Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, the agricultural land of the United States should be owned by Americans, not by foreign adversaries, hostile regimes, or those who actively seek to undermine the economic, food, and national security of the American people.

Right now, Federal law does not have a forceful provision that strictly denies entities and persons affiliated with foreign adversaries and state sponsors of terrorism from buying up American farmland. The same governments that hack our critical infrastructure, poison our communities with fentanyl, and dare to surpass the United States on the world stage are slowly acquiring American farmland acre by acre, county by county, and State by State.

My amendment is simple. It would prohibit the purchase of agricultural land by foreign adversaries and state sponsors of terrorism. The fact that our enemies and their accomplices are not already firmly restricted from purchasing agricultural land in our Nation should alarm every Member of this body.

Enemy ownership of our agricultural land presents a clear, dire, and direct threat to our national security. Much of our farmland surrounds our Nation's most sensitive critical infrastructure assets and military installations, and such proximity can afford our enemies the ability to surveil our troops and disrupt critical supply chains that support military readiness and our energy grid and that keep our economy flourishing.

We should never allow our enemies to gain a foothold in the shadows of the installations that protect and defend our economic and national security.

Our agricultural land is perhaps one of our Nation's greatest strategic assets. It is the land that sustains American families, insulates our military installations, and serves as the backbone of the American economy. Why should we ever give our enemies a single inch of the very land that sustains our country?

My amendment draws a hard line, which should have existed all along: Our enemies don't get to own America's agricultural land.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the American people's sovereign right to our farmland by voting for my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, the heads of our different intelligence agencies have stated that the Chinese Communist Party is the number one threat to the national security of the United States.

I had the opportunity to serve in Hawaii for 3 years. Hawaii has a number of different military installations that are surrounded by, for example, pineapple farms. To allow the Chinese Communist Party to purchase land around our military installations, some of the most sensitive military installations that we have, it is very surprising that you have Members from that very State with all of those military installations that wouldn't want to protect the national security of the United States.

This is a very simple amendment. It doesn't matter who the President is. It matters that we are not going to allow our enemies to buy agricultural land by our military installations and put our country at risk.

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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, this amendment doesn't have anything to do with E15.

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer an amendment defending the integrity of honey and the livelihood of the Americans who produce it.

My amendment establishes clear, direct, and enforceable testing standards for pure and authentic honey and ensures that claims regarding honey's purity, floral source, origin, grade, and authenticity are backed by rigorous and verifiable testing here in the United States, all under standards that we control, laboratories that we oversee, and methods that we recognize.

It makes one thing unmistakably clear: Foreign certifications on their own cannot be used to prove the authenticity and purity of honey.

Today, our markets are flooded with diluted, falsely labeled, adulterated, and fake honey. Far too often, such inauthentic honey is imported to our country and lands on the shelves of American grocery stores to the deceit of the American consumer and to the discredit of the thousands of American beekeepers and honey producers across our country.

This is not just a technical oversight but confirmation of an exploited system that favors foreign producers over the Americans that keep our food supply stable and our economy flourishing.

While this exploitation continues, American beekeepers and honey producers are being undercut in their own market, forced to compete against fraud dressed up as food. Most importantly, my amendment upholds the principle that consumers deserve to not be deceived in the foods that they consume.

This amendment helps to restore trust for the American consumer, returns fairness for honey producers, and sends a message to the United States that we will not be a dumping ground for fake and fraudulent products that cheat producers and mislead consumers.

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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, Americans have the right when they go to the grocery store to know that the honey that they are purchasing is not adulterated, fake honey from places like the Chinese Communist Party and Brazil. They should know what their honey is. They should know that it is actual honey that they are purchasing. This amendment gives Americans the ability to do that. I can't think of anybody that would be opposed to that.

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

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Mr. STEUBE. Mr. Chair, Americans want to know that when they buy honey from the supermarket or from their local grocery store that it is authentic, genuine, not adulterated honey from another country.

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

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