▶ 0:12:33I call this meeting the appropriations committee to order. Welcome everyone. I want to thank all of you for your hard work. It says yesterday, but actually today. Um, and rest assured, we've got more hard work ahead of us. Today, we'll be marking up the Agricultural, Rural Development, Food, and Drug Administration, and related agencies appropriation measure for fiscal year 2026.
▶ 0:13:00Before we begin today's hearing, I have a brief comment about today's schedule. As you know, tonight is the Congressional Baseball Game. As always, the appropriations committee is well represented on both Republican and the Democratic teams. Uh, in order to allow players to make it to the game on time, today's markup has a hard stop at 400 p.m.
▶ 0:13:22If the markup is not concluded by then, we'll resume the markup after the baseball game ends and we go on until we're finished. Um, what we thought we would do is reconvene 30 minutes after the last out. We will send you uh an email at that point so you know when that is.
▶ 0:13:44But just look at if you're watching the game or following or participating, we will reconvene 30 minutes after the last out and obviously we when we have a quorum here. So hopefully that uh that'll work for everybody. Hopefully, we don't have to do that, but that's uh what we'll do. So, uh with that, we'll turn to the first measure today or the only measure today.
▶ 0:14:08Um our only order of business today is consideration of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food, and Drug Administration related agencies appropriations bill for fiscal year Thank you very much. Committee is not in order. Chairman needs your attention. Thank you very much, Madame Ranking Member. I'll now recognize Chairman Harris to present the bill.
▶ 0:14:34Thank you, Chairman Cole, and I want to commend your leadership as we get the FY26 appropriations process underway. Also want to recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Miss Deloro, and the subcommittee ranking member, Mr. Bishop, for their work in getting us to this point. I appreciate the conversations Mr. Bishop and I have had. And while I know we don't agree on everything in the bill, we do agree on the importance of the agencies and programs this bill funds.
▶ 0:14:58For FY26, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food, and Drug Administration, and Related Agency Subcommittee's discretionary allocation is $25.5 billion, a $1.1 billion or 4.2% decrease from FY25 enacted levels. In a setting of ongoing $2 trillion deficits, that modest constraint is necessary.
▶ 0:15:21This legislation reflect reflects a clear conservative commitment to fiscal responsibility while ensuring that America's farmers, ranchers, and rural communities remain a top priority and that all Americans have access to a safe food and drug supply. At the same time, this legislation turns the page on the disastrous four years of the Biden administration by rooting out wasteful spending, reducing the federal bureaucracy, and incorporating efficiencies that DOE has identified.
▶ 0:15:50This bill sets USDA on a responsible and sustainable spending path that will make the department and our nation stronger. Under the Biden administration, core USD USDA services suffered.
▶ 0:16:04This includes the failure to effectively deliver disaster aid to farmers, delays in administering basic grant programs, and catastrophic food shortages in tribal and elderly communities, resulting from poor decision-making, and a lack of interest by top USDA leadership.
▶ 0:16:22The previous administration instead focused its efforts on implementing unconstitutional loan forgiveness programs, incorporating the woke agenda into grants and programs across USDA, writing regulations that made it harder for producers to earn a living, and pushing billions of unauthorized funds out the door for climate change The Biden administration did much of this while using the so-called inflation reduction act monies and leftover COVID era funds.
▶ 0:16:51These funds, which were meant to be one-time emergency measures, were used by the prior administration to hire new permanent staff and expand the woke federal bureaucracy. Secretary Vilsac was betting, of course, that no one would subsequently shrink that bureaucracy, even when those one-time funds were gone. I applaud Secretary Rollins for putting an end to this madness.
▶ 0:17:16It's long overdue that co erid programs end and returning the workforce to precoid levels is just common sense. It's far better to have fewer employees who show up to work full-time versus a sprawling remote workforce that failed time and again to perform basic duties.
▶ 0:17:35I'd like to highlight a few areas where this legislation supports the administration's efforts to refocus the department on its core mission by prioritizing essential functions in a fiscally responsible manner. The bill provides 1.15 billion for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHUS, to support the department's efforts to protect our producers from high path aven influenza, new world screworm, and other foreign plant and animal diseases.
▶ 0:18:04The legislation continues to invest in the delivery of farm programs, disaster assistance, and crop insurance to farmers by prioritizing funding for farmer-f facing functions, including the Farm Service Agency and the Risk Management Agency. The bill provides $7.6 billion for WIC, the same level as last year, and rescends a hundred million from significant leftover balances that were unspent from that level of funding.
▶ 0:18:33Even with that recision, that leaves hundreds of millions of dollars in carryover balances remaining. Any talk of this bill cutting the WIC program denies the simple math of carryover provisions. Our bill also makes a modest 10% reduction in the hugely inflated WIC cash value vouchers to begin a reset to precoid levels. The cash value vouchers remain at a level at least twice precoid levels.
▶ 0:19:01And although CO is over, over $2 trillion COVID budget deficits remain and must be dealt with. The bill makes important investments in critical agricultural research that'll keep our producers on the cutting edge of technology and production practices.
▶ 0:19:17We maintain funding for USDA's flagship competitive grant program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, and protect capacity funding for our land grant universities to ensure our farmers and a workforce remain competitive with China. This legislation continues to fund rural development programs, including critical infrastructure investments in water and wastewater systems, broadband, and additional investments in certain rural housing programs.
▶ 0:19:45The bill includes $90 million for Reconnect to complement existing funds to deploy broadband to the most underserved rural areas. For the Food and Drug Administration, the bill provides $3.2 billion in direct And with increased user fees, the FDA has a total budget of 6.8 billion to enable the agency to keep food, drugs, and medical devices safe and effective.
▶ 0:20:10On the regulatory and policy fronts, this legislation withdraws harmful Biden era costly regulations that attempt to dictate how poultry and livestock producers raise and market their animals. It continues to build on efforts to prevent the purchase of farmland by China and our foreign adversaries by having the Secretary of Agriculture serve on CPHAS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for all agricultural The bill closes the loop hemp hole, the
▶ 0:20:41hemp loophole from the 2018 Farm Bill that has resulted in the proliferation of intoxicating canabonoid products, including delta 8 and hemp flour being sold online and in gas stations nationwide under the false guise of being quote USDA approved.
▶ 0:20:59As many states have stepped in to curb these dangerous project products from reaching consumers, particularly children, it's time for Congress to act to close this loophole while protecting industrial hemp industry. Reports that the included language would destroy legitimate businesses are simply not true. And that's clear to anyone closely reading the carefully drafted language that I believe threaded the needle.
▶ 0:21:24The bill also prioritizes the health and nutritional needs of SNAP recipients by codifying the USDA's authority to grant waiverss to states to restrict unhealthy food purchases with SNAP benefits. We have witnessed both red and blue states submitting waiver proposals to USDA that will help make America healthy again by ensuring increased taxpayer funding funded SNAP benefits are being used to purchase healthy foods in a setting of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in our SNAP food
▶ 0:21:55recipients. This makes The bill also directs the secretary to conduct a feasibility study of a byamerican requirement in SNAP. American producers grow and raise all the food we need for healthy diets. This could be a tremendous boost to American farmers and ranchers if SNAP dollars are used to only purchase American grown and Americanmade products.
▶ 0:22:18This by America program can help expand our specialty crop programs and help mitigate our growing agricultural trade deficit. Times have changed at the Department of Agriculture. This bill puts the disastrous policies of the Biden administration behind us. Under President Trump and Secretary Rollins leadership, every taxpayer dollar will be spent in the pursuit of putting American farmers and ranchers first.
▶ 0:22:44This bill follows their example in providing the support and resources American farmers deserve while reducing our burgeoning federal deficit. As I've said before, we are not appropriating monopoly money. is hard-earned taxpayer dollars and sometimes tough decisions have to be made. In an era of unrelenting $2 trillion deficits, fiscal restraint has to start and it has to start now. This bill reflects that sobering reality.
▶ 0:23:14In conclusion, I want to thank the staff on the subcommittee for their efforts. Pam Miller, Elizabeth Dent, Jud Gardner, Nick Celinger, Sykes Connell, and Kelly Bogle, as well as Martha Foley, Alex Swan, and Tyler Co on the minority staff. I look forward to working with all of you as this bill moves forward, and I ask for your support for this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you very much. I'd now like to recognize Mr.
▶ 0:23:41Bishop for remarks on the Thank you very much, uh, Mr. Chairman. Uh, thank you, Chairman Harris. Um, everyone here has heard me say this before and I'll say it again. We're always working to ensure that America produces the highest quality, the safest, the most abundant, and the most affordable food and fiber anywhere in the world.
▶ 0:24:09Unfortunately, this bill is still not up to the task. While this administration continues to tear down local food purchasing programs that help farmers and families, this bill does nothing to fix the lose-lose reality the administration has dealt to our communities. In just the past couple of months, schools in my district and across the state of Georgia have seen the rug pulled out from under them.
▶ 0:24:37They're scrambling to figure out how they're going to feed students in the school lunch program after cancellation of the local farm-to-school purchase programs that meant so much to our cafeterias as well as to the farmers who provided the food. The same is true with food banks whose pantry shelves are thinning out, cutting to the bone their ability to help families, women, children, the elderly, and our veterans.
▶ 0:25:06those who face the highest risk of hunger. The farmers, ranchers, and other egg producers who had found new local customers who were not only able to do good business but also do good for their neighbors and communities, they are seeing those customers disappear. While our country continues to grow, our support for women, infants, and children continues to shrink.
▶ 0:25:33The bill follows the administration's lead and it cuts hund00 million in wick funds hurting our most vulnerable as the cost of food continues to rise. We already know there's a digital divide when it comes to rural communities and access to affordable broadband internet.
▶ 0:25:52Yet this bill not only fails to increase the investments in rural broadband necessary to close the gap, but it also slashes grants for distance learning, tele medicine, and other broadband projects in rural communities. The cost of housing continues to rise across the country and rural communities are certainly not exempt.
▶ 0:26:17Yet, this bill cuts $1.8 8 billion dollar in rural housing programs, hurting rural America. Affordable housing is fundamental to every American's quality of life. It is a big part of the American dream, but this bill makes it harder for Americans to achieve that dream. talking about being able to provide for and afford basic needs.
▶ 0:26:45This bill cuts $44 million in grants for water and waste projects. These projects often have large capital costs and small towns in rural America don't have the rate base to cover those costs. Without these federal grants, they're put between a rock and a hard place to pay for the project by either slapping residents with huge utility bills are cutting back on other public services.
▶ 0:27:14It also decimates the resources available to our rural towns and counties to make community facility improvements. What does that mean for folks watching us here at home? That means small towns across this country will be harder pressed to provide essential services like law enforcement, firefighting, and emergency services or other municipal services.
▶ 0:27:39Let me tell you what grants and loans like this can mean for a community like mine, the ones that I represent in rural Georgia. Back in 2021, two members of the Decada County Sheriff's Office were killed in the line of duty. They had joined a car chase that crossed county lines from Simol County just next door.
▶ 0:28:03Because their radios were older and could not communicate with one another, the Kada the Decada County officers were unaware of the dangers that they were facing. I work through the appropriations process to ensure that the regional commission that covers those areas and an additional 12 rural counties could help their law enforcement departments purchase modern interoperable P25 radio systems.
▶ 0:28:31If the cost of those systems were on the shoulders of those towns and counties alone, they would be hardpressed to be able to afford it. These are the types of important projects that may never see the light of day. If we fail to properly fund community facilities, grants, and loans, then Congress and the federal government are no longer reliable partners for our rural communities. This bill can do better.
▶ 0:29:01And I'll be offering an amendment to restore funding for rural housing as well as community facilities, direct loan fundings, so that we're not leaving our rural communities that have limited budgets in the tough position to choose between making repairs to their police station, making and purchasing and maintaining patrol cars or equipment for their firefighters, or having to maintain their water systems or keep up with waste disposals.
▶ 0:29:30also urge my colleagues to remember that federal programs cannot deliver for the American people without sufficient and experienced workers. I continue to hear from my constituents about staffing shortages, whether it's at the Farm Service Agency or the Natural Resources Conservation Services or the Rural Development Agency. And I know they're not alone.
▶ 0:29:56This bill makes a 9% 109 million cut to FSA, 46 million, 13% cut to rural development staffing at a time when farmers are already showing up to county offices that are underst staffed or totally empty. A result of the mass exodus of the experienced personnel who help farmers with everything from disaster relief to home loans to grants to improving their farming operations.
▶ 0:30:25This bill slashes funding for NRCS conservation operations by 5%. This is a program that helps America's farmers, ranchers, and other private land owners conserve and protect their land. It completely eliminates the urban agriculture and innovative production program, which undermines our ability to grow more food close to the people who consume it across America.
▶ 0:30:51We continue to see a retreat from America's leadership on the world stage. And part of that is the demolition of the Food for Peace program, cutting funding by $788 million, which would make it the lowest funding level for the program since 2002. Meanwhile, the administration continues to illegally dismantle USAD and keep food from reaching those in need around the world.
▶ 0:31:21I want to remind my colleagues that this eliminates an important market for America's agriculture producers and it undermines a powerful part of our diplomatic and economic arsenal.
▶ 0:31:37The bill also cuts the commodities future trading commission by $30 million, which will undermine their ability to go after cyber criminals and secure the global derivative markets on which American producers rely. Americans are already concerned about the role that sound science will play in our public health and safety policy.
▶ 0:32:00We need to embrace transparency and the FDA should be able to effectively and quickly share information. It needs the resources to do this, but the bill before us today cuts over $320 million from the FDA.
▶ 0:32:19Finally, I'm extremely concerned about language in the report that directs states to share personally identifiable information of those who use SNAP with We cannot compromise people's privacy simply because they participate in the As we have considered this bill, we've been told that we are only facing a cut of about 4%.
▶ 0:32:45But that is 1.2 two billion dollars in cuts with the biggest chunks being taken out of the FDA, food programs, and rural development. These programs provide important services for our rural communities, the nation, and the world.
▶ 0:33:02And we need to make sure that these programs grow with our country and have enough resources for the people and the communities that they are meant to This bill is making it more costly for folks in rural America by cutting muchneeded investments in housing, facilities, and utilities programs that help families and small businesses and rural communities save money and thrive.
▶ 0:33:28It retreats from nutrition programs that help the most vulnerable afford healthy food and at the same time engage America's agriculture producers in our country's effort to fight hunger. I'm hopeful that we will put aside partisanship to improve this bill and provide adequate resources for all of the stakeholders of USDA, rural communities, and our federal If we cannot produce
▶ 0:33:58a bill that works for all of the American people, I will not be able to support it. I urge my colleagues to look at this bill and to make the improvements to put the resources there so that we can once again be on the cutting edge in the global marketplace and here at home in making America able to thrive with the products
▶ 0:34:29of our department of agriculture uh the things that we do for rural America. With that, I will yield back and unfortunately I will be unable to support this bill in its current form. I yield back. Thank the gentleman. I now recognize myself for remarks on the bill. Thank you, Chairman Harris, and thank you, Ranking Member Bishop, and obviously, Ranking Member Deluro, and all the members of the committee for being with us today.
▶ 0:34:59As we continue our markup schedule for fiscal year 2026, I'm reminded that America's farmers and ranchers were already hard at work before we entered this room. Sun up to sun down is nothing new for our producers. It's a way of life. And it's a powerful reminder that agriculture remains a cornerstone of our great nation.
▶ 0:35:20In my home state of Oklahoma and across the country, the men and women who've worked the land for generations, raised livestock, and brought food to tables around the world deserve not just our gratitude, but our full support. Today's bill supports President Trump's farmer first agenda by recognizing the essential role of agriculture and rural communities in America's future.
▶ 0:35:44It continues targeted investments in agricultural research, rural broadband, and animal and plant health, each of which strengthens America's future and economic growth. Importantly, this legislation also takes action to preserve and protect US farmland. It includes critical provisions to prevent foreign adversaries from purchasing agricultural land, which is a serious concern in my district and nationwide.
▶ 0:36:11It also directs resources towards securing our food supply and ensuring the safety of medical drugs and devices. This bill meets every vital objective while cutting wasteful spending and making sure hard-earned taxpayer dollars are used where they are needed most. Each provision in this bill helps to feed, fuel, heal, and connect the American people.
▶ 0:36:34I thank Chairman Harris and Ranking Member Bishop as well as the majority and the minority staff for their hard work on this measure and I look forward to consideration and support of this bill. With that, I yield I now recognize my good friend, the ranking member of the full committee, Representative Deluro, for her opening Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding.
▶ 0:37:03And before I begin, I want to say a thank you to all of the agriculture, rural development, and FDA subcommittee, to all of the staff on both sides of the aisle for their work. And in particular, let me shout out Martha Foley, Tyler Co, and Alex Swan. We are holding this markup in a completely unprecedented time with the Congress's authority and this committee's relevance being challenged by a lawless administration.
▶ 0:37:31Since taking office, the Trump administration has illegally stolen funding. funding that was appropriated by this committee, passed by Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate and signed into law by the president for programs and services across the federal government that help grow the middle class, protect working people, support small businesses, and make sure that billionaires and mega corporations
▶ 0:38:02pay their taxes. There are many. It's not a question of paying their fair share. There are over 50 that pay no tax at all. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis today that is also directly hurting farmers. But the president is not laser focused on the cost of living crisis which he is actually making worse.
▶ 0:38:27He promised to fight for working families, but instead put billionaires in charge of the government. And they are attacking programs created by the Congress that assist farmers and feed hungry people. And that is all in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. trillion dollar in tax cuts. $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.
▶ 0:38:55These cuts are not just numbers on a page and they are not only felt in Washington DC. They touch every one of our districts, including my own. Millions of pounds of food grown by American farmers have sat in warehouses or have gone to waste because of funding freezes and program cancellations.
▶ 0:39:16Over $1 billion for the local food for schools and local food purchase assistance was terminated by the US Department of Agriculture earlier this year. Meaning not only did President Trump and Elon Musk determine that feeding our children and stocking our food pantry is not a priority. They decided the local farmers who produce the food for these children were no longer a priority either. Connecticut is expected to lose nearly $4 million in funding from these two programs alone.
▶ 0:39:464 million in funding that goes directly to purchasing locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. People may not have the ability to buy fresh fruits and vegetables if we cut off the opportunity to do that with their food stamp funds.
▶ 0:40:07I think it's ironic that the chair of the subcommittee talking about trying to have people purchase healthy foods says that uh food purchases will be prohibited with if they're using uh SNAP dollars. But isn't it unbelievable that we would cut off and eliminate the food and vegetable voucher for families?
▶ 0:40:34You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth and be considered as being an honest broker. You would think the party of quote make America healthy again would want to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Outrageously hungry people who no longer have access to nutritious food will suffer.
▶ 0:40:56But this also hurts the farmers who will no longer be able to count on selling their produce to these programs such as the local food purchase assistance program or the LFPA. It launched in Connecticut in 2022. It invests in farmers connecting them to food banks and schools.
▶ 0:41:14Connecticut food share, my state's largest food bank, said they are expecting to lose around a billion dollars of funding this year from this program alone due to USDA cuts along with losing 34 truckloads of food from the TFAP program. That's the emergency food assistance program. That's about $1.7 million worth of food. That is over $2.7 million in federal support for farmers and hungry people lost in just a few months.
▶ 0:41:42Will Delicra, a specialty crop farmer in my district, has a contract through the state for 600 food boxes a week for the local food purchase assistance program that's worth over $184,000. For specialty crop farmers in our state, this reliable source of income was critical for their financial stability. The farmer gets paid for something they produce. Hungry people get healthy and nutritious foods.
▶ 0:42:09This cut is taking money out of the pockets of farmers and food from hungry people. Moving to the bill before us, what House Republicans have proposed will further take food from the mouths of hungry people in America and around the world. They will make it harder for small farmers to make ends meet and increase water infrastructure and housing costs for rural Americans. At a time when families around the country are struggling with the high cost of living, living paycheck to paycheck, they have trouble buying food.
▶ 0:42:36They have trouble providing health care for their families, housing, and so many other essentials. House Republicans are paying for a billionaire tax cut by cutting the women, infants, and children fruit and vegetable benefit, $4.5 for the billionaires and the biggest corporations.
▶ 0:42:57I'll bet those folks get three squares a day and can purchase all the fruit uh and and vegetable uh products that they need for themselves and their families. My god, think about it, my friends. Think about what's being done in this bill. Fruits and vegetables for vulnerable families are not waste. Forcing people into hunger does not create efficiency.
▶ 0:43:26And despite the lip service Republicans pay to rural Americans, this bill cuts investments in rural America, including grants that help hardworking Americans buy homes in rural areas. Programs to help build drinking and wastewater infrastructure in the most disadvantaged rural communities. This bill turns our back on people around the world who are facing famine with the lowest funding level for food for peace since 2002.
▶ 0:43:52and it pulls the rug out from under our farmers who provide the food for those hunger programs. This will cause more conflict. It jeopardizes national security. Food aid is an incredibly important tool to keep America safe.
▶ 0:44:07When you see the bags of food and flour coming through when we visit these of these countries and it says USA, that shows not only our generosity but the power of the United States that will be traded for food aid that comes from China.
▶ 0:44:26Instead of focusing on ways to help lower the cost of living and help farmers and hardworking people, House Republicans are using this bill to eliminate protections for small meat and poultry producers against large corporations that have dominated the market, forced small producers out of business, and price gouged consumers. Four companies control over 80% of the beef market. Four companies control 70% of the pork industry.
▶ 0:44:54and four companies control more than half of the chicken industry. House Republicans bill will let these major companies dominate the market, grow their power, increase prices on the backs of hardworking House Republicans have included many poison pill riders that have no chance no chance of being enacted, including attacks on women's health, corporate giveaways, anti-energy efficiency, and nutrition restrictions.
▶ 0:45:23These provisions only serve to make it more difficult to come to a final agreement that can become law. This bill does not support farmers. It does not support workers. It does not support families or hungry people. This bill supports corporations, billionaires. It guts critical assistance in order to ham yet another tax cut, $4.5 trillion. I cannot support this bill. It's my hope that it can be improved.
▶ 0:45:50improved so that it does support our farmers, our families, and our communities. Thank you, and I yield back. Thank you. Are there any other members wishing to make general comments about the bill? Gentle lady from Iowa, Miss Henson, is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, good morning to my colleagues.
▶ 0:46:12I know we're all running on a little bit of fumes this morning, but our uh chairman pointed out that our farmers are up early feeding and fueling the world, so I think we can power on through as well. Um, in Iowa, we know agriculture is the foundation for our economy and this Could we have a little more quiet? Very difficult with the background noise. Thank you very much. Gentle lady may resume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, again, we know we need to be providing farmers with the support that they need to continue to feed and fuel the world.
▶ 0:46:43And in this bill, I believe we are striking that balance because Americans sent us here to make uh very tough decisions uh just as Iowa families have to do when they uh put together their budgets. I think this bill recognizes the importance of fiscal discipline while investing in the programs that support hardworking families and farmers in Iowa. Um, this is a national security issue. Food security is national security.
▶ 0:47:05And so this bill also rejects funding for misguided priorities like climate hubs or climate corps and instead invests in programs that improve our competitiveness and also help support food security. It maintains policies to support our national security from bad actors, adding the secretary of agriculture to CPHAS, providing additional funding for the Farm Service Agency uh to improve oversight of foreign purchases of agricultural land and also includes my language to ensure that USDA is protecting our food supply
▶ 0:47:35chain from disruptions caused by China. I recently had a chance to visit a seed mill in my district. I looked all around at the packages they had and most of them had Chinese language on them. So that is something we absolutely must do. This bill also supports the Trump administration's efforts to lower egg prices and stop the spread of high path aven influenza, providing $65 million for aven health initiatives at APHUS and continuing to support USDA's efforts on vaccine research while ensuring that poultry and egg
▶ 0:48:05trade is not disrupted in this process. Um so I I appreciate that we are uh continuing to acknowledge the importance of investing in a research. um at the same time as being fiscally responsible for taxpayers, cutting that wasteful spending and that red tape and again continuing to invest in priorities that will help my district uh continue to help feed and fuel the world. So I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill. Look forward to robust conversation today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 0:48:31Thank the gentle lady from Florida, Miss Washington Schultz recognized for general remarks on the bill. Oh, I'm I'm sorry. Oh, wait. I'm glad to hear. Gentleman from singer gentleman from South Carolina is recognized for general comments on the bill. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
▶ 0:48:56Chairman, I uh wish to draw attention to some real serious concerns I have about this bill. Um, as you know, I represent the state of South Carolina, uh, one congressional district of it, but the state, uh, and I noticed that in, uh, Chairman Harris's, uh, uh, presentation here and in this, uh, bill, uh, I think it's sectioned, uh, uh, 755.
▶ 0:49:28Uh, I have real concerns about that and I think there's going to be uh an amendment put up uh by the general lady from New Jersey to delete that. Now, I know it's not going to be deleted, but I want everybody to really focus on why we are where we are.
▶ 0:49:49I used to run the South Carolina Commission for Farm Workers and what we now call rural development was Farmers Home and Farmers Home Administration administered farm loans to people in rural areas. And when I was running that agency back in the 1960s, we could not get a single farm housing loan under the I think it's called section 504.
▶ 0:50:21Not a single one could we get uh for uh out of that program. Uh that's what got us to where we are and needing programs like DEI. And so I want us to uh that uh that's not isolated. We're going to be talking about rural development. We're going to be talking about uh funding uh other uh rural programs.
▶ 0:50:46And I just want to point out a recent study by the Department of Agriculture said that these schools in these rural areas, the 1890 land grant schools in Florida by $1.9 That's money that those schools that Florida&M was supposed to get and it did not get.
▶ 0:51:17my alma mada South Carolina State $469 million they were supposed to get and it didn't get and I could go through all of these schools and I will tell you uh you will have billions of dollars that did not get and DEI is supposed to develop efforts to correct that. This is nothing that someone is giving.
▶ 0:51:44This money was airmarked to them for the same reason the state of South Carolina did not provide my daddy an education beyond the seventh grade. How do we correct that? We are trying to do some corrective measures with this legislation. And so I don't call it woke. There's nothing woke about that.
▶ 0:52:07When we are trying to correct, we know what these problems When social security was created back in the 1930s, 1935, it excluded domestic workers. It excluded farm workers. 65% of African-Americans in this country were working in those two categories and could not be a part of social security. And we call that the greatest anti-poverty program ever created.
▶ 0:52:37And maybe it was, but it excluded people of color in the south. And we know that I didn't mention uh it's almost 300 uh uh over $300 million uh that Maryland University Universal Maryland Eastern Show did not get that they were entitled to because the state would not give them the money.
▶ 0:53:02So when the federal government send the money down there and the state didn't give it to them, then we are trying to correct And I want to say I'm proud of my my governor. He's he was the first governor to endorse uh Trump, but when this study came out, he said, "I can't write a check for the $500 uh million dollars we owe you, but I'm going to do what is necessary to correct that." So he created some DEI programs So
▶ 0:53:32that those old schools that school that got underfunded now they're going to have uh a new library when the library was outdated. They will have new do so they can get students. That's what DEI is all about. It's not giving anybody anything that they don't deserve. It's trying to correct let's just say discriminatory efforts that took place for years 300 years of slavery. So, let's just look at this.
▶ 0:54:02Let's be serious now. I'm going to thank Chairman Rogers. Chairman Rogers and I got together a back in 2009 and said we were not going to let a bill go forward uh to stop the so-called great recession if it did not do something to protect these rural communities that got left out of the Great Depression.
▶ 0:54:27We came up with 10, 20, 30 saying at least 10% of all this money should be targeted to those communities about 20% or more the population been stuck beneath the poverty level for the last 30 years. That's what the Census Bureau says makes for a persistent poverty community. And so we says if you appropriate this money at least 10% of it must be targeted to these communities. That's DEI.
▶ 0:54:55that's trying to correct something that was unfairly done. And we know that was the case. And for us to come here and make a mockery out of DEI, for us to come here and call these programs woke, for us to come here and say it's all right for my daddy to be denied an education beyond the seventh grade, and we aren't going to do anything to correct that, and if you do anything to correct that, is DEI and ought not be We know what the history of this country
▶ 0:55:25You know how long slavery 244 years we had slavery in this country? Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry for going over uh and maybe at some other time as we going through these amendments, I'll get a chance to speak, but I just want us to keep in mind that DEI is not anything that's bad. Is it a corrective measure that all of us ought to be proud of and it ain't woke. We had been asleep too long.
▶ 0:56:01Appreciate gentleman's remarks. Gentle lady from Florida, Miss Wasserman Schultz, is recognized for general comments on the bill. Thank you, Mr. I want to first thank everybody for uh your participation and uh patience yesterday, but also to recognize the staff on this subcommittee for all their hard work. But I I rise because I can't stay silent about the reckless, cruel priorities that are reflected in this bill.
▶ 0:56:29This legislation doesn't just fail working families. It betrays them. At a time when Americans are battling higher grocery prices, rising housing costs, and shrinking paychecks, Republicans bring us a bill that takes food off their table, abandons rural communities, and gifts corporate monopolies more unchecked power. Let's be clear. This bill slashes funding for nutrition, undermines family farms, and shreds our global leadership on food security.
▶ 0:56:57It cuts the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children by $100 million. That's a direct attack on 6.7 million women and children who rely on this program to survive. It also slashes the fruit and vegetable benefit by 10%. You know, because apparently Republicans think babies should eat less broccoli and carrots because that's a good idea. That's a high priority that we should make sure we legislate.
▶ 0:57:25And while toddlers get food yanked off their plates, who gets spared? Big monopolies. That's who gets spared. This bill eliminates key protections implemented to protect small and midsize meat and poultry producers from predatory practices by giant aggra businesses. That's not deregulation. It's propping up mega companies against mom and pop operations.
▶ 0:57:46When four companies control 85% of the beef market and prices keep rising while their profits continue to soar, that's not quote the market working. It's naked collusion. And this bill doubles down on that for the farmers in our communities, especially the ones not backed by a Wall Street portfolio. This bill is a gut punch. It cuts Farm Service Agency staffing, making it harder to access disaster relief, conservation programs, and the basic help they're entitled to under law.
▶ 0:58:16And if that's not enough, the bill decimates the FDA, slashing more than $300 million from the very agency responsible for ensuring that the food we eat and the medicine we take is safe. So, while families just try to make ends meet, this bill would leave them guessing if their groceries are tainted or their prescriptions are safe and effective. That is just shameful. Initially, this bill even actually zeroed out funding for the pet and women safety or pause program.
▶ 0:58:42That's a life-saving bipartisan effort that provides emermergency shelter for domestic violence survivors who need to flee with their pets. Abusers know exactly how to control their vulnerable victims. They threaten their even more vulnerable pets and they use them as leverage. Pause lets survivors flee without leaving a beloved animal behind to be harmed or killed. And I'm thankful that the majority agreed to my request to add back half of the funding. But without the full dun funding, more abused women will have to choose between their own safety and their beloved pet.
▶ 0:59:12So I do hope that as we move forward, as the chairman has said, these bills will look very different. We can restore the full $3 million as we move forward. This funding literally saves lives. This Republican bill also turns its back on America's legacy of feeding the world. Food for Peace, a proud US tradition since Republican President Eisenhower, is slashed to its lowest level in over 20 years. Millions of children would face worldwide would face famine worldwide.
▶ 0:59:39And instead of delivering life-saving aid, this bill lets American grown food rot in warehouses and has our global adversaries fill the leadership and humanitarian vacuum. This isn't fiscal responsibility, it's fiscal cruelty. If we were serious about balancing budgets, we wouldn't hand out tax cuts to billionaires while cutting food for pregnant women and babies. I could fill our hearing with the pain these cuts will cause. But I'll share just one about a Hollywood, Florida mom who is also a college student. That's in my district.
▶ 1:00:08When she spoke to my office, she was very clear. She can't be a mom and a college student without SNAP. And we know that food help will springboard her and her child into a better life. Yet, this bill makes all of that harder just so the rich don't have to pay their fair share. Let's be frank. This bill wages economic warfare on working people. And it specifically targets women, kids, farmers, and public health. Democrats will not stand by while Republicans try to ram through an appropriations bill that rewards corporate power and punishes families.
▶ 1:00:37We will continue to fight for a budget that reflects America's value of fairness, safety, opportunity, and basic human decency. And I urge my colleagues to reject this heartless, reckless bill. come back with something that actually meets the cost of living crisis families are facing right now and actually serves the people we were sent here to represent. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank gentle lady. Gentleman from Maryland. Mr. Hoy is recognized for general remarks about the Thank you very much, Mr.
▶ 1:01:12Thank you much very much, Mr. Chairman. There is language in this committee report accompanying the bill that says, and I quote, "The committee recognizes the importance of strengthening local and regional food systems to enhance food security, support producers, and stimulate rural The report uh also directs the agriculture department to ensure that institutions and providers can easily
▶ 1:01:42identify and procure from local producers. A noble goal, one that I think most of us share. The only problem, this bill does the opposite. It helps the administration terminate federal programs vital to accomplishing those objectives.
▶ 1:02:04That includes the local food purchase assistance program, which helps food banks buy fresh produce and other goods directly from local farmers and producers to help feed people. Between 23 and 24, that program allowed the Maryland Food Bank to provide an additional 5.6 6 million meals to people throughout my state and district.
▶ 1:02:30Additionally, since we established the program through the American Rescue supported only by Democrats, it has also allowed the Capital Area Food Bank to distribute more than three million to hungry people. That same program also helps dozens of Maryland farmers in business. The Trump administration is ending the local food purchase assistance program in November.
▶ 1:02:59I guess after that nobody will be hungry or fed. He plans to end similar federal initiatives like emergency feeding program and local food for schools program. Now normally I would continue but at this point in time I want to yield my balance of my time to my friend Jim Civer. Thank you so much for yielding me the time. Let me just be clear.
▶ 1:03:25When I talk about this programs, I'm not talking about anything that can be called Let's take a look at where this need is. There are about 500 counties in the United States of America that fall in the category of being a persistent poverty county.
▶ 1:03:48If you are living in South Carolina, that may be African-American, but if you're living in New Mexico, it is more Latinas. If you're living in Alaska, it's Native American. If you're living in Kentucky, it's white Harold, I don't remember uh Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:04:14Uh, at the time we did this, you had 24 counties in your congressional district. 22 of them fell into this category. And if you look at the record, you will see that 23 of those 500 counties are represented in this Congress by Republicans. So, this is not a partisan thing here. This is us directing this money where it's needed.
▶ 1:04:43So if I were to to look at the land grant school in Kentucky, uh, Kentucky State UN University, they would benefit from this. And so I would love to join with the chairman Harris and let's rather than eliminating uh this DEI effort, let's substitute 10, 20, 30 for it so we can direct this money into communities of
▶ 1:05:13needs and it will benefit people based upon need rather than greed. Now you back. I uh thank the gentleman for his comments. I've been thinking a lot about Bible verse recently. James 2:158. I use this pretty regularly. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
▶ 1:05:40If one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm and wellfed," but does nothing about their physical What good is it? James said. So, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to include the balance of my comments in the record. Without objection, I join my friend, Mr.
▶ 1:06:05Klyberin in his impassion and correct plea with respect to recognizing the past may be prologue but if we forget it it will be a disaster. I yield back. Thank both gentlemen for their comments. Chair now recognizes Mr.
▶ 1:06:26New House of Washington for general remarks about the I appreciate the um recognition. I hope everybody got plenty of sleep last night. I know I did kind of. And to help you open your eyes, um court courtesy of New House Farms, you'll find some fresh Washington State cherries in the break room.
▶ 1:06:52So, um sorry I didn't bring more, but that's all my wife and I could pick and carry on the plane. So, um I also just want to mention too, I'm one of two members of the committee. Chel Pingri is the other that we serve on both the authorizing and the appropriations committee. I believe I'm not leaving anybody out which is a tremendous honor and responsibility.
▶ 1:07:18We have the good um good fortune to represent the agricultural industry in a bipartisan way and I appreciate that working relationship. But I al I want to rise today in support of this bill. I certainly appreciate the work of the of the committee of the chairman and certainly all the the subcommittee staff that uh put a lot of time into crafting that what we we have in front of us. And just a couple things that I just want would like to mention.
▶ 1:07:48First of all, the spe specialty crop and organic industries are highlighted in this bill. I'm very appreciative of that. One of my priorities is agricultural research and we double down on that as well as well as marketing.
▶ 1:08:01It facilitates the move and this is something that many of us are interested in that facilitates the mood of the food for peace program to USDA and maintains strong funding for that important Another priority of mine over the years has been the concerns we have with foreign ownership of agricultural land. This legislation will add the Secretary of Agriculture to CPHAS to help address those concerns.
▶ 1:08:30So, those are some of the things I just wanted to point out real quickly that are priorities of mine that are included in this bill. Again, thanks thank the work of the chairman for those things, but also for something else. He he and I and and the staff over the past year have worked very hard to protect the industrial hemp industry while closing loopholes that were created in the 2018 farm bill. So I want to thank everybody for the efforts working on that issue.
▶ 1:08:59I think that we've come to a very reasonable outcome. So for those reasons and there's many more but just to be brief this morning not to utilize all my time just want to say I support today's bill before us. And with that Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you. Thank gentleman for his comments. Gentle lady from Minnesota, Miss McCullum's recognized for general comments about the bill. Mr.
▶ 1:09:22Chair, I rise uh sadly in opposition to this year's agricultural rural development FDA and related agencies bills. Since January, the Trump administration has taken attempts attempts to undermine many of the programs that affect the daily lives of our people that we represent in this bill.
▶ 1:09:41Now, it appears that this committee is about to follow President Trump's lead and taking away from our communities uh the commitments that we made in other legislation to help the American people stay healthy. This bill undercuts the support that Americans rely on to put food on their tables and that our farmers need for our agriculture communities to be economically strong. This bill cuts the Food and Drug Administration by $322 million.
▶ 1:10:10is nearly a 10% cut. It cuts a h 100red million from the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children. We call it wick, but it's women, infants, and children. And it reduces fresh fruit and vegetable voucher program that gets nutritious food to our seniors. And believe me, the seniors of my district rely on that voucher. It also cuts funding to our research and agricultural uh services.
▶ 1:10:39Uh here are some of the cuts that have already happened under this administration. In my home state of Minnesota, nearly $20 million in USDA food purchasing agreements were terminated by President Trump and Doge. One of these grants was $13 million to a local food for schools child care cooperative agreement. Now, this is money that our schools and child care institutions were using to purchase locally grown foods. It was a win-win.
▶ 1:11:06children were eating healthy and it helped support the workers in our child care industry. Providing healthy meals, supporting daycare, supporting local farmers all at the same time. That's a win, but now it's been cut. Without these federal dollars, the cost to state and local governments is going to rise. Minnesota taxpayers, they're going to feel the impact.
▶ 1:11:30Again, in states like Minnesota, every child can access school meals at no cost, no hunger, no shame. And that's thanks to our governor and our state legislature for using the federal resources wisely, getting the biggest bang for the buck. Last week, I held a town hall meeting and we focused on the impacts of the big beautiful bill. Yeah, I had explained to my constituents I wasn't being facitious. That's what it's called, the big beautiful bill.
▶ 1:12:01And then open cupboard, a food shelf with locations in Oakdale and Maplewood to the cities that I represent. They shared that SNAP serves nine meals for every one meal that's served by a food shelf. So 9:1 SNAP food shelf. So they supplement.
▶ 1:12:22Well, we need these hunger solutions and we need to work on them together because when SNAP and WIC are cut, more people in our communities will go hungry and they will go to those food shelves and those numbers will turn around. It will be the food shelf providing more meals than SNAP. I'm concerned that this administration's also made some interesting soft cuts to the FDA. has kept offices open, but has removed nearly all the staff.
▶ 1:12:52Maybe they're getting ready to shut it down, but here's an example. The FDA's Office of Minority Health and Health Equity, the office has uh has had its staff reduced from 13 to one. Now, I'm going to give you an example of what this cut means. Um, in my district, there's a nonprofit. is called beauty well and now it's without an effective partner because of the staff cuts in FDA.
▶ 1:13:19Beauty well works to educate communities of color about the danger of using skin lightening projects which is on the rise. It's not just immigrant communities. It is young women using these skin lightening They contain harmful heavy metal metals, chemicals that permanently damage your skin. Your skin is the most important organ. We don't think of it as an organ because it's on the outside, but it's the most important organ to our body.
▶ 1:13:48In 2023, a study conducted by Northwestern University pointed out that 20% of the women reported using skin lighteners at some point, and it's on the rise. They're not regulated well, and people don't understand how harmful they are. In the same study, only 23% who use skin lightening uh products, they even talked to a medical provider to even say that they were using them. A medical provider would tell them to stop if they knew.
▶ 1:14:17And that's where this nonprofit bridged the gap. Beauty well-educated people. These people will now be left behind. There'll be more skin damage. The blindness can be caused. It is a horrific thing that happens to the skin when these products are used. I wish that we were protecting the FDA to protect these women. And I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. The gentle lady from Maine, Miss Pengu, is recognized comments on the bill.
▶ 1:14:48Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Um, and thank you to everyone who's worked hard to put this bill together. I'm I'm disappointed that I can't support this bill. Um the Agriculture Appropriations Committee and this bill is my second favorite subcommittee after of course the work I do with Mr. Simpson and the Interior Bill. Uh and I am sorry that this bill isn't um a better piece of work from this committee.
▶ 1:15:17One of the things I love about this bill is that we're really focusing on farmers and what people eat. And we need to ask ourselves as we look at this bill in its entirety, what are we doing to help our farmers stay on their farms, to access capital, to be sure that they can purchase or own a farm, to increase their family income, to make ends meet, and to keep their farms in business during these ever challenging times, uh, to make farms uh, make ends meet, and to be able to stay.
▶ 1:15:47The reason you'll hear a lot today, and we've already heard some about the cuts to the local food purchase assistance program and the local foods and schools programs, and I'm going to talk about it today much more detail in an amendment, is because it is such a good example of a program that was designed to give farmers contracts to supply food to local schools, food banks, and other entities in our home states.
▶ 1:16:13We spend so much time talking about how to get more healthy foods in our diets, how to make sure we give farmers the contracts they need. And for the farmers in Maine who lost those contracts when this was ridiculously cut, it was part of making ends meet. It was part of their winter income as part of what they had planned for everything from yogurt to carrots to apples to a whole variety of other things. And that was true in states across the country. Uh and we've ended that program. And that is an example of something that we should be doing.
▶ 1:16:42the reverse of in this program. There are other cuts to making sure people get healthy food in their diet. The cuts to wick fruits and vegetables that we will talk about more in an amendment today. 14,000 families use wick in my state. That's a lot in a state of only 1.3 million people. And again, this is a way to make sure we have healthier fruits and vegetables, better health outcomes for young children to in their diet. You know, this is the administration of MAHA.
▶ 1:17:11Make American healthy again. And how do we expect to make America healthy if we are not going to make sure that people get that healthy food in their diet? Housing is another cut in this bill. Housing is a number one or two issue for so many people in my state. The cost of housing, uh, the challenges with finding affordable housing, uh, and we are making cuts there, $46 million of cuts overall to rural development staffing.
▶ 1:17:38I have a constituent in my district, Hillary, who was disabled in her 40s. She was getting a home through an RD loan. It's her only viable pathway to home ownership. She's taken all the steps she needs to. Completed her home buyer education, submitted her paperwork on time, but after years of delays uh because of funding cuts, she's finally where she should be, but there is no staff to process her loan, to answer the phone.
▶ 1:18:06her calls and emails are going unanswered and it is a question about whether or not she will get to the finish line. Those staffing cuts are throughout our districts and our local offices and we talk about how to make sure our farmers are able and eligible to get the funding whether it is uh uh through a conservation program through a loan but so many of our offices now are underst staffed and underfunded and I know we will be talking more about that.
▶ 1:18:33We'll talk about the cuts to the dairy farmers innovation program. Uh in my state, dairy farmers are under assault, just barely making it. Now, so many of the amendments we'll have today, we're going to hear this reply. Oh, that's just woke democratic thinking or that's climate change agenda or that's preandemic money or pandemic money that we don't need anymore. But you know what? We learned a lot of lessons in the pandemic. We learned that our supply chains were broken, that we should buy more locally.
▶ 1:19:02That's why we have these programs yet we're having them cut out from under us. When we talk about conservation funds and the cuts there or the climate change agenda as if it's some woke thing, who deserves more attention than our farmers who are dealing with this extreme weather? That is our responsibility. And these programs that help them to access no tail agriculture or cover crops or more uh irrigation or whole variety of other things are the very things that we should be funding now. Our farmers deserve our attention. This is not woke.
▶ 1:19:32This is not some crazy liberal climate change agenda. This is what's really going on with our weather right now. And we are derelcting our duty. We are not holding up our responsibility to farmers into making sure our constituents get that healthy food. We'll have many opportunities to talk about this today. I'm sorry I have to oppose this bill. And I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. The gentle lady from Illinois, Miss Underwoods, recognized for general remarks on the bill.
▶ 1:20:00Chairman, I strongly oppose the fiscal year 2026 agriculture, rural development, and FDA appropriations bill that we are considering today. Once again, Republicans are turning their backs on hungry families, rural communities, and public health. This bill raises costs for families, betrays our farmers, threatens food access for hardworking Americans, and endangers the health and well-being of our children and communities. Let me make this clear.
▶ 1:20:28This bill ignores the fact that the tobacco industry is preying on our children and poisoning our communities. It disregards the needs of women seeking medical care. It turns its back on mothers and babies who rely on access to fruits and vegetables. This bill leaves the American people behind. Remember, don't listen to what Republicans say. Watch what they do. Republicans say they want to make America healthy again.
▶ 1:20:55But instead, in this bill, Republicans bend the knee to big tobacco. This bill is so extreme, it blocks the FDA from finalizing a common sense rule to ensure that tobacco products are not contaminated with foreign substances like glass, fingernails, rocks, dirt, and mold. If my Republican colleagues cannot even take a stand against cigarettes with fingernails in them, then their position is clear.
▶ 1:21:23They are more preoccupied with pleasing the president's friends and donors in the tobacco industry than protecting public health. Now, Republicans and the Trump administration will say they care about protecting women. But what they are doing is launching an unprecedented attack on methopristone, an essential medication that medical experts describe as among the safest medications being used today.
▶ 1:21:48At FDA Commissioner McCary's confirmation hearing, he said he had quote no plans to take action on mythopristone. But when a group that sat on project 2025's advisory board issued a non-perreviewed report conveniently timed after that hearing with junk meth methodology written by anti-abortion activists with no scientific or medical expertise, what did Commissioner McCary do?
▶ 1:22:16He suddenly changed course and became quote committed to conducting a review of meopristone. This bait and switch is dangerous and My Republican colleagues say that they care about family values using federal dollars wisely, controlling costs, and supporting everyday Americans. But again, this bill says a different story.
▶ 1:22:38What they are doing is flatf funding the WIC program even as costs rise and needs This bill slashes the cash val cash cash value benefit for fruits and vegetables, snatching healthy foods from the plates of pregnant moms and babies in their most critical years. That is the complete opposite of fiscal responsibility.
▶ 1:23:01When kids don't get the nutrition that they need early in life and moms don't have healthy pregnancies, the costs don't disappear, guys. They show up later as pre-term birth, as developmental delays, as ER visits, and ballooning Medicaid bills. That is not smart budgeting. That's kicking the can down the road and letting families, American families, pay the price. Now, it's not just families who will suffer. No, no. These cuts hit small farmers, too.
▶ 1:23:30The ones without high-powered corporate lobbyists, the ones just trying to feed their neighbors and keep their heads above water. This is not saving money in the long term. This is not efficient. And this certainly is not making America healthy.
▶ 1:23:46Republicans will say, "Well, these are just the tough But somehow the tough choices always, always fall hardest on low-income moms and kids, never on the billionaires. Let's not forget the same people claiming fiscal discipline just voted for a reconciliation bill that adds $2.4 trillion to the deficit.
▶ 1:24:13Republicans say that they care about rural America, but this bill guts support for small farmers. They say they care about families, but they're cutting food for babies. They say they care about health, but they're shielding big tobacco, and they're attacking reproductive healthcare. So, I'll say it again. Don't just listen to what Republicans say. Watch what they do. Because what they're doing with this bill is cruel. It's cynical, and it's dangerous.
▶ 1:24:44I urge my colleagues to reject this assault on families, on farmers, and on our future. I yield back. Thank you Lady. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Espayat, is recognized for general comments on the bill. Thank you. Thank you uh Mr. Chairman. Uh thank you, Madame Ranking Member. My district has some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation. Mr.
▶ 1:25:12Chair, one in four Bronx residents face uh food insecurity, which is 1.7 times greater than the state average. It has 300,000 residents that receive food stamps, 30% of which are children. They rely on nutritional benefits to keep food on the table for their families. Now, let's go through this on a very practical and sensible way.
▶ 1:25:43Mr. what does food stamps provide for families? What it provides really is $6.89 per day, not per hour per day. If you get food stamps, what you're getting is $689 per day.
▶ 1:26:12Now, what can you get? Let's go. I mean, I know it's 11:30 and it feels like lunchtime, but since we were here till 3:00 in the morning last night, let's go through the McDonald's breakfast menu. I know many of you have an affinity towards towards m McDonald's, although it's not healthy, but you like you get a Mac attack every once in a while. I know that. And so, let's go through the prices.
▶ 1:26:41If you wake up and you want a a s sausage egg McMuffin deal, that's $9.79. You can't get that with $689 per day. If you want a big breakfast with hot cakes, if you want the hot cakes, that will cost you $9.79. You cannot get that with $6.89.
▶ 1:27:08If you want sausage, eggs, and cheese mech griddle, that meal is $1069. You certainly cannot get that with And if you're really daring, and I know many of you have the money to do that because I saw what you reported this year. I know that you got the money in your pockets to really get the steak the steak egg cheese bagel meal.
▶ 1:27:38That's $139. You certainly cannot get that, Mr. Chairman, with $6.89. So, what food stamps uh provide you, you cannot get even a breakfast at given these prices.
▶ 1:27:58And instead of working to address the these disparities, Republicans and President Trump has spent their time passing a bill that will bring $300 billion dollar in cuts to food stamps, the largest in our nation's history. making it so that a single mom, a senior, a family cannot even get breakfast at McDonald's.
▶ 1:28:28Mr. Chairman, that is unforgivable now given the fact that the minimum wage is $7.25. Americans can't even get that at any given hour of the day. In fact, when they go to McDonald's, if they go there at 900 a.m.
▶ 1:28:49or 10:00 a.m., their first hours were for wages, won't be able to give them enough money to buy any of these meals that we're thinking of right now because we were here at 3:00 a.m. in the morning and we're thinking breakfast as opposed to lunch. If I go through the lunch menu, I guarantee you that it will be even less, Mr.
▶ 1:29:12chairman to vote for this bill will be a disservice to the American people that we have promised to help the neediest among us. We're taking from the to give to the rich and then you go to church on Sundays. I yield back. Thank the gentlemen.
▶ 1:29:34Gentle lady from New Jersey, Miss Watson Coleman's recognized for general remarks on the Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to this bill. This bill and the others that we will consider over the upcoming weeks do not actually reflect the commitment of this government to the to the people it represents.
▶ 1:30:00This is largely an exercise in diversion in deflecting a attention away from the true aims of the Republican majority when it comes to government funding. I'm here to tell the truth behind this bill as they will continue to paint a narrative that these spending bills are not harming the American people. Despite what is in this bill, there will be significant cuts to basic needs programs over the next 10 years.
▶ 1:30:29if the Republican budget resolution is ultimately enacted, which I understand is a bit more complicated since the breakup. And yet, even by the low standard set, this measure falls A social safety network is only as strong as its weakest programs. This bill weakens the programs to put food on the tables of everyday Americans. It increases the cost for farmers.
▶ 1:30:59It by cutting direct loans to help them. It cuts their support system that helps them access government resources. It hurts mothers, their children, and infants by limiting the ability for WIC recipients to purchase fruits and vegetables. And let me remind my colleagues that WIC is not just another line item in a budget.
▶ 1:31:23It is a lifeline providing nutrition support to nearly seven million lowincome pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young At a time when food costs remain high and families continue to feel the pressure of inflation, any proposed cuts to WIC threatens to undercut decades of bipartisan progress on child nutrition and maternal health.
▶ 1:31:51This is the spirit that embodies this bill. Cutting funds and justifying them through a callous allegiance to fiscal responsibility and It is clear that actions through Congress in this reconciliation bill, the president's budget, and this appropriations bill threaten to put food even further out of the reach for people at every stage of life, from babies to seniors.
▶ 1:32:20Food and nutrition assistance programs are critical and crucial to keep people strong and secure in every congressional district. And for our edification, I'd like to direct our chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Andy Harris, that in your district, there are 34,114 households that rely on SNAP, which is 11% of your district
▶ 1:32:51and represents plus households. and specifically the towns of Eastern Shore has one of the highest amounts of food insecurity in this district where over one in three of the food insecurity population are children. Somerset County Dorchester County 15%.
▶ 1:33:16Wisconsin County It is important to raise these issues and these statistics in your districts, Mr. Harris, and to my Republican colleagues, because you all failed to do that and to uphold your responsibility to ensure that the nutritional needs of babies and elderly and people are not supported.
▶ 1:33:44So when and if you don't want to raise those issues in your district, I'll make sure that my staff looks up the information and shares it with this country. This is a poorly designed, poorly conceived, poorly envisioned, cruel bill, and I oppose it. I yield back. Thank you. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Morelli is recognized for general comments on the bill.
▶ 1:34:19Thank you uh Mr. Chair. Uh let me begin by acknowledging the importance of uh today's deliberations. Uh I like each of you believe in the importance of fiscal responsibility. I also recognize that for our nation, true long-term fiscal and economic security begins with meaningful investments in the food and housing stability of American families.
▶ 1:34:43We're told by my friends across the aisle that this bill is responsible and holds a line on spending, but the truth is it does so by cutting straight through the core of our nutrition assistance efforts in this country. It short changes many programs that allow working families access to a healthy diet. The bill is anything but responsible. But that's not even the most irresponsible part of this effort. The bill, as my colleagues have before mentioned, doesn't exist in a vacuum.
▶ 1:35:11It follows closely on the heels of the House Reconciliation Bill. If we're going to have an honest conversation about fiscal responsibility, we cannot ignore the false economy of balancing the budget by denying basic nutrition to the families who need it most. Nowhere is that contradiction more evident than the treatment of essential nutrition programs like the WICK program. This bill fails to fully fund the fruit and vegetable benefit under the WIC program.
▶ 1:35:37A lifeline for nearly 7 million lowincome pregnant women, infants, and children. 7 million. This program is undoubtedly one of the most coste effective public health investments we can make. Every dollar we invest in WIC today pays dividends in reduced spending on Medicaid, hospital visits, and chronic disease.
▶ 1:35:59So why under the ban banner of fiscal discipline are we targeting a program that saves money and invests in the long-term interests of all Americans? At the same time, my colleagues across the aisle advanced a separate reconciliation bill that slashes the supplemental nutrition assistance program by hundreds of billions of dollars. That's not fiscal prudence. That's a coordinated assault on food assistance in this country.
▶ 1:36:24The reconciliation bill makes radical changes that forces states to shoulder the cost of SNAP benefits they can't afford, punishes people for administrative errors they didn't cause, and expands work requirements of ways that will take food away from older workers and parents raising children. I've seen u the marketing material in the memos that go with this bill. My majority colleagues argue the bill before us protects vulnerable Americans.
▶ 1:36:51You cannot say you're protecting vulnerable Americans in one bill and exposing them to greater harm in another. It is hypocrisy at its finest. And we come here to this markup and act like it's business as usual. It is not. We need to stop pretending these are separate conversations. They are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is being used to give tax breaks to billionaires.
▶ 1:37:14If this Congress is serious about investing in America, we would not be considering this proposal and we would not be taking fruit and vegetables away from children. We would be investing in nutrition, investing in our families, not treating, not retreating from them. And I urge my colleagues to reject this proposal to go back to the drawing board and present a bill that is worthy of the American government and invests in American families. With that, I thank you and I yield back. Thank gentlemen.
▶ 1:37:42the gentle lady from Ohio, Miss Captor's recognized for general remarks on the bill. Thank you uh very much, Mr. uh chairman, for recognizing me and to my colleagues. I rise sadly because I really love agriculture and this is not a bill that moves our country uh forward. I'm blessed to represent a region that can feed itself.
▶ 1:38:07The soils are magnificent and we have the bounty of fresh water and uh we could easily feed ourselves if the system worked to that end. But the current system of agriculture does not produce that end. The purpose of a federal agriculture bill should be to enable a system of agriculture in our nation to assure our people's well-being and they should be able to afford that sustenance as Mr.
▶ 1:38:35uh Espayat referenced and we should be able to keep our fields healthy with regenerative soils when we're done with the production year and currently that has been really hard to achieve across our region. It's been made harder. We had a lot of crop losses in seven of the eight counties I represent last year.
▶ 1:38:55And because of the delays in Congress's doing their work on time and the new administration not being able to get checks out, the crop insurance losses have the farmers have not been made whole and they've had to go into the fields again at high risk, not knowing what kind of bill we might produce and the administration might deliver on. How shameful is that?
▶ 1:39:17Agriculture is about food, fiber, forestry, fuels, and financing of all of these f FFF. And they all have to work together. It's like a beautiful uh concerto on a piano. Uh and that doesn't always happen. And the fact that we are delayed, I have never seen the Congress in this situation in my entire career. This hurts America. This hurts our ability to feed our people and to do everything that we promise in the agriculture bill.
▶ 1:39:48Now, um, in my region, we've been trying very, very hard to develop new markets for farmers, and by golly, we've done it. Half the corn and soy in my region now goes into fuels, into biodiesel, into ethanol. We're at the beginning of a new energy age, and the Department of Agriculture is a partner in that effort.
▶ 1:40:10One of the sad parts about what has been happening, however, with agriculture in our country is that local farmers are being ignored. It seems like the Chicago futures market is more important and uh the big integrators that process pork, let's say, the big companies that trade on Wall Street. Um, and they're shutting out local farmers, local production.
▶ 1:40:35We can't even get local production into our school food programs and into our senior food programs. The largest amount of money that comes to USDA other than crop insurance in my region is a billion dollars across Ohio's north for our school nutrition programs. Imagine if that billion dollars could go into the pockets of the farmers that are producing food in my region. We can't seem to figure that out as a country.
▶ 1:40:59We can have a whole big project to go to Mars, but we can't figure out a way to use the resources of USDA in order to empower our local farmers. I'm really disappointed in our country that we have not uh been and I'm hoping that uh Chair Harris of this committee, we've talked about this, we reempower our local farmers because friends, we don't have a new generation of farmers. They're getting squeezed out every year. are the ones that are currently farming.
▶ 1:41:28They're saints and they're making their money through fuels, not by selling food to people across our region. And that's a problem. And it's a big problem. And we can't get their product on the shelves because the supermarkets, those big conglomerates have slotting fees. You have to pay five. You ever wonder why? I hate to use one word, but the well-known names of soda pop in our country. Let's just say that. Look at where they sit on the shelf. They have to pay slotting fees in every store in this country, one of those big integrated stores.
▶ 1:41:58Local producers can't do that. And so, we've been trying to empower our farmers markets, our downtown farmers markets, and we're making progress. But USDA behaves like we're not even there. Shame on them. I recently heard from a young farming family in my district. They run a regenerative farm. Oaks and sprouts. Oaks and sprouts. They grow garlic, tomatoes, lettuce, squash in raising poultry and dairy.
▶ 1:42:21And through, and other members have mentioned this this morning, USDA's local food purchase assistance program that this bill effectively ends, they secured a modest contract, modest, to supply fresh local produce to area food pantries. I'd like to help empower them to supply our schools and to get healthy foods to our kids. You know what the kids in my district, I don't care if they live in a wealthy community or if they live in a poor community, I say, "How do you grade the food here in this school?" And it's provided through money from USDA.
▶ 1:42:51F F they said F minus one said another D minus in the rural countryside something is really wrong and you look at the rising diabetes rates among our kids and so forth and what's going on with our seniors shame on us and it's on us on the agricultural committees in this Congress to do a better job and we're not doing it. We need to have legislation to support local food purchase and procurement. And we need to empower our food banks to contract with local farmers.
▶ 1:43:20That won't happen in this bill. Shame on us. But it needs to happen so that the places in America that can produce do produce. So I would just say I expect it a lot. This bill isn't it. And I will say to uh um our the chair of the uh of the uh subcommittee, we're willing to work forward, but this bill doesn't do it. Thank you, and I yield back. Vote no on this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. The gentleman from California, Mr.
▶ 1:43:50Leven, recognized for general remarks about the bill. Chairman Cole and Ranking Member Deloro, I rise in opposition to this bill. I'm deeply concerned that this bill will increase costs for hard-working families and for farmers all across the country. This bill drastically underfunds programs that our farmers rely on to grow a resilient and productive food system. And it slashes funding for programs that help families put food on the table.
▶ 1:44:17All of this is particularly concerning at a time when Americans are getting hammered by inflation caused in part by onag again offagain tariffs and deep economic uncertainty. I'm particularly worried about this bill's dra drastic cuts and recisions to the natural resources conservation service which farmers trust to help them decide on the best programs and practices to meet their goals like soil health and water quality or conservation in a personalized way.
▶ 1:44:45These cuts will make our food system less resilient and our farmers less secure in the face of ever worsening extreme weather events. And this bill completely lacks safeguards to protect the American people from the detrimental impacts of Doge, which is shutting down access to crit critical government services and accessing personally identifiable data. As members of Congress, we need to reassert our power of the purse.
▶ 1:45:12as we talked about last night or early this morning, reassert our power of the purse and ensure that we're still a co-equal branch of government. And this debate isn't theoretical. I hear daily from constituents about the chaos and uncertainty that people are feeling right now, making it harder for them to make ends meet.
▶ 1:45:33And for example, when the administration moved to cancel funds for the local food purchase assistance cooperative agreement program, that's a long acronym, LFPA for short, I heard from farmers and our local food banks in my region, our district in San Diego about how this will make our food system less resilient. I visited Feeding San Diego, which provides meals to children, seniors, military families, veterans, and more in the San Diego region.
▶ 1:46:00LFPA funding helps food banks like Feeding San Diego purchase food grown and produced locally. That's what we want to see, right? We want to see local food purchased. But this cancellation would mean Feeding San Diego would lose half a million pounds of food, enough to produce 400,000 meals. It's bad news for families trying to put food on the table. It's bad news for our farmers as well.
▶ 1:46:24One farmer from my district shared that because of these actions, their LFPA contract will not renew next year. This program serves a great need, helping families access fresh, healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables, and it ensures our farmers can produce that for them. And time and again, we've seen a reckless and a cruel cancellation of these essential food assistance programs. This bill, unfortunately, would only make things worse. It eliminates the Wick fruit and vegetable benefit.
▶ 1:46:55One of my constituents, Jade from Oceanside, shared how important the Wick fruit and veggie benefit is for her. She says, and I quote, "My family has greatly appreciated the increased fruit and veggie credit. It has made it easier to afford the items my daughter enjoys. Well, my son just turned five. He still also gets to enjoy his apples and watermelon. Very impressed that the 5-year-old is eating apples and watermelon. As a family, we get to try new vegetables. We've tried asparagus, corn on the cob, and celery.
▶ 1:47:25If my 12-year-old is watching this, please try some asparagus, corn on the cob, and celery. Anyway, she's she continues, "Now, when we grocery shop, I can say yes to my daughter when she wants to try a new fruit or vegetable instead of saying maybe next time. Without this credit, I would have to be very strategic with what I can purchase." End quote. We can't just let people like Jade all across this country and her children down.
▶ 1:47:49So in some I believe this bill is bad for American farmers and it's bad for families like jadees. I'm afraid that in my view this bill misses the mark. Thank you and I yield back. Thank gentlemen. The gentle lady from Washington, Miss Perez is recognized for general comments about the bill. Thank you Mr. Chairman and uh thank you to the ranking member for their hard work on this bill.
▶ 1:48:16In his retort to the 1974 farm bill, Wendel Barry, one of the greatest living American thinkers and not by coincidence, also a farmer, uh wrote, "The most appropriate governmental powers are negative." That is powers that protect the small and the weak from the great and the powerful. Not those by which the government becomes the proflegate and ineffectual parent of the small and weak after it has permitted the great and the powerful to make us helpless.
▶ 1:48:47The more things change, the more they stay the same. This body has blundered on in the same comfortable, destructive ideology, heedless of the urgency and the wisdom of the relationship many rural Americans foster towards our land, not of sanitized farmers markets and glamping, but an intimate relationship of stewardship and dependency. My family's lived in Washington state for six generations, working quaries, farming cranberry bogs, harvesting timber.
▶ 1:49:16My mom was born in Forks, Washington, the epicenter of the timber wars during the spotted owl fiasco. And when they shut the woods down, people said a lot of my cousins ate because their daddies were good fisherman. They recently found a dead spotted owl in Portland, Oregon in an urban park. They did an autopsy. You know what killed that owl? Rodenticide. Do you think anybody at the chemical manufacturing plant lost their job because and couldn't feed their kids be- because of that?
▶ 1:49:46It is working people who are being scapegoed and regulated out of the self-determination that is our birthright as Americans. My cousins feed their family farming land they can never afford to buy. I plan to vote against this bill today, but for profoundly different reasons than I hear in defense or support of this bill. What are we doing here?
▶ 1:50:13How many grant managers and soil scientists are we going to send to summer camp while my family is forced to sell their farm to the highest bidder? How long will we defend programs advancing choice at the expense of look my constituents in the eye and tell him it's in the interest of national health. He has two approved buyers to sell his poultry to who control the price of feed and propane.
▶ 1:50:40I I've heard smug parents boast that their kids know that food doesn't come from the grocery store, it comes from farms. I feel called to remind my colleagues that food doesn't come from a grant writer either. All the clipboards and spreadsheets in the world don't mean a damn without somebody willing to get a sunburn and put a lean on their family home.
▶ 1:51:04Before you commit yourself to the righteousness of defending a credentialed expert with fresh tires and air conditioning, I'm asking you to take a pause and question where this system of credentialed expertise has gotten us. Are we healthier, more able to defend ourselves in conflict, more self-reliant, more willing and able to start new families, more trusting of our neighbors, confident, happier?
▶ 1:51:30In conversations here on the Hill, I often hear people defend their tenuous relationship with agriculture on the basis of how large their markets are. They produce more gooseberries than any other congressional district in America. I humbly suggest that this committee and their staff consider the invisible graveyard. The families who were squeezed out of farming ship their children off the farm and into a rate rat race.
▶ 1:51:54The kitchen tables shunted into the hedgeimonyy of Dollar General where once their neighbors sold them eggs and apples, the dairies held by real estate investment trusts ostensibly operating vineyards but contracted to luxury housing developers.
▶ 1:52:11And if you won't deal with this on the human level, confront the raw numbers of farm on farmer suicide, on school What we are doing is not working and I will not put my name behind it and I will not put my district's name behind Thank you. The gentle lady from Texas, Miss Escobar, is recognized for general remarks on the bill.
▶ 1:52:43Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to express my gratitude to staff for all of their hard work on this bill. I am disappointed, though, that I cannot support it. This bill fails our rural communities and vulnerable Americans. I hope we can improve it through the amendment process, and I intend to do everything that I can to improve it. But for now, I cannot support it.
▶ 1:53:09I cannot support it because we've seen this administration and the Republican majority gut essential programs for those who need them the most. In El Paso County, we have something called colonialas. And for those of you who are not familiar with what colonas are, they are developments largely in the outskirts of a community, largely in the state of Texas. And many people who live in Colonia do not have access to water or wastewater.
▶ 1:53:39And in fact, they live in what many people compare to third world country conditions. And they were created because in the state of Texas, we have had legislature after legislature that has refused to hold developers accountable to provide water and wastewater to people who plat their land and instead leave folks to fend for themselves and leave local governments to shoulder the responsibility of lifting these
▶ 1:54:10people up out of third world country conditions. Well, a $44 million reduction in water and wastewater funding in this bill will set rural communities like Colonia's back from the progress that they've made on critical water and wastewater This bill will also increase food insecurity. It includes a 10% cut in the cash value voucher for WIC.
▶ 1:54:38WIC again is women, infants, and children. This benefit helps mothers and infants get the nutrition they need to stay healthy. And this bill would take this essential benefit away from those who need it the most. In fact, in Texas, we have more than 800,000 women, infants, and children who receive this support. And 36% of El Pasoans are already facing food insecurity.
▶ 1:55:05Cuts to essential programs will only make things harder for working families. And I will tell you the cuts to conservation programs and cuts that address the climate crisis that will not help farmers. And we don't have to call it the climate crisis. We can call it extreme weather. We can call it whatever anybody wants. But we see it in the fires, in the floods, in the droughts.
▶ 1:55:33And we cannot retreat from helping people address this crisis. our farmers, especially those who are helping put food on our table, they need the support the most. And denying that there's a crisis, and retreating from the funds needed to address this crisis will not help our farmers. I know this is the first step in the process.
▶ 1:55:59Again, I would urge my colleagues to work with us in a bipartisan manner to improve this bill, restore funding that helps the vulnerable and rural Americans. And I am allin on fiscal responsibility. That's why I don't support massive cuts to millionaires and billionaires. If they pay their fair share, we can fund these programs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 1:56:29Thank the gentle lady. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Mane, is recognized for general remarks on the bill. Thank you, Chairman Cole and Ranking Member Delaro, uh, subcommittee chair Harris, and subcommittee ranking member Bishop for the opportunity to speak on the fiscal year 2026 Appropriations Act of the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, related agencies.
▶ 1:56:50Throughout my career as an elected official, including as a local official in Northwest Indiana responsible for providing emergency assistance to those in need, often through no fault of their own, I have seen an in the invaluable use of the benefits support under this legislation, notably through the SNAP program. Recently, for example, in March, a mother of two sought assistance from the Northwest Indiana food bank. She shares she had been evicted and was living in her car with her children.
▶ 1:57:15The mobile food pantry not only provided her with the food for her and her children, but they connected her with work one, an Indiana career training and adult education service provider in my district and directed her to places that were accepting subsidized housing applications. She was then able to obtain housing for her and her family as well as earn her certificate nursing assistant certification.
▶ 1:57:39In April, the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana received an update from a man who unfortunately turned to substance use following the loss of a loved one. In an effort to turn his life around, he sought out the mobile pantry and prayed they could help him. The food bank was able to help him receive treatment because and become sober and obtain employment. He stated that the SNAP program and resources provided him and saved his life.
▶ 1:58:04Inadequate investments in these programs not only create barriers to accepting accessing food, but economic opportunities and self-sufficiency. Access to food changes and saves lives. Food banks, faith-based organizations, and other emergency food entities are a lifeline. That is why I'm concerned that this bill continues to level fund TFAP below the authorized level.
▶ 1:58:27Costs associated with purchasing, storing, and distributing food continue to rise, straining the resources of our food banks while grocery bills climb and food insecurity becomes more widespread. Recently, the Agriculture Department approved waiverss for three states, including my home state of Indiana, which would restrict certain foods from SNAP purchases. This bill includes a provision that would allow USDA to determine nutrition standards for SNAP purchasers on a national scale.
▶ 1:58:55As I mentioned before, I was a local elected official and I can tell you that an overwhelming majority of people who utilize food assistance purchase nutritious foods for their households. SNAP beneficiaries deserve the same autonomy and dignity for of shopping for their diets, which vary from person to person, household to household.
▶ 1:59:16Local retailers and grocerers have called upon Congress to maintain to maintain SNAP choices because they know its impact on their shoppers community and the role of federal nutritional programs as an economic driver. In 2023, Indiana retailers redeemed 1.4 billion in SNAP benefits. Implementing restrictions to SNAP purchases will not only harm beneficiaries but drive up costs for retailers that support the local economy.
▶ 1:59:44I am also very concerned regarding changes to the wick benefits and believe that it is wrong to decrease these benefits that provide fruits and vegetables to young children and mothers as such is a critical time for them. We must do more to ensure that all women and children in need have the resources they need for healthy child development. With that, I yield back. Thank the gentleman. The gentle lady from Florida, Miss Frankles, recognized for general remarks on the bill.
▶ 2:00:18Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I'll just start by being a little The uh it seems it seems like uh the Republicans are not satisfied putting 11 million Americans on a starvation diet with your big what you call your big beautiful bill.
▶ 2:00:41uh which got snapped at home to food But today you want to export that cruelty globally. Very sad because we all know that food security is more than just nutrition. It's the foundation of human development.
▶ 2:01:00When people have reliable access to safe, nutritious food, they become healthier, more capable to learn, more productive, and economies grow. And yet, this bill slashes our most powerful tools of US soft power. Food for peace.
▶ 2:01:21It cuts food five piece by $788 million, nearly 40% of its budget, reducing it to the lowest level since 2002, even as global age The McGovern Dole is cut by $20 million, resulting in fewer school meals and diminish child development.
▶ 2:01:43These cuts mean more hunger, more disease, more instability, and fewer tools to promote peace around the world. And senior military officials have recognized this for years. Investing in humanitarian aid and development and diplomacy. This is the soft power that res reduces the needs for bombs.
▶ 2:02:08It's called a force multiplier because the more you use soft power, the less forces you need in the Uh, as a former chairman of Joint Chiefs made it clear, avoiding wars is as important as winning them. Embracing soft power is part of smart power strategy, using both our hard and soft tools to shape secure, sustainable outcomes.
▶ 2:02:38And this is not just about safety, folks. It's also about our own prosperity. Uh last year we invested nearly two billion in food for peace across Africa. By 2050, Africa is going to be uh one quarter of our humanity in the world. It it's will be our youngest generation. uh they are leading in glo global population growth.
▶ 2:03:08So this makes Africa's future an economic powerhouse and a strategic partner especially for our farmers. Uh food for peace buys roughly two billion of US agricultural com commodities annually helping our farmers ac across markets and and supporting rural jobs. I think some of my colleagues have talked about that.
▶ 2:03:32Uh recently a Kentucky soybean farmer, got anybody here from Kentucky said, "US soybeans play an important role in addressing global hunger. We strongly support efforts to protect these programs." The North American Millers Association noted, "Feeding those facing famine is a point of pride and a key part of by American America first Uh and let me tell you something else.
▶ 2:03:57It's not only about the food security because uh these frontline tools of soft power build trust and del de deliver human intelligence in fragile regions. Satellites satellites just those things that that Mr. Musk likes to uh build can't hear the whispers of unrest.
▶ 2:04:20In fact, uh, experts warned that cutting aid, uh, are going to strain our military, uh, and that leaves voids like our adversaries that China and Russia are all too willing to fill. So, here's the thing. At a moment, when our American farmers are more productive than ever and hunger is rising, uh, this sends a message. We're walking away from our values and our future.
▶ 2:04:47And I respectfully suggest that we reject these reckless cuts, support American farmers, invest in soft power, global stability, uh commercial partnerships, and of course, hey, let's uh give the children of the world, let's keep them from starving to death and give them an opportunity to flourish and grow up like our beautiful children. Thank you. And I yelled back. Thank you.
▶ 2:05:17Are there any other members wishing to make general comments about the bill? Seeing none, uh, no other members wishing to make opening remarks. I'd like to recognize Chairman Harris to offer a manager's amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment number one at the desk without and uh ask unanimous consent that uh the reading be waved. Without objection, the reading of the amendment is dispensed with. Chairman Harris is recognized. This Mr.
▶ 2:05:46Chairman, this is the bipartisan manager amendment which includes bill and report language additions from members on both sides of the aisle. I appreciate ranking member Bishop working with us on this amendment and ask for the committee's support. Thank you very much. Uh gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop is recognized. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Uh I rise in support of the amendment.
▶ 2:06:08Uh the manager's amendment before you has a number of items on which Democrats and Republicans were able to find consensus and I do urge its passage. But I did want to point out that uh the manager's amendment strikes language uh in the bill uh moving the food for peace program to USDA.
▶ 2:06:28uh we made the case against uh including uh uh lang that language in there that would uh move it to USDA uh and we learned last night that it was being dropped uh and that the manager's amendment would strike that. So we appreciate that. Uh but I do urge passage of the manager's amendment. Thank gentlemen.
▶ 2:06:49Uh Miss Dean's recognized to comment on the manager's Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the ranking members and chairs. Uh uh as I said, I'm new to this committee and I'm just trying to get the rhythms of the place. Uh what I do want to say is I appreciate the extraordinary hard work.
▶ 2:07:16It's amazing what the staff and the entire team and of course all the members do uh to move these bills uh forward to move bills forward for the good of this country. Uh and while I understand uh the bipartisan nature of the manager's amendment, I do want to speak to directly the impact uh of this bill on my community.
▶ 2:07:37Uh and I'll give you one uh and it shows the chaos of the policies whether it is in uh the uh appropriations process or in the tariff process or in the executive order chaos. The impact to just one farmer in my district in Burks County. Uh the name of the orchard is Beakman Orchards, a fourthg generation apple orchard uh in my district, 125 acres.
▶ 2:08:07And here's what they're dealing with, as reported in CBS News. With the $1 billion dollar in food assistance cuts, what they report is that means that schools and food banks will buy fewer of their apples. They estimate that this cut alone would reduce their uh revenues by $200,000. That's the billion dollar cut. Then take a look at tariffs.
▶ 2:08:35They buy their plastic bags primarily from Canada. It is taking three months for them to get the plastic bags for their apples. And when asked why is it taking so long? Because usually the owner said it takes two and a half weeks. And the answer is that the producer in Canada cannot figure out what to charge for them because the on-again offagain tariffs.
▶ 2:09:00Remember on Liberation Day, President Trump announced a 25% I think tariff on our ally and neighbor Canada and Mexico. Now, I know that was suspended after absolute outrage that we would be at war with Canada, but the the producers can't decide what to charge for these bags. So, it's taking them three months to figure it out. They don't know what the tariffs are going to be. Instability, lack of predictability.
▶ 2:09:30exactly what business doesn't need. And then the final piece, as I said, a billion dollars cut, crazy chaotic tariffs, on again, off again, and then the grant holds. This apple orchard went to the trouble of buying 700 solar panels. They're sitting in boxes in their warehouses. They can't move forward with them. They were hoping to save as much as $100,000 on energy costs in a year.
▶ 2:10:00those solar panels are sitting in warehouses or barns because they can't go forward because of the holds on those grants. That would have made them more sustainable, that would have gotten them off the grid, uh that would have been good for business, that would have been good for climate.
▶ 2:10:19Uh, and I'll I'll note too, as I say, with the underlying bill that I'm disappointed not to be able to support, uh, this article here in Philadelphia, Trump cuts to SNAP will make hungry Philadelphiaians even hungrier. And then my own governor, Governor Shapiro, fighting for Pennsylvania's farmer, Shapiro files lawsuit against USDA's unlawful termination of local food purchasing assistance program.
▶ 2:10:46And he says, and I quote, "Pennsylvania farmers do the noble work of putting food on our tables, and for the last three years, they've been paid to provide fresh local food to food banks across the Commonwealth as part of the successful federal initiative," said Governor Shapiro.
▶ 2:11:03When the USDA abruptly terminated our agreement without cause, broke the contract, they ripped away a reliable source of income for 189 Pennsylvania farms and cut off funding that would have helped provide over 4.4 million meals to families across this commonwealth. That's not just bad policy. It's a broken promise.
▶ 2:11:26Uh sadly, we have the opportunity here to do such good to do such good by our farmers, to do such good by our families, and that's not what we're doing here. Take a look at just Beakman Orchards and the chaos of this administration and the underfunding uh of the a bill uh and underfunding of our farmers and our families. Uh I'm disappointed to say I can't support the underlying bill as we move forward on the manager's amendment. And I yield back.
▶ 2:11:57Thank gentle lady. Before I recognize another speaker on the manager's amendment, the chair wants to advise the committee, there is lunch available across the hall. Uh I don't know this is the wisest choice, but it's Mediterranean food. That might not have been the best day. We're talking about American agriculture, but hey, it's good Uh and with that, I recommend my Mr. Chairman recommend I recognize my friend, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
▶ 2:12:24Chairman, on the Mediterranean food, would you kindly indulge me for 8 seconds? I certainly will indulge. 70 75% of America's fruits and vegetables are imported. I'll sit Thank you very much. Gentle lady from Minnesota, Mr. McCullum is recognized for remarks. Pair. Uh, and this is on the manager's amendment.
▶ 2:12:47Uh I rise in support of the manager's amendment and I just like to highlight uh some work that was done by um chairman Harris and ranking member Bishop on this. It has report language that would direct a comparison as to how research money is spent in fiscal year 2024 and how it's currently being spent in fiscal year 2025. It's broken down by research facilities and research projects. So it's it's it's a true comparison that the committee can look at for results.
▶ 2:13:18Um Congress passed a full uh year CR and 25 instead of a complete appropriations uh bill and report. And so then the committee had less oversight than we normally do over the agencies we fund. This includes agricultural research. So um let me just break this down for you. In the 24 report, there were nearly 70 research priorities from the committee to ARS.
▶ 2:13:45In the 25 house report, there were over 80, but that report wasn't passed on with a continuing resolution because the reports disappear. So, which priorities were being funded and how? We didn't know. I've already heard from constituent groups doing ARS research that have not received funding this year. And yes, Minnesota's an agriculture state and I have the agricultural land grant university in my district in St. Paul, Minnesota. So I pay attention to this.
▶ 2:14:14Tube Blaze, which is a nonprofit organization in my district that conducts cutting edge research on disease resistance and corn beans, soy and wheat. The last three years they had received funding from ARS to do just exactly that. The research has both food security and national security implications in protecting our food supply from disease center. Just last week, two people were arrested for attempting to smuggle fuserum into the United States.
▶ 2:14:42Now, fucerum is a fungal disease that attacks corn, wheat, and oats. The spread of this disease would be devastating to agriculture throughout the United States. Genetic resistance to fuserum is the exact work that Two Blades is focused on.
▶ 2:14:57So in 50 years there had only been you know two two breakthroughs but in the past three years with this committee's support in this program two blades has been able to identify a dozen disease resistant genes as nearly 10 times more than prior to ever receiving federal funding.
▶ 2:15:16So we don't want this research or other priorities that ARS is working on uh in many of our districts to protect our food supply chain which is valuable uh to all of us uh who consume it but it we can't allow it to become vulnerable. So Mr. Chair, including this language in the manage the ensures that we have the information to do our job as as appropriators to know where our tax dollars are going and to hold them accountable.
▶ 2:15:42And I thank um both gentlemen for working on this and I yield back with time. I thank the gentle lady. Uh do any other members seek recognition to speak on the manager's amendment? Gentle lady from Illinois is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise to highlight the importance of full funding for the Protecting Animals with Shelter or Pause Act in support of domestic violence survivors and their families.
▶ 2:16:09Despite the funding it receives, this I'm sorry, despite the limited funding it receives, this program saves lives. Many domestic violence shelters are not equipped to accommodate pets. But many survivors understandably don't want to leave their beloved pets behind in a violent situation, and the data shows that it it prevents survivors from leaving their abusers or even leading them to return to the hands of that abuser.
▶ 2:16:33The president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence has explained the importance of the PAUSE program by sharing a disturbing incident she witnessed at one domestic violence shelter that did not accept pets where survivors abusive husband called her to make her listen to him torturing the dog she had been unable to bring when she escaped. That's a horrifying experience that no survivor should ever be forced to bear.
▶ 2:16:59That's why the PAUSE Act earned widespread bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Trump as part of the 2018 Farm Bill. So, I was deeply disappointed that the original bill zeroed out this life-saving program. This manager's amendment restores some funding, but only at half of the authorized level. Friends, that's not good enough. The PAUSE program is small but mighty.
▶ 2:17:26It's popular with everyone from domestic violence shelters to animal welfare advocates. Even Attorney General Pam Bondi likes it. And you know, Pam Bondi has previously reversed pause grant cancellations. In fact, Republicans in Congress were willing to spend much on tax breaks for the wealthy in their reconciliation bill the other day.
▶ 2:17:49I think that they should have been able to find a few dollars today to fully fund this program to save the lives of domestic violence survivors. I appreciate the funding that's in the manager's amendment. I hope we can do more as we go to conference. I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr.
▶ 2:18:10Chairman, I uh would like to know whether or not the uh deletion or exclusion of the 102030 formula that in four accounts of this bill uh it's in around 17 accounts overall before the 17 were in the A bill. I can't find language to that effect.
▶ 2:18:34the rural development program, the rural housing account, the rural business program account, and rural utilities. I would like to know, it's been there since 2009.
▶ 2:18:51Uh and I want everybody to know this says simply that in these rural communities, these small towns, small uh counties that cannot afford to buy grant writers. The formula make them because of their status having 20% of Mo's population stuck beneath the poverty level for the last 30 years.
▶ 2:19:22That's not my formula. That's the Census Bureau formula. And the Census Bureau says that classify these counties as a persistent poverty counties and therefore they would be uh for this funding uh because they're meet this criteria uh they don't have uh the wherewithal to
▶ 2:19:53ranch writers. So, I don't see that language. I don't know whether or not it was just an oversight or uh deliberately left out. Uh I think it would be a shame uh if this was uh this is the case. Uh thank if will the gentleman yield. I'll yield. Thank you very much. Uh our intention is to to have included all that language. We're going to double check and make certain. We'll get back to you on that, but our intention was not to change it. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'll get back. Yield back.
▶ 2:20:25I thank uh both gentlemen. Uh do any other members seek recognition to speak on the amendment. Seeing none, I recognize Chairman Harris for one minute to close. Uh thank you very much and I ask your support of the managers amendment, I do want to thank the lady, gentle lady from Ohio to mention the importance of getting specialty crops back into the United States.
▶ 2:20:51And uh I'd ask that uh the gentle lady from Ohio or anyone else in the committee interested that we look to those kind of biamerican programs and and apply them broadly especially when we talk about uh the you know the fruit and vegetables because we could bring that back. So but with that I ask the committee to uh support the manager's Thank the gentleman. The chair will offer a comment. Uh this is just one of the more robust managers amendment debate I've ever seen.
▶ 2:21:20So, uh, this is an energetic committee. No question about it. Um, questions on the amendment. All those in favor say I. All those opposed say no. The opinion of the chair is the eyes have it and the amendment is adopted. With that, we will turn to amendments.
▶ 2:21:48The gentle lady from Connecticut, the ranking member of the full committee, Miss Deloro's recognized for an
▶ 2:22:18Mr. Chairman, I clerk read the amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. Without objection, the reading of the amendments dispensed with. Gentle ladies recognized for remarks on her amendment. I rise to offer this common sense amendment to adjust the cash value voucher for inflation to help Americans struggling with the cost of living crisis. Around the country, in every single district, Americans are pleading for help with the cost of living.
▶ 2:22:47Food prices, gas prices, insurance, rent, loan interest rates, health care, child care, education. It is the most pressing and urgent issue in the lives of all of the people who will not benefit in the big, beautiful The American people cannot afford the necessities of their daytoday lives. They live paycheck to paycheck.
▶ 2:23:14One crisis, emergency, or layoff from financial ruin. This administration has done nothing. I repeat, this administration has done nothing to help. This Congress has done nothing to help. They are only making it worse. And we must ask.
▶ 2:23:35My amendment would increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables for children and pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding participants. Republicans say they want more people to have children. They say that they are pro-f family. My amendment is pro- family. Do you know why fewer people are having children today?
▶ 2:24:01because no one can afford their own needs, let alone the needs of a growing child. The current monthly cash value voucher is only $26 for children, $47 for pregnant and postpartum participants, and $52 for breastfeeding For those of us who have been to the grocery store lately, how much
▶ 2:24:31does $26 buy in fresh fruits and vegetables these days? Not nearly what a growing child needs. Any of us with children knows how quickly they go through fruit. Who in this room can buy food for a week with for one week, let alone an entire month?
▶ 2:24:56This benefit is critical to improve access to nutritious foods, particularly fresh produce, which is necessary for meeting the dietary needs of pregnant women, mothers, and young children.
▶ 2:25:11You would think that the party of quote make America healthy again would be lining up to help the most vulnerable Americans overcome barriers to accessing fresh produce and nutritious foods. However, the Republican majority is instead trying to restrict SNAP purchases while taking fruits and vegetables out of Americans grocery carts.
▶ 2:25:40That is because their goal with SNAP has nothing to do with encourage encouraging healthy eating. It is simply a backdoor to trying to demolish yet another effective federal program. If they were actually concerned with addressing chronic illnesses or encouraging healthier lifestyles, they would robustly fund scientifically proven supports like the fruit and vegetable benefit.
▶ 2:26:07Instead, the administration has proposed a 10% cut in this bill. Americans are facing a cost of living crisis, inflation driven by Trump's tariffs, and a reconciliation bill that threatens to slash food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and other critical programs that help the American people survive. Now, this bill would take away one of the few avenues to access fresh fruit that remains. I cannot oppose this strongly enough.
▶ 2:26:38I am proud to propose this amendment and I urge my colleagues to support it as well. I yield back. Thank you, gentle lady. Dr. Harris is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much. What can I say? Uh this amendment not only keeps the postcoavid levels, it actually increases them.
▶ 2:27:03And um let's discuss the actual name of the wick program. It is the special supplemental nutrition program. It's not meant to be the only nutritional program. The implication of the gentle lady from from uh Connecticut is that oh my gosh, if you don't have this program, like people don't get fed. First of all, if you're on wick, you also can get snapped. You know, it's easy to spend money. really really easy.
▶ 2:27:33You know, if you have a child in high school, you want to go to college, wouldn't it be great if you just said, you know what, I can afford that Ivy school. I know it's expensive. I Well, actually, I'm not sure anybody wants to send their child to anti-Semitic Ivy schools, Ivy League schools anymore, but it's expensive, but you make the choice that you really can't afford it. We need to make the choice that we really can't afford it. I think it's rich, and I use the term in an interesting way.
▶ 2:28:02that people from states with the highest median income in the country, like New Jersey for instance, median family income is $100,000 in New Jersey. and members from those states, Connecticut California $100,000, get up and say, "We expect people in Kentucky, where, for instance, where the median income is $60,000, to pay for our people who
▶ 2:28:32need In fact, every single member who got up today and complained about it voted against the small cost share program included in the reconciliation bill that ask each state to contribute toward the SNAP benefit. 5%.
▶ 2:28:55Shame on New Jersey and all the states and I won't go through but six of the top richest states and wanted the federal government to pay that benefit. Shame on them. They should take care of their own citizens. They and to come here hat in hand and ask a state like to subsidize their people who need food assistance.
▶ 2:29:23um shame. Now, I just I wish I had thought ahead and actually put a by American clause in the fruit and vegetable voucher. That's what we ought to do. We should have had we should have had we should have included it and maybe maybe we'll we'll get there uh before we get to the full floor. Oh, okay. We need to do that. You know, the again you know the statement was well the average American can't afford this and can't afford that.
▶ 2:29:51mentioned by people whose citizens in their state are not average Americans because the average American median income is not $100,000. It's not $94,000. It's lower% and those states should be paying their fair share of those food programs. But there are other reasons to oppose the amendment. For instance, it has no pay for.
▶ 2:30:16It increases the total expenditure above our 302b has no pay for the CVV. The cash value voucher was meant as a one-time boost. It doesn't score during COVID. We take it back 10% in a slow ramp down. The amount in the bill for the children is still 200% above what it was pre-COVID. And for the mothers, it's more than 400% above precoid.
▶ 2:30:49Ladies and gentlemen, we have a $2 trillion deficit. The states are not paying their fair share, including the wealthy states are not paying their fair share toward these food programs. It is our obligation to do something fiscally responsible. And yeah, it's hard because spending money is really, really easy.
▶ 2:31:11Constraining spending is difficult but For those reasons, I oppose the Thank gentlemen. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just make it perfectly clear. I support this amendment.
▶ 2:31:41I think it's an excellent amendment. And quite frankly, I was stunned that the Republicans chose to take another shot of weak fruit and vegetable benefits. I could talk forever about the positive impact of these benefits and the lack of common sense and cutting them. The amendment of the general lady from Connecticut will help keep these products available to participants at a time when produce prices are high.
▶ 2:32:11The cut in the bill would remove the equivalent of five to seven cups of apples or carrots every month. And ironically, the administration's own so-called Make America Healthy Again report calls out Wick's success in increasing fruit and vegetable consumption, praising the program for its proven track record of improving children's health. This is a hypocritical cut.
▶ 2:32:39While we've seen that Chairman Harris and the administration want to limit the foods that SNAP recipients can buy to force poor people into purchasing more fruits and vegetables, this provision would limit the ability for WIC recipients to purchase those same fruits and vegetables. Crazy. Let me also rebut some of the claims we're likely to hear from the other side today. They claim that the fruit and vegetable benefit is a co era program and it's time to end it.
▶ 2:33:08but it was implemented during the pandemic. But it's based on a 1,000page long 2017 nationalmy's report. They say that the annual inflation adjustment to the benefit outstrips actual inflation. The truth is that if anything, it doesn't fully reflect inflation because it's adjusted in the year after it's They say that stores will just pack up jack up prices with this increase.
▶ 2:33:39But wick vendors operate under preset reimbursement ceilings and the UPC level monitoring. Overcharging risk immediate The majority's priority is not to encourage better attrition, but to cut benefits to pay for tax cuts for Democrats believe in lowering the cost of living, not by cutting benefits, but by investing in programs like WIC that save money in the long term and keep kids healthy
▶ 2:34:10today. Let's keep apples on the plate and health care costs down. Vote yes for this amendment. It's a good Thanks, gentlemen. Gentle lady from Florida, Miss Werman Schultz is recognized to address the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I rise in support of this amendment.
▶ 2:34:34I mean, I can't or maybe five months in, I can believe that this bill seeks a 10% cut to the Wick fruit and vegetable cash value benefit, which helps 5.3 million moms and kids each month afford healthy food. This is a hypocritical cut on multiple levels. First, the chairman wants to limit the foods that SNAP recipients can buy, punishing low-income families that rely on Wick for a healthy diet.
▶ 2:35:03Produce prices remain stubbornly high. Instead of fulfilling its promise to quote, "Lower prices on day one. You're slashing the CVB, wiping out a week's worth of healthy servings for the families who need them most." Fresh produce is not a luxury. There is no substitute for it. and participants say that this is a part of the program that they value the most. It's deeply hypocritical when you consider the new so-called Make America Healthy Again initiative.
▶ 2:35:34The MAHA report actually praises the Wick's success in improving children's health. Yet, this bill guts one of its core components. That maha slogan continues to be nothing more than window dressing for falsehoods and dangerous actions all to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest.
▶ 2:35:53It is clear that the majority's priority is not to encourage better nutrition or reducing the nation's debt which you are about to blow up by nearly $3 trillion because studies show that Medicaid savings and fewer NICU stays are the result of prenatal wick. Democrats are focused on lowering the cost of living, lowering the cost of health care, driving local economies, and giving every family a fighting chance to achieve the American dream.
▶ 2:36:21If you share these priorities, you don't cut Wick. You invest in programs that save money and keep kids healthy. It's time to put the money where your mouth is. I yield back. Thanks, gentle. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Espayat's recognized to address the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 2:36:49Um, this amendment obviously it's an important one to support. In New York City, more than 1.5 million residents are experiencing food This gets worse as inflation continues to be stubborn, as prices continue to be very high for working families.
▶ 2:37:21we were supposed to see a dramatic drop in those prices on day one, we have not seen them. That right. Inflation continues to batter workingclass families across the country. And what we see are other public policies that have nothing to do with inflation. They don't impact pocketbook issues the way the American people want to see.
▶ 2:37:52Um, so this is an important amendment because as I said earlier, there's in at least in New York City 1.4 4 million residents experiencing food insecurity, meaning that they do not have access to nutritious food. Not the McDonald's um meals that I referenced to earlier, but fruit and vegetables, healthy stuff for kids to fight obesity.
▶ 2:38:18Many relied on programs like Wick and SNAP to put food on their table. But rising proof prices again and underfunded federal nutrition programs have left New Yorkers afraid that they cannot feed their families. And so this is what WIC does. It's a program that fight food insecurity that also helps stimulate the economy.
▶ 2:38:43By the way, every single dollar we spend on prenatal wick returns a$1.25 $6.683. $683 in Medicaid savings within weeks of birth. You get fewer pre-term fewer neonatal intensive care unit stays. That's what this helps accomplish. Nutrition programs also support small businesses.
▶ 2:39:15I know many bodega owners, grocery store owners, Mr. chair who rely perhaps in anywhere from 30 to 50% of their business on food stamps and wick. Meaning that if those programs are cut, those grocery stores will be economically in danger.
▶ 2:39:39I know a grocery store that that got his license suspended and while he was fighting to get it back on three in three months, he had to shut down. No income because 50% of the income that he got at that grocery store came from food stamps. And a grocery store, for those of you that may not know, in New York City services may be one or two streets. There may be one of them in every other corner.
▶ 2:40:10So if you lose your your your your uh food stamp license, those folks will just go two blocks down the road and buy their their goods and and you're done. And you lose three workers, you lose a family's income. So it's an important part of the local economy as well as being an important piece of health for families. So please uh I urge you and I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment.
▶ 2:40:35This is an important amendment for the American family, particularly for women and infants. Thank you and I yield back. Thank the gentlemen. The gentle lady from Ohio, Miss Captor is recognized to address the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in support of the Deloro amendment. Oh, did I not turn it on? Yeah. Thank you. I rise in support of the uh Deloro amendment.
▶ 2:41:02And um I also want to acknowledge Chairman Harris's openness to try to displace foreign imports with domestic production. I go by the motto, what America makes and grows makes and grows America. And we forgot that for about 50 years. Okay? So we got a lot of cleanup to do in agriculture.
▶ 2:41:22this program will pay for itself because if we buy from local producers and the people go into these little farmers markets 150 just in northwest Ohio the prices there are better than the supermarkets so the savings is in who we buy from I know they always say volume volume but locally who they're in competition with they always reduce prices because they're an individual entrepreneur their family so I just want to say a hund00 million in terms of funding is not a lot of
▶ 2:41:52money when you're talking about food and what we spend on food uh in the country. We're on a good pathway here wherever it takes us in terms of displacing what's coming in on uh boats and trucks and everything from every place in the world except here. Uh I really do think we have a chance to do something transformational in this bill and I believe that this step is a positive uh step forward.
▶ 2:42:16I just wish to say also that for 30 years I've been working to do this and have failed and failed and failed and failed but for two little programs that they changed the name of over at USDA. One was called the senior farmers market program and the other one was the wick farmers market program where we allowed seniors and uh other purchasers to go to local farmers markets and buy raspberries for the first time in 30 years.
▶ 2:42:44Older people were buying healthy vegetables and fruits at local farmers markets and USDA changed the name. They changed the name from the farmers market nutrition program to the school nutrition program and to the senior nutrition program. And then a year ago in Ohio, what they did was they forced all of our producers to buy electronic technology. Well, guess what? When you're a farmer and you're not in a broadband area, it doesn't work. So what they did was they killed half the people's participation in the program.
▶ 2:43:14This is not an easy journey to displace foreign production with US production. But believe me, it's in the American people's interest. And in terms of wick, we know that by the age of four, a child's brain, all the cells that are going to be there are there. And it is really important that they have healthy foods in those early years. And it can be done close to home. We have to restore the inventiveness and the entrepreneurship of America. Believe me, it's out there and it's the last generation left.
▶ 2:43:44The younger people in those families are asking themselves the question, do I really want to continue our family business or is this a time to hang it up? This is a moment of serious transition. And I want to use the last few seconds to say to Congressman New House, thank you for the best black cherries I have ever eaten in my life. And that is America. That is the best. and I invite you to come to Ohio. We'll serve you plants and tomatoes from Striker Ohio, the best tomatoes in America.
▶ 2:44:11And they're not on the shelves of any supermarket in my area. And that's what's wrong with this country. So, I just wanted to thank you. We're on the right track. Please, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Deloro, let's push this envelope a little bit firmer as we move forward. We can really change this country and get USDA to wake up. Thank you so very much. I yield back. Thank gentle lady. gentle lady from Illinois, Miss Underwood, is recognized to address the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 2:44:40Uh, the Republican attack on WIC is simply unacceptable. The purpose of this amendment is to make sure this committee continues to uphold its long-standing bipartisan commitment to fully fund the WICK program so that all eligible low-income families who apply can be served at benefit levels adequate to meet their nutritional needs. WIC is one of the most effective and efficient federal investments that we make targeted to support nutritionally at risk pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children.
▶ 2:45:08And today, those families are facing historically high food prices and a full-blown maternal health crisis. They're working hard. They're budgeting carefully, and they still can't afford the healthy food that their kids need to thrive. Colleagues, let me be clear. The purpose of the increase to the wick fruit and vegetable benefit is to bring it in line with the sciencebased recommendations from the nationalmies which were made in 2017.
▶ 2:45:36It's not a quote COVID era program. In the nearly 50 years of the Wix program's existence, Congress has never once cut the WIC benefit, ensuring that the program had enough funding to serve its projected case load. Why has WICK been supported for over 50 years? Because it works. Because it improves birth outcomes, reduces health care costs, and helps children learn and grow.
▶ 2:46:03Because it's one of the best returns on investment in the entire federal budget. Even Secretary Rollins during her Senate confirmation said WIC should be fully funded. But then the president's own budget proposed slashing the benefit even further down to just $10 a month. We're not talking about luxuries here. We're talking about bananas and carrots. You can't say that you care about kids and then take away the basics that help them to grow up to be healthy.
▶ 2:46:32You can't say that you care about moms and then deny them the support that they need to have healthy pregnancies. This amendment is about protecting a proven life-saving program. It's about refusing to accept that there's always money for tax breaks and special interests, but never enough for mothers and children. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to send a clear message that we are not going to abandon the families who need us most? I yield back. Thanks, gentle lady.
▶ 2:47:02Do any other members seek recognition to speak to the amendment? Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk and I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. There is uh an amendment at the desk and the second degree to the amendment. Uh what's this? How are we going to uh the amendments offered by Miss Henson? All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 2:47:26Um this amendment would support the ranking members efforts to help uh provide increased support for women and children through WIC. Uh we want to increase the topline funding level for the program by hund00 million through this investment in this amendment. Um, this also provides a common sense offset for that additional spending to ensure that we're exercising continued fiscal responsibility through the appropriations process.
▶ 2:47:50And so, as an offset, what we are looking at here is rescending $100 million in unobligated balances from the inflation reduction acts IRS enforcement fund. This is an account that was used to supercharge the IRS and weaponize it against American taxpayers. Um, I think there is bipartisan agreement in this committee that we need to continue to provide robust funding for WIC um and provide continued access to nutritious food for um the most vulnerable Americans, our women, our children, our breastfeeding moms.
▶ 2:48:19Um, so this amendment really supports those hardworking families in Iowa and across the country by again upping that topline level but doing it in a responsible manner. So I urge my colleagues to support the adoption of this secondderee amendment so we can continue to feed healthy moms and healthy kids and healthy babies. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. U the gentle lady from Connecticut, Mr. Dolores recognized to address the second degree amendment through her amendment. Okay. I thank the chairman.
▶ 2:48:48Uh I I rise in opposition to this amendment which really uh illustrates the Republican priorities perfectly. They will only help American children and families if they can also help billionaires and giant corporations cheat on their taxes. This amendment would jeopardize the progress that has been made in holding the largest tax cheats and biggest corporations accountable. Some information.
▶ 2:49:19With the investment that was made in the IRS, the government was able to collect over $1 billion dollar from 1,600 millionaires who have not paid their tax debts. The IRS has cracked down on the abuse of corporate jets for personal travel, launched audits of the 60 largest corporations with an average assets of 24 billion, and uh has launched audits of 76 of the largest partnerships.
▶ 2:49:45Elon Musk and which at one point was valued at $1 avoided paying federal income tax for three years. Mr. Efficiency running around with a chainsaw. We ought to take the president up on getting rid of all of his conflicts of interest. No taxes. No taxes did he pay.
▶ 2:50:17But Republicans, think about that. A trillion dollar company pays nothing in taxes. And yet the Republicans just voted for more tank tax h handouts for their buddy Elon. At the same time, it launched, this is the IRS, launched more digital tools in the last two years than the previous 20, giving people more choices in how they do their taxes and how they interact with IRS offices through direct file.
▶ 2:50:46Cutting 100 million from the IRS would do two things. Make it easier for the richest to cheat on their taxes, making it harder for most Americans to file their own. and they don't have to pay exorbitant fees to these profit tax filing um uh companies. Remember where we were before this investment? And I'm going to read them out to you, my friends.
▶ 2:51:09Before this investment with the IRS, at least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid zero, absolutely nothing in federal taxes on their profits following the 2017 Trump tax cut. We have here Archer Daniels Midland, Booze Allen, Hamilton Holding, Dish Network, Duke Energy, FedEx, Nike, Textron.
▶ 2:51:3955 corporations paid zero in taxes. Another 39 didn't pay what they owed in their taxes. They paid a tax rate, AT&T, a tax rate of 3%. Walt Disney 8%. FedEx 1%, Domino's Pizza 9%. These are tax cheats and that is what we are trying to do with IRS enforcement.
▶ 2:52:08Um, this amendment does not help taxpaying women, infants or children. It uses them as a Trojan horse to once again deliver the only thing that Republicans care about, more money for billionaires, while the rest of America is stuck in a cost of living crisis. Let me just give you one final point. It's my understanding. Read the 2026 bill that the administration produced. This is the Trump administration in its 2026 budget plans. Plans to take and use.
▶ 2:52:36They put in a hundred million $100 million for tax enforcement. This is the same $100 million that we're talking about now. Talk to the White House. Find out if that's what they want to do. What want to do what you want to do with the money that they have put aside. I urge my colleagues oppose this amendment and I yield back. It is a scam over and over again to help the biggest corporations and the billionaires in this nation and we can't be for it.
▶ 2:53:06Not if you have values about what the US government should be doing. Thank gentle lady. The gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris is recognized to address the secondderee instant amendment to the Laura amendment. Uh, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Um, you know, where to start? I mean, the bottom line is, as the gentle lady from Iowa said, these are unobligated balances. It's not like we're firing IRS agents. They're unobligated balances that are sitting there.
▶ 2:53:37Now, the gentle lady from Connecticut talks about $1 billion in taxes that are that were collected as a result of the IRA, IRS funding with an $80 billion price tag. I don't know. Well, that's not a good return on investment. Any anything I would would So, what So, what we heard today was that somehow the Republicans are slashing wick. Now, to those of you who are here for my opening statement, I explained it all.
▶ 2:54:04We have close to a half a billion dollar unspent balance in WIC. So, everybody who applied is getting the benefit and we have a half a billion dollar left over. So we rescended oneif of it, 100 million, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in that carryover account. So in Washington, that's slashing. I don't get it. I mean, most people, they'd go, "No, that's actually proper fiscal responsibility. That's actually So you know what?
▶ 2:54:33All the members on this side get to vote to restore that hundred million dollars. Not that it needs restoring because we have hundreds of millions of dollars left in the carryover count, but if you want to assuage your conscience, go ahead. Here's your opportunity. Unobligated balances for from a program that will go after because you know what the IRS always goes after the big ones. They they know where the money is.
▶ 2:55:01those 67,000 agents, they were going to go or however many tens of thousands were, they were going to go after middle class people. They were going to go after small business owners. They were going to go after the people that we heard talked about today who are these small business owners just barely keeping their head above water.
▶ 2:55:18Some of them keeping their books in their own home because they can't afford an When that IRS agent knocks on their door and gives them a choice, it's either you you give in to what we say you should pay or you're going to jail or to court and the amount is five or $10,000. These small business have no option but to go, "Yeah, I'll pay." And if you don't think that's happened, it's happened before.
▶ 2:55:48That's who those agents are going to go after. And again, these are unobligated balances. This money is just sitting there. So again, you want to assuage your conscience on uh the slashes to the wick program, the non-existent slashing, this is your opportunity. Have at it. We should adopt this secondderee amendment and dis dispense with the rumor that somehow the Republicans are cutting the wick program. It couldn't be further from the truth. I yield back.
▶ 2:56:21Thank gentleman for his remarks. Gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop is recognized to address the second degree amendment to the Florida amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I rise strongly in opposition to the secondary amendment. This bill is potentially hundreds of millions of dollars below the level needed to support WIC participation in 2026.
▶ 2:56:46But this amendment, while it would increase the WIC level by $100 million, does so at the expense of our RS It is absolutely ridiculous and unconscionable that the price Republicans would exact to increase funding for Wick is to make it easier for billionaires to avoid paying taxes by underfunding the IRS.
▶ 2:57:16It also fails to address the problem that is the underlying amendment would that the bill cuts the wick fresh fruit and vegetable cash value benefit. Why do my colleagues not want to have a debate on fruit and vegetable vouchers? I'm happy to talk about the issue because I'm very very strong in my belief that we should not be cutting healthy fruits and vegetables from mothers and infants who need it.
▶ 2:57:46I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment in the second degree so we can vote on what our priority should be and that's providing the nutrition food that mothers and children and families need. With that, I urge the defeat of the secondary amendment and the passage of the underlying amendment. I yield back. Thank the gentleman. Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the second degree amendment?
▶ 2:58:16The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Hoyer, is recognized. This is not the financials services and general government And the gentle lady who is my friend serves on that committee with me. And very frankly, we disagree 100% on this issue. But I want to speak first to Mrs.
▶ 2:58:46Harris's comments. It is so easy to demagogue the IRS. The IRS is going after all those people with all those guns and heavy weapons and tanks and uh some maybe some of the equipment that's going down on the 14th uh and damaging the streets of Washington DC.
▶ 2:59:12So easy and so incredibly not accurate. This is a poster here. I'll hold it and I will show you. You'll be seeing this a lot.
▶ 2:59:32This shows the monitoring and auditing of the top 10%. Now, let me tell you, I'm not for paying any taxes I don't owe. And I presume everybody else feels that same way, too. And we write the rules.
▶ 2:59:59And unfortunately, we've made a lot of loopholes in those rules. So, we're at Now, it used to be in 2010 that if you were in the top 10%, the chances of your being audited were about 9% out of those returns.
▶ 3:00:23Now, your chances of being audited are of a percent. what an awful group that is. Now the deal is if you monitor that group and you find out they have not paid taxes that are due and owing under our rules.
▶ 3:00:53Then they pay not a new tax but the tax that they owe of a point. That means you have 99.4% chance that you're not going to be audited. Why? Because there aren't enough auditors.
▶ 3:01:14And to audit the reports of very wealthy people, and when I say very wealthy people, I'm talking about not just millionaires. I'm talking about people 600, 700, 800,000 dollars who have more complex returns. And of course, God knows what must return is. I don't know. I I need to count the pages on must return. Let's get that. Tesla reported zero federal. No, no, no.
▶ 3:01:42And I know they reported zero, but they weren't arrested. So somehow they were following some rules that we set or more likely they were not part of the 99.4% who were not audited. Okay, that's one So G that malarkey that somehow these wealthy people are beingounded is That's the blight word I will use.
▶ 3:02:10Now secondly, in terms of enforcement, let's just strike a hund00 million. President Trump signed a a bill, excuse me, President Biden signed a bill uh which provided sums so that the IRS could do its job. Most of that was in but a substantial number was to enhance enforcement.
▶ 3:02:37So it wasn't 4/10 because when you look at the 200,000 300,000 and under you know what your return is from audit one to one. But more people at that level get audited than anybody else. But when you audit people in the upper levels, your return is 1:5, 1:6, as high as 1 to 12.
▶ 3:03:08So it is a very important investment to make. Now if you don't make that investment and you don't collect those funds, they're about depending upon the estimate 300 to maybe over 800 billion dollars annually that is owed due and owing but not connected. That's what the experts tell tell us.
▶ 3:03:30So this amendment, if you cut a hund00 million, could cost you a half a billion dollars, a billion dollars, or $2 billion, depending upon how it's used. So this is a let's pretend it's free There is no free lunch.
▶ 3:03:51This lack of investment in enforcement in collecting revenues is the same as it would be if you cut your collection department in your business and you got people who didn't pay you This money is not free. This amendment ought to be rejected. And I strongly support the underlying amendment because as Frederick Douglas said, it is easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men.
▶ 3:04:21This is a cost investment that the gentle lady from Connecticut makes. And I would urge you to reject the so-called free lunch that will undermine the revenues of the United States of America and therefore every program that you want. I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. I appreciate that gen generous yield.
▶ 3:04:47Uh, do any other members seek recognition to speak on the second degree amendment? Seeing none, I recognize the Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Gentleman from Maryland's recognized. We'll stay with the all Maryland discussion here, I guess. Um I I and I can yield you a moment um if if you'd like additional time, but to the point I think about this internal revenue uh argument that I've been hearing for a while.
▶ 3:05:16I think what what our Republican colleagues did when the Biden admin administration was in place with they said to the public, these new auditors are going to go after you. And I think you did a version of that just a moment ago. the small businesses, you know, working people, they would be targeted by the IRS agents and auditors who would be put in place. Um, and frankly, it was effective. I I think uh when President Biden was in was in office. The issue now though is you got President Trump in office.
▶ 3:05:46And so I think the question you all would have to answer is if President Trump would put a commissioner in place and head to head up the Internal Revenue Service who would bring in auditors who targeted regular people and small businesses as opposed to large corporations and going after the big dollars. Now my concern is that um given what he's been doing so far, he's pretty chummy with the big corporations and the like.
▶ 3:06:13um been helping him out quite a bit and helping himself out quite a bit as he's been doing it. But that's a separate conversation. But I think it's it's an awkward argument for you to make if you're saying that you think Trump would use these new agents and new auditors to go after regular people who are his supporters. I agree with Congressman Hoyer that we need those those auditors in place to go after the higher dollar entities, the corporations and the like.
▶ 3:06:39And we heard what um Miss Delaro's arguments were and and the data and the information she presented with respect to the lack of t tax dollars that are being paid by these corporations. Let's put those auditors in place, separate that out because it really doesn't have anything to do with u the underlying amendment that uh was offered here.
▶ 3:07:00Um, I think we can have the u the IRS argument another day, but uh for the moment I certainly would reject this this uh second degree amendment because I don't know that it really is accurate and I don't think it's consistent with the arguments you've been or would be willing to make about the Trump administration. Um, I'll yield additional time to my colleague from an enforcement example.
▶ 3:07:30Imagine all of you drive your cars and you're driving in a 45 mph zone and you push it up to 54 miles an hour, which is 10 miles under the limit. And you figure, "Nobody's going to get me." And then you see the police officer, not chasing you, just on the side of the road. What do you automatically do?
▶ 3:08:01Let down on that accelerator. Let me tell you, you don't have Everybody is going to do the same thing. And we're going to be poor for it. And we're going to have a more of a struggle getting the deficit to where it needs to thank the gentleman for yielding. Thank both gentlemen.
▶ 3:08:27Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the second degree amendment? Gentle lady from Ohio's recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank you for your demeanor putting up with all of us the last couple days. Um, I would like to speak on the amendment, but yield my time to the uh ranking member, Mr. Laurel. Thank you very much, Captain.
▶ 3:08:48I I just think it's important to I think it's important to set the record straight on this because of of what has what has not been done. I'm going to repeat because it bears repeating. IRS rec has recovered $1.1 billion dollar from 1600 millionaires who have paid no taxes.
▶ 3:09:12They're pursuing 125,000 highincome individuals who have not filed tax returns for years and an initial 172 million has been recovered in six months. They've launched a new initiative crackdown on abuse of corporate jets for personal travel. Audits of the 76 of the largest partnerships, the 60 largest corporations, closing a major loophole exploited by large complex partnerships.
▶ 3:09:40And an analysis shows that investments in high-end enforcement along with technology and data analytics will result in 851 billion dollars in additional revenue over the next day, over the next decade. And quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing my colleagues talk about a spending problem. We have a revenue problem.
▶ 3:10:04We are leaving billions of dollars on the table from billionaires and the 55 corporations that pay no taxes whatsoever. And it may be that it does and I I I I I love it. This is the poster child. Tesla reported zero federal income tax on two billion of US income in 2024.
▶ 3:10:27This is who you are This is who you are defending instead of making sure that youngsters, infants, and children are able to get fruits and vegetables. Think about it. Think about where the hell your values are in all of this and what makes a difference in people's lives. And justice, this bill does not score. CBS has so my but chairman ought to understand the particulars. the deficit.
▶ 3:10:57You voted for an increase in the deficit uh h for almost three trillion dollars and you talk about you've added to the deficit. You have voted to add to the deficit. All of us on this side have not. So you you live with it. This program talk about Kentucky, Mr. Rogers, the entire nation benefits from this program. It's based on income determinations and on nutritional status. understand the program, Mr.
▶ 3:11:26Chairman, and it provides half of what people need on a daily basis. And you want to take that and put it against billionaires, the biggest corporations who are robbing this country and robbing the American taxpayer. Why don't we go after them instead of making life easier for them?
▶ 3:11:48And by the way, check with the administration on their use of that $und00 million which is in the 26 budget for tax enforcement. You seem to be out of sync with your guys. Thank you. I yield back. Thank uh both gentle ladies. Do any other members seek recognition to speak to second degree amendment?
▶ 3:12:16Seeing none, the gentle lady from Iowa is recognized for one moment, a minute to close. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and u thank you to my colleagues for the robust debate. I think uh we do have a fundamental difference in this room that we um we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and I think we're going to disagree on that.
▶ 3:12:34Uh when you look at the account we're trying to take these dollars from, um we are taking hundred million out of $45.6 6 billion to up the amount of money we're giving to women, infants, and children to make sure they're fed. Um, I think that's a very good investment of redirecting those dollars, 222% of the fund. And when we look at the money coming into the Treasury right now, um, under Trump's new golden age, we are seeing that increase in dollars come in.
▶ 3:13:01Uh, the Secretary of the Treasury just testified this morning, April receipts are up 9 and a half% over the previous year. May receipts are up 14.7% over the previous year. So the right way to grow the economy is not through going after hardworking Americans. Um but it's about growing the economy through jobs and investments um that are going to help the American people. So that's what this investment will do. $und00 million to help our most vulnerable populations and I urge my colleagues to support this second degree amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.
▶ 3:13:31The questions now on the second degree amendment offered by Miss Henson. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. No. The opinion of the chair, the eyes have it and the second degree amendment. Uh roll call has been requested. I see a show of hands. No, not voting on it.
▶ 3:14:00Are we voting or not? No. Oh, I guess we are. I hadn't looked over here. efficient Well, vote has been requested. U all those in favor of you have done that. So, we've passed that sufficient number in support. A recorded vote is ordered. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 3:14:31Mr. Aderhalt. Mr. Adhalt. I Mr. Aguilar. No Mr. Aguilar. No. Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. I Mr. Ammedday. I had Mr. Ammedday. I Mrs. Bice. Hi. Mrs. Bice. I Mr. Bishop. No. Mr. Bishop. No. Mr. Calbertt. Hi. Mr. Calbertt. I Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. I Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. No. Mr. Sisammani. Hi.
▶ 3:15:02Mr. Siscammani. I Mr. Klene. I Mr. Klene. I Mr. Cloud Mr. Klyurn Mr. Klyurn No Mr. Clyde Mr. Cole I Mr. Cole I Mr. Quayar Miss Dean Miss Deloro no Mr. Deloro no Mr. Diaz Bolard Mr. Diaz Bolard I Mr.
▶ 3:15:30Edwards Mr. LZ Mr. LZ I Miss Escobar Mr. Espayot no Mr. Espayot no Mr. Fleshman Mr. Fleshman I Miss Frankle Miss Frankle no Mr. Franklin Mr. Franklin I Mr. Gonzalez Mr. Gonzalez I Mr.
▶ 3:16:00Guest Mr. Guest I Mr. Harter. Mr. Harter. No. Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris. I. Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson. I. Mr. Hoyer. No. Mr. Hoyer. No. Mr. Ivy. No. Mr. Ivy. No. Mr. Joyce. Mr. Joyce. I. Miss No. Miss Captor. No. Mr. Loa. I. Mr. Loa. I. Miss Lee.
▶ 3:16:31Miss Lee. No. Miss Latlo. Miss Lllo. I Mr. Leaven. No. Mr. Levven. No. Miss Mallaloy. Miss Mallaloy. I Miss McCullum. Miss McCollum. No. Miss Ming. Miss Ming. No. Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. I. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. I. Mr. Morelli. Mr. Morelli. No. Mr. Morvan. No. Mr. Morvan. No. Mr. New House.
▶ 3:17:01Mr. New House. I Miss Perez. Miss Perez. No. Miss Pingri. Miss Pingri. No. Mr. Pokean. Mr. Pokean. No. Mr. Quigley. Mr. Quigley. No. Mr. Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers. I. Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Rutherford. I Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson. I Mr. Strong. Mr. Strong. I Mrs. Torres. Miss. Underwood.
▶ 3:17:31No Miss Underwood. No, Mr. Valido. Mr. Valado. I Miss Wasserman Schultz. Miss Wasserman Schultz. No, Miss Watson Coleman. Mrs. Watson Coleman. No, Mr. Wac. Mr. Zinci. Do any members wish to record their vote or change their vote? Gentle lady from Texas. No.
▶ 3:18:02Miss Escobar votes no. Gentleman from Mr. Russianthaler votes I. Gentleman from Georgia. Mr. Clyde I. Gentleman from North Mr. Edwards. I gentleman from Montana. Mr. Zinci. I gentleman from Arkansas. Mr. Wac I.
▶ 3:18:29Are there a gentle lady from Miss Dean? No. Are there others members wishing to change or record their vote? Little confusion. I don't want to miss anybody. The clerk will tally.
▶ 3:19:06That would be On this vote, the eyes are 34, the no to 26.
▶ 3:19:34The amendment to the second degree is adopted. We will now turn to the amendment uh offered by Miss Dellora. To any members seek recognition to speak on the amendment as amended. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I wasn't there. That's We're now turning to your original amendment and I ask, do any members seek recognition to speak on the amendment as amended?
▶ 3:20:08Evidently not. Okay. The gentle lady from Connecticut has one minute to close on the amendment as amended. Well, it's it, as I said at the outset of my my comments, I think um I I I think this is really illustrative of Republican priorities. And I think it's perfectly set.
▶ 3:20:33Let's help American children and families only if only if we can help billionaires and giant corporations cheat on their taxes. Um the amendment that was proposed, the underlying amendment was response to people telling us every day that the cost of living is high. Food is too expensive. Rent is unaffordable.
▶ 3:21:02Buying a house, well, that's no longer the American dream. It's the American fantasy. We are supposed to be an institution that responds to Republic had an opportunity to join us in improving a program that does help people in daily lives in their daily lives. It is a program despite the misinformation giving out that's been given out that does not score.
▶ 3:21:28It does not increase the um uh the uh the the the cash value. As I said, it provides only half of what people need on a daily basis and it is nationwide. But the majority has chosen to do what I said is to use this bill as a Trojan horse in order to once again provide tax cuts for the richest corporations and the richest individuals in in the nation.
▶ 3:21:57And uh it is um but you know I I I think the American people understand uh where the preferences lie for the majority and where the preferences are amongst the Democrats.
▶ 3:22:11And so I think uh while we have um um won this unbelievable amendment which is a flim flam um uh that uh the American public is catching on that where your sentiments lie and that is with the tax cuts 4 and a half trillion dollars that's coming up and not wanting anyone to examine not wanting anyone the
▶ 3:22:41IRS to examine whether or not they are cheating the American public by using their legal might to avoid paying any taxes. This was the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. I don't make up the numbers. 55 corporations. Some of them are probably in your districts.
▶ 3:23:08and you've covered you've covered I listen to the chair my friend and you took a side today and it's understandable it's predictable thank you I'm out of time I understand that but I also listen to the chair of the committee very carefully because the chair is a good friend thank you thank you Mr. Thank you. Thank you.
▶ 3:23:36The question is now on the amendment offered by Mr. Laurel as amended. Those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. No. The opinion of the chair is the eyes have it. No. Any amendments accepted?
▶ 3:24:10We now move on to our next amendment. Gentle lady from Connecticut is recognized for an amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have an amendment at the desk. The clerk will read the amendment.
▶ 3:24:39I ask unanimous attempt that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. Without objection, the reading of the amendment is dispensed with and gentle ladies recognized for remarks on her amendment. I rise to offer this amendment to prohibit the implementation of tariffs that would increase food costs on American consumers who are dealing with a cost of living crisis. Food costs have already risen nearly 25% in the last few years, stretching budgets for families across this country.
▶ 3:25:07President Trump's chaotic tariffs will make a trip to the grocery store even more expensive. Everything from coffee to fruit to the packaging of our food is going to cost more thanks to universal tariffs that are hitting our closest agricultural trading partners. According to the Tax Foundation, President Trump's tariffs are the largest tax hike since 1993.
▶ 3:25:35Meanwhile, they are giving away $4.5 trillion dollars to billionaires in their reconciliation bill and increasing the debt by probably $3 trillion. So stated by CBO. The administration might try to say they are addressing food costs. USDA announced plans to increase egg imports in hopes to bring costs down, but they refused to say if President Trump's universal 10% tariff is being applied to those eggs.
▶ 3:26:05If that tariff was indeed suspended on imports, then they are admitting that it would have raised costs. Not only do American families lose under this tariff policy, so do small and medium-sized grocerers who cannot absorb the costs. I know the president has never had to manage a food budget, but I think Mr. Espayotti does a lot of eating at McDonald's. He can afford the food prices there. Uh or he has never had to worry about making ends meet.
▶ 3:26:35But for Americans living paycheck to paycheck, the uncertainty his tariffs bring are causing confusion and fear for parents, for families just trying to put food on the table. Proud to propose this amendment and I urge my colleagues to support it as well. Thank you and I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. The gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris, is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Um, the problem is not tariffs.
▶ 3:27:05The problem was the Biden administration's policies. The peak of food inflation was not last month or the month before that or any month since January. It was in the middle of the Biden administration. Those are the facts.
▶ 3:27:21Now, there's another little issue that in fact the other thing that that uh the Biden administration policy did, it actually saw our agricultural trade to 47 billion dollar last year with a straight line decrease during the four years of the Biden administration.
▶ 3:27:44So this this attempts I guess to deflect the gentle lady from Connecticut's amendment I guess attempts to deflect interest from the real problem here the real reason why food costs have gone up and just to remind members the inflation rate is actually low now you can say that these tariffs might increase something or whatever you know some hypothetical in the future but we do know that under the Biden food prices reached their
▶ 3:28:14highest inflation rate in 40 years. That's a The other disturbing fact is that our agricultural trade deficit is sitting near $50 billion a year. Now, when I was growing up, it was said we feed the world.
▶ 3:28:36We feed the world means uh by the way that's that's uh you know that's English for we don't have a trade agricultural trade deficit we have a agricultural trade surplus because we feed the world but it's not true anymore now the world is feeding us we have got to stop we have have to reverse that and we have to investigate how that happened over the past five yeah four years really I mean go
▶ 3:29:0740 yeah it was slow decline but we've crossed zero in the past few years so so this amendment is you know this is hypothetically about something in the future we're not going to learn anything there's no mechanism in in the USDA to to enforce an amendment like this they don't have the economists who understand the intricacies of of of what this amendment suggests so Mr.
▶ 3:29:30Chairman, I have a second degree amendment at the desk and I will I will ask to dispense with the reading of the second degree amendment. Is he offer amendment? There's an amendment at the uh desk in the second degree to Mr. Lur's amendment offered by Dr. Harris. The clerk will read the amendment.
▶ 3:29:59I I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. Without objection, the reading of the second degree amendment is dispensed with and Mr. Harris is recognized for remarks on his second degree amendment. Thank you very much. I'll be brief. Uh the bottom line is we we need to to learn what has happened in the past administration that led to this increase in our agricultural trade deficit. It's very simple.
▶ 3:30:26The amendment just says the committee directs USDA to provide a report that should focus on policies from 2020 to 2024 that resulted in the decadesl long agricultural trade surplus surplus becoming a record trade deficit and the impact the trade deficit had on US farmers and ranchers The bottom line is we have to see what we can do to reverse whatever policies led us to this huge trade deficit. That's what we should be laser focused on.
▶ 3:30:57Not some pie in the sky. Maybe in the future, some tariffs here, some tariffs there. And look, I I get a little dizzy watching that, too. But we what we should do is we should have the USDA look laser focused on getting our agricultural trade deficit reversed. So, uh, Mr. Chairman, I would, uh, move this amendment and yield back the balance of my time. I want to speak on this one. Oh, Bishop Lisa Bishop. Yeah, you go.
▶ 3:31:26Just for clarification because it' be easy not to to be clear on this. We're now speaking on Dr. Harris's second degree amendment to the Delora amendment. Uh the gentleman from Georgia, my friend Mr. Bishop, is recognized to address that second degree Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 3:31:45I understand that the gentleman loves to talk about what he didn't like about the Biden But I want to remind the gentleman that the total trade number is a sum of trade surpluses and trade deficits. I'd like to point out that a imports increased by 26% between 2021 and 2024. That forced the deficit numbers up. That's not something that any administration can control.
▶ 3:32:16I'd also note that we have an amendment addressing the fact that the administration was so embarrassed by its own latest trade numbers that they delayed the most recent report and stripped out the entire analysis section because it linked the widening a trade deficit to the new tariffs. That is This secondderee amendment is bad.
▶ 3:32:44it gets in the way of what we're trying to do and what Americans want and expect this Congress to do and that is to reduce prices particularly reducing food costs. That's why we're here in this commit committee today and that's what we need to do with that. I yield back.
▶ 3:33:04I urge the rejection of this secondderee amendment and I'd like for us to get back to the underlying amendment by the gentle lady from Connecticut. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. The gentle lady from Connecticut is recognized to address the secondderee amendment to her original amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to this amendment, which is a classic Republican dodge.
▶ 3:33:31When they're unable to defend the Trump administration's actions, they simply blame them on Joe Biden. This amendment is transparently partisan.
▶ 3:33:45by limiting the years for their report 2020 to 2024 and ignoring the impact of Trump's first term tariffs that resulted in 27 billion dollar in losses for American farmers. This Republican report is attempting to cook the books to rewrite history.
▶ 3:34:09Americans are struggling in the present and Republicans are arguing about the past. Let us recap. The last Trump administration's 2018 tariffs and ensuing trade war led to hundreds of farm bankruptcies and shuttered tens of thousands of small farms.
▶ 3:34:33Soybean exports to China plummeted by nearly In 2019, 599 farms filed for bankruptcy, the most in a decade. The Trump administration was forced to pay out nearly $23 billion in direct aid in order to partially offset the losses caused by those My god, stop rewriting history.
▶ 3:35:01Pay attention to what was done by a Trump first administration and now a Trump second administration. They put American farmers in a hole that they are still trying to dig out of dig out of. Once again, President Trump is launching trade wars left and right, up and down. Quite frankly, he doesn't know where he's going.
▶ 3:35:28uh I don't know that he knows very much about trade and he's listening to people around him who are giving him very very bad advice on what to do and all of it is resulting in the higher prices for the American people, American businesses. He is not investing in small farms. He is not helping them purchase equipment which he is also hitting with 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum. He is doubling down on exactly what did not work in his last term.
▶ 3:35:57Blanket tariffs that spur massive retaliation from our trading partners with no support for the farmers who are directly impacted. We need a report. We need a report that shows the true impact of tariffs on our farmers, not a politically motivated attempt to stack the deck in favor of a reckless trade war that the Republicans cannot defend on its own merits.
▶ 3:36:25I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and I yield back. Thank you, gentle lady. Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the secondderee amendment uh to the Deloro amendment? Gentle lady from Ohio, Miss Cap is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do wish to speak on this uh amendment to the amendment or to the bill.
▶ 3:36:50Um, I care deeply about trade and served when the dial began to turn against America in the 1990s when NAFTA, CAFTA, and China PNTR were passed in terms of trade agreements, not out of this committee, but out of the Ways and Means Committee.
▶ 3:37:11When those happened we began to lose massive amounts of our agriculture and other production shipped out. Our tomato industry in Florida collapsed and it collapsed in other places in the country. And I think Chairman Harris, it may have collapsed in uh Maryland as well. I don't know the exact I don't know Maryland as well as my own state, but we began to see the transfer of capital elsewhere.
▶ 3:37:42Why? Cheap labor. That's at the basis of everything. Let them work like slaves. Travel with me if you don't believe me. Let's go down to Mexico. We'll go down to Costa Rica. Well, you'll see. Well, we'll see what we'll see together, but it's not pretty. And um here in our country, what happened after NAFTA was that the white corn market of Mexico collapsed. That was the main source of food for the people of Mexico.
▶ 3:38:11We are now into a major debate on immigration and the results of what happened 30 years ago, but it's so relevant. And why did those people come here? Because they couldn't feed themselves anymore. Folks, our yellow corn displaced white corn, which millions of people survived on in Mexico. We never fixed that. We never fixed that.
▶ 3:38:34So, we are now in the form of a continental sacrilege with all these people fleeing because they couldn't afford to manage their own little plots because the former president of Mexico, Carlos Selenus, erased the boundaries of the Hititos and they no longer had land that belonged to them by which they could survive. Okay, that's the big picture. All right.
▶ 3:38:56Now, we lost a lot of industry all over the world, including to China, our steel industry, and we're still trying to recover from those myopic trade agreements that hurt the economy of places like I represent both agriculturally and industrially. We know this to the core. So I would say to chairman Harris, if you would widen the report, the years of the report to 40 years, then we can look at what's happened in every single sector.
▶ 3:39:25North Carolina furniture industry gone. All right. Dura Corporation in Toledo gone. We can take you to places in in uh Mackiladoras in Mexico. I there's a place called Ohio and Michigan Avenues. And what's there? the uh windshield wiper company that used to exist in western New York, I think in Rochester. I'm not sure, but close to Rochester. Trico, I think it's was called. Uh you go to uh Newton, Iowa. Okay.
▶ 3:39:55Um the uh company that made washers and dryers gone. You can find it in Monteray, Mexico. All right. What would what what what did Wall Street do? Cheap wages. And then they sent it all back here. This is a curse. I do believe that President Trump wants to try to help fix this, but I don't think he has very good advisers on this. But I think Chairman Harris is serious about this because of things that happened in Maryland.
▶ 3:40:25And um so I just say that a four-year window isn't sufficient to deal with the hemorrhage that happened across this continent. And we need a bigger solution. Our trade agreements are too narrowly focused. This was my moment to say something I've wanted to say for a long time. There's enough intelligence in this room to help direct a better way forward. And so I don't support the amendment at this point because I think the time window is too narrow. There's a whole lot more that's happened out there.
▶ 3:40:52And then again on the agricultural front to our region, I can guarantee you our corn and soy farmers and half of the production of their wealth, half the corn and soy is exported used to be exported from my region. We now put it into fuel, but they've lost their markets in China. And China has displaced our farmers purchasing from our farmers by buying from Argentina, Venezuela, and other places uh in the in the Americas.
▶ 3:41:20This is really serious and I commend both uh uh chairman Harris and ranking member um Deloro for bringing this up, but we as a and have not focused on this with a large aperture on the on the uh telescope and we keep stubbing our toes every single year.
▶ 3:41:42So if he would accept an amendment to widen the scope to 40 years, I might be very uh I could be persuaded to consider it. This may not be the moment, but it's so serious and it has created economic and political divisions in our country that we are experiencing now because the American people can't get ahead. Thank you so very much for allowing me to put that on the record and I yield back. Thank you. The chair has advised that we cannot do a thirdderee amendment.
▶ 3:42:09So the gentle lady's suggestions something we cannot pursue at this point. The gentle lady from Illinois is recognized to speak on the Harris second degree amendment to the lower amendment. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I reject the second degree amendment and support ranking member Deloro's amendment because Trump's tariffs have been a disaster for America's families and for our farmers. When this administration launches a reckless trade war with no strategy and no endgame, we all pay the price.
▶ 3:42:39Like M. Deluro, I am deeply concerned about the impact of these terrorists on families struggling to put food on the I also want to take this opportunity to highlight that America's farmers are doubly impacted by this irresponsible policy. They're facing those same high prices at the grocery store and their incomes are being undercut at the same time.
▶ 3:42:59Family farms across the country, especially in my Illinois district and throughout the Midwest, spent years building export markets for corn, soybeans, and other crops like Miss Captor mentioned, only to have those markets wiped out overnight. And let's not forget, during the last Trump trade war, Democrats were the ones who stepped up with the votes to make sure that corn and soy farmers received support through the Commodity Credit Corporation, the CCC.
▶ 3:43:27And now that those funds have been depleted, President Trump has waged another trade war that will harm our farmers even more with no relief in sight. Tariffs on agricultural equipment, fertilizer, and crop inputs. Those costs do not get absorbed by other countries. They get passed directly to the farmer, the hardworking farmers in Decal and Lasal, Mandota, and across northern Illinois. And when farmers have to spend more on input costs, those are passed on to the families at the grocery store.
▶ 3:43:56To make matters worse, House Republicans have surrendered Congress's power over taxes and tariffs to give President Trump free reign to bankrupt America's farmers. They'll praise American agriculture on the campaign trail. But when it's time to expand rural healthcare, fix our broken immigration policies, or protect farmers from harmful trade policies, they turn their backs and tie their own hands. This amendment is a chance to change that.
▶ 3:44:20to stop failed trade policies that hurt America, to stand up for affordable local food and for the future of rural America. I was I stepped out a few minutes ago because my friends from the Illinois Farm Bureau came to visit for a little chat, just a little check-in. We've been doing these check-ins so frequently this spring because of the recklessness, the chaos, the confusion that this trade war has inspired.
▶ 3:44:48I mean literally every month we are having important meetings, discussions and huddles because their businesses, their livelihood, their family's legacy is being harmed by this reckless trade policy in Illinois. We are so proud to be the nation's number one producer of soybeans. So proud. We are so proud of the gorgeous corn and the incredible livestock that we produce. And all of that is being threatened by this reckless trade war.
▶ 3:45:16and I cannot support the second degree amendment. I stand with ranking member member Deluro and I yield back. Thank you, gentle lady. The gentle lady from Pennsylvania, Miss Dean, is recognized to address the Harris secondderee amendment to the Delorea amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Uh, and I rise uh in opposition to the second degree amendment. Uh, and will speak in favor of Representative Delloro's amendment regarding tariffs.
▶ 3:45:45Let's remember just what this amendment would do. It simply says none of the funds made available by this or any act, any other act may be used to implement tariffs that would increase food costs in the United And it's not a mystery and it's not something that may happen in the future. It's already happening now. Uh it's not lost on me that we are here arguing about agg uh and we eat so many snacks here. I wanted to make sure we had something healthy.
▶ 3:46:14So, I brought in some apples and bananas. Uh, as I said, you're welcome. Uh, as I said, we got to do some nutritious stuff here. Uh, as uh I said um earlier, uh, in my district, we grow apples. In I bet many of your districts, uh, you grow apples. Uh, but we don't grow bananas here.
▶ 3:46:36Uh just letting you know we had uh Secretary Lutnik in front of the uh commerce justice uh science uh subcommittee last week and he said no no no there's not a problem. Prices are not going up on bananas. I said what is the tariff on bananas? He first tried to dodge it. I said what is the tariff Mr. Secretary? He said it's 10%. But that's not yet. That's not happening now. Well guess what?
▶ 3:47:01Walmart last week announced that everything from bananas to baby car seats and so many items in between they have already raised the prices on bananas for example they have raised the prices 8% already without whether tariffs are up or down or high or low with this administration total chaos total incoherence Americans are paying more now Mr. Mr. Lutnik tried to tell me, "Don't worry about it.
▶ 3:47:29When we produce them here, when we build stuff here, that number will be reduced." And I had to remind Mr. Lutnik, Secretary Lutnik, Secretary of Commerce, we don't build that many bananas here with apologies to Hawaii who does grow a particular type of banana, but not the bananas that we're talking about here. Tariffs are already affecting our consumers, your constituents, right this minute as they shop at Walmart and get bananas.
▶ 3:47:56But as I told you earlier, it also affects the stuff we grow here. My apple producer, the orchard, is already experiencing long delays in just simply getting bags from Canada because Canada can't figure out what our tariff policy is. how in God's name we said to an ally and a friend, we're going to tariff you at 25% Mexico too because we are the Americas after all, USMCA and all of that negotiated by the great negotiator.
▶ 3:48:26Uh tariffs are already impacting what we grow here and what we do not grow here and we will never be building here. Uh so I I just would say that take a look at what Walmart is doing. Bananas is just one example, but baby car seats, all the consumer products, prices are going up and uncertainty is in the air. It isn't about a trade deficit on bananas, we're not going to grow them here.
▶ 3:48:54It's not a bad thing that there's a trade deficit on some produce that we simply cannot grow here. That's not our problem. I don't know why this president is stuck on that portion of the economic argument. In the end, Americans are paying more. We should be supporting this. We should not be supporting up and down pricing for our consumers on what they want to buy every day. As simple as bananas. As I said to Secretary Lutnik, we're not going to be building them here. And I yield back.
▶ 3:49:26Thank the gentle lady. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Pokean, is recognized to address the Harris second degree amendment to the lower amendment. Gentleman's recognized. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I I got to admit this is a powerful statement in this uh secondary amendment. Um it's a powerful statement that you can't talk about tariffs uh under President Trump because if you do uh everyone back home who's feeling them in my agricultural communities uh knows exactly what that impact is.
▶ 3:49:54So you better say the emperor is wearing some clothes when he's walking around butt naked because we can't talk about that. So we better put an amendment out that looks back a few years. But don't talk about the tariffs right now. Look, here's what I hear from the farmers, and I've got a very rural district. You know, they're being thrown around so indiscriminately. It's like going to the zoo, the way a monkey throws its dung, you don't know where it's going to land, but you know it's going to be messy. That's the tariff policy under Donald Trump.
▶ 3:50:22And because of that tariff policy, if you're a farmer big enough to sell commodities, uh our number one trading partner in Wisconsin agriculture agriculturally is Canada, number two, Mexico, number three, China. So all those farmers are already having big impacts. Not only did USAD shut down where they often got food from places like Wisconsin, uh but now they've got tariffs to deal with.
▶ 3:50:44But if you're a smaller farmer, you're that farmer who's got I had at the state of the union, I brought a farmer from northern Wisconsin, has a small family farm, uh about a hundred families get from his CSA, vegetables and dairy, his milk bottles because of this idiotic trade war that the president's doing. Uh, the raw product goes to Canada to make the bottles. The bottles are made in Canada. They come back to the US. So, they get a retaliatory tariff on the way in. They get a tariff on the way out.
▶ 3:51:14And that $3 bottle for milk now is5 or $6. So that is the impact of tariffs that the lady from Connecticut is trying to have us look at, but the gentleman from Maryland is saying, "No, that's a beautiful robe the president's wearing, even though I think we got a chance to see his buttocks a few times." So we need to make sure that we are figuring out the real impact of tariffs and simply having a powerful resolution to distract that does not cover
▶ 3:51:44the current period that my farmers are feeling. uh is the strongest statement of all. If we actually do this, that means we are so afraid to as a Congress, as a country, look at the impact of these tariffs. And we all have rural parts of our districts or almost all of us do. But I'm telling you, the impact I hear every single day. I live in a rural town, 830 people. This is what's impacting folks.
▶ 3:52:11So, if you want to throw up the white flag, you've got uh the the secondderee amendment that says we're not going to look at anything. But I think if we're going to do a service to our farmers, to the agricultural industry, we should see what that impact is. And maybe we could convince the president why they're a bad idea. Because at the end of the day, when you ask who pays tariffs, the answer is we all do.
▶ 3:52:38and for the the farmer that's now going to have a reduced uh ability to sell or their costs are going up and then they pass it on to us because that's exactly what happens with tariffs. It's a simple answer. Uh we are irresponsible if we don't do what the gentle lady from Connecticut is trying to do. So I I get the subtrafuge. Um, you know, we got to make sure the president looks pretty, but uh the reality is tariffs are anything but pretty and we shouldn't be doing something like this.
▶ 3:53:08So, I I strongly oppose and I yield back. I thank the gentleman. The gentle lady from Washington, Miss Perez, is recognized to address the Harris second degree amendment to the law amendment. Um, do you guys know the um you guys know the the the old entire joke um about about farming? What's the best way to end up with a million dollars as a farmer? Uh, to start out with two million.
▶ 3:53:36Um, an unfunny corlary here is um, you know, my farmers tell me the reality of modern farming is that you buy at retail and you sell at wholesale. Um, I shared Dr. Harris's concerns about the trade deficit. Um, do you all know how we balance our trade deficit? We we sell off our mills and our land to foreign investors and we call it a good thing. I don't think that's a good thing for our grandkids.
▶ 3:54:07Um but the orientation in this secondary amendment around profitability of farms and ranches I think misses a a key point that we are not fundamentally charged with assuring the profitability of any given shareholder. It is about the net the the net strength of our nation.
▶ 3:54:30It is about the um in my view the the accelerating consolidation of of farm You know food food food prices adjusted for inflation let's be honest have not changed significantly. In many cases they've gone down and I think this gets that point of farmers buying wholesale buying retail and selling wholesale.
▶ 3:54:57Um it it the the entire debate presupposes that the profits from any given grocery bill are acrewing not primarily to a small land owner in your own community but to a a a shareholder a faceless board somewhere. And and you know we can we can we can talk about prices. We can debate these tariffs. I believe ultimately they're a tool that can be used prudently or destructively.
▶ 3:55:26But but to focus solely on one side of the ledger, to focus exclusively on prices and not on net wealth, not on advancing wealth inequality in this country misses one of the larger points. Um that you can you can afford to pay your neighbor enough for them to not have to sell off their farmland.
▶ 3:55:47If we're empowering those same farmers to have market access to to to to to free them from a regulatory moat that protects the large players from the small players and and I would argue that those are the closer to the bone of the of of the debate that I hope we can move forward in this Thank you and I I yield back. Thank gentle lady.
▶ 3:56:13Uh are there any other members wishing to uh address the Harris second degree amendment to the law amendment? Seeing none, uh Dr. Harris is recognized for one minute to close. Thank you very much. Understanding the source origin of our trade deficit, agricultural trade deficit important. Uh you know, the gentle lady from Ohio is correct.
▶ 3:56:38We probably should have written this maybe over a 10-year period or so as we watched uh that agricultural trade deficit uh go from surplus to deficit. Uh but again this this is what we have. I think uh I'm ask the committee to support this. We need to understand this in order to reverse it. I yield back. Thanks gentlemen. The question is now on the second degree amendment offered by Dr. Harris. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. No.
▶ 3:57:08In the opinion of the chair, the eyes have it and the second degree amendment is Recorded vote has been requested. May I see a show of hands, please? Do we have them now? Okay.
▶ 3:57:32Uh sufficient number of hands having uh been rated uh raised a recorded vote is ordered. The clerk will call the role. Mr. Adhalt. Hi. Mr. Hatterald. Hi. Mr. Aguilar. No. Mr. Aguilar. No. Mr. Alfred. I. Mr. Alfred. I. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Ammedday. I Mrs. Bice. Mrs. Bice. I Mr. Bishop. Mr. Calbertt. Hi. Mr. Calbert. I Mr.
▶ 3:58:02Carter. Mr. Carter. I Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. No. Mr. Sisammani. Mr. Sisammani. I Mr. Klene. Mr. Klene. I Mr. Cloud. Mr. Klyber. No. Mr. Klyber. No. Mr. Mr. Cole. I. Mr. Cole. I Mr. Quayar. Miss Dean. M. Deloro. No. Mr. Loro. No. Mr.
▶ 3:58:30Diaz Mr. Edwards Mr. Edwards Mr. Edwards I Mr. Elzie yes Mr. Elsie I Miss Escobar Miss Escobar no Mr. Espayott Mr. Espayat no Mr. Fleshman yes Mr. Fleshman I miss Frankle Miss Frankle no Mr. Franklin Mr. Franklin I Mr. Mr. Gonzalez.
▶ 3:59:03Mr. Gonzalez. I Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest. I miss Mr. Harter. No. Mr. Harter. No. Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris. I Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson. I Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Hoyer. No. Mr. Ivy. Mr. Ivy. No. Mr. Joyce. Miss Captor. quite interested but no at this moment. Miss Captor, no Mr. Loa.
▶ 3:59:35Mr. Loa, I Miss Lee, yeah. Miss Lee, no. Miss Lllo, Miss Leello, I Mr. Lean, no. Mr. Levan, no. Miss Mallaloy. Miss McCullum. Miss McCullum. No. Miss Ming. Miss Ming. No. Mr. Molinar. Hi. Mr. Molinar. I Mr. Moore Mr. Moore I Mr. Morelli Mr. Morelli no Mr.
▶ 4:00:04Murvan no Mr. Murvan no Mr. New House Mr. New House I Miss Miss Pingri Miss Pingri no Mr. Pokean Mr. Pokean no Mr. Quigley Mr. Russianthaler Mr. Russianthaler I Mr. Rogers Mr. Rogers I Mr. Mr. Rutherford Mr. Rutherford I Mr. Simpson Mr. Strong Mr.
▶ 4:00:33Strong I Mrs. Torres Mrs. Torres No Miss Underwood Miss Underwood no Mr. Valido Mr. Valido I Miss Watchman Schultz Miss Wasserman Schultz Miss Wasserman Schultz No Mrs. Watson Coleman Mrs. Watson Coleman no Mr. Wac Mr. Mr. Wmac I, Mr. Zinci, I Mr.
▶ 4:00:59Zinci I Does any member wish to record their vote or change their vote? Gentleman from Georgia. Mr. Clyde I. Gentle lady from Pennsylvania. Miss Dean. No. Gentleman from Texas. Mr. Cloud I. Gentle lady from Utah. Miss Mallaloy. I. Gentleman from Mr. Diaz Bolard. I Are there others?
▶ 4:01:30Gentle lady from Washington, gentleman from Georgia. No. Mr. Bishop, no. Looking around, are there any others wishing to record or change their vote? Clerk will tally.
▶ 4:02:25On this vote, the eyes are 33, the nose are 26. The amendment in the second degree is adopted. We will now return to the amendment offered by Miss Dellora as amended. Do any members seek recognition to speak on the amendment? Gentle lady from Connecticut's recognized. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I want to close by reminding everyone that the American people are demanding help with the cost of living.
▶ 4:02:55Biggest issue that faced by the American people today and we hear about the issue over and over again. And the last thing that the administration should be doing is engaging in reckless and inflationary trade wars, putting universal tariffs on everything from eggs to produce. The American people need help with the cost of living and uh this amendment as amended would not give that to them. I would just close by saying that it's amazing.
▶ 4:03:25I think Mr. Pokean made reference to this. Republicans are desperate to avoid voting on President Trump's disastrous tariff policies that will increase the price of food for all Americans. It's not restricted to one's district. It is the entire country is suffering already. Prices are already going up with a disastrous trade policy that the president has embarked on and a tariff policy.
▶ 4:03:54I think you ought to try to debate it and discuss it and get in it so that we can do what we can for the American people and address the cost of living problem. Um, I yield back. Oh, and I uh urge a no vote on the underlining amendment as amended. Thank you. The questions now on the amendment offered by Mr. Laura as amended. All those in favor say I.
▶ 4:04:25I. All those opposed say no. The opinion of the chair, the eyes have you want to vote? I gave it to the eyes. You want a recorded vote? That's fine. That's easiest way quite frankly. Recorded votes been requested.
▶ 4:04:53Sufficient number of hands uh have been raised. Uh, the recorded vote is Oh, I'm sorry. We We need one more count if we may. I'm sorry. Of people that want Mrs. Torres, you're twice as good as anybody I know, but you still don't get two votes.
▶ 4:05:26Sufficient number. Yes, sir. Okay. Sufficient number of uh are in support. A recorded vote is ordered. The clerk will call the role. Mr. Adhalt. Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammeday. Mr. Ammedday. No. Mrs. Bice. Mrs. Bice. I. Mr. Bishop. No. Mr. Bishop. No. Mr. Calbertt.
▶ 4:05:57No. Mr. Calbertt. No. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. I Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. No. Mr. Sisammani. Mr. Ciscomani. I Mr. Klene. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Cloud. No. Mr. Klyurn. Mr. Clyde. Mr. Clyde. No. Mr. Cole. No.
▶ 4:06:28Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Miss Dean, Miss Deloro, Mr. Deloro, No. Mr. Diaz Bolard, Mr. Diaz Bolard, no Mr. Edwards. Mr. Elzie, Mr. Elzie, no. Miss Escobar. Miss Escobar. I Miss Escobar. No. Mr. Espayat. No. Mr. Espayott. No. Mr.
▶ 4:06:58Flashman. Mr. Flashman. No, Miss Frankle. Miss Frankle. No, Mr. Franklin. Mr. Franklin. No, Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest? No. Mr. Harter? No. Mr. Harter? No. Dr. Harris? Dr. Harris? No. Mrs. Henson? Mrs. Henson? No. Mr. Hoyer? No. Mr. Hoyer? No. Mr. Ivy? Mr. Ivy? No. Mr. Joyce?
▶ 4:07:29Miss Captor. Miss Captor. No. Mr. Loa. Miss Lee. Miss Lee. No. Miss Latlo. Miss Lllo. No. Mr. Levan. Mr. Levan. No. Miss Mallaloy. Miss McCullum. Miss McCullum. No. Miss Miss Ming. No. Mr. Molinar. Mr.
▶ 4:07:59Molinar, no. Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore, no. Mr. Morelli, Mr. Morelli, no. Mr. Morvan, Mr. Murvan, no. Mr. New House, Mr. New House, no. Miss Perez, Miss Perez, no. Miss Pingri. Miss Pingri, no. Mr. Pokean, Mr. Pokean, Mr. Pokean, no. Mr. Quigley Mr.
▶ 4:08:29Rashenthaler Mr. Russianthaler no Mr. Rogers Mr. Rogers no Mr. Rutherford Mr. Rutherford no Mr. Simpson Mr. Strong Mr. Strong no Mrs. Torres Mrs. Torres no Miss Underwood Miss Underwood no Mr. Valado Mr. Valado. No. Miss Wasserman Schultz. Miss Wasserman Schultz. No. Mrs. Watson Coleman. Mrs.
▶ 4:08:59Watson Coleman. No. Mr. Wmac. Mr. Wac. No. Mr. Zinci. Mr. Zinci. No. Does any member wish to record their vote or change their vote? Gentle lady from Oklahoma. Gentle ladies recorded as a yes. Aaya. No. Mrs. Bice. Gentleman from North Carolina. Mr. Edwards, no. Gentleman from Arizona.
▶ 4:09:29Gentleman is recorded as a yes. Mr. Cisco, off I on. No. Gentleman from Mr. Adhalt. No. Gentleman from New York. Mr. Loa. No. Gentleman from Virginia. Gentle lady from Utah. Miss Mallaloy. No. Gentleman from Texas.
▶ 4:09:59Mr. Gonzalez. No. Gentle lady from Miss Miss Dean. No. Are there others wishing to change or record their vote? Clerk will tally. Oh, sorry. Gentleman from California. Mr. Aguular votes no. others wishing to change or record their Clerk will tally.
▶ 4:11:04On this vote, the eyes are one, the nose are 57. The amendment as amended is not adopted. Gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Hoyer is recognized for an amendment.
▶ 4:11:40You might want to put the gentleman might want to put the mic on. Without objection, the reading of the amendments dispensed with. The gentleman from Maryland's recognized for remarks on his amendment. Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure the exact date, but Elon Musk purchased Twitter some time ago. Microphones on.
▶ 4:12:13Mr. Mr. Wac, can you hear this? Mr. Wac, do you want to hear this? Mr. Wack, will it make a difference? Well, here's another mic. I got all sorts of mics here.
▶ 4:12:42I know that only too well. Musk purchased Twitter. He fired about 70% of the people at the He then hired a major portion of those people back. Some who did not come back, but he failed. Why did you do that?
▶ 4:13:06because he did not make an analysis prior to buying Twitter of exactly how many people and what talents he needed to run Twitter. Now X, he was then tasked to head up a similar effort to blitzkrieg the federal government. He did that and he did the same thing.
▶ 4:13:33Now, in many instances, courts found that he could not do legally what he did. But in other instances, they found that they, by the way, needed the people that they had fired. Now, they didn't fire all of them. Then they gave them options. But I will tell you, as somebody who represents over 70,000 federal employees, none of them thought it was an option.
▶ 4:14:01They thought it was either get out under the offer that was made initially and then the fork in the road or at some point in time get the hatchet. I told you earlier that my wife ran reinventing government for the Clinton Gore administration. She spent about five years doing it. Worked in the White House OM. She had some 400 people succumbed to her.
▶ 4:14:29meaning that she worked with various different people who worked in the agencies themselves to determine what in fact could be done effectively to reduce a the numbers reduced dollars and not to damage and as I say about fiveyear process but she ended up with about a half a million less federal employees she didn't the Clinton Gore did administration what this amendment says
▶ 4:14:59before any agency funded by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration related agency fires through a reduction in force, a dismissal probationary employee deferred resignation program or any similar program. Before they do that, they have to make sure that by doing so they will not undermine revenues of the federal government thereby causing additional deficit.
▶ 4:15:27And the second thing is that they will not increase costs. And the third thing, of course, is that the objectives set by Congress uh could be accomplished with the employees that are left. None of that was done.
▶ 4:15:46I can't believe that there are any of us sitting in this room who don't think if you're going to do a reduction in force in your enterprise, whatever it is, including perhaps your congressional office, you would determine do I need this person, these persons or this activity. That would be, it seems to me, rationally, your first judgment.
▶ 4:16:09that did not happen demonstrabably uh under Musk and the effort that was undertaken because first of all some of it was not legal uh some of it was ill advised and some of it had to be reversed and it had to be reversed quickly and that was done. So, all this amendment says is before you start removing people, you figure out whether you need them.
▶ 4:16:40Now, I know you're all going to vote no on it. I don't understand that because I think it's hard to rationally argue, oh, no, just do it and don't figure out what you're doing. So I would ask all of you uh uh to vote for this with no expectation that you're going to. It's sad. I yield back.
▶ 4:17:10Thanks, gentlemen. Dr. Harris is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much. Uh yeah, there should be no expectation you're going to vote for it. This is report language. If we're serious about this, it would have been bill language. It would have said the department has to do this study.
▶ 4:17:30And if it were bill language, we would just call it the full employment act and every federal agency act because what it would do is make you so cumbersome to fire one employee to reduce force one employee because you have to do a study. Doesn't spell out what the study is. You got to study it. This is why Americans don't have faith in the federal government anymore because this is the way they think federal government runs. It's like a permanent employment situation.
▶ 4:17:59I would get asked in district all the time. I live in Maryland. I've lived near the capital. Well, what are you going to do about federal employees? I'm like, my job is not to guarantee a federal employee their job for life. That is not what I'm sent to Congress to do.
▶ 4:18:12I'm sent to Congress on this committee to make appropriate decisions to keep our fiscal policy sustainable, not to guarantee permanent employee for every person who ever walked through the threshold in a federal agency getting What this does, it first of all has no enforcement. It's it's this I mean this is just rhetoric. We're going to spend we'll probably be here till 3:00 a.m.
▶ 4:18:39again because we're going to probably require a vote on this rhetorical move. If this was serious, it would have been bill language. It's not serious. I get the I get the partisan rhetoric, but let me tell you something. The American people get it, too. They know there was waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, and they look to the president. They elected him to solve that problem.
▶ 4:19:07This reverses the mandate of last November's election. So, I urge you to reject even the committee report. Yield back. Thanks, gentlemen. The gentleman uh from Georgia, Mr. Bishop, is recognized to address the amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 4:19:29I rise in strong support of the amendment from the gentleman from It simply requires an analysis prior to any mass rifts, forks in the road, or deferred resignation programs. That didn't happen, but we can avoid that mistake going forward. And therefore, I urge a yes vote, and I yield back.
▶ 4:19:59Thank the gentleman. And do any other members seek recognition to speak to the amendment? Gentleman from Maryland is Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um I rise in support of the amendment. Um and I um share Mr. Hoyer's concern about the uh the attack on federal employees.
▶ 4:20:21Uh just briefly though, um my other colleague from Maryland, Chairman Harris, um made comments about waste, fraud, and abuse and also suggested that um this is a a full employment effort with respect to government employees. But um I'd say this.
▶ 4:20:39Somewhere between the uh chainsaw attack and firings and a full employment effort, there's a rational approach that would be based on some sort of analysis to see where it made sense to reduce the the work workforce and how to go about doing it. The uh approach that Congressman Hoyer mentioned previously is a great example of how that can be done successfully and how this should have been done.
▶ 4:21:05And we know that this was done the wrong way because the Trump administration ended up having to bring people back who had been fired in some instances just a few days before. And in some some situations they didn't even know who they'd fired or why they'd fired them. So, uh I I I think it's disingenuous frankly to to sort of make an argument like that when we know better than that.
▶ 4:21:27Um, and the waste fraud abuse argument doesn't make a lot of sense either because as we saw with USDA in particular, but many other agencies across the board, the first thing the Trump administration did when they came in was fire the IG's. And you know, if you want to go after waste, fraud, and abuse, that's not where you start. You would actually work with them. Uh, and this IG who was at USDA was especially good.
▶ 4:21:52Um she'd been appointed by numerous presidents including Republicans um and had a sterling career. I think she'd helped to return um 17 million $17 billion over the course of her investigations while she'd been in the U services in IG over I believe it was 25 years. So you know firing her and obviously the Trump administration never gave an explanation as to why they fired her because they don't have a good one. That's in court. So, we'll see how that gets resolved.
▶ 4:22:22But um I think it's unfortunate that we we want to sort of make that kind of um attacking an individual um who has a sterling career like many of the other federal government employees. And the last point I'll make is this and that's the brain drain issue. as we rush to push these people out the door, scientists and researchers who are doing outstanding work at USDA and we'll be able to talk about this in with respect to other uh departments and agencies.
▶ 4:22:54Um many of our overseas rivals uh some friendly like Germany and uh France, some not so friendly like China are welcoming our research talent uh scientist uh and tech talent with open arms and it's undermining our ability moving forward. This is this is agriculture so it's a little bit of a different animal but we're hurting oursel and we can talk about this down the road with respect to uh AI, quantum uh computing and the like.
▶ 4:23:22uh we're giving an advantage to China at a time when we can at least afford it. And I don't know that we're actually going to be able to close that gap after they they uh take the talent away from us. And by the way, China obviously is stealing a lot of technology um and innovation from the United States, but they're also building on what they're getting from us, too.
▶ 4:23:43And while we're making these cuts to research and sending our scientists and technologists away and actually also making cuts to students uh in college and and graduate school, taking away their funding and steering them away from the track that we need them to go on. China's doing the exact opposite. They're throwing billions of dollars into the research and training for those sorts of uh scientists and engineers and technologists. So, we can stay on this track.
▶ 4:24:13Um, and whether it's report language or bill language, I think, as Congressman Hoyer pointed out, you're probably going to vote against it anyway, either way. But at the end of the day, this is something we're really hurting our country uh by doing it this way, and I hope we'll re refocus and redirect and take a different approach. So, I certainly support the amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same. And I yield back. Thank the gentleman for his comments. Gentle lady from Texas, Miss Escobar is recognized to address the amendment.
▶ 4:24:44Chairman, I rise in support of Mr. Hoyer's amendment. I'm a little surprised at the way our federal workforce is being characterized um by the the chairman of this subcommittee. I don't know if you all have spoken to the federal employees, these dedicated public servants in your own district.
▶ 4:25:09If you've heard from them in your town hall meetings, if you've met with them in your stakeholder group I have. And I will tell you, many of these very dedicated public servants have devoted their adult and professional life to serving the American people. This amendment does not quote guarantee anyone a job for life.
▶ 4:25:36That's not what this amendment is about at all. And in fact, I I I think it's important to impress upon my colleagues that many members of our federal workforce save us money. They also save lives.
▶ 4:25:55In agg, for example, food inspectors, people who keep our food safe, people who make sure that Americans don't get sick from outbreaks or illnesses that affect the food supply. This is a good thing. This keeps people safe. This saves us money.
▶ 4:26:19And it's I mean I think we've all probably read the articles about Elon Musk acknowledging that he that they would make mistakes during the Doge cuts. He said it. We're going to make mistakes.
▶ 4:26:35So if he can admit it, if he can acknowledge that mistakes have been made and in fact there is even if you don't want to believe Elon Musk anymore, there's an implicit acknowledgment of that mistake in the effort to rehire many of these employees after they were summarily dismissed.
▶ 4:27:00I really would encourage you all to speak to the federal employees, these public service in your own districts. Each one of us has federal employees in our districts. Give them the opportunity to share with you the angst, the anxiety that they are feeling with these cuts that are pretty indiscriminate in many ways, especially those Doge cuts.
▶ 4:27:28Allow them the privilege as your constituents to tell you how they help the mission of the federal government and the impact that they make on the lives of the people in our districts. And just as a reminder, here's what this amendment does. It is report.
▶ 4:27:52It is a report calling for a report certifying that these staffing changes which have been admitted many of which have been admitted to be a mistake by Elon Musk that that any these staffing changes would not reduce revenue. We we don't want to reduce the revenue especially after the significant cuts that were made by the reconciliation bill nor increase costs.
▶ 4:28:18I think I think we can all agree that's a good thing to the respective agency and a study that the affected employee is no longer necessary to carrying out the agency's mission. You know, yesterday we were debating the Milcom VA bill and I didn't hear any of my colleagues defending the 80,000 person cuts coming to the VA.
▶ 4:28:45You're not stopping it, but I didn't hear anyone defending it because we know that those public servants deliver a service. They have a purpose. So, Mr. Hoyer, I strongly support this very common sense amendment that would give us information. We are, after all, the appropriations committee. We have the power of the purse, or at least we once did.
▶ 4:29:14Um, and so this information can be very helpful, I believe. Thank you for the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thanks, gentle lady. Do any other amendments? Uh, excuse me. Members seek recognition to speak to the amendment. If there is no further debate, uh, the gentleman is recognized for one minute to close. I thank the uh chairman for yielding.
▶ 4:29:44We heard a very cynical argument that this was a permanent employment. That's bologoney has nothing to do with it. I don't care how big the federal government is. I don't care whether we upsize it or downsize it. What I want to make sure is we rightsize it. And any of you are involved in any operation, that's I presume what you want to do as well.
▶ 4:30:10Whether you're running a farm, a ranch, or your offices, you want to rightsize it. They had no idea what the right size is. They may had a premise that it was too big, but they didn't have any premise as to what right sizing really was all about and a cynicism. This report language means nothing. I think I agree with you, doctor, because the administration doesn't give a damn what the Congress has to say.
▶ 4:30:40So whether we say it in report, whether we say it in laws, and they don't care what the law says, Homeman said, I don't care what the judges say. So we can take that position and we will be a essentially a talking body without any effect if we take the premise of report language doesn't mean anything because I will tell you when I served early on in this committee when
▶ 4:31:10we said something to the report the agencies thought we meant it and they did it. That of course is not true under this administration. I agree with Dr. Harris completely. I also think that's unfortunate.
▶ 4:31:25So, I urge a rational vote on looking at what we're doing and rightsizing our Questions now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. No. Can the chair the nose have it? Roll call has been requested. Would ask for a show of hands.
▶ 4:32:00sufficient number now having been reached. Recorded vote has been recorded. Thank you, Grace. Uh recorded vote is ordered. The clerk will uh Yes, sir. Call the role. Mr. Adder Holt, no. Mr. Adterholt, no. Mr. Aguilar, Mr. Agular. I Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Ammedday. No. Mrs. Bice. Mrs. Bice. No. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I Mr. Calvert.
▶ 4:32:32Mr. Carter. Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. I Mr. Mr. Sisammani. No. Mr. Klene. Mr. Klene. No. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Klyurn. Speak to him. Mr. Clyde. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Yes. Mr. Quayar. I Miss Dean. Mr. Deloro. I. Mr. Deluro.
▶ 4:33:02I Mr. Diaz Mr. Edwards. Mr. Elzie. Miss Escobar. Miss Escobar. I Mr. Espat Mr. Flechman Mr. Flechman No Miss Miss Frankle I Mr. Franklin Mr. Franklin no Mr. Gonzalez Mr. Gonzalez no Mr. Guest Mr. Guest no Mr. Harter Dr.
▶ 4:33:32Harris Dr. Harris no Mrs. Henson Mrs. Henson no Mr. Hoyer I Mr. Hoyer I Mr. Ivy Mr. Ivy I Mr. Joyce Mr. Joyce. No. Miss Captor. I. Miss Captor. I Mr. Loa. Mr. Loa. No. Miss Lee. Miss Llo. Miss Lllo.
▶ 4:34:02No. Mr. Levan. Mr. Levan. I. Miss Mallaloy. Miss Mallaloy. No. Miss McCollum. Miss McCollum. I Miss Ming. Miss Ming. I Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. No. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. No. Mr. Morelli. Mr. Morelli. I Mr. Murvan. Mr. Murvan. I. Mr. New House. Mr. New House. No. Miss. Perez. Miss Perez. No. Miss Pingri.
▶ 4:34:33Miss. Pingri. Miss. Pingri. I. Mr. Pokean. Mr. Pokean. I. Mr. Quigley. Mr. Rashenthaler. Mr. Rashenthaler. No. Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers. No. Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Rutherford. No. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Strong. Mr. Strong. No. Mrs. Torres. Mrs. Torres. I I Mrs. Torres.
▶ 4:35:03I Miss Underwood. Miss Underwood. I Mr. Valido. Mr. Valido. No. Miss Washerman Schultz. Hi. Miss Wasserman Schultz I Mrs. Watson Coleman Mrs. Watson Coleman I Mr. WAC Mr. Womac no Mr. Zinci Mr. Zinci no do any members wish to record their vote or change their vote gentleman from Mr.
▶ 4:35:34Harter gentleman from New York Mr. Espay. Uh, gentle lady from Miss Dean. I gentleman from Texas. Mr. LZ. No. The other gentleman from Mr. CL. There's only two. No. The gentleman from California. No. Mr. Calbert. No. M. Mr. Harter is recorded as a I. Gentleman from Georgia.
▶ 4:36:04Clyde votes. No. Mr. Clyde. No. Gentleman from North Carolina. Mr. Edwards, no. Gentleman from Texas. Mr. Carter, no. Gentleman from Florida. Mr. Diaz Bolard, no. Are there other members wishing to change or record their vote? Seeing none, the clerk will tally. Which mic is this?
▶ 4:36:34This is a roing mic. this
▶ 4:37:08recorded as I Actually, the gentle lady from Nevada is not recorded. Has Miss Lee?
▶ 4:37:29I on this vote. The eyes are 25, the nose are 35. The amendment is not adopted. Is there any further amendments?
▶ 4:37:56I believe the gentle lady from Ohio, Miss Captor, is recognized for an amendment. Uh thank you uh Chairman Cole. I rise to offer an amendment chapter one. The amendment is at the desk and I ask unanimous consent to wave further reading. Without objection, the reading of the amendment is dispensed with. Gentle lady from Ohio is recognized for remarks on her amendment. Dear members of the committee, um uh photos are being passed out to you.
▶ 4:38:25I ask you just to look at them to give you a sense of what I'm going to be talking about here. But I offer this amendment uh to better connect the US Department of Agriculture to food production in communities it has long ignored. I offer this amendment to um restore essential funding for the office of urban agriculture and innovative production.
▶ 4:38:52uh we across this great country including places I represent have a new age of farmers coming up. They are a driving force for innovation and this is uh the photos you're looking at are in communities that I have visited and know when in order to encompass what I'm talking about.
▶ 4:39:15This is not farming 2,000 acres of corn out in rural This is developing new technology that makes possible new growing chambers and technologies including in communities that can even be urban as well as suburban and rural urban and community uh cannot be overstated.
▶ 4:39:39The importance of it cannot be overstated for Frankly, it is exciting to observe America's creativity and to reclaim production where possible closest to home. So, let me give you some examples. I don't have a picture of this, but you can look it up on the internet. In New York City, we have a company called Gotham Greens. They're growing spinach and basil uh and turning their products into uh direct product sale as well as dressings.
▶ 4:40:08Uh and they're placing their buildings on top of abandoned industrial structures. This is creativity in agriculture in America. If you look at the uh photos that are being passed out to you, you will see one that has some white baskets that look like it's hanging on the stick. That's actually my yard. We produce about 4 to 500 pounds of food a year that we give to our food banks and to our feeding kitchens. And believe me, every onion, every piece of lettuce is taken.
▶ 4:40:37Um, it's a drip irrigation system powered by a solar panel hooked up to the city water system. It's really an amazing It's amazing thing to see creativity in all sizes. Um, on the big side, we've got companies that have grown in our region up to 100 acres, four season production, polyhouses, growing organic vegetables and fruits throughout the year.
▶ 4:41:01Nothing is more beautiful than picking organic strawberries as the snow is falling in December in these chambers. They do not exist in strictly rural America, but new energy technologies and new agricultural innovation has made possible growing in forgotten places, places that were never thought of before. In Ohio and elsewhere, urban agriculture can be seen in signs of it in massive farmers markets.
▶ 4:41:29If you're in Eastern Market in uh Michigan, in Detroit, Michigan, or you're at the uh Ohio City Market in Cleveland, Ohio, you'll see skyscrapers in one of the pictures we gave you that is in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio, surrounded by certain public housing projects. There are Burmese farmers producing the best food you'd ever want to eat. And they have a farmers market right there in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio. Westside Market in Cleveland, Ohio. I recommend it to all of you. The Toledo Farmers Market.
▶ 4:41:58Um, some of these producers are fledgling and uh, but what's interesting, they've innovated with rooftop gardens and uh, they feed into our farmers markets in all these different locations and we have so many farmers now, younger farmers doing organic production who bring their product to the big farmers in the cities. We have to encourage this. Some of our next generation farmers are going to come from these places. Um, so what do we do?
▶ 4:42:27We produce grow people who are expert in growing and the department of agriculture must see them. They must see them. They must not discount them. They're involved with healthier living self-reliance. They need to learn more about all the technologies of agriculture, but they are learning and they're inventing new ones. You'll see an in aquaponics uh photo that's included there. at they're growing fish and vegetables and they have a thriving successful business that they turned into restaurants around the region that I represent.
▶ 4:42:56So what we're asking USDA to do is don't discount these innovators. This is really worth something in this bill. The um funding for the program was I think forgot there was no funding in the program. But I am telling you this is one of those places at USDA that is actually a center for innovation in places that USDA didn't even know about. So um I do think it has a place at agriculture.
▶ 4:43:22I would ask the chairman of the full committee to just think about it as we move forward um and work with the Senate on a final bill. But honestly this is to me this is just as exciting as milking my first cow. So uh and it's out there and we need to enhance it. I thank you very much.
▶ 4:43:38I look forward to working with our Senate colleagues and um to create pillars for better health in our communities, for economic opportunity, and obviously for environmental progress by reusing land that was throwaway land before. My time is expired, but Mr. chairman.
▶ 4:43:56Um I would likely withdraw the amendment in order that we not that we have more chance for people to understand what this is all about and gain strength as we move to conference with the Senate. Well, I thank the gentle lady for her presenting the amendment and I appreciate the withdrawal in the interest of time, but certainly continue the dialogue. Thank you very much.
▶ 4:44:26that Mr. Bishop is recognized for an I have an amendment at have an amendment at the desk and I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with. Without objection, the reading of the amendment dispensed with and the gentleman from Georgia is recognized for remarks on his amendment. Mr. Mr.
▶ 4:44:49Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment which will strengthen rural infrastructure and help keep the American dream within reach of rural families. This amendment addresses the devastating cuts to USDA rural development. In particular, the cuts to the community facilities loans and rural housing assistance. This bill guts community facility loans by 1.8 billion below the FY25 level and 250 million below the president's budget request.
▶ 4:45:19My amendment, which is completely offset, would provide an additional $370 million in loans for section 502 direct single family housing loans, an additional 250 million in community facilities direct loans. My amendment also restores rural housing assistance grants funding to 35 million and section mutual and self-help housing grants funding to 15 million.
▶ 4:45:49When we cut community facilities loans, we are really making it harder for small towns and counties to build hospitals, to have enough patrol cars, to make sure their firefighters have safe equipment, and to provide other essential needs that they cannot afford without the partnership uh these loans provide.
▶ 4:46:09In my own district, community facility loans have been used to invest in two fully appointed patrol vehicles for the law enforcement of Blakeley, Georgia, a city with a population of about 4,500 people. But these loans are not just important in my part of Georgia. In Georgia's ninth congressional district, represented by Mr. Clyde, community facility loans help build a new healthc care facility in Banks County.
▶ 4:46:37In Iowa's third congressional district, represented by Miss Henson, used over $8 million in community facility loans to repair and resurface roads in four cities. In Arizona's sixth congressional district, represented by Mr. Ciscomani, a 52,579,000 loan helped build a 132,000 square foot healthc care facility in the city of Kasa Grande.
▶ 4:47:07In Mississippi's third congressional district, represented by Mr. Guest, a $19 million, $710,000 loan helped build a new medical office building in the city of Brook Haven, which increased community access to health care. And let us not forget the return on the investment that these community facility loans are making. Every dollar invested returns multiple dollars in property tax base increases. construction and other jobs.
▶ 4:47:37My amendment would help USDA finance roughly 1,700 additional low-income rural home loans. And by restoring rural housing assistance grants will helping with home ownership as well as home especially for some of our most vulnerable like the elderly. They need these grants to help with projects like building a handicap ramp or other necessary improvements to keep them safe in their own home as they age.
▶ 4:48:07It's important that we recognize that rural communities are already at a disadvantage here, including limited access to financing, high-cost loans, and fewer banks and branches to serve them. It can be hard to become a homeowner in rural America, and home ownership is a cornerstone of the American dream. The underlying bill takes us in the direction of turning a century back on the clock in America when less than half of the homes in our country were owned by their occupants.
▶ 4:48:35My amendments point us back in the right direction and help make it a little easier for folks to achieve the dream and create greater financial stability on which families cannot just survive but also thrive. My amendment gives this bill the funding necessary for Congress to remain a strong, dependable partner for America's rural communities, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank I thank the gentleman.
▶ 4:49:04The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Harris, Dr. Harris, is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much. Thank you much, M. Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Bishop for offering it and for the you know enthusiasm you have for the um for this program the rural housing program. The problem with the with the amendment if if you want to look it up and look at it is where it gets the monies from.
▶ 4:49:31So the bottom line is it takes it takes the uh office of the secretary which includes departmental administration. So on the one hand, you know, the argument is, well, there's not enough people to administer all these things that are that are have to be done at the USDA. We already reduced that secretary's office by 15 million from 58 million to 43 This takes another $15 million to bring it to 28 million.
▶ 4:50:01It doesn't work. You can't I mean, it'd be great if we could print money. It would be this would be wonderful but we can't. The bottom line is we already took money out of the secretary's office. This decimates the office of the which includes again departmental administration.
▶ 4:50:16So for instance uh on page five line 14 it strikes 85 million and inserts 65 million which is for the office of the chief information officer but it doesn't change the next line which says of that 65 million not less than 60 million has to be for cyber So it takes a 25 million delta and makes it a 5 million.
▶ 4:50:39So everything else the office chief uh information officer does collect all the data all that it reduce it by 80% to do this. So what I would offer is that if you know I'll work with the gentleman before we go to the floor we'll find it we'll find some money but it can't be these kind of cuts to that to the office of the sec again a cut to something that's already been cut especially looking at departmental administration again
▶ 4:51:09um I'll use the word I mean draconian cuts at some point we are passing appropriations uh I'll offer to work with the gentleman will attempt to restore some of this, but we'll have to I mean again we'll have to find it either somewhere else in the bill or to a lesser degree in those in those the places where the gentleman suggests.
▶ 4:51:29So with that as it sits I would have to recommend uh that we reject the amendment as it sits again with the offer even if we reject this amendment that we could that we could work before we come to full committee. I yield back before we come to the floor Thank gentlemen. The gentle lady from Connecticut, the ranking member of the full committee is recognized to address the amendment.
▶ 4:51:52I rise in support of this amendment which pro protects critical repair self-help grants that help families and seniors fix up their homes and build equity. The section 502 direct loan program is the only federal mortgage that targets home ownership exclusively for low and very lowincome buyers. Adding $370 million means 1,700 more families can trade rent for a modest mortgage, building wealth instead of spending their hard-earned money on rent.
▶ 4:52:20The 502 direct program invested in over 29,000 home purchases over the last five years. The community facility direct loan invests in critical infrastructure in rural communities across the country and does so at no cost to the taxpayer. This amendment would increase the funding for loans under the program to the level in the president's budget.
▶ 4:52:41We must take action because the current bill's $15 million cut uh would reduce the number of home repair projects that would keep seniors in their home by 18%. With this funding, we can fix over 8,500 roofs and ramps avoid residents having injuries that result in nursing home placements. Additionally, mutual and self-help grants will give nonprofits the staff they need to help families literally build their own homes.
▶ 4:53:08The current bill's $5 million cut undermines the program and would prevent potentially hundreds of families from investing quote sweat equity into homes they build with their own hands. Investing in rural communities through these housing programs is one of the most costeffective ways this committee can lower the cost of living for everyday Americans. Because firefighters deserve stations that don't leak and families in rural communities deserve homes that they can call their own.
▶ 4:53:35I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. The gentle lady from Maine, Miss Pengu recognized to address the amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I strongly support this amendment. Um, you might not be able to tell, but these cuts to rural development really have my blood boiling. So, this is what I look like when my blood is boiling. Uh, you may all not represent rural states, but I do. Maine is one of the most rural states in the nation.
▶ 4:54:05We are a Congress that constantly says, "We support rural communities. We want to help out small towns and those people who are struggling in rural areas of our country. But cuts to rural development do exactly the opposite." The ranking member talked about some of the damage that will be done by cutting the community facility grants, but I want to focus on the housing portion of this.
▶ 4:54:28The chair said we couldn't possibly pass this amendment because um it would cut somewhere else in the administration of the USDA and I understand his concerns about that. But let's just talk about this. This is a Republican majority in the House. you have the majority uh and the ability to decide what the allocation will be here and what you want to mark up to the USDA and with rural development.
▶ 4:54:54So the overall spending here is a reflection of your values and your budget and you are making cuts right now that will impact housing in rural communities. We're also doing this in the lens of the big beautiful bill which is also going to cut taxes for the wealthiest in this country. and you are showing your priorities are somewhere else u as well as increasing the deficit. But I just want to talk about the housing crisis in my state because I have a feeling it's happening in your state too.
▶ 4:55:23Now this issue has been growing for us in Maine and I've been surprised that more people don't focus on housing because I know affordability of housing is an issue everywhere else but for our state it's been a perfect storm. Going back to the recession in '08 and '09, uh we stopped building enough houses and that was true in many places in the country. Maine also happens to be the oldest state in the nation. So we didn't have a lot of influx of people and we didn't have a lot of new housing developments. So we were already behind and then the pandemic hit.
▶ 4:55:52And the good news was for a state that is the oldest in the nation and was declining in population, everybody figured out they actually wanted to live in a state like Maine and our housing was more affordable and that it was a great safe place to raise your children and move your family. So that's wonderful because we've had the first immigration uh that we've seen since the early 1970s and it's good for our population. It's good for our workforce, but it hasn't been good for our housing stock. The median price of our house of a house now in our state is $410,000.
▶ 4:56:23That's the median price. That's not affordable for a young working family. It used to be if you moved to a rural town somewhere in our state, you could actually buy a house for 75,000 125,000 you could really get a good start. And it used to be with what they called farmer's home loans. You could start out with a very low interest rate through rural development and get that house, make sure your family had an affordable house.
▶ 4:56:48You could make the payments and know that you would have a house uh that would be stable for you and you could give to your children. Well, now we're trying to catch up. Our house needs about 84,000 houses to be constructed by 2030. And there's no way we can meet that goal. Now, 84,000 houses probably doesn't sound like a lot if you're from Texas, but in our tiny little state of 1.3 million people, that is a lot of houses to build.
▶ 4:57:12And wouldn't you know, I popped out for a minute and like many of you went into my office to see who was there and had a quick meeting with the National Association of Homebuilders. Uh Travis and Carl were in my office and what did they want to talk about? Their inability to meet the goals of building enough houses in our state because there's a supply chain shortage. because it's very expensive, because interest rates are high. Um because the highest because people want to build those expensive houses, not affordable houses, and we don't have enough workers in our state.
▶ 4:57:40And unfortunately, we've had a lot picked up recently and removed from our state for the reason that you know is going on around our country. So, we have a perfect storm going on. We need this level of support. To lose even a dollar that would go into affordable housing or rural housing is a crime in this country. It's a travesty. It's the same problem in every one of your states, even if the numbers look different in my state. And to make this level of cuts here, even if it's a dollar, is wrong.
▶ 4:58:08But to have these as priorities in how you develop this budget is wrong, too. I know you want to do otherwise. I hope you will vote for this amendment. And I hope you will reconsider as we moved down the road on this bill, putting more money into rural housing because where else are we going to get it when we're cutting HUD and we're cutting so many other levels of government right now. Uh please reflect this in your priorities and put money back into housing. And I yield back. Thank the gentle lady for thoughtful remarks.
▶ 4:58:39Any other members seek re recognition to speak to this amendment? Seeing none, the questions now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia. He has one minute to close. Thank you very much. You've heard the discussion and I appreciate very much the chair's willingness to work with us between now and the time this process is finalized.
▶ 4:59:06Uh but I think it's a good amendment and I would urge us to vote for it. uh because it's good for rural America, it's good for America, and I think that uh it's what this committee should do uh as we take up this agriculture, rural development, and FDA appropriations bill. So, I urge the passage of the amendment questions now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia. All those in favor say I. I.
▶ 4:59:36All those opposed say no. No. the opinion of the chair that nos have it. Roll call has been called for and uh a sufficient number of hands have been raised. So the clerk will call the role. Mr. Adderhalt. Mr. Adder Halt. No. Mr. Agular. Mr. Agular. I. Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Ammeday. No. Mrs. Bice.
▶ 5:00:08Mr. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I Mr. Calbertt. Mr. Calbertt. No. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. No. Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. I. Mr. Sisammani. Mr. Sisammani. No. Mr. Klene. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Cloud. No. Mr. Klyurn. Yes. Mr. Klyber. I. Mr. Clyde. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Mr. Quayar.
▶ 5:00:38I Miss Mr. Loro. Hi. Mr. Loro. I Mr. Diaz Bollard. No, Mr. Diaz Bolard. No, Mr. Mr. Edwards. No, Mr. Elie. No, Mr. Elseie. No. Miss Escobar. Miss Escobar. I. Mr. Espayat. Mr. Espayat. I. Mr. Fleshman. Mr. Fleshman. No. Miss Mr. Franklin. Mr. Franklin. No. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez. No. Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest. No. Mr. Mr. Harter. Hi.
▶ 5:01:08Mr. Harter. I Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris. No. Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson. No. Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Ivy. Mr. Ivy. I. Mr. Joyce. Mr. Joyce. No. Miss Captor. Miss Captor. I. Mr. Loa. No. Mr. Loa. No. Miss Lee. Miss Lee. I miss Latlo. Miss Latlo. No. Mr. Leaven. Hi. Mr.
▶ 5:01:37Eleven I Miss Malloy Miss Mallaloy no Miss McCollum Miss McCullum I Miss Ming Miss Ming I Mr. Molinar Mr. Molar No Mr. Moore Mr. Moore no Mr. Morelli Mr. Morelli I Mr. Mr. New House Mr. Mr. New House. No. Miss Perez. Miss Perez. I Miss Pingri. Yes. Miss Pingri. I. Mr. Pokean.
▶ 5:02:07Mr. Pokean. I. Mr. Quigley. Mr. Quigley. I. Mr. Russianthaler. Mr. Russianthaler. No. Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers. No. Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Rutherford. No. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson. No. Mr. Strong. Mr. Strong. No. Mrs. Torres. Mrs. Torres. No. Miss Underwood. Miss Underwood I. Mrs. Torres I. Mrs. Torres votes I. Miss Underwood votes I.
▶ 5:02:37Mr. Valado. Mr. Valido. I Miss Washerman Schultz. Miss Washerman Schultz. I Mrs. Watson Coleman. Mrs. Watson Coleman. I Mr. Wac. Mr. Wac. No. Mr. Zinci. Mr. Zinci. No. Does any member wish to record their vote or change their vote? Gentleman from Virginia. Mr. Klein votes no. Gentleman from Maryland. I. Mr. Hoyer votes I.
▶ 5:03:07And gentle lady from Florida. Miss. Frankle votes I. Gentleman from Georgia. No. Mr. Clyde votes no. Are there others I have missed? clerk will tally before uh we actually announce this uh I would encourage the discussion between the chair and the ranking member.
▶ 5:03:34I think there is common ground that might be found here and I hope going forward we can do it. But I I leave that to your good offices. I know you're both exceptionally skilled and able You can still vote.
▶ 5:04:02So, yes, On this vote, the eyes are 28,
▶ 5:04:32the nose are 33. The amendment is not adopted. Mr. Bishop is recognized for an amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment at the desk and ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with. Without objection, the reading of the amendments dispensed with and the gentleman from Georgia is recognized for remarks on his amendment. Mr.
▶ 5:04:54Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment which will help ensure Americans in our rural communities have access to clean and affordable water and that rural towns and counties can maintain improved waste disposal services without straining their budgets or passing a huge tab on to their rateayers.
▶ 5:05:12My amendment will provide uh $20 million to the water and waste grant program, which provides funding for clean and reliable drinking water systems, sanitary sewage disposal, sanitary solid waste disposal, and storm water drainage to households and businesses in eligible rural areas. We're talking about towns with populations of 10,000 people or less. not a large rateayer base to be able to shoulder the burden of such large but absolutely necessary capital improvement projects.
▶ 5:05:42What does this mean in a rural family's lived experience? Well, in Mountainberg, Arkansas, a $1.5 million grant from USDJ Rural Development is helping the city and county with extension of its water system project. An ongoing effort to expand access to clean and affordable water for folks who currently rely on their own wells are hauling in potable water from elsewhere.
▶ 5:06:08In Albian, Idaho, with a population of just over 200 people, a $123,000 grant is helping the city increase its well capacity, constructing a new water storage tank, and replacing dilapidated well facilities, pipelines, as well as water meters.
▶ 5:06:26Because Congress has provided strong funding for water and waste disposal grant programs in the past, Obian families are not having to shoulder on their own the relatively large costs of these capital In Morehead, Kentucky, a $357,000 grant is helping to replace water lines and improving as well as adding pump stations.
▶ 5:06:51All of this is helping improve service to families and reducing the chance of waterline breaks and boil water advisories. Thousands of households are being helped by this project. We can all agree these are worthwhile investments in our rural communities which improve the quality of life of American families.
▶ 5:07:10Making the upfront investment in our town and county water and waste disposal systems saves us the cost of dealing with the consequences of communities that cannot afford to make these improvements. Bad water, short and long-term health problems, and a lack of infrastructure that helps attract and keep businesses in these communities. When we talk about community resilience, these are the building blocks. housing, utilities, infrastructure.
▶ 5:07:41I urge you to support my amendment to add $20 million to the waste and water grant program. Everyone of towns or several towns like Mountainberg, Albian, or Morehead in our state are in our own districts. My amendment will help ensure that Congress continues to be there for them also. So I urge your adoption of this amendment.
▶ 5:08:08I urge your continued commitment to the rural communities, particularly the small rural communities in this country. Rural America deserves to have the same opportunities, the same quality of life as any place else in this great country. With that, I yield back. Thank I thank gentlemen very much. Gentleman from Marary Maryland, Dr. Harris is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much.
▶ 5:08:38Um, ladies and gentlemen, look, I reluctantly rise to oppose the amendment. I I appreciate again the enthusiasm of the ranking member for, you know, increasing the funding in some of these programs. Look, it we could spend a billion in these programs. We could spend two billion because the backlog is huge.
▶ 5:08:59Well, we already had this discussion yesterday during the military construction bill when the gentleman from Texas said, "Yeah, that Corpus Christie naval station, it needs some money." And we said, "Well, there's only so much money to go around. It's not on the list. That's it." That's what we have to do. We have we have Look, we have to make tough decisions. We have a $2 trillion deficit.
▶ 5:09:22And again, just like the last amendment, the problem is is that the the subcommittee has already shaken the sofa and all the money's come out of it. So the ranking member looks to shake it a little more, but where did he draw where is this amendment drawn to get that money from? Well, it turns out it's the it's the unobligated balances in the rural development salaries and expenses.
▶ 5:09:49Well, those rural development offices are important and we've heard that. We've actually heard the problems with cutting back some of the rural development staffing. We are already cut that that account to 305 million, which is a 15% reduction. We've already cut that account $45 This amendment cuts it another 20.
▶ 5:10:15Well, yes, it's an unobligated balance, but that's what you can use to make up for the fact that we have cut $46 million. And that in a lot of these offices, you do actually need personnel. You do actually have expenses. So, it kind of cuts off your nose to spite your face for our rural communities. It's like, what do you want? The waste of water or do you want the rural development salaries and expenses? Because you can't have them both. I would offer we have the balance necessary in the bill.
▶ 5:10:43Again, I appreciate the gentleman and I look, these these are done in my district. They're done in a lot of your districts. They're important. Again, we could spend a billion. We could spend two billion. Part of the problem is that this actually goes after some of the personnel in rural development in order to pay for those projects. So, I just don't think that that's a that's a tradeoff that's worth doing. We've considered we've considered this carefully.
▶ 5:11:11Uh again, I'm just going to have to rise and unfortunately oppose the gentleman's amendment. Yield back. Thank the gentleman. The gentle lady from Texas, Miss Escobar, is recognized to address the amendment. Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to thank the ranking member for fighting for this funding. And I think it's important to know this is not an increase over last year's funding.
▶ 5:11:42This is an increase that would mitigate the cuts being made to this funding. And so when we hear, you know, we'd love to increase funding for everything, uh, which I agree with. There's a lot of great programs, but this isn't like an add-on to money that is the status quo. This is mitigating deep cuts.
▶ 5:12:08I also agree the, you know, having to make a lot of these tough decisions is painful and I do not shy away from making tough decisions. I served as the county judge in my community uh of El Paso for a dozen years and or I served in county government for a dozen years, two terms as the county judge. We had to make a lot of tough decisions at the local level every single week.
▶ 5:12:38Here's the thing. This is really important funding. I spoke in my opening remarks about colonials and what they are and why they were created. They were created because of a decision of the state legislature in the state of Texas to allow developers to develop land without water and wastewater.
▶ 5:13:04I I I cannot describe the living conditions of people who have to live without running water and waste water in the United States of America. It's it's unacceptable and it should be unacceptable to all of us. But because state legislatures refused to hold developers accountable, families who were told, "Oh, the water's coming.
▶ 5:13:31The waste water is coming." have waited decades, decades. And the local governments, like the local government that I was head of, the county government, when water connections cost hundreds of millions of dollars, that pretty much represents the entire budget of that local government.
▶ 5:13:52And so this is where the federal government can and should step in to ensure that people have dignity in their quality of life, the bare minimum, water and wastewater. And we can do that today simply by maintaining the status quo from last year and stopping the deep cuts.
▶ 5:14:16and we can pay for it by making sure the wealthiest in America pay their fair share. That's where those decisions come in. I mean, believe me, I'm all in on tax breaks and tax cuts for hardworking families. I'm all in on that. And I'm all in on recognizing that we have to address the deficit. That is a crisis that all of us need to fix together.
▶ 5:14:47We don't do it by giving millionaires and billionaires tax breaks. We just don't. They have to pay their fair share so that we can lift people up out of third world country conditions with no water, no wastewater, and we're not having to make that choice of full funding the rural community office versus water hookups so that people can turn on their faucet or
▶ 5:15:17turn on their shower and have water. So, I think the underlying decision on how to fund this is pretty easy. And I the need and the justification of that need is pretty easy. And Mr. Bishop, I'm grateful for your leadership and your advocacy. I stand alongside you.
▶ 5:15:44I am not going to quit until every single family has access to what we take for granted on a daily basis, turning on their faucets and being able to get clean running water. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank the gentle lady for comments. Are there other members wishing to address the amendment?
▶ 5:16:10Seeing none, the gentleman from Oh, gentle lady from Ohio is recognized to address the amendment. Thank you uh very much, Mr. Chairman. I rise in strong support of the Bishop amendment and wish to say that fresh, clean water is life. It is the starting point. It's first base. Um I happen to represent a region that uh has certainly benefited from this program.
▶ 5:16:38uh literally places that I've represented to go to them. Smaller towns, even some that drained into our major drinking water lake, Lake Erie, uh you had to wear boots because you knew that the sewage was seeping through the uh ground uh all times of the year, even the winter. Well, we fixed that. And if it weren't for USDA, we never would have been able to do it. Uh I represented communities.
▶ 5:17:02They took them away with gerrymandering, but uh we found pollution along a major river and we couldn't figure out how it got there. And by golly, it led us to a uh dig uh of uh old refues left over from the Atomic Energy Commission 50 years ago, 60 years ago, and I thought it would be a $5 million job to try to clean up the area.
▶ 5:17:29uh I no longer represent it but continue to fund it and we've now probably spent over $185 million. Uh we think some of the waste may have been shipped in the 1950s through Hannerford out on the West Coast. We're not sure yet. And I said, "What?" And they said, "Yeah, Marcy, they use this area as a dumping ground." Well, we still don't have all the homes in the area connected to uh a fresh water, but it obviously is eligible for that.
▶ 5:17:54My point is there are many places in this country that need attention and needed it long ago. And I want to commend uh Congressman Bishop uh ranking member Bishop for offering this amendment. You know, we can think hard about who's not paying taxes.
▶ 5:18:12Uh and uh may you know you don't want to be too creative, but maybe the president could charge for rides on that new airplane uh that uh cutter gave us and uh let people raise the money and uh you know uh put it in this account, donate it to the government of the United States. Uh there are different things that can be done to try to raise the money, but this is really needed. Everybody here knows it. Every single person sitting in this room knows it. So thank you very much.
▶ 5:18:41Uh, Congressman Bishop, and I support your amendment thoroughly. Thank the gentle lady. Uh, do any other members wish to address the amendment? Seeing none, the gentleman's recognized for one minute to close. Mr.
▶ 5:18:56Chairman, I just want to say a couple of decades ago, I had a district director who was a former mayor who went to visit uh a after he was questioned by a count local county commissioner and a mayor uh that their water tower had ceased to work and they wanted some help.
▶ 5:19:12He went down to visit and he saw that in the town where the water tower was servicing uh the residents that there was just across the tracks within that city a part that had no running water whatsoever. And he visited that side of the tracks, the other side of the tracks, and he came back and said, "We want to help this city, but congressman, this is bad. It's a third world nation." and he was literally in tears.
▶ 5:19:42That's when I became aware of what we can do as a Congress to help these small rural communities. And this amendment is fully off offset by rescending funds in the RD salaries that are being held back for administrative expenses. It doesn't cut RD staff or programs. And I firmly believe that we must do better for our rural communities, especially the small and the poor ones. It's paid for. I urge the adoption of this amendment.
▶ 5:20:08And I think that we will be doing the Lord's work to pass this amendment. I yield back. Thank the gentleman. Any questions now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia? All those in favor say I. All those opposed say no. No. The opinion of the chair, the nose have it. Roll call vote has been requested. Sufficient number of hands have been raised and the clerk will call the role. Mr. Adhalt.
▶ 5:20:40Mr. Aguular. Mr. Agular. I. Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Amade. No. Mrs. Bice. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I. Mr. Calbertt. Mr. Calbert. No. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. No. Mr. Case. Mr. Casease. I. Mr. Ciscomani. Mr. Sisammani, no. Mr. Klene, Mr. Klene, no. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Klyurn. Mr. Clyde. Mr.
▶ 5:21:11Clyde. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Mr. Quarrar. I. Miss Dean. Miss Dean. I. Mr. Deluro. Mr. Diaz Bulard. Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards. No. Mr. Elzie. No. Mr. LZ. No. Miss Escobar. Miss Escobar. I Mr. Espayat. Mr. Espayat. I Mr. Fleshman. Mr. Fleshman. No. Miss Frankle. Miss Frankle. I Mr. Franklin. Mr. Franklin. No.
▶ 5:21:41Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez. No. Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest. No. Mr. Harter. Mr. Harter. I. Dr. Harris. Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson. No. Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Ivy. Mr. Ivy. I. Mr. Joyce. Miss Captor. Hi, Miss Captor. I Mr. Loa. Miss Lee. Miss Lee.
▶ 5:22:10I Miss Llo. Miss Llo. No. Mr. Leaven. Mr. Leven. I Miss Mallaloy. Miss Mallaloy. No. Miss McCullum. Miss. McCullum. I. Miss. Ming. Miss. Ming. I. Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. No. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. No. Mr. Morelli Mr. Morelli I Mr. Morvan Mr. Morvan Mr. New House Mr.
▶ 5:22:40New House no Mr. Perez Miss Pingri Miss Pingri I Mr. Pokean now Mr. Pokean I Mr. Quigley Mr. Rashenthaler Mr. Rogers Mr. Rogers no Mr. Ruford. Mr. Ruford. No. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson. No. Mr. Strong. Mr. Strong. No. Mrs. Torres. Miss Underwood.
▶ 5:23:10Miss Underwood. I. Mr. Miss Werman Schultz. Miss Wman Schultz. I Mrs. Watson. Coleman. Mrs. Watson Coleman. I Mr. WAC. Mr. Wmac, no. Mr. Zinci, no. Mr. Zinci, no. Does any member wish to record their vote or change their vote? Gentleman from South Carolina.
▶ 5:23:41Mr. Klyber. I. Gentleman from Pennsylvania. Mr. Rashenthaler. No. Gentleman from Alabama. Mr. Adhalt. No. Gentleman from California. Mr. Valado. No. Gentleman from Texas. Mr. LZ. Okay. Gentle lady from Oklahoma. Mrs. Bice. No. Gentleman from Florida. Mr. Diaz Bollard. No. Gentle lady from Washington. Miss Perez.
▶ 5:24:09I gentleman from Maryland. Dr. Harris. No. Are there any others wishing to? Gentle lady from California, Miss. Torres. I. Mrs. Torres. I Are there any others wishing to record or change their vote?
▶ 5:24:32Okay, I've got gentle lady from Connecticut. Mr. Loro votes I. Are there any others wishing to record or change their vote? Clerk will call it.
▶ 5:25:14Did you get quick? A gentleman from Illinois. How Mr. Quickley votes I. What about Quay? He's recorded. He's recorded as an I. Okay. 2632 now. Yes.
▶ 5:25:52On this vote, the eyes are 26, the nose are 32. The amendment is not agreed to. Gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop is recognized for an amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have an amendment at the desk and I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with. Without objection, the reading of the amendment is dispensed with and the gentleman from Georgia's recognized for remarks on his Mr.
▶ 5:26:16Chairman, this amendment addresses a single report issued by USDA's Economic Research Service that has been published regularly every quarter for decades until last month. ERS and the Foreign Agriculture Service are supposed to release the outlook each quarter.
▶ 5:26:36Yet, political appointees in the administration delayed the most recent addition by two weeks, then stripped out the entire analysis section because it linked the widening a trade deficit to new tariffs. Congress and producers need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and on time.
▶ 5:27:01When the censored report finally surfaced, it forecast a record $49.5 billion farm trade deficit for FY26, up from 31.8 billion just two years ago. That gap isn't just a talking point. It's a ledger line that hits growers bottom lines and rural tax bases. That gap is bad.
▶ 5:27:29American agricultural producers rely on ERS data to make business decisions. A blackout forces them to guess, pushing risk premiums into the prices that families pay at the grocery store. We cannot allow political influences to raise questions about the objectivity and the integrity of USDA's data.
▶ 5:27:53Regular full text publication keeps supply chains steady and food bills lower. This amendment would codify the quarterly reports into law and ensure that political pressure from USDA management does not interfere with its publication ever again.
▶ 5:28:15The facts are the facts and if those facts embarrass the administration then they should change the policy instead of trying to obscure the numbers. I urge you to adopt this amendment not just for this moment in time but for futures the future days, months and years ahead because our agriculture producers, our exporters need to have the data and they need clean,
▶ 5:28:46objective, fair data upon which they can make sound decisions and projections. So, I urge the adoption of this amendment and urge this committee uh to pass it, make it a part of this bill uh going forward. With that, I yield back. Thank the gentlemen. Uh doc, the gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much.
▶ 5:29:10Uh while halfheartedly oppose the last two amendments, I wholeheartedly oppose this one. And look, the bottom line is that this is all generated by some conspiracy theory that somehow you could hide a trade deficit growing by not issuing a Well, that's a little crazy in and of itself because we know where the trade deficit's going. I don't need I don't need to see the report.
▶ 5:29:39We've seen the straight line increase in our trade deficit over the past four years because the last administration did nothing about the agricultural trade deficit except make it worse. Now, who would expect that your trade deficit would be reversed? Because remember, we're in the northern in the first quarter or second quarter of the year when it's not a growing I mean, come on. This is all a conspiracy theory. Look, I get the messaging here.
▶ 5:30:08Oh my gosh, they're trying to hide something. No, no, no. The last administration didn't want to talk about the agricultural trade deficit. You didn't see it in a headline somewhere because they were they tried to hide it from the public. We're out saying, "Look, this trade deficit is bad. It's 48 maybe 49 billion." The secretary's g has admitted that the trade deficit's going up. Of course, it's going up. We don't have a growing season. We don't have the tariff policies yet in place that can help reverse our trade deficit.
▶ 5:30:37before earlier in the discussion was well well what what could you do? What could the last administration have done? Just pay attention to what this administration will do. It will put in the necessary tariffs because that's actually how you reduce a trade deficit on things like some of the agricultural project products that our economic competitors tariff at 100% or 150% or That's how you deal with an agricultural trade deficit.
▶ 5:31:05There's no expectation that that it was going to be magically reversed by the election of someone in November without even a growing season, without a year to get to get these uh policies right. So look, this is punitive. I get I get the messaging.
▶ 5:31:21I think it's conspiratorial to be honest with you and I urge rejection of the Do any members wish to speak to the Seeing none, gentleman is recognized for one minute to close. I certainly appreciate the talking points coming from the chairman.
▶ 5:31:47However, uh in Trump one, the first administration as well as now, uh fair objective information is at a premium and we don't have it. The first thing they did when they came in was to shut down uh the websites and to hide from the American people exactly what the facts were and what the agencies were doing or not doing. The jobs reports were changed.
▶ 5:32:15The way that they calculated it because they were afraid that there would be job losses. Our economic forecast that we're talking about right now are absolutely needed. Industry needs it. Farmers need it. Everyone needs accurate information so that they can plan appropriately. This is a good amendment. It's good government and it's good for all concerned.
▶ 5:32:40I urge the adoption of this amendment uh because I think that it will certainly uh improve the way that USD operates and it will be beneficial to all of the stakeholders of the uh ERS services and all of those that rely on that information. With that, I yield back. Thank you very much. The questions now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia. All those in favor say I. All those opposed say no. No.
▶ 5:33:09The opinion of the chair the nose have it and the amend. Oh, we ask for a show of hands. sufficient number having uh expressed their support. Roll call vote is ordered. Mr. Adder Holt, Mr. Adder Holt, no. Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Agular. I Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammeday.
▶ 5:33:39Mr. Amday. No. Mrs. Bice. Mrs. Bice. No. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I. Mr. Calbert. Mr. Calbert. No. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. No. Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. I. Mr. Mr. Ciscomani. Mr. Sisammani. No. Mr. Klein. Mr. Klein. No. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Cloud. No. Mr. Klyurn. Mr. Clyde. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Miss Dean. Miss Dean. I. Mr. Loro. Mr. Loro.
▶ 5:34:10I Mr. Diaz Bolard. No. Mr. Diaz Bolt. No. Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards. No. Mr. LZ. Mr. Elz. No. Miss Escobar. Mr. Mr. Espayat. Mr. Espayat. I Mr. Fleshman. Mr. Fleshman. No. Miss Miss. Frank. I. Mr. Franklin. Mr. Franklin. No. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez. No. Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest. No. Mr. Harter. Mr. Harter. I. Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris. No. Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson.
▶ 5:34:40No. Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Ivy. Mr. Ivy. I. Mr. Joyce. Miss Captor. Hi. Miss Captor. I Mr. Loa. Miss Lee. Miss Lee. I Miss Latlo. Miss Llo. No. Mr. Lean. Mr. Lean. I Miss Mallaloy. Miss Mallaloy. No. Miss McCullum. Miss McCullum. I Miss Ming. Miss Ming. I. Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. No. Mr. Moore.
▶ 5:35:10Mr. Moore. No. Mr. Morelli. Hi. Mr. Morelli. I. Mr. Morvan. Mr. New House Mr. New House No Mr. Perez Miss Pingri Mr. Pokean Mr. Pokean I Mr. Quigley Mr. Quigley I Mr. Russianthaler Mr. Russianthaler No Mr. Rogers Mr. Rogers no Mr. Ruford Mr. Rufford no Mr.
▶ 5:35:39Simpson Mr. Simpson no Mr. Strong Mr. Strong no Mrs. Torres Mrs. Torres I. Miss Underwood Mr. Valado Mr. Valado No Miss Wman Schultz Miss Washerman Schultz I Mrs. Watson Coleman Mrs. Watson Coleman I Mr. Wmac Mr. Wmac no Mr. Zinci Mr. Zinci. No.
▶ 5:36:08Do any other members seek recognition to Oh, excuse me. Do uh uh any members care to change or record their vote? Gentle A gentle lady from Miss Escobar votes I. Gentle lady from Maine. Yes. Miss Pingri votes I. A gentleman from New York. No. Mr. Loa votes no. Gentleman from Texas. Mr. Quer votes I. Gentleman from Georgia.
▶ 5:36:39Mr. Clyde votes no. Gentleman from Ohio. No. Mr. Joyce votes no. Oh, gentleman from South Carolina. Thank you. Miss. Gentle lady from Washington votes I. Miss Perez votes I. There any others wishing to change or record their I do not believe the gentle lady is Yes, Miss Underwood.
▶ 5:37:09I Are there any others wishing to change or record their vote? Seeing none, the clerk will tally.
▶ 5:37:59On this vote, the eyes are 26 and no are 35. The amendment is not adopted. Is there any further amendment and discussion? Mr. Bishop is recognized for an amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. and I have an amendment at the desk and I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with. Without objection, the reading of the amendments dispensed with and the gentleman from Georgia is recognized for remarks on his amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment uh deals with deferred resignation program.
▶ 5:38:28Uh, this amendment says one simple thing that taxpayers should not fund noshore jobs while agencies scramble and pay again to replace the people they just paid to leave. OPM's memo tells the deferred resignation program participants that they will receive full salary and benefits through September 30th while doing no work and can even take a second job while they're on leave.
▶ 5:38:59At USDA, the DRP participants are placed on paid administrative leave the moment they sign. Extending this ridiculous scheme into FY26 would drain frontline budgets just when Americans need them the most.
▶ 5:39:16After agreeing to cover up to 15,000 USDA salaries through September under DRP, the department told Congress it is now actively recruiting to fill those positions, even inviting some of the DRP levers to return. Within days of the exodus, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service emailed staff a list of 73 newly vacant jobs that it needed to backfill.
▶ 5:39:47FSIS, the Food Safety Inspection Service, meanwhile, has posted fresh consumer safety inspector vacancies with $5,000 sign on bonuses. Paying two salaries for one job is the very definition of waste.
▶ 5:40:08Earlier DRP rounds lured array 555 food safety and inspection service employees about 7% of the agency that safeguards America's meat and poultry. Every FSIS employee we lose risk slower plant lines, higher costs for meat and poultry products, and higher food born illness costs for working families.
▶ 5:40:36When USDA inspectors, FDA reviewers, or rural housing loan processors disappear, bottlenecks appear. That translates into higher grocery prices, delayed generic drug approvals, and stalled home loans. Barring a 2026 DRP keeps agencies staffed and supply chains moving.
▶ 5:41:04The administration claims its goal is to make government more Paying employees not to work is the opposite of efficiency and especially so when agencies are hiring new employees with less experience to cover the duties of those being paid not to work. To be clear, we do not want to punish the people who participated in DRP already.
▶ 5:41:33If an employee took the DRP offer this year, we don't want to pull the rug out from under them. But Congress has a duty, a sacred duty to the taxpayers, not to allow this absurd and wasteful program going forward. And this committee has a duty and a responsibility to put an end to it.
▶ 5:41:57Let's keep every agriculture dollar on mission, inspecting food, protecting markets, and serving our farm communities. I urge you to adopt this amendment. Oh yes, that's the right thing to do for the American taxpayers and we will have done what our duty to the American people is. Thank you. With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 5:42:27Thanks very much. Gentleman from Maris, doc from Maryland, Dr. Harris is recognized to respond the amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. All right, this one I three quarters uh heartedly uh oppose, not wholeheartedly. And the reason is the gentleman's the gentleman's absolutely right. I mean, there's something in me when I first heard about this program going, "What? We're going to pay people till September." But then I remember that I'm that I'm a physician. I'm not, you know, someone who ran a company.
▶ 5:42:53And if you talk to almost anyone who runs a real organization, they'll say, "Yeah, you actually need employee buyouts at some point." especially in an organization where in my opening comments I commented that the Biden administration ramped up the number of employees with one-time funding sources, COVID funds, IRA funds, one-time ARP funds, one-time funding sources, and we left, we had a big bureaucracy, and the way the private sector deals with it is they do buyouts of employees. That's what this is, is a buyout.
▶ 5:43:23Seems a little strange to me, but you know what? Not my area of specialty. Uh obviously it worked because they actually got people to say, "Yeah, I'll take that salary till September." And some of them were probably going to retire anyway. And they're like, "Okay, it's uh" But look, that's that's the way it works in the employment sector. So I rise to oppose the amendment in an era of unrelenting $2 trillion deficits. We have to give the USDA the flexibility to rightsize the agency. And under the DRP, remember, employees only had the option.
▶ 5:43:54They didn't have to. They had the option of retiring. Uh look, President Trump ran on and the American people voted for last November reducing the federal bureaucracy. Everybody understands we have a bureaucracy that is large and largely doesn't work for the American people to the extent they expect it to work. So the DRP program successfully reduced staffing levels while allowing employees to leave on their own accord.
▶ 5:44:19It is important for the USDA to have and every federal agency to have every tool available to optimize staffing levels going forward in this case to continue to serve the farmers, the ranchers and rural communities. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Thank you very much. Gentle lady from New Jersey, Miss Watson Coleman is recognized to address the amendment.
▶ 5:44:42It was very hard to sit down and listen to the absurdity and illogical explanation offered by my friends over there in the form of uh Dr. Harris. Because here's the hole in your theory.
▶ 5:44:59If if this was really a strategic diminishment of resources and people, then they wouldn't be out there trying to backfill these positions so quickly. They would not have had to turn around and hire and beg the people that they convinced to let to go to come back. That's absurd.
▶ 5:45:26And for you to offer that as an excuse for opposing this very logical amendment that addresses the fact that Doge was nothing more than the waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption of this corrupt administration just means to me that you all don't care about anything that makes sense.
▶ 5:45:54You only you only care about what you're told to think, say, and do. I yield back. I support this amendment. The other amendments wish or other members wish to address the amendment. Seeing none, the gentleman is recognized for one minute to close. I associate my remarks with the gentle lady from New Jersey.
▶ 5:46:26All of us have heard folks in our district say who were Trump supporters say, "I didn't I voted for him, but I didn't expect that he was going to do that. I didn't think he was going to cut the job that my daughter was on or my uncle was on or my wife was on.
▶ 5:46:41Yes, we should have a right-sized government, but to fire experience, experienced personnel, encourage them to leave, pay people not to work, and then hire inexperienced people obviously at a lower pay grade. Uh, it's just illogical. It makes no sense. We should not be, and I can't believe my colleague wants to justify paying people not to work.
▶ 5:47:12That that is something I would never expect to hear from that side of the aisle, especially from my my good friend, Chairman Harris. This is a common sense amendment. It should be adopted. It's good government and I urge you to vote for it. Thank you. The questions now on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. No. Opinion of the chair.
▶ 5:47:42The nose have it. Roll call has been requested. Sufficient show of support. Clerk will call the role. Mr. Adder Holt. Mr. Adterholt. No. Mr. Aguilar. Mr. Alfred. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Amade. No. Mrs. Bice. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I. Mr. Calbertt. Mr. Calbert. No. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. No. Mr.
▶ 5:48:12Casease. Mr. Casease. I. Mr. Sisammani. Mr. Ciscomani. No. Mr. Klene. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Cloud. No. Mr. Klyurn. Hi. Mr. Klyber. I. Mr. Clyde. Mr. Clyde. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Mr. Quay. I. Miss Dean. Miss Dean. I. Mr. Loro. Mr. Loro. I. Mr. Diaz Bolard. Mr. Diaz Bart. No. Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards, no. Mr. Elzie, Mr. Ellie, no.
▶ 5:48:42Miss Escobar, Miss Escobar, I. Mr. Espayat, Mr. Aspay, I. Mr. Fleshman, Mr. Fleshman, no. Miss Frankle, Miss Frank, I. Mr. Franklin, Mr. Franklin, no. Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Gonzalez, no. Mr. Guest. Mr. Harter. Mr. Harter. I. Dr. Harris. No. Dr. Harris. No. Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson. No. Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Ivy, Mr.
▶ 5:49:12Ivy, I Mr. Joyce, Miss Captor, Miss Captor, I Mr. Loa, Miss Lee, Miss Lee, I Miss Lelo, Miss Lllo, No Mr. Leven. Mr. Leven, I Miss Miss Mallaloy, No. Miss McCullum, Miss McCullum, I Miss Ming, Miss Ming, I, Mr. Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. No.
▶ 5:49:42Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. No. Mr. Morelli. Mr. Morelli. I Mr. Mr. New House. Mr. New House. No. Miss. Miss Perez. I Miss Pingri. Miss. Ping. I Mr. Pokean. Mr. Pokean. I Mr. Quigley. Mr. Quigley. I Mr. Russianthaler. Mr. Russianthal. No. Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers. No Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Rutherford. No, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson. No, Mr. Strong. Mr.
▶ 5:50:12Strong. No, Miss Torres. Mrs. Torres. I Miss Underwood. Miss Underwood. Miss Underwood. I Mr. Valido. Mr. Valado. No. Miss Washerman Schultz. Miss Washerman Schultz. I Mrs. Watson Mr. Wac. Mr. Wac. No. Mr. Zinci. Mr.
▶ 5:50:37Zinci, no Members. Okay. Uh, there are other members that wish to record or change their vote. The gentleman from New York. Mr. Loa, no. Gentleman from Mississippi. Mr. Guest, no. Uh, gentleman from Ohio. Mr. Joyce, no.
▶ 5:51:03Gentle lady from New Miss Watson Coleman I. Gentleman from Mr. Aguilar. I Are there other Oh, gentleman from Missouri. Mr. Alfred, no. Are there other members who care to record or change their vote? Want to miss anybody? Okay. Clerk will tally.
▶ 5:52:07Uh on this vote, the eyes are 26, the nose are 33. The amendment is not adopted. Before we move to the next amendment, uh it's my understanding they're calling votes at 4:15. So what we will do is work until 4:15. We'll try do as much business as we can, but when we let you go to vote, we will let you go. So those of you that want to go to the ball game can remember we will reassemble here because we're clearly not going to get through all this.
▶ 5:52:3830 minutes after the ball game, whoever shows up with a uh a quorum has enormous advantage. Uh so I just incentivize you. This is your chance. Democrats, get back in the game. Republicans, if you get lazy, they're going to kick your rear end. So uh with that, uh I'm sorry, Absolutely.
▶ 5:53:06A matter of fact, whatever you're worrying were wearing that will not get you arrested, we'll be fine. So, oh yeah, and that might be exciting anyway in and of itself, but u with that, Miss Torres is recognized for purposes of an amendment. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk. And I ask unanimous amendment at the desk. Clerk will read the amendment. I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the amendment.
▶ 5:53:37Without objection, the reading of the amendments dispensed with. A gentle lady from California is recognized for remarks on her amendment. Mr. Chairman, my amendment will protect the privacy of tens of millions of Americans by providing Doge from by prohibiting Doge from accessing personal personally identifiable information stored by USDA, FDA, and other agencies covered in this bill.
▶ 5:54:06Don't let the drama between Elon Musk and Trump distract any of you. Doge and his administration continue to push for their minions to gain access to sensitive personal data that puts tens and thousands of Americans privacy and personal information at risk.
▶ 5:54:28Last month, USDA and Doge tried to force states and payment process processors to share the social security numbers, addresses, and names of over 40 million Americans who rely on SNAP, only pausing the effort when they got sued for violating federal privacy laws.
▶ 5:54:51Doge and his and this administration have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted with our sensitive data. Doge has reportedly bypass security measures meant to safeguard our data like installing at the White House and ignoring cyber cyber security officials who warned it could be vulnerable to hacking from bad actors and
▶ 5:55:21foreign adversaries. As far as I can tell, their employees have a complete disregard for following federal privacy conflicts of interest laws and try to hide what they are doing within the federal government with what cyber security experts have painted their actions as quote criminal or state sponsor hackers. might do.
▶ 5:55:47In one instance, a whistleblower highlighted how sensitive labor data may have been exposed after IP addresses from Russia attempted to log into systems shortly after Doge employees gain access. Doge has had employees whose services were hacked and an employee who previously bragged about breaking the law and illegally distributing information. And it is not just Doge.
▶ 5:56:15This administration cannot be trusted with our sensitive data. If they don't care to follow security measures when talking about classified military actions, do you really think that they'll care about to follow privacy laws and safeguarding when handling your details? We all remember Signalgate. Even worse, they won't even tell Congress what their minions are doing.
▶ 5:56:43Whether it is to help build surveillance tools or in some cases lining their own pockets, Americans deserve the right to privacy and security. We cannot trust Doge with our personal information. And I urge my colleagues to vote yes to protect our personal data from Doge and government Thank the gentle lady. Chair recognizes gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris, to respond to the amendment.
▶ 5:57:14Thank you very much. Uh look, the Supreme Court has settled this already. Uh the bottom line is Supreme Court says there's there the uh Doge has access to Social Security Administration data, which believe me is probably more uh robust data than the USDA will ever have. So the Supreme Court has said that's allowable. Uh the bottom line, the conspiracy theory that this is somehow some unique threat is is really unimaginable.
▶ 5:57:40I mean of all the cyber threats we have the one I lose least amount of sleep over is Doge. I mean given all the cyber threats we have uh the bottom line look the Supreme Court has settled this issue. You know the case is uh SSA versus ask me you know settled on the 6th of this of of June. We should put it behind us. I oppose the Thank gentlemen, the gentle lady from Connecticut, the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Law is recognized to address the amendment.
▶ 5:58:12Thank you, Mr. I rise in support of this amendment. It prohibits the transfer of personally identifiable information uh to the unsecure, unaccountable so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Doge.
▶ 5:58:31You know, I I would just say to the chairman of the subcommittee u you know, the Supreme Court uh uh uh you know, opined in the lily lead better uh fair pay act and I believe it was Chief Justice Ginsburg who said now it's in the hands of the Congress. Congress can say something about this. We can deal with legislation that in fact says that you cannot uh uh go in and just uh just get hold of personal and private and uh in information.
▶ 5:59:01The recent billionaire on billionaire violence between President Trump and Elon Musk should not distract us from the fact that Doge Elon Musk's tool to end run and run Congress. Take it back guys. Let's take it back and eliminate whatever funding he did not personally agree with, is currently in control of a shocking amount of information about American citizens.
▶ 5:59:25This information, from social security numbers to bank accounts to personal health information, court records, and more, is kept private and secure for a reason. In the wrong hands, it can ruin lives. People can be scammed, intimidated, or blackmailed with this information, which is only one hack or security breach away from being spread across the entire internet.
▶ 5:59:52There is public reporting now that shows Doge pushed the Trump administration to select Palanteer, a gigantic Silicon Valley tech company specializing in surveillance to combined government databases which have been kept secret for this exact reason. This is unacceptable. This is an invasion of privacy. All for the benefit of the richest richest tech CEOs.
▶ 6:00:19your bank accounts, your medical history, your debts, all of it sold by President Trump to the highest bidder. And this is not only uh information on Democrats. This is everyone's information is being accessed here. We need to resist the smash and grab of our constituents personal information. We need to stop the transfer of information from the Department of Agriculture to Doge.
▶ 6:00:49We must not allow federal databases to be mined for the benefit of tech billionaires. That is what this amendment will do. I, as I said in the course of my comments, let's take it back. We are the United States Congress. We can legislate and let us exert our power once again. We are not impotent. We are not.
▶ 6:01:12And we can't fold like a cheap suit to let them take away the either the power of the purse or or any other power that we have been ascribed with. Otherwise, let's all go home, close the doors, and forget about an appropriations committee. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and I yield back. Thank you. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop, is recognized to address the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 6:01:40and I rise in strong support of this amendment. New stories about DOA's access to highly sensitive personally identified information are simply appalling. There's even language in our report that acknowledges that USDA has asked states to send it SNAP applications and related information and has specifically asked for such information to include personally identifiable information.
▶ 6:02:06A newspaper estimated that if you took all the various databases that Doge is snooping through, there were 316 pieces of yours and my personal information that could be accessed. This has to stop and it has to stop now. So, I urge a yes vote and I yield back and I commend the gentle lady for offering this amendment. Thank you very much.
▶ 6:02:32Are there other members wishing to address the Seeing none, the gentle lady is recog Oh, I'm sorry. Where? Okay. Good. All right. Sorry, we thought we had somebody moving out there. Gentle lady is recognized for one minute to close. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 6:02:57It hasn't been that long ago when uh Doge was uh trying to infiltrate the IRS. Getting um a personnel all of the the data from uh IRS wasn't enough for them to get an employee number.
▶ 6:03:15Remember, they wanted the addresses and the names and their financial um their their bank This puts every person that does business with the federal government at risk, but it goes beyond that. It puts every law enforcement officer, including CIA agents that are working undercover, at risk. Let me repeat what I said in the beginning.
▶ 6:03:46Doge has had employees whose devices were hacked and an employee who previously bragged about breaking the law and ille and and illegally distributing information. I hope that you will have a serious serious think about how you're going to vote on this. Protect your constituents, protect our law enforcement officers, and protect our personal data.
▶ 6:04:14I ask for your support on this bill and I yield back. Questions now on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from California. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. The opinion of the chair of the nose have it. Roll call has been requested. Sufficient show of support is present. The clerk will call the role. Mr. Adder Holt. Mr. Adder Holt. No. Mr. Mr. Aguilar.
▶ 6:04:46Mr. Agular. I Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Ammedday. No. Mrs. Bice. Mrs. Bice. No. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I. Mr. Calbertt. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. No. Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. I. Mr. Sisammani. Mr. Sisammani. No. Mr. Klein. Mr. Klene. No. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Klyurn.
▶ 6:05:16Mr. Klyurn. I Mr. Clyde. Mr. Clyde. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Cole. No. Mr. Quayar. Mr. Quayar. I. Miss Dean. Miss Dean. I. Mr. Lauro. Mr. Luro. I. Mr. Diaz Bolard. No. Mr. Diaz Bolard. No. Mr. Edwards. Mr. Elz. Mr. Elz. No. Miss Escobar. Miss Escobar. I. Mr. Espayat. Mr. Espay. I. Mr. Fleshman. Mr. Fleshman. No. Miss Frankle. Miss Frankle.
▶ 6:05:46I Mr. Franklin. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest. No. Mr. Harter. Mr. Harter. I. Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris. No. Mrs. Henson. Mrs. Henson. No. Mr. Mr. Mr. Hoyer. I. Mr. Ivy. Mr. Ivy. I. Mr. Joyce. No. Mr. Joyce. No. Miss Captor. Miss Captor. I Mr. Loa.
▶ 6:06:17No. Mr. Loa. No. Miss Lee. Miss Lee. I. Miss. Let Miss Llo. No. Mr. Levan. Mr. Leven. I Miss Mallaloy. Miss Mallaloy. No. Miss McCullum. Miss McCullum. I Miss Ming. Miss Ming. I Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. No. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. No. Mr. Morelli. Mr. Morelli. I Mr. Mvani. Mr. Morvan. I Mr. New House. Mr. New House. No, Miss Perez.
▶ 6:06:48Miss Perez. No, Miss Pingri. Miss Pingri. I Mr. Pokean. Mr. Pokean. I Mr. Quigley. Mr. Quigley. I Mr. Rashenthaler. Mr. Rashenthaler. No. Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers. No. Mr. Ruford. Mr. Ruford. No. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson. No. Mr. Strong. Mr. Strong. No. No. Mrs. Torres. Mrs. Torres. I Miss Underwood. Miss Underwood. I Mr. Valido. Mr. Valido. No.
▶ 6:07:18Miss Washerman Schultz. Miss Washerman Schultz. I Mrs. Watson Coleman. Mrs. Watson Coleman. I Mr. Wac. Mr. Wac. No. Mr. Zinci. Mr. Zinci. No. First, I want to give you a piece of unsolicited advice. If your last name begins uh with a letter less than about harder, you probably should hang around a little closer. He always hits it perfect.
▶ 6:07:46He shows up here, but the rest of you guys uh not so much. So, does any member wish to record their vote or change their vote? Mr. Mr. Calbert votes no. Okay. Gentleman from Texas. Mr. Cloud, no. Edwards, no. Mr. Edwards, no. Mr. Franklin. No. Gentleman from California. Gentleman from Texas.
▶ 6:08:16It's already Okay. Sorry. Gentle lady from If no and I, Miss Perez, are there any others uh who are not recorded or wish to change their vote? Seeing none, the clerk will tally. I don't see him. What are you looking Uh, I don't see him.
▶ 6:09:26Are we still okay on the vote? On this vote, the eyes are 28, the nose are 34. The amendment is not adopted. Miss Torres is recognized for an I ask for unanimous consent to dispense uh with a reading of the amendment. Without objection, the reading of the amendment is dispensed with and the gentle lady's recognized for remarks on her amendment. Mr.
▶ 6:09:52Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment to protect the public servants at the FDA who work to ensure a safe, reliable supply of infant formula for our families and our babies. Many mothers rely on baby formula for some or all of their child's nutritional needs. Nearly three out of four mothers support using baby formula within the first year of their baby's life.
▶ 6:10:19We must make sure the fragile infant formula supply chain is protected, including the public servants at the FDA and HHS who work on these issues. In February, the FDA's then deputy commissioner for foods resigned due to the Trump's administration and Doge firing nearly 90 staffers in his division, which oversees infant formula and baby food.
▶ 6:10:48It is still unclear how many employees who work on these issues were then rehired. In March, HHS and FDA announced Operation Stork Speed, which they claim to expand options for safe, reliable, and nutritious infant formula. But the Trump administration and Doge have fired 20,000 HHS employees and 3,500 FDA employees and are now scrambling to hire many of them back.
▶ 6:11:18You can announce as many operations or have as many press conference as you want, but the fact is that you need people on the ground doing the work make doing the inspections, not just people talking nonsense on TV. In addition, this this a FDA bill will would cover over 320 million would cut over 320 million from the FDA.
▶ 6:11:46And the Trump administration is pushing for over 30 billion in cuts to HHS. We can't take the risk and allow the Trump administration to fire these critical workers again. And I urge my colleagues to vote yes to protect the public servants who work to ensure parents have access to safe and affordable baby formula when they are unable to nurse.
▶ 6:12:17I ask for an I vote. Thank the gentle lady. The gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris, is recognized to respond to the amendment. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First, just to correct a a uh I think a misstatement that we cut $300 million from the FDA budget. No, the total FDA budget is exactly where it was. That 300 million was replaced by an increase in user fees. So, I'm sorry, that's the way math works. You know, you get it from one place.
▶ 6:12:44If you get more from user fees, you can spend less of general taxpayer dollars. And that's what we did. Look, I rise in opposition to the amendment. This the report language. Our report language uh supports FDA ongoing efforts as part of operation stork speed to ensure the safety and resiliency of our nation's infant formula supply.
▶ 6:13:03However, this uh this amendment handcuffs the Trump administration's efforts to properly manage their staff and the FDA has said that those working on infant formula issues are missionritical, thus wouldn't be subject uh to these uh uh personnel changes. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. Thank the gentleman. Are there others uh members wishing to address the amendment? Gentleman from Georgia recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um I rise in strong support of this amendment.
▶ 6:13:33Uh the junior senator from Georgia, Senator John Osaf, recently raised concerns about reports that FDA had fired employees working on the safety and supply of baby formula in a hearing with Commissioner Mockery just a few weeks ago. Despite the fact that the deputy commissioner for human foods, Jim Jones, said in his resignation letter, quote, "The indiscriminate firing of 89 staff in the human foods program is beyond shortsighted.
▶ 6:14:02The food program staff at FDA is the envy of the world and its technical, professional and ethical standards, the persons fired, including staff with highly technical in infant formula. Yet, the administration continues to deny that this happened. I don't have to remind members what we went through in 2022 with the infant formula shortage.
▶ 6:14:29We cannot risk a similar crisis in the future and having adequate staff at FDA to oversee the infant formula is a key part of avoiding this. Again, I urge a yes vote uh and I yield back. I thank the gentleman. The gentle lady from Florida, Miss Wasserman Schultz, recognized to address the amendment. M Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise today in support of this amendment. The last thing new parents need is more stress.
▶ 6:15:00I can tell you when I was a new parent of twins, newborn twins, I had never changed a diaper in my life. I had not really babysat for other people's children. Um, I went into labor and had to completely upend the flooring in my house on the same weekend that I was about to bring them home.
▶ 6:15:27I had no idea what to buy or what supplies I needed. I was literally clueless. So I mean if you add the add the stress you one would think that it is the most natural automatic thing in the world for a new mom to know how to breastfeed that the baby would latch so easily that this is all you know nature's piece of cake that is uh very fluid and
▶ 6:15:57simple not so much. Um, so there are lots of times for many reasons why new moms need to turn to infant formula. Um, and that includes uh something I went through where I was easily able to nurse my children. Um, although I had a lot of stress with that, too. But pumps didn't work for me. So, as I started to go back to work, I had to begin supplementing with formula.
▶ 6:16:25So, but when when new moms, if you add the economic stress stressors of people who have a lower income to all of that new parent, new mom stress, then you walk into a grocery store and you buy some formula and you get home to feed that hungry child. Um, you certainly don't want to be laying their heads on a pillow. You wouldn't really do that.
▶ 6:16:51Actually, laying their heads on the crib mattress with no pillow and no blanket, by the way, just to be safe. And second guessess whether you just filled your baby's belly with something unsafe. So, it stuns me that we are even having this debate. But please, please, if we agree on nothing else, can we at least agree on this? Donald Trump must not recklessly fire experts who work to keep our country's infant formula supplies safe.
▶ 6:17:20My god, if you aren't able to feed your Mr. Chairman, the committee is not in order. Gentle lady is correct. We'd ask that you take your conversations outside. Gentle ladies recognized. My god, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we can agree that the president should not be recklessly firing experts who weak to to work to keep our country's infant formula supplies safe.
▶ 6:17:49I can tell you it's stressful enough when you realize that you're no longer able to or are unable to breastfeed your child. And so, you have enough to worry about as a new parent. You want to make sure that you can count on the formula that you are feeding your new baby. Consumer Reports recently found troubling lead levels in popular baby formula brands last month. So, this safety issue requires more resources, not less.
▶ 6:18:18We need to hire more experts and staff to monitor and test our nation's baby formula, not start firing them willy-nilly. That's not efficiency. Unfortunately, this administration has shown it's all talk and only destructive actions on this issue. and talk about Operation Stor. Just days after announcing Operation Stork Speed, where RFK Jr.
▶ 6:18:40committed FDA to pursuing supposedly safer infant formula, he fired 3,500 FDA employees, including workers who oversaw health and safety research of, wait for it, infant formula. Americans cannot trust the Trump administration to give anything more than lip service when it comes to keeping our babies safe. That means it is up to Congress to protect our nation's infants. And that's that's the thing about children's safety, Mr.
▶ 6:19:06Chairman, is that infants, children, they can't make sure that they are cap kept safe by their people who are responsible for supervising them by their parents, by corporations that don't care about the ingredients in their infant formula. They need the government to step in and be a protector when those sa other safety measures fail.
▶ 6:19:32So as a co-equal branch of government, which I still am imploring my colleagues here on this committee to actually live up to, we have the power to check this reckless administration's actions, especially when they refuse to keep our babies safe. Sadly, this is one of those times and it starts with doing the right thing and voting for this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you, gentle lady.
▶ 6:19:58Are there other members wishing to address the Oh, gentle lady from Illinois Woods recognized to address the amendment. Here you go. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise today in strong support of Representative Torres's amendment to protect staffing for infant formula safety at the FDA. We all remember the infant formula crisis just a few years ago. a single plant shut down due to contamination and then shelves went bare, prices soared, and families were left scrambling to feed their babies.
▶ 6:20:26That crisis exposed just how fragile our formula supply chain is and how vital FDA oversight is to preventing the next one. But rather than investing in the workforce that is vital to this work, the Trump administration has carelessly fired more than 20% of FDA's workforce. And while FDA Commissioner McCary has insisted in media interviews that there were no cuts to scientists or inspectors, that is simply untrue.
▶ 6:20:54In fact, in his resignation letter, Jim Jones, the former deputy commissioner for human foods at FDA, cited 89 indiscriminate layoffs, including employees with highly technical expertise in nutrition, infant formula, and food safety response. An HHS spokesperson has since confirmed the AY's chaotic scramble to rehire critical FDA staff, including the FDA's top infant formula safety official.
▶ 6:21:21That's not a plan for fiscal responsibility nor safety. That's a plan for more outbreaks and foodborne illnesses from bacteria and baby formula to salmonella and eggs. This amendment is critical. Preventing food born illness shouldn't be a partisan issue. It's a basic function of government. If we can't come together to ensure the FDA has the staff to keep contaminated formula and foods off store shelves, then we aren't doing our jobs.
▶ 6:21:51This amendment is a vote for common sense, for accountability, and for every parent who just wants to know that their baby's formula is safe. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back. Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the amendment? Seeing none, the questions now on the amendment offered. Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me.
▶ 6:22:21Uh, gentle lady from California is recognized for one minute to close. Thank you. I ask for a um support on this amendment to protect our babies. uh forget about the employees uh if you don't care about them. Uh but please um do what you can uh to ensure that baby food and baby formula uh is continues to be safe.
▶ 6:22:49There are many mothers that are aren't able to nurse their babies for various reasons. So um I ask for an I vote and I yield back. Thank the gentle lady. The questions now on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from California. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. In the opinion of the chair, the nos have it.
▶ 6:23:19The amendment is not accepted or it's fine. Just raise your hands. Sufficient number having raised your hands uh clerk will call the role. Mr. Adhalt. Mr. Adhalt. No. Mr. Aguular. Mr. Agular. I Mr. Alfred. Mr. Alfred. No. Mr. Ammedday. Mr. Amday. No. Mrs. Bice. Mrs. Bice. No. Mr. Bishop. Yes. Mr. Bishop. I. Mr. Calbertt.
▶ 6:23:49Mr. Calvert. No. Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter. No. Mr. Casease. Mr. Casease. I. Mr. Sisammani. Mr. Klene. Mr. Klein. No. Mr. Cloud. Mr. Klyurn, yes. Mr. Klyber, I Mr. Clyde. Mr. Clyde, no. Mr. Cole, no. Mr. Cole, no. Mr. Quayar, M. Mr. Quayar, I. Miss Dean. Miss Dean. I Mr. Deloro. Hold it down. People can hear. Mr. Diaz Bolard. Mr. Diaz Bolard. No. Mr. Edwards.
▶ 6:24:19Mr. Edwards. No. Mr. LZ. Mr. LZ. No. Miss Escobar. Miss Escobar. I. Mr. Espayat. Mr. Espay. I. Mr. Flashman. Mr. Flashman. No. Miss Miss Frankle. I Mr. Franklin. Mr. Franklin. No. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Guest. Mr. Guest. No. Mr. Harter. Mr. Harter. I. Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris. No. Mrs.
▶ 6:24:49Mrs. Henson. No. Mr. Hoyer. M. Mr. Hoyer. I. Mr. Ivy. Mr. Ivy. I. Mr. Joyce. Mr. Joyce. Mr. Joyce. No. Miss Captor. I. Miss Captor. I Mr. Loa. Mr. Loa. No. Mr. Lee. Miss Lee. Miss Lee. I Miss Latlo. Miss Llo. No. Mr. Leven. Mr. Lean. I Miss Mallaloy. Mr. Miss Malloy. No. Miss. McCollum. Miss. McCullum.
▶ 6:25:20I. Miss Ming. Miss. Ming. I. Mr. Molinar. Mr. Molinar. No. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. No. Mr. Morelli. Mr. Mlli I Mr. Mvan Mr. Murvan I Mr. New House Mr. New House no Miss Perez Miss Pingri Miss Pingri I Mr. Pokean Mr. Pokean I Mr. Quigley Mr. Quigley I Mr. Mr.
▶ 6:25:48Rogers Mr. Rogers, please hold it down so members can hear. We can get through this. Mr. Rogers votes no. Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Rutherford, no. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson. No. Mr. Strong. No. Mr. Strong. No. Miss. Torres. Mrs. Torres. I. Miss. Underwood. No. Miss. Underwood. I. Mr. Valido. Mr. Valado. No. Miss Wasserman Schultz.
▶ 6:26:18Miss Washerman Schultz. I Miss Watson Coleman. Miss Watson Coleman I. Mr. Wac. Mr. WAC. No. Mr. Zinci. Mr. Zinci. No. Are there members wishing to record their vote or change their vote? We got you. Mr. Simpson has recorded as a no. Gentleman from Texas. Mr. Gentle Lady. Gentle. Yes. Gentle lady from Connecticut. Mr. Loro. I are there. Gentleman from Arizona. Mr. Sisammani is not recorded. Mr. Sisammani. No.
▶ 6:26:48Gentleman from North Mr. Edwards is recorded as a no. Are there others who have not recorded their vote? Clerk will tally.
▶ 6:27:42Get this uh the vote uh on this vote. The eyes are 27, the nose are 33. The amendments not adopted. Uh again, not anybody's here, but 30 minutes after the ball game, we'll reconvene. We are in recess.