Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mrs. NOEM. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, we talk a lot on the House floor recently about agriculture and about the fact that agriculture needs a haircut and that people are concerned about agriculture getting too many benefits provided by the taxpayers. I would certainly say that in the past, in the most repast, agriculture has been significantly cut, and under this bill here before us today, we also see significant cuts.

I rise in strong opposition to this amendment offered by the gentleman from Arizona because this amendment is an attack on consumer choice, on the free market access, and on home grown American energy. He's trying to provide technology that would allow consumers to decide if they want to use an ethanol blend. We've seen the reports out there that have indicated that ethanol has reduced the price of gasoline up to 89 cents a gallon, and across this country consumers don't even have the option to purchase that right now if they would like to.

I have a plan that would modernize ethanol policy. It would send over a billion dollars to deficit reduction. It would make sure that we have infrastructure in place so that consumers can have relief from these high gas prices.

With everything that has been going on in the country today, one of the top two issues that I hear about every day in South Dakota and across this country is high gas prices. If we can reduce those high gas prices for people at home struggling with that today, the best thing we can do is give them a flex pump in their community where they can access that. Right now they have no choice if they want to use an American, domestically grown, renewable energy source which they can use to reduce their dependence on foreign sources of oil.

I'm a strong supporter of an all-of-the-above American energy plan, and that's truly what we need. We need to put Americans first. We need to stop relying on the Middle East to fuel our vehicles. We can grow that product right here in our country. We can provide the taxpayers with lower priced gasoline. We can renewably do that over and over and over again and give them that choice and that option. We just need to give them a pump. We need to give them a pump in their community so they have that option, and that's what this country is about is flexibility, by giving those people back home options.

That's why I am not a supporter of this amendment. I think that that is certainly a wise place for us to invest in making sure that we rely upon ourselves, that we use our own sources and we provide exactly what the American people need today.

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