Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentlelady, and I strongly oppose this amendment. This amendment breaks the deal that we had and is offensive in the way that it treats the unemployed in this country. In short what this proposal does is it takes money from benefits and hands it over to the States, and they can do with it what they want, as was said earlier in the debate, with no strings attached, no accountability. This Republican Congress has been vocal in support of block grants, and I suppose that's why they're supporting this amendment. But I'd like to point out that it was block-granting that is the very reason that we got into the LIHEAP situation and the categorical eligibility situation that we're trying to attempt in this bill. Vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy).

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to Mr. Valadao from California, a new Member who's actually been in the dairy business and is probably the one guy in this place that understands how this works.

Mr. PETERSON. I yield the gentleman 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. PETERSON. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. PETERSON. I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to my good friend from across the border in North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to one of our ranking members, the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chairman, I am pleased now to yield 1 minute to the chairman of the subcommittee that deals with this, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. We have worked this out between the chairman and myself and this is breaking the deal that we had. I would say a vote for this amendment is a vote against the farm bill, so oppose it.

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to a good friend of the American farmer and agriculture, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I'd like to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. PETERSON. I'm now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. DelBene).

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I join you in pledging to work with the former Member of our Committee from Georgia. As he indicated, we were pleased to work with him and other Members during the 2008 Farm Bill to open up both the McIntire-Stennis program and Section 3(d) for full participation from the 1890 Institutions. I look forward to working with the 1890 colleges and universities and USDA on addressing the concerns that they have raised with the Committee.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding. You know, what this amendment's going to do is undermine the crop insurance system and take a whole bunch of people out of the crop insurance system that we need to make it actuarially sound. Now, it was just said here that there's no other program that doesn't have a payment limit. Well, let me tell you something. Mr. Kind is cosponsor of the Goodlatte-Scott dairy provision, which has no payment limits. The 6,000 cow dairies in Mr. Kind's district are going to get $600,000 of benefit from our subsidies in the dairy program, and there's no payment limitation. So, come on. If you really believe in payment limits, why isn't it on the Goodlatte-Scott scheme? So this amendment undermines everything that we've been trying to do in the Agriculture Committee. We had the biggest disaster last year, drought, that we've ever had. We had no significant call for an ad hoc disaster for the first time that I can remember since I've been here, and the reason is because crop insurance worked. Agriculture is working. In my district, we have 3 percent unemployment because agriculture is working. The one part of the economy that's actually working, and all these people that want to create jobs and want to create government programs so we can create jobs, they want to take the one thing that's working in the country and screw it up. And I'm not going to be part of it. So vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I, too, rise in opposition to this amendment. I would reiterate what my good friend Mr. Conaway said, that we did not spend $50 million; we spent $1 million. I was part of putting this in the 2008 farm bill. The reason is that we almost killed off the sheep and goat industry in this country. With what we did back in the nineties and so forth, there was hardly anybody left in the industry. We basically gave it away to New Zealand and Australia. What we're trying to do, and what we tried to do in the 2008 bill for this little bit amount of money that we put in there was give this industry a chance to get back on its feet and start producing lamb products and goat products in this country instead of importing them from some other place. That's what this is all about. You can make fun of it all you want, but at the end of the day, this is about American jobs and about keeping the production here in the United States. Let's be clear about what this is. It is $1 million. I think it is money that's well spent. We can go into all of the reasons for the demise of the sheep industry. A lot of it had to do with what we did at the Federal level and the government level to screw this industry up, especially in Montana, Wyoming, and places like that, but we don't have time to go into all of that. This is a modest effort to help that industry get back on its feet and make sure that those jobs are in the U.S.

Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentlelady. I, too, oppose this amendment. People need to realize that the diesel engine was invented by a German fellow named Diesel, and it ran on peanut oil. It didn't run on diesel fuel. And the internal combustion engine ran on ethanol. It didn't run on gasoline. They had to reengineer those motors to get them to run on gasoline and diesel fuel. It takes a different type of engine to run those kinds of fuels. One of the things you do with this type of a program is you help those manufacturers develop engines that can utilize the fuel. The same thing with a car engine. Down in Brazil, they're burning 30 percent ethanol with cars that are made by General Motors that are engineered to run on that fuel, and they get better mileage with that 30 percent ethanol than they get with gasoline because they engineered the engines right. That's what we're trying to do with this program is help the industry be able to utilize these fuels which are renewable and are made by Americans and are creating jobs. So this is a good program, and I oppose the amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. We'll take you up there in January when it's 40 below.

Mr. PETERSON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON. On that last point, the University of North Dakota, one of their ag guys up there came up with a way to splice a fluorescent gene into hemp, and North Dakota is a State where it's legal. So now the hemp that grows is fluorescent. So you can clearly tell the difference between the hemp and the marijuana. So we have solved that problem through research.

Mr. PETERSON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON. I'd say to the gentleman, and we may have differing views on this, but again, the University of North Dakota has spliced a gene into hemp; and I will work with the gentleman to say, if we ever do anything with this, that we'll require that that be done. And if it's grown in the United States, it has to have the gene spliced into it so it is fluorescent so you'll clearly be able to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana. I don't really know anything about marijuana, but I've been told that if you put hemp in with marijuana, it ruins it. I don't know if that's true or not. But anyway, I think there's a way to solve this. You know, 35 percent of our cars are made out of hemp. This is a big market. We should be doing this. So let's work together, and I would like to bring you this information from North Dakota. We can solve that problem and maybe move forward.