Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Chairman, this amendment addresses but redirects; it does not eliminate any funds from the Value Added Producer Grants.

These $18 million worth of grants are designed to generate new products, expand market opportunities, and assist beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, family farms, and even veterans entering farming.

Unfortunately, millions of these funds go to fund alcohol products.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol products, of the government funds that are used for promotion of these products through the program, we also note that the alcohol industry spends $7.6 million a year in lobbying costs.

Not only do these tax dollars used to fund the promotion of alcohol take away from non-alcohol-based farmers and ranchers, they also compete with the Government itself.

Every year, we spend millions of dollars to curtail the use and abuse of alcohol.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the impacts and loss of alcohol abuse results in $249 billion a year in economic, workplace absence, healthcare loss, criminal justice expenses, and vehicle crash costs.

Mr. Chairman, it makes no sense that the Government should spend money to both promote and curtail an industry.

This amendment preserves the Value Added Grants for farmers that have no $8-million-a-year industry to lobby for them, and it ends the duplicitous practice of the Government being both for and against something that costs the Nation nearly $250 billion in annual economic loss.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Chairman, ``a bad situation worse''? You want to see a bad situation? How about this: Just in the District of Columbia, $3.5 billion in 2010 in direct economic costs; $179 billion of the total cost of alcohol consumption comes from a loss in workplace productivity.

Mr. Chairman, I don't have anything for or against, or want to promote prohibition or anything of the like. The matter is that these crops can stand on their own. They receive $8 million a year nearly, $7.67 million from the alcohol industry in lobbying costs. They already have their promoters. These crops can stand on their own. However, of the $18 million in this Value Added fund, $8 million of that goes to the alcohol industry.

So when we are talking about picking winners and losers, I think we have already seen who is being picked here, and it is the fleecing of the American people.

What about those that are new farmers, family farms, even veterans that are trying to enter the farming industry but they don't want to grow hops? Maybe they want to grow something that we eat that doesn't have a detrimental $250 billion a year of an impact.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would argue that I would probably have to be drunk to think that the Government should both promote and curtail something at the same time.

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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Chair, it is my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left?

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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Chairman, I certainly have the deepest respect for my colleague from Oklahoma, and he and I see eye to eye on most issues, but on this one, it makes no sense that we spend nearly 40 percent of the Value Added program--which, by the way, I never addressed Market Access Program, that was never even mentioned--but the Value Added program is not adding value when $250 billion of economic cost hits the United States; $27 billion comes from healthcare expenses; $25 billion to criminal justice; $12.5 billion to vehicle crashes. We all pay for this.

But why should we both promote and curtail it? We spend millions of dollars in the Federal Government to control and contain abuse and also rehabilitation programs, which are good.

So we need to choose, Mr. Chairman. Are we for something, or are we against something? We may be one, we may be the other, but we cannot be both.

Mr. Chairman, I know these are contentious issues, but it is interesting to watch in the course of our politics over time. This is not a partisan issue; this is an American issue.

I say it is not partisan because if we were holding this debate 30 years ago you would have had a flip-flop, but as we have seen shift in parties in States and regions of the country, we might politically have parties go one direction or the other, but it seems like the special interests remain in the middle.

And if we are really talking about promoting value-added crops and entering new farmers in the workplace, then we don't need to give 40 percent to the alcohol industry when we already see nearly $8 million given to them by lobbyists.

Mr. Chairman, I ask people to support this amendment. It saves the taxpayer dollars. These crops can stand on their own, and they can do it without the taxpayer subsidization and then our further spending to try to curtail it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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