Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008

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Ms. DeLAURO. If the gentleman would yield, I, too, am concerned about treatment of workers at Blue Diamond Growers. I'm aware that the Secretary of Agriculture has the discretion to deny funding to a coop if it is in the best interest of the program. I further note that USDA regulations require that MAP participants adhere to the laws and customs abroad when they hire foreign workers to market their product. We'll work with you on this critical issue of real importance to our workers.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I just want to say I think we need to be very excited about this bill. We set out to accomplish several goals, including strengthening rural America, having the opportunity to protect our public health, improving nutrition for more Americans, and we tried to be concerned particularly about rural areas. But we're looking at 40 percent of the children in rural areas who are dependent on food stamps. We look to transforming our energy future to $1.2 billion in loans and grants, particularly in rural areas, supporting conservation, investing in research, which keeps our agriculture on the cutting edge and, finally, enhancing oversight.

Most importantly, what I believe about this bill is it brings our Nation back to its most fundamental principles and that is the strength of our communities. We have an obligation to keep these things and to get them right, and I'm assuming we will take that responsibility today.

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Ms. DeLAURO. I rise in opposition to the Sessions amendment, and I am astounded that the gentleman is taking the time of the House with this amendment.

The only requirement in the language that the amendment seeks to strike is for the USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide a report on contracting out policies and expenditures, to the appropriations and the Oversight and Government Reform committees.

This is a bipartisan provision, included when the gentleman's party was in the majority and a long-standing provision that was first part of the Agriculture bill for fiscal year 2004.

If the gentleman's aim is to allow USDA to continue contracting out, this amendment is not the way to accomplish that. The language that we have included in the bill does not prevent USDA from carrying out the outsourcing of Federal work. What it simply aims to do is to establish a much-needed oversight on the related costs to contracting out.

Regardless of how one feels about the role of the Federal workforce and the outsourcing of Federal jobs to private contractors, why would we object to transparency in this area? We are talking about a report.

Now, after the comment about the report being burdensome, this is the report, it is hardly burdensome, four paragraphs and a chart. It really defies the imagination.

The fact is that we need to exercise our responsibility. We need to increase oversight in this area. We all know that the administration's guidelines for public-private competitions, OMB circular 876, has long favored contractors and stacked the deck against Federal employees.

The Bush White House has pushed privatization so much that the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that there are more private contractors in Iraq than U.S. troops. More than 180,000 civilians, including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis, are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense Department figures obtained by the newspaper.

I believe we should know the costs associated with contracting-out policies. That is all, again, that is all the language in the report is about, and I cannot understand why the gentleman objects to a report.

I urge a "no'' vote on the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, again, let me just notify the gentleman who just spoke, there is truly nothing in our bill that deals with the issue of privatization or with States and privatization. I think the gentleman is confused with the Agriculture appropriations bill and with the farm bill which occurred a week ago. That was addressed in the farm bill. There is nothing in our bill that deals with the issue of privatization.

I think it's again worth noting that all we are speaking about here is a report. What I can't understand is why we would not want to know about the cost of contracting out and what is happening. That is what our responsibility is, to ask questions. We have oversight responsibility of these Federal agencies.

As I pointed out before, you have 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors, 118,000 Iraqis all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data. You have got the massive privatization of military jobs which have been taken up with construction, security, weapons systems, maintenance, and, in fact, we can't even keep track of that effort. We have a responsibility, whether it is Department of Agriculture, whether it is Department of Defense, whatever Department it is.

If we want to hold the jobs that we have, we ought to be asking questions about how taxpayers' dollars are being spent by these agencies. And it's fiscally responsible, and it is what we are charged with doing. You may choose not to know what they are doing because you concur that that's the thing to do, to replace Federal employees and their jobs. You can hold that view, but let's get the information. Let's get a mere report to do it.

I ask for a "no'' vote on this amendment.

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Ms. DeLAURO. I yield myself 2 minutes.

I rise in strong opposition to this amendment from the gentleman from Texas to cut the Community Facility grant program.

These are grants, please understand, that assist in the development of central community facilities in rural areas and towns of up to 20,000 in population. These are small communities, low populations, low income, and they receive a higher percentage of the grants.

What are they used for? To construct, enlarge, improve community facilities. What are those community facilities? It is about health care, public safety, community, public services. When you have seen what has happened to rural America with the loss of jobs, globalization, you have families and livelihoods which have become marginal, you also see the fabric of the community and those institutions cannot be sustained, and these things go away. And so that the local community has an opportunity to create some of these services that are necessary, it is vital to small communities, to impoverished communities. And they build fire stations, hospitals. They purchase ambulances and other critical facilities.

And if you don't deal with the health care where they have limited availability and accessibility, we are going to continually have a shortage of health care providers in rural America, and that is a disaster.

Major investments in transportation, telecommunications, and other critical services are necessary in many rural areas, and local tax bases are unable to support necessary investments and improvements. And we know what the topography is in rural areas with the remoteness from metropolitan areas adds only to their difficulties.

This is essential, this program, to really help communities get a critical infrastructure. This is building infrastructure in rural America, which every report, every study says we need to do in order to reenergize and revitalize rural America. I urge you not to vote for this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, let me close by saying that, again, this is about building infrastructure in rural America.

The facts are that the demographics are changing in rural America. We are looking at communities that have lost jobs, that have lost because they can't sustain them, community institutions. These community facility grants allow for these communities to access resources in order to create the kinds of services that they and their families need in order to be able to survive.

The demographics are going in one direction, and the administration will take away all of the opportunities, as with the gentleman from Texas, for these communities to be able to thrive. It is wrong, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I rise again in strong opposition to this amendment from the gentleman from Texas. This would cut in half the Broadband Community Connect program.

This funding level will help. First, let me quote to you from something called the Carsey Institute Report, Rural America and the Twenty-First Century Prospectus from the Field. And this is the quote. This is June, 2007: ``Expanded broadband telecommunication is essential, is essential, if rural areas are to be competitive in a global economy.''

I can't believe the gentleman would want to move us backward and not forward in terms of allowing our communities to move into the 21st century and to be able to compete globally. This funding level helps more families in rural communities get the access that they need to technology. This helps to increase business, employment opportunities, greater access to educational and lifesaving medical services.

This is not a partisan issue. We all support providing increased broadband
services to rural America. Communities that are selected to receive grant funds do not currently have access to broadband connectivity for central services of police, fire protection, hospitals, local governments, libraries, schools. In return, what the communities do, because it is a partnership, they provide a community center where you have at least 10 computers to be available to the public with hours set for instruction and on the use of the Internet.

This is about economic opportunity and revitalization and the potential for improving the quality of life for residents in these areas that need to have this infrastructure. The technology is going to be the key to the ability of rural businesses and rural economies.

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