Farm Food Natl Security, Indoctrination Kids, FY26 Budget, Intel Accountability

Angie. Good afternoon. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Today the rules committee is convening to consider four measures, H R seventy-five, sixty-seven, S thirteen eighteen, S congres thirty three, and H R twenty six sixteen. H R seventy five sixty seven, the Farm, Food and National Security Act of twenty twenty six is the five year farm bill. It is as practical as it is viable to support our nation's farmers, ranchers, foresters, and many more critical supporters of our nation's economy. This package reflects bipartisanship. In fact, seven Democrats on the Agriculture Committee voted in favor of the bill in front of us today. The policies and perspectives of Democrats and Republicans are interlaced within its foals. That shared collaboration will yield positive and substantive results for countless Americans across the nation. As Chairman Thompson noted during the Agriculture Committee's mark-up in March, This package did not spontaneously appear in the halls of Congress. It was formed out in the fields, pastures and town halls, and I'm looking forward to hearing those perspectives being shared with us today. S thirteen eighteen, the Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act, is a three year reauthorization of section seven O two of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act through April thirty, twenty twenty nine. Allow me to reiterate what I've said previously. FISA remains extremely important to our national security, especially given the current global events. We must ensure that the intelligence community is equipped with the tools necessary to keep our homeland secure. This legislation will achieve that end and work to safeguard the constitutional rights of the American people. As Congress thirty-three would establish the congressional budget for fiscal year twenty twenty-six and sets budgetary levels through twenty thirty-five. Passage of this budget resolution will thankfully bring the appropriations process to a close. We began with such high hopes and then were derailed when promises were not kept and the word of members of both the Senate and the House were not kept. The forthcoming reconciliation package that this budget resolution tees up will fully fund the men and women of ICE and CBP, along with many others who have gone without pay while they protect and serve our nation. Funding those who protect us should never have become a political football. Unfortunately, it's the continuation of the Democrat mantra to defund the police. They're on record refusing to fund the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security multiple times. When you ask them point blank about this, their carefully choreographed response is that they've always supported DHS and that they have come up with solutions to do that. Those solutions all have a common thread. They're piecemeal approaches. I suppose they're just too shy to come out and admit that purposefully concealed fact. We're finishing the appropriations process with this budget resolution, and eliminating the unnecessary delays, obstruction, and obfuscation that have persisted for far too long. Finally, we'll turn to H. R. twenty-six sixteen, the stopping indoctrination and protecting kids act. This legislation would defend a parent's express right to access critical information, regarding the environment of his or her child's school. As we've seen too many times, the rights of parents have been subject to egregious attacks. These men and women who want to protect their children, ensure ensure that they can thrive, have been subjugated by school districts, rogue educators and incompetent school administrators. This is wrong and entire unex- entirely unacceptable. Parents must always have a seat at the table when it comes to their child's education, and they must always be able to exercise their rights. H. R. twenty-six sixteen empowers parental involvement, prevents teachers from being pressured by administrators to keep secrets from their students' parents, and reinforces the critical need for parental engagement throughout their child's education. In addition, this legislation prohibits federal funds from being spent on teaching or advancing concepts related to gender ideology that has no place in America's classrooms. With that, let's get down to business. But before I yield to Mister McGovern, I wanna recognize uh former member Dennis Kucinich from Ohio. Well, welcome, Dennis. We're pleased to have you. Thank you.

Yeah.

I now yield to the ranking member for any comments he wishes to make.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, and before we begin, I want to just take a moment to remember our colleague, David Scott, who passed last week. Uh, Congressman Scott was a trailblazer, the first black chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and a public servant who cared deeply about the people too often left out and left behind. And I want to extend my deepest sympathy to his family, and his staff, and his constituents. i also want to express my profound gratitude to the officers who apprehended the gunmen at the white house correspondence dinner uh in to say that political violence is always wrong these awful incidents of gun violence at political rallies at churches and synagogues and classrooms on our streets must not be normalized and we must do better as a society i too want to recognize our former colleague dennis and his wife elizabeth who are here today appreciate all of uh all of all that they continue to do for our country and i wanna recognize a a number of familiar faces in the audience um you know who have uh dedicated you know their lives to making america healthier again uh to protecting our families from excessive use of pesticides uh and who have been dedicated to making sure our kids have better access to nutrition so i welcome everybody here today now madam chair turning to what we are meeting on this week or rather what we are not meeting on because despite despite today's packed agenda not a single thing uh republicans have scheduled for today's hearings will focus on the cost of living not a single thing will bring down prices not a single thing will address the affordability crisis facing american families i mean look at our schedule for today you have us debating a ridiculous culture war bill about trans kids a flawed pfizer bill that lets the government's spy on americans a farm bill that betrays farmers and makes the affordability crisis worse and a budget resolution that tees up yet another blank check to ice and cbp lawless agencies that are acting outside the bounds of the law you guys are doing nothing to lower food or gas prices nothing on healthcare nothing on childcare or rent or utility bills nothing to help regular people with kitchen table issues Even Fox News has caught on. They just released a poll showing that a majority of voters now think Democrats would do a better job than Republicans on lowering prices and fixing the economy. And we need to look no further than this week's bills to see why that might be the case. And let me just go through them. H. R. twenty-six sixteen is yet another bill focused on, you guessed it, trans people. With all that's going on in people's lives, this is what you guys think we need to be spending time on? Who asked for this? Why are you guys so obsessed, uh, so obsessed with transgender people? Maybe your approval rating on the economy wouldn't be in the gutter, if you guys spent less time policing people's personal lives, and more time focusing in on affordability. This is the United States Congress, for God's sake. You all think that this is what we should be debating right now? A bill on what names kids are allowed to be called in school? i mean this is pathetic and it is embarrassing and then we have the pfizer reauthorization and let me just say it is nice to actually have time to read the bill text i wanna thank you for keeping your word on that um but that is where my compliments end um this bill extends section seven O two for three years but it does not it does not include a real warrant requirement for searches of americans communications this text still lets the fbi collect search and review the private communications of americans whose data ends up in the seven O two system without a judge signing off on it now i don't trust kash patel to tell me the correct time i certainly don't trust him to do the right thing without judicial oversight we've already seen his willingness to weaponize the agency he runs to further his own personal and political agenda There ought to be a real warrant requirement, period, end of story. And that brings me to the farm bill. I sit on the Agriculture Committee. I've worked on hunger, nutrition, and farming issues for a long time. This farm bill, in my view, is a disaster. It is an awful, ugly, rotten farm bill. We have forty million people in this country who are hungry. Forty million people struggling to afford food. And by the way, it's getting worse. because of trump's stupid tariffs and illegal war in iran that are driving up food costs and rather than addressing the concerns of everyday people we are rather than helping families afford nutritious food you guys are using the farm bill our number one tool of agricultural policy in this country to to protect the big ag monopolies the profit from ultra-processed food and the multi billion dollar pesticide companies that dump toxins into our food air and water and i wish i i were kidding but i'm not republicans already made the biggest cut to the supplemental nutrition assistance program in history last year three million americans have already been cut off of food assistance because of your big ugly bill and now you wanna lock those cuts in for five years nearly two hundred billion dollars worth of cuts to a program that provides hungry seniors and veterans and kids and workers with an average benefit of a little over two dollars per person per meal again instead of reversing uh yeah uh your cuts instead of helping hungry people you're giving a nice fat giveaway to donors and lobbyists at the multi-billion dollar pesticide companies i think that that's sick i think it's immoral and when it comes to the budget resolution Oh my God, just just when I think of I've seen it all, we have a budget resolution that lays the groundwork for another blank check to ICE and CBP agencies that are abusing their authority lying about it and killing American citizens in the streets ICE and CBP already have more money than they know what to do with and with this budget resolution you guys are moving heaven and earth to give them more instead of focusing in on affordability. focusing on kitchen table issues, focusing on bringing down the cost of living. If budgets are moral documents, your budget needs an exorcism. You're not even trying to reopen uh the rest of DHS with this plan. TSA and and and the Coast Guard, FEMA, they would still be shut down. I mean, while communities across the country continue to get hit with storms, floods and wildfire fires, the agency that they that that is supposed to help FEMA is still not fully funded their workers aren't getting paid and you guys are just sitting on a bipartisan senate compromise that could get all of it back up and running it's been sent over to you guys twice it's pitiful and when it comes to our overall fiscal health health you guys are a disaster you're ok sending billions of dollars to the middle east on a war that nobody asks for or nobody wants you're fine with giving billions of tax breaks to billionaires of big corporations doge was a disaster it cost more money than it saved and now you're trying to give up to a hundred and forty billion dollars in additional funding to ice and cbp after you stole that much and much more from from nutrition assistance for hungry families and you wanna pretend like any of that is is physically responsible i mean what a crock this whole meeting as far as i'm concerned is insulting no more money for our farmers but plenty of money for a slush fund to murder American citizens, pesticide companies getting massive new giveaways while hungry families get left behind. This is a disgrace, Madam Chair, and the American people know it. They know this Rules Committee meeting is not about affordability. They see this Republican Congress is not about lowering the cost of living. And they see that after over a year in power, this majority has failed to deliver, and in fact has broken almost every promise. You guys only care about rewarding special interests, rewarding big donors, rewarding pesticide companies, rewarding Big Ag, rewarding those at the top, and you're betraying everyone you promised to help, including your own voters. So as far as I'm concerned, a reckoning is coming in November, and for the people in my district who are getting screwed over by the policies of this Congress and this administration, the reckoning can't come soon enough. And now you're back.

Thank you, Mister McGovern. I think by the end of the meeting we'll know how you feel about things. Without objection, any prepared statements that our witnesses may have will be included in the record. I now welcome our first panel, Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Craig, from the Committee on Agriculture. Your full statement will be submitted for the record, and we ask that you s- that you summarize your statement in five minutes. Chairman Thompson, I welcome your testimony.

Well, thank you, Chairman, Chairwoman Fox. Ranking Member McGovern, and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you today, concerning the farm bill. First, I'd like to acknowledge the loss of Agriculture Committee as experienced this year, Doug LaMalfa and David Scott were friends, brothers in the Lord, and staunch advocates for rural America. we miss them dearly but we are proud to honor them in this farm bill this year by naming programs in their memory their legacies live on in the david a. scott eighteen ninety scholarship program and the douglas alpha rural schools program the farm food and national security act of two thousand twenty six is years in the making producers have operated under an extension of two thousand eighteen policy since two thousand twenty three that cannot continue Uh, producers are currently facing some of the toughest times in the farm economy, since the nineteen eighties farm crisis. And the simple fact is that that two thou- the two thousand eighteen policies are no match for two thousand twenty-six challenges. This bill is unique because it wasn't written in Washington. It was written out in the fields and the pastures of our great nation. We visited forty-three states in one territory, holding over a hundred and fifty listings, farm bill listing sessions. This is in addition to the countless hearings and meetings we held with producers in the here in washington through these efforts we heard a lot of different needs but everyone agreed on one thing congress needed to get to work and pass a new farm bill as of today over five hundred stakeholder organizations have expressed public support for the farm food and national security act of two thousand twenty six i'd like to say that again five over five hundred organizations support this bill because they see the benefits to america's farm families and ranch families that number alone shows how worthy this bill is of our time stakeholders across the country and throughout the entire agricultural supply chain support the two thousand twenty six farm bill and they are counting on us to bring it home the farm food and national security act of two thousand twenty six is also a bipartisan bill and that is by design uh we're not playing political games with the future of rural america we're focused on policy that threads the needle of responsible spending a meaningful impact back home. Today we hear some comments against the bill perhaps from my ranking member, and I respect her views and her right to express them. However, opposition from my ranking member does not change the fact that this is a bipartisan farm bill. Seven democrats on the agriculture committee voted for this bill last month, after a mark-up that lasted over twenty-two hours, and included debate and over a hundred amendments. Adopted amendments including mark-ups were evenly split between republicans and democrats. And when you consider that almost two hundred marker bills that were incorporated into the base text of the farm bill, eighty-two percent of those bills were had bipartisan co-sponsors. But these are the facts. And loud opposition from a select few does not change them. And I have a great respect for the Chairman, the Ranking Member and the members of this committee. And I trust that you all work in good faith to ensure the farm bill debate is fair, informed and a worthy one. And before us, we have the opportunity to do some real good for rural America. So thank you once again for the opportunity to come before you today.

Thank you, Mister Thompson. Um, Ranking Member Craig, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair Fox and Ranking Member McGovern. I, too, want to acknowledge the great loss our committee has had during this session of Congress with the loss of Doug LaMalfa as well as our colleague, David Scott. I wish we were here today to debate the finer points of a bipartisan five-year, twelve-title farm bill, because that is what farmers and working people desperately need right now. Tariffs and trade wars have closed American farmers out of markets, costing them an estimated fifty-four billion dollars and counting. Farmers are also dealing with higher cost of farm inputs, like fuel, fertilizer, seeds, and labor. Farm bankruptcies are up nearly fifty percent. I'm gonna stop and repeat that. Farm bankruptcies are up nearly fifty percent. And in the Midwest, it's closer to seventy percent. We lost fifteen thousand farms in the United States last year. Farmers need an end to the trade wars. They need economic assistance to stay afloat. They need input costs to come down. Yet, the bill before us today does not address any of those problems. This bill doesn't lower input cost, it doesn't help us regain or expand our export markets, it doesn't expand domestic markets either, it doesn't stabilize fertilizer or diesel prices, and it doesn't offer a single penny in farm aid. Our Republican colleagues are calling this a skinny farm bill. And maybe that's because They know that there's not enough meat on the bone that is going to save our family farms. Nor is it a real farm bill. I object to calling this a farm bill. This is not the farm bill. Most of the funding for crop insurance and other important titles were funded through reconciliation. It's a dangerous precedent that my Republican colleagues have set here. Farm country needs a full five-year, twelve-title, robust farm bill. that help solve their biggest problems, not a skinny farm boy that leaves so many questions unanswered and so many problems unsolved. And mark my words, we are going to be right back here in a year if this administration continues the bad policies that are impacting farm country, we're gonna be back here in a year trying to save family farms all over again. While farm country is hurting, so are many other parts of America. This farm bill leaves behind working people, children and seniors, and refuses to help address the food affordability crisis. In fact, it's even worse than that. In reconciliation, the Ag Committee this session of Congress cut nearly a hundred and eighty-seven billion dollars in funding to the SNAP program. Trump's tariffs will cost the average American household twenty-five hundred dollars this year up from seventeen hundred last year. That's well more than the small tax refunds that middle-class Americans are reportedly seeing this year. Does this bill help make life more affordable? No. In fact, it locks in place the one hundred and eighty-seven billion dollar cut to SNAP made in reconciliation. Making sure that America's elderly and children can eat at a time of rising cost was one of Democrats' top priorities for the farm bill. it was dismissed by Republicans, ignored, just like the biggest problems in farm country are ignored by this bill. Now, my chairman, uh, who I dearly respect, says that this was a bipartisan farm bill. Sure, it got a few Democrats on it, but Republicans took about ten percent of our bipartisan ideas and included it in the farm bill that we are discussing today. USDA says that more than three million Americans have already been kicked off food assistance, thanks to the one hundred and eighty-seven billion in cuts that this farm bill locks in. And now we're hearing reports that the majority may be coming back for more snap cuts in a future reconciliation bill. Are you kidding me? That's anything but a bipartisan process. And let me repeat, because I've been here long enough to know that these cycles change, Let me repeat that this is a very dangerous precedent. To make matters worse, this builds sides with multi-billion dollar pesticide companies over our neighbors by barring local and state governments from setting health and safety standards for certain products, and depriving people hurt by pesticides the right to have their day in court. It cuts the nation's most popular farm conservation program, Equip, by one billion dollars, It preempts Prop twelve, which set food quality and animal welfare standards in California, and will have far-reaching consequences and roll back hundreds of state laws across the country, red and blue alike. This bill is not ready for prime time, folks. It can be much improved, and it should be reworked to solve the biggest challenges facing family farmers. I encourage this panel to vote no. The Senate is beginning

Thank you, Ranking Member Craig. Um, Chairman Thompson, I'm I'm gonna begin by asking you a question, uh, right after the mark-up on the, um, farm bill. i got a lot of telephone calls from people saying oh my goodness what's the farm bill going to do to us um uh who hunt and fish and do other things there was a provision in there related to greyhound racing uh my understanding an animal welfare provision that you all put in and um so i'd like to get you to explain why in this version of the farm bill uh you've made corrections to s um calm people about what that provision is going to do to people who wanna hunt and fish

well uh uh chair woman i i wanna thank you for sharing those concerns with me early on and for fixing working with us uh on that fix uh yeah my phone's lit up too uh soon after um the uh while i never supported the amendment i was committed excuse me to finding a fix to ensure that hunting wildlife and working dogs are not impacted now i'm very pleased that we are able to make that clarification in the rules committee print by removing references to live lure training open field coursing and bait that is not an inanimate object we also removed some worrisome definition changes and tightened the the rule of construction now with these fixes i'm confident that the hunting wildlife and working dogs are protected they were never intended to be uh impacted uh this really had to do with the greyhound uh racing industry which is almost gone um they're just two tracks that are um i understand they are not profitable in in west virginia and um and again these hunting dogs were never intended. So we uh we were able to accomplish that and I and I want to thank you for working with us on those fixes.

Well, thank you. The other um question that I have raised all the time is the need for some certainty in agriculture programs. I mean, I hear this from people in every business, every industry when people come in to talk to me. Just give us certainty. just give us certainty can you give us a key example of how this is um this bill adds certainty for america's farmers and ranchers

absolutely and it's so and it is a it's a twelve chapter uh bill um and provides significant certainty and as you noted every business needs certainty going forward certainly our farmers do and our farmers live in a world and they work in a world everyday getting out of bed at oh dark hundred hours where they're challenged their certainty is challenged because of weather pests manpower um uh eh just all the issues that uh um uh market issues as well and so um taking um taking the farm bill as a whole which includes uh farm bill one point O um that we did last july and and two point o i would uh um i would never consider this a skinny farm bill this is eighty percent of the policy and maybe only twenty percent of the investment but is eighty percent of the policy and so um certainty in terms of providing uh measures for uh crop insurance um which allows our farmers to you know to buy into a program to um to be able to deal with threats from the weather that happen each and every everyday unfortunately when it comes to agriculture um investments in agriculture research to be able to deal with uh uh the pests uh uh that are out there whether they're insects or fungus or uh viruses whatever they might be um uh it's uh strengthening the uh our trade program so so it is existing markets new markets open back up you know we're providing tools uh for our farmers to be able to access those foreign market and not every every farmer is gonna do that but the fact is um for those who do that that helps overall it takes excess commodities off the market domestically um programs like the value added program which actually um allows uh the individual farmer and really helps mostly small farmers you know to be able to uh uh avoid that middleman and to be able to process on their farm uh their commodities uh in order to make well we'll just stick with dairy that could be uh selling milk directly ice cream um uh uh cheese um um and you know same thing in terms of our our our cattle farmers as well we've got a great uh provision in here that mister massey uh is leading uh i refer to it as a subprime act uh attribute to his math background actually um and um and it's a great program that's gonna impact all of our states an opportunity to be able to sell more uh for small processors to sell more directly to consumers i mean there is just this certainty is is really uh um threaded through throughout the entire farm bill throughout the farm food and national security act

thank you mister mcgovern you're recognized

well thank you very much uh chairman thompson this farm bill contains what many people including myself um and even many republicans have described as a liability shield for pesticide companies let me start with a simple question do you believe that glyphosate is safe

i i my opinion is not important what is opinion is the opinion of a scientist this is an issue that has come down between emotion

well the world is both organization for example it says

and and science so i point to the epa

it's a problem it says

um i point the which have found glyphosate is probably the most studied um chemical or agriculture toll uh in the in the country if not the world and the united states is not the only one that has found it to be safe as long as it is administered stored administered and cleaned up according to to the instructions uh that come with the chemical but that that could be said for anything ok cause anything could be hazardous if you don't use it properly well yeah yeah yeah But there are many Europ- European States,

Right.

I'm sorry, nations that have also found it to be safe.

Well, there are a lot of organizations and a lot of reputable scientific organizations that have a very different opinion. And I I find it curious that you would cite the EPA since I as long as I've I recall you going after the EPA on a thousand different things, um, during my time on on, uh, on the Agriculture Committee,

But

but but but the I guess I I guess the issue is you do believe it is safe, right?

I do believe it's safe if if it is utilized properly according to how it's labeled and the provision in the farm bill is a labeling provision

alright so so if it is if it is right right so if it is if glyphosate is so safe why does the farm bill that you wrote create a liability shield for the companies that manufacture it why would those companies need a liability shield if glyphosate is so safe

well this bill does not um and i and i mr. governor i worked with you a long time so i know you've read the bill um

yeah eight hundred and fifty pages yeah

yeah i no i know you did and i and i trust you on this but i have to say that i encourage you go back and take another look at it cause the bill does not shield companies from being held liable if they harm users uh the current failure to warm claims that are being brought forward are based on products not having warning labels which are not allowed by the epa um if it's the epa is approving these tools they have to have warning labels and it's clear that these claims should never have been applicable to these products met their epa regulatory standards the language to address this issue ensures that companies can still be held liable if they lie or hide information to receive their epa approved label and all other lawsuits like those related to fraud or negligence are not impacted by the uh language i'll be honest with you uh if they got a bad actor that's lying in terms of uh the language that they put forward for the labeling purposes

yeah

uh and it harms people They need to be sued.

Yeah, well, uh

And they will be with us.

Yeah, well, uh, and I and I strongly disagree with the way you just characterized it, uh, from your talking points, but, uh, Miss, uh, Greg, do you have any response?

Yeah, I I've heard the discussion from my Republican colleagues that this language isn't a liability shield, that there are exemptions. And what I would simply say is for, uh, starters, the language of the exemption requires that an entity currently be committing a violation at the same time that it has already been penalized. That's just not how the criminal justice system works in this country. You don't serve jail time for a crime that you're actively committing. So, even if the majority were to fix this issue in their language, it wouldn't fix the problem at the core, which is, you know, in every publicly available case where EPA has penalized a lab or chemical company that submitted false data, it settled. So, every single one of those doesn't admit any fault and so for us this is really about allowing an individual to have their day in court i'm not sure why the majority would want to take that away

wait and

yeah and i don't i don't

and ranky member if i if i may they they can have their day in court um if they're not in compliance with the epa if they're lying or misleading the epa in terms of the the labeling information they they're allowed to sue

well i don't understand why do we need why do we need this language if if everything is so wonderful uh with with um glyphosate i mean

well it's

we i'm just gonna say for the record mr. chairman there are people in this audience here some of them who have been victims of glyphosate people who have advocated on behalf of people who have been victimized by uh glyphosate people people who have gotten cancer um and um you know i mean do you believe

yeah well

those individuals i mean do you believe in jury trials i mean which one is it because it seems to me like this is protecting monsanto from losing a lot of money because they keep losing lawsuit after lawsuit because for example they gave farm workers cancer i mean i mean if if you believe that those jury verdicts are are wrong i mean turn it to the people behind you and tell them so i mean i i

well it's popular

yeah

well i would tell you that uh there's nothing but study more uh out there than glyphosate and and quite frankly i mean that's the same bill that you know the ranking member is the lead co-sponsor of the language's last congress and um and uh when it says about should people have a jury trial you know what part of uh of my statement to you is that there is no liability shield and if there's a bad actor

i guess if it's if it's so if if it's well

they have the ability to be sued and have that day in court

yeah yeah if if it's been so studied then why do these why does this these companies need a liability shield uh miss craig

Uh, Mr. McGovern, I just wanna mention that just a few months ago, a hundred and thirty-seven members of the House submitted a letter opposing this language and there's bipartisan opposition to this provision, as you can see from the amendments that have been submitted to the Rules Committee. So, in the amendment process, Republicans and Democrats have been clear that the inclusion of this language threatened the p- threatens the passage of a broad bipartisan farm bill. for the life of me from the start of our negotiations i have said that if this provision is in the bill we will oppose the bill

well which brings me to another question i mean we do have an amendment as um ranking member craig pointed out uh the pingree-massie amendment some of us are sponsors of it as well um you're the chairman of the agriculture committee um would you uh uh be in favor of making that amendment in order

um that is my not my choice i am uh i i have never upset anyone in leadership enough to be placed on the rules committee

well well but but

and so that is that is not my place to say

i just can't just say that no i'm just gonna say to be honest with you i'm tired of that response

a whether should be made in order do i support the amendment no i don't support that amendment

uh uh well uh the question is whether or not members of the house have the opportunity to debate and vote on it and you know yes or no i mean the deal is you are the chairman of the agriculture committee you come before the rules committee to inform us what you are presenting but you also as i and i cause i was the chairman of this committee at one time i hope to be again but right now as we're speaking in the back room your staff is meeting with a republican rules committee staff deciding what amendment should be made in order and what amendment should not be made in order so i know you have an opinion on whether it should be made in order

well i

here we have an opportunity to present it because i i think i think we can win on this to be honest

well i i support the language which is in the farm food and national security act i do not support the amendment

you you support that we the the idea of the amendment being made in order

uh that it's been offered

so that we can actually debate and vote on it that's the question i know you don't i know you don't support it

i i i support regular order i i'm not gonna i don't have a say in terms of the rules committee of of course it's being made in order to support that

yes you do mr. chairman i don't know why you i don't know why you're here if you if you don't have an opinion you're testifying on this bill you're you have a you have i mean you i mean the uh the idea that you don't have an opinion of whether or not that amendment should be made in order

well i'm not sure my opinion matters a whole lot when i came out and said that i don't believe

well i

i don't think there should be a liability shield and then you went on a tantrum that that somehow i do think that there should be a liability shield i will also say that um the language that we have basically addresses what our farmers need this really is about health uh the epa i the epa doing the labeling they have hundreds

yeah well the the

of scientists uh that work diligently to make sure that things are not only safe but to determine what should be on the label in terms of uh preparation application and clean up

right but this this this still goes further than basically whatever states can do uh this were to become uh laws so the the the states that felt that there was a greater danger

the the states states would

they they're gonna be they they're gonna be prevented from you know from from advising their their farmers

no uh uh

but let me ask you a question mr. chair have you and your staff do you do you communicate with people at bear Monsanto the manufacturer of of glyphosate

well can i oh i i communicate with all those who are involved in agriculture

but that's as if

that would include that would include bear but includes a lot of

right

different types of producers i will also say um that um speaking of states states have the ability not to register

what

with our language states have the ability to refuse to register any particular agriculture chemical

clearly clearly m- monsanto and these big companies want this desperately i mean do you have any idea

our farmers want it more than what they do

about about not the farmers i mean this is this is a give away to this is a give away to a a

no our farmers need this sold

corporate special interest do you have any uh idea about how much money crop life america the pesticide industry lobbyists donate to members of congress on on a yearly basis

i i don't

i mean do you take money from them

i i earn support from people based on what i believe in agriculture

yeah well i mean um you know you've taken thirty two thousand five hundred dollars from them since twenty nineteen i don't know how much other members of the committee and other members of congress have gotten um but uh the the bottom line you know to to come up here and to say this is much ado about nothing that this is not liability protection it i just it's it's it is it is insulting quite frankly uh because you know i mean anybody who reads this knows what's going on here um you know and again and to not have an opinion about whether we should you know have have this made in order i mean i mean we're the rules committee you're here to testify to give your opinions uh you know i i don't understand you know the the the reason why so many people hide behind oh i don't have an opinion i'm

i'm not hiding behind anything i don't support the amendment

well you'd be i will tell you if you said right now to chairwoman fox i really believe even if i disagree with the amendment that the amendment should be made in order we should have a debate on it i think that would carry a lot away

i don't support the amendments being brought forward

ok well let me go on to another issue so we can't get answers on glyphosate. Um, I wanna turn to food costs. I have nearly nineteen hundred farmers in my district that last count. And they're being hurt by the policies of this administration, and they're gonna be hurt by this farm bill. My farmers are struggling, some of them going bankrupt. And they're calling my office and telling me that it's because of Donald Trump and the policies of this administration. They're livid, livid about the war in Iran, um, they're livid about the tariffs that are screwing them over. And some of them feel betrayed by this administration, which said it was gonna help rural c- communities. but it's done the opposite so my question is true or false as written uh this this this bill does nothing um to stop the implementation of the tariffs on agricultural inputs is that true

it's not our jurisdiction you should know that as well as anybody

ok it's true it's true it's true uh it's

it's that's ways and means by the way

true or true or false uh rising diesel cost because of the war in iran will lead to rising uh food cost there is nothing in this bill that addresses that right um

rising fuel costs would be energy and commerce uh not the agriculture committee not eligible to be within a farm bill

no so that's so the answer is it's true

that's nothing

ok eh you know i'll tell you you know um i've been on the rules committee a lot of times and sometimes uh jermaine's issues um don't always apply sometimes they attach the front of a volkswagen to the back of a cadillac up here and the bottom the bottom line is if we wanted to address the issues of affordability

and

we would be doing it in this uh true or false not a single provision in this bill

and that would be a decision of the rules committee

is the high fertilizer and diesel costs that farmers are facing because of the war in iran am i is that true

we were having significant problems with uh that i mean i think we should all set a goal i appreciate the administration what they just came out with um i want them to be a little more bold i think we should be independent of foreign fertilizer uh by within five years