Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, I will just finish up by saying for the ranking member, if she is done with her political talking points of running for Senate, and hopefully she is here--I invite her--on May 13, she is welcome to be here to vote on an E15 bill on May 13.

I thank the gentlewoman. I support this bill. This drives up the cost of these pieces of equipment.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, Benjamin Franklin once said: ``An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,'' and this is not the first time that we have been threatened with foreign entities purchasing up agricultural assets, be it production or processing.

In the 1970s, it was Japan. The result of that: There are 29 States that have laws that restrict, to some degree, foreign ownership or investments in private agricultural land within their State. Yet, up to this point, the Federal Government has failed to do its job because we have not had an agriculture presence in the CFIUS interagency group.

By the way, we correct that in this bill, in this piece of legislation, Farm, Food, and National Security Act. The gentleman's amendment really complements that. Agricultural land is a strategic asset tied directly to food supply, and restricting foreign ownership helps to ensure that adversarial nations or entities, whoever those adversaries may be in the future, cannot gain control over land near a sensitive site or, quite frankly, cannot control our food supply.

A foreign entity controlling your food supply will control your nation. Keeping agricultural land in the hands of U.S. producers, away from adversarial nations, supports long-term stability and food production, reduces reliance on foreign-controlled resources, and ensures that land use decisions align with national interests, rather than with external, economic, or political priorities.

The CFIUS interagency group, which under this bill, the Secretary of Agriculture would be a part of, would be able to do their due diligence on that.

Food security is national security, and that is why I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this amendment.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for bringing up this important amendment.

Mr. Chair, I can't believe that anyone is opposed to just making sure that honey is healthy and is produced in the United States. It just shows you the politics of my friends on the left side of the aisle, the Democrats.

Let me address this amendment first. As with all food quality provisions, it is important that we are relying on high-quality science and methods to make sure that when producers are making claims regarding their product's quality, purity, and authenticity, it be confirmed.

This amendment brings that certainty to the honey industry in the United States, protecting producers and consumers. The owners have a great secondary benefit of making sure that the honey industry is successful because we need those pollinators. We need those pollinators for everything: Our food, for beautiful flowers, for anything that grows. Basically, pollination is such an important part of that.

To be opposed to this amendment is to be opposed to American agriculture. I am not surprised by that. The accusations that this is a partisan bill, I wish most people were paying closer attention. I think folks who know this bill know that we are.

The core of this bill has 140 bipartisan, Republican and Democratic, markup bills in this. There were 40 bills just led by Democrats that went into this. We did 100 amendments in the committee markup process, and what got adopted was basically 50-50, half and half.

Today, if you are really paying attention to what is happening on the floor, it is probably 50-50 today. I didn't do the actual math, but there are a lot of amendments that have been made not only in order but that were accepted by voice vote that were offered by my friends who are both Democrats and Republicans.

This bill passed with bipartisan votes out of committee, so the political talking points for November that this is a partisan bill are just outrageous. You can't hide from the truth.

Getting back to the sweet topic of honey, I think this is great amendment. I support this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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