Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, as we recover from the chaos emanating from the White House and the tweeter-in-chief last week, it is important to recognize children are not invaders. Children must not be used as political pawns for reckless immigration enforcement policy.

I thank Justin Amash for being a lonely, but principled Republican voice, reminding your colleagues, even if Donald Trump doesn't recognize the Fifth Amendment, that under the Constitution, nobody is denied of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

There are over 300 other Republicans in the House and Senate, and I hope America hears from them. And Democrats should welcome a contest of ideas and a contest at the ballot box, not shouting at restaurants.

It is important that we don't lose sight of the bigger picture. There is a reason that tens of thousands of people have come to the southern border: the chaos and violence in parts of Mexico, especially Central America, and the violence especially strong in the triangle of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

The United States is not an entirely innocent bystander there. We have supported repressive dictators in those countries in the 1980s, and we have been meddling in their affairs for generations.

It is the lucrative American drug market that has fueled the drug trade and gang activity. Part of our failed drug policies have destabilized the lives of millions. The immense profits from the American drug trade drives that activity to the borders, corrupts governments, and has created a situation where we cannot even keep drugs and cell phones out of American prisons.

What is the answer? I would suggest that it is not to deny people fearing for their lives a right to prove their case as refugees seeking asylum. The answer is not to hold children hostages in a macabre, hateful drama that is a shame on all Americans.

The answer is not to forcibly take children out of the arms of their mother, and then lose them in the system. I mean, wait a minute. If the Postal Service and UPS can tell you where the sweat socks and the razors that you ordered a week ago are in the system, why can't we tell parents where their most precious possession, their children, are--and the notion that some are walking away from detention facilities.

The Trump administration is talking about reorganizing essential government departments. Maybe if they want to do that, they ought to start with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They ought to start with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, all of the agencies that are a part of this embarrassing spectacle, to figure out how to do it right, how to do it humanely, in an open and transparent fashion, and stop the notion that somehow there will be zero tolerance; that we will separate children from their families at the borders; and we will criminalize people who are seeking asylum.

Let's stop this malignant policy. Let's get children back to their parents. Let's elevate the discourse respectfully, but forcefully battle ideas and support the vulnerable.

It is not merely a question of justice for immigrant children, but of justice and integrity of all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present for the vote on H.R. 5687--the SOUND Disposal and Packaging Act (Roll Call No. 269), I would have voted ``aye.'' This bill would require the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improve packaging and disposal methods for certain drugs.

Additionally, had I been present for the vote on H.R. 5676--the SENIOR Communities Protection Act of 2018 (Roll Call No. 270), I would have voted ``aye.'' This bill would authorize Medicare prescription drug plans and MA-PD plans to suspend payments to pharmacies pending investigations of credible allegations of fraud.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Pallone's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this bill. I respect his efforts, and I respect a number of his concerns. But I do think that the work that we have done with Mr. Mullin, with the committee, and I appreciate the subcommittee's extra efforts to work through these elements, listen to people's objections, and to do it right.

There has been no argument that this provision has cost lives. The failure in emergency rooms, other circumstances, for people to not be able to get the full picture of a patient's condition ends up sometimes with tragic consequences. We have yet to hear any reason why we shouldn't coordinate.

Now, I appreciate concerns about patient privacy, but as Dr. Burgess and my friend from Oklahoma point out, we are strengthening provisions under this bill for disclosure. People don't want to stigmatize those with substance abuse, we agree. But having a separate system that people have to go through just for substance abuse implies a stigma. People will think there is something wrong with these people. You don't do this for AIDS anymore. This harmonizes with all the other HIPAA provisions.

Candidly, forcing people to go through yet another step probably raises questions about the validity of disclosure, raising questions in the minds of those who go through that.

Mr. Speaker, we have made, I think, tremendous progress dealing with stigma, dealing with patient protection, what we have done for mental health, which has devastating consequences in some cases if people's records were revealed. Think what has happened with HIV/AIDS. There was a time when that would end up with people not just having a stigma but at risk of losing their jobs, being ostracized.

These are the same provisions in this bill that are there for HIV/ AIDS or mental health, for everything under HIPAA.

I really do think that we take a step back, understanding that having separate authorizations complicates the coordination and integration of treatment. Oftentimes, behavioral health information doesn't arrive in an orderly fashion. It is another step of complication that could have tragic consequences.

In fact, the subcommittee's record demonstrates that. There have been examples where people have died because the medical providers did not have the full picture of the patient. This legislation will fix it.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy and her focusing on this.

I agree wholeheartedly; we don't need to go down this path again. The Republican Congress in 2005 looked at a similar proposal and eliminated it from a spending bill.

The notion that we have low-yield weapons that are going to enable us to advance forward from the submarine launch is troubling. This actually will make the submarine exposed for being able to know where it is and attack it.

And the ``low-yield'' terminology is a little disquieting. Think of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. These are amazingly destructive. Being able to have gradations of response and buy into that notion I think is deeply troubling and is, in fact, destabilizing.

The $1.6 trillion episode that we are embarked upon in terms of modernization and enhancement could be well spent in other ways, especially not in this direction.

Mr. Speaker, shooting swimming caribou from a motorboat, bear baiting, dogs for black bears, using artificial light, shooting wolf pups and bear cubs in their dens are outrageous practices that were banned under a 2015 rule from the Obama administration, which the Trump administration has now announced that it seeks to reverse. This is absolutely outrageous.

Our national parks and reserves have always had special status, and the Trump administration wants to roll that back, essentially making them into game parks. It is important for people to reflect on what this means.

Think about what goes on in Yosemite National Park or Yellowstone National Park. Would that experience be enriched by having these extreme hunting tactics to eliminate some of the top-line predators to be able to have more things to hunt? Absolutely not. Three hundred million people a year visit these national parks, and the draw is the wildlife. National parks without animals is just scenery.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that people focus on why this is such an outrageous policy. These are low-density animals with low reproductive rates. In Alaska, there is no conflict with livestock. They have very little interaction with people, other than the people who want to see them.

Mr. Speaker, it is wrong on three fundamental levels.

First of all, it is just wrong. All animals suffer, and hunting them down with these extreme methods is cruel and is repugnant to virtually all Americans.

It is wrong ecologically. For millions of years, we have seen these animals co-exist, and the national parks--like Yosemite or what is happening in Alaska--are some of the few places where that ecological balance continues to work. Human beings cannot improve upon it; they can only damage that delicate balance.

It is also wrong economically. The economic impact for gateway communities, for these 300 million tourists, is profound. If we are going to turn these national treasures simply into game parks, hunting preserves, they are going to lose their allure, the economic impact will be dramatically diminished, as well as upsetting the ecological balance, and the fact that it is morally wrong.

What we should be doing, in this Congress, is raising our voices in outrage over the latest attempt by the Trump administration to roll back sensible, commonly supported protections. And while we are at it, not just raising our voices, but maybe taking some action on the floor of this House on animal protection.

We have the animal cruelty PACT Act that has 282 cosponsors, which could be on the floor Monday. The House Republican leadership has refused to act on the PACE Act, the Parity in Animal Cruelty Enforcement Act, which just got 359 votes on the floor of the House with an amendment. Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act, 246 cosponsors. The Pet and Women Safety Act, 248 cosponsors. The Shark Finning Prohibition Act, 238 cosponsors. The Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers, providing service animals for our veterans, has a majority of sponsors in the House of Representatives.

Why can't the Republican leadership allow us to debate and pass these provisions to improve animal welfare and add our voices to the latest outrage of the Trump administration in its assault on our animal friends?

Mr. Chairman, I have been involved for 20 years to try and stop the barbaric practice of animal fighting, dogfighting, cockfighting, and slowly but surely, we have made the point under Federal law. It is a felony crime: to sponsor; exhibit an animal in a fighting venue; to buy, sell, deliver, possess, train animals; or to bring a minor to an animal fight.

But this has been long and slow and painful. And I violently disagree with the notion that we should have one set of rules. It is already a felony in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. We shouldn't have one set of rules for some territories, and for the rest of the States. At core, this is a barbaric, inhumane practice. The animals are drugged to make them more ferocious.

In cockfighting, they are equipped with metal spurs to slash each other--fighting to the death. I am sorry, this Congress has rejected the notion that this is culturally specific. Animal cruelty has no place in any territory, in any State, in any venue, by any race or ethnic group or cultural tradition. We have gone past that. We heard those arguments in some States when we were fighting to achieve these protections.

I strongly urge that we continue this 20-year fight to protect animals and protect people from being involved with this horrific activity, and close what is, in fact, a loophole. We should have no separate rules for States, territories, or anywhere under our jurisdiction.

The Roskam-Blumenauer amendment will fix this and finish a journey that we started 20 years ago. But sadly, because some people think it is acceptable, we are still going to have to fight this battle in the illegal sector as well.

Mr. Speaker, the debate this week in Congress centers largely around the farm bill, the most important bill that most people pay little or no attention to.

Currently, there is a mad scramble for votes for a flawed bill from a fractured Republican caucus.

Now, we are going to have some minor discussions on the floor. There are some amendments that will be bounced back and forth, but they are basically beside the point, not the big-picture issues that need to be debated.

There are fatal flaws. First and foremost, virtually everyone on our side of the aisle is adamantly opposed to the efforts to cut nutrition funding through SNAP, food stamps, rather than expanding opportunities to nutrition and healthy food.

For example, they are cutting farmers market funding, for heaven's sake, projects that are popular across the country and connect consumers directly with farmers for fresh, healthy food.

This is all while they are proposing to essentially hound people off food stamps with unnecessary restrictions for employment. The vast majority of people are already employed or have difficulty being employed or there aren't jobs available. They are going to have a job training program, about $45 per person, which anybody who works in this field will acknowledge that the bureaucracy and the trouble will be more than it is worth in terms of a benefit to people. Essentially, they will hound people off food stamps.

This is at the same time where they are expanding subsidies for wealthy farming interests and expanding the ability to get those subsidies to people who aren't actively involved with farming. This bill is going to send subsidy checks to New York City and Chicago and San Francisco, people who are cousins and nieces and nephews, not actively farming.

The second major problem with this bill is it attacks conservation funding, cutting a billion dollars from essential services, cutbacks with the Conservation Stewardship Program, $5 billion cut out of the Working Lands Project, and not strengthening the ability of environmental programs to produce results. There is no requirement that we have high-quality environmental outcomes.

In fact, the EQIP Program has a wide variety of things that we pay farmers to do that actually don't enhance the environment. We are paying farmers for the cost of doing business: fencing, hog lagoons. That is decidedly the wrong step to take.

The worst aspect that is not getting the attention it deserves is the so-called King amendment, the Protect Interstate Commerce Act, which would prevent State or local governments from regulating an agricultural product except to the extent it is already regulated by Federal law or the producing State.

Think about that for a moment. States are moving to deal with the opioid crisis, and they would be prevented from having drug prohibitions that go beyond what the Federal Government does or other States.

Food packaging regulations. Many States are concerned about BPA-free container requirements for baby food: prohibited.

Fishing regulations. In my State, and I suspect in many others, people are serious about being able to protect fisheries, commercial and recreational, but under this bill, they would be prohibited if another State has looser requirements. My colleague from Seattle might have some concerns in her State about protecting the clamming operations, but some State like Nebraska that doesn't have them could come in and not observe those limits.

The notion that we won't have invasive pest protections that are tailored to what our States want, product transportation laws, secure containers for animal carcasses and grease--lowest common denominator.

Licensing and permitting of commercial enterprises, for example, professional licensing and pet sellers; you could not prohibit a convicted animal abuser from having a license to traffic animals if the other State doesn't have it.

These are horrific provisions trampling on States' rights, consumer protection, environmental protection, agricultural protection.

This bill should be rejected.

Mr. Chairman, the fact is that there are lots of companies that use sugar and are behemoths. I represent a number of them in Portland, Oregon, that are confectioners, candy makers, and bakers who are concerned about this.

In terms of the benefit, think about the 13 mega processors that the sugar program forces manufacturers to pay far more than they need. This is a $3 billion burden on the taxpayer.

We have an opportunity here to deal with one other area. If we start getting the pricing right, there is another hidden tax in terms of the sugar system that we have, and that has been on the Florida Everglades.

We have a $7.5 billion down payment because of the damage that has been inflicted on the Everglades by the massive cane sugar operation that has increased dramatically in the last 50 years, a cost that taxpayers will be footing and environmental costs to go with the burden on sugar-using industries.

I strongly urge approval of the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to my colleague from California talk about his deep concerns and reservations about the farm bill that is slowly grinding its way, perhaps, toward the floor being considered today by the Rules Committee.

While we have somewhat different perspectives and different districts, we are united in the fact that this farm bill does not remotely reflect the needs of the American public. One of the problems is that we fail to address the disparate array of subsidies under the farm bill, benefiting a few States, a few districts, a few types of farming operations, and ignoring the rest.

The famous nutrition professor, Marion Nestle, of NYU has written a great essay, ``The Farm Bill Drove Me Insane,'' dealing with her attempts to try to understand and rationalize it.

One of the most memorable portions is how she describes what an American diet would look like if it was based on the way that our farm bill subsidies are arrayed. The diet would consist of a giant corn fritter because 78 percent of the farm bill resources goes to the production of industrial corn and soy, not fruits and vegetables, which would be a tiny microscopic part of that plate. There would be a little hamburger patty because that is less than 5 percent, and there would be a little cup of milk. And she points out that that meal, based on the farm bill allocation, would be accompanied by a giant napkin because 13 percent of the farm bill is allocated to cotton subsidies.

The farm bill shortchanges the vast majority of American farmers and ranchers, who are not heavily subsidized, who produce food--the fruits, vegetables, and orchard, products that deal with nurseries. The majority of States and the majority of farmers and ranchers are shut out.

There is an area of crop insurance subsidy. I will tell you, I was stunned when I read the Statement of Administration Policy because they are concerned with two areas, one dealing with a necessary subsidy for people with nutrition assistance. They are afraid that a few poor people would have access to lower cost food through the Food Stamp program. They want to crank that down, limit it, and force people to work.

Well, if you look at the farm bill that they are supporting, they are doing nothing to encourage wealthy farming interests to rely less on subsidization. They are concerned about expanding the subsidizes for people under the SNAP program.

At the same time, we are given a farm bill that explodes the limits on the amount of subsidy that can flow to wealthy farming and ranching interests, and it expands the subsidy so that nieces and nephews and cousins are eligible. People who aren't working on the ranch are somehow eligible for Federal largesse, but they would deny hungry people, or near hungry people, low-income people, that same sort of benefit.

There are also concerns that they want to crank down on the environmental programs; they want to make them more productive. Yet this farm

bill ignores the fact that we right now do not have enough money for the conservation programs to help farmers and ranchers who want to improve the environment.

Only one in four grants gets funded, some of them swallowed up by big industrial agricultural interests that could afford to take care of their own environmental problems. But more telling is that they allow payment for things that don't even improve the environment.

Why allow large agribusiness to compete for scarce environmental funding for things like hog lagoons and fences. That is the cost of doing business. That doesn't improve the environment.

Mr. Speaker, I have introduced legislation that would correct this in terms of cutting down, capping, and containing unnecessary subsidies; reducing overly generous crop insurance; and making conservation programs performance driven. I hope the day will come when we might be able to debate something like that on the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in allowing us to join in this conversation, and I strongly identify with what the Representative from the other Portland just said.

In fact, North Haven, I am reflecting right now that, in 3 short months, during the summer recess, I plan on sitting on a deck looking out at North Haven and enjoying looking for those eagles that have been rescued and are very much in evidence in her beautiful part of the country.

She is not just an advocate for the environment and for agriculture; she is a practitioner. And I have had an opportunity to tour her magnificent farm in North Haven that is really a model of sustainability, showing really what value-added agriculture is, reclaiming the history of that island in terms of the bounty of the land.

But that doesn't happen by accident. It takes commitment and followthrough and, step by step, trying to harness the forces of sound agricultural policies, good environmental stewardship to be able to add value while it protects the environment.

So I am looking forward to seeing her handiwork again this summer, and I deeply appreciate her leadership tonight in terms of the environment, what she cares about in terms of nutrition, celebrity chefs. There are a whole range of things, and it underscores why we are here talking about the farm bill.

It is the most important legislation that most Americans pay no attention to. It is the most important piece of legislation that, sadly, few in the House of Representatives really drill down and look at what is in it. It will be the most important health bill that this Congress will pass or consider for the remainder of this session. We still subsidize a diet that makes Americans sick, paying too much to the wrong people to grow the wrong food in the wrong places, and it is the most important environmental bill, bar none.

If you care about emissions of greenhouse gasses, the agriculture sector plays a role--9 percent, it is claimed statistically. But if you factor in all of the inputs in terms of pesticides and transportation, refrigeration, you will find that it is far greater than that, and these are elements that are within our control.

The gentlewoman referenced the conservation programs. It is interesting to me, in reading the guidance that the

administration has put out about the farm bill and what they tout, they want to promote independence. They don't want to support dependency. They want to have higher performance standards for projects that they are involved with, yet the farm bill that is being considered now by the Republicans undercuts performance standards.

When we eliminate, as the gentlewoman said, the Conservation Reserve Program, only one out of four conservation grants is currently funded. There is not enough money, and they are going to reduce it $1 billion more while eliminating the Conservation Stewardship Program. It is also stunning when there is an opportunity to provide performance standards for conservation.

I have offered an amendment before the Rules Committee that would apply conservation standards, that you get conservation funding if you produce results. But that is not the way it works now.

The EQIP program, which hands out grants to help farmers improve the environment, you look at the practices that are authorized under this bill, that are funded under this bill, there are six or eight of them that actually hurt the environment. They are not required to enhance their environment. We pay for things like fencing and hog lagoons for big operations that ought to be able to pay their own way, and they take that money that would be available to other farmers and ranchers to be able to fund programs that would actually enhance the environment.

I deeply appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership, and I appreciate what my friend from Colorado has offered up. We have other colleagues here who have some things to say. I will hang tight for a moment in case we run out of speakers, but I want to cheer folks on because it is time that we put the spotlight on this egregious bill, the King amendment, the lack of accountability, and wasteful spending.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate that.

It has been fun working with Congresswoman Pingree, with my friend Ron Kind, looking at these programs over the years.

There is a great essay written by Marion Nestle, an author, a professor of nutrition at NYU, and the title of the essay is ``The Farm Bill Drove Me Insane.'' As she tried to actually teach a class about the farm bill to graduate students, she dove into it and found that it was just hopelessly complex.

What I appreciate about working with the gentlewoman from Maine and the gentleman from Wisconsin is it doesn't have to be that complex.

We ought to be able to strip this away, have a full and honest debate, and get to the basics that make the most difference for the American public.

Hopefully this thing will collapse, and we will have some time this year to work on it and make it better.

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.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this and the elements that he just put into the Record. These are tough issues.

The Bonneville Dam, one of the elements here, is in my district. I have been involved with these issues, literally, for decades. I have watched the give-and-take.

Part of what we are facing today is the legacy of our moving in to create the Bonneville system without really knowing what we were doing when we started. There was a rich fisheries existence. Rumor had it that you could actually--people claimed you could walk across the backs of the salmon when they were spawning.

The dams implemented, good for producing energy, not good for the fishery system, both in terms of the river and the marine ecosystem that depends on it.

And it is not just the commitment to the Endangered Species Act and the environment. We are dealing here with commitments to Native Americans who have been ill-served with their treaty rights. That is one of the reasons why we have litigated this for years, because they had valid treaty rights as a sovereign people, and the United States violated them; and only recently, under the pressure of litigation, were we responsive to their needs and some changes were made.

Now, it is not just the current Federal judge. We have had objections through the Judiciary looking at some of the compromises that people have made. I understand the political pressures. I watch it in terms of the economy, in terms of transportation, in terms of Native Americans, in terms of fish and wildlife, in terms of agricultural interests.

These are difficult and troublesome efforts, and there is no good response because we have made more commitments than the mighty Columbia River can deliver on. We treat it like a machine, and we have difficulty reconciling it.

The judge in the case has found that the plan was wanting and has put in place a system for the new BiOp. This legislation is not going to stop litigation. If it passes, I will guarantee you, we will be back in court, and I think there is a very strong likelihood that, rather than moving it forward, it will delay it.

Look at the record in terms of the opponents to approaches like this on how they have fared in court. It is not a good record.

Now, I would suggest strongly that we are better served by allowing this process to go forward. Respect NEPA; respect the Endangered Species Act; respect the process that is put in place; and look at all the options.

Now, I am not saying tomorrow we are going to tear down Snake River dams, but there are lots of options short of dam removal. When we start taking things off the table, we limit our ability to meet our responsibilities under the law and under our treaty obligations and, candidly, in what is going to be in the best interest of solving a very complex issue.

I would hope that we would reject this legislation not only because I think it is ill-advised--I think it undercuts the environment, our obligations to the Native Americans, that it will delay it rather than accelerate it--but I think it provides a precedent that we don't want to have. I don't think we want to have Congress intervening in the midst of these processes.

Mr. Speaker, when I look at what this Congress-- particularly, under Republican rule--has done trying to intervene to supersede science, to have political decisions on things that really deserve balance with the environment, with treaty rights, dealing with the long-term perspective, it is not a very encouraging record.

I strongly urge that we side with environmentalist groups, with our two Governors, with a number of us in the delegation to allow this process to work and not undercut it and put us back in court. If so, I will guarantee that we will be back here next year and the year after that with things worse rather than better.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Florida's courtesy in permitting me to join him on this Special Order this evening. I appreciate the partnership that we have had on the Ways and Means committee and dealing with these issues publicly.

It is true, I cosponsored the legislation that our aforementioned friend, Mr. Gaetz, referenced. I have been cosponsoring and introducing legislation like this for years. In fact, my Veterans Access Amendment actually passed both the House and the Senate last Congress, only to fall victim behind the scenes of, I think, misguided action on the part of leadership.

I am pleased that we have been able to retain the Rohrabacher- Blumenauer amendment that protects State legal medical marijuana, and I look forward to working with my colleague, as I know he wants to extend those protections to all State legal efforts.

I want to say, as somebody who has spent a lot of time moving around the country working on these State campaigns, working with the industry, working with advocates, that I appreciate Mr. Curbelo's advocacy, that he is moving out of his district being involved with this conversation nationally and looking for opportunities to strengthen the position on the floor of the House.

We are in a situation now, Mr. Speaker, where we have virtually every Democrat who now supports these simple, commonsense reforms, and, in no small measure due to my friend from Florida's persuasive efforts, there are several dozen Republicans, and that number is sure to grow either before or after the next election.

This is an issue that we have watched slowly take shape. I was in the Oregon Legislature when we were the first State to decriminalize back in the 1970s, but there was sort of a hiatus for about 20 years.

There was Richard Nixon's ill-advised and, I think, unfortunate and unfair war on drugs, the Schedule I categorization of marijuana. If we were doing it over again, probably it wouldn't be scheduled at all, but tobacco would be Schedule I because it is deadly and addictive.

In the course of the last 6 years, we have watched what has happened at the State level accelerate. It has been medical marijuana since 1996. But starting in 2012 with Colorado, Washington, and, more recently, we had initiatives in Oregon, in Alaska, in the District of Columbia, we had nine States vote in 2016, and eight of them approved reforms.

I am excited to watch this accelerated progress. In fact, I think what we have seen over the last 6 weeks is unprecedented. We are watching people in both parties be able to identify things they can get behind and move forward. We see survey research demonstrating that this is no longer a highly divisive partisan issue.

The majority of Americans support legalizing adult use. Increasingly, there is evidence that a majority of Trump voters support adult use. Medical marijuana is like the Fourth of July. It is almost universally accepted, and I think the gentleman's district, in voting on medical marijuana in 2016 in Florida, was overwhelmingly supported.

So now is the time for us to move forward. We have a bipartisan Cannabis Caucus, and I appreciate the gentleman participating in leading this. We have almost three dozen pieces of legislation. We had, this last week, a couple of things that I think were rather noteworthy.

The former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, who opposed our efforts for years, has now evolved on this issue, and he now has actually joined the advisory board of a firm in Massachusetts. Both of us are familiar with them, looking at the leadership in the industry.

We have watched Donald Trump, in the last 10 days, sort of clarify what he said on the campaign trail in 2016, that the States ought to be free to do this. He is reaffirming that and undercutting the attempt by his Attorney General Sessions to cast a pall over the State legal efforts.

We have watched the minority leader in the Senate, Mr. Schumer, come out supporting comprehensive legislation. I would note, for the record, it was very similar to what my colleague in the Senate, on the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden and I introduced last year in a comprehensive fashion, but that is great. The more, the merrier.

What we want to do this Congress is to be able to do some simple things. The legislation that we have worked on together to allow State legal marijuana enterprises to get rid of the pernicious 280E so they can deduct their business expenses, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership and focus on that.

We ought to eliminate the restrictions that prevent robust medical research on cannabis. The Federal Government interferes with the research. There is no longer any reason for that.

And in working on this, literally, for decades, I have never met a single human being who thinks there is anything to be served by forcing State legal marijuana enterprises to be conducted on an all-cash basis.

These are things that we can change, regardless of whether or not people favor full legalization. These are simple, commonsense steps that have bipartisan support, and I look forward to working with the gentleman on that and then as we take this to the people.

We will be voting on it in Michigan, probably in Missouri. Looks like there will be a ballot measure in Utah. Other States are looking. I think the momentum is building.

I can't say enough about how much I have enjoyed working with the gentleman on these issues. I look forward to continuing that partnership so these simple, commonsense provisions that are actually supported by a majority of the people in the House and the Senate are allowed to be voted on.

I hope that he can work his persuasive ways with the Republican leadership to eliminate those roadblocks and allow the House to work its will. America will be better for it. Americans will be freer, and there will be economic opportunity, health opportunities, and less destruction of lives with ill-conceived efforts to criminalize behavior of otherwise law-abiding adults.

I thank the gentleman for his sponsorship of this conversation this evening, permitting me to be a part of it, and our partnership. I look forward to accelerating those efforts in the months ahead so that we can mark significant progress yet in this Congress, and next Congress, get it all taken care of.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, and I appreciate his hard work with Chair Jenkins moving this forward.

This is an example of--maybe people don't think it is earthshaking-- but being able to come together and deal with things that make a difference with the IRS, which is the largest voluntary tax compliance system in the world. It is very important. And I am pleased, with the reference to 13 hearings and a lot of the back and forth, being able to reach consensus.

But let me say, I wish that those two people who led this effort had been empowered to do a deep dive into some of the dysfunctionality that has been imposed on the IRS. Since 2010, the IRS is dealing with more and more returns which are more and more complex, and my Republican friends have slashed the people who work on it.

We haven't modernized the computer system which those of us who took our first computer programming in the 1970s, I think, would be equipped to work on. It is so outdated.

We have cut the people who were involved with enforcement. Now, I would wish that everybody would voluntarily comply, but everybody doesn't. And as a result, those people who work on enforcement make about $6 for the taxpayer for every dollar we invest in their efforts. And, more importantly, it is a signal that everybody is going to be treated fairly. The people who cut corners, who forget, or who outright cheat are taking away money from the government and putting the burden on others who not only have to pick up the slack, but the people who cheat get an unfair advantage in how they do business.

They are more profitable because they don't pay their full freight. That is stupid, unfair, and it is counterproductive. That is one of the reasons why we have a $450 billion tax gap--the difference between what is owed as a result of people's tax liability and what is paid.

My friends on the other side of the aisle have been involved with punishing the IRS for things real and imagined. But who has really suffered has been the taxpayer, people who can't get their phone calls answered. The IRS doesn't have staff in customer service who can readily answer concerns that taxpayers have.

I am outraged when I hear attorneys and accountants in my community say: Yeah, I had a client who had a legitimate claim and they would have gotten that $4,000 back, but I had to tell them that, because of the dysfunctionality and the underinvestment in the IRS, it would cost them more for me to fix it for them than they would get back.

That is a scandal. We ought to make sure that we have a fully functioning IRS that meets the needs of the taxpayers, that gives them the answers that they need, that makes a very clear signal that everybody needs to fulfill their civic obligations to pay their taxes, and that businesses that cheat or forget are not going to get an unfair advantage over people who work hard to follow the rules. Our deficit would be $450 billion less if we did this properly.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman because I wanted to make one other point. But I must confess that one of the other reasons that I am really deeply concerned about that now is that it wasn't just that we weren't able to do a deep dive on the causes of dysfunctionality and underinvestment in the IRS.

It is no secret that one of my highest priorities as a Member of Congress and as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, was to be there to help us fulfill our responsibility on that committee dealing with the resources necessary to rebuild and renew America.

It is no secret that America is falling apart while we are falling behind. We

have a growing gap in our Highway Trust Fund that has lost 40 percent of its purchasing power. We are not able to meet our current commitments, let alone the commitments we have in the future.

The Ways and Means Committee allowed the Superfund tax to expire. So now we have a Superfund to clean up toxic waste that has blighted communities across the country, but we no longer have a tax that pays for it. So that burden has been shifted to innocent parties and local government.

I have been working with the last three chairs of our Ways and Means Committee, asking that we have some robust hearings on our responsibility for transportation.

The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee deals with the authorization of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act, but the Ways and Means Committee is responsible for funding it. A couple of weeks ago, there was a hearing in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on our job. They heard from witnesses from labor, from business, the U.S. Chamber, trucking associations--a wide range of people who came in and asked us to raise taxes on them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I really will wrap up. But we have had no hearing like the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee had. They brought all of the witnesses in to talk about our job.

The last three chairs of the Ways and Means Committee from my Republican friends, in 7 years and 3 months, have had exactly one witness on our responsibility to raise the revenue for transportation, not one hearing. We had 380 hearings. We had one 5-minute witness who talked about the need to meet our responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker, why do we have to go to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to hear our job? Isn't it about time that my Republican friends allowed us to have a week or two to listen to the wide array of people who want us to fulfill our responsibility to rebuild and renew America and to pay for it? It is past time for that hearing, and I hope we have it. And then we act on what people tell us.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the House Committee on Agriculture will be marking up the most important bill that almost no one pays attention to, rolled out with very little fanfare. And actually, we can kind of understand why it has been sort of played down a little bit. The draft farm bill makes it more difficult to get SNAP benefits, while weakening the meager limits for farm subsidies and while cutting investments in conservation and innovative programs which people care deeply about.

The draft bill cuts billions from those SNAP benefits. It creates burdensome work requirements for caretakers of children over 6 and people between the ages of 50 and 59. Under this provision, people would have to find work or attend job training for at least 20 hours per week. The provisions won't do anything at all to address poverty. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that, even for those in the general population, securing a job within 3 months is virtually unattainable.

There will be a spirited debate about whether we ought to reduce nutrition for low-income people, but there are a whole range of other items that need to have attention.

The commodities programs that channel 94 percent of the subsidies in the farm bill to people who grow six commodities. This bill will exempt most corporate farms from payment limits and make it easier for large agriculture entities to call themselves family farms and get even more subsidies. It gets rid of payment limits for marketing loan gains and loan deficiency payments and exempts partnerships, joint ventures, LLCs, and Subchapter S corporations from means testing, opening the loopholes wider.

In the area of conservation, which matters deeply to Americans across the country and makes a big difference to farmers and ranchers in Oregon, this bill gets rid of the Conservation Stewardship Program, one of the largest conservation programs in the farm bill. It cuts the conservation title by $1 billion over 10 years and cuts funding for the working lands program by nearly $5 billion over 10 years, and it weakens the Endangered Species Act by allowing pesticides to be approved without considering the impact on endangered species.

Mr. Speaker, one of the most important areas that needs our attention deals with local food and regional infrastructure to promote local sustainable agriculture. It effectively eliminates funding for farmers markets, value-added producer grants, and cost-sharing programs for organic certification by failing to reauthorize mandatory funding for these programs.

Mr. Speaker, I spent the better part of 2\1/2\ years traveling Oregon after the last farm bill asking people what they wanted. And I will tell you, people in Oregon--farmers and ranchers, people who eat, sports people, people who are involved with food production and nutrition--this is not the approach that people in our community want, nor, frankly, by all available evidence, the vast majority of farmers and ranchers.

They want to see reforms. They want to have a crop insurance program that isn't wasteful support for large commodity producers, but actually is available for people who grow food, specialty crops for nursery, and the wine industry. It ought to be helping beginning farmers and ranchers get a toehold. It ought to deal with the efforts to cut down food waste, to provide protection for animal welfare.

Mr. Speaker, the draft proposal that has been released is a missed opportunity, a missed opportunity for the committee. But I am hopeful that Congress, as this process works out, will step up and do its part to make it better, to focus on people who eat; people who care about clean air, clean water; people who want to protect animal welfare; people who want to have a vibrant, thriving local food scene; and to be able to provide food security for people who are at risk.

Mr. Speaker, we can do better. I strongly urge my colleagues to take a hard look at this proposal and think about what a farm bill would look like for their community. I think they will find this bill falls far, far short.