Conference Report on H.R. 2419 Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2419, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008.

Mr. Speaker I must state from the beginning--I have never been a strong supporter of the previous farm bills that we have considered.

I and many of my constituents have long believed that the Federal Government wastes far too much taxpayer money on subsidizing farmers and farm programs.

While it is true that many small scale farmers should be protected during cyclical downturns, far too much Federal funding is spent subsidizing large scale agribusiness and wealthy farmers who don't need our support.

That being said, I appreciate the efforts of the committee to address some of the unnecessary spending in this bill. However I had hoped they would have gone further to reform farm bill programs.

The reason I am able to support the conference report is because it does include a very robust nutrition title that provides $10.361 billion in funding which will support 38 million families to purchase healthy foods.

Among the key nutrition items included in the bill:

The food stamp program is modernized to help an additional 11 million people by 2012.

The Emergency Food Assistance program is expanded and indexed for inflation to help support food banks, soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

The bill also provides $1 billion to help schools provide free fruits and vegetables to schoolchildren.

These and other improvements to nutrition programs in the farm bill will provide much needed funding to groups like the Alameda County Community Food Bank and the Berkeley Food and Housing Project in my district.

The conference report is also supported by a number of organizations, including the California Association of Food Banks, California Food Policy Advocates, California School Employees Association, National Council of Jewish Women, Congressional Hunger Center, AARP, ACORN, Families USA, National Association of Social Workers, National Association of Counties, and the Center for Law and Social Policy.

Mr. Speaker, despite my concerns about continuing unnecessary subsidies, I believe the robust nutrition title in the conference report deserves our support.

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