Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I probably will not take the full 5 minutes. But I did want to commend our colleagues, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) for bringing that chart to the floor that shows the discretionary cuts that have affected all programs, including elderly feeding programs, across this country. As we look at the revenues that the Government of the United States is receiving now and the work of all of our committees, without question, every single American sacrificed in order to put the accounts of this Nation in order. These programs got hurt just as much as many other programs in our country. So these decisions to move us toward a surplus position have not been easy decisions. We are now at the point where we can more openly look at ways to expand worthy programs. And this certainly is one that has gotten the attention of the subcommittee. And believe me, I give my word to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) and to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), who have worked so diligently to bring this to the attention of the membership, that, but for the offset, I certainly would be one Member who would be working 150 percent of my energy in trying to help them find a way to expand these worthy programs for feeding our senior citizens. I thank the gentlemen for their respective leadership on this.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to thank the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), for his sympathy to this proposal in support of the Colonias initiative. I wanted to also thank very deeply the members of the Hispanic Caucus, and Shirley Watkins at Food and Nutrition Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture for really helping us to begin to carve out a new initiative that would reach some of the most forgotten people in America. I want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez) for their strong leadership on this proposal and to say that we look forward to working with them as we move toward conference to really make sure that this Colonias initiative is not forgotten. Some of the aspects of this proposal involve such initiatives as piloting breakfast and after-school snack programs right on the bus, as children are being driven to and from school because it is so difficult sometimes to reach many of the children who live in these areas, and also taking a look at how we could use traveling food pantries to reach some of the more isolated individuals of all ages who live in the Colonias. The proposals also take a look at organizing farmers markets, which is a real strong interest of my own, to make sure that good, fresh produce and farm-grown products from the State of Texas or New Mexico or wherever the Colonias are located are organized near where the people live; and to make sure that locally grown produce, some of it perhaps raised by local farmers, would be able to be used in the school programs in those areas responding to some of the ethnic preferences for food that may differ in different parts of the country, depending on people's preferences; and working with USDA to look at an interactive Web site to link various partners and Colonias advocates and others to share success stories and communicate accomplishments of the existing projects in Texas. So there are so many aspects to this, and we are at the very beginning of it; but I think it is such a wonderful proposal and one that we are going to take step by step and really try to reach among some of the lowest-income people in America. I never like to say poorest because there is a richness of heritage there and a richness of hope in every community in America, but if we can help people have better nutrition for their children, where their children can learn and they can have a better way of life, food is one of the most basic needs, and certainly contribute to better health. This is such an exceptional opportunity to reach many of these families. The proposals for refrigerated trucks, for example, even finding trucks that have been used perhaps in business and are not brand new but even used trucks, almost like we put book mobiles in some of the underserved rural areas of America before, to do this in the Colonias is just so practical and so achievable. We want to thank Shirley Watkins from the Department of Agriculture for working with our Hispanic Caucus, with the Congressmen and women who have supported this here.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) will yield, I thank him truly on behalf of all the people that this will help.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment which has to do with the way in which our Food for Peace commodities are delivered in other countries. Essentially, what this does is it allows the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is a part of the Department of State, to hire contractors in-country for this work on PL-480, title II commodities, just as the U.S. Department of Agriculture does. During hearings on these important humanitarian programs, it became very clear to us on the committee that the U.S. Agency for International Development does not have the same ability to hire contractors in-country to work on the Food for Peace program that USDA has. I know this sounds like kind of a technical bureaucratic problem but, in fact, it is; and we worked with AID and the chairman to identify the best way to correct this problem. I want to thank the chairman deeply for his support. We want to make sure that when wheat or soy meal or any product is delivered to a very needy country that the private voluntary organizations that are there and AID contractors are able to find the most efficient way to get food into the villages, to the people, maybe refugees, living very far from the point where the food actually comes to port. AID is having particular problems with this, we think simply because the legislation was written in a way that AID and USDA are under different committees here in the House. Truly, with many of the private voluntary organizations doing this work in-country, which is one of the most risky jobs in the world, because they go into areas sometimes that are war torn, deep in- country. It is not easy work. We have had plane crashes around the world where many of these volunteers are going. All we are trying to do is to find a more efficient way to help them do the job that all of us want to do and that is to bring food to hungry people. No bureaucratic snafu should prevent that kind of person-to-person assistance from occurring. We still want to find a way to allow greater authority for the Department of Agriculture, to use administrative funds in countries to provide and monitor food assistance in needy areas of the world. Essentially, this would provide additional contracting latitude to the U.S. Agency for International Development, so it parallels what USDA is able to do in moving these commodities to people that truly need them. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) very, very much for his cooperation and participation in this.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I would hope that as we move toward conference we might try to find an accommodation. I hesitate to withdraw the amendment because I think it speaks for itself. But I respect the opinion of the gentleman and would hope that as we move forward we might be able to meet these needs across our country.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent for an additional minute and a half to address the point of order issue.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, along with our very able chairman, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), I rise in opposition to this amendment in the area of research. One of the great gifts that America has given the world is our agricultural research. There is no more productive Nation agriculturally on Earth than our own. This has not happened by accident. When the country was founded and we tried to master the plains and people moved westward and so forth, even until today, we try to understand the ecosystem and its function; and we know we could never really control it, but we try to live in harmony with it. I am always someone who is a very strong supporter of research for the Nation, whether it is medical research, whether it is research related to space science, or certainly in the area of living tissue, whether that be plant tissue or, in fact, human tissue research. My record is very clear on that. The gentleman has picked one set of accounts called Special Research Grants, and for the record, I just wanted to point out that if we look at all research within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and all agriculture programs, there is, indeed, a prejudice toward row crop production, corn, wheat, feed grains, that runs through the general performance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are many, many crops and many issues that are left out of that general prejudice, and these include many of our vegetable crops and they include many of our fruit crops; many items that would be smaller in terms of actual presence in the economy. Take maple sugar production, for example. This is an area that is covered under special research. The area of molluskan shellfish, granted, it is not something that everyone in America thinks about; but on the other hand, we have all managed to indulge at dinners and so forth in some of the products produced in that research. If we look at peanuts, it sounds like a simple thing to do, produce peanuts. One has to have the right climate, the right fertilizers, the right soils. What happens with peanut research? We have discovered, that, my goodness, there are allergens associated with peanuts and some people can die from eating peanuts. My district does not produce peanuts. I certainly do not want anyone to die, and yet with the general research, it is important that we as a country understand what is going on there and that food safety and investment in research related to peanuts occurs. Citrus canker. I do not have oranges and limes in my district in Ohio, although I certainly buy them at the grocery store. My heart goes out to all of the producers in Florida that are losing their shirts because of citrus canker. It is important for the Nation, if we are going to have citrus crops, to find answers to controlling, if we can, the devastation that is going on in those groves. On behalf of my own State I have to say, with tomato production, it seems that we can all grow a tomato plant, but how do we grow enough tomatoes to feed a Nation to make sure that we can move it from field to shelf. So I oppose the gentleman's amendment simply because it really throws a dagger at the heart of our special research grants which do not have the kind of support that we get in the major feed grains but, nonetheless, are very important to integrated production in this country. I think the gentleman has a worthy objective, but I really do not think he has chosen the right place to express himself.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am stating we do not know whether it is at a research station, whether it is in cooperation with the land grant university. The gentleman from Colorado is offering sort of an unspecified cut. We have many, many worthy research projects that occur across this country that try to save crops, that try to produce better crops. I just thought it would be important for the offerer of the amendment to place on the record exactly where this is. And USDA conducts many activities; I think it is very important for us to understand the full impact of what the gentleman is proposing.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, we thank both the gentlemen for coming down and leading the entire Congress and country in trying to resolve a problem that may have started in their community but is spreading just as the gypsy moth did many, many years ago. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, if I might say to the gentleman, he knows the problem with the Small Business Administration, why do we even have one? It is simply because so many people fall between the cracks because we as a country are more able to deal with large institutions. It is no different than smaller producers, for example. Most farmers who might raise something like asparagus or tomatoes, they do not know how to apply for competitive research grants. Oftentimes this is done in conjunction with our land grant universities who do work with many of our smaller producers; raspberry producers, for example, who have to worry with viruses on their crops. We have a lot of internal review that is done by the academic institutions working with these crops and with the individuals who grow them. Also, the USDA Cooperative Research Service works and makes sure that we are getting our money's worth. So I think the gentleman is trying to do something worthy, but I think he has chosen the wrong vehicle to do it, and I oppose the amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Yes, I continue to yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Ms. KAPTUR. It is our understanding that this is the State of Washington? I do not know if there are any Members that would like to comment, but I just thought for the record we ought to state that.

Ms. KAPTUR. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, in which State?

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to ask the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) a question, the proponent of the amendment, and ask in whose congressional district does this project lie?

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) for staying within the 30 seconds and would just say that the Academy of Sciences report issued on June 14 did state that more awareness of the regulatory process is needed, maybe not necessarily of what happens after that. But that is why we have tried to get USDA, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, to come up with a unified approach. I think the gentleman is pushing us in the proper direction, and I just wanted to state that publicly for the record. I do have a bit of a concern about an across-the-board, an unspecified cut in the agricultural research service because we have so much trouble in that account anyway. I think that the gentleman is obviously one of the leaders in this Congress on this whole question of giving the public absolute certainty about the food that they are eating and having some light shone on the regulatory process itself, and I think the gentleman has moved us along as a committee and is moving the country along. I wanted to commend the gentleman publicly for that. Point of Order

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to just stand and to commend the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) for his concern, genuine concern, about genetically modified foods. As a result of his initiatives and his constant prodding of the committee, I want to just put on the record that in the report that accompanies this bill we are calling for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to work together to improve the methods of testing and reviewing genetically modified foods, as well as providing more information to consumers. We think that it is important that these two major agencies work together and though we probably have not done enough to completely satisfy the gentleman, I want to reassure him and the people of the State of Massachusetts that he represents, that there could be no more vigilant leader here on trying to protect the public's safety in food consumption with adequate information. I wanted to publicly state that and to thank the gentleman for coming to us and for leading us forward in our own efforts.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say, as ranking member of this committee, our responsibility is to serve the country; and we have Members that come to us, for example, from New York City and from Chicago who are not on the Committee on Agriculture who are suffering under the Asian long-horn beetle infestation where all of those hardwoods are having to be cut down. We serve the country. We try to provide answers through this section of research in special grants and special research efforts all across this country. We do not just serve people on the agriculture committees. Our job is to serve the membership and, through them, serve the Nation. So I would object a little bit to the way the gentleman characterized the performance of the committee. We are very proud of the work we do in serving the Nation.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. I want to say that it is a great pleasure for me to rise today as we bring our bill to the floor, the fiscal year 2001 appropriation for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. I want to also begin by saying that this is the last bill that will be managed by my dear friend and colleague, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), as chairman of the subcommittee because his limited subcommittee chairmanship has been reached under current House rules, which I certainly would like to change. He is and has been such a leader, a fine gentleman in the true sense of the word, a caring chairman, an advocate for America's farmers and ranchers, and a true friend to every single Member of this institution. So I wanted to acknowledge his hard work on this bill. It has been a joy to work with him, and I number these days and years among the most memorable of my own life. I also want to thank the subcommittee staff: Hank Moore, Martin Delgado, John Ziolkowski, Joanne Orndorf; and our detailees: Anne DuBey and Maureen Holohan; and to the minority staff leader David Reich; and Roger Szemraj of my own staff, for all the hard work that has gone into putting this bill together. Let me begin by saying that I come to the floor rather conflicted this morning. This is a very, very important bill and one that we will focus on today. But we have just learned that, contrary to an agreement that was reached yesterday, the majority has chosen to place the sanctions language dealing with Cuba and Libya, the issue that we debated for hours here yesterday, into the supplemental appropriation bill, contrary to an agreement that had been reached with the minority. This is creating a great disarray that I think threatens not just this bill but the supplemental and its ability to move through the Congress and, also, to be signed by the President. There are many programs in there, such as firefighting and so forth, that are needed immediately in the western part of the country. I would just urge the Majority to remove that sanctions provision from the supplemental legislation. This is a violation of an accord that had been reached with the minority, and it truly places us in a most difficult position as we proceed forward with this bill today. Now, let me say that this bill deals with the basics of life that touch every American every day, have already touched every one of us as we awakened this morning, the food that we have eaten, the fiber that we wear, the fuel that we use to move vehicles and in industry, and forest production, all the land and water conservation programs that cover the vast majority of private lands in this country, the stewardship of those lands and the help that goes to those landholders is contained in this legislation. The food that we ate this morning no doubt was influenced in millions of different ways by the research that has been supported over the years through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. All the marketing programs, the safety that we felt when we ate that food, that the milk was okay and that it was very healthy to eat, the various medicines that we take, our certainty that that medication will do what it says and if there is a side effect that it is labeled. All of the Food and Drug Administration programs come within our jurisdiction. So this is a very important bill that goes to the center of life in America. And we hope by our example that we can influence the world's people as well. The bill's spending level is at about a level of $75.3 billion. Nearly a little more than 80 percent of that, or $60 billion, is what we call mandatory spending, money that we have for important programs like the Commodity Credit Corporation reimbursements that are central to the operation of our farm assistance programs to those who produce that food, fiber, and forest product. So there is $27.7 billion in the bill that goes to that major segment of this proposal. The Food Stamp program, which helps those who cannot afford to feed themselves in this country, $21.2 billion contained in this bill. An even more important program as Welfare to Work locks in across this country and our feeding kitchens and elderly feeding programs and so forth become short changed. Our School Lunch program, $5.4 billion, so that every child in this country will have decent food at least during the week while they are in school, $5.4 billion, and $1.5 billion for the School Breakfast program so those little urchins out there, their brains grow and, as they go to school, they are able to lead healthy lives and that they grow properly. Our conservation programs, nearly a billion dollars here, working with all the private owners of America to make sure that the land and the water and the ditches and the runoff is handled properly. We are making progress there, but we certainly have a long way to go. This is an incredible piece of legislation. Of the total amount of spending, $75.3 billion, the discretionary amount, the part our committee struggles with so greatly, $14.5 billion is, unfortunately, $400 million below the spending of the current fiscal year. This is a very tight bill, hard choices had to be made. In fact, the entire bill is $400 million below this year's spending when we discount the nearly $8.7 billion that was provided in emergency assistance last year. Now, I said that this bill came forward under difficult circumstances. The most recent nick, however, being the fact that the sanctions language was put into the supplemental against the will of the minority and against the agreement that was reached. The allocation we were given by the Committee on the Budget makes it difficult to detail with responsible priorities submitted by the administration. We are at least $1.6 billion in this proposal under the administration's request for all programs and, as I mentioned, $400 million under last year. If we look at what was done in the supplemental, which is linked to this bill directly, there was nearly $400 million in the supplemental that we were expecting to help cushion the cuts and the lack of full support in this bill, and we were told yesterday that that has now been reduced by $204 million, which means that there is only about $195 million left in the supplemental, which absolutely underfunds these programs at a time when rural America is just caving under the continuing low price situation, the drought, the high water levels in other parts of the country. To be underfunding agriculture at a time when rural America is in recession makes absolutely no sense to this Member. Now, the bill, as best as we were able to try to fund programs that are so necessary, does have some additional problems. For example, in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, we do not provide the resources requested by the President. In fact, we are $53 million below his request for funds to deal with the growing infestation in this country by invasive species, other pests, and viruses. For example, in the area of citrus canker in Florida where entire orange and lime crops are threatened, we do not have funding sufficient to deal with the eradication nor with trying to prevent further spread of that particular problem. The same is true with Pierce's disease in California. The Administration released about $12 million this past week, but that is not sufficient to deal with the vineyard problems all throughout California. Plum pox in States like Pennsylvania, which are affecting our fruit crops, all of these dollars that were proposed by the minority to try to deal with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have not been fully provided. I can tell my colleagues that failure to deal with these pests and failure to deal with prevention will mean costs in the future of billions and billions and billions of dollars to deal with something like the Asian Longhorn Beetle, which is destroying our hardwoods in Chicago and in New York. This is not an insignificant issue. It has long-term consequences. There are cuts in this bill, unfortunately, for the Food for Peace program $37 million below the President's request. We keep saying that access to foreign markets is what will help our farmers recover from low prices, but at the same time we disarm ourselves by failing to provide the level of resources we need to get the job done and move our product into other markets, certainly when we have a surplus, to those people in our country and around the world who remain hungry and in fact in many quarters of the world that are starving. In this bill also we fail to adequately fund or place restrictions on the use of funds to deal with the problems faced by the most needy and the most powerless people in our country. For example, there are insufficient funds in this bill for the 1890 colleges, those colleges that have been dealing with those historically discriminated against in our society, as we try to spread the knowledge of the Department of Agriculture in all of its different aspects throughout the university and college systems of this country. Further, the bill prohibits further expansion of the Colonias initiative to deal with the tremendous pollution at the southwestern border of Mexico with Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. So there is no additional funding in the bill for that important effort. Finally, if we think about our food programs in general, the underfunding is largely in the area of food programs, certainly food stamps, our school breakfast, our school lunch, our elderly feeding programs, the Women Infants and Children feeding program. Totally, the funding in this bill is about a billion dollars under the administration's request. On the conservation front, which is so important to us, as the most productive land on Earth, the conservation programs are $65 million below the President's request in what we were able to provide in this bill. With the significant erosion problems, the drought problems and in my part of the country the significant water runoff problems right now, they are having a real impact on our ability to hold soil and prevent leaching into our ditches, rivers and ultimately lakes. These conservation programs are more important than ever. Now, in terms of the overall bill, while we do not provide all prudent increases that I have just talked about, we do not cut most programs under current operating levels, and we do provide some modest increases in rural economic and community development programs, and we have provided vital support for the Food and Drug Administration. I would be remiss if I stood on this floor, however, and I did not remind Members that in this supplemental bill, however, there were severe cuts made in important agriculture programs such as the replacement of our Food and Drug Administration building in Los Angeles. That was cut from the supplemental, and we do not cover it in this bill. We did not provide sufficient funding for our technical assistance providers for our natural resource and conservation programs to help people apply for the Conservation Reserve and Enhancement program, the Wetlands Reserve program, the Conservation Reserve program. This bill, and the supplemental, are underfunded in those areas. The supplemental, and this bill does not replace the funding for the renovation of the south building here in Washington, D.C. Our own Department of Agriculture, which is very old, gets lots of tourists, lots of visitors and needs to be repaired. Neither in this bill nor in the supplemental are those kinds of concerns taken care of. We have dozens and dozens of amendments we will be considering today, and I will just end with the request, respectful request of the majority, please do not violate the agreement that was reached with the minority to remove the sanctions language from the supplemental bill. This is going to cause us havoc on the floor here. It is going to cause havoc on the floor of the other body. It was our understanding that the sanctions language for Cuba, for Libya, for North Korea, for Sudan, for Iran, would not be put in the supplemental bill. That was done last night, violating an agreement that Members of the minority party had signed, and I would just beg the leadership of this institution to reconsider that very ill-timed decision. This bill is too important to be hung up in a partisan war over the sanctions issue on the supplemental bill, and this bill will be held hostage to that debate. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.