Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3161) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 581 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield my friend from Washington (Mr. Hastings) 30 minutes. During the consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 581.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 581 is a traditional open rule for appropriations bills. This open rule allows any amendment to be offered as long as the amendment complies with House rules.

Madam Speaker, the Agriculture appropriations bill may not get as much attention as some of the others, but it is incredibly important to the Nation. For the past 6 years, the bill has been underfunded by President Bush and the Republican Congress.

This year, the subcommittee chairwoman, Rosa DeLauro, and her colleagues have put together a bill that begins to restore cuts in funding to the Department of Agriculture; cuts that have left too many people hungry here at home and around the world; cuts that have threatened America's food security and food safety; and cuts that have denied rural America improvements and access to better technology, better housing and a better environment.

Madam Speaker, today I am pleased to say that with this bill, we have turned the corner. The fiscal year 2008 Agriculture appropriations bill makes new and important investments in our people. This is not a perfect bill, but it is a big step in the right direction. I urge my colleagues to support it.

I am proud, Madam Speaker, to serve as the Cochair of the bipartisan House Hunger Caucus along with my good friend from Missouri, Jo Ann Emerson. I have a strong interest in making sure that our domestic and international hunger programs get the funding that they need.

With this bill, more pregnant women and infants will get the nutritious food they need through the WIC program. With this bill, more children who eat a school breakfast or lunch will receive meals during the summer months, when school is out of session, just like they do during the school year. With this bill, the food that they are served in school will be healthier, including more fresh fruits and vegetables. With this bill, the Commodity Food Supplemental Program can expand participation in existing States and can also begin participating in five new States.

The bill continues funding to combat hunger around the world through programs like Food for Peace and the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. There is increased funding for the Food and Drug Administration and the Food Safety and Inspection Service, allowing USDA to better oversee our Nation's food safety, and more importantly, root out any food contamination and threats to America's food supply.

Providing these agencies with the proper tools, including proper staffing, is an important part of USDA's mission that usually goes unnoticed unless a problem arises.

Finally, Madam Speaker, this bill increases funding for programs that directly affect rural America. For far too long, rural America has been underfunded and, in many cases, underappreciated. This bill increases funding for programs important to rural America, including crop insurance integrity, livestock competition, enforcement efforts at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the Rural Community Advancement Program, clean water and business loans and grants.

Finally, there are increases in funds for technology access that will provide grants for distance learning, telemedicine and broadband development in rural areas.

Madam Speaker, before I conclude my opening remarks, I want to address one more subject in a little bit of detail. For years we have not done nearly enough, Democrats and Republicans alike, to end hunger. I will say it again: Hunger is a political condition. We have the resources to end it. We have the infrastructure. What we need is the political will and determination to make it happen.

With passage of the fiscal year 2008 Agriculture appropriations bill and the

recently approved farm bill, this new Democratic Congress is taking a major step forward in the fight to end hunger in America and around the world. We are moving in a new direction toward a place where everybody in this world has enough to eat. We have much more work to do, but today we can make an important down payment.

Now, during consideration of this bill, we may see attempts to cut these vital, proven programs. Members will say that they, too, are troubled by hunger, but they don't want to spend the money to address it. It is the same old argument.

Additionally, during consideration of this bill, there may be an amendment offered by my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway) that would allow State governments to privatize the Food Stamp program.

Madam Speaker, this open rule allows the gentleman from Texas to offer this amendment. I support his right to do so. However, this is bad policy that was rejected in the farm bill. As a supporter of the Food Stamp program, a program proven to provide food to hungry Americans, I strongly oppose this amendment. The State of Texas has experimented with privatizing food stamps. That experiment failed. According to a letter signed by 21 organizations opposed to the privatization of the Food Stamp program, ``before the State canceled its contract with the private contractors, hundreds of thousands of low-income children and adults were unable to access nutrition and health care assistance that they desperately needed and to which they were entitled by law.''

Privatization of the Food Stamp program failed in Texas. We should not put more families at risk by extending that failed experiment to other States. The amendment deserves to be defeated. I urge my colleagues to vote no if, in fact, the amendment is offered.

Madam Speaker, I will insert letters opposing privatization of the Food Stamp program into the Record at this point.

July 10, 2007.

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative: When the full House Agriculture

Committee marks up the nutrition title of the Farm Bill, we

urge you to oppose any effort to strike or weaken a provision

clarifying the existing requirement that state civil service

employees conduct the Food Stamp eligibility determination

process.

This ``merit-system'' requirement has been part of the Food

Stamp program since its inception. It is intended to protect

the integrity of the program and ensure fair and equal access

and treatment for all applicants.

We are extremely concerned about replication of the Texas

experience of privatizing most of the work leading up to the

final eligibility determination in its Food Stamp, Medicaid

and TANF programs. Indiana is already proceeding down the

same path despite the Texas failure. In Texas, before the

state canceled its contract with the private contractors,

hundreds of thousands of low income children and adults were

unable to access nutrition and health care assistance that

they desperately needed and to which they were entitled by

law.

When states privatize such important and inherently

governmental functions, the contracts often create incentives

for private companies to reduce access to the program in

order to maximize their profits. ``Streamlining the work''

often comes at the expense of the most difficult to serve,

including the elderly who have hearing problems on the phone

and have no internet access, the disabled, the homeless, and

people with limited English. In addition, it actually may

create new inefficiencies that delay the processing of needed

benefits.

Privatization is not necessary for states to modernize

their application process. This spring, the Government

Accounting Office documented that most states have

implemented call centers and internet using their public

employees. We strongly urge you to support the provisions in

the subcommittee bill that clarify the merit system

requirement.

Sincerely,

AFL-CIO; Coalition for Independent Living Options;

Coalition on Human Needs; Congressional Hunger Center;

Food Research and Action Center; Leadership Conference

on Civil Rights; Migrant Legal Action Program; National

Council on Aging; National Council of Jewish Women;

National Education Association; National Farmers Union;

National Low Income Housing Coalition; NETWORK, A

National Catholic Social Justice Lobby; OMB Watch;

RESULTS; The Arc of the United States; The Salvation

Army; United Automobile Workers; United Cerebral Palsy;

USAction; Voices for America's Children; Wider

Opportunities for Women.

Madam Speaker, before I yield to the next speaker, I just want to make a couple of observations. I find it somewhat ironic that my Republican friends, on the one hand, complain about the size of the bill, the overall amount of money that has been put into this bill; and then they complain about the programs that haven't been funded enough on the other hand. You can't have it both ways. I guess there is no pleasing them.

The other thing, too, is the vote on the previous question has nothing to do with the underlying bill. But I will remind my colleagues that in addition to the many good things that this bill does for rural America and for farmers and for feeding hungry people, there is a national security component to this bill as well. This bill contains money to help protect the American people from contaminated food that may cross our borders into our country. This is about food security. So this is a vital part of protecting the American people, and I don't think that should be lost.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my good friend, the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza), my colleague on the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, I am sorry my friends on the other side of the aisle don't seem to put a high priority on agriculture and on the need to support our farmers and the need to feed hungry people in this country.

You want to talk about a national security challenge, there are 35 million Americans in this country today who are either hungry or food insecure, in large part because of the Republican agenda to erode the safety net over the last several years.

There is money in this bill for food safety and inspection, money to support the Food and Drug Administration so people don't get contaminated drugs.

No, I am not going to yield to the gentleman.

These are vital national security interests. And it is about time we get our priorities straight. We need to pass this bill, just as we needed to pass the farm bill to help fix the damage that they have done over the last several years. So enough is enough. This is an important bill. If you don't think it is an important bill, then vote down the rule. Defeat the rule so we don't debate issues like agriculture and food security and support for the hungry in this country.

I would strongly urge my colleagues to vote for this rule.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 7\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the Chair of the subcommittee, who has done an incredible job putting this bill together, a bill which will help feed millions of people in this country and around the world.

Madam Speaker, let me just respond to the gentleman briefly by saying if the Republican Congress over the years has done such a good job in combating hunger and food insecurity in this country, why are there 35 million Americans that are categorized as hungry and food insecure?

In response to the idea that we want more Americans to be ``independent,'' we all want that. The bottom line is that Republican policies which took away indexing of food stamps back in 1996 has made it possible for many people not to be able to transition for food stamps.

The fact of the matter is the majority of people who are on food stamps today are working families. They are trying to be independent. They're working hard, and yet because we have failed to index food stamps to keep up with the cost of living, we've all given ourselves pay raises here. So obviously we feel the cost of living does have an impact, but yet we haven't done it to the most vulnerable.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, just in brief response to the gentleman, this is an open rule. He can amend this any way he wants to. We hear complaints from the other side that they want more openness. This is as open as you can get.

So I don't know why he would have a problem with the rule. Obviously we have different priorities in the underlying bill, but he can amend this any way he wants. That's what an open rule allows him to do.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Connecticut to counter some of the arguments that were just made.

Madam Speaker, let me just say I am disappointed with my colleague from Washington and others who have come to the floor to try to bring back an oldy but goody that the Republicans like to invoke, and that is the politics of fear. Maybe Karl Rove went down to the Republican National Committee and briefed them and said everything else is failing for the Republicans, they are at an all-time low in the public opinion poll, so trot out the politics of fear again and scare the American people.

Well, the fact of the matter is, as the gentleman knows, the administration, the Bush administration, and the Speaker's Office are in negotiations on trying to reach an accommodation on this FISA issue. If you don't believe me, it was in Congressional Quarterly. What Congressional Quarterly also stated was that the Republicans in the House, however, were trying to drag their feet.

If you don't want to join in the deliberation, that's your problem. We will work something out, hopefully with the administration, and bring this issue to closure.

But let me say one other thing why we need to be very, very careful on this. We need to be very, very careful about giving even more broad unchecked authority to Alberto Gonzales and his crew. Quite frankly, I wouldn't trust the Attorney General to tell me the correct time, never mind stand up and defend the civil liberties of anybody. That's why Democrats are continuing to work with the White House to get a tough, smart FISA bill to put together, and I expect that we will do that. What the gentleman and others are going to decide to do right now is plain politics.

Back to the main subject here, which is the farm bill. This is a good bill for farmers. This is a good bill for people who are vulnerable, who have been shortchanged by the administration in the Republican Congresses when it comes to food security. This is a good bill for America.

I congratulate the distinguished gentlelady from Connecticut for working together so hard to put together a bill we can be proud of. Vote ``yes'' on the previous question, and vote ``yes'' on the rule.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 581 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 3. That immediately upon the adoption of this

resolution the House shall, without intervention of any point

of order, consider the bill (H.R. 3138) to amend the Foreign

Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to update the

definition of electronic surveillance. All points of order

against the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as

read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the bill to final passage without intervening motion except:

(1) one hour of debate on the bill equally divided and

controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and (2) one

motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am pleased to present to the House for fiscal year 2008 the appropriations bill For Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies. I want to say ``thank you'' to Chairman David Obey for his dedication and leadership. It has been a very busy 7 months, and we have been fortunate to have Chairman Obey at the helm. A special ``thank you'' to my colleague, Congressman Kingston. It has been a pleasure to partner with him on this subcommittee, and I believe that we have accomplished a lot together. We are working to accomplish quite a lot today, with quite a wide- ranging portfolio.

This appropriation covers many subjects. Our top priority has always been to move with a clear purpose and direction towards several key goals: strengthening rural America, protecting public health, improving nutrition for more Americans, transforming our energy future, supporting conservation, investing in research, and, finally, enhancing oversight.

It begins with our fiscal year 2008 mark providing total discretionary resources of $18.8 billion, $1 billion, or 5.7 percent, above 2007, and $987.4 million, or 5.5 percent, above the budget request. A full 95 percent of the increase above the budget request, or $940 million, is used to restore funding that was either eliminated or cut in the President's budget.

Our first goal is strengthening rural America. Community development is a key link to rebuilding rural America, preserving infrastructure, building new opportunities, and confronting a tremendous gap when it comes to educational and medical resources. To help close that gap, the bill provides $52.8 million. That would double the broadband grant program which the President's budget request had eliminated. It provides $10 million more than the President requested for distance learning and telemedicine grants and includes $728.8 million to support community facilities, water and waste disposal systems, and business grants; $31.2 million for community facilities; $56.8 million for business and industry; and $70.3 million for waste and waste disposal programs.

Clean water. Rural communities face tens of billions of dollars in costs for safe drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. To begin addressing these needs, the bill provides $500 million for rural water and waste disposal grants and $1 billion for water and waste direct loans.

In housing, the community held a special hearing to discuss economic conditions in rural America with the USDA's Economic Research Service. A recent ERS report found that 302 of America's non-metro counties are ``housing stressed.'' That is why we are making significant investments in rural housing, including $212.2 million to fund $5.1 billion in affordable loans to providing housing to low-income and moderate-income families in rural areas, providing approximately 38,000 single family home ownership opportunities.

The President's budget eliminated direct loans and shifted funding to guaranteed loans with a 1 percent increase

in fees, making these loans more expensive and less accessible for low- income families.

Protecting public health was another of our priorities. The bill provides $1.7 billion for the Food and Drug Administration. That is $128.5 million over 2007 and $62 million over the budget request; in addition, $7 million in the manager's amendment in order for us to be able to inspect produce coming in from foreign countries.

This is what the committee hopes will be the first step in the fundamental transformation and the regulation of food safety at FDA.

The committee directs the FDA to submit a plan to begin changing its approach to food safety when it submits the fiscal year 2009 budget, giving the committee time to review the plan before the funds to implement it become available on July 1, 2008.

We can help with additional resources at FDA, but there also needs to be a corresponding commitment from management to perform its duties.

When our pets began to die from contaminated pet food that originated in China, the news forced us to take a hard look at entire food safety systems abroad. Our renewed attention revealed inadequate protection and an increasingly global food supply system. The budget includes an additional $7 million, as I said, for FDA inspection of FDA imports. In addition, we address vacancies in Federal meat inspector positions. The bill fully funds the requested amount for the food safety and inspection service at $930 million.

The bill also includes key language preventing the FDA from granting waivers of conflict of interest rules to voting members of the FDA advisory committee, and preventing USDA from establishing or implementing a rule allowing poultry products from China into the United States. The Chinese and others must be aware that trade cannot trump public health and that their regulations need to be strengthened to be considered an adequate trading partner.

Another of our top priorities is improving nutrition. For many long years we have failed to meet our obligations, failed to act, while too many Americans have gone without adequate healthy food. One in eight families with a toddler, an infant, in the United States is ``food insecure''; that means that they are hungry. One in eight families with an infant.

Forty percent of children in rural America are dependent upon food stamps. The progress we made on this issue with the farm bill last week represents real change, and this bill includes $39.8 billion for the Food Stamp program to meet increased participation and ensuring rising food prices do not diminish families' purchasing power.

The bill also provides record funding for two fundamental food security programs which serve our country's most vulnerable population, the supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, WIC, and the Commodities Supplemental Food Program, CSFP. These efforts go hand in hand with ongoing initiatives, including $957.7 million for nutrition programs to confront our Nation's obesity crisis, instilling better eating habits in our children, giving them the tools and the choices to avoid diabetes and other dangerous health conditions. That includes $68.5 million for the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, $26 million to expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable and Simplified Summer Food Programs to all States, and $10 million for specialty crops. What are specialty crops? They are related to healthy diets in this Nation; fruits and vegetables that are farmed in my part of the country, in the mid-Atlantic States, in California, crops that are so crucial nationwide from New England to the west coast.

Our work continues with other chief goals. Energy independence. This bill makes investments across the spectrum to grow our economy, create new jobs, lower energy prices and address global warming. It promotes renewable energy and moves us down the path to energy independence, strengthening bioenergy and renewable energy research funded at $1.2 billion, including loans and grants in rural areas. The conservation and stewardship of our lands will affect our children for years to come.

This bill restores many of the programs slated for elimination in the President's request, including the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative, the Wildlife Habitat Program, and watershed rehabilitation, and provides $979.4 million to continue assistance to landowners for conservation efforts on private lands.

We also have an obligation to maintain agriculture's critical place at the forefront of groundbreaking research, maintaining our edge in crop development, competitiveness, trade, nutrition, food safety and even homeland security.

The bill increases funds for research and education through USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service and the Agricultural Research Service.

Finally, enhanced oversight. The committee is concerned about waste, fraud and abuse in key programs and has included language requested by the administration to allow the Risk Management Agency to use up $11.2 million in mandatory crop insurance funds to strengthen its ability to oversee the program by maintaining and upgrading IT systems and other methods of detecting dubious claims.

In closing, I think we should be excited about this bill, the goals that we set out to accomplish: strengthening rural America, protecting our public health, improving nutrition for more Americans, transforming our energy future, supporting conservation, investing in research, and finally, enhancing oversight.

Most importantly, I believe it brings us back to our Nation's most fundamental principles; the strength of our communities. We have an obligation to get these things right. Let us assume that responsibility today, Mr. Chairman, and I'm pleased to submit this bill and I urge favorable consideration.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).

(Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I, too, want to say thank you to my colleague, Mr. Kingston, in working with him; and it is not the first time we have had an opportunity to work together. We have been working together over the years.

As I said, I am very proud of the bill and the goals that we set out and the direction that we set out to strengthen rural America and deal with our public health and nutrition, energy, conservation and looking at how we invest in our research.

I look forward to the balance of our time and the amendment process, but I do, too, want to associate myself with

my colleague from Georgia's remarks about our colleague on the committee, Mr. LaHood, who has been an outstanding member of this committee but has been an outstanding Member of the House of Representatives, someone you could always count on to speak his mind but to be fair and to do his best for his constituents and for this Nation.

I also want to say thank you to the many staffers who have worked hour after hour on this bill to make today possible. As a former staff member, I know that these efforts don't come together by some alchemy, but it is because of the incredible hard work that people put into it over many, many hours.

And let me thank Martha Foley, subcommittee Clerk; as well as Leslie Barrack; Diem-Lihn Jones; Adrienne Simmonson; Kelly Wade; Brian Ronholm, my staff. Also, Ashley Turton, my Chief of Staff; and Leticia Mederos, Legislative Director. I also want to say thank you to Martin Delgado, Dave Gibbons, and Jamie Swafford on the minority staff. I thank everyone for their time and their patience in putting this effort together.

I believe nothing could be more important for us to move forward on this bill and get it passed. I think it is in the best interest of this Nation.

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Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I think my colleague from Georgia maybe doesn't understand what bill is on the floor today. This is the Agriculture appropriations bill. There will be an opportunity to discuss SCHIP, and you can continue to do that, but let me just comment about your Agriculture appropriations amendment.

The House bill includes funding for central administration offices to fund current staff. The only increase is for pay costs. And I might just tell you that for all of the staff offices in central administration, that the work that was done by the committee literally cut these offices by about 16 percent. So it was just pay and benefits.

However, you should know I feel the obligation to mention these things to you, that any cuts in these offices will result in the reduction of headquarters staff, not the field staff, because that's the personnel that deals directly on a one-to-one basis with our farmers and with our ranchers so that they can access the system and be able to do what they need to do.

Now, I'm going to give the gentleman an opportunity to withdraw his amendment, because I am prepared to accept your amendment, and I'm happy to accept your amendment.

Parliamentary Inquiry

We have accepted the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just say we have accepted the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, clearly, as the Chair of the committee pointed out, this is a filibuster to talk about another issue. Now, you can continue to do that. The sooner you stop filibustering, the sooner we can move on. We have accepted the amendment. But that is up to you.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to, first of all, start off by complimenting the Chair of the committee. We have had a number of hearings this year. We've had a lot of great oversight opportunities. I look forward to more. We've thoroughly reviewed this bill, and there's many things that we found agreement on. There are some things that we're going to have debate on today and things that we'll continue to debate as the bill goes through the process, but I want to commend Ms. DeLauro for a bill well put together. Also, I want to thank her staff, Martha Foley, Leslie Barrack, Diem-Lihn Jones, Adrienne Simmonson, Kelly Wade and Brian Ronholm, and thank them for everything that they've done. And on our side, Martin Delgado, Dave Gibbons. You'll note, on the Democrat side, I pronounced the Republican side with equal ineptitude as I do the Democrats. Jamie Swafford, Meg Gilley, Merritt Myers, Emily Watson, Heather McNatt, Elizabeth Davis and Jason Lawrence and Scott Stevens. We have a lot of folks who've helped. One of my friends on the floor said, Well, how many people does this take? And I said, Well, you know this is almost a $100 billion bill, so we all have to get involved in it.

I also wanted to say something about Ray LaHood. Mr. LaHood is a great committee member. He's going to be leaving Congress at the end of this term and made that announcement this week, and I thought I'd be remiss if we didn't say something about Mr. LaHood. He is a great appropriator. He's a guy who had early on worked with the Hershey Retreat to bring more bipartisan civility to the floor. He was instrumental when I was Chair of the Leg branch subcommittee of getting the staff gym started. Indeed, I don't know if we would have it without him and all of his hard work.

And also, when we were in majority, he stood and sat where you are, Mr. Chairman, many times guiding this House through hot debates and emotional issues, and we're all going to miss Mr. LaHood.

I want to start off on the bill a little bit because so many people think of agriculture as just farming. And yet, if we look at the breakdown of this bill and we see this large blue part, the actual money in this bill, the majority of it goes to domestic food assistance programs. And it's appropriate that it is in the ag bill because so much of what

we're talking about is national security, as seen through our food policy, but direct farming programs are in this more purplish area, and it's about 35 percent of the bill. We also have money for conservation, rural development for the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and foreign food assistance. But I think it's important for people to realize that this is not just a bill that affects the rural areas.

I also want to point out that much of this bill our committee doesn't have the control over that we would like to. In fact, if you look at this bill, we have an expression here in Washington called ``mandatory and discretionary spending.'' Discretionary spending is spending that Congress itself can effect on an appropriate bill. Mandatory spending is what authorizing committees do. This would have been done through the farm bill, for example.

Now, I don't like the term ``mandatory.'' I think it should be called automatic spending, maybe even lazy spending, maybe even unchallenged spending, since we debate it once every 5 years and then lock it up in a farm bill. I think that the mandatory portion of this budget, since it is almost 80 percent of the budget, should be opened up and debated. I think there's a lot of things in there that need more scrutiny. Indeed, of the $18 billion in the discretionary spending area, we have been scrutinized and we've had a good look at it.

I want to make a couple of points. Number one, the bill at its current level will be vetoed. We do not have a veto-proof majority. This bill will pass today, but not by a veto-proof. The President has made it clear that at a 5.9 percent increase over last year, he will veto it. I think it's important for us to realize this since this is a bipartisan body. This is not a veiled threat. The President has the votes to sustain the veto, and so that's what's going to happen. I think we would be better served getting together and bringing down the numbers on this bill.

The second thing that I wanted to point out is there are a lot of issues that we're faced with in this House this week. One of them is the government health care program that's being pushed on the States and taking away a lot of their discretion. Another one is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These bills are being pushed aside for this bill, and while I have a lot of passion for this bill, being an aggie myself, the reality is, this bill will leave the Chamber and it will sit over with the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee, for all intents and purposes, is defunct. We've been working hard. We've been working long in the House to pass our appropriation bills on time, and I commend Mr. Obey and the Democrat leadership to make sure that we get the bills over there.

And yet, the reality is the Senate is going to sit on this bill, cram it into another bill, stuff it into a shoe box called an omnibus bill, and I think that's the wrong way to approach things. And at the same time, we're going to have other things that slide.

Another thing I wanted to do is set the record straight on some of the nutrition programs, because we've had and heard from a number of people on the Rules Committee earlier today that this restores funding for important and critical child nutrition programs. And you would think that under Republican control, that the bill did not give any money for food and nutrition programs. And yet, if you look at this chart, Mr. Chairman, going back from 2001 on up to 2008, you can see there's simply a linear progression in nutrition funding that has taken place under Republicans mostly, and now under Democrats. But there's no huge dip. There's no great spike now that the Democrats are in charge. And it's important to set the record straight on that.

In fact, I'm one, call me old fashioned, who doesn't think it's great to have lots and lots of people dependent on government programs. I think we should work to get people more independent, and I don't think that increasing these programs blindly makes sense. For example, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, I don't follow the math on that. Last year the casework estimate was 490,000 people. The actual number to participate was 463,000. And yet this year, even though the projection's 464,000, the budget increase is $42 million for it, and I don't follow that logic at all. If the number of participants is going down, why is the spending going up? And the President actually had zeroed that out. Why did he do that? Does the President not care about hungry people? No, it's because they are eligible for food stamps. There's another program for them. Why have two bureaucracies doing basically the same thing, especially since you have electronic benefit transfer cards which are very simple to do, and those were some that this committee led in.

The other thing that I wanted to point out on the subject of nutrition and hunger is it's interesting that we debated obesity a lot more than we have debated hunger. I think that's probably a good thing, but I think, on the other hand, it shows that there hasn't been this horrible hunger crisis under Republican rule.

Another point I want to say about this bill, the farm service agencies, right now farm service agencies, there are 58 of them that have no staff. The Chair and I have agreed that these should be closed down. I think that's a step in the right direction; 139 of them have one employee and 338 have two employees and 515 have three employees.

Now, I've heard it said about the VA that you can close down any veterans clinic you want in America as long as it's not located in a congressional district. Well, I guess the same is true with military bases, and it's true with FSA offices and other offices. We talk about wanting to balance the budget, but when it comes home to our own district, we all backpedal and say, no, we don't want anything closed.

These decisions aren't easy, but we have to be leaders on this and not shirk our responsibility. I think this committee kind of worked through it, and I'm hoping that we're going to continue to work through it as the bill moves through the process.

Renewable energy. There's so much right now in the rural areas from the subject of ethanol, biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol and other economies that we can go out and capitalize in and help bring alternative fuel to America.

In my home State of Georgia, there are about five or six ethanol plants. There are 121 of them nationally, but Georgia has on the drawing table right now to build another 80 ethanol plants just in our one State. That would put Georgia on the national leaders level. I am excited about that. Because if Georgia can do that, then certainly other States should be doing that; and I am glad that this bill puts a lot of investment into renewable energy.

On broadband and distance learning, I think we all have a commitment to that. Two things that the Chair and I have agreed on that are very important is, one, we don't want the government programs to be competing with the private sector. If the private sector is already there, why put a government program out there? And, number two, for the retired stockbroker who has bought his mountain house on the top of the beautiful mountains in Colorado, why should we care if his laptop is hooked up or not? I don't think we have to waste taxpayer money so that he can check his stock quotes while he is in retirement.

I also want to talk a little bit about a horse amendment that we have, some language in the bill that prohibits people who own horses from taking these horses across international lines. If you own a horse in America and this bill passes with the language that is in it, you will not be allowed to take that horse to Mexico or Canada for any purpose.

Now, I understand that there are those who don't want horses to be slaughtered. Most of them are people who have never owned horses, who don't understand horse owners or who are intimidated by special interest groups in Washington. But the reality is sometimes you have to put a horse down, and since we have a problem with that in America, as outlawed by this Congress or the previous Congress, then this bill does give some flexibility to those people. But, in trying to close that loophole, what the committee did is they said now you can't take your horse out of the country and you can't bring one in. It is a ridiculous part of the language, and I am going to move to strike it.

Another issue that I have some concerns about is drug reimportation. I think drug reimportation is a major policy shift, and I believe that we should have a vote on that.

I commend the Chair in reducing the number of earmarks. The earmarks last year in the bill were about 4\1/2\ percent. We are starting out at about a 2 percent level. I think that is a great reduction not just in the dollar amount but in the number of earmarks.

And one other area that I was disappointed in that I want to point out is risk-based inspection. This is where USDA inspectors go to food- processing plants and, rather than dwell on all of them equally over time, they focus on the ones who are the bad actors, the ones who have the older equipment and the shoddy practices. They put more time there. It is a common business decision, and yet we are interfering with the USDA's right to do that. It is called ``risk-based inspection.'' I think it is very important to a good, clean, healthy food supply, and we have stopped RBI. I think that is a mistake.

But, overall, there is a lot that's good in the bill. I look forward to the debate.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I think we kind of know where we are heading on various amendments. I look forward to that amendment.

And, again, I have enjoyed working with you and the staff. You have a semi-good bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

If the Chair seeks to accept the amendment, then that ends the debate; correct?

The debate is over then; correct?

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my good friend the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Madam Speaker, this Agricultural, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration appropriations bill provides more than $18.8 billion in discretionary spending for the next fiscal year. This bill represents an increase in spending by nearly 6 percent over last year's bill and continues the trend of the Democrat majority choosing to provide spending increases well above the rate of inflation and putting each taxpayer in the country on a path towards an average $3,000 increase in their Federal tax bill. Madam Speaker, this is too great a burden for the American taxpayer to pay.

As many of my colleagues know, I represent one of the premier agriculture districts in the country. Central Washington is rightfully famous for its apples, cherries, wine and many other farm and ranch products. The programs funded under this bill are of great importance to the communities I represent, and there are some provisions in the bill that I do indeed support.

For example, I am pleased that funding is maintained for rural development, which provides critical financial help to rural communities across the country. This bill also fully funds the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which provides on-the-ground technical assistance to farmers and ranchers dealing with soil and water management issues. I also note that this bill maintains a provision that I have long supported which allows Americans to be able to purchase drugs in other countries at lower prices and bring them back to the United States lawfully.

However, Madam Speaker, I am very disappointed that this bill cuts Agriculture Research Service funding by over $50 million compared to last year. I represent three Agriculture Research Service labs, two of which are collocated with Washington State University research facilities. Federally sponsored agriculture research not only improves crop productivity, it also helps farmers and ranchers find solutions to environmental and marketing challenges.

Many agriculture research initiatives were already facing the prospect of cutting essential research programs and researchers. Surely, Madam Speaker, with such a big increase over last year's spending level, we could have found room to at least protect the level of research being conducted today.

I am concerned about the potential impacts of these cuts and what it would mean for facilities in my district, in particular the Agriculture Research Service lab in Prosser. I intend to continue to work with my colleagues from Washington to ensure that we provide the funding necessary to maintain the important agriculture research activities already underway at these facilities.

I am also disappointed that this bill provides only $10 million for the Specialty Crops Block Grant program. This program provides grants distributed by the State departments of agriculture to assist the development, production and marketing of fruits and vegetables. Earlier this year, I joined a bipartisan group of my colleagues in asking that this program be fully funded at the $44.5 million level. This bill falls far short on this account.

Madam Speaker, if we pass this rule today, the House will begin consideration of the Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration appropriations bill. While this must be accomplished in a timely manner, the Senate in fact will not begin consideration of this bill until September and there is, frankly, a more pressing issue facing our Nation today.

Watching the news and reading the newspapers, Americans are reminded each day that the United States remains vulnerable to another terrorist attack. It is vital that our laws keep us one step ahead of the terrorists, but currently, Madam Speaker, we lag behind.

Right now, Federal law ties the hands of our intelligence community, causing them to miss significant portions of intelligence, all because technological advances have outpaced Federal law. We cannot wait to respond only after another attack. We must act today.

Therefore, Madam Speaker, I will be calling on my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. By defeating the previous question, we will give Members the ability to vote today on the merits of changing current law to ensure our intelligence community has the tools they need to protect our Nation from a potentially imminent terrorist attack.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), a member of the Intelligence Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I am disappointed my friend from Massachusetts would not respond to my asking him to yield when he spoke just a moment ago, and I am not discounting at all how important the provisions in this agriculture bill, how important they are, notwithstanding some of the problems that I have.

But this issue that we are talking about, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is very important and it is timely right now. Right now.

Let me explain how this process works, because this does not slow down. And I shouldn't say it doesn't slow it down; it slows it down for one hour. Can't we take 1 hour to debate this issue?

If the previous question is defeated, and I will call for it to be defeated on the floor. If it is defeated, then the rule will be amended to take up the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments for one hour to debate up or down.

This issue is very, very important and it is timely that it gets acted on before Congress leaves for the August district work period. So this does not slow down agriculture. It is not saying anything disparaging about agriculture.

And, frankly, Madam Speaker, I should know. I live in an agriculture- based economy. All of my neighbors are involved, in one way or the other, in agriculture. So I should know the importance of it.

But I also know the importance of taking up this issue regarding FISA and doing it right now, doing it this week, doing it today, by defeating the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5\1/ 2\ minutes to the ranking member of the Ag appropriations committee, Mr. Kingston of Georgia.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

The House of Representatives is expected to adjourn later this week for the August district work period. This district work period gives Members the opportunity to leave this humid area in Washington D.C. to work in their respective districts and listen to what is on the minds of the people that we all represent. Congressional ratings are at an all-time low, and I feel that is in part due to the fact that Congress is failing to address pressing issues.

I am asking my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, as I mentioned earlier. Voting ``no'' will not delay the consideration of the Agricultural, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration appropriations bill.

Let me qualify that. It will delay it for 1 hour. It will, however, give Members the opportunity to vote on the merits of updating current law so that our intelligence community has the tools it needs to monitor the telephone conversations of foreign terrorists physically located in foreign countries. Let me repeat that, foreign terrorists in foreign countries.

I hope that the Democrat majority will not stall any longer in allowing the House to vote on this very vital issue. Each minute we wait to act, our Intelligence Committee could be missing vital information, therefore increasing our risk of another attack on U.S. soil.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous material prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his concern and his compassion and his indefatigable work on the issue of making sure that those in our Nation who are hungry are able to get the food that they need in order to be able to sustain themselves.

I also want to say a thank-you to my colleague from California for his kind words and working with him on the farm bill.

Madam Speaker, I look forward to debating this bill and discussing our priorities. We are going to cover a lot of ground today with a wide ranging portfolio to accomplish quite a lot.

This appropriation covers many subjects. But what runs through every element of this bill is the common thread of our Nation assuming responsibility again for the things we are supposed to get right: keeping our country safe and healthy, preserving and strengthening our rural traditional communities, and thinking about problems that we have on the horizon, like energy, and not just thinking about today's problems.

I want to say thank you to Chairman Obey for his leadership and to our ranking member, Congressman Kingston, a partner in this effort. I believe together we have crafted a strong and bipartisan, responsible bill.

Our top priority has always been to move with a clear purpose in a direction towards several key goals: strengthening rural America; protecting public health; improving nutrition for more Americans; transforming our energy future; supporting conservation; investing in research; and finally, enhancing oversight.

Our bill provides total discretionary resources of $18.8 billion, $1 billion or 5.7 percent above 2007 and $987.4 million or 5.5 percent above the budget request. To be sure, a full 95 percent of the increase above the budget request, or $940 million, is used to restore funding that was either eliminated or cut in the President's budget, to acknowledge and to meet our obligation to hundreds of communities and millions of Americans.

When it comes to strengthening rural America, our first goal, our efforts have been critical to try to facilitate growth and to soften the impact of population loss in rural America. This bill provides $23.1 million in grants to rural areas for critical community facilities such as health care, education, public safety, day-care facilities. It also provides increases in the community facility loan programs. It provides $10 million more than the President requested for distance learning telemedicine grants, and it includes $728.8 million to support community facilities, water and waste disposal systems, and business grants.

We also make significant investments in rural housing: $212.2 million to fund $5.1 billion in affordable loans to provide housing to low- income and moderate-income families in rural areas, providing approximately 38,000 single-family homeownership opportunities.

On our second priority, protecting public health, the subcommittee stepped up from spinach and seafood to peanut butter and pet food. This has shown that our food safety system is dangerously inadequate and that we must transform the way we meet our obligation to protect the public health. So the bill provides $1.7 billion for the Food and Drug Administration, $128.5 million over 2007, $62 million over the budget request, and the first step in a fundamental transformation in the regulation of food safety at the FDA.

The bill directs the FDA to submit a plan to begin changing its approach to food safety when it submits the fiscal year 2009 budget, giving the committee time to review the plan before the funds to implement it become available on July 1, 2008.

We can help with additional resources, but there's also a need to have a corresponding commitment from management to perform its duties.

Funds are provided specifically to begin a critical transformation in food safety regulation, enhanced drug safety functions, review direct- to-consumer ads and review generic drugs.

Our next goal was improving nutrition, and I am proud of the progress we made on this issue. With the farm bill last week, this bill includes $39.8 billion for the Food Stamp program to meet increased participation and ensure rising food prices do not diminish families' purchasing power.

The bill also provides record funding for two fundamental food security programs which our country's most vulnerable population: the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, the WIC program, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. These efforts go hand-in-hand with ongoing initiatives.

$957.7 million for nutrition programs to confront our Nation's obesity, instilling better eating habits in our children, giving them the tools and choices to avoid diabetes and other dangerous health conditions.

It includes record funding of $68.5 million for the expanded Food and Nutrition Education program; $26 million to expand the fresh fruit and vegetables and the Simplified Summer Food Program to all States; and $10 million for specialty crops, yes, for fruits and vegetables.

And when it comes to other key objectives, transforming our energy future, supporting conservation and investing in research, we step up with this bill. This legislation strengthens bioenergy and renewable energy research $1.2 billion, including loans and grants in rural areas. It restores many of the conservation programs slated for elimination in the President's request, including grazing lands, conservation initiatives, the Wildlife Habitat Program, watershed rehabilitation; and provides $979.4 million to continue assistance to landowners for conservation efforts on private land.

And yes, with regard to research, $178 million for cooperative State research education and extension service, and $108.9 million of that is for research and education. Overall, we have increased research.

Finally, the bill is dedicated to enhanced oversight. We share the concern about fraud, waste and abuse, and we have key language in here which would allow the risk management agencies to use up to $11.2 million in mandatory crop insurance funds to strengthen its ability to oversee the program by

maintaining and upgrading IT systems and other methods of detecting dubious claims.

I'm proud of the bill, its priorities and the goals that we set out to accomplish. I will continue to discuss some of the obligations of this bill later today, and the Congress has chosen to highlight and return to after many long years of inaction and silence. I'll continue to discuss and recognize the values and the priorities that my colleagues and I have sought to uphold, to strengthen and to honor with this bill.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule.

I just want to let the gentleman from Kansas understand about feeding programs in the United States, and I will get a copy for you, send it over to you, something called the Carsey report that just came about a week, a week and a half ago, which talks about 40 percent, 40 percent of children in rural America are dependent on food stamps.

This bill has gone a great distance to address the issues of rural America, including the farm issues of trying to link what is produced on the land with those who are in need of food, trying to deal with an opportunity to create a more stable economy in rural America when the President's budget, in fact, has left rural America pretty much decimated; $940 million of this bill and this increase has been placed to restore the programs mainly in rural America that the administration had either cut back or eliminated.