Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, as I spoke earlier on the drawbacks of H.R. 2, I may not have mentioned, before I reserved, that I am very frustrated by the breakdown in this process that has got us to where we are. Now, Mr. Lucas is right, we do have to have a farm bill, but let's understand what we need to do that actually is required. Title 1 needs a farm bill. Title 2 needs a farm bill. Other titles need a farm bill because they are only authorized for 5 years. SNAP is permanently authorized. If we didn't do anything, SNAP would go on like it is. Crop insurance is permanently authorized. If we didn't do anything, crop insurance would go on just like it is. So the part of the bill that we are worried about are these other parts that will expire on the end of September 30. Now, what happens if we don't get it done? We go back to permanent law. Some of my constituents think that is a good idea because it goes back to 100 percent of parity. Most people in America probably know what I am talking about when I talk about 100 percent of parity, but a lot of old timers in my district know very much what that is. And, you know, it is $9 corn. They would love to have $9 corn. So the permanent law is not an option. So we need to get something done. But my point is that we don't need to do some of the things that we are doing in these areas that are not required to do anything because they are permanently authorized. So, as I speak today, you know, I refused to give legitimacy to what has been, in my view, an illegitimate process. The chairman said we tried to work on a bipartisan basis. You know, we didn't raise any issues at the time because he said he didn't have any money and we were going along with the system. And that is till we got into the situation where this SNAP stuff came forward, you know, and I told you this was not going to fly in our caucus. And you can see over here the feelings that you have engendered with this proposal, you know, and it is breaking apart what we have had here in this country for a long time. I have been here for four farm bills. I have been here as a member, as a chairman, and as a ranking member. Now, as Frank said, each of these bills has had their share of headaches, and they have all, at the end of the day, though, had more common ground than opposition. And in the end, the Agriculture Committee has always produced a product that we could be proud of because we knew we delivered the best deal possible, given the circumstances that we were dealing with. We have always been able to work together for the mutual benefit of farmers, rural advocates, and consumers. Prior to my time here, Senator Dole and McGovern carried the medal--Hubert Humphrey from my State, George Aiken before that. These weren't ideologues, but they weren't pushovers either. Each knew where their party stood. Each also knew the value making sure the length between people who grow the food and the people who buy food and make sure that that link was strong. So let me be as clear as I can be. In my opinion, breaking up that coalition, ruining a partnership that predates all of us is a huge mistake. More than that, the closed- and one-sided nature of this process that we have been through is something that I have to call out. It does not bode well for farm and food legislation to come. No party can do this alone. It is too big of a job. So, as ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, I want you to know that I am willing to come back to the table but only when the majority has the ability to sit down and figure this out together. I was told on this SNAP stuff by the chairman that he could not negotiate it--it was nonnegotiable. That is what got us into this problem. So, when we get to the point where we can actually start talking about negotiation, I am willing to come back to the table and try to get back to a bipartisan situation. Folks want to do welfare reform. I was there in 1996. I was part of the deal at that time. It should be done as a comprehensive review of all of the programs, not just the farm bill. I just think it is a huge mistake for us to be trying to tell people that, somehow or another, putting work requirements and these other things into the farm bill is going to overhaul the welfare system. That is just not true. Most people don't get enough money out of the Food Stamp program to make a difference one way or the other. It is not food stamps that are causing people to be on welfare. It is not food stamps that are causing people not to work, you know, and that is my big objection to this. It is just ideology run amuck, and it is screwing up the process here, and I hope that we don't do so much damage that we can't pull this back together at the end of the day and get this done. So I am going to vote against H.R. 2, and I urge all my colleagues to do as well, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, even though I am in favor of this.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is something that I have been working on up in my area for some time as well. We have the Red River Valley, which is a river that flows north, and it always causes a lot of trouble with the flooding and so forth, a lot of erosion problems, and we have been looking at ways to deal with this. One of the ways that we found that really works is to put in pattern tile along with lift stations and pumps and stop logs and so forth that allow you to control this water and keep it until the water goes down. You can let it out at the appropriate time. It improves the water quality, and it will help us with flooding situations. Our water management districts up there need this authority. They would very much use this, and it would be a good thing for not only stopping a lot of erosion, it would also improve the water quality substantially in our watershed up there. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the amendment. I encourage my colleagues to support it as well, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I don't oppose this amendment. I don't really have any problem with it. We are using RCPP in my part of the world. I have not heard any request for this, but I don't think it does any harm. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the intent of the amendment, but there are a couple of problems here. One is that I have got some hospitals in my area that have used this to establish rural hospitals. There is a limited amount of money available in this fund, and what you are going to do here with this is you are going to increase the competition for it. There is already an increase in fees on the loans in this bill. So, for smaller communities, it is going to make it more difficult. But the bigger problem I have with this, as I understand it, this bill raises the limits for what is a rural area from 20,000 in the case of broadband and water, and 10,000 on waste. These are numbers that were put in in the 2008 farm bill when I was chairman. I just want to point out to people: The biggest city in my district is 32,000 people. I have 350 towns in my district, and only 12 of them are over 10,000. So what this does is it puts us in a situation where we are going to not be able to build hospitals because they are going to be sucked up by these bigger communities in these other parts of the country. So I just think this is something that is not needed. If you have got a town of 50,000 people, you can go get financing some other place. You don't need to be financed by USDA. Mr. Chair, I oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chair, I just have a problem with a town of 50,000 being called a rural town. The average town in my district is 1,000 people, 1,500 people. Those are the folks who cannot afford to do this. That is what this program is for. I don't know how much money we have wasted on broadband in this Congress, and one of the reasons we wasted it is we had a 50,000 population limit. What happened is these telecom companies and cable companies went into these bigger communities because that is where they could make money, and they overbuilt the systems two or three times. Did they come out in the rural areas and do anything? No. So we still don't have broadband, and in towns of 50,000, we have three systems. So what I was trying to do in 2008 was trying to focus this stuff down to where it--in my opinion--belongs. In your part of the world, that might be the thing to do, but this does not work in my district, and I don't agree with it. Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to oppose this amendment, but I claim the time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time. That is not true.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out that what you did in amendment No. 6 is going to undermine what you are trying to do in amendment No. 8 because it is going to allow the telecom companies to game the system. I don't know how many billions of dollars we have wasted on those companies, and they have not accomplished hardly a thing. In fact, they are the ones that have stopped us from getting broadband in the rural parts of my district because they have vetoed some stuff that the State is doing that actually would work. What we need to do to fix this is we need to change the Universal Service Fund, which is still tied to telephones. That is what got us telephones in all of rural America because we had a Universal Service Fund that was put on everybody's phone bill, and that gave us the money to go out and put the phones in every house. They are still doing that today. So I have broadband at my deer camp, and the way I got it was because I had to put a telephone in in order for them to get the subsidies so they could run the line to my camp. So, if you want to get this done, what really needs to be done is we need to change the Universal Service Fund and put it on broadband so we have got the money to go out into those underserved areas that are never going to get--there is one person a mile, one house a mile. Nobody can make money on it. So the only way that is going to work is if you have money coming from us to get those companies to go out and do it. I agree with what the gentleman is trying to do here, and I am for what he is trying to do. But I think it is not going to happen because we have tried. We have spent billions of dollars, and nothing has happened so far. I have no confidence in these big telecom companies getting anything done. So, with that, I have got it off my chest. I am not going to oppose the gentleman's amendment. God bless you and good luck. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. PETERSON. I agree that chronic wasting is a serious problem. We have it in Minnesota. We have spent a lot of money already in Minnesota on research as they have in Wisconsin and probably other places. Does this do anything about the problem of this getting out of farm deer, farms and so forth? Because they just found in southern Minnesota that this was spread by deer getting out of a farm deer situation. They went in there, and every deer that was in that farm had chronic wasting disease. Does it do anything in terms of doing research to go in and make sure those herds are not contributing to the problem?

Mr. PETERSON. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PETERSON. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, is the gentleman saying that USDA says there has never been a case where it has been transmitted from a farm to wildlife?

Mr. PETERSON. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PETERSON. That is not true because it has happened in Minnesota in two or three cases. So maybe they need to be researched. They are a little behind the times it seems to me. In southeast Minnesota, we don't have it up where I am at, but in the southeast, this is prevalent. The same thing in Wisconsin. So everybody that takes a deer has to take it into the DNR and get it tested currently. Once this thing gets into the wild, it is very hard to eradicate without wiping out the whole herd, which some places are going to do that. So I am supportive of what you are trying to do. I just want to make sure that we are doing, within the USDA and the animal welfare, health thing, that they have got some resources there that can go in and make sure that these farms are not transferring this stuff out in the wild when a deer gets loose. That is apparently what happened in southeast Minnesota. That is my only concern. Maybe we can work together on the language and improve it. I will support your amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the BRICK Act, particularly section 3, which includes language from my bill to bring much-needed regulatory relief to wood heater manufacturers that are in my district and also across the Nation. Section 3 delays the second phase of Federal emission regulations for wood heaters by 3 years. It is important to note that, since 2007, manufacturers have voluntarily invested in technology to reduce the emissions to comply with the first phase of the regulations. I had one situation in the north part of my district where they spent I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars coming up with this 90 percent reduction; and 6 months after they accomplished it, they came in with these new regulations to do another 90 percent, which can't be done, and it is going to put them out of business. So these businessowners in my district and around the country have approached me and said, as I said, that they will go out of business if this second phase is not delayed. Some of them have already begun laying people off in towns like Greenbush, Minnesota, in my area. And in these small communities, these layoffs are devastating. These companies already produce some of the cleanest wood heaters in the Nation, and they are telling me that the EPA has just gone too far. So I wrote this language to help these businesses, these workers, these communities that depend on the production of these important appliances, and I urge my colleagues to support the BRICK Act.

Mr. PETERSON

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, this bill is not perfect, but it has a lot of good provisions. I urge support of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 2936 addresses some valid concerns regarding forest management. The bill would simplify forest management activities while also tamping down on overzealous regulations and policy decisions made by activists and bureaucrats who have adopted a sue and settle strategy to pursue their agenda. This is one of the main reasons why I am a cosponsor of H.R. 2936. While this bill isn't exactly what I would do if I was in charge of putting the bill together, we need to do something to address forest management concerns, and I believe that this bill seeks to do that and moves us in the right direction. So I am supportive of moving the process along so that we can negotiate with our Senate colleagues and find a workable solution to address these issues. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from California an additional 30 seconds.