Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to another subcommittee ranking member, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz).

Mr. PETERSON. I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the second-ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McIntyre.)

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to associate myself with the comments of the chairman, who, by the way, has done an outstanding job putting this bill together. And with the exception of maybe some differences on the SNAP title of the bill, I have to say that if I was still chairman, I wouldn't have a bill that's much different than what the chairman and I have put together. And maybe one of the reasons for that is that my family has a similar background to Mr. Lucas' family. My grandfather went through the Depression. My father almost got bankrupted by Ezra Taft Benson and some of the nonsense that went on during that period of time. So the chairman is right. Policy makes a big difference in agriculture, and I stand with him in never going back to a time where we don't give our farmers and ranchers the safety net they need to operate in a very risky and now capital intensive business. So today we're debating a new 5-year farm bill. As the chairman said, the process has gone on long enough. We started the debate on this when I was still chairman, and it's time for us to pass a bill. This farm bill gives farmers and ranchers the necessary tools to provide American consumers with the safest, most abundant and most affordable food supply in the world. The bill includes farm, conservation, trade, nutrition, credit, rural development, research, forestry, energy and specialty crop programs. With roughly 16 million American jobs tied to agriculture, the farm bill is a jobs bill. The rural economy remained strong during our Nation's financial crisis, and in my part of the world it was agriculture that kind of kept us going through that process. This is why the farm bill is so important. Failing to pass a new 5-year farm bill could potentially devastate our rural economy. Why would we jeopardize the one part of our economy that has been, and continues to be, working? I often tell people that the Agriculture Committee is probably the least partisan of all the committees in Congress. And that doesn't happen by accident. We listen to each other, we try to understand each other, work together, and at the end of the day, have the best interests of our constituents in mind. The bill before us today is a compromise that reflects that tradition. It's a compromise between commodities and regions, urban and rural Members. I didn't get everything I wanted; Chairman Lucas didn't get everything he wanted, but that's how the legislative process is supposed to work. The bill makes major reforms to farm programs. Repealing direct payments saves taxpayers nearly $40 billion a year, and it ensures that farmers won't get a government subsidy for doing nothing. Instead, producers are given the choice between two countercyclical farm safety programs, addressing either price declines or revenue losses, which only support farmers during difficult times. The bill also sets new income requirements so individual millionaires won't receive farm payments and continues the no-cost sugar program. H.R. 1947 also makes significant reforms to dairy programs, the result of more than 4 years of work that we've done on the committee and compromise within the dairy industry. The new dairy safety net will address the volatility of the dairy market, help consumers by making all milk prices more stable and hopefully eliminate the price spikes that have been normal in today's marketplace. The 2008 farm bill was the first farm bill to address the growing demand for fresh fruits and vegetables, local foods and organics. The 2013 FARRM Bill continues this investment by increasing funding for specialty crop block grants, providing support for the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion programs and authorizing the very first organic check-off for research and promotion. We also recognize the challenges facing many beginning farmers by including support for outreach and education to beginning, socially disadvantaged and military veteran farmers and ranchers. The bill also streamlines and reforms current conservation programs, better targeting resources to allow farmers and ranchers to continue to preserve our valuable natural resources. Now, a lot of attention has been given to the bill's cuts to nutrition programs, more than $20 billion over 10 years in this bill. Personally, I would have preferred that we updated the income and asset limits in the current SNAP program so that we would have treated everybody in the country the same. We've looked at that, we weren't able to come to consensus, so we didn't move in that direction. So we have cuts to nutrition spending in this bill, and they've received most of the attention in this regard, but we also like to point out that there's additional support for TEFAP, increased funding for Community Food Projects with a focus on low-income communities, and it provides more resources to help USDA's anti-trafficking efforts. So, while I think it's ridiculous to cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of nutrition programs, as some Members have called for, I also don't think it's realistic to say that we can't cut one penny from these programs because clearly there isn't a government program that couldn't stand some reductions. So I think what we've done here at the end of the day is responsible reform that's a middle ground that will allow us to continue and to complete the work on this bill. So I know we're going to have a lot of amendments I guess starting tomorrow, but it's my opinion, and it's the chairman's opinion, that in order for us to get a bill conferenced, we need to go through this process and stick together on the committee so we can have a bill that can be conferenced and get this bill signed before September 30 when the current law expires. We need to keep this a bipartisan bill and not stray too far from what was approved in committee. I know that compromise is rare around here, but it's what is needed to finally get a new 5-year farm bill completed, and that is our objective. So, Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time and yield back.

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

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor on H.R. 1773.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa, one of our ranking members, Mr. Boswell.

Mr. PETERSON. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today is the last session before the August recess, and once again the House will adjourn without finishing its work. It's no wonder nobody likes Congress anymore. Members will now have to explain to their constituents why the House did not even try to consider a new 5- year farm bill. Frankly, we're in this position because the House leadership has refused to bring the 5-year farm bill to the floor. Working in a bipartisan tradition on the Agriculture Committee, Chairman Lucas and I have crafted a new 5-year farm bill making many important and needed reforms. I appreciate the efforts of the chairman in trying to enact a long-term policy, and I know that if he had his way, as he just said, we would have already passed a farm bill. The chairman and I were ready to mark up our bill at the end of June, but the Republican leadership stepped in and said that they wanted us to consider the ag approps bill. So we held off for a couple of weeks, and then they didn't even bring the ag approps bill to the floor. The committee completed their work then on July 11, passing a new bill, a 5-year bill, 35-11 in a bipartisan vote. But rather than bring this bill to the floor, the House instead focused on messaging bills that are going nowhere. I understand that this is an election year and the majority wants to promote their message, and I've even voted for some of these bills. You would think that after delaying us for 2 weeks, the leadership could have found 2 days on the House calendar to consider the committee's farm bill before the August recess. Instead of bringing up the 5-year farm bill, the Republican leadership last week put forth a 1-year farm bill extension hoping to delay action until the next Congress, with hopes, for some people, that they're going to dismantle the farm and food safety nets. Fortunately, under intense opposition from those in agriculture and others, the leadership had to pull the bill. This brings us to today's consideration of H.R. 6233. This measure will provide some assistance to a few livestock producers affected by drought conditions across the country. Providing assistance to livestock producers, primarily cattle and sheep, is necessary and important, but this is not a comprehensive disaster package. Dairy and specialty crop producers are going to be left hurting, and there's no assistance for pork and poultry producers. The Ag Committee's farm bill not only includes the livestock provision we're considering today, it also strengthens the farm safety net on a wide-ranging list of commodities. The 5-year farm bill will do a better job of providing certainty for American agriculture and assistance during this period of drought. Additionally, I have concerns about the conservation cuts that are used to pay for this assistance. I don't think cutting conservation programs to offset the cost of disaster is the right approach. If there was more time, maybe we could find a better way to do this. But in the rush of putting this bill together, it didn't give us the necessary time to explore all of the options. This is yet another reason that I think bringing up a 5-year bill makes more sense. It's just mystifying to me why House leaders can't take ``yes'' for an answer. I don't know how many times I've heard from the other side complaints about the Senate not being able to get our bills passed. We passed a lot of bills, most of which I supported, that are over in the Senate and they never took them up. Now the Senate has passed a bill, and this may be the only time that we will ever be able to get a farm bill through the Senate. They passed it on a bipartisan basis. We passed it on a bipartisan basis. Now the leadership doesn't want to bring it up. I don't understand it. The farm economy is the one part of the economy that is actually working, doing well, has been solid for the last few years. This is due in part, I believe, to the strong farm bill that we passed in '08. Weathering a natural disaster without the certainty of a 5-year bill could jeopardize one of the bright spots we have in this economy. With all that said, I do recognize the effects the drought is having on our farmers, and I will vote in favor of H.R. 6233. However, this bill is a sad substitute for what is really needed--a long-term farm policy. So I'll continue to urge my colleagues to bring up the House agriculture 5-year farm bill and to ensure that all producers will have necessary assistance during these times of disaster. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to support this bill. It's better than nothing, but it's not what we should be doing. People need to understand that this is not going to solve any problems for anybody over August, other than the political problem that they have where they go home and can't point to anything that got done, so they'll be able to say they voted for a bill. This bill is not going anyplace in the other body. They have passed through the other body a bipartisan bill that has a better disaster provision in it than what we're considering here today. Their position is my position, and that is that we should be moving this bill and getting it enacted into law. So, out of my friendship and respect for the chairman, I am supporting this bill. But I think he'll probably agree with me that we need to get this bill to conference. We need to get it moved. We need to get it done so we can get it in place by September 30, so producers can get what they really need out of this bill, and that is a long-term policy they know they can count on. So I ask my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1272, the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Judgment Fund Distribution Act. Thirteen years ago, the United States Court of Federal Claims awarded and appropriated $20 million to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. This settlement appropriation was to compensate the descendents of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota for the improper valuation of timber and the taking of land under the Nelson Act of 1889. Now, because of the Indian Judgment Fund Act of 1983, Congress must pass legislation detailing how the settlement should be distributed amongst the six bands that make up the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Judgment Fund Distribution Act, H.R. 1272, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to release the funds, plus interest that has been earned, that were appropriated into the trust fund for the Minnesota tribe in 1999. Being the expenses for prosecuting the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe claims were shared equally by all the bands, these expenses should be expended equally from the fund. H.R. 1272 requires that each of the six bands provide the Secretary with updated membership rolls. It directs the Secretary to set aside $300 to each member enrolled and to divide the remaining funds into equal shares for each band. It is important to note that the CBO has concluded that H.R. 1272 does not need an appropriation and that it has no budgetary impact because the $20 million settlement proceeds were appropriated and paid to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe in 1999. They've been there since 1999. So I think it is high time that this settlement is finally distributed and put to work within these communities. The sooner we resolve this issue, the sooner these funds can be released and go to work within these economically depressed areas. There is a great need on these reservations for things like schools, health care facilities, and other infrastructure improvements. I want to alert everybody that this is not unanimous. Five of the six tribes support this. This has been going on for 13 years, but this is as good as we can do. We don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, and it's time that we got this settled. I think it makes no sense for anybody to draw hard-line positions on this. Judging from experience, no hard-line position has ever succeeded, so it's time for everybody to come together and find an agreement that maybe not everybody loves but that everybody can benefit from. That is what H.R. 1272 is. We encourage the adoption of the bill. Our folks back home would really appreciate getting this settled and letting these funds go to work on their reservations.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1971, the Pharmacy Competition and Consumer Choice Act. This legislation will help level the playing field between neighborhood pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) ensuring rural communities will continue to have access to see the providers of their choosing. The 7th Congressional District of Minnesota, which I represent, is made up of more than 31,000 square miles and many small towns and farms. Small and independent retail pharmacies serve the pharmacy needs of residents in this large rural area. Residents of my district are concerned that they are losing access to their local community pharmacist whom they trust and have built relationships with throughout the years. These PBMs tend to encourage patients to use their own mail-order- only operations in order to receive discounted co-pays on prescription drugs. Many constituents have expressed how they want to save money but also would like to talk to the pharmacists about their drug regimens and possible drug interactions. They do not like the idea of dealing with faceless employees of a managing company and talking with someone new each time they call. Patients should not have to choose between best price and best care. Small pharmacies play a vital role in rural communities. Not only are they an employer, but serve as a health care advisor to senior citizens and families. I have heard concerns that such market concentration, like one we will see with Express Scripts and Medco, will likely lead to higher prices for consumers and fewer choices. During this difficult economic time, we cannot afford to lose jobs and the small businesses that serve the very important health-care needs of American consumers. This is especially true in rural areas, where there are already fewer choices. H.R. 1971, the Pharmacy Competition and Consumer Choice Act, would provide transparency into how PBMs deal with Medicare Part D plans, and would require PBMs to deal more honestly with pharmacies when contacting and conducting audits. By protecting Part D plans and beneficiaries, as well as patient access to local community pharmacies, this legislation will help ensure that rural patients will continue to have access to local pharmacies.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, today, the House considers H.R. 3336, a bill which makes clarifying changes to the Dodd-Frank Act. Like two other Dodd- Frank bills that the House passed previously--H.R. 2779, the inter- affiliate bill, and H.R. 2682, the margin bill--this legislation was crafted in a bipartisan manner. As the Ag Committee continues to oversee the implementation of Dodd- Frank, I firmly believe that the CFTC is ultimately going to get the rules and regulations right. If you look at the Dodd-Frank rules that have already been completed, by and large they have been bipartisan and responsive to the concerns that we have heard during our oversight hearings. For example, during a legislative hearing last year, we heard concerns about business conduct standards and the potential impact it could have on pension plans' ability to use swaps to hedge risk. When the commission approved a bipartisan final rule establishing these business conduct standards, the general response from the pension community was satisfaction. More recently, the CFTC approved last week--again with a bipartisan vote of 4 1--rules defining who will be subject of Dodd-Frank's new oversight. Again, the general view from the end-user community is that the rule addresses their concerns. In fact, I believe one of the bills the committee voted on earlier, H.R. 3527, which rewrote the swap dealer definition, now no longer seems necessary. I talk frequently with CFTC Chairman Gensler, and from what he has told me, I am confident that the remaining concerns that H.R. 3336 seeks to address will ultimately be resolved satisfactorily by the CFTC. I think somebody used this bill to send a message to the CFTC, and since that message is consistent with the original intent of Dodd- Frank, I have no objection to it. As originally considered by the committee, H.R. 3336 is meant to address concerns raised by farm credit institutions, credit unions, and small banks that worry about being forced to clear. Under current law, the CFTC is supposed to develop an asset-based exemption from clearing. When you look at the swap activity of some of the banks, questions were raised whether a fixed-asset test was appropriate. The risk-based test contained in the bill will, I think, prove more than adequate and certainly will provide incentives to banks to more robustly back up their swap positions, to the extent that they are not doing so now. During the committee's markup of H.R. 3336, Representatives McIntyre and Owens raised concerns they heard on behalf of captive finance companies which fear that the exemptions provided to them under the Dodd-Frank law will not be implemented properly. This bill not only addresses those concerns, it closed a potential loophole in Dodd-Frank which could have allowed captive finance companies to use the original Dodd-Frank exemption to engage in speculation or swap activities unrelated to the commercial business without proper oversight. Also, during the markup, Representative Costa raised concerns on behalf of California utilities, which fear being classified as swap dealers for entering into transactions necessary to comply with State regulations. Working with members of the California delegation, we were able to adequately address these concerns as well. Given that the legislation clarifies what Congress intended to do with the original Dodd-Frank law, I urge my colleagues to support its passage. And with that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Speaker, again, this bill clarifies what was the original intent of the Dodd-Frank deliberations. Some of what's in this bill, I think, has already been resolved, but there are some clarifications here. If there is duplication, it doesn't do any harm, so we support this bill and encourage that it be adopted. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Madam Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentleman. I rise today in support of H.R. 3010 because, especially in agriculture, we have been dealing with innumerable problems that have been brought by regulations that are not properly vetted and seem to be from people that have a lack of understanding of exactly what's going on in agriculture. And it seems like we have some of these bureaucrats that are working on these regulations that they've basically set up, you know, they've claimed there is threat of lawsuits or whatever; and the next thing you know, they're off doing regulations that have been kind of self- fulfilling prophecies on their part. This legislation gives us an overhaul, I guess, for the first time in 65 years, in the Administrative Procedures Act, to make sure that we have more openness, more transparency, more accountability in these regulations, more time, more analysis, more compilation on how these regulations are developed and how they can--how we can improve this so we can improve the people's confidence in the process, to try to make sure that we're taking into account the costs of what these regulations are going to place, not only on the businesses but, ultimately, on the consumers that are affected by this. In agriculture, we have all these things that are coming down that I think people have a lack of understanding of just exactly what the effect is going to be. A lot of these regulations are going to have the effect of significantly increasing food costs to consumers in this country, and I just think a lot of these urban folks have no idea what they're doing. And the next thing you know, once, if these regulations got in place, they'd be back in Congress looking for more help for SNAP and for other programs to try to pay for the increased food cost that was put on them by these regulations. The more we can open up this process, the more we can get people to understand the actual effect of these regulations and what they're going to accomplish if they're put into place, the better the situation is going to be. I think this is a good step in the right direction. Personally, I would probably go even further than what's in this bill, but it is probably what can be accomplished at this point. I am very happy to be here today to support this effort, and I look forward to having a successful outcome.

Mr. PETERSON. In agriculture we only have jurisdiction over meat and about 20 percent of the food safety is under the jurisdiction of the Ag Department. If the FDA was anywhere near as competent as the USDA is in terms of inspections, we wouldn't have these problems. You know, frankly, the FDA should not be regulating this, the Department of Agriculture should be regulating it.

Mr. PETERSON. We're talking about a bigger issue here. All this bill does is give folks a better chance to understand what's going on here. This whole food safety issue has been a big problem because people are off on tangents that don't have anything to do with reality. Hopefully with this new procedure, we're going to be able to more fully vet this so the public can understand what's going on here. Salmonella exists in all kinds of products. It's going to be there, it's always going to be there no matter what you do. What you have to do is have a regime in place so you can determine the salmonella before it gets into the food supply. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. PETERSON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think it points out that the regulations we have in place are working.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I should have voted yes on H. Res. 463, the rule that would provide for House floor consideration of H.R. 822, a bill that would require states that allow the concealed carry of firearms to recognize concealed-carry permits issued by other states, known as the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act.