Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - June 10, 2008)

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Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, in 2003, I made my maiden floor speech on hunger issues and how we as a Nation can tackle them. I have continued my strongest efforts to raise awareness that 1 in 10 U.S. households is affected by hunger and to advance legislation and programs that aid the hungry.

Today is Hunger Awareness Day, and as I have in years past, I welcome the opportunity to speak about the food insecurity problems that persist throughout this country and the world. Most importantly, I come to offer ideas and invigorate the discussion about solutions.

With food and energy prices on the rise, we must be particularly cognizant of the hungry. Not only do hard economic times generate a greater need for food assistance, but the very agencies and organizations that provide assistance are trying to meet growing demands while food and gas grow more expensive.

In the past few months, I have read numerous stories in North Carolina newspapers about soup kitchens and food banks struggling to serve all those in need and even schools strapped for cash to pay for their lunch programs.

For example, last weekend, the Asheville Citizen-Times ran a letter to the editor from MANNA FoodBank which said:

In 2006, we estimated that 115,500 different North Carolinians sought emergency food aid from MANNA partner agencies in a single year--one in six of our neighbors. However, that data has rapidly become outdated by shifting economic tides. Surging energy and food prices combined with stagnant economic growth have dramatically increased the ranks of those seeking help from food banks.

In the May 29, 2008 Raleigh News & Observer, David Reese, the chief operating officer for food recovery and distribution at the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, is quoted as saying:

A lot of people don't realize or don't take into account the dramatic effect that high fuel prices have, that trickle-down effect. ..... It doesn't only affect the regular consumer who is driving to the store. It also affects the distributor, also affects the retailer and then the end result, it affects us as a food-rescue organization.

Unfortunately, we know too well high food prices and hunger problems are not unique to North Carolina or even just to the United States. Indeed, as food prices continue to soar, the impacts are felt around the globe, especially among the poor in developing nations. The increase in food costs has led to international shortfalls of food supplies, resulting in food riots and civil unrest in many regions. In fact, the World Bank recently estimated that more than 100 million people are being pushed into poverty as a result of the escalation of food prices.

Congress needs to take action to ensure that policies are helping, not hurting, global food supply. For example, I believe we must reconsider mandating the use of certain biofuels which is, in part, why food prices are escalating. Last month, I joined several of my colleagues in introducing legislation to freeze the corn-based ethanol mandate at this year's level, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from increasing the corn-based ethanol mandate included in the Energy Act of 2007 to the mandated 15 billion gallons. Instead, my legislation maintains the current level at 9 billion gallons.

During consideration of the 2007 Energy bill, I tried to include a safeguard in the renewable fuel standard which would have helped prevent a situation such as we face today. Mandates have led to more than 25 percent of America's corn crop being diverted to make fuel. In the last 2 years, the price of corn has nearly tripled, thereby resulting in feed price increases that impact the cost of items such as milk, eggs, and meat. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food inflation rose by 4.9 percent last year, and studies suggest the cost of food will continue to escalate over the next few years.

While we continue to push for efforts to address rising food prices, we can celebrate some hard-fought victories in the recently passed farm bill that will support healthy foods in schools and health food banks, community kitchens, and other organizations that feed the hungry. For instance, I am pleased the farm bill's nutrition title expands the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to all 50 States. In North Carolina, nearly 1.4 million children are enrolled in this program, which helps schools purchase locally farmed fruits and vegetables to provide healthy meals and fight childhood obesity. The bill also includes $1.25 billion for commodity purchases for food banks, including $50 million for 2008 to immediately address shortages at these organizations.

The farm bill also implements the Food Employment Empowerment and Development Program, the FEED Program, which I worked on with my colleagues Senators Frank Lautenberg and Blanche Lincoln. This program helps fight hunger by combining food rescue with job training and, thus, teaching unemployed and homeless adults the skills needed to work in the food service industry. It is a wonderful program.

Around the corner from the U.S. Capitol, students are hard at work in the DC Central Kitchen's culinary job-training class. Earlier today, I visited the kitchen which has a model FEED-type program that began in 1990. It is always a privilege to visit the kitchen and meet with individuals who faced adversity but who are now on track for a career in the food service industry. I look forward to the FEED Act supporting numerous similar programs, such as the Community Culinary School in Charlotte, NC, and others around the Nation.

In my ongoing efforts to stamp out hunger, today I am joining my colleague, Senator John Kerry, to introduce legislation requiring a White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health to be held by the end of 2010. It has been nearly 40 years since the first and only White House summit reviewed national nutrition policy. I actually helped organize that conference while working for the White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

Positive developments and effective policies came out of those discussions. With more than 35 million Americans today facing food insecurity issues, it is high time we make ending hunger and improving health and nutrition national priorities.

I encourage my colleagues to sign on to my bill.

This week, I also plan to offer an amendment to the tax extenders bill that addresses four tax issues which will encourage food donations and volunteering to help the hungry. This package was included in the Senate-passed farm bill but, unfortunately, was removed in conference. It will extend for 2 years a provision from the Pension Protection Act that allows any taxpayer to claim an enhanced deduction for donations of food. It allows restaurants to qualify for this deduction. It simplifies the rules that allow farmers and ranchers to take advantage of this deduction for donating their products. And it allows volunteers to receive a tax deduction for mileage incurred while transporting food donations.

Along these lines, I also have a bill that will provide a tax credit for the cost of transporting food to assist the hunger relief efforts of charitable organizations. The hunger relief trucking tax credit will benefit groups such as the Society of St. Andrew, which helps recover food for the needy. The society is very active in the area of gleaning, Mr. President, where excess crops that would otherwise be thrown out are taken from farms, packinghouses, and warehouses, and distributed to the needy. Each year in this country, 696 billion pounds of good, nutritious food is left over or thrown away. Gleaning helps eliminate this waste. It helps the farmer because he doesn't have to haul off or plow under crops that don't meet exact specifications of grocery chains, and it helps the hungry by giving them nutritious fresh foods. It has been a joy to glean fields in North Carolina with the society's dedicated volunteers.

In addition to working closely with the Society of St. Andrew, I have been fortunate to meet with a number of organizations that are doing tremendous work to combat hunger in North Carolina--from our food banks to Meals on Wheels and others. These organizations rely on dedicated staff and volunteers who truly live by the ideal of helping others in their time of need.

Before I close, let me share an experience I had as president of the American Red Cross. I visited Somalia during the heart-wrenching famine. In Baidoa, I came across a little boy lying under a gunnysack, and I thought he was dead. His brother pulled back that gunnysack and sat his little brother up, and I could see that he was severely malnourished. There was no way that he could eat the rice and beans that were in a bowl there beside him, and so I asked for camel's milk to feed him. And as I put my arm around that little boy to lift that cup to his mouth, it was incredible, the feeling of the little bones almost piercing through his flesh. It is something I will never forget. That is when the horror of starvation becomes real, when you can touch it.

Since I encountered that little boy in Somalia so many years ago, I have been determined to do everything in my power to fight hunger, not just at home but also internationally. For example, I have been proud to work with Senator Dick Durbin in promoting the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. It has reduced hunger among school-aged children and improved literacy and primary education enrollment in areas where conflict, hunger, poverty, and HIV/AIDS are prevalent.

While tackling hunger beyond our borders is a greater challenge, in the United States, the land of plenty, no American--no American--should wake up wondering whether he or she will have enough to eat today. I firmly believe with dedicated organizations, caring citizens, and a focused government working together, ending hunger in America is certainly a victory within reach.

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