K. Conaway

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of H.R. 2 the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, and cross-references and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to accurately reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, this attempt at legislating is a little late. For all of the rhetoric, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said for over a month now that this bill was so broken they couldn't fix it. They come tricking trotting in here this afternoon with an amendment of this scope. This would have been a great conversation to have had in committee, but we spent 5 hours listening to complaints that we weren't amenable to any changes. It would have been handy to have that go through the Rules Committee so we would have had at least overnight to look at what this deal does. To come in here now and pull this procedural trick, which, quite frankly, the minority always does. When we are in the minority, we do it. When you are in the minority, you do it as well, and I oppose the gentleman's motion. Mr. Speaker, we are at a point in time where it is now time to move forward. We have had a relatively complicated process, a 600-page bill, 51 amendments made in order, now this attempt to legislate at the last second. But it is about to get real simple. We are about to start putting up red and green votes on the board behind you, Mr. Speaker. And let me tell you what the green votes are for. Green votes will mean you stand with Americans. You stand with those producers out there who are in a terrible circumstance. There has been a 50-percent drop in farm income the last 5 years. Today's headlines in the USA Today: Farmers being forced to quit as income dies. That is who you will stand for with a green vote. Or a red vote says, no, we want to continue to argue about this. We want to take advantage of what might happen in November because we are going to say ``no'' to this. We have got SNAP beneficiaries out there who are dependent on this new program we are going to put in place to have their case managers to help them walk through this labyrinth of social networks to try to get them to a job. So you are saying ``no'' to those guys as well. We are going to say ``no'' to the men and women who eat our food every single day. You can love the farm bill or you can hate the farm bill, but it delivers the most effective, affordable, and safest food and fiber supply of any developed Nation in the world. That is a pocketbook issue that comes across this country, and a ``no'' vote says: Never mind. A ``yes'' vote today will say we stand with those men and women who buy food every single day; for those paycheck-to-paycheck families whose rent doesn't change, their car payment doesn't change. If something happens to them, it comes out of their food budget. Why on Earth would we intentionally try to screw those folks over by raising the cost of food, by not continuing this process and moving forward? Mr. Speaker, this is pretty darn simple. Very darn simple. Either vote with those SNAP recipients whose lives would be better, whose impact will be better, or you vote against them. You will vote with the men and women who suffered through the terrible times in the last 5 years, the worst since the Depression, or you vote ``no.'' There is no group of Americans more in tune to what goes on on this floor than the men and women of production agriculture. It is vital to their livelihood, vital to their existence, what we do here tonight. And you will hear a lot of rhetoric about those red votes, reasons why they voted ``no'' on it, but I guarantee you, those farmers and ranchers back home that are watching this clock and watching what happens, they will understand what it means. They will understand that those ``yes'' votes mean we are going to move this process forward. We are going to continue to attempt to give them the assurance over the next 5 years what this farm bill will do for them and how they will stay in business, how their bankers will make plans in moving this thing forward. Mr. Speaker, we have had 3 years of hard work on this, 114 hearings. We are ready to move this bill forward. I recommend that my folks vote against the last-minute, last-ditch effort to look like they are legislating because they ignored the legislative process for over a month, including in committee, and let's move this forward. Mr. Speaker, vote ``no'' on this amendment and ``yes'' on the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's motion.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for letting me speak on her amendment. Mr. Chair, I have the great pleasure and honor of representing a community called Notrees, Texas, and so to be standing up in support of a forestry amendment might be a little odd, but I certainly recognize the great importance it has to this country. Holding off these invasive species in a stalemate is not a fix. We have got to be aggressive to protect this natural resource and this incredible legacy that has been bestowed upon this great country. So maintaining healthy forests are a big deal. Mr. Chair, I am supportive of the gentlewoman's amendment and I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' when it is time for the vote.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chair, the scope of this problem is really not appreciated unless you go to our borders and see what happens. All the things that come into this country, that are shipped into this country, generally come in on wooden pallets, and those wooden pallets are a haven or a potential pest nest for all of these wood-borne pests. We have laws on the books right now that say all of those pallets have to be treated. Those pallets have to be stamped with a stamp that says the wood has been treated properly. But if you go down there and talk to our hardworking men and women at APHIS who man these posts and try to prevent this from happening, they will tell you that they are constantly on the lookout for counterfeit stamps, pallets that have not been stamped or properly treated. It doesn't take many of them having a pest in that pallet that then gets transported into the United States as a result of transit, and now we are in a fight that we shouldn't have had to begin with. So I am fully supportive of the gentleman's amendment to strengthen this whole process, add sunlight to it, even more light to it, because we have got great hardworking men and women manning these posts on every border. We have been to the northern border, we have been down south. Just the volume of stuff coming through every single day that has to come through, we can't stack it up and not get it through. Mr. Chair, I am supportive of the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chair, I represent a lot of cattle ranchers, but also represent folks who raise sheep and goats. Black vultures are a big predator during kidding season. When these small lambs and young kid goats are on the ground, they are susceptible to the same type of trauma that the calves go through when they are being eaten alive by these vultures. Moving this gentleman's amendment may be a step in the right direction. I also share my ranking member's comments about timber wolves and other endangered species that are prey on the lands. That needs to be examined, as well. I would be happy to work with him on that issue.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in extreme opposition to Ms. Foxx's amendment. She singles out sugar, cuts its program back to where it was 33 years ago, and denigrates the hardworking men and women who are farmers. Those processors she mentioned are co-op-owned; they are owned by those hardworking farmers. There is no inactivity with respect to the sugar industry. She couldn't be more wrong or more disrespectful of them. Her amendment would not save the taxpayer one dime. Fifteen out of the last 16 years, the sugar program has worked. The reason we have not changed it over all those years is because it does work. If we were to move it under title I to treat it exactly the way the other commodities are treated, it would cost billions of taxpayer dollars. We don't want that, and the sugar industry is not asking for that. This amendment will not save the consumer one penny. These large sugar users, of whom I am a great customer, buy by the carload. When the price of sugar dropped to half of what it should have been in 2013 as a result of Mexico cheating on the trade deal, they did not share that profit with anybody. Quite frankly, just to put it succinctly, if sugar was such a driving cost in the cost of all production and the cost to all the jobs that the gentlewoman mentioned, my diet soda would cost dramatically less than a sugar soda. They don't. They cost exactly the same. They still give this product away in restaurants. So, as we go about this issue, this is about protecting American jobs and American hardworking farmers from unfair, undue competition from around the world. We don't let other products come into this country at below the cost of production. We do it when we fight steel. We had a recent fight against Turkey over the imports of steel because it was below the cost of production. We would protect all other products that way. We just simply leave this one in place because it works year-in and year-out, except for the 1 year Mexico cheated. They admitted they cheated on the program, and that is when it cost the American taxpayers money. So it doesn't cost, it doesn't save taxpayer money, and it doesn't save consumers money. It is simply a windfall of some amount to the sugar buyers and users. I don't have a grudge against them at all. Like I said, I eat and drink their products. I am trying to defend American farmers from products being produced overseas by slave labor in some instances, child labor in other instances, standards under which we don't produce. It is dumped into these markets because those governments, unlike ours, have a direct payment to their farmers and producers to keep them in business. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), who is the ranking member of the powerful Agriculture Committee.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I point out that over half of all U.S. sugar processing operations in the United States since 1980 have closed. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I would also point out the additional closed plants and jobs lost in the sugar growing industry. U.S.- and foreign-sweetened product manufacturers have announced 100 plant openings, acquisitions, or expansions within the United States over that same timeframe. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time is left on both sides.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I would point out that that hidden tax that my colleagues are talking about will not be shared with the consumers. It has never been shared with the price of sugar. It goes down. It will simply shift those profits into multinational corporations that we are defending by supporting this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, the U.S. is the third largest importer of sugar in the world, and virtually all of that comes in duty free. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 25 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez).

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Newhouse for his commitment to ensuring that American farmers and ranchers maintain the tools necessary to remain competitive on the global stage. As you well know, trade is of immense importance to the agricultural industry, with U.S. agricultural exports estimated at $140 billion per year and trade accounting for one of every $5 of agricultural production value. Through its extensive farm bill hearing series and listening sessions, the committee heard from every segment of the agricultural industry about the importance of maintaining support for our trade promotion and our market development programs, especially considering the uncertainty in the current trade climate. While I am confident that America's farmers and ranchers are incredibly efficient and can compete with anyone in the world on a level playing field, they simply cannot be expected to compete against foreign treasuries on their own. So in addition to maintaining and strengthening the farm safety net, H.R. 2 restores and increases funding for the popular and successful Market Access Program and Foreign Market Development Program. This was no small feat, considering the CBO zeroed out funding for FMD as well as the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops Program in its most recent baseline projections. But the committee worked together to get creative and make it happen. I certainly wish we could have come closer to answering the calls for doubling funding for MAP and FMD, but am proud of the work we did, and believe that the streamlined International Market Development Program will give the newly established USDA Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs the tools necessary to continue tearing down barriers to trade and opening up new markets to U.S. agricultural products. That said, we can always do better, so I am committed to working with Mr. Newhouse and my colleagues in the Senate to continue searching for additional funding for these important trade promotion efforts while we move forward. Mr. Speaker, I am very appreciative of Mr. Newhouse's efforts and his support for these important programs. I look forward to working with him in conference when the Senate gets their work done after we get our bill passed.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, just simply, I support the gentleman's amendment. It is common sense. It allows Alaskans to do a better job of taking care of Alaska, and I trust them to make that happen. Mr. Chairman, I support the gentleman's amendment and urge adoption.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise.