Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.R. 2419, Food and Energy Security Act of 2007
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 01, 2008)
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Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I do rise in opposition to this motion. I think my good and dear friends are well intended. I think they believe that they are sincerely trying to do something positive.
But I would say to you, this process that we are working through is a complicated, challenging process. Ultimately, the final goal of any farm bill is to take the limited resources that we have and use them in a way to achieve the maximum benefit for our fellow Americans, whether that is enhancing the quality of the environment through
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the conservation programs, or making sure that the world's safest and yet most affordable food supply continues to be available to everyone.
Let's think for a moment about what farm bills represent. The first comprehensive Federal farm bill was not passed until 1933 in the depths of the great economic depression, and, in my region of the country, the great droughts of the 1930s. It was an effort to prevent rural America from disintegrating. It was an effort to make sure that food and fiber remained available to all American consumers at a price that they could afford. We have worked through many policy concepts. We have had many different ways of addressing those needs since 1933.
With time, the focus of the farm bill has shifted. In the 1960s it went from being a farmer's farm bill, as the coffee shop folks back home might think of, to being a major player in meeting the nutritional needs of this program. President Kennedy's pilot program on ultimately what became food stamps adopted by President Johnson and this Congress in the 1960s became a major element. But it was an element of the farm bill. In the 1980s, the focus added conservation to that, CRP, EQIP, all of the things that enable farmers, ranchers and property owners to maximize the positive environmental impacts on their property.
The farm bill evolved. Where are we right now? We have a bill that is the result of one of the most challenging set of circumstances in decades. We were given the baseline last year to write a farm bill, and for those of you who might not remember what the baseline is, that is simply saying you have the money you had 5 years ago, and not a penny more. And, oh, by the way, inflation has chewed a good bit of that up. Go try and write a bill. Then we were told, shift $4 billion of that from wherever in the bill you want, wherever you can, to the food stamp program, the social nutrition program, the feeding programs.
Okay. We worked for months. But as things have gone along, the process has changed. Now, instead of $4 billion, then it was $6 billion, then it was $8 billion. Now I understand we are at $10.6 billion in new social nutrition spending.
I don't disagree with that. But when you are not given any new money to start with, when you are placed under a $10 billion mandate, it makes it hard to do all of the things that need to be done with the few precious resources you have.
Now we have worked in the most creative way to come up with additional revenue, to reallocate resources to meet that $10 billion mandate from senior leadership in the majority. And along the way we have come up with $4 billion extra for conservation, half of that money going to EQIP, the basic cost share program that everyone has an opportunity to apply for to try and justify the benefits that will be generated from it to have the resources to meet those needs.
My friends, I know my colleagues are well-intended. I sincerely believe that. But a farm bill, first and foremost, should be about making sure that every American has access to the safest, highest quality, yes, most affordable food and fiber in the world. Then we can target all of these other programs. Then we can meet all these other needs.
Let's don't lose sight of why we have farm bills. Let's not lose sight of who they help, and that is every American that eats, and a good part of the world that depends on us for their food suppliers also.
The budget times are tough. The circumstances are difficult. It has been a long and arduous conference. We have yet to produce a final report, which we will all then be able to debate and discuss. But don't direct us in a way that makes the process more complicated when it comes to meeting all of those needs. Don't tie our hands in a fashion that will lead, I am afraid, to a net reduction in the ultimate benefit of those taxpayer dollars, so hard for the taxpayers to come by, that need to be spent so carefully to maximize their return.
Let us pursue the agenda of meeting our needs.
Witht that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve what time I might have left.
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