. To weaken that would harm our communities, our environment, and our public health.

So I have done a little bit of a broad overview, and I could talk about things that frustrate me in this farm bill all night long, but I want to yield to one of my great colleagues from the State of Oregon, someone who represents the other Portland, as we say. I have the first Portland.

Mr. Speaker, more importantly, I yield back to my friend from Colorado.

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