Washington, Thursday, July 26,200
Floor Speech
WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2007)
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Madam Chairman, I'll say one good thing about this amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin and the gentleman from Arizona: It doesn't raise taxes. But I'll say nothing else good about it because it rips the safety net out from under America's farmers and ranchers.
The House Agriculture Committee bill is the result of careful consideration. The committee reviewed many options and took the testimony of countless witnesses at hearings in Washington and in multiple States. The committee chose to maintain a safety net that has proven very effective since 2002, but it's done so with reform.
The committee included in the safety net the option for producers to choose a priority of the administration, a revenue-based, countercyclical program.
The committee also drastically modified rules related to payment limits and income levels for participation. No one with a 3-year average gross adjusted income over $1 million may participate in the commodity program. That is down from $2.5 million for producers with AGI between $500,000 and $1 million; 66 2/3 percent of their income must come from agriculture. These are major changes from the 2002 farm bill.
Additionally, the committee has done away with the three-entity rule. Now producers can receive payments on only one business entity.
The committee made significant reforms. By cutting $16 billion over 5 years, a 40 percent cut, this amendment shatters the farm safety net. This amendment cuts the safety net provided by direct payments by about $11 billion over 5 years, or 42 percent.
The amendment cuts the most basic level of support for farmers and ranchers, the marketing assistance loan, by $2 billion over 5 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The committee was able to make significant increases in conservation, nutrition, rural development, research, fruits and vegetables, and in other areas without ripping out the safety net from America's farmers and ranchers, but the Kind-Flake-Ryan-Blumenauer amendment makes increases in those areas at the expense of American farmers.
The committee's commitment to conservation is unquestionable. The committee-passed bill increases conservation spending by over $4 billion over the next 5 years. We added over $1.9 billion to environmental quality incentive programs, which helps farmers and ranchers comply with State, Federal and local environmental laws.
We also continued our commitment to highly erodible land, wetlands, grasslands and wildlife habitat by funding the Conservation Reserve Program, the Wetland Reserve Program, the Grasslands Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.
The committee increased the commitment to preserving working farms by increasing funding to the Farmland Ranchland Protection Program by almost 300 percent.
The committee also focused efforts to help producers such as specialty crop and livestock producers who do not participate in traditional commodity programs.
We took an unprecedented step of committing $150 million over the next 5 years to help clean up the rivers of the Chesapeake Bay.
We do not need this amendment. Oppose it.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to tell the gentleman from Florida this is the party of American jobs, of American investment, of American workers. And we are going to protect that by not supporting tax increases that will cause a disincentive for investment in this country, that will cost jobs, that will involve the violation of American treaties, and will cause retaliation in foreign countries where we will face increased taxes on American investment there as well. This is a tax increase, pure and simple, and that is why we will not turn our backs on the American people and their jobs.
At this time, I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Just to reiterate the point made by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Farm Credit System is a very important thing for rural America. It provides credit to America's farmers and ranchers and is a necessary and serious challenge to get that credit sometimes. There have been times when business has been bad in rural America, and the Farm Credit System has been there to stand up in good times and bad.
I appreciate the concerns raised by my friends in the banking community. We want to make sure that there is fair treatment, given that these are two different types of systems that operate, and we have listened to them very carefully. We have held hearings. And as the gentleman from Pennsylvania says, we worked very hard to come up with something we thought was fair.
We did basically three things: One related to housing, one related to lending in the energy area, and one dealing with cooperatives. All of these things are simply looking to modernize the Farm Credit System to deal with the fact that rural America and farming have changed substantially from the last time there was any major address of this issue back in the 1970s.
The rural population limit for home mortgages, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania pointed out, is 2,500 population. It has not been updated since 1971, and since then, over 700 communities have grown to the point where they are not considered rural under the farm credit definition, where you could get a farm credit loan in the past and now, because of the increased population, you can't. So people who have been doing business with farm credit sometimes for generations are no longer able to do that. The law does not change the limitation on moderately priced homes, owner-occupied, single-family homes.
We are simply trying to extend this to recognize that the population of the country is growing, and, therefore, there ought to be recognition of that. They asked for a very substantial increase, and we thought that was well beyond what was contemplated by being able to lend in rural areas.
Secondly, with regard to energy, there is no doubt that when times are good, there are financial resources available, credit from a wide array of sources. But as the ethanol boom started in this country, there was not money available from some sources; so farm credit stepped up to the plate.
In order for them to step up to the plate when the risk is higher, they need to be able to have a viable system throughout, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.
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