Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding certain provisions of the Senate amendment to H.R. 2642 relating to crop insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlelady from North Carolina for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we are finally going to conference on the farm bill. I believe strongly that we need to reauthorize a 5-year bill to provide some clarity and provide some certainty not just for our farmers, but also for the millions of Americans who rely on nutrition assistance to feed themselves and their families.

I need to just say a few words about the process. I do not think I have ever seen a motion to go to conference with two motions to instruct conferees to the majority party in the House as all part of one rule. This is kind of an odd precedent, Mr. Speaker; but there are a lot of odd things going on around here during these last few days. We see major pieces of legislation, appropriation bills, coming to the Rules Committee that have never even been considered on the floor; and all of a sudden, they are brought before the House under a closed process. But anyway, I think it is pretty clear that regular order has been discarded in this House.

But putting that aside, let me say that I would like to take most of my time here to talk about the issue of hunger in America because this bill is very relevant to that subject.

After a $20 billion cut to the SNAP program was voted down by the House in June, the Republican leadership sadly decided to double-down on the cruelty with a nearly $40 billion cut. That bill also narrowly passed, and I want to thank the brave Republicans who stood with us, who listened to their own constituents, and who listened to their consciences and joined with us in voting ``no'' on that $40 billion cut.

Supporters of those cuts say it is all about ``reform.'' Well, this is not about reform, Mr. Speaker. It is about trying to destroy a very important part of the social safety net.

I am happy to talk to anyone and everyone about how we can improve SNAP. Where there is waste or there is fraud or there is abuse, we should crack down on it; but the House bill takes a sledgehammer to a program that provides food--food, Mr. Speaker--to some of our most vulnerable neighbors.

The CBO says that the nearly $40 billion cut would throw 3.8 million low-income people off SNAP in 2014 and millions more in the following years. These are some of America's poorest adults as well as many low- income children, seniors, and families that work for low wages. Let me say that again, Mr. Speaker, so there is no confusion. People who work or who don't make enough to feed their families would be cut from this program.

Well, if that weren't bad enough, 210,000 children in these families will also lose their free school meals; and 170,000 unemployed veterans will lose their SNAP benefits. Now, we all stand up here and tell our constituents how much we care about our veterans and how much we honor them; but to throw 170,000 of these veterans off this food program because they can't find work, that is unbelievable. That is unbelievable, and it is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to be poor in America. It is not a glamorous life. It is a struggle just to make it through the day. The average SNAP benefit is $1.50 per meal. Housing costs, transportation costs, child care costs--they all add up.

Fighting hunger used to be a bipartisan issue. Think of people like Bob Dole and Bill Emerson working with George McGovern and Tony Hall.

I am hopeful that once we get to conference, we can resurrect that bipartisan spirit and work together to strengthen our Nation's food assistance programs.

I would also note that we are approaching November 1, a day of reckoning for my Republican colleagues. Automatic cuts to SNAP are already scheduled to take place. If they do not end the Republican shutdown, we are going to see even more terrible, terrible consequences for the hungry in this country. We have already seen some assistance delayed or denied. If this shutdown isn't ended, SNAP, WIC, Meals on Wheels, and the Emergency Food Assistance Program will all be devastated.

I would say to my colleagues, you can't approach the budget in a piecemeal way, and you can't approach the social safety net in this country in a piecemeal way. If you miss a part of that net that makes up the social safety net in this country, then people fall through the cracks; and people are falling through the cracks because of this ridiculous shutdown that my Republican friends have thrust upon this country.

We shouldn't be here talking about a shutdown or about whether we are going to default on our debt come October 17. We should be talking about how we create jobs for people or how we strengthen programs to end hunger in America and how we make life for people in this country better, not worse. And yet here we are, as we are about to go to conference on the farm bill, dealing with this shutdown that is making hunger worse in America.

I would urge my colleagues to, once again, come to the floor with a clean continuing resolution. Bring up the Senate bill, the Senate bill that is at Republican numbers, the budget numbers that my Republican friends said they wanted, the sequester numbers that I think are awful; but let's bring it up and have a clean vote.

I am willing to compromise and cooperate with my Republican colleagues to pass a short-term continuing resolution at their numbers to keep the government going. I think that is the least we could do. And I would urge my colleagues, before the day is out, to bring that kind of resolution to the House floor.

So I urge my colleagues to pass a clean continuing resolution and remove the sword hanging over the heads of the hungry in this country. I would also urge all of my colleagues, as we go to conference, to insist that in that conference we fix this terrible, terrible mistake that this House of Representatives made when they passed a $40 billion cut in the SNAP program.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am very proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to associate myself with the remarks of the ranking member on the Ag Committee, Mr. Peterson, when he talks about kind of how unusual this process is with the sense of Congress resolutions that are put into this rule, basically, to instruct conferees on what to do.

It is highly unusual that the majority gives itself two of these sense of Congress resolutions. But this whole process has been really strange.

I would just say to my colleagues, I come to this floor every week and I talk about the issue of hunger and food insecurity in America. There are 50 million people who are hungry; 17 million are kids. I think it is something we all should be ashamed of.

I am on the Agriculture Committee, as well as being on the Rules Committee. I am on the Subcommittee on Nutrition. I was anxious to get on that committee so I could talk about the importance of a social safety net, about the importance of making sure that people in this country have enough to eat. Much to my surprise, Mr. Speaker, the Subcommittee on Nutrition held a total of zero hearings on SNAP. The full committee held no hearings.

Then, even more surprising, Mr. Speaker, was that the nutrition title wasn't even written in the Agriculture Committee. It was written in the majority leader's back room somewhere by God knows who wrote this thing. But it never came to the Agriculture Committee.

It was never brought up for a hearing. There was no markup. There were no amendments that were to be offered. And then it showed up at the Rules Committee magically and was brought to this floor, a $40 billion cut that would throw 3.8 million people off the program, that would throw 170,000 veterans off the program.

No hearings, nothing. Nothing.

And my colleagues like to talk about regular order. That is not regular order. That is blowing up the whole process.

If my friends have concerns about the SNAP program, which, by the way, is the most efficiently and effectively-run Federal program we have, with one of the lowest error rates--I wish the Department of Defense had those kind of low error rates--then you hold a hearing.

You talk to the people who are on the program. You talk to the people who administer the program. You do this thoughtfully. You do it so that people who don't deserve to get the benefit don't get it, and people who deserve to get it get it.

But my friends come to the floor with this sledgehammer approach, this mindless approach of just gutting the program, close to $40 billion.

We are slowly but surely getting out of this terrible economy, and as we do, fewer and fewer people will be on the program.

That is the way it works. When the economy is good, fewer people need the benefit. When the economy is bad, more people need the benefit.

But to pull the rug right from underneath people who are still struggling--my friends say all we want to do is make sure that able- bodied people who can work, work. Well, most of the people who are able to work, work, who are on SNAP, but they earn so little that they qualify for this benefit.

If my friends want to help lift people off the program, raise the minimum wage. But there is something wrong in this country when you have got people working full time and earning so little that they are still in poverty. That is what we should be addressing.

But rather than going through regular order, rather than having the Agriculture Committee, the committee of jurisdiction, come up with a proposal, the majority leader takes this in his own hands and does it on his own and brings it to the floor, and we are all supposed to just take it.

I want to, again, thank the handful of Republicans that had the guts to stand up and do the right thing and vote against it. We came very close to defeating it.

But I will tell my friends right now that people like me are not going to support a farm bill that makes more people hungry in America.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I strongly disagree with the gentlelady's statement--strongly disagree. My friend talks about oversight. There were no hearings-- none.

She talks about research somehow shows that there is lots of fraud, waste, and abuse. What research? The Government Accountability Office and the USDA have all documented fraud, waste, and abuse in the SNAP program, and it is minimal--a little over a 2 percent error rate--and much of that is underpayment. People are not getting what they are entitled to.

Enough of this demonizing poor people; enough of diminishing their struggle. We ought to do the right thing and make sure that people in this country have enough to eat. That shouldn't be a radical idea.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my colleague from North Carolina that I look forward to the day when she and her Republican colleagues bring to the floor a bill to go after fraud, waste, and abuse in defense contracting; but, instead, they have chosen to go after poor people and are not even giving them the benefit of a hearing. There has been no hearing, no markup on this at all. This came out of thin air in the majority leader's office. This wasn't even brought to the committee of jurisdiction. This is astounding. My friends are talking about reform. This isn't reform. This is a joke.

At this point, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Fudge), who is the ranking member on the Nutrition Subcommittee on the Agriculture Committee. It is the subcommittee that should have held a hearing on this SNAP bill, but it never did.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a leader on this issue of food security and on so many other issues to combat poverty.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Let me inquire of the gentlelady if she would be willing to yield us a few minutes on this side because we have a lot of speakers.

I remember one time when I lent the gentlewoman a couple of minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

I want to thank the gentlelady from North Carolina for her graciousness in allowing my side a few more minutes. I appreciate it very much.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will allow the House to vote on the Senate's clean continuing resolution so that we can send it to the President for his signature today and end this government shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous materials, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure now to yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Beatty).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan) for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the distinguished Member of the Democratic leadership.

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, before I close, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

I want to thank the gentlelady from North Carolina for yielding us additional time. It is important, I think, that we be heard on these issues.

One of the reasons why we are so passionate about reopening the government is because this government shutdown is hurting people, and it is hurting the most vulnerable people in our society the most.

One of the things that has troubled me about the direction the Republican leadership has taken in this Congress is that it has become unfashionable to worry about the poor and the vulnerable in this people's House of Representatives. Time and time and time again, my friends seek to balance the budget by cutting programs that help the most vulnerable. The $40 billion cut in SNAP will throw 3.8 million poor people off the program, it will throw children off the program, it will throw working people off the program.

A lot of the people--contrary to what my friends say--who are on SNAP work for a living, they work full time. If you are earning minimum wage working full time, you still qualify for SNAP.

There are people in this country who are hurting, who are depending upon us to be there, to make sure that there is a social safety net that will make sure that people don't fall through the cracks.

One of the reasons we object to this nutrition provision in the farm bill is because it will hurt people--it will hurt people. We were sent here to help people. This used to be a bipartisan issue. Democrats and Republicans need to join together on this.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and vote ``no'' on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 380 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

House Resolution 380 provides for a motion to go to conference with the Senate on H.R. 2642, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act, also known as the farm bill.

Mr. Speaker, this rule authorizes House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas to make a motion to go to conference with the Senate on the farm bill and provides for consideration of two resolutions expressing the sense of the House regarding specific provisions in the farm bill.

Conference committees are a crucial step in resolving policy differences between the House and Senate, and I am encouraged that the House is taking this step to provide certainty for farmers across this country by reauthorizing Federal agriculture policy.

The House proposal is not perfect, but it moves Federal agriculture policy in the right direction; and my hope is that during a conference committee with the Senate, we can find common ground.

Additionally, the rule makes in order the consideration of two resolutions that express the sense of the House on crop insurance and the U.S. sugar program. The first resolution expresses the sense of the House that conferees should agree to limit crop insurance based on average adjusted gross income in excess of $750,000. This commonsense proposal ensures that crop insurance is appropriately targeted to those who need it most.

The second resolution instructs conferees to advance provisions to repeal the administration of tariff rate quotas and, thus, restore the Secretary of Agriculture's authority to manage supplies of sugar throughout the year to meet domestic demand at reasonable prices. I strongly support this resolution, as it restores free-market principles to the U.S. sugar program.

This rule provides for the business of legislating and resolving differences between our two Chambers to find common ground and move forward in reauthorizing Federal agriculture policy. I urge my colleagues to support this rule, the motion to go to conference, and the motions to instruct provided by this rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague from the State of Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2642 makes commonsense, market-oriented reforms to agricultural policy, which is why it is time to begin conversations with our Senate colleagues on a path forward that ultimately gets these important reforms enacted into law.

This bill isn't perfect, but it puts us on a path to provide certainty to America's farmers and ranchers by adopting a 5-year farm bill that will actually become law.

This measure is the result of more than 3 years of debate and discussion, including 46 hearings and a 2-year audit of every farm program. The bill repeals or consolidates more than 100 programs administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, including direct payments.

It eliminates and streamlines duplicative and overlapping conservation programs and trims traditional farm policy by almost $23 billion. The bill eliminates direct payments and ensures no payments are made to those who do not actually farm.

The bill also provides regulatory relief for farmers and ranchers. It eliminates a duplicative permitting requirement for pesticides and prohibits the EPA from implementing the unjustified and unscientific biological opinions of the National Marine Fisheries Service until there is an unbiased, scientific peer review of those opinions.

The bill requires regulatory agencies across the government to use scientifically sound information in moving forward with their regulatory initiatives. It requires the Secretary of Agriculture to advocate on behalf of the

farmers and ranchers as other agencies move forward with regulations affecting food and fiber.

The bill also eliminates duplicative reporting requirements for seed importers.

Finally, H.R. 2642 repeals the underlying 1949 permanent law and replaces it with the 2013 farm bill. This is important, Mr. Speaker, because without reauthorization farm policy will revert to permanent statutes established in the 1938 and 1949 laws which are drastically different from current programs.

The permanent statutes exclude many commodities such as rice, soybeans, and peanuts; set support prices much higher than current levels; and prevent new enrollment in various conservation programs.

Permanent agriculture law established by the Agriculture Adjustments Act of 1938 and the Agriculture Act of 1949 does not reflect current farming and marketing practices, trade agreements or market circumstances.

Farmers, as well as taxpayers, will benefit from a modernized bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I respect my colleague from Massachusetts, and it is obvious that every time we have anything on this floor or in the Rules Committee where we are dealing with the subject of hunger that he is extraordinarily passionate about the issue.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans care about Americans who are hungry. We care about hunger issues. He makes it sound as though we are heartless people. We are not.

What we are doing here is our best to preserve the program for the truly needy and those who are hungry in this country.

My colleague says it is the most efficiently and effectively-run program in the country, with low error rates. That is not what the research shows. It isn't even what TV programs find out on their own with very little research.

They go out and they find the terrible abuse with the program, the SNAP program, which used to be called the food stamp program, but it was given this Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program name some time ago to get away from the term ``food stamps.'' But that is what it is. It is a food stamp program.

Almost everybody in this country knows of people who have abused the program. Now, we don't want to deny help to truly needy people. If we can make these reforms in this program, Mr. Speaker, we have a chance to preserve the entire program for those who truly need it.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3102, the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act of 2013, as I said, is designed to preserve the integrity of the SNAP program, or food stamps for families, and especially for children who rely on food stamps. Its cost-saving reforms are a step in the right direction and are long overdue out of respect for needy Americans and taxpayers.

This bill makes the first reforms to the program since the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, and these reforms were strengthened during a rigorous amendment process on the House floor.

Despite media reports to the contrary, House Republicans are not cutting SNAP for individuals who currently meet the program's eligibility requirements. Instead, our reforms focus on eliminating fraud and abuse that exist within the program and remove from the programs individuals who do not qualify for the benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I think that bears repeating. What we are doing is eliminating fraud and abuse and removing from the program individuals who do not qualify for benefits. That is what the American people expect us to do in our oversight processes here.

Because of several well-documented and legally questionable efforts by President Obama's Department of Agriculture and by the individual States that administer the program, SNAP benefits have been extended to a number of recipients who would not otherwise qualify. The growth in SNAP spending caused by such expansion efforts will strain the safety net until it breaks, necessitating much higher taxes and indiscriminate cuts that would hit the poorest Americans the

hardest. From a moral perspective, such an outcome would harm the very people programs like SNAP are intended to help, and that is unacceptable. That is why I voted for H.R. 3102 when it passed the House on September 19.

The bill ensures benefits are reserved for legal recipients and aren't directed to illegal immigrants.

The bill closes the ``heat-and-eat'' loophole related to electricity bill assistance, gives States the authority to require drug testing for recipients, and prohibits felons from receiving SNAP benefits.

H.R. 3102 reinstates work requirements for all able-bodied adults, without dependents, receiving SNAP benefits.

An overextended, unchecked SNAP program won't be capable of serving the citizens it is purposed to help. It is the job of this Congress to ensure the program is held accountable as a steward of taxpayer dollars and to provide a safety net for the needy.

For the first time, the House separated farm policy from the food stamp program, which is only appropriate, as 80 percent of the so- called ``farm bill'' in the past was spent on providing nutrition assistance to needy families. The farm-only portion of the farm bill authorizes farm programs through fiscal year 2018; however, H.R. 3102 authorizes appropriations for SNAP only through fiscal year 2016.

If enacted and if the two bills were addressed on 5-and 3-year intervals, respectively, this would decouple SNAP from the authorization of farm programs until 2031. Considering agriculture and nutrition programs independently, going forward, will help take politics out of the equation and allow for reforms that will sustain both categories of programs in years to come.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the rule and this legislation underlying it is not designed to abuse or demonize poor people. What we are trying to do is to save these programs for the truly needy.

Mr. Speaker, we are not simply doing oversight on the farm bill and on agriculture issues. The House has been doing its job of oversight throughout the Federal Government. We have been

doing that throughout this entire session. We are looking to find fraud, abuse, and waste in every program. It just happens that today we are talking about this program.

But as you know, Mr. Speaker, almost every day we bring forth legislation that will help us identify waste, fraud, and abuse and do everything we can to protect hardworking taxpayers in this country who are providing the funds to take care of the truly needy in this country and to allow us to help those people, and that is what this legislation does.

Mr. Speaker, the work of making these improvements and reforms to longstanding Federal policy is not easy. I commend Chairman Lucas and the members of the Agriculture Committee for their thoughtful work. I was pleased to work with them and to have three commonsense amendments included in H.R. 2642 when it passed the House.

The spending safeguard amendment will cap spending on the Farm Risk Management Election program at 110 percent of CBO-predicted levels for the first 5 years in which payments are disbursed.

And, Mr. Speaker, let me point out to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that this amendment passed with bipartisan support, as did most of the amendments to that legislation.

In the event government's cost projections prove completely wrong, the amendment will ensure taxpayers are not forced to automatically pay the difference between Washington's mistake and reality.

My second amendment, the Sunset Discretionary Programs amendment, will automatically end discretionary programs in the 2013 farm bill upon expiration of the bill's 5-year authorization period. Many programs authorized by the farm bill are authorized indefinitely. This amendment will require Congress to justify a program's continued existence and funding through regular reauthorization efforts.

As our national debt approaches $17 trillion, Mr. Speaker, Congress simply cannot afford to add to the number of costly Federal programs that are on autopilot. This was really an excellent amendment, Mr. Speaker.

Finally, Congressman Keith Ellison, my Democrat colleague, and I offered the crop insurance transparency amendment, which will require the government to disclose the names of key persons or entities receiving Federal crop insurance subsidies. Specifically, disclosure would be required for Members of Congress and their immediate families, Cabinet Secretaries and their immediate families, and entities in which any of the preceding parties are majority stockholders. This information is already recorded, but members of the public have to petition the government under the Freedom of Information Act to acquire the data.

It shouldn't take a 4-year request for the American people to figure out whether their leaders are receiving government farm subsidies. This bipartisan amendment makes this information available to the public without a FOIA request.

Mr. Speaker, we want transparency, and my amendment takes us much closer to that. I appreciate Chairman Lucas' willingness to work with me on these amendments, and I look forward to seeing them maintained during the conference committee.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close whenever the gentleman from Massachusetts is prepared, so I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to close whenever the gentleman from Massachusetts is prepared.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I would challenge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in terms of whether we recognize poor people or not. Some of us probably grew up poorer than anybody on the other side of the aisle. I am one of those people. I have great empathy for people who are poor, but I am so pleased that we live in the greatest country in the world in which we have the opportunities to overcome poverty because of the great opportunities that are given to us in the country.

With that, Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of comity and goodness, I yield the 3 minutes that is requested of me to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire as to how much time is remaining, and whether the gentleman from Massachusetts is prepared to close?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans want to see the government reopen also. We have sent many pieces of legislation over to the Senate, but the Senate has refused to act on them. We hope very much to get the government open again.

We are not opposed to helping the truly needy in this country. We want to help those people. We believe by reforming the legislation related to food stamps that we will be able to save the program for the truly needy.

Mr. Speaker, negotiations are an absolute necessity in a divided government, and conference committees provide an avenue for the House and Senate to meet and resolve policy differences.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule, to provide a motion to go to conference on the farm bill so we can move the reauthorization process forward.

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

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

First, I would note, again, to my colleagues that this is one of the final stages of this long, challenging process of putting a comprehensive farm bill together.

With the conclusion of this debate on this sense of the Congress resolution and the votes that I suspect will come sometime later today or tomorrow, we will begin then with the appointment of conferees, the formal process of working out the differences between House and Senate bills. That is no small accomplishment, considering how many years Ranking Member Peterson and I and the members of the House Agriculture Committee have put into this effort. As a matter of fact, when we started the process of gathering information and putting the hearing record together, I was the ranking member, and Mr. Peterson was the chairman. So this has been a long, long process.

Now, I must say that I am obligated to rise in opposition to the resolution. I think the world of the author of this amendment, and in his role as chairman of the House Budget Committee, not only is he well-intentioned in this amendment and his many other efforts, but let's be honest, our friend has a tremendous amount of work on his plate, addressing everything from the issues about how we work our way out of this debt ceiling matter, how we address funding the Federal Government, how we finally put a budget resolution together. I know he is a busy, busy man; but I must say the committee focused very hard for literally years on all of these issues.

I won't pretend that with all of the things going on right now, not that many weeks after some very intense debate on the floor of this House, the goodly number of our Members are not focused on particular nuances of the farm bill, but on everything else going on.

But I would remind my good friends, the perspective of the House Ag Committee and the perspective of the majority--yes, maybe I have had too much fun with farm bills in recent years--of this process has led us to believe that it was important that we encourage participation in crop insurance. Crop insurance is like other insurance. It is about creating a pool of risk and spreading it out as far as you possibly can, having as many participants as you possibly can to share adversity, to contribute more premiums into that pool so that when you have that inevitable loss somewhere, you are better able to address it. And that is the perspective the committee took and I believe the House, as a whole, took. Get as many people involved in

utilizing and expanding the insurance pool as is possible.

Now, this sense of the Congress language is, in many ways, similar to the Senate language and would restrict the number of people based on AGI that would be able to participate, taking people out of the pool, shrinking the pool. These are, in all fairness, some of the most efficient farmers.

I will just simply ask my colleagues, remember the work of the committee and the work of this body. Help us keep this program as viable as possible.

Help us make sure that all farmers have the tools to mitigate their risk.

Now, there is one other perspective here, and we have talked about this many times, and it is the perspective of, what is the farm bill about? Is it about raising food and fiber? Is it about meeting the nutritional needs of our citizens in this country and having our surplus available to consumers around the rest of the world?

Or is it about deciding who a farmer should be, and using policy decisions within the farm bill to pick people who we want to farm, and to deny resources to people we don't happen to like who want to farm also?

I reject that also. Farm bills are about farming, raising food and fiber, meeting the needs.

I would ask again, very respectfully, of my colleagues, honor the decisions of the full House not all that long ago. Reject this sense of the House resolution.

Remember that you are helping us build on something that is kind of amazing in this session of Congress, a bill that came out of committee with $40 billion in mandatory spending reform, with a bipartisan vote, a bill that left the United States House with a total of $60 billion in mandatory spending reforms.

I can think of no other committee in this session of Congress that can lay claim to that--$60 billion in mandatory reform.

Let us go to conference. Let us have as much flexibility as possible. Let us finish our work. Let us finish our good work, and we will bring a product back to you from conference that you can judge on its merits.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), the chairman of our primary subcommittee on the House Agriculture Committee.

Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the good gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

This debate is coming to a conclusion. I appreciate that greatly. The civil tone, the nature of the discussion, is something that we should do more of in this body; but I would note a couple of quick thoughts to my colleagues.

There have been many references made to the historic crop insurance payments made in the 2012 crop year. One of those amazing circumstances was huge amounts of the Midwest, some of the most productive corn land in America, simply didn't produce a crop--or not much of a crop. That is no fault of the farmer involved. That is Mother Nature's decision not to provide the right amount of moisture or, in other places, too much moisture.

But, you see, that is what crop insurance is all about. When I first came here, we had a system that worked around--not crop insurance, which didn't work very well and wasn't subscribed to by a lot of people. We had a system of ad hoc disasters. If you had a problem here or a problem there, then you would have a special appropriations bill to fund that disaster. Those special bills tended to grow and expand; and over time, they became a huge drain on the Treasury.

That is why, starting aggressively in the '96 farm bill--pushed even harder by then-Chairman Peterson in the 2008 farm bill--the focus became: no more ad hoc disasters bills. Have a crop insurance program that works. Make it clear to producers that, if you have a problem, you have to have insurance, that you have to participate, that you have to pay the premiums.

Now, over the course of approximately the last decade, setting the 2012 year aside, this has become an amazingly orderly system. Many Members in this room don't remember ad hoc agricultural disaster bills because this has worked that well. I would challenge you in most--in more than in the majority of the years--that the resources coming into the program have been greater than the payments going out, but that is the way insurance is supposed to work--you pay in in good years, and you hope you never use the product; but in bad years, the assistance is there. Call it crop insurance. Call it life insurance. Call it fire insurance on your house. It is the principle behind the concept.

Now, the specific language we address here.

There has been much discussion about the draft that the United States Senate has adopted in its farm bill. It is the same 750 number, and he does include a study; but one of the main differences between what we are addressing today and what the Senate has in its language in going to conference is that the study, in effect, requires the USDA look at the effect of this limitation on the participation in the program and determine if that affects the viability of the program. Does it change the dynamics? Does it suddenly become a greater expense as you shrink the pool? It gives the Secretary the authority, if that study determines that this will be negative to crop insurance, to suspend the provision. That is not in this sense of Congress. It says, ``You shall.'' ``You will.''

One other passing thought: there has been a lot of discussion about reducing the numbers, the percentages, from 65 to 50. I will just simply note to you that in many cases that, in effect, is not just a 15 percent move; that is a 40 percent move. Think about that. If you are a farmer--who is a businessperson--assessing the cost of your inputs and trying to match that up with a potential return on your outputs, you are going to make those hard business decisions.

Again, I think the world of my colleague, the chairman of the Budget Committee. I know he has a lot of things on his plate, and I know he has had a great many challenges in his tenure as chairman of the House Budget Committee; but I will tell you that I think the Ag Committee has worked very diligently to craft language that we are now about to send to conference in order to work out the ultimate bill that reflects a lot of open process--in committee, on the floor, in a lot of input with motions to instruct today, and in another sense of the House resolution. We have acknowledged and responded to that input.

You have battled as Members of this body--and debated and discussed and voted--on all of these issues before. I would just ask my colleagues to remember what this body decided not all that long ago and that, also, as we go to conference with the Senate, it is going to be a very difficult thing to protect our $60 billion in mandatory spending reform that you have directed us to do. Give the committee, give me, give the ranking member as many tools and as much flexibility as you can so that we may prevail from the House's point of view in accomplishing common policy with the Senate that meets not only the goals of this Chamber, but the needs of this country.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I respectfully ask for a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 380, I call up the resolution (H. Res 379) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding certain provisions of the Senate amendment to H.R. 2642 relating to crop insurance, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 379.

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

First of all, I would like to thank Chairman Lucas for his work on passing a farm bill through the House. It was not an easy task.

And the farm bill got a lot right, in my judgment. It eliminated direct payments. It made reforms to the food stamp program, which are in desperate need of reform. It consolidated duplicative programs, and the Agriculture Committee has started to implement very needed reforms of these programs. Unfortunately, I don't think it went far enough, which is why I am offering this sense of the House.

I think that we should accept what the Senate did--and they did it in a bipartisan fashion--to impose limits on premium subsidies going toward the wealthiest of farmers.

What this sense of the House does is it simply says, let's agree to the Coburn-Durbin amendment which said, for those making above $750,000, the sense of the Congress is that their premiums for crop insurance should not be as generous as everybody else's. In fact, their premiums should be subsidized by 15 percentage points. This is hardly draconian. In fact, I would support going much farther than this, as I have voted consistently in the past.

But what this says is, if you are a farmer and you make more than $750,000, all you will get is a crop insurance subsidy that is not as generous as everybody else's. It will be 15 percentage points less.

Let me give you an example. If you have protection for 50 percent of your yield, right now the Federal Government will subsidize 67 percent of that. Under this, if you make over $750,000, you would be subsidized by 52 percent of your crop insurance. Hardly draconian.

So what we are simply saying is, we had a vote that was 59-33 in the Senate to limit the subsidy for crop insurance for very wealthy farmers. That is 1 percent of all of our agricultural producers in the country, and what we should do is concede to that. We should agree with that in conference, and that is what the sense of this House resolution encourages.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price), the vice chairman of the Budget Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hanna).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the Agriculture Committee for a very civil debate. He and I have talked about so many of these issues. We have worked so well together, and he has done the yeoman's work on moving these bills to the floor. On this particular issue, we don't agree. He may not think that I am helping, but I think I am helping by passing this. The reason is that this passed 59-33 in the Senate. If we pass it here, that just takes off the table one contentious issue that they don't have to negotiate in conference, making it easier to focus on the other things that you have yet to reconcile in conference. So we are actually trying to help the Ag Committee out here. That is one way you can put it.

On a more serious note, I want to talk about a few of the criticisms.

Pooling. My friend from North Dakota mentioned that it is important to have crop insurance with these people with very, very high adjusted gross incomes in the pool to make the cash flow. That is an actuarial argument that works with health insurance--healthy people subsidize sick people--but that is really not an argument that, I think, flows with this kind of insurance.

Point number two: no one is saying that a person who has a high net worth, who has a high adjusted gross income can't get crop insurance. All we are saying is just don't subsidize him as much as everybody else. That is really not asking a lot. What we are saying is, if you are a farmer and if you make $750,000 of adjusted gross income or higher, you don't get subsidized by the taxpayer for your crop insurance as much as everybody else. Your subsidy is 15 percentage points lower than that of the people who make less than $750,000. You still get crop insurance. You can still buy it. You will still get a subsidy, just not as much as everybody else.

Look, if you buy insurance on 50 percent of your acres, instead of the government paying for 67 percent of that insurance, it will pay for 52 percent of your insurance. If you buy insurance to cover 65 percent of your acres, instead of the government paying 59 percent of the cost, it would pay 44 percent of the cost. If you buy insurance on 85 percent of your acres, instead of the government subsidizing 38 percent of the cost of that coverage, it will subsidize 23 percent of the cost of that coverage. So there is still a subsidy.

You are not penalizing or punishing success by not subsidizing people as much. If we were having a tax debate--if we were talking about raising taxes--then you are penalizing success. If we are talking about taxing and taking money from producers--from successful people, from businesses making any amount of money--then you are penalizing success. What we are saying is just don't subsidize people as much because this subsidy is taking money from hardworking taxpayers--from their taxes-- to give to somebody else. What we are saying is let's not take

money from hardworking taxpayers to give as much to farmers who are making more than $750,000. We just don't want to subsidize them as much. That is not punishing success.

The other point is that this is one of those rare moments in which I think there is bipartisan agreement that a farm bill really ought to be for family farmers. The purpose of the farm program is to make sure that individual families can stay farming, and that means the safety net needs to be there for that family farm. I know in Wisconsin most of our farmers don't make $750,000, so it probably doesn't affect many of the corn and bean or dairy farmers whom I represent. Maybe in North Dakota and in other States there are people with thousands of acres who make that kind of money. I think that is great--I think that is wonderful--but I still think that our taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize them as much as the family farmer.

This is one of those opportunities in which I think Congress can speak with a bipartisan voice. I really believe, if the Hanna-Pingree amendment or the Blumenauer-Mulvaney amendment had been made in order, it probably would have passed. So this is our chance here in the House to speak with one voice on a bipartisan basis. Let's not subsidize folks at the high end as much, and let's protect that family farmer. Let's agree with the Senate and take this issue off the table as one of those contentious issues because we are agreeing bipartisanly and bicamerally that we ought to have a farm program for the family farmer and somewhere limit these subsidies. That is all we are asking for.

With that, I ask for its passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the chairman for allowing us time to talk.

Madam Speaker, it is a bit surreal on a couple of levels, one, to be speaking from this side of the Chamber, and two, to be speaking against two of my colleagues who it is rare in my term here in Congress that I have been on a different side of an issue from--my good colleagues from Georgia and from Wisconsin. But on this one I stand in strong opposition to the Ryan-Price amendment.

I just wanted to say how weird this feels to talk against something that my good colleagues from Wisconsin and Georgia are proposing to do.

One point that was just made was that there was a $14 billion payout last year in disaster insurance losses to farmers in America. That's a cherry-picked year. Folks, remember, 2012 was historic droughts throughout most of ag production America, and so, consequently, last year was a much higher year than would have normally been the case. It is normally about $4 billion a year in that regard.

I would also remind our colleagues that we fought this fight in July. Just like the Senate went one direction with the vote, we went the other direction, with a 208-217 vote on this floor. So we have had these conversations already and won this argument already.

This effort will punish success, will punish efficiency. It is hard to farm using $300,000 tractors if you have got a small farm. It takes 3,000 acres to be able to support the implements and the tools needed to farm as efficiently as American farmers produce. And so we are punishing the folks who are the best at what they do.

Also, Madam Speaker, I would argue that this is a risk tool. This is not an income support tool. Income support tools, as some of our approps have gone, clearly means-testing those makes sense. We have had those in place for quite some time. But this is a risk management.

Risks at big farms are no different than risks on small farms, and to limit crop insurance, to restrict crop insurance this way is, in my view, wrongheaded.

I would also argue that using AGI at this stage in the development of the broader issues going on in this country creates several unknowns.

Both my colleagues from Wisconsin and Georgia are working very diligently on the Ways and Means Committee to, in effect, have a fundamental tax reform. That fundamental tax reform will have the impact of eliminating deductions and credits and, in effect, raising AGI. They can't tell us today where that AGI number is going to go to, so that creates one of the additional unknowns.

A second unknown is in their bill itself. Their resolution says they don't know what the impact is going to be. We heard the Budget Committee chairman say one percentage. We heard Mr. Price say a different percentage. So even on their side of their arguments, they are not clear yet on what the impact will be for folks who go above the $750,000 AGI.

But their amendment itself, or their resolution says, in paragraph 2, agree with the provisions relating to the requirement for the Secretary to carry out a study on crop insurance and the impacts of an adjusted gross income limitation that this is going to impose.

All of my colleagues who will speak in favor of this are generally much more rational and logical about how they want to do things. Creating this new test would be like the fellow who dove into some unknown waters. As his feet left the bank he's saying, Wow, I wonder how deep it is going to be, and I wonder how cold it is going to be.

We don't know, they don't know exactly what impact this is going to have. So I would argue that, until we can fix a number on the AGI--and again, let me make sure that everybody understands. I am not saying anything whatsoever in opposition to the fundamental tax reform work that is going on. That has nothing to do with my comments.

They are going to change the number that they want to use. That, they cannot argue against. They cannot tell us yet where that is going to be. They are going to raise it, I know, because you can't lower and limit deductions and not raise folks' AGIs because business deductions will be involved in this. So they can't tell us where that is going to be for normal farmers.

So you can't look at a farmer today who might be making $500,000 AGI--lowering the rates the way they are going to do may raise that farmer's AGI to something in excess of 750.

That person is in the exact economic circumstances they are now with respect to crop insurance and the risk management tool that that has provided, and yet they are going to be fundamentally impacted by this.

So I think this is ahead of its time. Wait on the study that the Senate bill calls for. I suspect my chairman will agree on that study that is going on.

But do not put this economic limit on crop insurance at this point in time. We have won this fight once with our colleagues. I would expect us to win it again. And I would urge my colleagues to vote against the Ryan-Price amendment that would have the impact they don't know yet on crop insurance.