Protect Interstate Commerce Act of 2018

Mr. Speaker, last week, the House Agriculture Committee passed a bill out that would reauthorize the farm bill. This is the most important bill that most Americans don't pay that much attention to. Sadly, I don't think it gets the attention that it needs here in Congress.

This is just the beginning of a long process to deal with the bill that is going to be the most important health bill that this Congress will consider, because it would have us continue to subsidize a diet that literally makes Americans sick. It is the most important environmental bill, in terms of carbon emissions and water quality, and it makes a big difference for the men and women who are in the agriculture sector.

There are long-term challenges that we face, such as beginning farmers and ranchers and what happens in terms of transition. The average farmer is 58.2 years of age. What are we going to do to provide the workforce for the future, to transition lands, to be able to get the most out of the investment in the lands?

The bill that is awaiting House action--and I hope it awaits House action a long time, because there are many things we can do to make it better--would cut environmental funding, even though only one out of four applications for environmental programs ever get funded. The environmental programs are not performance-based to make sure that we get the most benefit for those dollars.

The bill does not rein in unnecessary subsidies. Indeed, it broadens loopholes and coverage to have subsidies go to more people who are only tangentially related to operating the farm and people who don't necessarily need it.

But the thing that I find most troubling is the provision known as the King amendment. This provision in the farm bill would prohibit State and local governments from being able to set their own protections for agriculture, food, and the environment.

Every State has agriculture and fishing industries that have their own special needs: pests, disease, and protections for consumers. The interest of various industries are widely different across the country. The needs of the fisheries of the Great Lakes are different from those of the Gulf Coast, New England, and the Pacific Northwest.

The King amendment would prevent States from being able to tailor protections to their own industry and their own consumers. I strongly urge my colleagues to investigate what this provision would mean.

There is a great study from the Harvard Law School about an analysis of H.R. 4879 and the King amendment preempting State laws, for instance, on sell-by or best-used dates for shellfish, meat, dairy, and eggs. It would prevent States from stopping the import of pests that kill fruit, nut, and lumber trees. It would allow fishing vessels to fish waters of the various States without complying with the rules of those States, if their States have different provisions. It would even prohibit pet distributor licenses from being denied animal abusers.

These are the sorts of things that, when the public looks at it, they are shaking their heads in wonder. Why would Congress have a race to the bottom for protections for the environment, consumers, and animal protections?

It is interesting. There was a provision voted on by people in Oklahoma in the fall of 2016. The so-called ``freedom to farm'' has many of these same provisions. When the voters in Oklahoma did a deep dive, they rejected the Farm Bureau's initiative by a 60-40 margin. That is the State that gave Donald Trump his largest margin of victory for any State, other than West Virginia.

I hope Congress does what the people of Oklahoma did: look at the details, understand what it would do, and reject unnecessary restrictions on the ability of your State and local government to tailor protections for the people who fish, farm, and shop.

We can do better. I hope that we are going to be able to enlist the support of the vast majority of Congress to take a moment, pause, and look at a farm bill that is worthy of this body.