MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from North Dakota for really being a leader and recognizing the needs that we have across rural America, the needs that we are facing in the heartland for farmers, ranchers, rural communities, and rural hospitals.

When we are looking at this pandemic and the effects it has all across this country, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we are a very diverse nation. We are a nation of condensed urban areas, and we are a nation with extreme vastness.

I happen to live in a county that is in the middle of cattle country here in the United States, where we have less than one person per square mile and there are over 6,000 square miles in my county. We understand what being rural means. We understand the differences that exist, not just within the State of Nebraska but that exist here in this country. We believe that diversity needs to be recognized when we are talking about providing relief to families, relief to small businesses, and recovery.

First, we have to get to the relief. We can't get on this bill right now. What I hear from my constituents, and I know all of you do--it doesn't matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat. I know all of you are hearing from your constituents about how ridiculous we look because we can't get on a bill for political reasons.

I hope that, as we move forward, we are able to provide relief to families. People are in need. People are hurting. People are scared. And we are here talking--which is a good thing, if we come to a positive outcome--but we don't have much time. We have small businesses across this country that are hurting.

I have heard from my dentist. I have heard from my neighbors who are very concerned about what is going on and whether they are going to be able to provide for their employees, their families and have a business to come back to.

Yet, when you talk about livestock, I think Nebraskans have a good understanding of that because livestock is the economic engine in the State of Nebraska. It is the biggest revenue provider in agriculture in the State of Nebraska. It is a part of that ag economy that drives our State's economy, which is why working on provisions that are going to help producers will help every single person in my State.

My office reached out to numbers of my friends and neighbors who are family ranchers and family farmers, and we asked them what is going on. The Senator from North Dakota talked about the losses--the extreme losses--that we are looking at. When I talk about farmers and ranchers, I am talking about family farmers and family ranchers and how people are looking at their families, their neighbors, and their communities. The coronavirus is adding another dimension to an already battered agriculture economy. This disease has been driving down crop and livestock prices. Therefore, I am adamant that, in this bill, we have to provide relief to address that.

As for my colleague from North Dakota, who has led on this and come up with a solution that will help families, neighborhoods, communities, and my State, I thank him, for we have seen ag futures that have been dropping since February. Prices that have been offered for ranchers' cattle have been dropping. Ethanol plants are starting to idle, and they are starting to close down across the country. There is a lot of unsold grain that is sitting out in the countryside or that is in farm storage right now.

As for the cattle--and I can speak to this--we have seen large volumes of negotiated cattle being procured at lower prices. We have seen a sharply rising boxed beef market both in volume and in price. As of last Thursday, cattle volume at live auctions declined by 75 percent, which is due to the folks who are practicing social distancing. That, in turn, has caused a $10 to $15 drop in the market price.

Feeder cattle sales have slowed down. If you drive around counties in my State, where we see a lot of fed cattle, you will see empty pens. Feeders are getting hit twice and, arguably, the hardest. Suppliers, which include ethanol plants, are telling feeders that they have, maybe, 1 to 2 weeks max in which they can provide feed to them, and then those family farms are going to be in trouble because those ethanol plants are going to idle or they are going to shut down, which is going to cause feeders to worry about supply.

The panic buying that we are seeing in the news can be correlated back to that high volume of beef that is being sold. We can see packers that are selling large volumes of beef with outstanding consumer demand. As a cattle rancher, you want to see that consumer demand but not in these times that are so uncertain. We have had packers communicate that they are going to continue to ramp up production. We are grateful for that, and it is needed to meet that high demand.

Beef sales are increasing, as are boxed beef prices, and producers need to be able to share in the price gains of this unexpected surge in demand. In reality, the opposite has been happening. I have been working with my colleagues on measures that are in the CARES Act that will provide some relief to people in my State and across the heartland who are working to keep the world fed during this pandemic.

The provision that we have in this current version of the bill will help to provide relief to cow-calf producers and feeders through the Commodity Credit Corporation, the CCC, which we have talked about, so we can have that increase so that livestock--beef, pork, poultry--can be included, which can also assist other commodities. This provision is needed. These dollars are the vehicle that we can use to help our producers get the relief they need during these tough times.

There are so many times I hear from my neighbors that we leave agriculture out all the time; that we don't think about rural America. We do. We always do. Yet to listen to colleagues on the other side put off a vote is appalling. People are suffering, and people must be helped. We need to be here to provide relief and to have a plan for recovery. We have that. We worked in a bipartisan way to have it. Agriculture must be a part of that.

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