Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. LUCAS. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1947, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013.

This bipartisan bill is 4 years in the making, and I could not have had a better partner than my friend from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

He began this process 4 years ago when he led us into the countryside to have eight field hearings across this great Nation. We followed up those field hearings with a series of 11 audit hearings on every single policy under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Agriculture.

In all, we held 40 hearings on every aspect of this FARRM Bill. The result is legislation that calls for reduced spending, smaller government, and commonsense reform.

The committee has held two markups of this essential bill, the first, last Congress, and one last month. Both of those markups lasted for more than 12 hours each. We considered over 200 amendments in total. In the end, we achieved a large bipartisan margin of support. The vote tally this year was 36-10, with 23 out of 25 Republicans and 13 out of 21 Democrats supporting it.

Some of my colleagues were amazed by the duration of the markup; but I came to Congress to legislate, and an important part of the legislative process is an open and fair debate. The Speaker shares that sentiment, and I hope during the debate of the amendments to the FARRM Act, we'll let the body work its will, then we'll vote for final passage.

The FARRM Act is different for many reasons. There is a reason that we put reform in the title. This is the most reform-minded bill in decades. It repeals outdated policies, while reforming, streamlining, and consolidating over 100 government programs.

It reforms the SNAP Act, also known as the food stamp program, for the first time since the welfare reforms of 1996; and it makes tremendous reforms to the farm programs.

The Agriculture Committee and the agriculture community have voluntarily worked together to make these reforms and to contribute to deficit reduction. Every part of this bill is a part of the solution to Washington's spending problems. We save the American taxpayer nearly $40 billion, which is almost seven times the amount of cuts to these programs under sequestration.

Regarding reforms to traditional farm programs, first of all, we eliminate direct payments. They cost taxpayers $5 billion a year. They were payments that people received every year, regardless of the market conditions and whether or not they farmed.

Instead, we take a more market-oriented approach to policy, where there is no support when market prices are high. We encourage responsible risk management where farmers are able to plan for catastrophic events.

In addition to eliminating direct payments, we repeal the ACRE Act, the disaster program for crops, and the countercyclical program. My philosophy from the beginning of the FARRM Bill process has been that these programs had to be based on market economies. They had to work for all crops in all regions of the country. Our bill achieves this, while also saving $23 billion, which is a record 36 percent spending reduction.

In conservation, a subject near and dear to my heart, we streamline the delivery of these incredibly important programs. During our hearings, we learned that conservation programs had grown in number and complication, often acting as a deterrent for the adoption of these voluntary, incentive-based programs. Therefore, the FARRM Act eliminates and consolidates 23 duplicative and overlapping programs into 13, which saves nearly $7 billion.

We authorize and strengthen and fully pay for livestock disaster assistance that is incredibly important to our livestock producers during devastating droughts, such as the ones we're experiencing recently.

The bill invests in core specialty crop initiatives like Specialty Block Grants, Plant Pest and Disease Management programs; and the FARRM Act also maintains our investment in agricultural research.

You know, my friends, I've had a lot of my colleagues ask me, Frank, why do you get so excited about these issues? Why do you get so stirred up? You're usually a pretty calm, laid-back fellow.

Well, let me tell you, I come from a part of the country that was the abyss of the Great Depression and the drought of the 1930s. Some of you may have seen Mr. Burns' documentary about the Dust Bowl. Those are my constituents. Those were my relatives in Roger Mills County, as well as the panhandle.

I was raised by a generation, my grandparents, who were young men and women during the Great Depression, who lived through that drought. They were scarred forever.

My maternal grandfather cosigned my first farm lease, cosigned my note at the bank so that I could start farming. But he was convinced, till the day he died, just as my other grandfather was, the Great Depression was coming back; it was coming back.

My parents were young men and women in the fifties, and they went through the drought of the fifties, far worse than the drought of the thirties. To the day he died, my father was convinced that it would never rain again.

And I came home from college in 1982 just in time to observe the collapse in agricultural land prices. I was raised by the generation that suffered through the thirties and the fifties.

I came home to watch the Vietnam generation be destroyed, farmers be destroyed by things beyond their control in the early 1980s. That's why I get so worked up on this policy.

The misery of the thirties, the misery of the eighties, economically, was not an accident. It was policy mistakes in the twenties and thirties that led to that agony. It was policy mistakes in the seventies and eighties that led to that agony.

Now, you say, Frank, you're excited, you're getting worked up. Look at the 1930 census for Roger Mills County. There were 14,000 people living in my home county. By the 1940 census there were 7,000 people living in my home county. And we've just now made it back to the mid-3,000s.

You don't have that kind of economic devastation, depopulation, suffering by accident. And that's why I'm here; that's why I'm working with my colleague, the ranking member, Mr. Peterson. That's why I've worked with Republicans, Democrats alike for years now to get to this point. That's why I want to work with all of you.

I cannot make it rain. There may be people in this town who say they can make it rain, but I cannot make it rain. But in my tenure as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, I can make sure we pass a comprehensive FARRM Bill that does not repeat the mistakes of the 1920s and -30s, does not repeat the mistakes of the 1970s and -80s.

I will not be a part of inflicting on future generations what was inflicted on what I call that generation of Vietnam veterans who came home to farm and, instead, went to the bankruptcy auctions, or my grandparents' generation, whose young men and women were wiped out in the 1930s. I will not be a part of that.

So I will work with all of you to try and improve this draft that attempts to produce a safety net that is workable, that is efficient, both for rural America and producers, but also for consumers.

I ask you to work with me in that regard. I ask you to do the right thing. I ask you to avoid the mistakes of the past. I ask you to look at the language, to study the language, and be good, responsible legislators.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. LUCAS. I recognize the gentleman from Washington's concerns about the one-size-fits-all approach of the FDA. In fact, this was among the several concerns we raised during debate in the House when the Food Safety Modernization Act was under consideration.

I share his belief that, if the FDA is going to be given the task of telling farmers how to farm, it should do so after a thorough examination of the risks of the different types of fruits and vegetables and then, based on the best available science, consider the growing methods and the conditions of individual commodities when developing regulations.

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Mr. LUCAS. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, we've heard some very good debate this evening about the merits and the challenges that we face in putting this bipartisan bill together. I'd like to take just a moment to focus on the nutrition title and the spirit and the logic that went into crafting this.

The focus of the committee was that the savings should be achieved across all areas of the farm bill, and that $40 billion, approximately, we have saved does achieve savings in the commodity title, the conservation title, as well as the nutrition title. Everybody under the jurisdiction of the farm bill contributes to the reforms.

Now, in the nutrition title for just a moment, I just want to stress to my colleagues the committee tried to achieve savings in a way that would not deny an individual who was qualified under present law by income or assets from receiving help. We just simply say in the committee draft that things like automatic food stamps, categorical eligibility, something that's evolved out of the 1996 welfare reform, we simply say everybody needs to show they qualify, and we'll help you.

The LIHEAP program, where States in some cases give as little as $1 to help their citizens pay their home heating costs that triggers a whole month's worth of food stamps, we say in the bill: States, you've got to give $20 to trigger that.

The goal of the committee was never to work hardship on anyone. The goal of the committee, in a time of $16 trillion national debt, annual trillion-dollar deficits, was to achieve savings across the board. But it requires that the folks who need help come in and demonstrate they qualify. If you don't like the asset level or the income level, that's a different debate. We just simply say if you need the help, show us you qualify and we'll help you. That's a $20.5 billion savings, according to CBO. Will that be the way it's implemented? I don't know. But we operate by CBO scores, and there's almost $40 billion in overall savings in all areas of the farm bill.

I would challenge all my friends, if every other committee in every other jurisdiction would achieve these kinds of savings across the board, we'd be in a different situation with our operating annual deficit.

The Ag Committee has done its work, and we've done it in a thoughtful way. Help us over the course of the next few days with the amendment process. Don't, by affection, offer amendments simply to prevent the process from happening. Don't do things that are intended not to make the bill a better piece of legislation, but to prevent it. Be good legislators; be thoughtful legislators. Do what's right, whether it's to help the people raise the food, or that other part of our society that needs help on a month-to-month basis. Do them all right. I have faith in you. I believe through good debate and good discussion on good amendments, perfections will be made. A consensus will be achieved. We'll move forward. I have faith in you, my colleagues.

With that, Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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