Providing for consideration of the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 2997) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 799 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for 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 H. Res. 799.

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

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 799 provides for consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2997, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010. The rule waives all points of order against the conference report on H.R. 2997 and against its consideration, and the rule provides that the previous question shall be considered as ordered without intervention of any motion except one hour of debate and one motion to recommit, if applicable.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference report for the fiscal year 2010 Agriculture Appropriations conference report. This is a good bill, one that went through the regular order. It is, in fact, the third appropriations conference report that this body will consider this year. I want to especially commend Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro and Ranking Member Jack Kingston, as well as the other subcommittee members, for their efforts in completing this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is one that normally doesn't get a lot of attention but, in reality, is one of the most important bills that we can pass. I wish the allocation, Mr. Speaker, for this bill, quite frankly, was higher than it is because there is a great need for the programs that make up this bill. This conference report funds the following areas at the Department of Agriculture: public health programs, rural communities, agriculture research, animal health and marketing programs, and conservation. Most importantly, this bill funds domestic and international antihunger and nutrition programs, programs that literally put food in the mouths of hundreds of millions of hungry people here at home and around the world.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is $2.7 billion more than last year and $325 million more than the President's request, a 13 percent increase over last year's bill. Following my opening statement, we will hear from my friends on the other side, and I expect that they will talk about how this bill spends too much money and that this increase is simply unnecessary, especially during these difficult economic times.

Well, Mr. Speaker, this increase is needed now more than ever. Just look at where the increases in this bill are targeted: to the areas of nutrition, international food assistance, and food

and drug safety. Simply, these increases go to protect our food supply and to provide food for those who either cannot afford it or do not have access to it. It is unconscionable to me that anyone can complain about helping people in need during these tough economic times.

Today, there are over 36 million low-income individuals who rely on the SNAP program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. The sad fact is that this is a record number of people who are currently relying on this safety net program. This bill provides over $58 billion for the SNAP program, an increase of more than $4 billion from 2009.

WIC is funded at $7.2 billion, an increase of almost $400 million. This increase will provide up to 9.6 million women, infants, and children help with a healthy pregnancy and a healthy start in life.

The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, a program that provides nutritious food to low-income women, infants, children, and elderly citizens who all struggle with rising food costs, is funded at $171 million. That is $11 million more than 2009 and $9 million more than the President's request.

Finally, the Child Nutrition Programs, school meals and snacks, receive almost $17 billion, $1.9 billion above the 2009 levels.

Hunger is a real problem in America, and this bill provides funding that keeps the safety net intact. Look at one of the more affluent areas in this country, Fairfax County in Virginia. According to a recent Washington Post article, Fairfax churches and nonprofit organizations report a 39 percent increase in food assistance in the fourth quarter of 2008 when compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. Let me repeat that, a 39 percent increase. ``Almost half of the respondents reported helping families that had never asked for aid before, many of them former middle class residents now unemployment or facing foreclosure.'' I will insert this article into the Record at the end of my statement.

Mr. Speaker, this is just one example of how hunger is creeping into areas of the country that are not used to seeing hunger. Food banks, WIC clinics, and SNAP processors are the ones providing food for people who simply cannot make ends meet. Yet some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say we cannot afford to properly fund these programs, insinuating that we should turn our backs on these people who are in desperate need.

I, for one, make no apologies for these increases in food and nutrition programs. We have a moral obligation to step up to the plate to help the most vulnerable people during these difficult times.

Internationally, the need is just as great. This bill provides critical funding for the Food for Peace program and McGovern-Dole Food for Education program. Overall, there is $1.89 billion provided for international food aid programs. That is an increase of $564 million over 2009.

The P.L. 480 Food for Peace Title II grants program receives $1.69 billion, which is $464 million above 2009. And a program close to my heart, the McGovern-Dole program, is more than doubled from the previous year. In 2010, this important program will receive $209.5 million, $10 million more than President Obama's request and $109.5 million more than 2009 levels.

Mr. Speaker, for too long this country has underfunded international food and nutrition programs. This bill is changing that course. We are putting more money up front for development, providing assistance before it becomes an emergency that we and the rest of the world have to respond to. This is appropriate and necessary, and I applaud Chairwoman DeLauro for working to right the misguided policies of the previous administration. I would add that investing in food and nutrition programs overseas and investing in smart development is in our national security interests. Taking a global leadership role in combating hunger and fighting global poverty I think is something that wins us the hearts and minds of people all over the world, and I want to again commend Chairwoman DeLauro for her leadership.

I am also pleased that there is more than $33 million for eradication of the Asian longhorn beetle, an increase of more than $13 million over last year. This funding will help USDA in their efforts to help in identifying and eradicating the infestation of this pest. While more funding is needed, and I will be asking the USDA for additional emergency funding for this effort, the funding included in this bill is welcome and I appreciate its inclusion.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to address the tragic bombing of the United Nations World Food Program offices in Islamabad, Pakistan. The World Food Program benefits from the international food aid programs that are funded in this bill. WFP is an excellent partner and is on the front lines of many of the efforts to combat hunger and starvation around the world. Josette Sheeran and everyone at WFP do an excellent job, and I am pleased to be able to work with them as they work to end hunger around the world.

I want to convey my deepest condolences and sympathies to the family and friends and colleagues of the WFP staff who were killed in Pakistan. My thoughts and prayers are also with those who were wounded and injured in the bombing attack, and we hope for their full recovery. The bombing underscores the often dangerous situations in which the World Food Program and so many other humanitarian relief workers find themselves. And I, for one, can only thank them for their important and too often unrecognized service to humanity.

[From the Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2009]

Whole Foods to Food Banks

(By Annie Gowen)

The Germantown woman was loading boxes of food from the

Manna food bank into a shiny sport-utility vehicle one recent

afternoon when she was approached by a donor dropping off

food.

``What group are you with?'' the donor asked the woman, who

promptly burst into tears. With her Toyota Sequoia and

quilted Vera Bradley bag, she had been mistaken for a

volunteer--rather than a client waiting to take home a bag of

potatoes.

``I'm a mother of four just trying to feed my kids,'' the

woman sobbed to the donor, who was taken aback, then

sympathetic.

Such awkward scenes are playing out frequently at food

pantries and other charities across the region as they

struggle to help the still upward-spiraling number of

formerly middle-class people knocking on their doors.

For the charities, the surge in demand has tested their

resourcefulness--and sometimes their patience. Not only must

they stock millions of pounds of additional food in bigger

warehouses, but they also must adopt fresh tactics to help

the newly needy, who can be more bewildered, more emotional

and more selective than their traditional clients.

One intake volunteer at Food for Others in Fairfax County,

for example, has learned that the formerly affluent won't

wait outside in line for food at evening neighborhood

giveaways, lest they be spotted.

``We have more people than ever coming here thinking they'd

never ever be here,'' said Amy Ginsburg, executive director

of Manna Food Center in Montgomery County. Manna, along with

most food area pantries, requires people to prove by income

that they need assistance.

The group is moving into a 12,000-square-foot warehouse in

Gaithersburg on Oct. 5 to meet the growing need. Manna gave

away 3.1 million pounds of food to 102,519 Montgomery County

residents last fiscal year, up from 2.1 million pounds the

year before. They've increased food drives, and cash

donations have kept pace.

Manna's workers and volunteers try to make the experience

as dignified as possible for everyone, helping clients load

their cars and handing out juice boxes and pretzels to

families waiting in increasingly longer lines. On a recent

morning, residents dressed in pressed khakis waited for boxes

of fresh produce, meat and canned goods alongside those in

dirty T-shirts.

``Not having enough money for food is a bizarre, foreign

experience'' for the new needy, Ginsburg explained. ``They're

still getting over the shock.''

Ginsburg and others running local charities expect the

number of residents seeking help to continue to rise even as

the economy improves. Jobless numbers are increasing, they

point out, while severance checks and unemployment benefits

are running out.

Fairfax found in a recent survey of 89 churches and

nonprofit organizations that 32,044 households received food

assistance in the last quarter of 2008, a 39 percent increase

from the previous year's fourth quarter. Almost half of the

respondents reported helping families that had never asked

for aid before--many of them former middle-class residents

now unemployed or facing foreclosure.

Wanda Moloney, client relations manager at Loudoun

Interfaith Relief, which served 56,000 residents last year,

said her group gives food to 100 new families a week.

Increasingly, Interfaith volunteers from some of Loudoun's

most affluent neighborhoods find themselves packing boxes for

their friends and neighbors.

Nobody knows what to say.

``You can see it in the eye contact,'' Moloney said. ``The

tears say it all.''

Barbara Curtis, 61, said that the experience of getting

groceries from the food pantry was ``startling at first.''

She and her husband, Tripp, lost their sprawling Loudoun home

this year after he became ill and was unable to work. With

five children at home, their descent from a comfortable

middle-class life seemed to happen overnight. ``It really let

me see how vulnerable we all are,'' Curtis said.

Terry Wilson, 43, a floral designer, also sought help in

Loudoun after he was bumped from full time to part time at

work and lost his benefits. But it wasn't easy. The first

time he pulled open the door and took in the crowd in the

waiting room, he turned around and walked out.

``It was like, `Whoa . . . I can't do this,' '' he recalled

Wednesday as he picked up food for the second time. But then

he realized having the groceries could help him shift money

to his utility bill and his car payment. ``Everyone else is

doing it, and times are tough. Let's suck it up and see what

happens.''

Out in the Manna parking lot, the Germantown woman--who was

visiting the food bank for the second time and did not want

her name used to spare her children embarrassment--was

inspecting her food allotment with the zeal of a soccer mom

at Whole Foods. She turned to Manna for help after her

husband refinanced their home into a costly subprime mortgage

and then moved out. She has been able to get the mortgage

modified, but her finances remain precarious.

She checked the expiration date on a carton of soy milk,

unscrewed the lid of a jar of organic peanut butter to make

sure it was sealed and read the label on a tube of ground

turkey. The turkey did not pass muster, and she politely

returned it to a Manna staffer. ``I don't know what's in

it,'' she explained.

``It's a double-edged sword,'' she said. ``You can't go

without food, but certain foods at Manna, no way I'm going to

feed my kids. It's kind of snotty.'' She rejoiced in a big

bag of day-old bagels, sport drinks and doughnuts, treats she

could no longer afford to buy her sons.

At times, this changing face of need has sparked moments of

confusion and discomfort for those who are trying to help.

Christine Lucas, executive director of the Arlington Food

Assistance Center, said she is often asked by volunteers and

donors about the number of clients driving fancy cars. (A

well-dressed couple who declined to be interviewed was there

recently, putting their sacks into a Cadillac.) Lucas

responds that it could be an employer's car or a family

hanging onto its last asset.

Or it could be the formerly middle-class mom with Calvin

Klein sunglasses perched atop her head who said she was going

to have to search Epicurious.com for recipes that use black

beans because the pantry had given her so many cans.

Appearances can be deceiving, as Debbie Lane and her two

children discovered when they drove out to an affluent

neighborhood in Chantilly to deliver $200 worth of school

supplies to a needy family. Lane, of Fairfax, said her kids

had offered to reuse some of their school supplies from last

year so that they could contribute to the back-to-school

drive, organized by the food pantry Our Daily Bread.

``My son, who is 8, said, `Mom, if this is the neighborhood

we're dropping these things off in, I think we should turn

our car around,' '' Lane recalled. ``It was a great segue for

me to talk about what poverty does and does not look like.''

But even she was surprised at the size and scope of ``this

palatial home with two brand-new expensive cars in the

driveway. I was really grappling with this. I was thinking,

`This is crazy.' '' She later learned that what she had tried

to explain to her kids was true: The family that needed the

supplies was renting rooms in the home's basement and had

recently seen its income drop when the mother died of cancer.

The Germantown mother of four said she knew why she'd been

mistaken for a volunteer by the donor dropping off food--it

was her car.

``Because I have the [Sequoia], she thought I was doing the

same thing she was, I guess,'' the woman speculated. She

watched the donor drive away with a mix of envy and sadness,

remembering what it was like ``to be normal.''

``What a glorious feeling . . . to be able to give to other

people,'' she said. ``It is a better feeling to give than to

receive. But sometimes you have to receive.''

I reserve the balance of my time.

I will reserve my time at this point in time, Mr. Speaker.

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

The gentleman from California is correct when he says that his side was guilty of air-dropping provisions into conference reports. I remember one time being up in the Rules Committee when a Department of Defense bill came before the committee. And after the conferees had finished all their work, all of a sudden this kind of mysterious language appeared providing immunity to drug companies that produced drugs that were not safe. And the reality was, Mr. Speaker, that they did that after the conference had finished up.

In this case here it's very, very different. In this case here, the child nutrition reauthorization, a bill we had hoped to have already done by now, is not completed. And if, in fact, this language was not put in here to extend expiring child nutrition authorization programs-- and let me just kind of tell people what that is. It's things like school breakfasts and school lunches and after-school meals for kids who otherwise wouldn't get access to meals or nutrition.

So that language, which was agreed to by the authorizers, was put into this bill. Now, if we want to have an argument about process, fine. But the reality is here: if you did not do this right now, these programs would expire. And I don't know of anybody, maybe on your side they do, but I know for the majority on this side, people do not want those programs to expire because people depend on them.

I yield the gentleman 30 seconds.

I thank the gentleman for his comments. And I do think we have bested you in the area of responding to a need that, quite frankly, when your party was in control here, these areas were underfunded. And the deal, this is about school breakfasts and school lunches and after-school snacks for kids who otherwise wouldn't get it. That's what this is about. That's what we are debating here.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York, a member of the Rules Committee, Mr. Arcuri.

Mr. Speaker, let me just clarify for the record, because I think maybe there is a difference here between what some of us are saying on this side of the aisle compared to what some of my friends are saying on the other side of the aisle.

I don't believe a hungry child can wait. I don't believe we can put that problem off till next year or 5 years or 10 years down the road. And in fact, I would argue that investing and making sure that that child gets the proper nutrition and the proper food early on in their lifetime will probably save us a whole bunch of money in terms of health care costs and lost learning opportunities and so many other things that come as a result of people being hungry and not getting enough to eat.

So we don't have time to wait. And one of the reasons we are trying to tackle health care, Mr. Speaker, is to try to get this deficit and this debt under control, something, by the way, that when Bill Clinton left office, he left historic surpluses. After a few years of my friends on the other side of the aisle, we have historic deficits, and now we're trying to dig ourselves out of this ditch.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut, the Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Ms. DeLauro.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 2 minutes.

I yield myself 30 seconds. I find it interesting the gentleman's not talking about the bill before us, which, as he failed to mention, was actually filed last Wednesday. It's been over a week that people have had access to this bill.

He's right about one thing: we are changing the way we do business in this House compared to when the Republicans were in charge. We are changing our priorities. When they were in charge, they were talking about immunity for big drug companies, talking about corporate tax breaks. What we're talking about in this bill is making sure that our kids have breakfasts and lunches and good nutritional programs; making sure that our farmers get the food they deserve.

I'd like to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

I yield the gentlelady 2 additional minutes.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from California, the Chair of the Education and Labor Committee, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert into the Record an article from the Star-News entitled, ``Hungry Eyes--More N.C. children go without food.''

[From the Wilmington (NC) Star News, Aug. 15, 2009]

Hungry Eyes--More N.C. Children Go Without Food

(By Amanda Greene)

The three children hadn't eaten a full meal in two days.

In desperation, their grandparents knocked on the door of a

downtown Wilmington church.

The children waited in the car as their grandparents asked

the minister at the door for help.

He gave them a box of pop-top cans of Vienna sausages and

pork and beans.

``They got the food, drove out of the parking lot and

stopped beside the road to feed the kids right away,'' said

Jennifer Caslin, development manager at the Wilmington branch

of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

Such scenes are increasingly common here and throughout the

state as joblessness and the weak economy put ever greater

strains on an already thin safety net. You don't have to look

hard to see hungry children in North Carolina. Whether it's

families skipping breakfast so the food will stretch through

dinner, or eating packaged foods, because fruits and

vegetables are too expensive, many of the state's children

aren't eating balanced, nutritious meals.

In May, Feeding America, the largest food bank network in

the country, released the results of its first analysis of

food insecurity in early childhood, ``Child Food Insecurity

in the United States: 2005-2007.'' North Carolina ranked

second worst in the nation with 24.1 percent of its children

under 5 judged to be food insecure and lacking regular access

to nutritional food. The state was 10th worst in the same

Feeding America study of food insecurity in children 0-18

years old, using figures from the U.S. Department of

Agriculture. Nationally, the food insecurity average is 17

percent for children under 5.

Demand for food at the nation's food banks has increased 30

percent in the past year, said Ross Fraser, media relations

manager for Feeding America. ``So many people have been

plunged into poverty,'' he said, ``and it's terrible for

children because it stunts their growth in all ways.''

Indicators of food insecurity in North Carolina include

high child poverty rates, the 11 percent unemployment rate,

broken families, the high price of fresh food and a 21

percent increase in households with food stamps since 2007,

said Alexandra Sirota, director of policy and research,

Action for Children North Carolina in Raleigh.

North Carolina ranked 37th in child well-being in the

recently released 2009 Kids Count Data Book from the Annie E.

Casey Foundation using factors such as the percent of low-

birth-weight babies, infant mortality rate, child death rate,

teen death rate, teen birth rate, percent of teenaged high

school dropouts, percent of teens not attending school and

not working, percent of children in families without a parent

with full-time and year-round employment, percent of children

in poverty and percent of children in single-parent families.

The state did improve one level from its 38th ranking in

2008.

Often the youngest children fall through the cracks,

subject to their parents' ability--or inability-- to provide

nutritious foods.

``There are a lot of programs that are available once

(kids) get into the school system, but those aren't always

available for young children until school age,'' Sirota

added. ``The fact that families are both losing their jobs

and earning such low wages that they're living in extreme

poverty is an indicator of that added stress when you're

trying to feed the family.''

bridging the gap

When parents can't feed their children regularly, often the

schools, local social service networks and churches try to

fill the need.

And in the summers, when school's out, the need for meals

for children increases. The New Hanover County school

district hosts a federally-funded Summer Food Service for

Children Program at 15 schools and community centers in the

county for any child, 18 years old or younger, to eat a

lunch-time meal. For six weeks this summer, the program

served about 700 kids each day. That number is slightly lower

than previous years because funding for the program came in

after the end of school this year and didn't get advertised,

said Anne Ohlson, schools child nutrition supervisor.

``We do see a lot of hungry children who are waiting for us

when we show up with the

food,'' said Imer Smith, director of Child Nutrition for New

Hanover County Schools. Historically, most of those children

would show up at inner-city sites, but the number of children

coming to the program's sites outside the city is increasing.

An 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother were among a

crowd of about 10 children who were waiting for the Food

Service lunch to start at the doors of the Jervay Communities

meeting center one day a few weeks ago. The girl and her

brother walked from their Jervay home across the square to

the center each day that week for lunch. Lunch was a turkey

and cheese sandwich, cucumber slices with ranch dressing,

a peach cup and skim chocolate milk.

``I love ranch on my sandwich,'' the little boy said,

smiling and slathering his bun.

During the school year, Caroline Hines is seeing more and

more parents who can't pay their child's food accounts as

food service director at Rachel Freeman Elementary School.

Parents who don't qualify for free or reduced meals have sent

her notes asking her not to allow their children to eat if

they don't bring money with them because the parents can't

afford the charge: $1.25 for breakfast or $2 for lunch.

Defaulted lunch accounts at all New Hanover schools have

risen from $18,223 in 2008 to $29,203 at the end of last

school year. New Hanover County Schools saw an increase in

children in free and reduced lunch programs from 9,792 in

2007-08 to 10,375 in 2008-09.

``I had a child who came in at breakfast and waited until

the end to get the leftover food that no one had opened,''

Hines said, adding that teachers and school social workers

sometimes buy students meals. Some parents won't fill out the

free lunch forms because ``they think people will know their

child needed it.''

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear to my colleagues, the bill before us was filed over a week ago, so this debate we're having is not about process. This really is about substance. And I am sad that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a problem with child nutrition programs. They have no problem when it comes to corporate tax breaks. They have no problems when it comes to immunity for big drug companies. But here they are on the floor today, they have a problem with child nutrition programs.

I should say to my colleague from North Carolina, poor kids don't want a handout. They don't want the government to provide them with a free meal. They wish that they weren't in that position. Unfortunately, the tough times that they find themselves in require us to help out. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 799, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2997) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include tabular and extraneous material on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2997.

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

I am delighted to present the 2010 Agriculture-Food and Drug Administration appropriations conference report. I want to note for my colleagues that this is the earliest that an Agriculture appropriations conference report has come to the House floor since 1999.

This report represents a culmination of many months of hard work in both Houses of Congress. I want to offer my thanks to the ranking member, Congressman Jack Kingston, for his collaboration and input over these months, and I also want to say ``thank you'' to the minority and majority staff for all of their tireless work in this effort, a ``thank you'' to our ranking member, Mr. Lewis, and a special ``thank you'' to Chairman Obey for his counsel on this effort.

We have been busy all year. The subcommittee has held seven hearings so far, including two hearings with the Secretary of Agriculture, a hearing with the Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and another with the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. We had a hearing on domestic nutrition programs, a hearing on the equivalency process for imported meat and poultry. We also had a hearing in which members discussed their priorities.

The fiscal year 2010 conference report before us, the culmination of the process, focuses on several key areas such as: supporting agricultural research, investing in rural communities, protecting public health, bolstering food nutrition programs and food aid, and conserving our natural resources. The final bill invests in these priorities and the agencies that can help us to meet them while making specific and sensible budget cuts where feasible.

The 2010 Agriculture-FDA appropriations conference report provides for $23.3 billion in funding, a 13 percent increase over 2009 levels, with major and responsible investments across the board.

In terms of protecting public health, the bill provides a substantial increase for the Food and Drug Administration--$306 million--to conduct more inspections of domestic and foreign food and medical products.

In addition, the bill fully funds the administration's request for the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the United States Department of Agriculture, providing over $1 billion for FSIS for the first time in history.

The appropriate funding of FDA and FSIS is not only a matter of public health and consumer safety, it is a matter of national and economic security. Not all of the dangers that threaten the health and safety of American families can be found in airports, border checkpoints or harbor containers.

Sometimes they lurk in our refrigerators and on our kitchen tables. We cannot afford to neglect our food safety system any longer, and I am pleased that we fund the FDA and the FSIS adequately in this bill.

With regards to nutrition, the bill provides $7.25 billion for WIC, the women, infants and children program, to serve our Nation's vulnerable populations and help those hit hardest by the economic crisis.

Our fundamental responsibility as legislators and as leaders, to say nothing of basic morality and fairness, demands that we do everything that we can to help Americans suffering right now from poverty and malnutrition. Each dollar we spend on nutrition here in this bill means food on the table for hungry families who are struggling.

The bill also includes $171 million for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, or CSFP, and expands assistance to seven new States: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Delaware, Utah, New Jersey, Georgia and Maine.

In addition, conferees agreed to extend the school lunch program for 1 year at the request of the Education and Labor Committee to ensure that the school lunch program remains operational and that schoolchildren will not go hungry.

The bill makes significant investments in agricultural research: $1.2 billion for the Agricultural Research Service, over $1.3 billion for the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, and among the key programs funded is $262.5 million for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, a competitive research program.

In addition, the report seeks to create new opportunities for growth in the Nation's small-town economies with rural development and conservation. The agreement provides $12 billion for the section 502 Guaranteed Single-Family Housing Loans and $164 million for the Rural Energy for America Program, just two of the important programs funded here to encourage rural development.

The bill addresses concerns raised on a bipartisan basis about the need to modernize the Farm Service Agency's information technology networks and databases in order to provide more effective and secure service for the agency's customers. It fully funds the request of $67.3 million for this work.

The conference report increases funding for key safety nets for our farmers, $257 million more in farm ownership loans and $676 million more in farm operating loans than the President's request.

This agreement includes $350 million for dairy assistance, $290 million to the Secretary of Agriculture to supplement producers' income and $60 million for purchasing surplus cheese and other dairy products to distribute to food banks.

The conference agreement also works to conserve America's natural resources and thus sustain our national prosperity. It includes approximately $1 billion for the Natural Resources Conservation Service to improve service in the field, conserve and protect the environment and upgrade aging dams at risk of catastrophic failure. It restores funding eliminated in the budget for the Resource Conservation and Development program and maintains the House position of keeping it in a separate account.

It funds the Commodity Futures Trading Commission above the President's request to better secure the markets from improper speculation. And it continues to protect our Nation's families and farmers from the dangers posed by unsafe processed poultry imports from overseas. Some of you may be familiar with the long debate we've had over processed poultry from China. From the very beginning, I have insisted that the question of processed Chinese poultry imports be taken as a public health issue that must not be entangled in trade discussions. This conference report language provides meaningful assurances that the public health will be protected and that adequate preventive measures will be taken to ensure poultry products from China are safe.

The final conference language firmly establishes that Chinese poultry imports must live up to American sanitary conditions before being shipped to the United States. This includes requiring new onsite audits, new onsite inspections and an increased level of port-of-entry reinspections. The language also requires USDA to report frequently to the Congress on the implementation of any rule authorizing China to export poultry products to the U.S. This will allow the Congress to monitor USDA's work in this area on a frequent basis.

In short, the new language ensures the USDA will perform the necessary inspection and monitoring functions to minimize possible food safety threats from Chinese processed poultry imports. I look forward to working with the Secretary as this process moves forward.

Finally, for all the important investments in this bill, we have also made responsible cuts where warranted. This report includes $194 million in cuts below 2009, more than $1 billion in cuts below the 2010 budget request, and $346 million in cuts below the 2010 House-passed bill.

Taken as a whole, I believe we have crafted responsible agriculture legislation that alleviates short-term suffering, encourages long-term growth, invests in our future and reflects our priorities as a Nation.

In closing, let me take a moment to thank the staff who have worked diligently to help to put this bill together. Subcommittee majority staff--Martha Foley, our clerk, Leslie Barrack, Matthew Smith, Jason Weller, Cliff Isenberg and Kerstin Millius have worked closely with David Gibbons on the minority staff. In addition, Brian Ronholm and Letty Mederos on my staff, and Merritt Myers and Meg Gilley from Mr. Kingston's staff have been of tremendous help to this subcommittee.

I urge you to support this bill.

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I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, just to set the record straight on one or two

items, as the gentleman from Georgia knows, the difference between a little over 11 percent and a little over 13 percent comes from the $350 million allocation for U.S. dairy farmers. Now, I don't know if the gentleman has dairy farmers in his district, but North, South, East and West, the dairy industry is collapsing.

Now, it may be that you and your side of the aisle would like to see the dairy industry collapse. We pay for it. It's within the allocation, in addition to which we thought it was the right thing to do in order to deal with small farmers, people who are on their knees with regard to the dairy industry, and essentially because of what happened in China. If the truth be known, it is that given the tainted product in China, we were exporting--we were doing a voluminous export business to China. Because the product was tainted, the Chinese were not buying their product because it killed their kids. So they are not buying milk, and our dairy farmers are suffering as a result of that.

Now, I happen to believe it is an appropriate responsibility for our government to look at what was happening to the U.S. dairy farmers and to provide them with assistance, and the gentleman knows what that is.

In addition to this, one additional point. We keep hearing about air- dropping. You know, it sounds good, and maybe the view is that if you continue to repeat it often enough, it will somehow in some way catch on. There was no such thing as air-dropping anything into this bill. As a matter of fact, as far as I know, Education and Labor is an authorizing committee. This went through the authorizing committee, and essentially, as I said in my opening remarks, conferees--House, Senate, Democrat, Republican--agreed to extend for 1 year the child nutrition program because it isn't ready to move to reauthorization yet. And what would that cut off if we did not, if we did not extend it under this bill? It would mean the school breakfast program, the school lunch program.

I know several years ago folks on the other side of the aisle thought it was a good idea to end the school lunch program. I think probably on a bipartisan basis these days no one believes that we should end these nutrition programs. So nothing was air-dropped. It was vetted by the committee, supported by Chairs and ranking members, both sides of the aisle, House and Senate, and essentially what we did, at no cost within this allocation, was to extend this program for a year.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).

I am happy to yield 3 minutes to a member of the committee and former member of the committee, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

I would be happy to accept an invitation for breakfast. I love grits with butter and salt. What do you put first, the butter or the salt? I'll take your advice on that.

I'd be happy to yield.

Amen.

With that, let me yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

First of all, let me just say thank you to the ranking member, Mr. Kingston; and, in fact, it is a pleasure to work with Mr. Kingston. We always say that we may have philosophical differences, but we are good-natured about it and understand that and work in a very collaborative effort. And I, too, thank you for all of your help and your input with regard to the issue of Chinese poultry. It was a long discussion, but one in which I think we came to a conclusion as our colleague, Mr. Davis, said being able to strike that balance where we are able to protect the public health and at the same time to protect an industry. And I feel good about that.

And I, too, look forward to our continued efforts together as we approach problems--as you know and I do--that really face people with the jurisdiction that we have that comes under this portfolio. It really touches people's lives in so, so many ways. And I know that you have a deep and abiding concern for what happens to our farmers and our ranchers, what's happening to our industries and to making sure that we have the wherewithal and provide the resources people need to succeed.

I would like to, if I might, just make one further comment, and then we'll yield back whatever time is remaining.

I wanted to bring the attention of my colleagues to an important matter of health and safety. And when we talked about the child nutrition program and its extension, our Nation's schoolchildren and the people who work with them on a daily basis are faced with a growing public health concern. Awareness of vaccine for H1N1 flu, annual flu has made the front pages of our communities these days.

You've got school food service workers who face a very difficult dilemma in trying to do their jobs. They don't have any paid sick leave. These are people without any leave. So there's thousands of food service workers who pose a real risk to the health and safety of our Nation's kids. And the comment is ``show up for work or do not get paid.''

So rather than exacerbating the problems, these workers can and should be part of the solution to ensuring the health and safety of our children. I look forward to working in the months ahead as Education and Labor looks to reauthorize their legislation, and I pledge to work with my colleagues to see if we can provide a minimum and a reasonable standard for paid sick leave for school service workers.

In the meantime, I am also encouraging the administration to examine this issue because I think it is a health problem and the Nation's well-being depends on it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I want to tell a story about Kika de la Garza who at one time was chairman of the Ag Committee. Chairman de la Garza came down to Georgia and visited the Kings Bay nuclear submarine plant. At that time, as it still is, our nuclear submarine plant was a marvel of technology and was really a floating and submerged fortress that was one of the most powerful weapons on the globe today.

He asked the captain, Tell me about this nuclear generator. Well, the generator goes on and on, and of course nuclear is a very powerful source of fuel. He said, Well, what would make you turn the submarine around? If the nuclear generation can make this submarine go all over the globe without stopping, without ever having to stop to refuel, what makes you go back to port? And the captain of the nuclear submarine looked at the chairman of the Agriculture Committee with some amazement and amusement and said, Well, Mr. Chairman, we turn around when we run out of food. That's a very profound statement. It's something that as we debate this bill, I think we should be aware of.

Our agricultural policies can be a little peculiar, can be a little bit difficult to follow, and can be open to a lot of criticism, but our food policy works. We have a large food supply, an abundant food supply at very low prices. Indeed, when you go into a grocery store, you complain if you can't get fruit 12 months a year or if the milk isn't at a good price or whatever it is. We have a good food policy in America and, as a result, we spend more time talking about obesity than we do hunger. So I think all Members should be very appreciative of the Ag appropriations conference report. We all support it in some fashion, sometimes not necessarily casting a vote ``yes,'' but the vote, nonetheless, isn't indicative of how we feel about the importance of agriculture.

I have some concerns about this bill. We have worked very closely as a subcommittee. We've had a lot of hearings. The chairwoman is a very vigorous, energized member and has a lot of passion on lots of different issues. We have a lot of great agreements and a lot of disagreements on some things that she feels passionately about and some things I feel passionately about. As she has mentioned, we both have very strong staffs on the majority and on the minority side. We're very appreciative of that, and I think we have got a good ag family. My concerns about this bill though, Mr. Speaker, focus on the spending levels.

This bill was higher than last year when it left the House, and now it's again higher, now that it's come back to the House from the Senate. The bill is nearly 14 percent higher than it was last year. The discretionary spending level is $23.3 billion, and it's about $2.8 billion over last year's level. The mandatory spending is 11 percent higher than 2009. Combined, the mandatory and the discretionary spending levels are about 12 percent higher than last year. I'm concerned about that because, you know, food prices haven't gone up that much.

Think about Social Security. Our seniors will not be receiving a COLA this year because, among other things, Social Security is based on inflation, which has a reflection of food. So they are scheduled not to receive a COLA, and yet people on food stamps are going to get a huge increase. I find that bothersome. If we look at some of the individual accounts, I could tick them off. But I would just say, if you look at some things, why is the spending up so high?

Well, take broadband. Broadband has about $4 million in it this year, yet in the stimulus package which was passed--the stimulus package which was financed not on tax dollars but on borrowed dollars and printed dollars. It's a package that our children's children will be paying for. In that package, the Rural Utility Service received $2.5 billion, not to mention another $2.5 billion--actually, about $3 billion--that was in another account that the Department of Commerce will be funding. None of that has been spent yet. So we've got $6 billion to $7 billion in broadband that came out of the stimulus bill that has not been used, yet this bill gives them another $4.5 billion. That defies common sense.

Food stamps, this bill has $4.3 billion more than 2009. Half of the mandatory spending is in food stamps, $58.3 billion. But in the stimulus bill, food stamps received a $19 billion slug of money. It wasn't because of an increase in food prices. It was allegedly because of new enrollment or anticipated new enrollment. But this bill still gives food stamps an increase. It's ironic, because one of the things this bill also does in reaction to falling milk prices is it gives the dairy farmers more money. So we're giving people who get food stamps an increase.

This bill does not fund Social Security, but just to think about this in a sequence, Social Security recipients do not get an increase; food stamp recipients do get an increase because of a rise in food costs and dairy farmers get money because of falling dairy prices. That's not consistent. I think we could do better than that.

Food for Peace gets $1.69 billion. That's an increase of $462 million on top of what they just got in the stimulus bill of $700 million. I don't think that is justified at this point in time. So I have some real concerns about our spending. Keep in mind that the Obama administration will have the historical record of the highest deficit in the history of the United States Congress, three times as high as the highest deficit in the history of the United States. I want to repeat that. The Obama-Pelosi deficit will be $1.5 trillion this year. That's three times as high as the highest deficit in the history of the United States of America.

Now, we had an opportunity to save some money. We had an opportunity to save $150 million, but instead, what we did in the conference report was air-drop five new pilot programs: a summer food program for $85 million; equipment assistance program, $25 million; WIC breast-feeding outreach at about $5 million; nutrition outreach for day care, $8 million; and direct certification expansion of $25 million. These programs may have some merit. Perhaps we can easily get these programs passed by Members of the House and Members of the Senate, but they did not come through the authorizing committee. They did not come through the Ag Committee. They were not debated. There were not hearings on it. They were air-dropped in this committee, and I'm not convinced that the administration formally asked for them.

There was a lot of discussion about these so-called pilot programs. But why not give the money back to the taxpayers? Why not say, Okay, we have got $150 million. Let's not go out and create new programs because we know what happens to new programs. Ronald Reagan said it best. He said, If you don't believe in eternal life, try killing a Federal program. It's impossible. You find out how many people have a brother- in-law who works for the particular agency anytime you try to kill any program whatsoever.

So I'm very concerned about the spending of the Obama-Pelosi team, and it has less to do with the Ag appropriations bill but much more to do with the direction of Congress. So my worry about this bill was really tied into a bigger picture of spending.

As I said, I think we've done a good job this year. We've worked hard on a lot of things. Many of these accounts are things that I would fight for and I would certainly support 100 percent of what we're doing with them. But I am concerned about the big picture, because when I talk about that big Pelosi-Obama deficit of $1.5 trillion, that doesn't even talk about the $1.29 trillion health care bill that we will be facing soon, which I would say that even if you think a public option is great, if you think that the government who brought us Cash for Clunkers can run health care, you've still got to step back and say, But can you afford it?

So as we look at these appropriations bills, I think more and more people in America are saying, You know what? You Republicans spent too much money, but doggone it if it's not on supercharge right now. You've got to do something about it.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I'll reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make the point that an earmark that has not been vetted by the subcommittee, not been voted on by the full committee and appears in a conference report is an air- dropped earmark. In this case, the Education and Labor Committee debated these, but they never voted on it. And if they did vote on it, we could have had the vote on the House floor on suspension.

Maybe we could say it's an unauthorized earmark, but it did not come through the House, did not come through the Senate. It appeared in conference committee. And as my friend knows, I have been very steadfast and maybe the only Republican to constantly compliment the majority on a very good job of reducing the number of earmarks. In fact, I have said that at the subcommittee level, at the full committee level, and at the conference committee level. So credit where credit is due. But I really think on this one these things have been air dropped because they did not come through our committee and they did not come through the Senate. Maybe there's a better word than ``air dropped,'' but they were not voted on by the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about some of the great research that we have done in agriculture which I think is important.

A few years ago I was talking to an ag researcher down in south Georgia, and he's an entomologist and has been doing some work with wasps, and he found out that wasps react differently around gunpowder. And it was a fascinating study because they thought maybe there would be an application in the war on terrorism with wasps, and they might be cheaper than using these very expensive canine dogs to sniff cars. I thought that's pretty interesting. I don't know how they're going to do it. I don't want wasps let loose in my car the way these dogs are. But that's just one example of some of the research that's being done that could potentially save us money.

Another example of some of the great research is, take a city like New Orleans. They have a huge problem with subterranean termites. Termites are a fascinating animal. The more you learn about it, the more you appreciate them. They actually can change sexes. They can live underground in colonies for years and years. But when they run out of wood, they start burrowing holes in all directions trying to find another piece of wood, and when they can't find one, they start coming up to our foundation. Now, that is millions of dollars a year, millions of dollars a year that we have in termite damage that this bill seeks to study.

Another thing, and it doesn't affect my friend up in Connecticut, but everybody in the South who has ever eaten a proper breakfast with grits knows that if you leave the grits in the cabinet too long, it doesn't matter how good your bug spray is. There are grubs coming up. I know I shouldn't be telling you this before I invite you over to eat at my house. But a problem in any household that has flour or something is that after a while, if you leave it on the shelf, you start getting these bugs that get in it. And you wonder how do they get in there? They actually come as part of the meal, and that's not the meal you eat but the meal from the meal. And the question is, how do you stop that problem? Ag research is doing that kind of work, and it's an example of some of the things that we're looking at in this bill.

So while we do have some disagreements on the funding, we both believe passionately, as Mr. Farr said, let the smart guys with the white coats in the back room study these things and come up with new inventions and new technologies.

At the University of Georgia one of the labs is studying getting fuel from algae. And, of course, we know algae can be a problem. If they can figure out how to make fuel out of it, it would be a wonderful thing. Kudzu, a plant that we actually imported from China maybe 60 or 70 years ago to stop erosion in the South, has grown wild, and yet the University of Tennessee is trying to figure out can you get fuel from kudzu?

They're doing the same thing with pine trees. Can you make cellulosic ethanol out of pine trees and, if so, a State like Georgia, which is about 66 percent in trees, we would become the Saudi Arabia of cellulosic ethanol. So it would be a great thing.

We're excited about this. There are so many great mysteries that we have yet to solve in our plants and animal world that this bill does study.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

If my friend will yield.

The great thing about really great grits is you put cheese in them.

But the invitation is open.

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

I just wanted to thank the Chair and the majority staff for all of the good

work. We have had a very good process. I congratulate you on passing this bill as among the very first--and let the record show that if it was up to Agriculture, we would adjourn on time, whenever that may be.

And also I want to thank you for working with us on poultry, as Mr. Davis said. It's very, very important to particular States especially. And having a Chinese market is important but at the same time--you know, what Ms. Kaptur said is very interesting. She said we don't need to be importing food; we need to produce our own food and then exporting that which is left. And yet as important as that is economically, you have always focused on the food safety as you should as the number one value. And I think that's important because if you are importing or exporting food that is not inspected and it is not at the highest quality and standard of food safety, then we're not doing our job.

So I certainly commend you for keeping that bar very high, and yet we were able to work something out. I've enjoyed the whole process.

My concern with the bill--as you know I've been very open about it-- has something to do beyond this room, if you will, in terms of the spending picture. But having been in the majority, I know that your job is to come together with lots of different factions and philosophies, and I think you have done a great job on it. I am proud to be your ranking member and look forward to a long relationship, and you are going to love my grits.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Massachusetts for yielding me time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I come before you today deeply concerned by this conference agreement. This legislation that was originally brought to the House was offered under a closed rule. Throughout this appropriations season, the Democrat majority took unprecedented steps to silence both the minority and their own Democrat colleagues by offering all appropriations bills under closed rule. This has consistently eliminated the ability for Members to speak up for how their constituents believe their money should be spent.

This is not the way the House should be operating, and we want to express again our concern about this and will be doing that throughout our time in discussing the rule this morning.

I will urge my colleagues to vote not only against the rule but against the previous question.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the ranking member of the Rules Committee.

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) blames Republicans. I mean we're used to it. We're being blamed for everything. And yet, you all are in the majority. You have the votes to do whatever you want to do. You've been in the majority for the last 3 years. So I don't understand why it's our fault that these programs haven't been authorized at the appropriate levels for the last 3 years.

I would like to yield now 4 minutes to my colleague from Texas, Mr. Conaway.

I appreciate very much the sympathy and concern from our friends from urban areas for our dairy farmers and our farming interest. I come from a rural district.

I represent a rural district and many dairy farmers. I grew up milking a cow. I understand that cows have to be milked. I know they can't wait. But what we've done to hurt dairy farmers in this country is we're putting them out of business because we've driven up the costs of doing business.

We have an EPA that is totally out of control in this country and that has harassed our farmers, and particularly dairy farmers, to the point where we have almost driven them completely out of business.

Yes, dairy farmers are hurting right now, and we need to do something to help them; but we could do a lot to help them by reducing the cost of their doing business with the ridiculous rules and regulations that we've put on them.

I also would like to say that we need to be setting priorities in this Congress, and that's one of the main problems that we have with the majority in charge right now.

I'd like to now yield 4 minutes to my colleague who also understands rural United States' needs, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to our colleague from Iowa (Mr. Latham).

I yield the gentleman 2 additional minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this rule and this conference report are emblematic of the problems of this Democratically controlled Congress. I want to quote from a piece called ``A New Direction For America'' which was on the Web site of then-Minority Leader Pelosi. ``Our goal is to restore accountability, honesty and openness at all levels of government. To do so we will create and enforce rules that demand the highest ethics from every public servant, sever unethical ties between lawmakers and lobbyists and establish clear standards that prevent the trading of official business for gifts.''

Despite this well-known promise, however, Representative Charlie Rangel remains the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee even though he faces serious charges that are now the subject of an Ethics Committee investigation: failure to report $75,000 in rental income on Federal and State tax returns; agreed to preserve tax breaks that would benefit a supporter who on the same day pledged to give $1 million to Rangel's ``Monument to Me''; used official congressional letterhead to solicit support for his ``Monument to Me''; rented four rent-stabilized apartments; took at least two corporate-funded trips; and failed to disclose millions of dollars in income and assets.

This promise has certainly not been adhered to. Neither have the promises that have been made on other issues such as allowing 72 hours for bills to be read before they are voted upon.

We are facing a serious economic situation in this country right now. In September, according to the Heritage Foundation, every aspect of the labor market was negative. Labor force participation fell to 65 percent. Job losses were widespread. The negative statistics just go on and on and on: 15 million people unemployed and looking for work; 263,000 jobs eliminated in September; almost 2 million people laid off in September, the highest number in 1 month ever; and 3 million jobs lost since the Democrat stimulus was passed in February.

As I said, the numbers go on and on and on. The unemployment rate is at 25.9 percent among job seekers between the ages of 16 and 19, the highest level since the statistic was first measured in 1948.

The people in charge of this Congress, the Democrats, have not lived up to their promises, have not lived up to the expectations of the American people. They talk about a moral obligation. Our moral obligation is that to us personally. We don't have an obligation for wealth redistribution in this country. It is not our job to take from some Americans and give to others. Our moral obligation, again, is on a personal level. We're challenged by Jesus to look after people as individuals, not as a government. So we are not doing what we should have been doing.

As my other colleagues have said, we don't want to starve people. We don't want to starve children. We don't want to deny people the opportunity to succeed in this country.

I heard my colleagues talk about food safety from overseas, and yesterday we heard that less than 1 percent of foods being imported from overseas are being tested for food safety. But what are our colleagues on the other side of the aisle doing? Putting small farmers out of business just as fast as they possibly can, raising taxes by their cap-and-tax bill and by their proposed health care bill.

A large number of small businesses who make over $250,000 a year file their taxes as individuals. There is this hatred, it appears, for success in this country by members of the opposite party. They don't make the connection that many of these small businesses file as individuals, and therefore, they

are going to be taxed, despite the promises that individuals aren't going to be taxed.

They're out of touch. They don't understand rural America. They don't understand small businesses. They've never been there. They don't know what it's like to make a payroll, so they willy-nilly go ahead and raise taxes. They don't want to dole out money from the government to try to make people beholden to the government.

If we would talk to our farmers out there, particularly our dairy farmers, we would find out that they don't want a handout from the government. They simply want rules and regulations lifted so that they can do the jobs that they want to do. They love farming. They want to stay in it, but they want the government to get out of their way and stop giving them a burden.

So what we need to do is we need to take into account the need to establish priorities, fund those things that the Federal Government should be funding, get out of the way of our farmers and our small businesses and not tax them out of existence. That's what we need to be doing in this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record a statement that says what 9.8 percent unemployment means by the numbers, which has in it many more things than I was able to say on the floor today.

What 9.8 Percent Unemployment Means by the Numbers, October 6, 2009

``I know that ultimately the measure of an economy is, is

it producing jobs that help people support families, send

their kids to college?''--President Barack Obama, September

20, 2009.

Last week, the Department of Labor reported the highest

unemployment rate in 26 years--9.8 percent for the month of

September. Sadly, 9.8 percent only tells part of the story of

the struggles of average Americans. A deeper look at the

numbers reveals the true cost of the Democrats' economic

policies, especially for the nation's most vulnerable people.

People unemployed and looking for work--the highest number

ever: 15,142,000.

Jobs eliminated in September: 263,000.

People laid off in September--the highest number in one

month ever: 1,916,000.

Jobs lost since Democrats' ``stimulus'' was passed in

February: 2,884,000.

People who are working only part-time because they cannot

find full time employment: 9,179,000.

People who want work, but who are not currently looking

because of state of the economy: 2,219,000.

People unemployed and searching for work for more than 27

weeks--the highest level ever: 5,438,000.

Job seekers that are new entrants to the workforce and have

yet to find a job: 1,112,000.

Average number weeks job seekers are unemployed after

losing their jobs--the highest number since the statistic was

first recorded in 1948: 26.2.

Unemployment rate among job seekers between the ages of 16

and 19--the highest level since the statistic was first

measured in 1948: 25.9%.

Unemployment rate among African Americans--the highest

level since 1985: 15.4%.

Unemployment rate among Hispanics and Latinos: 12.7%.

Rate of underemployment, accounting for the unemployed and

those who are unable to find adequate work: 17%.

Unemployment rate among job seekers without a high school

degree: 15%.

Rate of the U.S. population in the workforce--the lowest

level since 1986: 65.2%.

Rate of the U.S. population who currently have a job--the

lowest level since 1985: 58.8%.

I want to urge my colleagues today to defeat the previous question so an amendment can be added to the rule. The amendment to the rule would provide for separate consideration of H. Res. 544, a resolution to require that legislation and conference reports be posted on the Internet for 72 hours prior to consideration by the House. It does not affect the bill made in order by the rule. My colleagues have spoken very eloquently about this.

The amendment to the rule provides that the House will debate the issue of reading the bill within 3 legislative days. It does not disrupt the schedule. The discharge petition has 182 names, including 5 Democrats. This bill has gained the support of an overwhelming majority of Americans and is widely respected by government watchdogs.

I want to urge the citizens of this country to pay attention to the process, as was discussed earlier, because process is important. Whether people sign the discharge petition is really the measure of whether they support it. This is not a partisan measure, Mr. Speaker. As Members of Congress, we ought to agree that regardless of the legislation brought before us, we should always have the opportunity to read and understand the legislation before we vote. We need to have this debate.

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

I encourage a ``no'' vote on the previous question, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Thank you, Mr. McGovern, for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, before I start, let me say that although I represent New York State, I want to make sure everybody understands that agriculture is the largest business in New York State, most of that obviously taking place up in eastern-western New York along the border. And we do know our cows.

A lot of debate on this bill is about food safety and the need to ensure that the products we consume are as safe as they can be.

I want to pause a minute here to respond to some of the comments that were made in the Senate just this last week, to which I take very strong exception. As many of you know, or may not--I'd like you to know--I've introduced legislation that would phase out

seven classes of antibiotics that are currently approved for nontherapeutic use in animal agriculture.

We held a hearing on the preservation of antibiotics for medical treatment last spring, which, for the first time, the new administration acknowledged that the issue of overuse of antibiotics in farm animals is serious and they are seeking a solution. The Rules Committee held a hearing on this on July 13 to gather testimony from the administration, the private sector, and the scientific community.

Now why is this bill necessary? Well, an estimated 90,000 Americans die every year from infections that are increasingly resilient against the most powerful antibiotics in the world. Seventy percent of those infections are associated with bacterial pathogens displaying resistance to at least one antimicrobial drug. And as much as 70 percent of all the antibiotics--I can't stress this enough--70 percent of all antibiotics and related drugs used in this country go to healthy food animals, not people, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Our legislation would in no way infringe upon the use of these drugs to treat a sick animal. It simply bans the nontherapeutic use--the constant, daily use by farmers who mix the medicine they buy in 50- pound bags to mix it in the food of the livestock in the hope that doing so will prevent the animals from getting sick.

Think about that for a moment. If anyone suggested that you mixed antibiotics every day in your children's cereal, you would think that's crazy. Not only that, you would understand that it's very dangerous and, more importantly, likely only to lead to a new class of drug- resistant ``super bugs'' that eventually stop feeling the effects of our best antibiotics.

A Senator claimed on the floor this week that Denmark, which has instituted the same restriction that we call for in this bill on the overuse of antibiotics, the result was an increase in animal mortality.

While criticizing a Time magazine article on this issue, he said, ``We only have to turn to our neighbor across the Atlantic to see how a ban on antibiotics has played out. The European Union made a decision to phase out the use of antibiotics as growth promoters over 15 years ago and in 1998 Denmark instituted a full voluntary ban, which in 2000 became mandatory. After the ban was implemented in 1999, pork producers saw an immediate increase in piglet mortality and post-weaning diarrhea.''

In fact, just the opposite is true. In a recent letter to Speaker Pelosi and to me, the National Food Institute of Denmark, concerned about the wrongful debate taking place in the United States, has written us that production has actually increased by 47 percent from 1992 to 2008. He also said that mortality of livestock was largely ``unaffected'' by the ban--but I will assume that they cleaned up, that they didn't stack up the animals who lived in their feces and rarely set foot outside the confined bin--but has improved again more recently. I would like to put a copy of that letter and report into the Record today.

In fact, it is my guess that several of my colleagues would agree with me and disagree with our colleague in the Senate.

Finally, I want to touch on one other issue relating to the legislation which we are speaking of, and it's the economy. This is a looming trade issue. Denmark and other European countries already are using strict food safety regulations against American products as we know. We all know exactly what has happened to our industries with each domestic food poisoning or health scare: Other countries respond by telling us they do not want to import our products, and the losers are our farmers and industries.

As this trend continues, I see nothing but downside for American farmers who may soon be told by more and more countries that their pork or beef or poultry or other products are potentially hazardous and cannot be imported.

Before I close, I want to speak a bit about an article that appeared on the front page of the New York Times this past Sunday. It told about a young woman named Stephanie Smith, 22 years old, who was paralyzed from eating hamburger, frozen hamburger bought at a market. And they traced the genesis of this hamburger, and let me tell you what they found:

Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by a virulent strain of E. coli after an outbreak at Jack in the Box left four children dead. Tens of thousands of people are sickened annually by this pathogen, and Federal health officials estimate that hamburger is the biggest culprit. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 States.

Now we talk about the cuts of beef that are used in this hamburger. Most of them are trimmings that they get from God knows where. We found in the hamburger that paralyzed Ms. Smith that some of it came from Uruguay. They are low-grade ingredients cut from areas of the cow likely to have had contact with feces which carries E. coli.

So the filthy cattle is brought in. And one of the most telling things is there are unwritten agreements between some companies standing in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will only sell to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder's discovery of E. coli will set off a recall that they sold to others.

Food scientists have expressed increasing concern about the virulence of this pathogen since only a few stray cells can make you sick and there are no safety issues that we require about washing up, scrubbing everything. None of them are at all sufficient against this bug which has become more virulent. And I avow that that is because they are fed the antibiotic to kill E. coli almost daily.

On August 16, 2007, the day Ms. Smith's hamburger was made, the No. 3 grinder at the Cargill plant in Butler, Wisconsin, started up at 6:50 a.m. The largest ingredient was beef trimmings, which they call 50/50--half meat, half whatever--costing 60 cents a pound. Potential for this contamination is present every step of the way, according to both the workers and the Federal inspectors. The cattle arrive with smears of feces all over them. They are poorly kept. I would also like to put this article in the Record.

I hope people will read this. I think that we are really heading for a trade disaster as well as, most importantly, not making 90,000 Americans sick every year.

National Food Institute,

Danish Technical University,

Copenhagen, September 19, 2009.

Re meeting with a Congress delegation on the Danish

experience with stop for non-therapeutic use of

antimicrobials.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives, The Capitol, United States

of America.

Dear Speaker Pelosi: We have just had the pleasure of

meeting with a delegation consisting of four members of the

House of Representatives, where we presented our data on the

effects of the stop for non-therapeutic use of antimicrobials

for food animals in Denmark.

We know that various rumours and sometimes ``creative''

interpretations of what has taken place in Denmark have been

circulated to members of the U.S. Congress, and we are

grateful for having been given this opportunity to correct

some of these stories.

We are very pleased that you have approved the visit by

this delegation, and would hereby like to send you a

complimentary copy of the data we presented to the

delegation.

If any further information is required, please do not

hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely yours,

Frank M. Aarestrup,

Professor.