Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. As chair of the Nutrition Subcommittee, I have been out West. This amendment not only helps preserve our forests, but it prevents mudslides in California, it prevents erosion, and it prevents the killing of fish. Without managing the understory, the intensity of these wildfires will caramelize, or bake, the soil to where no water is absorbed. It runs off, takes everything with it, including soil particles, and increase turbidity in streams. My point is that clean watersheds depend on this amendment as well.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for offering this amendment. It is an incredibly important amendment.

Ms. Stefanik talked about just one of many invasive species. This body, uniformly and united, put a lot of money into a significant threat to our forests, which was wildfire funding. Those of us who live on the East Coast, we have wildfires, Mr. Chairman, but they are more limited in scope. We don't have, certainly, the devastating effects of the half a million acres that I saw when I visited Washington.

Our primary threat is invasive species. The hemlock woolly adelgid is one of those. That is actually our State tree that it goes after in Pennsylvania, so we take that pretty personal. When the hemlock woolly adelgid kills the hemlock trees, it warms our trout streams, which we are known for, and that is an important part of our number two industry, which is tourism.

We have a new threat that has just recently come into this country from somewhere in Asia. It might have been China, I am not sure. It is called the spotted lanternfly. The spotted lanternfly is the most beautiful butterfly you have every seen, Mr. Chairman, but it is the most deadly to grapes, apple trees, pear trees, all fruit trees, and hardwoods. That is a big part of our economy, certainly in Pennsylvania and on the East Coast.

Mr. Chairman, I really support this amendment. We need research, we need not just solutions on how to deal with these invasive species, but we need to find solutions that are landscaped, that can be applied broadly, because it is very difficult to do it tree by tree. We are doing that with the hemlock woolly adelgid, but we do need more research. The U.S. Forest Research Lab is a great part of the U.S. Forest Service.

I appreciate the work also on restoring those forests. A good healthy forest, which means we are actively harvesting and we are maintaining and we are preventing wildfires and dealing with invasive species, provides us with clean air and clean water. They are the largest carbon sinks in the world, a good healthy forest.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Faso for his amendment. I have had the privilege and honor of visiting his district, where we had one of our listening sessions that we did.

This is only my second farm bill to participate in, and the last one was very good. Chairman Lucas did a great job. But this one, we kind of broke the barriers, I think, in terms of transparency and in the amount of listening sessions that we had.

I appreciate we were in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where each January, we have a farm show, the largest indoor agriculture exposition in the country--that was a shameless plug, I know--but we were also in New York, and I appreciate what Mr. Faso is offering here with his amendment.

I certainly speak in favor and support of his amendment. Identifying the geographic sources is so incredibly important, Mr. Chairman, because then we can see what are the natural enemies to these bugs, these fungi, the invasive species that really today are having such a devastating effect.

In the Allegheny National Forest, we are proud of our hardwood cherry. We are very afraid of the spotted lanternfly because of what that could do.

Compared to the West, we are probably what are considered a puny or very small National Forest, about 513,000 acres, but it is the most profitable National Forest because of the value of our timber, and invasive species go right after the value. Today, standing in that forest, we have a lot of ash--which makes great baseball bats, among other things--that are dead because of the emerald ash borer.

So the gentleman's amendment, which would track and really provide the tools that the Forest Service--it builds on the tools that the Forest Service has. These are additional tools that they need to have.

It is so incredibly important when you look at the economic threat, and that is the way I look at invasive species. It is not just forest health, but these are assets. Our national forests were created not to be national parks. That is why they are managed by the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Interior.

They are meant to provide resources, timber, energy resources, minerals, and the invasive species represent just a tremendous threat. So we should do anything that we can to protect the value of that taxpayer-owned asset.

Again, everybody benefits from a healthy forest. It takes CO2 out of the air, it creates oxygen. They are the largest carbon sinks in the world. It keeps our watersheds healthy.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate all parts of this gentleman's amendment and I thank him for his amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), the chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, just once again, let me thank the gentleman for his amendment.

Let me also say that this farm bill, from my perspective, is groundbreaking with what is in the base language with healthy forests, and the series of amendments that we have seen made in order. The people that will vote for this farm bill today are ones that are concerned with too much CO2 in the area, because the work that we do as a result of this farm bill, if you are concerned about climate change and you are concerned about CO2, this is probably the most effective piece of legislation to deal with that in my 10 years serving here in Congress, because, once again, these forests--and I am a little biased. I am from Pennsylvania, Penn Wood. We have more trees today than we did when William Penn got the charter.

Our healthy forests are our largest carbon sinks. It is the most effective tool that we have to take CO2 out of the air and to deal with any impact that CO2 may have on climate change. So certainly anyone who is concerned about that, talks about that, needs to support this amendment and certainly needs to support the underlying bill.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Chair, I just want to thank my colleague and friend from Pennsylvania for this amendment. Yes, the USDA has existing authority, but I think this expresses the intent of Congress and our recognition that one of the biggest issues that we face in the agriculture industry--which is the number one industry in Pennsylvania, one out of every seven jobs comes directly or indirectly from agriculture--it is our succession planning. It is where is the next generation of farmer coming from? Congress recognizes the need of having this type of leadership designated so that there is somebody on point overseeing, and pointing, and administering the young and beginning farmer programs that we have put in place for the past couple of farm bills.

It is actually a crisis, given the average age of farmers across this Nation. And I appreciate the fact that we are going to help to certainly further express the intent of this Congress on the importance of this, and provide a direction so that resources can be administered to meet this need. I appreciate the gentleman's effort.

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