Pass the Farm Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman. I couldn't agree more. I would like to see a little farm-country sense brought to Washington. I think if that were leading the charge on a lot of fronts, we could resolve some of these issues we have been facing pretty quickly.

I am real proud, Mr. Speaker, to be here to talk about agriculture. When I was first elected in 2008, sworn in in 2009, one of my first picks that I asked for on committee assignments was Agriculture. Today, I'm proud to serve as chairman of the Subcommittee for Conservation, Energy, and Forestry on the Agriculture Committee.

I am proud to be from the Keystone State. I had a number of colleagues at that point in 2009 ask me why would I ever be on Agriculture when I am from Pennsylvania. The fact is, it is our number one industry in Pennsylvania. We have many commodities. We are one of the top providers and producers for the United States--and sometimes other parts of the world--in terms of our commodities that we raise and we grow. We can't speak enough about the importance of this farm bill.

There are a lot of reasons why we all, every colleague in this Chamber, should be supporting the farm bill. I have to say that there are fewer than, I believe, 100 of our congressional districts, out of 435, where we actually grow and raise the food to feed this Nation and much of the world. But the fact is every district has Americans that shake hands with a farmer at least three times a day every time they pick up a fork.

And so one of the principles that guides me, Mr. Speaker, in terms of my decisionmaking on any issue, I call it principle-based leadership. I always start and try to define what my principles are first. By the way, we have been working on this for 4 1/2 years, actually. I remember having hearings. I was in the minority my first 2 years, and we had hearings. The first hearing was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, specifically on the dairy title.

But the principles that have guided me since day one here in terms of agriculture is that America should always be the place where we have the most affordable, highest quality, and safest food supply anywhere in the world. So every decision I have made in supporting the development, the writing, and actually the passing of this farm bill has been to honor those three principles.

In addition to that, my good friend from Michigan talked about the importance of food security, and I agree with that. It's the biggest threat to our national security. And there are a lot of them out there, Mr. Speaker. I have got two kids that just got back from Afghanistan. I understand terrorist threats and threats to our financial situation, but the most imminent threat to our national security would be at whatever point we would begin to rely on another country for our food supply. This farm bill is the single most important piece of Federal legislation to make sure America has the most affordable, highest quality, and safest food supply.

There are a lot of things that this bill does. It repeals and consolidates more than 100 programs. This is a great example for the rest of government. This is exactly step one on how we begin to reduce our spending appropriately--looking at things that either don't work, things that are duplicative, things that are just not fulfilling the purpose for which it was designed.

It eliminates direct payments, which farmers receive regardless of market conditions.

I am not sure I would have supported past farm bills, to tell you the truth, that were passed before I came here; but I support this one because the reforms we have brought to the agriculture side and the nutrition side are very good. They are very good for the sustainability of our food supply and programs such as our SNAP program.

It streamlines and reforms commodity policy. We are also giving producers a choice in how to best manage risk. It includes the first reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.

Why is that important? Because the reforms we put in place, it preserves the future integrity of the food stamp program so that those in the future who need those programs, those men, women, and children who find themselves in poverty circumstances where they need that assistance, they will get it, if we protect the integrity of that program. It is only through these reforms that we are putting into place that we offer those protections so we will be assured that the food stamp program continues into the future to meet the needs of those who need.

It consolidates 23 conservation programs into 13, improves program delivery to producers, and saves more than $6 billion. That's an area of the farm title that I chair. The subcommittee has jurisdiction on conservation.

There are at least four reasons I can think of why that move is extremely important. Number one is cost. This country is facing significant debt, and so we have to be conscious and careful with our spending. We knew that the farm bill--the pie itself--would be smaller. So I think that is just one of the realities.

Second is the need. We are a country that feeds not just 311 million Americans, but we are feeding a lot of the rest of the world. And to allow land to sit idle under the context of some government-funded conservation program is just wrong. We don't want people to go hungry, and so putting more land that is appropriate back into productivity is a very appropriate thing to do; and we do that with this farm bill.

Third is effectiveness. The fact is that under the existing conservation programs, before the reforms we proposed, we have had perfectly sound, tillable, very productive land sitting idle and sitting fallow and receiving some type of government support under a conservation program to do that.

I have met young individuals I am very impressed with that want to go into farming that have never been in farming before. Some have been in farming, but they can't afford to go out and purchase acreage; and so they have to rent acreage. And they are competing under the existing conservation programs with the government; and in competing with the government, they can't do that. They just can't pay that.

All the parts of this farm bill have been well thought out and well prepared. I am very appreciative of the work that has been done on the part of land grant universities, the fact that we are strengthening the role of science and technology when it comes to agriculture. A lot of people talk about STEM--science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. I like to talk about how agriculture is all about science and technology.

And I shout out to my own alma mater, Penn State University, which is a land grant university. Those universities help us advance that science and innovation and that technology.

I will finally talk briefly about we have probably one of the best forestry titles that we have ever had in this farm bill in maybe a hundred years. We've got great things in there in terms of making sure that timber is recognized and eligible for that biopreferred labeling.

Today, of all things, the original renewable resource of wood has never been eligible. You could buy a box of bamboo flooring--we don't grow bamboo in this country--and it has got a USDA stamp of approval, biopreferred. But if you buy a box of good hardwood cherry from the Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional District, it is not eligible. That changes in this farm bill that we passed out of the House and we are going to go to conference with the Senate on.

The categorical exclusion allows the Forest Service not to have to waste money during these NEPA analyses every time they do trail maintenance or clear power lines or just routine things that take money away from actively managing a forest in a healthy way.

Finally, the forest access road was a great amendment which basically reinforces that our forests are non-point sources of pollution. That goes a long way in terms of allowing our forests to be managed under State-adopted best practices.

And so I want to thank the gentleman for coordinating this Special Order on a subject that every American should be fully in tune to because of how important it is to have affordable, high-quality, and safe food. That is what our farm bill does.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania for a question, absolutely.

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. As chair of the nutrition jurisdiction, are the school lunch programs within title IV of the farm bill?

Mr. KING of Iowa. In response to the gentleman's question, no, school lunch programs are not.

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. That was my reading. I have read the farm bill, yet I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk a lot about the changes to the reforms.

As I mentioned in my remarks, and you reaffirmed, we are trying to preserve this program for people who truly need it who meet the eligibility by filling out an application. But I guess I get confused when I hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle use rhetoric that they claim that somehow school lunches are impacted or the school breakfast program is impacted by our work on the farm bill.

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