Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.
The Market Access Program provides matching grants. These are matching grants for technical assistance and other activities that help our family farmers expand their market access overseas.
Let's face it. We are in a global market, and our farmers are not always facing a level playing field. Since the creation of this extremely successful agricultural export program, it has increased America's export by over 500 percent. That is a success story by any measure.
The USDA's commissioned study conducted in 2010 found that, for every dollar that MAP spent, it generates, as was noted just a moment ago, $35 in additional exports. This creates an additional $6.1 billion in economic activity annually.
Billions and billions of dollars have been achieved as increased exports as a result of this program and thousands and thousands of jobs. That includes safeguards to the taxpayers.
The statements by the proponents of this measure, I believe, are overreaching because they ignore the fact that it is a matching grant. And the particular statements they make ignore the fact that these were personal expenditures by these organizations, not the money of the Market Access Program.
So I would urge you to defeat this amendment. The processors have matched over 100 percent of the funds that we have provided in this program. It's been a success by any measure, and I would urge the defeat of this amendment.
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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Chairman, it is oftentimes the poorest and some of the most underrepresented communities in the country that have the greatest impacts--for historical reasons, in part--on public health, communities across the country we all represent.
I represent a number of those communities in California in the San Joaquin Valley that are experiencing enormous challenges as it relates to their water quality and contamination that has existed because of decades-past experiences in many cases with nitrates, in which at the time it was not well understood, but today it is, that in fact it has tremendous impacts on our drinking water supply as it relates to our aquifers.
The amendment that is proposed is intended to address this problem by creating a pilot program for severely disadvantaged communities that would provide funds in this FARRM Bill for the Rural Utility Service that would address this nitrate contamination for rural drinking water communities, those communities that we all represent that have 10,000 population or less.
The San Joaquin Valley that Congressman Valadao and I and others represent has almost 4 million people. It's almost 10 percent of California's population. Twenty percent of those folks live below the poverty line. They reflect a broad cross-range of folks--immigrants past, immigrants present--who have come here to live the American Dream and work so hard, so many in our agriculture economy.
While nitrates occur naturally at low levels, crop fertilizers and practices with both dairy and other animal husbandry practices create nitrates that in fact impact the elevation of the contamination within our drinking water sources within our aquifers.
In fact, California's Central Valley is especially vulnerable to that nitrate contamination since it accounts for more than half of the agriculture production in California and aquifers are the primary source of drinking water for 90 percent of the residents.
Unfortunately, in the past, have didn't have strong controls, and we didn't really understand the science. Today, we do.
It is often difficult to identify a single party that is responsible for the impacts; but what is most important is that we fix the problem, that we clean the water supply for those residents.
Today, we have, I think, a better balance between public health and the impact of agricultural practices.
This amendment, if adopted, would provide the opportunity to focus on assisting disadvantaged communities with improving their drinking water that has been contaminated by nitrates.
I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).
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Mr. COSTA. Yes, Congressman Crawford, I will be more than willing to yield to Chairman Lucas and to Ranking Member Peterson. We appreciate your willingness to work with us together on this effort to ensure that we can deliver resources that are important to our small communities throughout the country that are impacted in this way. I will withdraw the amendment and continue to work with you.
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Mr. COSTA. Not to oppose the measure, but actually to speak on behalf of the amendment. The issues that have been raised here by this amendment, I think, are valid. There are concerns that have been raised by cattlemen and cattlewomen across the country. I think that, obviously, we all feel that there ought to be a level playing field when it comes to the protection of the Freedom of Information Act.
But on the other hand, cattlemen and cattlewomen every day are working really hard to try to do their best to produce the safest and the highest quality beef that Americans do every day and is the best in the world.
So we think this amendment is a step in the right direction and would like to support the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Chairman, before I state my opposition, I'd like to first thank Chairman Frank Lucas for the hard work that he and his committee staff have done today and throughout this year and last year in trying to put together not one, but two farm bills for the consideration of the House and for America's heartland, and thank Ranking Member Collin Peterson and his staff for the hard work that they have done as well.
These are never easy, but as both the chairman and the ranking member like to remind us, and I think it's an important underlying point, the farm bill that we reauthorize every 4 years is among the most bipartisan efforts that we ever do. And both the chair and the ranking member and their staff are to be commended.
As it relates to this measure before us, this amendment, we believe that it uses a meat cleaver approach to the legislation. Like sequester, it doesn't discriminate among programs. It's blind between those programs which deserve longer authorization periods and those that could use trimming, and clearly we understand the author's intent.
The whole purpose of the farm bill, though, is to review programs under our jurisdiction to determine whether or not they should continue, whether they should be changed, or whether they should be eliminated. And, once again, to commend the chair and the ranking member, we have done a very good job on that oversight on determining what areas ought to be trimmed, what programs ought to be consolidated, and which should be eliminated. Our bill already does that. Actually, as the chair has indicated and the ranking member, it terminates hundreds of programs and consolidates, and the committee did the work in a thoughtful and careful manner.
So we can't support the amendment that undoes the careful work that the committee has pursued. I urge my colleagues to reject this haphazard approach--or shotgun approach, we might say back home--and vote ``no'' on this amendment.
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