Sam Farr

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. I have a recollection of that.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition because I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you are so afraid of Know Your Farmer-- Know Your Food. They say, well, we need to have this program authorized. My God, we went to war without authorizing it. We spent all that money, and half the people don't even question it. And you want to question Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food? I think this is a direct attack on the White House initiative, which is about nutrition, which is about trying to get people--I mean, we talked about this yesterday, about how you have places in this country that are food deserts. You have places where there are no grocery stores. There are 7-Elevens. They don't have fresh fruits and vegetables. People can't go down to a local store and find fresh fruits and vegetables. So what do we do? This committee puts money into the USDA to help farmers markets get established in these tough areas, to encourage farmers to come in, and at the same time teach people who have never shopped for fresh fruits and vegetables, never been to a farmers market. We have actually tied in, in my district, the issuing of food stamps and WIC vouchers so that they will spend them right there, and 65 percent of the income that comes to the farmers at the farmers markets comes from them. So this is all part of the initiatives to get people to know about agriculture. Milk doesn't come from a carton. Food doesn't come from a grocery store. It gets grown somewhere by a farmer, he and his wife. And we are trying to get kids to know something about agriculture. We are putting in school gardens. All of this is part of Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food, and you want to strike it. What is this? Is this some kind of conspiracy that you are afraid of? People might learn a little bit about where food comes from in America, and there is organic food and that you have choices and you just don't have to eat everything that is packaged and processed and full of salts and sugars and additives and preservatives? What are we afraid of? What are we afraid of? My God, to strike it, or tell the department that they can't do this, I think it is not in our best intentions, and it is not smart nutrition. We are trying to get people, I know, because I am trying to lose weight and it is a very hard thing to change your character, to change your eating habits. Unless we do that, we are going to grow a lot of Americans who aren't going to be very healthy because they don't know their farmer and they don't know their food. And if you strike this ability for the department to go out and do that kind of outreach, we are going to have a less healthy America. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FARR. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FARR. What Ranking Member Peterson is talking about is that this is an ag bill that is to help agriculture, producers of agriculture. What this amendment does is hurt them. It supports the banks by delaying transparency. So it's going to cost the end user more money. The end user is all the customers that this bill is all about. If the gentleman really wants to help the banks, maybe his amendment ought to be in the Financial Services bill. But this is going to hurt our people that we, in this committee, work for all the time. And I don't think that's a very good amendment. I ask for a ``no'' vote on the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FARR. This amendment doesn't save one penny. Ironically, we just returned from the White House summer congressional picnic, and people ate food there. At every table, it listed where the food came from. Indeed, I remember because I went to the ice cream place and there was a stack of honey that came from the White House, that has a White House label on it, and it's a gift that the First Lady gives to visiting dignitaries from around the world as a sample of American honey grown at the White House. We just experienced Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food not more than an hour ago. This amendment does nothing but be mean.

Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR. Yes, it was. But remember Ms. Kaptur's amendment in our committee of trying to subsidize farmers markets to go into high-risk areas to get it started so that it does develop a market approach and can be sustainable, but we reach out and do those kinds of things.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chair, Pigford v. Glickman was a class action discrimination suit between the USDA and black farmers. The suit was filed by an estimated 2,000 black farmers who said that USDA discriminated against them in loan programs. A settlement agreement was approved in 1999. The suit claimed that USDA discriminated against black farmers on the basis of race and failed to investigate or properly respond to complaints from 1983 to 1997. The deadline for submitting a claim was September 12, 2000. However, a large number of applicants filed late and reported deficiencies in representation by class counsel. Consequently, the 2008 farm bill (PL 110-246) permitted any claimant who had submitted a late-filing request under Pigford and who hadn't previously obtained a determination on the merits of their claim should obtain a determination. A maximum of $100 million in mandatory spending was made available for payments of these claims in the 2008 farm bill. The multiple claims that were subsequently filed by over 25,000 black farmers were consolidated into a single case, In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation (commonly referred to as Pigford II). On February 18, 2010, Attorney General Holder and Secretary Vilsack announced a $1.25 billion settlement of these Pigford II claims. The Pigford II settlement provides both a fast-track settlement process and high payments to potential claimants who go through a more rigorous review and documentation process. Potential claimants can seek the fast-track payments of up to $50,000 plus debt relief, or choose the longer process damages of up to $250,000. Finally, our Nation's black farmers who were discriminatecl against by their own government have received some modicum of justice. Despite years of political gamesmanship that prevented us from finding a fair resolution, thousands of families who have waited for the settlements will now receive them. We cannot deny them this basic justice.

Mr. FARR. I strongly support this amendment because the language in the bill--I'm going to read it to you. It's one paragraph, but it's the most draconian language because we've never done this before ever in an ag bill. It says: ``The committee directs the Department to provide an electronic notification to the committee at least 72 hours prior to any travel in support of the Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food initiative, and such notification shall include the agenda of the entire trip along with the cost to U.S. taxpayers. Additionally, the committee directs the Department to post media advisories for all such trips on its Web site, and that such advisories include the same information.'' My God, we don't do this to know your soldier, to know your veteran, to know your school teacher, to know anybody else that's in the public service, to know your law enforcement officer; and yet they're doing this for Know Your Farmer? This program, as Mr. Kingston pointed out, we just had the ag report come out and I'm very proud that one county in my district does $4 billion worth of agriculture, as pointed out in that report, that grows 59 percent of all the lettuce consumed in the United States in one county in California that I represent. Part of that is this program now that they're doing, which is Know Your Farmer--Know Your Food. Consumers can go with their cell phones into a grocery store; and because of the barcode there, they can ZIP it and it immediately comes up the farmer who grew that food saying this is who I am and this is where I grew it and this is how many days it takes to get to you, and all the things you might want to--if we're going to educate people about nutrition, I can't think of a more exciting way to do it. And to require that the Department has to essentially do this gestapo, looking at every time you move you have to report to a higher authority on your initiative and on your entire trip and the agenda and cost, we don't do that for anybody else in the Federal Government, and I don't think we should do it for our farmers or for our members of the U.S. Department of Agriculture who are supporting our farmers. So I support this amendment very strongly. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. First of all, I hope that we don't have more of these ambush amendments that we haven't had a chance to really look at. And this one really has serious implications. What it seems that this amendment does is, first of all, reduce the tobacco industry's fees that they have to pay the Federal Government. This is a big help to the tobacco industry. It cuts fees that the private sector has to pay the Federal Government. And what do those fees go into? Into campaigns to reduce tobacco consumption and to treat the issues related to tobacco. That's the way the amendment reads to us. And I'd just like to remind the author that I represent California. California has, time after time, put taxes on the ballot to increase tobacco taxes, and they've passed overwhelmingly. And we use those fees that would come from the industry from the sale of--not even the industry, they come from the user to run very effective anti-tobacco campaigns. We reduced smoking in California almost to zero. I mean, it's incredible. Most cities in California don't allow any smoking in public places. The communities I represent on the coastline don't allow you to even smoke on the beaches. You certainly can't smoke in public buildings and in any other kind of public space, even in public places that are privately owned. So to do this, to ambush the anti-tobacco campaign with this amendment is just--it's a giveaway to the tobacco companies and reduces the fees they have to pay and hurts the ability to eliminate the illness caused by tobacco; and anybody who's had cancer in their family, as I've had, is very, very aware of the illnesses caused by tobacco users. I think this is a very dangerous amendment and, hopefully, the gentleman will withdraw it. If not, we ought to oppose it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FARR. I would be curious if, at your town hall meeting, you got up and asked people would you rather take $604 million out of the program that feeds women, infants, and children or would you like to take $604 million out of the Defense Department for a war that we're putting on a credit card, for an Afghan war that we're putting on a credit card, the Iraq war we're putting on a credit card, or the prescription drug program that wasn't paid for under the Republican program? How about asking the people's choices? We just authorized a defense bill in committee where we talked about billions and billions of dollars, and those are all borrowed money. So why don't we get our priorities straight? We spent 3 hours here last night discussing what the implications are of cutting the WIC program. I don't think this is a country that wants to balance its budget on the backs of the poorest people in the United States, on the people most vulnerable, on the people that need just basic services. And that's what this amendment does. Mr. Broun, I know you're interested in cutting, squeezing, and trimming, but there are places to do that, and this is not one of them. Certainly, if you were here on the floor listening to the passions of last night, of 3 hours of debate on what the implications were for cutting the WIC program--and it seems that none of that was listened to by you because this is an amendment that goes right back to reducing that account by $604 million. Take the money out of the people most vulnerable in the United States to write down the deficit and ignore the Defense Department, ignore the spending for weapons programs, ignore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignore everything that is with DOD, and expose everything that's with people in poverty. This is a wrong amendment, and I hope it's soundly defeated.

Mr. FARR. Well, I don't think we can operate government on a maybe, and I oppose this amendment.

Mr. FARR. You just drive your own private car?

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FARR. Again, I don't know how many times we have to reiterate that these cuts, squeezes, and trims hurt the most vulnerable people in America and abroad. My good friend talked about a fiscal disaster that we are having in America and then just goes amendment after amendment attacking the people that are most vulnerable. This one just wipes out the entire program. I wish the Member had been here to watch what happened in the early part of this decade when a partnership with the rich was created in this Congress to help in every tax way possible, in every expenditure way possible, in building up the war machine to respond to Iraq and Afghanistan. The rich got richer. The corporations that built all the equipment for our men and women in uniform got a lot of profits. We did that by putting it all on the credit card of the American taxpayer. We just charged it up. Yes, we ran up an incredible deficit. The gentleman fails to look at the other side of the coin. He talked about the fact he had been in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps was also put on that tax credit card. The uniform, the free medical service he got, the food that he ate while he was a Marine, all those things, thank God, we paid for. But then to say, okay, we're going to now reduce this fiscal disaster by just attacking the most vulnerable people in the world and wiping out the Food for Peace program. Where are we? Where is the image of America? Where is that heart and soul? Where is that feeling of people that love our country because of the handouts we do give at a time of need? We're there to respond to disasters. And we can't just be that responder that says, okay, we're going to respond with our war machine. We've got to respond with our heart and our soul and the character of American human beings, which is very giving and very compassionate. To wipe out the Food for Peace program is not a wise thing to do.

Mr. FARR. So you want to cut this account that is vehicles for the Department.

Mr. FARR. I'm just curious. I have a point of inquiry for Mr. Broun. Mr. Broun, do you lease a car?

Mr. FARR. I rise in opposition to the amendment.