Farm Bill

Floor Speech

FARM BILL -- (House of Representatives - May 14, 2008)

Mr. MORAN of Kansas. Madam Speaker, today, the House of Representatives debated the conference report on what we in Kansas call the farm bill. Here in Washington, it's now called the Food, Conservation, Energy Security Act, and I note that the word ``farm'' is now missing from the farm bill.

As I indicate to Kansans, there probably is no more important piece of legislation that this Congress will consider than the 2008 farm bill from a Kansas perspective. Certainly, not every Kansan is a farmer, not every Kansan is a rancher, but agriculture is the backbone of the Kansas economy, and policies that we determine here today in the House of Representatives and tonight later in the Senate affect the Kansas economy and a way of life that we have revered in our State for generations.

Agriculture is not only a business. It's not only a way of earning a living. In fact, it's a very difficult way of earning a living. It is the opportunity that we have in our State for sons and daughters to work side-by-side with moms and dads. It's the opportunity for us to pass on values from one generation to the next.

And today, Madam Speaker, I worry that the legislation that we will soon be sending to the President is inadequate to meet the needs of Kansas producers and American agriculture.

In the 2002 farm bill, we passed a security net, a safety net for our farmers, and it's a three-pronged approach to making certain that our farmers are secure and have an opportunity to survive in difficult times, whether those times are difficult because of low commodity prices or difficult because the weather does not cooperate.

And today, Madam Speaker, we chose to reduce that security, that safety net that provides Kansans a future.

I had two criteria in trying to determine whether or not the farm bill was something I should vote for. One: Is this farm bill better? Is the 2007, now 2008, farm bill better than the one that was adopted by Congress in 2002? And clearly, the answer to that is no.

And the second criteria comes from listening to farmers for the last 2 and 3 years about what a new farm bill should look like. In fact, I listened to American producers from across the country. Since the passage of the last farm bill, I've chaired or been the ranking Republican, Republican leader on the subcommittee responsible for all farm programs and participated in 15 hearings across the country. And what I heard time and time again, especially from the folks back home is, whatever you do, Jerry, make certain that we don't lose the direct payment and make certain that crop insurance remains a viable option for us to protect ourselves from risk. And unfortunately, once again, those two criteria were not met today.

So Madam Speaker, I pledge to my colleagues in the House of Representatives, and particularly my friends on the House Agriculture Committee, to continue to work in a very strong and bipartisan way to see if we can't improve the lives of farmers in Kansas and States across the country.

I served on the conference committee that provided the report that we have had before us today, and I offered amendments and supported amendments that I think would make significant improvements in the 2008 farm bill. They were rejected on straight, party-line votes, and it's a sad day for me because I've always enjoyed my work in the Agriculture Committee because I care about farmers and ranchers, and I care about their way of life. But never has our committee been partisan, and again, I pledge myself to work with my colleagues to see if we can restore the days in which we were in this together on behalf of American agriculture.

Madam Speaker, it's my belief that if we're going to spend as much money as we spend in this farm bill, which is a significant sum of money, we ought to spend it in much more wise and prudent ways than this conference report provides. We owe it to farmers across the country, and we owe it to the taxpayers of this Nation.

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