H.R. 7567 – Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026; H.R. 2616 – Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act; S. Con. Res. 33 – Setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2026 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2027 through 2035.; S. 1318 – [Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act]; H.R. 1346 – Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act of 2025
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House Rules U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 5
Well, thank you, madam chair. And before we begin, I want to just take a moment to remember our colleague, David Scott, who passed away last week. 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, his staff, and his constituents. I also want to express my profound gratitude to the officers who apprehended the gunman at the White House Correspondence Dinner, and 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 Kissinich and his wife Elizabeth who are here today. Appreciate all of that they continue to do for our country. And I wanna recognize a number of familiar faces in the audience, you know, who have dedicated their lives to making America healthier again, to protecting our families from excessive use of pesticides, 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 today's packed agenda, not a single thing 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 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 health care, nothing on child care 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 on 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. HR 26 16, you had 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 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 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, but that is where my compliments end. This bill extends section 702 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 702 system without a judge signing off on it. Now I don't trust Cash Patel to tell me the correct time. I certainly don't trust him to do the right thing without judicial oversight. We're already seeing 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 40,000,000 people in this country who are hungry, 40,000,000 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, you know, 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 protect the big ag monopolies that profit from ultra processed food and the multibillion dollar pesticide companies that dump toxins into our food, air, and water. And I wish I were kidding, but I'm not.
Republicans already made the biggest cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in history last year. 3,000,000 Americans have already been cut off of food assistance because of your big ugly bill. And now you want to lock those cuts in for five years? Nearly $200,000,000,000 worth of cuts to a program that provides hungry seniors and veterans and kids and workers with an average benefit of a little over $2 per person per meal. Again, instead of reversing your cuts, instead of helping hungry people, you're giving a nice, fat giveaway to donors and lobbyists at the multibillion-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 when I think 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 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 the rest of DHS with this plan.
TSA 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 wildfires, the agency that they 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, you guys are a disaster. You're okay sending billions of dollars to the Middle East on a war that nobody asked for or nobody wants. You're fine with giving billions of tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. Doge was a disaster.
It costs more money than it saves. And now you're trying to give up to $140,000,000,000 in additional funding to ICE and CBP after you stole that much and much more from nutrition assistance for hungry families. And you wanna pretend like any of that is fiscally 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 I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. 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 summarize your statement in five minutes.
Chairman Thompson, I welcome your testimony.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you, Chairman, Chairwoman Fox, Ranking Member McGovern, and members of the committee. I appreciate your opportunity to come before you today concerning the farm bill. First, I'd like to acknowledge the loss the agriculture committee has experienced this year. Doug Lomalpha 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 will live on in the David A. Scott 1890 scholarship program and the Duglamalfa rural schools program. The Farm Food and National Security Act of 2026 is years in the making. Producers have operated under an extension of the 2018 policy since 2023. That cannot continue. 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 the 2018 policies are no match for 2026 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 visit 43 states in one territory, holding over 150 listings Farm Bill listing sessions. This is in addition to the countless hearings and meetings we held with producers 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 500 stakeholder organizations have expressed public support for the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026. I'd like to say that again. Five of 500 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 agriculture supply chain support the 2026 farm bill. They are counting on us to bring it home. The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 is also a bipartisan bill, and that is by design. We're not playing political games for the future of rural America. We're focused on policy that threads the needle of responsible spending and 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 markup that lasted over 22 hours and included debate over 100 amendments. Adopted amendments included markups were evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. And when you consider that almost 200 marker bills that were incorporated into the base decks of the Farm Bill, 82% of those bills had bipartisan cosponsors. These are the facts, and loud opposition from a select few does not change them.
Now I have a great respect for the chairman and 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.
Speaker 6
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 Lamopha as well as our colleague, David Scott. I wish we were here today to debate the finer points of a bipartisan five-year 12-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 $54,000,000,000, and counting. Farmers are also dealing with higher costs of farm inputs like fuel, fertilizer, seeds, and labor.
Farm bankruptcies are up nearly 50%. I'm gonna stop and repeat that. Farm bankruptcies are up nearly 50%. And in the Midwest, it's closer to 70%. We lost 15,000 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 costs.
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. My 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 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 was funded through reconciliation. It's a dangerous precedent that my Republican colleagues have set here. Farm country needs a full five-year, 12-title robust Farm Bill that helps solve their biggest problems, not a skinny farm bill that leaves so many questions unanswered and so many problems unsolved. And mark my words, we're 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 $187,000,000,000 in funding to the SNAP program.
Trump's tariffs will cost the average American household $2,500 this year, up from $1,700 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 $187,000,000,000 cut to SNAP made in reconciliation.
Making sure that America's elderly and children can eat at a time of rising costs 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, who I dearly respect, says that this was a bipartisan farm bill. Sure. It got a few Democrats on it, but Republicans took about 10% of our bipartisan ideas and included them in the farm bill that we are discussing today.
USDA says that more than 3,000,000 Americans have already been kicked off food assistance, thanks to the 187,000,000,000 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 bill sides with multibillion-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, EQIP, by $1,000,000,000. It preempts Prop 12, 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 primetime, 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 its own negotiations, and my hope is they send us a more bipartisan solution that actually meets the needs of America's family farmers and working Americans. Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Speaker 3
Thank you, ranking member Craig. Chairman Thompson, I'm gonna begin by asking you a question. Right after the markup on the 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, who hunt and fish and do other things? There was a provision in there related to greyhound racing.
My understanding, an animal welfare provision that you all put in. And, so I'd like to get you to explain why in this version of the Farm Bill, you've made corrections to calm people about what that provision is going to do to people who wanna hunt and fish.
Speaker 2
Well, chairwoman, I wanna thank you for sharing those concerns with me early on and for working with us on that fix. Yeah. My phone's lit up too, soon after. The, 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. I'm very pleased that we're 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 role of construction. And with these fixes, I'm confident that the hunting, wildlife, and working dogs are protected. They were never intended to be impacted. This really had to do with the Greyhound racing industry, which is almost gone. There are just two tracks that are, I understand, they are not profitable in West Virginia.
And again, these hunting dogs were never intended. So we were able to accomplish that. And I want to thank you for working with us on those fixes.
Speaker 3
Well, thank you. The other 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 bill adds certainty for America's farmers and ranchers?
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And it's a 12 chapter bill, 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 every day getting out of bed at o dark 100 hours, where they're challenged.
Their certainty is challenged because of the weather, the pests, manpower, just all the issues that market issues as well. And so taking the Farm Bill as a whole, which includes Farm Bill 1.0 that we did last July and 2.0. I would never consider this a skinny farm bill. This is 80% of the policy. It may be only 20% of the investment, but it is 80% of the policy.
And so, certainty in terms of providing measures for crop insurance, which allows our farmers to, you know, buy into a program to be able to deal with threats from the weather that happen each and every day, unfortunately, when it comes to agriculture. Investments in agriculture research to be able to deal with the pests that are out there, whether they're insects or fungus or viruses, whatever they might be. It's strengthening our trade programs. It is existing markets, new markets open back up. We're providing tools for our farmers to be able to access the foreign markets.
Not every farmer is going to do that. But the fact is, for those who do, that helps overall. It takes excess commodities off the market, domestically. Programs like the value added program, which actually allows the individual farmer and really helps mostly small farmers, you know, to be able to avoid that middleman and to be able to process, on their farm, their commodities, in order to make, well, we'll just stick with dairy. That could be selling milk directly, ice cream, cheese, and the same thing in terms of our cattle farmers as well.
We've got a great provision in here that Mr. Massey is leading. I refer to it as a subprime act, a tribute to his math background, actually. And it's a great program that's going to impact all of our states, an opportunity to be able to sell more for small processors, to sell more directly to consumers. I mean, there is just this certainty that is really threaded throughout the entire Farm Bill, throughout the Farm Food and Asset Security Act.
Speaker 5
Well, thank you very much. Chairman Thompson, this farm bill contains what many people, including myself 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?
Speaker 2
I my opinion is not important. What is the opinion of the scientists. This is an issue that has come down to between emotion and science. So I point to the EPA. I point which have found glyphosate is probably the most studied chemical or agriculture tool, 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, and cleaned up according to the instructions that come with the chemical. But that could be said for anything because anything could be hazardous if you don't use it properly. But there are many European states, right. Sorry, nations that have also found it to be safe.
Speaker 5
Well, there are a lot of organizations and a lot of reputable scientific organizations that have a very different opinion. And I find it curious that you would cite the EPA since I, as long as I recall, you going after the EPA on a thousand different things during my time on the agriculture committee. But the I guess I guess the issue is you do believe it is safe. Right?
Speaker 2
I do believe it's safe. If it is utilized properly according to how it's labeled. And the provision in the farm bill is a labeling provision.
Speaker 5
Right. So 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?
Speaker 2
Well, this bill does not and I, mister governor, worked with you a long time. So I know you've read the bill.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I no. I know you did, and I trust you on this. But I have to say that I'd encourage you to go back and take another look at it, because the bill does not shield companies from being held liable if they harm users. The current failure to warn claims that are being brought forward are based on products not having warning labels, which are not allowed by the EPA.
If the EPA is approving these tools, they have to have warning labels. And it's clear that these claims should never be applicable to these products that have 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 language. I'll be honest with you. If they got a bad actor that's lying in terms of the language that they put forward for the labeling purposes, and it harms people, they need to be sued.
Well, and they will be with this.
Speaker 5
And I strongly disagree with the way you just characterized it from your talking points. Miss Greg, do you have any response?
Speaker 6
Yeah. 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 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.
Speaker 2
And ranking member, if I may, they can have their day in court. If they're not in compliance with the EPA, if they're lying or misleading the EPA in terms of the labeling information.
Speaker 5
Well, don't understand. They're allowed to say we need this language if everything is so wonderful with glyphosate. I mean.
Speaker 5
I'm just gonna say for the record, mister 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 glyphosate. People who've gotten cancer. And, you know, I mean, do you believe 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, if you believe that those jury verdicts are wrong, turn it to the people behind you and tell them so. I mean, I populous.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, I would tell you that there's nothing but study more about glycophate. And quite frankly, I mean, that's the same bill that, you know, the rank of members lead cosponsored the language last congress. And, when it says about should people have a jury trial, you know, what part of my statement to you I guess that there is no liability shield. And if it's a bad actor
Speaker 5
Yeah. If it's been so studied, then why do these companies need a liability shield? Miss Craig.
Speaker 6
Mister McGovern, I just wanna mention that just a few months ago, 137 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 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.
Speaker 5
Well, which brings me to another question. I mean, we do have an amendment, as ranking member Craig pointed out, the Pingree Massey amendment. Some of us are sponsors of it as well. You're the chairman of the agriculture committee. Would you be in favor of making that amendment in order?
Speaker 2
That is not my choice. I am, I have never upset anyone in leadership enough to be placed on the road to the
Speaker 5
Well, the question is whether or not members of the House already 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, and I, because I was the chairman of this committee at one time. I hope to be again.
But right now, as we're speaking in the backroom, 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. Do we have an opportunity to present it? Because I think we can win on this to be
Speaker 2
Well, I support the language which is in the Farm Food and Asset Security Act. I do not support the amendment. Yes. You support being off.
Speaker 5
The idea of the amendment being made in order so that we can actually debate and vote on it. That's the question. I know you don't.
Speaker 2
don't I regular order. I'm not gonna I don't have a say in terms of the rules committee of Yes.
Speaker 5
You do, Mr. Chairman. I don't know why you're here. If you don't have an opinion, you're testifying on this bill. You have, I mean, the idea that you don't have an opinion of whether or not that amendment should be made in order.
Speaker 2
I'm not sure my opinion matters a whole lot when I came out and said that I don't believe there should be a liability shield. And then you went on a tantrum that somehow I do think that there should be a liability shield. I will also say that the language that we have basically addresses what our farmers need. This really is about health. Yeah.
The EPA doing the labeling, they have hundreds of scientists that work diligently to make sure that things are not only safe, but to determine what should be on the label in terms of Right. But preparation.
Speaker 5
System most patient living out. Can do if this were to become law. So the states that felt that there was a greater danger, they're gonna be limited, they're gonna be prevented from, you know, from advising their farmers. But let me ask you a question, Mr. Chairman. Can I you and your staff, do you communicate with people at Bayer Monsanto, the manufacturer of glyphosate?
Speaker 2
Oh, I communicate with all those who are involved in agriculture production and processing. That would include bear, but includes a lot of different types of producers. I will also see that speaking of states, states have the ability not to register with our language. States, you know, have the ability to refuse to register any particular agriculture.
Speaker 5
Clearly, Monsanto and these big companies want this desperately. I mean, do you have?
Speaker 5
This is a giveaway to a corporate special interest. Do you have any idea about how much money Crop Life America, the pesticide industry lobbyists, donate to members of Congress on a yearly basis?
Speaker 2
I don't. I mean, do you take money from them? I earn support from people based on what I believe in agriculture.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, you've taken $32,500 from them since 2019. I don't know how much other members of the committee and other members of Congress have gotten. But the bottom line, you know, to come up here and to say this is much ado about nothing, that this is not liability protection. It is insulting, quite frankly, because, you know, I mean, anybody who reads this knows what's going on here.
You know? And, again, and to not have an opinion about whether we should, you know, have this made in order. I mean, we're the rules committee. You're here to testify, to give your opinions. You know?
I don't understand, you know, the reason why so many people hide behind, oh, I don't have an opinion.
Speaker 5
amendment. 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 of weight.
Speaker 5
Okay. Well, let me go on to another issue, so we can't get answers on glyphosate. I wanna turn to the food costs. I have nearly 1,900 farmers in my district at last count, and they're being hurt by the policies of this administration. 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 about the war in Iran. They are livid about the tariffs that are screwing them over, and some of them feel betrayed by this administration, which said it was going to help rural communities, but it's done the opposite. So my question is true or false? As written, this bill does nothing to stop the implementation of the tariffs on agricultural inputs.
Speaker 2
Is that true? It's not our jurisdiction. Okay. You should know that as well as anybody.
Speaker 5
Way. False. Rising diesel costs because of the war in Iran will lead to rising food costs. There's nothing in this bill that addresses that. Right?
Speaker 2
Rising fuel costs would be energy and commerce, not. So that's a culture committee not eligible to be within a farm bill.
Speaker 5
Okay. You know, I'll tell you, I've been on the rules committee a lot of times, and sometimes, Germanus issues don't always apply. Sometimes they attach the front of a Volkswagen to the back of a Cadillac up here. And the bottom line is if we wanted to address the issues of affordability, we would be doing it in this. That would be true or false.
Not a single provision in this bill addresses the high fertilizer and diesel costs that farmers are facing because of the war in Ukraine. Am I that true?
Speaker 2
We were having significant problems with that. I mean, I think we should all set a goal. I appreciate the administration, what they just came out with. I wanna be a little more bold. I think we should be independent of foreign fertilizer within five years.
Speaker 5
Me ask ranking member Craig. Is there anything this bill does to lower food prices for Americans?
Speaker 6
No. In fact, it locks in $187,000,000,000 in Snap Cuts, which makes food harder to afford for millions of Americans.
Speaker 5
Ma'am, should I just ask for your indulgence? This is an 850-page bill, five years, and I think some of these issues need to be addressed. Everything that, you know, everything that ranking member Craig and the Democrats on this committee warned you about in May is actually happening. 3,000,000 people are already being abruptly cut off from food assistance in this country because of the big ugly bill. And the rest of your Republican colleagues joined you and jammed that through Congress.
At the exact time as Trump's war and stupid economic policies are making the affordability crisis worse, I mean, you're screwing over the people who need help the most. And instead of fixing this mess, and that's what people are looking for, for us to fix this mess. You know, you're here asking us to pass a farm bill that locks in these terrible policies for 5 years. This is nuts. And look, Chairman Thompson, do you know how many veterans have lost food assistance in Pennsylvania since the big ugly bill went into effect?
Do you know her number?
Speaker 2
I don't have an exact number, but I can tell you anybody that has come off of SNAP. In Massachusetts. Anybody has come off SNAP. In Massachusetts. Probably has come off because they found gainful employment with the Farm Bill.
Speaker 5
In Massachusetts, the 200 nutritionists have already lost their benefits. You know how many homeless people have lost food assistance in Pennsylvania? In Massachusetts, 2,600 have already lost their benefits. Do you know how many parents of kids lost food assistance in Pennsylvania?
Speaker 2
Career lost SNAP employment, career and technical education being paid for as a part of the nutrition title.
Speaker 5
One final thing. I just want the cost shift is about to go into, it is about to go into effect. And a bipartisan group of states, a bipartisan group of governors is begging the Republicans here in Congress to delay the compliance with this new law. They have said they need time to support the accurate implementation of the law. Given that your stated goal with this terrible new law is program integrity, that's what you always say, why are you ignoring the people who actually have to implement the bill who are saying this is gonna impact their ability to accurately implement the program?
Madam, mister, I appreciate you banging the gavel. But I would just say for all the time that I was here as chair of this committee, I never cut any of you off. And this is an important issue. It's an important issue for the health and the well-being of people in this country, for farm workers, and it's an important issue with regard to whether or not people have food, which I think ought to be viewed as a fundamental human right in this country. And the nearly $200,000,000,000 in cuts, you know, is gonna, and by the way, the worst of it hasn't even come into play yet.
It's gonna throw countless people off their food assistance, which is roughly about $2 per person per meal. And so, you know, I apologize for asking these questions, but I don't know what else we're gonna ask them because I have no confidence that the amendments that I think might address these issues are gonna be made in order. Miss Craig, do you have anything you want to add?
Speaker 6
I would simply add that, you know, 176,211 people in Pennsylvania have already been kicked off SNAP after HR one passed. And so I just think that to say that no one's lost their benefits is just not intellectually honest.
Speaker 2
Right? Remember? Well, first of all, you know, statistics can be manipulated. How many of those individuals, and I guess you.
Speaker 2
Trying to reply. I mean, the question is, how many of those folks are no longer receiving SNAP because they've achieved greater opportunity by engaging in that 20 hours of SNAP employment, career, and technical education that we pay for? And this bill actually provides additional.
Speaker 2
Should their error rate be above 6%? The fact is, I guess, I have more confidence in our states than perhaps you do.
Speaker 5
rate less than 6%. Including Republican governors are asking for more time. That is what they're asking for. It's not just Democratic governors, Republican governors, because they know what's about to hit them. And, you know what?
And what would just makes me furious is the fact that, you know, we can't get anybody, you know, in leadership on this side to care about the fact that we get over 40,000,000 people in this country who are hungry, who don't know where their next meal is gonna come from. And by the way, there's a cost associated with that. Hungry people are not healthy people. They end up in emergency rooms. Kids who are hungry don't learn in school.
Miss, there is a cost to that.
Speaker 5
Alright. I'll be cut off, and I'll, you know? But I will say this, this is a lousy bill, and shame on my Republican friends for bringing this bill to the House floor. You bet.
Speaker 11
Thank you, madam chair. And madam chair, before I begin, I just wanted to ask maybe to remind the audience about the decorum that we are asking for, because there were a few loud and I won't say shouts. They were not shouts. But.
Speaker 3
k. Let me just say, mister McGovern, when you ask a question, you need to let the witnesses respond to the questions. And, also, you'd have plenty of time to ask questions and get an answer if you did not premise everything with so many comments. So I would urge my Democrat colleagues and my Republican colleagues not to make statements before you're asking your questions, but to stick to the questions.
Speaker 5
Well, madam chair, if I could just say to you in response, I ask for, like, questions like how many veterans, you know, lost their benefits in Pennsylvania? That's a pretty specific question. And so I never got any of the answers to.
Speaker 3
Those things. But before Mister Thompson had a chance to answer, you interrupted him.
Speaker 11
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I don't wanna ask any gotcha questions. I don't wanna play election-year politics with the Farm Bill. I don't want to do that.
What I wanna do is I want to thank chairman Thompson for not only the farm bill that he's bringing forward, but all of the good things you did in the previous bills that we had last year. We got reforms on crop insurance. We got tax breaks for farmers in various ways. We did the estate. We did.
Speaker 11
estate exemption, the estate tax exemption. And so the, I mean, I don't remember if on that you had help from any of the Democrats on the ag committee, but I know that there were Democrats who voted for this farm bill going out of that committee. So there is good in this bill. And so I think, and just so you know, most people know I represent a rural area, and farmers have their challenges right now. And they have called me in support of this bill.
I have been getting calls supporting this bill. And, like I said, bipartisanly passed out of the committee. And I'm happy that Chairman Thompson saw fit to include my investing in rural America. That will help farmers. It will help rural America get more capital into our rural communities, and I'm very excited about this.
So there are great things in this bill. And I understand the Democrats are playing election year politics with it, but in sincerity, there is a lot of positive things in this bill. And I just it shocks me when it becomes this partisan politics, having to ask the chairman gotcha questions so that you can trip him up somehow, instead of asking legitimate questions and having legitimate conversation. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you both for being here, sincerely.
And I thank you, Chairman Thompson, for all your hard work. I know that you are supportive of the farmers, the ag industry, the rural. It's in your heart, and I think that you're bringing forward a bill, including all the stuff that was done in the previous bills last year that's incredibly important to the industry. And, I appreciate you bringing the bill forward, and I wanna do anything I can to help get this over the finish line. And I support it fully.
So thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I yield back, Madam Chair.
Speaker 5
Yeah. I don't wanna belabor this point, but I do want the record to reflect that when we're debating the Affordable Care Act, I was the chair of this committee, and my dear friend from North Carolina went on for nearly an hour, and I did not interrupt her. And to the general lady who just spoke, I'm sorry that you think this is election year politicking to talk about whether or not we are protecting people from getting cancer or whether or not we have the people in this country are losing their food benefits. I don't, I mean, I gotta tell you, you know, that's people are really worried about what is happening in this country. And we're gonna, I mean, I have letters here from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and I've from Frac, the Food Research Action Center.
I get, like, a gazillion letters here from a lot of health organizations, a lot of farm or agriculture organizations, environmental organizations that are all opposed to this bill. So don't say this is election year politicking when we are asking questions about people losing their food assistance, or when we're asking questions about the health and safety of farm workers.
Speaker 5
Well, I'm sorry. It's my time as the general lady because I mean, gotcha. Yeah. No. Because I wanna point out how ridiculous this whole process is, and how insensitive this process is to what people have on their minds back home.
And you can support this bill if you want, but I think the process is a disgrace. I thank the general lady for yielding.
Speaker 14
Thank you. And thank you to our folks from the Ag Committee who are testifying here today. It has been a very long eight years since Congress passed the Farm Bill through regular order. For decades, the Farm Bill stood as one of the last true bipartisan achievements here in Congress. But in the last few years, we've seen it having to rely on a series of short-term extensions.
And then last summer, Republicans didn't just delay the Ag Bill, they blew it up altogether with the big ugly bill in which they passed the largest SNAP cuts in our nation's history, ripping away $187,000,000,000 in food assistance. And all of us are seeing the impact of that in our states, in our districts. So it wasn't work requirements. It was paperwork requirements that were imposed in that big ugly bill. It eliminated food aid eligibility for all but a narrow class of immigrants, ripping food assistance away from people fleeing violence, survivors of trafficking, and legal residents contributing to the economy.
The cuts have already cut 3,000,000 people off SNAP. In Pennsylvania, more than 170,000 people have lost SNAP since July, and those numbers don't include those who are going to lose the benefits due to paperwork, not due to lack of eligibility. So the cuts are now projected to lead to 70,000 preventable deaths. People who will go hungry because of the choices that were made in that big ugly bill, and why? Well, to pay for tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefit the richest 1% in America.
So this farm bill, one of the biggest objections to it is that it locks in these cruel SNAP cuts, leaving Americans in every corner of the country without the support they need. And it leaves our states scrambling to figure out how they're going to pay for significant portions of the SNAP program that they've never had to fund before. There's no system in place for this. No infrastructure to rely upon. In our state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has to find more than 600,000,000 per year, thanks to this new unfunded mandate.
Congress has told our governors and state legislatures to just figure it out. But where is that money supposed to come from? Our states are gonna have to make decisions like cutting SNAP further, raising taxes on working families, and gutting investments in education, health care, and public safety. Bipartisan governors across the country have warned that this cost shift could break the SNAP program entirely, and this farm bill drastically fails to meet the moment facing American families. It not only hurts farmers and families, but it provides a historic bailout for corporations.
On top of everything, this legislation shields multibillion-dollar chemical companies from accountability when their products make people sick. This provision would give legal immunity to the manufacturers of nearly 57,000 pesticides. And we're talking about products that have already been linked to cancer, to Parkinson's disease, products that have been used without warnings or appropriate protections on farms, in schools, and in homes across the country. And this bill says that if you're harmed by those products, you're not going to have the right to go to court and seek justice or compensation. This provision doesn't just tilt the scales.
It wipes them out entirely. It hands power to corporate chemical companies and tells Americans, you're on your own. So, I don't think this Farm Bill is striking the right balance. It leaves Americans hungry. It leaves our states without the support they need, and it frees billion-dollar billionaire corporations from accountability.
Ranking member Craig, we have heard our Republican colleagues dismiss the concern that this farm bill is going to force our states to pay millions more just to implement SNAP. Can you explain what accountability measures exist in the SNAP program, and why what this bill would do is going to be such a burden?
Speaker 6
Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Look, at the end of the day, this was a cost shift to the states. And in many cases, the states are simply not going to have the resources available to pay for those SNAP benefits.
When you think about the fact that these are based on error rates, remember that error rates are calculated both by underpayment and overpayment, in our system. Bless you, Chairwoman. And at the end of the day, what's stunning is in many of our states, I believe it's 10, Minnesota is one of them, that actually the cost goes to the county. So in states like Minnesota, we're already seeing the tax levies go up. In fact, what we've done is we have pushed a complete increase in taxes to our local residents.
You know, the SNAP quality control is what you're getting at. And, of course, states randomly select approved cases each month and conduct detailed reassessments of eligibility and benefit determinations. And of course, USDA FNS independently reviews a sub sample to validate those state findings and combines both sets of results to calculate the state and national error rates. Those error rates don't measure when benefits are improperly denied, timeliness of case processing, or program abuse. USDA requires states with higher error rates to submit a corrective action plan.
And, of course, in many instances, USDA will penalize states with those high error rates. In fact, Pennsylvania was sanctioned nearly $40,000,000 for its high error rates in fiscal year 2023. So I would submit to you that those robust quality control measures already exist within this program, and they will continue to exist.
Speaker 14
And it is obviously of great concern that the burden is going to fall on the taxpayers. The burden is going to fall on people who are already hungry. Rather than shoring up a system, it could collapse it entirely. Thank you for your testimony, and I yield back.
Speaker 4
Thank you, madam chair. And as I listen to all of the problems that those of you from Portland County States have, I'm just thankful that I have a governor in the state of Georgia and Brian Kemp and a state legislature that's cutting taxes, has massive surpluses, and believes in freedom. And so, I wanna encourage you to select leadership in your states to do the same thing because state of Georgia's got tremendous surpluses. Of course, we didn't shut down our economies during COVID. GT, a lot of charges have been made here.
I wanna go to 2 of them. One is the accusation was made that the 2026 Farm Bill cuts funding from EQIP. My understanding is that Equip gets a 54% increase in baseline funding from the 18 Farm Bill basis. Is that correct?
Speaker 2
That is correct. Most of the education or conservation programs get a significant investment. We raised the baseline of investment overall in conservation by 24%, but specifically, EQIP went up to 54%. We had to park some money just because of the rules of budget reconciliation, with Equip. But, and then those were used to actually today create some new conservation programs that are very bipartisan, by the way.
Speaker 4
And there's certain rules around here, rules that, even those of us in congress don't make any sense. And, you know, 85 was brought up. The ranking member knows that the ag committee doesn't have jurisdiction over that. Does the ag committee have jurisdiction over?
Speaker 2
No. No. That's, I think everyone, every member of Congress in this room knows that that is energy in Congress. I'm very supportive of year round E15. I actually think it's a good policy for everyone, including the petroleum industry.
And I represent the very first oil well anywhere in the world, 1859.
Speaker 2
Market development program that we have made investments in. We doubled those.
Speaker 2
Right. And so as either in existing markets or as new markets open up, which we're seeing that happen, farmers will be equipped with additional, and it wasn't just those two. There was probably three or four different trade assistance programs that we've increased. And why do we do that? Because when we traveled the country, and it was just me, it was we did this in a bipartisan way, all around the country.
That's what our farmers told us, that's what they needed.
Speaker 4
I did see something in the committee that I gotta tell you. I think it's probably the first time I've seen in my thirty years, in office in, half at the state and half here and where the, where you were attacked for as the Republican chair of the committee, you were attacked by the ranking member for accepting a Democrat amendment. And, did you remember that?
Speaker 4
I mean, little disingenuous, I thought. As are the accusations on the SNAP-related issues, and I wanna read to you. And if you would, chairman, just tell me, if I'm reading correctly, the actual law. And these are the exceptions to the work requirements. Obviously, there's the 20 hour exceptions to the work requirements that we know about, but I want to get into the specific exemptions.
If you're 18 or over 65 years of age, you're exempt from the work requirements.
Speaker 4
If you're medically certified as physically or mentally unfit for employment, you're exempt.
Speaker 4
If you're a parent or other member of a household with the responsibility for a dependent child under 14 years of age, you're exempt.
Speaker 2
That is correct. And you can fulfill the twenty hours average of twenty hours a week of education, through online education.
Speaker 4
If you're a pregnant woman, you're exempt from the changes that we made. That's correct. So there's a long list of exemptions to the change that we made that the democrats nowhere near that they refuse to acknowledge, and they're just flat out misrepresenting the facts. And so, you know, as for glyphosate, I'll tell you, I believe it's safe. Other people might believe it's not, but I'm gonna buy a 2 and a half gallon jug of it when I get home, and I'm gonna use it over the weekend.
My wife uses it around the pool to spray weeds. I'm gonna use it around the lake, as well as some other chemicals, as well in the yard. And we need herbicides, we need pesticides. And I've got just a few seconds left. Chairman, I think I want you to know, I think you've done a wonderful job of this.
It was done in a bipartisan manner, even with the ranking member doing everything she could to stop her people from voting for it. You got seven Democrats on the committee that actually studied the issues, to vote for the bill. Any final things that you would like to say before I turn it back over to the chair?
Speaker 2
Well, just the, you know, there's an accusation that we've undermined the SNAP safety net, and that couldn't be further from the truth. In the Farm, Food and National Security Act 2026, we strengthened SNAP by, number one, cracking down on criminals who swipe benefits from EBT cards. We increased access to SNAP nutrition incentive programs, specifically proteins, in addition to the fruits, vegetables, and dairy. We've added not just fluid milk, but cheese and low sugar yogurts. And then finally, we make Snap online purchasing a permanent option nationwide.
Those are just three of, really, the enhancements within this bill.
Speaker 4
You've been a good chair. You're an honorable member. You did a good job. And, madam chair, I'll turn it back over. But, ma'am, I'm sorry you didn't let me smile for the picture.
Speaker 17
Thank you, madam chair. I'd like to yield just a few seconds to the ranking member.
Speaker 5
Just a couple of points. I won't belabor this, but, every time we talk about the pesticide liability shield, our distinguished chairman shakes his head like it doesn't exist. To those who are watching, go to section 10205 of the Republican Farm Bill, and you'll know what I'm talking about. The other thing I just wanna point out for the record, because I think we need to be clear on this, when we're told that, oh, this bill just represents a very limited, you know, jurisdiction of the ad committee. There were provisions in this bill, Mister Scott, just so you know, that fall under the jurisdiction of energy and commerce, ed and labor, resources, oversight, foreign affairs, TNI.
I'm sure I'm missing and what find it? Science. And science. So the idea that somehow we can't possibly, you know, consider these other measures because we have this strict liability restriction. It's just not the case.
And then the final thing I just want to say about the work requirements. You know, the work requirements of the big ugly bill are nothing more than bludgeoning poor people with paperwork. People are losing their benefits as we speak. I mean, I hear from them all the time, states' offices are being overwhelmed with calls from people who are losing their benefits. This is a real crisis.
Again, if you want, if you have people who are hungry, they cannot be healthy. And I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.
Speaker 17
We thank the ranking member, certainly concur in his assessment. Good afternoon to the ranking member and the chairman. Thank you both for being here and for your testimony. Chairman, are you familiar with a place called Stearns County in Minnesota? That rings a bell, mister chairman?
Alright. Yeah. Yeah. That's I know the ranking member is very familiar with Sturns County. I was curious if it exists.
The ranking member can attest to that. I regret that our colleague from Minnesota isn't here because, you know, she leveled a series of attacks against our ranking member here about electioneering and the like. Stearns County is in her district. It's a Republican county. This is a county that voted for President Trump.
Now I'm reading here from the National Association of Counties publication. Let me just read this to you. The goal of a farm bill is to support rural communities and give them the resources they need to thrive, said a Stearns County, Minnesota, commissioner. But without addressing HR one's changes to SNAP and Medicaid, that can't be fulfilled. That's what this Stearns County commissioner said.
Quote, whether it is food and nutrition, and being able to have a community that is able to keep a grocery store or have those kinds of resources going back to the community, being able to have a doctor or telemedicine. If we don't have those components, it is very difficult to see how many of our communities can afford to survive, let alone thrive. Now this county is the largest milk-producing county in the state of Minnesota. But, again, we'll quote here. With inflation right now, with rising grocery prices, it's not translated into more money for our farmers.
It's translated into more costs for the people who really need SNAP. And that means it's also translated into bigger problems for our grocery stores. If the federal government is going to mandate changes, states and counties should be equipped with the resources to comply with them. These extra costs in our state right now, it's looking like it could be an increase in county property taxes just to comply with what the federal law is, and that shouldn't happen. This is a county commissioner in a Republican county, a county that President Trump won decisively, that happens to be represented by a Republican member of this rules committee.
Not electioneering, Mr. Chairman. Not electioneering. I never used the term election. I know you didn't. And but I'm and I wish again that my colleague No.
No. She's not here. She used it. I'm not accusing you, Mr. Chairman, of using it. But I think it is regrettable that we can't have a reasoned debate and conversation about this bill, and the many reasons why the ranking member, myself, the ranking member of this committee, and folks on my side of the aisle have legitimate concerns with it.
So, again, not accusing you of doing that, mister chairman, but I want for the record at least, and perhaps our colleague from Minnesota, when she joins us, she can educate us about Stearns County and why her constituents apparently don't support this farm bill. In any event, I will just say, I know you know this, Mr. Chairman. Rural America right now is struggling. I represent a district as rural in nature. Lots of farms, lots of ranches.
They're struggling. How many farms filed for bankruptcy last year? Do you know?
Speaker 2
Way too many from the inflation that started and has continued, unfortunately, for over the past 5, 6 years.
Speaker 17
Well, as I understand it, 315 filings for bankruptcy were last year. That is a 46% increase from 2023.
Speaker 17
Well, we'll talk a bit about the many reasons why I don't believe this bill is going to ultimately alleviate the crisis that is hitting rural America and farms in small towns across.
Speaker 17
If the state of Colorado, including my own. I'm gonna I've got limited time. I know the chairwoman given, you know, the experience that the ranking member had. I wanna preserve my ability to get into a
Speaker 17
Well, that's not what they're telling us in this article, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 17
Association of Counties. So, in any event, I have some questions about pesticides. So I want to follow up on a point that the ranking member made. I'll wait until is that just wanna make sure you're okay. You earlier took great umbrage when the ranking member suggested that this bill includes a liability shield for pesticide manufacturers.
So you disagree? You don't believe that this bill includes a liability shield?
Speaker 2
My response was conditional. Was sure. There's no liability shield if there's a bad actor that is being dishonest to the EPA. There's me misleading the EPA in terms of the chemicals that are put forward, that these bad actors can be sued. Now if they're following the science, and then, again, a lot of this is a difference between emotion and science.
If you're following the science and the science is complete, and the manufacturer, okay. Is being honest, uh-huh. With what they're submitting, so help to the EPA that goes on the label.
Speaker 17
So, chairman, you answered the question. Okay. So, in your view, this bill does not include a liability shield for pesticide manufacturers. Right?
Speaker 17
In this bill. Read to you this language. This is from your bill. Quote, to prohibit any state instrumentality or political subdivision thereof or a court from directly or indirectly imposing or continuing in effect any requirements for or penalizing or holding liable any entity for failing to comply with requirements that would require labeling or packaging that is in addition to or different from the labeling or packaging approved by the administrator of the EPA. It is a liability shield by the plain language of the statute.
Speaker 2
There's nothing to sue about at that point, because the science is proven.
Speaker 17
I got it. So then if that's the case, what in the world motivated Bayer to propose a settlement of $7,250,000,000 for hundreds of thousands of claims that are being litigated one mile from here at the United States Supreme Court today, in real time. Yeah. Could you read the last sentence of that paragraph?
Speaker 17
Provided that the entity is not a material violation of that subparagraph of the labeling requirements.
Speaker 17
So you're legitimately, I think, I wanna make sure I understand this. You are in good faith arguing that this provision has nothing to do with the billion-dollar settlement that Bayer has proposed with litigants. That this excuse me. That this provision has nothing to do with the Supreme Court case that's pending right now, that was heard today?
Speaker 2
Not for me personally. No. It isn't. Not for you personally? This is about providing what the farmers are asking for, what the farmers need.
Sure. And quite frankly, what the Bayer provisions that are there.
Speaker 17
Why do you think Bayer spent $2,000,000 in the last three months lobbying on this bill? What do you think motivated them?
Speaker 17
Can't explain it. Just again, no explanation. Yeah. They're just really interested in your farm bill. That's why they've identified this.
Speaker 2
We've worked hard on this provision for several years, looking at what we heard from our farmers, what our farmers need. We wanted to make sure that if there are bad actors out there that are not in compliance with the labeling standards and providing the EPA the proper information to apply to the label, that those individuals can be sued. They can be put out of business.
Speaker 17
The point is that these failure to warn cases that have percolated across the country, in which juries in liberal communities and conservative communities, including in the state of Missouri, have said that the plaintiffs in those cases merit relief and redress for the harm that was caused. Those failure-to-warn cases would all end if this provision became law. Bayer has publicly said that if the Supreme Court decision goes their way, or if this language that you've written is enacted, it's gone. They don't have to worry about failure-to-warn cases anywhere in the country. Now you could I think the frustrating part for me, and I suspect the ranking member, is that there are other colleagues of yours who would say, yes.
That's exactly what we want. That's what we're trying to do. We are try we've crafted a language that creates an immunity shield. It's a liability shield for the pesticide manufacturer that, ultimately, if they're in compliance with the EPA standard, they should not be held liable in a single court in the United States of America. And I just
Speaker 2
I would argue that what we're talking about is a proper warning. I mean, if you want the alternative, that's fine. If you want 50 different states that are able to do their own labeling, I would argue that I doubt if the majority, and I'm not gonna ask you this as a gotcha question. Sure. Those are ridiculous.
Speaker 2
But I'm gonna argue I would say that certainly less than 50% of states actually have a toxicologist on staff.
Speaker 2
But if you want the labeling done with 50 different states and complying with 50 different states.
Speaker 17
And that's an argument you can make on the merits, and I appreciate this discussion. Let me just tell you. A lawyer made that argument today during the Supreme Court's oral arguments, and Justice Roberts, the chief justice, responded. And his response was, you know what? Maybe it's not a bad thing.
In fact, I'm butchering his words here. If states and juries across the country have an opportunity to sound the alarm if the federal government got it wrong. That's the point here. And so I would just tell you, and by the way.
Speaker 17
I would have to have a longer conversation because I disagree with your argument on that front, but any only argument on the facts. You're aware that a couple of years ago, Bayer removed glyphosate from residential products. You're familiar with that?
Speaker 17
All who oppose this provision. There are Democrats who oppose this provision. I am one of them, and I hope that enough Republican members of the US House tomorrow decide in advance of the procedural vote that this amendment is worth fighting for, and they ultimately ensure that we get an up-or-down vote.
Speaker 19
Well, I thank chairman and the ranked member, thank you all for your time today. A lot of this has been covered, so I don't want to repeat it. I think I would like to give the chairman the ability to respond or clean up anything, if anything, in that exchange with the previous member.
Speaker 2
I appreciate that. First of all, when it comes to Stearns County, and I don't think I've been there, but I've been in Minnesota a lot, and I don't always know what county. I mean, I apologize for that, Angie. Okay. Yeah.
But I will say some of this that they're incurring, you gotta talk to Governor Waltz on. I think the folks in
Speaker 2
I don't know who the guy which county commissioner wrote this article that's being referenced. But quite frankly, if these are things I heard that were, if you want better, great, better improvements to telemedicine, you're going to want the Farm Food and National Security Act because it's in the economic development title of rural broadband, high speed rural broadband. And specifically, we address telemedicine. If you want more grocery stores, we have programs that will help individuals seek to open up new grocery stores. And we do have food deserts in our rural communities, and a lot of them.
But we have provisions in this farm bill that would help provide that. I respect the fact that Minnesota has got some really good dairy, like Pennsylvania does, and a lot of other states. This is probably the best dairy farm bill that we've ever had in terms of milk and dairy policy, ties over to nutrition in terms of dairy incentives, fluid milk, cheeses, low sugar, yogurt. There's some charges out there that I've been told that some folks who just say that new data shows a SNAP participation has fallen by 2,500,000 people because of the cuts in HR1. The fact is that data is being cited for the sole purpose of fear-mongering.
Only Democrats would condemn the fact that people are no longer dependent on the government. And it's not just you, we've heard rantings over twenty hour average of twenty hours per week for SNAP employment, criminal education. If somebody leaves the nation on criminal education, I'm kind of partial to that. I love that pathway. That's called climbing your way up the ladder of opportunity.
But you can also satisfy it by doing twenty hours of volunteer work, if need be, or twenty hours of work. And we do have a lot of working poor people that are working an average of 20 hours. Everybody's gonna, based on finances, be eligible for SNAP for three months. What we're talking about is it is a question of will they continue after three months? We HR one ensured two groups of individuals are not receiving SNAP, and I don't apologize for that.
Illegal aliens first. They're never meant to receive these benefits for the able-bodied adults aged 18 to 64 without young children who are not working, training or volunteering for at least 20 hours a week. And you know what? That's not something new. That requirement, to some degree, has been around for a very long time, and has not been the end of the world.
We wanna give people an opportunity. This is how you can earn the opportunity to continue to receive SNAP after your first three months. And so I'll just stop with those two. I miss Roy, I appreciate your opportunity to clarify those.
Speaker 19
Yes. Want to give you some time on that. And then I wanna be mindful of the clock as well, generally. I just a couple of things. I think there's some things that should be lauded in this bill.
You've mentioned it. It reflects the good work that we did last summer in trying to tighten how SNAP benefits go out, particularly for those people who are here illegally. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that we're trying to carry out and perpetuate that. There, I think, were other decent reforms that we had.
And I think it's important to note this. You mentioned Congressman Massey's Prime Act and having at least a test program for that, and some other things that are really, I think, critically important. So I applaud that. I think there were also some revisions in there that restrict or allow the Secretary of Ag to restrict solar projects that would potentially roll over farmland. I think we need to be looking at that in a significant way.
I think the extent to which we're covering up valuable farmland with solar panels is something we should be taking a long, hard look at. So that's good. There are other things in there that are good. I think I will have to acknowledge some concerns that I think merit, and that's why I wanted to give you time to respond favorably. I do like, as I listen to and I look at what's happening with the literal, the Supreme Court arguments happening at the moment, and, you know, one issue in particular, right, is just a straight-up issue for states being able to make decisions for themselves.
And the people of Texas that I represent, that I might hope to represent in a different capacity, would be actually directly on point, is the ability for the state of Texas to make decisions for the state of Texas. That is true for this issue. With respect to labeling and dealing with the issues, we have great concerns. Look, I'm a cancer survivor. I think there's a significant amount of data that raises big concerns, and I think big ag needs to be body-checked.
And I think big ag, like big health care, like big tech, is all way too full of themselves. And I'm a pretty equal opportunity bachelor of large corporate America these days. And, I just think in this case, I've got some big concerns about a section that steps over at a minimum. By the way, this is true as we look at AI and preemption. I don't wanna preempt the ability of the state of Texas to be able to say what's right with respect to artificial intelligence.
I don't wanna preempt the state of Texas in our right and be able to deal on a lot of health care fronts, we're not able to push back on big health care. I do have to acknowledge having a concern on this point that I think does merit our consideration as a committee with respect to making amendments in order. And, you know, that labeling issue is very real, and the people that I represent in Texas are raising that issue and saying that states ought to have the ability to manage and deal with that. So, you know, that is a concern. You know, I think there are other things that I wish we were addressing here going further with respect to foreign nationals buying up American land.
I think we could go further on that, foreign adversaries in particular. There are things that are missing, but that's different. Missing is just things you wish we were doing. Yeah. But with respect to the provisions in here, those are, in fact, concerning and I think worthy of discussion and potential amendment.
Sure. The chairman wants to respond, and then I'll
Speaker 2
Yes, please. Actually, we have strong provisions in here about foreign entities from many perspectives. One of them is making sure that the secretary of agriculture is on the CEFIA's committee. But at the same time, there are other provisions in there, making sure that you're protecting our national security from foreign entities buying up both agriculture production and processing. Because quite frankly, if you want to be able to manipulate and control a country, control their food supply.
And we've already had, this is not the first time back in the 70s. I'm told my research shows, you know, that Japan was a real threat. Small island, densely populated, unable to feed itself. And so a lot of states, back then, South Dakota was one Pennsylvania. I'm sure there are a lot of others.
They put their own state provisions in terms of protecting the purchase of those from foreign entities. We're putting that for the nation, and it's in this farm bill. I was just reviewing those provisions this morning. And then in terms of labeling, we wanna protect state's rights. We think that that's really important.
And so this if the state wants to go and have something that is specific to their state, maybe it's based on the ecology of their state or whatever it might be. They just have to submit it to the EPA, and the EPA will add it to the labeling. So the states would be able to express themselves in terms of specific in their states. And then let me just say, if there's, and if all that is unsatisfactory to the state of Texas or any state, they have the ability not to register that chemical to be used in their state. They can ban it from their state under the provisions that we have within this farm bill.
Speaker 19
Well, I appreciate the chairman. We're well over time, but I wanted to give you plenty of time. I'll just conclude by saying, like AI, like other areas of law, I do not like for the state of Texas to have to come to the EPA to beg for the ability to go further to protect their people. We're 31,000,000 people. We're the eighth-biggest economy in the world.
I frankly think we can do whatever the hell we wanna do on most things and should be able to do on most things. So that's kind of my starting place, and so I just kinda wanna figure that out, because I've got grave concerns about big ag making decisions in the corporate interest that aren't necessarily in the interest of every consumer, and the health and well-being of every American. Yeah. So with that, I will yield back.
Speaker 2
I appreciate that. And let me just say, when you look at whatever big ag is, they have the economy of scale to deal with whatever comes along. I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm little ag, and we have a lot of states that are little ag. They don't have the ability.
They don't have that economy of scale to be able to deal with those.
Speaker 20
Well, over time, I just wanna, I'll be brief, but thank you for your work on this, chairman. As it relates to the illegals that are on the have caused the snap provisions, people that are claiming it to jump, what, 19%. I've heard a much higher, and the cost has jumped as well. What kind of enforcement mechanisms do we have?
Speaker 2
Well, making it really clear to the states who are responsible to enforce that. Now some states will claim that they don't have access to the kind of qualified individuals to do that. We have a provision within this farm bill that if a state would choose to do it, they're not forced to do it. But a state could work with a contract service, you know, above and beyond their employees that they have. So they have adequate workforce, you know, to make sure that they, you know, that they can process.
If their error rate's above 6%, they're eligible to use it. There's a few other provisions that make them eligible to use those additional resources. And so, that's the whole point of the error rate issue that we put into effect. You know, the farm bills in the past and the provisions of I think of SNAP have been pretty good. But the problem is when it gets down to the states, my own state of Pennsylvania two years ago was an 18% error rate.
Was unacceptable, and it went to 11%. And now they're working to get it below 6. Every state in the past 10 years has had an error rate less than 6%. That's why we, you know, because some error rates are just paperwork errors. You know?
Somebody didn't feel on the right line, missed the information. So that's why we didn't go to zero in the end. We put the threshold at 6% and to get it under 6%. And if they do that, we're not talking about any additional money they have to pay. But what we're talking about is a better, well-administered program that serves everybody, including the beneficiaries.
An error rate would be counted as an underpayment, and we get that. Right? You got a family that EBT card is not loaded up with the resources that it should have for a given month, and so it doesn't stretch as far. That's an error rate. That's wrong.
An error rate could be an overpayment. And you wonder, well, how is that a bad thing? You know, people get more than they need. Well, that's because the states do come back. It may be six months from then, and they, you know, they take money away to make up the difference.
And so you're a family that shows up at a grocery store. You're gonna use your two or three forms of payment, one of those being an EBT card. And you go to use your EBT card, it's not near the amount of money that you thought should be on it. And so that's why it's so important to get this right for the people that are beneficiaries. And I will say, you know, I get it.
If a state's really screwing up, they're going to pay more money. But as my friends on this side of the aisle already point out, they're already paying more money when they screw up because they get fines. Now they get fines from the USDA. I forget the amount of money that Pennsylvania had to pay for an 18% error rate. It was just, yeah, $40,000,000.
Thank you. And, it's a significant amount of money. So we're just adjusting this so that in the end, we set the expectation to get it right. There's an old adage out there. Right?
If you're spending somebody else's money, you're not as careful as if you're spending your own money. And we've seen that in the administration of this program. And so I look forward to the fact that we're making this program better. And the other thing I wanna say is we've not cut anybody's. Now, there's people that come off of SNAP, obviously. A lot of people are hoping to work their way off of SNAP, you know, where they don't need it anymore because they've been able to climb the ladder of opportunity.
But we've not caught any individual benefits. And I will say even OMB and others question what President Biden did, you know, under Secretary Vilsack of increasing benefits. They didn't use a proper formula that they should have always used. So there were probably grounds to do that, but it's not something I would do once families have come to rely on that type of assistance. So I did not, we did not cut anybody's individual benefits that they get.
I think Mr. McGovern does a great job of tracking that number somewhere around $2 per meal per day.
Speaker 2
it from going up. Yeah. And we didn't prevent that. Now going forward, it's gonna be according to the existing law, which is based on the inflation of food, not buying green vegetables or green food or whatever the crazy stuff that happened under the Biden administration, but it will be based on the inflationary impact of food. And that should deter, that should be the primary thing.
You know, being able to afford food is an inflationary factor. So going forward, when this gets reevaluated, hopefully, on a regular basis, they'll stick with that criterion, the inflationary impact on food. Well, I hope the play.
Speaker 20
Hope the consequences are in place. And you mentioned the Biden administration, we wouldn't be having a lot of this problem if they did let 20,000,000 illegals in this country and put them on every government program that there is in America. And now we're having to deal with the aftermath of it. But, the twenty hours of work week, is that would you say that's more or less than the average American puts in? I will tell you this.
It's a lot more. It's a lot, twenty hours is a lot less than the average American. I don't care whether you're.
Speaker 20
Of working age. And I know a lot of children who have chores have more than that. So, anyway, thank you for your work, and I think we debated this long enough. I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Norman. And I thank our witnesses from the ad committee for being here today, and you are excused.
Speaker 2
Always a pleasure. Thank you so much to the ranking member, the chair, and all the members of the committee.
Speaker 3
Alright. Take care. I don't know. He gets something about the form. Oh, I know.
Speaker 3
Now welcome our second panel, Representative Owens and Ranking Member Scott, from the Committee on Education and Workforce. Your full statement will be submitted for the record. And your full statement will be submitted for the record, and we ask you to summarize your statement in five minutes. Representative Owens, I welcome your testimony.
Speaker 7
Thank you, Chairman Fox and ranked member McGovern and members of this committee. Thank you for having me today. I would like to start off with something simple, common sense, simple and common sense statement. There are only two sexes, male and female. Sex is a biological classification and not a subject of gender identity ideologies.
A boy is a boy, and a girl is a girl. Unfortunately, these common-sense statements aren't attacked by many school districts. With the precise details of each district, practice may vary, local districts frequently push a radical leftist vision of gender through formal policies or informal teaching. For example, guidance from the Los Angeles Unified School District defines gender as a person’s actual or perceived sex, and that students may be agender, genderqueer, queer, queer fluid, two spirit, bigender, pangender, gender nonconforming, or gender variant. Chicago's public school system simply defines gender identity as a deeply held sense of psychological knowledge that an individual may have of their gender regardless of the biological sex that they are assigned at birth.
This vision of gender is extremist, ignores basic biology, and is at odds with what the vast majority of parents think. But it gets worse. Many school districts are actively pushing radical gender identity on our children and even encouraging children to transition genders without parental consent. According to the defending education, at least 21,000 schools and 1,200 districts covering over 12,000,000 students have policies that prevent faculty and staff from disclosing a student's gender identity or hint to his or her parents without the student's permission. For example, in Los Angeles, school staffs are not required to notify parents of a gender transition if the school staff deems the parent not supportive.
These policies are simply unacceptable. If a student is experiencing gender dysphoria, parents should be the first to know, not the last. Parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children. As Heritage Foundation has written, the century of Supreme Court jurisprudence supports the notion that parents enjoy their fundamental constitutional right to direct the upbringing, health, and education of their children. Parents' consent is not a novel concept.
Parental permission is required for many of the most mundane activities schools do. If parents' consent is required for something as basic as going to school, a school trip, a school field trip, the schools should never act to socially transition a student without the parents' knowledge. The stopping indoctrination of protecting children act, kids act, combines two bills that we marked up in committee, chairman Warmbrook's protection kid act, HR 2616, and my notes say no to indoctrination act, HR 2617. This combined bill will do two things. First, it would prohibit federal funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act from being used to promote radical gender ideology as defined under President Trump's executive order on this subject.
This policy codifies President Trump's executive order on gender ideology as it pertains to K through 12 education. Second, the bill would deter secret gender transition by prohibiting recipients of funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act from transitioning public elementary and middle school students without parents' consent. Parents must be involved in their children's education. The federal funds must not be used for indoctrination. Not too long ago, these ideas would not have been controversial.
They, however, want to cut parents out and teach radical ideology. It's time for us to stop this nonsense. I wanna thank the rules committee for considering this bill. I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 18
Thank you. Thank you, Chair Fox, Renewable Government, and other members of the committee. I oppose HR 2616, the ill named stopping indoctrination and protecting kids act. So let me be clear about what the bill actually does, because the name bears no relationship to its contents. First, the bill requires schools to obtain parents' consent before anyone in the school can make changes in any form or provide any accommodations that affirm a child's gender identity.
This would include requiring schools to obtain parental consent before honoring a child's request to be called by a particular name. Further, the bill will prohibit the use of federal funds to teach so-called gender ideology. I wanna underscore this point. The parents' involvement in a child's education is essential, but this bill is not about improving parental involvement. It's about using the threat of federal funding to compel schools to out transgender and gender conforming nonconforming children to their parents, whether or not doing so is safe for that child.
Additionally, trying to block a teaching of so-called gender ideology, this bill seeks to control what our schools teach. This bill would prevent teachers from discussing topics that include trans or gender nonconforming people or even their existence. And let me just say that passing federal legislation won't make trans children disappear. They'll still be there whether this bill passes or not. This not only affects the classroom and what teachers who are the best experts in helping our students learn, what the teachers can use to educate our students.
It also affects schools and students in other ways, such as limiting the selection of books in the school libraries. Now let me just remind my Republican colleagues that the federal government does not control the curriculum. It is well established in statute that states and districts determine their own curriculum without interference from the federal government. This bill takes away state and local control of education, the very thing that the current administration claims we are giving back to the states by illegally dismantling the Department of Education. Worse, this bill causes real demonstrable harm.
Research on this is not ambiguous. Study after study from the Trevor Project to the American Academy of Pediatrics, from mental health professionals across the country. All research shows that transgender youth who are affirmed by adults in their lives have dramatically better mental health outcomes. They are less likely to experience depression, and less likely to attempt suicide. That's not ideology.
That's data. When this bill is not a parents' rights legislation, it is a mandate that bullies vulnerable kids who are at risk for the sake of political gainsmanship. Proponents of this bill will say that parents have the right to know what is happening with their children in school. I agree. But this bill goes well beyond notification, a perfect example of federal overreach, because it requires consent before a teacher can even use a student's preferred name on a form such as a seating chart.
And this is all the children. It brings the federal government into what could be an interaction between a student and their teacher, threatens the funding that schools depend on to serve all of the students if they fail to comply. I would note what the bill does not do. It does not help students learn to read or close achievement gaps. It does not address teacher shortages.
It does not improve school safety, mental health resources, or academic achievement. It does not even consider how to implement the bill if the Department of Education is, in fact, dismantled. While we face a genuine crisis in public education, the majority has brought this bill to us to consider. We should be asking ourselves who the legislation serves. It does not serve the students who came out to a trusted teacher, because home is not safe.
It does not serve school counselors who are trying to protect the confidentiality of a student who may be struggling. It does not serve teachers who work every day to create a classroom where every student can learn, but it does serve the political agenda that is decided that transgender children are convenient political targets. And what happens to a counselor when a counselor gets caught protecting the confidentiality of a student, and the whole school loses federal funding. No negotiation. No discussion.
Just loses federal money. Requiring parents to sign off anytime any student wants to be identified by another name, such as a nickname, is absurd. For example, my first name is Robert, but I prefer to be called Bobby. Notion that my teachers would have to obtain explicit consent from my parents before filling out a seating chart calling me Bobby rather than Robert was a waste of time. And what if a teacher wants to call me Rob because there's another Bobby in the classroom?
This would require teachers to go back to my parents to get consent again. This is not unusual. In fact, for most children, as they're trying to figure out their own identity, we'll experiment with different nicknames. Moreover, school counselor who knows that a student is not safe at home or a student whose parents have been hostile or abusive, in those cases, the school would still be legally required to provide the notice as a condition for the school to receive federal funds. This bill makes no exception for student safety.
None. It just says, get parental consent whether it makes sense or not or lose your federal funding. It fails to consider any of these possibilities. The bill is unnecessary, potentially harmful, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill and instead take up legislation that actually improves the lives of children in our public schools. Madam Cherry, you're back.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Scott. I'm now going to go to the other Mr. Scott in the room to see if you have any questions.
Speaker 4
Yes, ma'am. I actually don't understand any objection to the bill. I'm just, I mean, we're talking about elementary school students and middle grade students. Correct?
Speaker 4
We're talking about minors. By definition, they would be minors. Young teenagers if they're in middle school.
Speaker 4
What would the oldest person that we're talking about, in all likelihood, be, Mister Burgess? I'm sorry, Mr. Owens. 12, 13, 14?
Speaker 4
14? Yeah. At most? So we're talking about whether or not someone who is not the guardian of somebody who's under the age of 14 can change not facts, but can change documentation on official government forms. Well, I mean, since when do we think it's okay for someone who's not the guardian of a child to change their name in this country?
Speaker 7
Okay. Okay. Well, it's interesting. I was listening to my colleague talk. I had a nickname in high school.
My nickname was Doc. If I decided that I wanna be called Sally, my parents would have loved to have known that. Yeah. And it would help me out a lot too because, end of the day, what it comes down to is it's all about trust. Trust the teacher and the parent.
And we'll start teaching out, peace out.
Speaker 4
Look. I mean, you played football. You were much better at it than I was. I mean, but everybody on the football team has a nickname. Right?
We're not talking about someone's nickname on the football team, are we? We're talking about somebody's official name, correct, at the school system? We're talking about radicals in the school system telling the parents what the name of their kid is and what the sex of their kid is. Exactly. According to them, not according to biology.
No.
Speaker 18
Well, actually, that's not true because it says it's all children, which says covered children. You turn the page, covered children and everybody in the elementary school. So the entire football team, if you wanna call them by nicknames on the football team, you gotta get parental consent every time you use a different nickname.
Speaker 7
Yeah. This is not about nickname changes. We're dealing with gender dysphoria. These are the issues we're talking about.
Speaker 18
what's aiming at, but that's not what the bill says. The bill says as a condition of receiving funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a public school that receives funds under the act shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student's gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form.
Speaker 4
There's no official school form on your nickname on the football, or the basketball, or the softball, or the baseball team. I'm look. This is.
Speaker 4
That's not an official school form. This is look. This just shows the fact that we have to do.
Speaker 18
This is not official. It says school form, and a roster would be a school form. And wait a minute. And it is a covered student. Means who is an elementary school student or a student in any of the middle grades.
That's all students, not just a transcript.
Speaker 4
I'm just reclaim my time because I don't we have a lot of legislation before us. I think the fact that we're even having to discuss this and that this is even happening in the public school systems of our country today just shows how far this country has fallen in a multitude of ways, and it shows just how radical the people who control the democratic primaries have become. And with that, madam chair,
Speaker 14
Thank you, madam chair. I really wish that our Republican colleagues would take an interest in our public schools other than to dismantle them or to bully LGBTQ kids just to score points in the Republican culture wars. This bill falls in the latter category. I mean, the absolute last thing that congress should be doing right now when Americans are faced with a rising cost of living crisis, rising gas prices, a misguided and unauthorized war in The Middle East, and an administration that has weaponized the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security for political purposes. The last thing we should be doing right now is micromanaging the pronoun policies of local school districts.
When you say it out loud, it sounds insane, because it is. All this acrimony while our schools crumble, while our education system lags behind our peers generally, globally, and while we fail to equip our students with the skills they need to succeed in the modern world. Republicans haven't done a damn thing to help our schools or our students. They've allowed the administration to gut the Department of Education. They have fired the federal employees overseeing assistance to rural and low-income schools and overseeing compliance with civil rights policies.
And they've taken away SNAP from 3,000,000 people, which has impacted school lunch eligibility in the process. These aren't the actions you take if you want our children or our schools to be successful. For years, House Democrats, and I know particularly ranking member Scott's committee, have been advocating for policies to fix our broken schools and provide every child in America with a good public education. And it's a goal that is within our reach. But Republicans are more interested in attacking trans kids than they are in helping all children get ahead.
There's no greater example of this stunning lack of political will than the vast sums of money that have been wasted already on this war with Iran. We've burned through over $60,000,000,000 in 58 days that this war has been going on. That money could have fixed thousands of our nation's neediest schools. Instead, it's going to the defense contractors. Or take as an example the $140,000,000,000 blank check that the Republicans gave to ICE and border patrol in their big ugly bill.
That money, which is currently being used to terrorize American cities and American citizens, and to build massive detention centers instead of schools all across the country, could have covered most of the estimated $150,000,000,000 needed to adequately fund every public school in America. Adding insult to injury, in the next panel that we get to have today, Republicans are teeing up another budget reconciliation measure to provide another $140,000,000,000 to ICE and border patrol. Americans don't want to see their taxpayer dollars wasted on this nonsense. How can Republicans be so eager to provide hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign wars and for ICE, but they can't spare a dime for America's kids? Ranking member Scott, can you just try to help people remember the role of the federal government in our public schools?
Speaker 18
Yes. The role of the federal government in public schools is basically a civil rights mandate to make sure that everyone has equal access to a quality education. That is when starting in 1954 with Brown v Board of Education coming up to 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act noticed that we're funding schools with a real estate tax. So they put giving low income areas at a severe disadvantage of Title One money into low income areas. We've had this Children with Disabilities Education Act make sure they get a good education.
English is a second language. Eliminate achievement gaps to make sure that everyone has access to a good, quality education. That has been the purpose, not teacher quality, not graduation requirements, not curriculum, but civil rights. And when they get rid of the Department of Education, they're getting rid of civil rights enforcement.
Speaker 14
Yeah. I mean, I spent a couple decades as a school board member, as an education advocate, trying to make sure that we can assure a good public education to every kid. It goes back to our founding principles and some quotes that may or may not have come from Jefferson about an informed citizenship being necessary to our democracy. So it's really, really disheartening to see these attacks on public education, these attempts to micromanage issues that really are not first and foremost when you're dealing with schools like in Philadelphia where the average age of the school is 60, 70, 80 years. There's no AC.
There is asbestos. And we need help to make sure that every kid has a chance at a good education, rather than trying to exclude some kids. So I thank you for your testimony, and I yield back.
Speaker 23
Thank you, madam chair. And I'll also note, as many of my colleagues said earlier, I wanna offer my condolences to the family of Representative David Scott. He was my neighbor, representing Henry County, and I certainly wish him well and certainly enjoyed the many wonderful testimonies about his life. I wanna thank our witnesses for testifying. And if I could open to Mister Owens, a question to you.
It seems like this bill is really a codification of some of the campaign promises that we made in 2024 when voters across the country elected us the majority and President Trump to the White House. Could you comment on that?
Speaker 7
Yes. I think our country is ready for some common sense. You know, I grew up at a time when this was not even close to a conversation we'd have. We didn't know what the difference between the boy and girl was. And I think it's important also to realize that we have 30% of kids today.
Eighth grade cannot read, write, or think. Here in DC, we'll spend probably more dollars per kid, zero proficiency in math, in one district. So, no, we have not been focused on the right things. And we start dealing with wondering if we should have our kids thinking their parents are a threat, that we should lie, they should lie to their parents. They believe it's a stranger.
A teacher is a stranger. It's a few hours a day. It does not make them a parent. And I think we're now coming back to common sense, where most Americans get this. I don't think this is a conversation that the majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle would agree with, this idea that we can change from boy to girl and start teaching kids as they're only in the seventh and eighth grade that he should do that.
So I think the timing is it couldn't be any more perfect for us to have this conversation and to pass the bills that have been put to codify what the president's put in place with our executive orders.
Speaker 5
Well, I don't really know what to ask. I mean, I saw that this bill was scheduled today, and I've just done a series of town halls, and this issue has never been brought up. And I was on an airplane today from Boston to Washington. Two people pulled me aside to talk about the price of gas, but no one talked about this. I mean, I'm just wondering.
I mean, when you do town halls at home and when you're listening to, do you have any constituent roundtables or I mean, is this what people are prioritizing?
Speaker 7
I would say every family has watched their child go through taking their body, taking their body parts off, or going through depression because they now want to go back to what's normal, then those are the folks you're gonna hear a lot from. And for those who've not experienced that, we have empathy, and we don't want other kids.
Speaker 5
To ask I'll tell you what I do here when I go to schools, and I talk to young trans kids who many of them have, you know, feel like they're under attack by Washington and by politicians. And they're having a difficult time basically dealing with that because they just wanna be who they are, and they don't want to be judged, and they don't wanna be demonized, and they don't wanna be the subject of, I mean, I don't know how many trans related bills we have done in this congress. It's a tie between bringing up bills dealing with trans kids and dealing with immigrants. Every other week, it's a build dealing with one of those two topics. Again, not about finding solutions, not about trying to help provide people support, but it's about demonizing people and, you know, tearing apart this country, further polarizing our country, and not dealing. I maybe it's a maybe it's a deliberate attempt so that we're not talking about affordability issues.
But I gotta tell you, I'm just like, with all that people have talked to me. Just this weekend, I'm like, I that if I were to tell them that this is what we were doing this week, I mean, they would be like, what planet are you on? I mean, don't you understand what real people are going through in this country? People can't afford their groceries. They can't afford, you know, the price of gas.
You know, I mean, our farmers are being hurt by these tariffs. And, you know, anyway, I don't want to belabor the point. Mr. Scott.
Speaker 18
Yeah. Well, and when they talk about education, this isn't what they talk about. Right. They talk about the old school buildings. They talk about a lack of achievement.
Talk about anything. As far as this issue is concerned, of course, parents should be informed. In the vast majority of cases, that's the best thing. The problem with this bill is it's one-size-fits-all. You have to notify the parents whether it makes any sense or not, whether or not you know you're endangering the children.
And in addition to that, if you just read the bill, it's ridiculous, because it says changing preferred name on any school form. If you publish a roster when I was in elementary school and said Bobby Scott's playing second base, that's a school form that would, once they discover that, the school would lose federal funds because they've changed my name without getting parental consent. And if you in effect, you'd only really do this with trans children, which means your disparate impact based on sex, which is a violation of Title Nine. So I don't know how you either apply it to everybody or you don't apply it to anybody, but it's happy to just read the words of the bill. It's just absurd on its face.
Speaker 5
No. And I appreciate that. I'll just say one final thing. At one of my town halls, somebody brought up the fact that, you know, we've already spent over $60,000,000,000 on this war in Iraq. Over $60,000,000,000.
None of it paid for, but it always said $60,000,000,000. And the follow-up to that statement was, how many schools could we build in this country? How many hospitals could we build in this country? How many kids could we help afford college with that money? And we're nowhere near finished yet.
Speaker 18
And you're nowhere near finished yet because a lot of the expensive war comes after the war is over, the veterans benefits, the restocking of weapons.
Speaker 5
Absolutely. But, I mean, just the every day, over a billion dollars. Every day, over a billion dollars. And I, again, I, you know, I first, if you want a war, you ought to be able to, you ought to, we ought to, we ought to live up to our constitutional responsibility and vote to authorize the use of military force. And if you want a war, then you can vote to spend how many billions of dollars you want to spend on that war.
But we had a lot of places in this country where schools are crumbling, and they need investments. And local communities don't have the revenue to be able to rebuild schools. A lot of states are struggling. I mean, we just gotta get our priorities straight. But I thank the chair for yielding, and I yield back.
Speaker 17
Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, ranking member Scott, mister Owens, for being here. I appreciate your testimony. Mister Owens, a number of my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle have introduced bills to create national standards when it comes to building school facilities. So, you know, think HVAC, for example.
Right? Sort of exacting standards to be applied nationally so that schools that are built in Utah are built the same way that they're built in Colorado. Let's say, for example, I think, as you know, I represent Colorado in congress. I presume you disagree with that.
Speaker 17
School districts are best positioned to decide how to build those buildings.
Speaker 7
There are certain things. Yes. Certain things, school buildings will be good.
Speaker 7
When it comes, let me just say this is this. We talked about the war earlier.
Speaker 7
I mean no. No. I'm just wanna make a point that of all the things in terms of what we're going through right now on the local and federal sense is we have a war against the family.
Speaker 17
Mister Rowan, I'm gonna, you know, mister McGovern, didn't that was your exchange with mister McGovern. I'm not touching the war. So, school building standards.
Speaker 17
What about teacher training standards? There are some efforts to essentially nationalize teacher training so that you'd have a uniform standard. Is that?
Speaker 17
be an issue. Okay. What about safety measures? There are a variety of arguments.
Speaker 7
Some oversight. Federal, there's certain things that should be done in terms of federal, but then a lot is focused on, again, at the local areas.
Speaker 17
Got it. Okay. So I basically, what I'm getting at, I mean, at least it seems like it to me. You're a big local control guy. Right?
What? You're a big local control guy.
Speaker 17
You just as you said, local control for building standards. Right? Mhmm. K. Local control for teacher training standards.
Right? Correct?
Speaker 17
Okay. But forms for student nicknames, time to get the federal government involved. Sounds like that's a good assignment for the federal government.
Speaker 7
When parents are is that right? No. No. Not at all. Well, but this is a parent issue.
This is a parent. This is a state issue, and it comes down to a very simple thing.
Speaker 7
In a position where we have across this country teachers who take themselves and put themselves in the parental place, then it's time for federal to say enough. The hell. And we're not.
Speaker 17
What I am trying to get at is I understand there's different components to this bill. Okay? But one component of this bill, just to be crystal clear, I'm gonna read, quote it. A public school that receives funds under this bill, quote, shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student's preferred name on any school form. That is the language of the bill.
Is that correct?
Speaker 17
Okay. So as I said, capital construction standards, in your view, are a matter for local school districts. Teacher training standards, in your view, are a matter for local school districts. But, and this is self-evident, changing a covered student's preferred name on any school form is a matter for the federal government. Right?
Speaker 7
It's a matter well, when that the right of the parent be told information, then it's the federal there should be a federal Federal state. What is.
Speaker 17
Yes. Exactly. So that's what you're proposing. Okay. So let me help understand.
Wait. How many kids do you have?
Speaker 17
31. I am much earlier in the marathon of life. So I have two kids. My wife and I are blessed to have two children. A daughter who's seven and a son who's two.
So he's not in secondary school yet. His name is Joshua. We named him after the book of Joshua. And oh, go ahead. I
Speaker 7
Make sure I can speak to this concept of federalism because it's important.
Speaker 17
Well, we'll come back to that. Let me just work with me on this one because I'm the reason why I'm talking about my children, the way I'm asking about your children is I like to evaluate these bills in the context of how they're gonna work in practice. Right? So, you know, I call my son Joshua. My wife likes to call Joshua Josh.
You know? He is, that's his nickname. Under this bill, k, very clear. Clear. Plain language requires that in order for a school to be able to change a child's name, preferred name on a school form, they have to obtain consent.
So if a teacher wanted to write my son's name down as Josh instead of Joshua, right, the school would be required to obtain parental consent. How would the school get consent? How does that happen?
Speaker 7
Okay. I'm gonna ask I think we need to kind of set the bar of what we're really talking about.
Speaker 17
No. No. But that's what I'm asking, is how would the school get consent? How would this so just.
Speaker 7
The bill is simple. It says that no federal funds may be used to promote radical gender ideology.
Speaker 7
should be. Does not violate federalism. On the contrary, Congress's responsibility is to assure that federal funds are going to be used in response.
Speaker 17
I'm asking an honest question. Okay? This is your, I'm quoting, the language of your bill. I'm not making it up. I read it to you.
It says we're operating in the same place. Shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student's preferred name on any school form. Okay? So I'm trying to help me understand.
Speaker 17
President Trump signs this bill into law. Okay? So now the teacher in the school district, right, has to obtain consent before changing Joshua's name to Josh on an official school form. All I'm asking you.
Speaker 7
Well, when it comes down to radical and it goes from Josh to Joyce, then it's a whole different.
Speaker 17
That's not what the bill says. What I don't know is what you're talking about. I don't know where you're getting this language. This is the statute you wrote.
Speaker 7
Yes. It says obtain parental consent. I think the key here is understanding what the focus is and what the concerns are.
Speaker 17
Parents law works, Mister Owens. It's not you don't get to just impute your theories about how this will work in practice. Teachers across the country, you've decided to create a federal standard for every single school district. Hold on, sir.
Speaker 17
School district in the country is going to have to abide by Burgess Owens' new standard when it comes to changing the preferred name on any school form. Doesn't matter if it's in Utah. Doesn't matter if it's in Colorado. Okay? A field trip form, a lunch form, a student of the week form, every one of those is a school form.
I'm simply asking you, in your world that you've constructed, how this will work. You say the school has to get consent. So does the teacher ask me? Does the teacher email me? Do they give me a phone call?
Can I talk to the teacher when I'm picking up my kids from school? What happens if they tell one parent and not both parents? I'm just trying to, like, understand how this world.
Speaker 7
Is how would you, I guess, the question I would have. If Josh, I'm asking a question. If Josh would you like to, Sir? If Josh had a choice, would you like to figure out a way to make
Speaker 17
Suggesting to you what I'm suggesting to you respectfully. Yes. I hope that some of your colleagues watch this exchange before they vote tomorrow on the bill. Because I understand, k, the ideological, I don't agree with it. I understand ideological arguments that are animating some of what you are pursuing.
But what I am telling you is that most parents in America, as a father of young children, k, I am not spending all of my time worried about form regulation, about a teacher being able to ask me for permission to call my son by his nickname. K? If you wanted to do what you're describing, then you all should have spent adequate time in the committee marking up a very specific bill. But, of course, this is what happens when you try to create a national standard for school forms. And one would think that you would understand that given that you are such a, by your own admission, proponent of local control, at least on everything except for school forms.
So I don't, I mean, to me, this is nonsense, but that is an interesting, can I just leave it that way to one point? No. I'm we've had ferric stages. I'm gonna give Mr. Scott a chance. I'm gonna yield back.
Speaker 18
Yeah. I think we just, as you have pointed out, if you just read the words, you're absolutely right. Shall obtain parental consent before changing a covered student's preferred name on any school form. School form could be the roster, the school roster. So they're playing basketball.
They list right if they list them as gosh, they better get, however they get it, parental consent. Covered student, or if you turn the page, means an elementary school student or b, a student in any of the middle grades. That's all of them.
Speaker 18
So Josh would clearly be a covered student. If they write his, if they're, if he's playing baseball, they put a little form. They gotta get parental consent. It doesn't say both parents. It just says parental con, this is parental consent.
Speaker 17
They don't define parental. They don't define consent. They don't define a preferred name. They don't define a form. It's all just, they're, you know, constructed from their.
Speaker 18
And when my friend from Utah was answering, he was answering really section three trying to get back to the ideology.
Speaker 18
You're getting into a specific part of the bill that says you gotta get consent before the name goes on a form, whatever that means. Very simple question.
Speaker 17
School forms. Man, just fascinating. I never thought I'd spend some. I spent a lot of time on school forms, you know, as a parent with my wife, but I did not think it would come up with the rules committee, madam chair. Anyway, I yield back. Thank.
Speaker 3
You, Mister Nigous. I think mister Owens, I'd like to I didn't ask any questions or make any comments at the beginning, but I think what you're getting at and what I believe the bill is getting at is that the courts have consistently held parents have a right to know what their children are being taught or exposed to in school. And that what you're talking about is not whether we're gonna call Joshua Josh, but whether or not the schools are aiding and abetting children and attempting to change their identity. And then they can't change their gender. Right.
That's not possible to do. However, young children can sometimes be a little confused, and there may be some trend going on in school, and everybody thinks it's cool to do a certain thing. And they wanna change who they are, and that means changing their name. I think most of us understand what it is you're trying to accomplish here, that we're trying to protect the children from malign influences in schools. And there are plenty of them out there.
So I thank you very much for bringing the bill to us. And I know that this is something, it is a major problem across the country where we have people in schools who want to put themselves in the place of the parents and do the things that they think should be done. So I appreciate you're bringing the bill to us, and I appreciate the committee and the leadership on the committee for bringing this forth. And, I look forward to the rules committee allowing this bill.
Speaker 7
Can I make one last comment here? I think what we have to understand is we're talking about the family unit. If you want us to understand why it's such a dark place in our country, it is because we have people who are not parents taking the role of parents. And I would say to my colleague, the worst thing that would in his life would happen, his son, Josh, shows him and says, my name is Joyce. I've already made the changes.
I've already been, I've decided I'm gonna take some whatever. That would not be a very happy day in that household, because that's not what the parents want to have happen for them.
Speaker 3
I now welcome our third panel, Chairman Arrington and Representative Escobar from the budget committee. Your full statement will be submitted for the record, and we ask you to summarize your statement in five minutes. Chairman Arrington, I welcome your testimony.
Speaker 16
Thank you, madam chair. We're here today to stop the political nonsense and dangerous brinkmanship of our Democrat colleagues who for 72 days and 16 votes have held the Department of Homeland Security and the American people who depend on their services hostage over ridiculous and reckless demands that would effectively imperil not only the safety of our federal law enforcement agencies, but the American people, and would, as a result, defund ICE and CBP and revert back to the four years of lawlessness and chaos from the open border. Madam Chair, this is serious business. This isn't just about the inconvenience at airports or the extenuating circumstances under which we fund our federal government. This is an unprecedented and sustained national security and public safety threat, and it has to stop.
And that's why we're here, madam chair. We're here because our ports need to be defended by our national guardsmen from trafficking of people and drugs, and protected from terrorist attacks like we saw in Austin, Texas, or the failed ISIS attacks in the heart of New York City, or what happened to the president and the cabinet members and all those at the correspondence dinner, and we could go on and on. It is completely unacceptable to not fund the federal government, and especially the Department of Homeland Security. CISA agents cannot defend our critical infrastructure against hostile hacks, and the list goes on. So without the support and collegiality and the good faith negotiations, because we did have an agreement with our house democrats, senate republicans and democrats to fund the government, without that, we have to resort to a measure to do what the American people again for 72 days, have been praying we would do and come to our senses and do the right thing.
If it weren't for the president's intervention, madam chair, these poor folks at Homeland Security, the employees, the hardworking public servants would have gone without pay for 100 days. Next week, they're in a position, if we didn't act unilaterally as responsible leaders for our country, they would go without pay. Enough's enough. So we're going to do what I believe is the right thing, and we're going to fund our government, including those who protect us and risk their lives to enforce our immigration laws and to deport the criminal aliens who are in this country, putting our communities and our families at risk. And with that, I yield back.
Speaker 28
Thank you so much, Chairwoman Fox and Ranking Member McGovern. I'm here to voice my strong opposition to this budget resolution, both because of its outrageous spending allocations and because of my serious concerns with the process of how this was done. I think it's really important for everyone to understand what's happening in America today. Americans are struggling. The latest Gallup poll shows that nearly half of American adults, 47%, describe America's current economic conditions as poor.
That's up from 40% a month ago, and it's clear why they feel this way. Republicans so-called one big beautiful bill slashed access to Medicare and nutrition assistance programs. Republicans refused to renew subsidies that helped Americans pay for their health insurance, causing their premiums to shoot up by 14%. Trump's tariffs have cost the average family more than $1,700 in 2020 alone. And now his war in Iran has made gas prices skyrocket, and prices are likely to get worse.
Instead of focusing on how we stop this economic collapse, Republicans are demanding an additional 70,000,000,000, potentially as high as $140,000,000,000 for CBP and ICE. The one big beautiful bill which provides tax breaks to billionaires by making drastic cuts to programs Americans depend on also gave ICE and CBP $140,000,000,000. This was for President Trump's mass deportation program. But that $140,000,000,000 could fund the entire Department of Homeland Security through next year. So why are we really here?
In the wake of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretty, Republicans are choosing to jam through additional funding for ICE and CBP instead of working with us to find bipartisan solutions that both protect our communities and ensure that ICE and CBP are just as accountable to the public as normal law enforcement agencies are. I have the privilege of sitting on both the House Budget Committee with my colleague and friend Mister Arrington. I also sit on the House Appropriations Committee. And this partisan approach to government funding is not the way we should do things. The original Homeland Security appropriations bill that passed out of the committee had protections for US citizens against what we saw in Minneapolis and many other American cities.
But Donald Trump and Stephen Miller stripped out those protections because they knew they could do this, use Republicans in Congress to jam through a bill that grossly inflates these agencies' budgets, and also clears the way for a supplemental defense package that will fund the president's war in Iran, a war that has already cost us an estimated $50,000,000,000. Let's be clear. Section 4108 of this bill sets the stage for a future supplemental defense funding package without us knowing what the actual cost of that will be. Just two weeks ago, during a hearing in the budget committee, I asked the OMB director, Mister Vote, if he could tell me how much would be requested in the Iran supplemental, and he either couldn't tell me or he wouldn't tell me. He wouldn't even ballpark it, as a matter of fact.
We shouldn't be clearing the war, sorry. Excuse me. We shouldn't be clearing the way to fund Trump's war of choice, which has not only driven up the cost of everyday essentials, but, more importantly, resulted in the death of 13 American service members. And frankly, I'm astonished to see my colleagues in the house rubber-stamp this. This budget resolution will allow Senate Republicans to jam the House with little to no House consideration.
By allowing the Senate to move on reconciliation first, that means the House will not be able to hold any committee markups and will instead have to eat whatever the Senate passed reconciliation bill includes. I'm going to be voting no on this rule, no on the concurrent resolution, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. We have an obligation to treat a matter as serious as increasing the deficit with the attention it deserves. Thank you, madam chair. I yield back.
Speaker 4
Thank you, madam chair. And, you know, in order to solve a problem, people have to want to solve the problem. And so I guess I know there were questions after what happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota when you had a governor and a mayor, allowing riots and not allowing federal law enforcement to do their job. And, obviously, that was Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But, miss Eskimoor, can you tell me, why are you opposed to funding customs and border protection?
Speaker 28
I vote I'm voting against a bill that refuses to acknowledge that we need some fundamental reforms. Plus, you have $140000000000 available.
Speaker 4
Your demand, though, the original discussions were around immigration and customs enforcement. Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 4
Yes. No. It was never around CBP until the Democratic Party made it clear that they didn't intend to resolve the situation, and then they brought CBP into the equation and stripped the funding from CBP when they were originally stripping it from immigration and customs enforcement. I think both of them have to be funded. And unless somebody supports the open border policies of the Biden administration, then they would want both CBP and immigration and customs enforcement open.
So, mister Arrington, I want to go to you. Do we know how many people illegally came into the United States during the Biden administration?
Speaker 16
Mister Scott, suffice it to say it was well over 10,000,000, and there were millions of gotta ways that would be hard to enumerate. But it was millions of people, many of whom came through my home state of Texas.
Speaker 4
And would you agree with me that before the house passed the department of homeland security funding bill, that there was an agreement among democrats and republicans that Yes. For the bill to go through the house and the senate and be signed into law.
Speaker 16
Complete funding of everything, including ICE and CBP, agreement from the four corners.
Speaker 4
And there were agreements with regard to immigrations and customs enforcement. There were gonna be de-escalation training, body cameras. There were a lot of agreements in what was a bipartisan agreement that was a compromise.
Speaker 4
And then once the piece of legislation got to the Senate, Democrats changed their demands, and now we've been here for how long?
Speaker 4
Two days. And so, now the only path forward where we fund, and, again, customs and border protection. Customs and Border Protection does a lot of valuable stuff at the border, but they also do a tremendous amount of work with regard to customs. I mean, the Atlanta Airport, I've seen our CBP operations right there. I mean, the hound dogs that they run through those airports to make sure that they pick up substances coming into the country that we don't want to contaminate our food supply.
I mean, we have to have customs and border protection. And I guess when the Democrats added CBP to the demands, that was when I knew that the only path forward was gonna be the reconciliation package. That was the proof that they never intended to get a resolution. So, I mean, I've got about a minute left. I'm gonna turn it over to you, Mr. Arrington.
I appreciate you being the honest broker in this and understanding that things have to be done and that immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border protection have to be funded.
Speaker 16
Mister Scott, to your earlier point, no amount of, quote, reforms will resolve the root issue, which is the lack of coordination at the local and state levels. We've had far more people apprehended and deported in Texas, in cities like Dallas, in cities like Phoenix, Atlanta, far more, and we didn't have the problems we had in Minnesota. We have made improvements. We've agreed on some common sense fixes, but what they characterize as reforms is an outright obstruction and backdoor defunding of ICE and CBP, which would go back to the chaos and crime that would threaten the safety of our citizens.
Speaker 4
My time has approached the end. I wanna say this. I saw one of my sheriffs the other day in Georgia. And in rural Georgia, they have stopped multiple Iranians. Multiple Iranians, multiple vehicle stops, all of which had hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash wrapped the exact same way because we have I-75 and an I-75 corridor.
So I wanna say this, I'm thankful for all of our law enforcement officers out there. All of them. They do yeoman's work to protect us, and we have no idea who is in this country right now because of what happened under the Biden administration. And we need to be more aggressive with making sure that when we stop somebody from a country like Iran that's got hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, that we know exactly where they got it, exactly where they were taking it, exactly who they've been in touch with, and we need to put them in jail until we deport them. Would that yield?
Speaker 5
Madam, I even know where to begin, to be honest with you. I mean, first of all, let's just tell the truth to people that ICE and CBP already have funds. In the big ugly bill, ICE received $74,900,000,000. They have $63,200,000,000 remaining. CBP, again, 64,700,000,000.
They have over $40,000,000,000 that remains. So this idea that they're not funded, I, like, I don't even know where the hell that's coming from. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. That's just not the truth. And, yeah, people are a little bit upset on our side when federal law enforcement agencies murder people.
Alex Pretty, an ICU nurse at the VA, was killed by CBP agents. And so, yeah, we want some reforms. And wanting reforms and also wanting to catch the bad guys, you know, are not inconsistent. And when the chairman of the budget committee says that enough is enough, I mean, I agree. The senate, by the way, in a unanimous way, sent over to us twice a bill to fund everything but ICE and CBP.
We could, if you're worried about funding, you know, FEMA and all those other agencies, just take what the Senate wants, and let's work out the other stuff. But you guys can't do that. You're incapable of doing anything but embracing the extreme. And as a result, nothing's getting done. I mean, when Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders agree, boy, I mean, I don't know.
Maybe we should take a look at that and figure out a way to move that forward. So, I mean, this is I mean, this whole debate is not based on reality here in this committee. Chairman Arrington, so this new budget resolution starts a process to provide up to $140,000,000,000 for ICE and CBP, again, who have murdered US citizens. Do you agree that that is the best use of up to a $140,000,000,000 right now, on ICE, which has already been funded at record breaking levels for years by Republicans and the big ugly bills? Do you think that that's the best use of $140,000,000,000 at this moment in time?
Speaker 16
To be honest with you, after four years of a deluge of illegals and crime and human trafficking for four years, unprecedented numbers as we record.
Speaker 16
The answer is I'm not so sure we can't, we don't need more to get to clean up the mess first.
Speaker 5
ICE has 63,200,000,000 remaining from the big ugly bill. Mister chairman, Republicans' first reconciliation bill made the largest health care cut in US history, gutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by more than $1,000,000,000,000, which helped cover the cost of even more tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich. Now Republicans want their second reconciliation bill to provide up to 140000000000 for ICE and CBP. Would this bill do anything to help Americans who are facing higher health care costs right now?
Speaker 16
Mister McGovern, the big beautiful bill protected the safety nets for the vulnerable American citizens who depend on them. And I'm proud of that work.
Speaker 5
You missed the hearing on the farm bill right beforehand. No. It didn't. But the answer, I guess, is no. I mean, on SNAP, which is something I care deeply about.
The bill also included the largest cuts to SNAP in the history of the program, all while food costs are now rising alongside other basic needs. New data released from Trump's own USDA shows that 3,000,000 Americans have already been kicked off SNAP. Does this budget do anything to help make food more affordable for people, whether on SNAP or off SNAP?
Speaker 16
Well, the first reconciliation bill actually has brought inflation down, has brought interest in.
Speaker 16
This bill, so the first bill is to extinguish the firestorm of the 22% price increase under Democrat leadership. This bill simply protects the American people from the crime and criminals that have again. Again. That has overwhelmed the system.
Speaker 5
ICE and CPP already have funding. So I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5
But the president's illegal and misguided war in Iran, for example, has caused the price of gas to skyrocket. Today's average is $4.11 across the country. Does this budget do anything to lower the gas prices for everyday Americans?
Speaker 16
This budget protects the American people against the Democrat shutdown.
Speaker 5
I guess that's no. Right? Alright. So I say that because, I mean, I don't know whether you guys do town halls or not or whether you talk to your constituents. But on my flight from Boston to Washington today, I had two people stop me to talk about the price of gas.
I had another person stop me to tell me what the hell is wrong with Washington, you know, when you guys are not addressing any of the issues around affordability. Miss Escobar, does this Republican budget resolution comply with the requirements of the House rules? And I'm specifically concerned that it appears to violate clause seven of rule 21, which states that the House cannot consider a budget resolution containing reconciliation instructions that would cause an increase in direct spending.
Speaker 28
You are correct. This violates that rule. What we've seen Republicans do with their reconciliation bills is blow up our deficit and grow the national debt. This does that as well.
Speaker 5
Chairman Arrington, do you agree that this measure violates the house rules?
Speaker 16
Well, let me correct the record because CBO, nonpartisan arbiter of the numbers, had for the first six months, or the first six months of this fiscal year, the deficit going down by $138,000,000,000. That's the first time in about a decade. So even the CBO says that through growth, through controlling spending, and through tariff revenue, we've actually brought the deficit down, which is the tax on our children. Once again, very proud of the work that we did.
Speaker 5
So, again, I mean, again, the rule, you know, which I know, which states that the house cannot consider a budget resolution containing reconciliation instructions that would cause an increase in direct spending. You just outlined, and you're opening a whole bunch of new spending that we have to do, not just on ICE and CBP, but a whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 5
By the way, you know, you mentioned $138,000,000,000, which I doubt that that's what's gonna happen. But that's still short of what you're spending on ICE and CBP. Miss Escobar?
Speaker 28
You know, and to add to that, that not only does this violate the rule, not only does this grow the deficit, but our economy is in trouble. You know, budgets are a representation of our values. The American people need our help. They need our support. But what this funding budget does is not just add to an already historic amount of spending for CBP and ICE.
Not only does it grow the deficit and the national debt, it doesn't acknowledge the reality, which is inflation is going up, joblessness is going up, gas is going up, groceries are going up. What are we doing here?
Speaker 5
I agree. I think we can't even have an honest conversation in this committee anymore about the realities that we're faced with. I mean, Mister Harrington, you're the chair of the House Budget Committee. You're supposed to care about the budget process and not violate these rules to give more handouts to agencies that don't need them. Now, when President Biden was still in office, you said, and I quote, a debt crisis looms large over the horizon.
And if we fail to confront it, our nation will reap the disastrous and irreparable consequences associated with it. Unquote. Those are your words.
Speaker 5
Sir. But here are the facts. When president Trump took office, the national debt was a little over $36,000,000,000. Now it's 39,000,000,000,000. In just a little over 1 year, a Republican controlled government has overseen a $3,000,000,000,000 increase in the national debt.
Annual interest payments on the debt are projected to surpass $1,000,000,000,000 per year this year. That's more than we currently spend on defense, and it's just going to get worse. Last year, you came in here to defend the Republicans' big ugly bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office now says will add nearly $5,000,000,000,000 more to the debt over the next decade. And now you wanna add tens of billions more dollars to the debt and handouts to ICE and CBP, who you already gave tens of billions of dollars to in the big ugly bill. I mean, you're in charge of the budget committee.
You're supposedly the man who cares deeply about reining in the debt. How can you possibly justify having already added nearly $3,000,000,000,000 to the national debt since you took power last year? That's $180,000,000,000 a month. And then come here and defend a plan that will increase our budget debt even more with this new budget. And, you know, and I you can only blame Joe Biden so many times.
But a lot of this spending is stuff that you all were for, and you put it forward. So, I mean, I'm just I just find this whole process just lacking in integrity. I don't know what the hell we're doing here, but, you know, I think maybe that's the reason why your poll numbers are so lousy, you know, because people want you to address issues that actually impact affordability in their daily life. And they want to get spending under control, not by spending more on rogue agencies, but on spending money on things that will help them. So I thank you both for being here.
I don't know if you wanna respond, but you.
Speaker 16
I'd love to. Yes, sir. So the tax liability for working Americans have been cut, extended, and then cut further so they could afford what was about $1,700 increase, because of the regressive tax of inflation.
Speaker 16
With a without a doubt, if I may, without a doubt and according to just the numbers, not my commentary or your subjective commentary, but the average inflation rate was in the last year was 3.3 under Biden. It's been 2.7 under this president.
Speaker 16
After a 35% increase in food under the Joe Biden and Democrat leadership, absolutely.
Speaker 5
I don't know how you can say that with a straight face to people in this country.
Speaker 16
Saying it's still a struggle. Yeah. But after four years, price of rent. Fifty year high inflation, mister McGovern, it's gonna take up.
Speaker 23
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Chairman Arrington, for testifying. Could you help frame for this committee, as we deliberate whether to pass this rule out of committee, what this vote represents on the house floor? Should we vote on it later this week? A vote for it is doing this, and a vote against it is doing that.
Speaker 16
A vote for this budget resolution with reconciliation instructions would fund ICE and CBP at the operational budget that they currently have and extend it for three years because we wanna prevent being in this situation again and having a seventy-two day or worse shutdown. This is the worst or longest shutdown, second to only the last shutdown, and we wanna try to avoid that while resourcing an important public safety operation within the federal government.
Speaker 16
A vote against it would cause, everyone at the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the CISA for infrastructure security, our coast guardsmen, TSA agents, and ICE and CBP would all get a pay cut. They'd all lose a paycheck, and they continue under this chaos. Over 800 TSA employees, Mr. Jack has walked out never to return again. So I don't think we can sustain this and ask secretary Mullen to lead an agency that's so important to the public safety and security of this country and do it where it is functional.
I think we're at that breaking point. So to not vote for this would be to essentially defund ICE and CBP, but it would also go back to a shutdown, where nobody gets paid.
Speaker 23
Well, that's the framing that I not only agree with, but as I understand it, you can correct me if wrong, I've seen public reporting that secretary Mullen may not be able to use the extraordinary circumstances that he has to pay our TSA workers and everybody else at the end of this month. So I think the urgency is near. I appreciate your testimony. And, madam chair, I yield back.
Speaker 14
Thank you. So we're here to start the process for the Republicans' second reconciliation bill following the big ugly bill that they managed to ram through last summer. And the stated reason for this one is that DHS hasn't been funded for over 2 months. But that's only because the speaker has refused to allow a vote on a Senate bill that would fund much of a DHS and has refused to negotiate reforms to ICE and border patrol, which are the sticking point after armed and masked agents from those agencies shot and killed American citizens on American city streets. So, you know, Republicans are 300000000000 taxpayer dollars squandered on Stephen Miller's mass deportation fever dreams, while Americans are struggling with inflation, and health care and housing are unaffordable, and gas is pushing $5 a gallon.
So this reconciliation bill seems to make clear where Republicans' priorities lie. Americans are just gonna have to make do, but ICE gets another blank check. Hundreds of billions from masked thugs and massive detention centers that nobody wants in their neighborhood, and nothing for working families. Republicans are hoping that everyone has forgotten the killings of American citizens, the killings of Alex Pretty and Renee Good, who died when ICE and Border Patrol deployed hundreds of rogue, masked federal agents to terrorize the people of Minneapolis with orders to confront peaceful protesters who were exercising their First Amendment rights. Rather than investigating how such abuses could be perpetuated by the US government, this administration and their House allies have tried to brand Pretty and Good and their families as terrorists and have fought every effort to rein in ICE.
Democrats have demanded simple reforms to ICE and CBP that the majority of Americans support, to keep mask thugs off our streets and prevent these types of killings from ever happening again. We presented Republicans with a series of proposals, legislative text, and a half dozen opportunities to fund the rest of ICE or DHS while we fund a solution to the problems with ICE and CBP. Opportunities that the Senate, all 100 senators unanimously embraced, Democrats and Republicans alike. We gave Republicans every opportunity to negotiate in good faith, to fund these agencies responsibly, to prevent the kinds of harms and harassment that everyone has seen on TV, on social media, and that have been deployed to terrorize rather than protect our communities. But instead of engaging in that discussion or any discussion, House Republicans have said no and are now proceeding with their plan to fund ICE and CBP for the rest of Trump's second term.
This is a whole lot of money that could and should be used to solve the problems facing Americans. It's money that could be used to build new affordable homes. It's money that could be used to address health care costs, fund our schools, and even reduce the deficit. So it's a shameful waste of our nation's wealth. And I just want to dig into some of the mischaracterizations that we've heard here.
We've heard our colleagues try to frame the failure to fund DHS for over two months as Democrats changing their mind when the bill was sent to the Senate. But, isn't it true, Miss Escobar, what happened in that time frame?
Speaker 28
The context was that two American citizens were shot and killed by federal agents. Can you speak to that? Thank you, Miss Scanlon. You are absolutely right. I will tell you there's been a lot of work that Democrats and Republicans have put into trying to adequately fund our government.
But Americans were shocked when they saw what unfolded before our very own eyes. The shooting of a mother, the shooting and killing of an ICU nurse. And then to have the administration and the Department of Homeland Security lie to us and tell us not to believe what we saw. If we can't even agree on a fundamental truth, that makes fixing the problem even harder. We can fix this.
We can come to a compromise, but we've got to work together in order to do that. This reconciliation bill goes completely around any compromise, any good-faith effort. And to your point, we still have money in the first recons from the first reconciliation bill. So there's still money for CBP and ICE in that first bill. But now Republicans want even more, another $140000000000, all while Americans are struggling.
It just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 14
I also just wanted to clarify. We just heard that somehow it was not appropriate to want to address problems with Customs and Border Patrol, in this immigration, very aggressive immigration enforcement measures. Isn't it true that a Customs and Border Patrol commander, Greg Bovino, led the lawless behavior in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis?
Speaker 28
That's right. Under his direction, we saw a lot of the horrifying images across the country, and Alex Pretty was murdered, shot, and killed by a border patrol agent. So it is, of course, incumbent on all of us to work together and come up with some pretty, I think, common sense reforms. We just want the same accountability for these law enforcement agencies that every other law enforcement agency has.
Speaker 14
Yeah. And I think that's what's really been so truly shocking is just the going, putting people in danger, both agents and citizens and people on the street, in danger because of completely lawless behavior. Certainly, I was in Chicago for hearings on these issues when Mister Bovino and his troops had been ordered not to lob tear gas at protesters unless certain conditions were met. He went out the next day and did it, and then lied to the court and was cited for lying to the court about it. Let me turn to the issues that probably more directly concern the American people and that they're talking to me in our town halls about, I suspect in your town halls.
I'm really concerned about the cost of living crisis facing the country. I mean, we've seen statistics that in March, inflation measured 3.3%. That's the largest single-month increase since April 2021. We've seen that gas prices increased 21.2% last month in March, the largest month over month increase since we started measuring that in 1967. The average gas prices are over $4 a gallon for weeks, which is almost $1 higher than the average prices a year ago.
Tariffs in the last year have cost families about $17.50 per family. Beef is up 16%. Coffee's up 22%. How does this reconciliation bill help with all of these costs that American families are dealing with?
Speaker 28
It does absolutely nothing to help Americans as they struggle under this economy. And they just like you, my town hall meetings, I'm hearing about what Americans are struggling with, and they're asking for help. It seems like there's always plenty of money for war. There's plenty of money for Republicans' priorities. It's we need to turn our focus to Americans' priorities, which is they need help, and they their health insurance has skyrocketed.
Everything you've identified, I hear about routinely in my town hall meetings. This bill does nothing to address that.
Speaker 14
It's not just the town hall meetings. I was filling my car for the trip back to DC, and the guy next to me with the pickup truck was freaking out that it cost him over $80 to fill up his truck today. So thank you for your testimony, and I yield back.
Speaker 19
So, I thank the chairwoman. I just have a few. Mister chairman, I have missed the early part of your testimony, but I know you well. I think one thing that I wanna point out that I know I'm sure my colleagues have pointed out, and see if the chairman agrees that we're here. I mean, obviously, the budget resolution has a number of factors in it that's come from the Senate dealing with defense and other issues.
Right. But we're here, and everybody understands why we're here, is very simply to ensure that ICE and Border Patrol can do their job. Yes. Is that fair?
Speaker 19
And so whatever concerns anyone has with the legislation on, frankly, in either party, either side of the aisle, for whatever reason, the reason that this bill exists is precisely and specifically because our Democrat colleagues have refused to fund ICE and border patrol.
Speaker 19
Days. And in doing so, they've also put at risk the funding for the rest of the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 19
Correct? So we've had to move money around in order to fund these other law enforcement agencies, including Secret Service, which obviously we had a deal with this weekend, Coast Guard, TSA. We had issues at the airports. We've had to deal with that because our Democrat colleagues have refused to fund homeland security. Is that accurate?
Speaker 19
And so I think that is the backdrop that matters a lot here because I hear my colleagues on the side of the aisle complaining about, oh, we're not funding the appropriations bill that would fund the rest of DHS. Somehow, that's our fault. And the fact is that some of us said, woah. Hold on. We're not going to, you know, hop to whatever you're telling us to do on appropriations.
When you refuse to fund ICE and border patrol, we're gonna say, let's make sure ICE and border patrol are getting funded, and then we'll manage and figure out how we can manage preparations, which we should be doing collectively, but Democrats refuse to do. Is that fair?
Speaker 19
And so now we've got this situation where this bill is before us, which I'll get to my concerns about in a second, has concerns on people on both sides of the aisle. But because of the box, Democrats have put us in because none of us want to leave ICE and Border Patrol unable to carry out their job. At least none of us on our side of the aisle. Fair.
Speaker 19
So now that I'm gonna lead into my question, which is I'm trying to balance that and our need to ensure that ICE and Border Patrol gets funded with other certain realities that I know are a concern for other members of the conference. Right? The rules committee has to kinda figure this out, and, like, what we're balancing in the interest of the conference, what amendments get made in order, and everything else. And so the concerns I'm trying to balance and wonder if the chairman has a perspective on is it just kind of level setting. Right now, if one wanted to deal with, for example, something that Senator Hawley's been raising about dealing with transgender issues and abortion funding that we dealt with in the big beautiful bill, that will not be dealt with in this bill and would require a third reconciliation process.
Correct? Correct. Notwithstanding the fact that the gentleman who's complaining about it actually voted for the very bill that he's asking the House to change. I would just note, with all due respect to my friends in the Senate, that always like the House to save their bacon. Then I would say, okay.
There's that issue. Then there's this issue, which is, does this bill, does this budget and instructions, does it allow us, as it's written, to keep DHS funding together, or does this continue to embrace the idea of isolating ICE and border patrol? In other words, is it structured to have DHS funded as one entity either in reconciliation or appropes, or is it
Speaker 16
We attempted to do a one entity funding construct, was rejected by the Democrats, sent over from the Senate to the House with all of Homeland but ICE and CBP, both agencies defunded. And so we have resorted to bifurcating it just so that we don't persist without having resourcing for, enforcing immigration laws.
Speaker 19
So will that result in, for example, 09/30/2020, 9? If we were to fund this through the three fiscal years into the next.
Speaker 19
Term, would that not result in a situation that if the appropriations bills continue to be funded as they are, say, in a CR type format without ICE and Border Patrol, that if you hit a point at which you don't have the reconciliation package funding, you're gonna be at a place where ICE and Border Patrol are left unfunded in the situation of a continuing resolution in 2024.
Speaker 19
That's the risk of this approach. An approach that I've tried to lay the foundation is a reaction and a risk to our democratic colleagues refusing to fund ICE and force. Look. Lay all that out just to say, and I just want to level set where we are just because I remain torn about how to handle all of this. There are a number of things that I'm concerned about.
A lot of presumptions being made about a third reconciliation package, issues we're not addressing or dealing with, that we need to address in another reconciliation package, but all built on a background of Democrats refusing to do the basic duty of government, which is to secure the United States.
Speaker 19
And so here we sit, and we're trying to figure out how to manage that. But I with that, I appreciate the chairman, and I yield back to the chair.
Speaker 3
Thank you very much. Seeing no other persons here to ask any questions, our witnesses are excused.
Speaker 3
Well, I now welcome half of our 4th panel. Mister Kelly from the select committee on intelligence, and Ms. Scanlon from the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Kelly, you are recognized.
Speaker 3
For five, excuse me. Your full statement will be submitted for the record, and we ask you to summarize it in five minutes.
Speaker 10
Member, oh, yeah. Okay. Chairwoman Fox, ranking member McGovern, members of the Rules Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. I'm here to fill in for the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, who is dealing with an unexpected flight delay, something all of us understand. I'm pleased to join the judiciary chairman, Mister Jordan, to speak in favor of the underlying legislation to reform and reauthorize section 702.
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I have seen firsthand that section 702 is one of our country's most important foreign intelligence authorities. FICIS 702 is collection on foreign nationals based overseas who are likely to provide foreign intelligence value. These are terrorists, hackers, and spies living abroad. No US citizen anywhere in the world can by law or should be targeted under section 702. Reauthorizing FIS' 702 is essential.
But the reality is that despite the successful limits and reforms implemented in 2024, there is still major distrust of the FBI in this congressional body and by the American public. To address those concerns, we're considering a revised bill, the Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act, which builds on the 56 reforms from 2024 to add new layers of independent oversight over targeting and queries under Section 702. Specifically, the new legislation adds six provisions to do the following. Clearly, prohibit US government personnel from intentionally targeting a US person for collection under Pfizer's section 702, and further directs the US government to seek a warrant to target a US person. It establishes a new requirement for the FBI to provide all his 702 US person query justifications to the ODNI civil liberties protection officer for review.
This ensures an independent assessment outside of the FBI and Department of Justice chain of command on FBI compliance. It expands criminal penalties for abuses of FISA's section 702. US person querying procedures are falsifying or misrepresenting compliance with such querying procedures. It requires GAO to conduct an audit of the targeting procedures. It directs the attorney general to issue new procedures regarding access of members of congress and staff to FISC hearings, and it requires an FBI employee to get approval to conduct a US person query from an FBI attorney, no longer allowing approval to come from justice supervisor.
In the current heightened threat environment, the US military operations in Iran, the Chinese Communist Party looking to fill power vacuums around the world, and terrorist proxies plotting attacks on Americans and US interests, Congress cannot allow this critical national security tool to go away. The reality is that no authorization effort is going to address everyone's concern, but this bill makes measurable reforms to strengthen accountability and safeguard while maintaining the criticality of the foreign intelligence too. This bill is a product of consensus. I ask for your support to pass a row and allow us to move this bill forward. I just wanna say I came here very leery, as a former district attorney and someone who is very concerned about constitutional law.
And for my first couple of terms up here, I generally voted against the Pfizer authorization because I did not have the classification, was not in the hearings, did not understand how it's used. I had a lot of misunderstandings. I think many of our members do. I encourage them to vote for this. We cannot survive as a nation, and the threats are genuine and numerous if we allow FISA to go dark or seven zero two to go dark.
And with that, I'm ready for questions.
Speaker 19
Thank you, gentlemen, from Mississippi. I'll now recognize the representative's count.
Speaker 14
Chairman, ranking member McGovern, my colleagues on the rules committee. I'm honored today to appear across the dais to testify in opposition to the House amendment to Senate 1318 or the Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act. At the outset, I want to stress that everyone agrees that we need to reauthorize Pfizer section 702. It's one of the most important tools that we have to prevent terrorism and to keep Americans safe. However, we also need robust constitutional and legislative guardrails to protect Americans from illegal government surveillance.
We need to protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights. We've seen a growing bipartisan realization that Pfizer needs to be reformed to protect Americans' civil liberties and documented abuses of this tool by our own government, an awakening in which even chairman McGovern or chairman Jordan and some of the members of this committee have participated at times. Less than two weeks ago, the speaker tried to jam through the FISA extension in the dead of night, but it was soundly defeated by a bipartisan majority because it lacked real protections against unconstitutional spying on American citizens. Unfortunately, once again, today's bill fails to strike the correct balance between American civil liberties and the need to collect intelligence on our foreign adversaries. Benjamin Franklin, a great Philadelphian, famously said, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Franklin foreshadowed the long-running tension in our country between trading away our civil rights for the illusion of safety. As we consider this bill, we should keep in mind the history of not just Pfizer, but of our government's illegal surveillance of US citizens. In 1971, the FBI's field office in Media, Pennsylvania, which happens to be located in my district, was burglarized, exposing the FBI's illegal surveillance of the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protesters. This revolution led to the creation of the Pike Committee, known today as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a committee originally designed to conduct oversight and to prevent these kinds of abuses. Section 702 is a relatively young surveillance authority that was created in the late 2000s to codify an illegal warrantless surveillance program started by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11.
Over the past 15 years, we've learned that as section 702 is used to collect the majority of Internet communications coming in and out of the United States, it has also collected vast quantities of Americans' information. And we've learned that the FBI has routinely abused its ability to query section 702 data to spy on protesters, donors to congressional campaigns, advisers to the president, members of Congress, and member staff. We've even learned that NSA employees use the FISA database to look up their Tinder matches. Given this history, I want to advocate for two basic reforms. The first is to require the government to seek a judicial probable cause warrant to query Americans' data from the Section 702 database.
And second, to prevent the government from circumventing the Fourth Amendment by buying Americans' data from data brokers. I've advocated for these reforms along with chairman Jordan and a bipartisan majority of the House Judiciary Committee during the last Pfizer reauthorization in 2024 under President Biden, and I'm advocating for them again under the Trump administration. Regardless of who or what party is in office, these reforms are necessary to right the balance between Americans' security and our rights and freedoms. It's a position that is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, and it's time for Congress to listen. Instead, speaker Johnson is trying to jam an unpopular minority position through the chamber.
But I believe a bipartisan majority would support the reforms. If a clean FISA bill had the votes to pass, we would not be doing this exercise before the Rules Committee. Further, both the FISA bill this week and the bills from two weeks ago were written behind closed doors. They received no hearing, no markup, and no meaningful opportunity for public debate. Something as serious as government surveillance of Americans deserves to have an open, honest, good-faith public debate in the house.
The burden has always been on the intelligence community to justify to the public why we should continue this program as is. And for the last 10 years, the intelligence community has refused to do so, instead relying on scare tactics and closed-door briefings with members of Congress. Many of those arguments in support of Pfizer reauthorization rely on hypothetical catastrophes about what might happen if a warrant requirement were put in place. But those requirements always ignore the fact that there's always an exigent circumstance exception to the requirement of probable cause. We also see proponents point to the so-called reforms contained in the 2024 bill that rely on self-policing by the FBI and the intelligence community.
But self-policing has been shown not to be sufficient to address the core constitutional violations at issue. Issue. These concerns have become more urgent as this administration has weaponized the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to actively surveil, harass, and prosecute nonprofits and American citizens for their political beliefs. And these concerns are heightened when the people in charge of this self-policing are Cash Patel, Todd Blanche, and Tulsi Gabbard, and when President Trump has fired most of the watchdogs who were supposed to oversee the program. It is cold comfort that the so-called reforms in this FISA bill essentially consist of Tulsi Gabbard checking Cash Patel's homework.
When it's just been reported that the FBI has been querying these databases to investigate a New York Times reporter after she reported that director Patel had misused government resources. So, Mister Chairman, Chairwoman Fox, while I oppose this bill as it's written, I would urge that it could be amended to address the concerns about abuse that have caused the House to reject the extension in the past. Therefore, I request that if you bring this version to the floor, you allow for the consideration of amendments addressing the reforms that I've advocated today. The American people deserve that we have a genuine debate and a vote on this consequential reauthorization, particularly when it impacts our essential liberties. Thank you.
I yield back.
Speaker 19
Thank you, gentlelady from Pennsylvania. I now recognize the chairman of Juice here and the gentleman from Ohio, mister Jordan.
Speaker 26
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a statement last time. We were just here a couple of weeks ago. I think I'll just highlight a few of the high points if I could, and maybe reiterate a few things that I know this committee understands. Pfizer's an important law.
I mean, it was actually put in place way back when to, as a reform measure, different components to it, title one, 702, 703, different components, but, very important. Seven zero two program obviously is important because we're spying on bad guys overseas that are designed to get information to protect our country and our citizens. But there have been some concerns with 702 over the years, as everyone knows. And so I just think it's important to understand the Pfizer we have today, 702 today is much different than it was just a few years ago. You know, we talked last time.
There were 56 different reforms that we put in place in the last measure, in the last reauthorization, I should say, two years ago. And those have made a marked difference because what was happening, the numbers are I think there were up to 10,000 FBI agents who could query the database back in 2021. There were 3,000,000 searches done, queries done on US persons back in 2021. This past year, that's 9,000. So it's much different program, real reforms that have made a difference.
The inspector general, I think, cited 278,000 times in 2021 where the queries and searches were not conducted in following the rules that the FBI had for themselves, so they didn't follow their own rules. That number in last year was a 127. So huge improvements have been made. And I think it's just important to understand just a different program. Now when we were here last time, we were going to do a short-term reauthorization for 18 months, and there are really no other additional reforms that were in the legislation.
What we have in front of us today is a little longer-term reauthorization, three years. But some of the additional reforms that have been added to the legislation. And I'll just run through those quickly. There's a ODNI review of any US person queries done by the FBI. It's a periodic 30-day look back that, I think, is really important.
It gets one other set of eyes overseeing and making sure that these queries, these searches are done consistent with the rules that are approved by the FISA court. There are criminal penalties for FBI employees who knowingly, willfully violate the procedures. We think that's important too. Real consequences if you don't do this right, you don't respect the rights of American citizens. There's FBI attorney approvals, another check on the front end for any US person query.
So, yeah, actual attorney versus just some other agent at the FBI. And then there's a GAO audit of targeting procedures, that will be done and information that can be shared, of course, with the congress who's got the duty of oversight to look in all this. So, I guess the main point I stress is Pfizer today is much different than Pfizer 702 of a few years ago. And, I would urge the adoption of the legislation, move to the floor, and, hopefully, we'll pass it.
Speaker 4
Thank you, mister chairman. And, ma'am, gentlemen, I appreciate you being here. And I first wanna say that I too saw the news article that said FBI said to investigate Times reporter after article on Director Patel's girlfriend. Certainly, if that is true, I would acknowledge that that is a problem. And I think I mean, chairman Jordan shaking his head as well, and that that is not an appropriate use of 702.
And that is one of the reasons that I think that the new reform where any query of information on a US citizen goes outside of the justice department to be reviewed by the ODNI. And if there is a problem, that would be reported as an extremely important reform. And I just, Chairman Jordan, if you would, would you just go over briefly, I mean, obviously, we had the problems. We passed RISA that had 56 reforms. There's been very little credit given to the reforms that we worked together in a very bipartisan manner to pass with RISA.
And most of the violations, I'm not saying all, but the vast, vast majority, 99.5% plus, probably percent of the violations occurred prior to RISA. Can you talk, though, even since RISA, the changes and the additions, the ODNI reporting, the other things that are in this piece of legislation that are the additional.
Speaker 26
Well, yeah, in simple terms, when you got more people in the front end who have to approve a query, particularly in this with the proposed legislation, you got an attorney who has to sign off. So you got more checks and balances on the front end. You have more transparency. So this is actually an amendment that we put in two years ago that came from the chairman, in the judiciary committee where we could be a part of this, where the judiciary committee, intelligence committee could be a part of certain proceedings that happen there. And we get periodic reports from the FBI on what they're doing.
And then, of course, you now have the 30-day look back. So it's all designed for more transparency, more checks on the front end, more accountability on the back end. So much so that now we even have criminal penalties if someone at the FBI does what you just described. And that's what was going on. They were looking up ex-girlfriends.
They were looking up political contributors. They were looking up a member of Congress. They were looking up activists, whether it was Black Lives Matter, whether it was people on the right or the left. They were doing all those kinds of things, and now there're criminal penalties if you're doing those kinds of things. So, more checks on the front end, more transparency in the actual process, more accountability on the back end, all the way to criminal penalties.
Speaker 4
And so when we talk about 702, we're talking about an intelligence tool, not a criminal justice tool.
Speaker 26
Correct? That is another important distinction. Very important, I think, for the country to understand that. Yes.
Speaker 4
And when we talk about this intelligence tool, it is, for the most part, restricted to terrorism and narcoterrorism or cartel level of drug dealing. Is that correct?
Speaker 26
Well, I don't yeah. I'm sure that's a huge focus, but it's also cybercrime and other. We're looking at what you guys on Intel know this. This is, and I'm not on Intel, but this is Chinese trying to do certain things and get access to important information of our major companies, corporations, and our government. That's important as well.
Speaker 4
But it would virtually, it would rarely, if ever, start with a seven zero two query. If a 702 query would there already be an active investigation before a 702 query?
Speaker 4
Lodge. Mister Kelly, you know a lot about this. You've spent a tremendous amount of time in the United States military. You understand how important 702 is to our targeting from the standpoint of the military. And being a general, I'm gonna just turn it over to you for about 60 seconds to tell us that, you know, how valuable 7 zero 2 is to us from the military standpoint and the targeting with all of the things that are going on in the world today.
Speaker 10
Listen. If we go dark on FISA 702, I think we are in a very harmful place in this nation. Having served at the highest levels in the military, having been on the intelligence committee, there's no telling how many things have been stopped. There's no telling how much of the president's daily brief, regardless of which party that president is in, that they're allowed to do things and take action to prevent things from happening here on the homeland like another 9/11. That's part of the reason that we've done these things.
There's no justification for excuses. And I, chairman Jordan, I'm so glad to say that there are criminal penalties. It's against the law to commit murder, but people commit murder every day. It's against the law to do a lot of things that people do every day. But with criminal penalties, for those who choose to misuse this tool for personal benefit, I think that is what I most like about the things that we're doing here is that we can still protect our nation.
We can still get out of people external to The United States with queries of information that is already collected, but we do not allow it. We do not allow them to make requirements that do not make sense. And if you do break the law for personal justification or personal, you can go to jail, and that is the way that it should be, and they should go to jail, each and every one of them.
Speaker 4
Well, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion, with a lot of people in the room from a lot of committees about how we protect America from additional attacks and respect our constitution and the Fourth Amendment rights that our citizens have. We went a long way with RISA. I think this bill moves it further in the right direction. We will have another chance to reassess three years from now, if this bill passes. And I feel very good that we've reached the balance here with what it takes for our military and our law enforcement partners to have the tools that they need to protect us so that we can go to our little league games and other things and not think about all of this stuff.
And, again, this is an intelligence tool, not a law enforcement tool. And at the same time, make sure that this tool is not used to prosecute American citizens. And I wanna finish with this. I wanna go back to what I originally said. If somebody at the FBI used it to investigate a reporter because they did not like the report that came out, that is an abuse of power, and that is not acceptable.
And I'm not saying it happened. I'm saying if it did happen, it's not acceptable. And that would, mister chair, yield back.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Let me just also suggest that one way to protect the security of people in this country is to not engage in reckless and unnecessary wars halfway around the world. And when that happens, that congress actually lives up to its constitutional responsibilities and debates and votes to authorize or not authorize those wars. But we all know the issue here. I feel like this is like watching reruns because we've had this discussion before.
Members wanna vote on legislation that has a warrant requirement for searching US person data in the section 702 database. That has been the issue from the beginning, and it remains the issue now. So, Miss Khandlin, does this new FISA language provide a warrant requirement, or is it like the language considered two weeks ago that didn't require a warrant and failed on the floor?
Speaker 14
It is just like the bill that failed two weeks ago, in that it does not include a warrant requirement. Now the one two weeks ago said that it had a warrant requirement, but in fact, it didn't. And I think there's a great, just security article that was published on the 26th entitled Fool's Gold. Speaker Johnson's Section 702 proposal would place no limits on backdoor searches. It goes over how this is basically a restatement of the existing bill. And I think we do need to be careful about what we're talking about here.
There's a difference between what is targeted with a 702 search and what you query and what's returned there. So when we talk about targeting communications, that sweeps up a whole lot of data. And those targeting requests cannot be made against Americans. But in that massive data that gets collected by our government, queries can be made. And the objection here is that if you're going to query the massive data that includes a lot of Americans' information in it, you need to have a warrant.
Now I know we've also heard that there's been a big reduction in the number of queries that are being made. That also could be related to the fact that under Mr. Patel, the DOJ and the FBI have had their counterterrorism, their drug trafficking, their human trafficking divisions have been gutted. They've been reduced by half or more. They're not bringing those cases anymore because they've been diverted to immigration enforcement.
And the other piece is that, you know, this seven zero two is not going dark at the end of this month. The government has taken strong measures to make sure that existing certifications are going to continue. The government already went to court to make sure that 702 surveillance will extend well into next year. So I think all the things we're hearing are not really getting to the issue that we still need a warrant requirement. And we can still beat this April 30 deadline, but everybody wants 702 to be extended.
We just want a warrant requirement with it. So we should put the BIG amendment on the floor. That should be part of the rule. And I know Chairman Jordan and others have supported that amendment in the past. And given the amount of support it had last time I went to the floor, there's a really good chance it could pass this time.
Speaker 5
Well, I just don't wanna belabor this point. This is my last question. I have personally received a number of calls and had discussions with Democrats and Republicans on the BIGs amendment. And so, chairman Jordan, would you support allowing this house to be able to consider and debate the BIG's amendment and vote yes or no? And, you know, that's on having a warrant requirement.
And please don't tell me it's up to the rules committee because you're here precisely to give guidance to the rules committee and what you wanna do. And I know the judiciary staff is already having conversations with Republicans on the rule staff, to figure out what this rule is gonna look like, whether it's gonna be totally closed or whether there'll be amendments in order. But I'm just curious whether for.
Speaker 26
Yeah. I'll give you and I appreciate the ranking member in his long tenure on this committee. I'll give you the same answer you gave last time. That's your call. Now my guess is if there was that amendment offered in the judiciary committee, they would have probably passed the judiciary committee.
But, whether it's on the floor or not is the rules committee's decision, and I'll leave that to you and the rest of the fine members of the congress who sit on rules committee.
Speaker 5
I hope you will say the same thing if I'm the chairman of this committee.
Speaker 26
But I, but we hope that's not the case. In light of all the compliments I just said, nice thing I said about, we hope that's not the case.
Speaker 5
Yeah, it's just frustrating because, I mean, I think, you know, had you made an order last time, that would have solved your rule problem getting it to the floor. But in any event, I hope that the BIG's amendment will be made in order. We will certainly offer it on this side of the aisle. And, again, I think what's happening that's really regrettable in this chamber is that everybody's getting so used to closed rules, completely closed rules, that it's becoming too convenient. And, you know, we're becoming like the Russian Duma, a legislative body in name only.
And we're ceding our power to the executive left and right, and we're not allowing members to have serious debates on serious issues. I think that's bad for this institution. But anyway, thank you for coming. I yield back.
Speaker 19
I thank the ranking member. And with that, I will recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Norman.
Speaker 22
General from Virginia. I appreciate you all being here. Very important issues, and I appreciate your testimony today. I yield back.
Speaker 19
So I'll recognize myself for a few minutes here. Chairman just shared. Just thought he had the, yeah, short out. Look. I think, you know, my positions on this has been fairly public.
I've got great pride in the things that I think we were able to do two years ago that I think were steps forward. I think doing a two-year reauthorization was important so that we could look at it and have another bite at the apple. I think that getting some of the ability for us to see some of the transparency inside the fiscally is important. Some of the reporting, although we're only now seeing some of that reporting and kind of getting it, I think all of that was good. I think what I see in this draft, I think in good faith, there's a lot of good improvements in it.
I think greater improvements on transparency in the fiscal. I think improvements with respect to some penalties in place for violations. I think those are all important, as well as a few other things. I still remain concerned, to the point that the ranking member is making and others about having sufficient protection for American citizens. And, I do still remain of the view that is something that we ought to be considering.
And I understand the concerns that have been raised. I will note for the record that there were friends of mine on the other side of the aisle that did not get there on the vote when President Biden was in office, who are now vociferously in favor of, and that's not, by the way, the ranking member. He's been very consistent on this. I wanna be very clear. Nor the general lady from Pennsylvania.
But there are some of our friends on the other side of the aisle who are now in support of an amendment on warrants that were not there when it was President Biden in the White House. And I just think the record needs to reflect that. And I think there are some of us that were trying to get a warrant then and like to have a warrant requirement now. And, look, I think that is something that this committee ought to consider. I do, I will say I tend to agree with the ranking member that we ought to have votes on things, particularly when there are some bipartisan interests in that topic. That's an important one, such as Fourth Amendment privacy.
I would also note, just to be clear, for better or worse, there are some in our conference that want certain things you want clear for the record. There's nothing in here dealing with central bank digital currency in this bill. Correct? There's nothing in here, for example, that's dealing with, I think, another issue of surveillance and privacy involving the kill switches on automobiles, that there's going to be cameras inside of automobiles and checking on people in the name of ability to drive, what they're doing, and checking their eye movements, and having multiple cameras in vehicles by requirement, by law, which I think is another major invasion of privacy, and data collection and so forth and how that's used in the future. So what we've got in front of us is a Pfizer only product, and it is a Pfizer only product that, for the most part, I think what I would ask the panel, am I correct that with respect to warrants, the provisions in there are, for the most part, an acknowledgment of existing law?
Are you sort of stating with greater clarity, which is important, what you would say is existing law. Is that a fair characterization?
Speaker 19
Okay. So, really, what we're doing is taking existing law improvements based on two years ago, making some improvements on penalties and on some fisc transparency, one or two other things, and then kind of stating for the record and clearly what existing law is, but not going further with respect to warrant protections for American citizens on warrantless surveillance.
Speaker 19
Yeah. With that, I'll recognize that the chair has re-emerged. We're now, I think, finished with questions unless the chair would like to. We're wrapped. It's whether you want to ask a question. I'll turn the gavel over to the chair for any questions that she has.
Speaker 3
Don't have any questions that I need to ask the panel. But thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 3
testimony. K. K. Alright. Without objection, written terrorism testimony submitted from the following amendment witnesses will be entered into the record: Mister Gosar, Mister Klein, Mister Buchanan.
Now I'd like to welcome to the witness table Mister Bent, Mister Burchett, Mister Costa, Miss Moore, Mister Nells, and Mister Comer.
Speaker 3
Stansbury and Miss Randall. We can accommodate eight. Cliff, why don't you come over this way? Hi, Gwen. Why don't you move over?
I'm here. Yeah. Y'all can move the chairs around or move yourself down. How about move down, Miss Stansbury, and not those others? Move down, please.
Yes. You would. That would be helpful if you move all the way down. Come on, guys. You're members of Congress.
Can you figure this out? Can you figure it out? I believe I'm going in the order in which people came. I'm just going in the order it was given to me. Bentz Burchett Costa Moore Nails Comer, Stansbury Randall, and I will call your name again when it is your turn.
We ask you to keep your comments to five minutes, and we will accept your written testimony. Mr. Benz, you're recognized.
Speaker 29
Thank you, Chairman and Fox. I'm here today to offer Amendment 241, which modestly expands the definition of renewable biomass under the renewable fuel standard to include materials generated from forest and wood products manufacturing from such places as mills, including mill residuals, wood chips, bark, sawdust and shavings. The amendment would also amend the current statutory framework to include as renewable biomass trees, shrubs and slash from our federal forests, our tribal forests, our nonfederal land and public lands, rather than being limited to a small part of some of these lands. This amendment would allow material from these sources to be economically used for domestic biofuel production. I thank Chair Westerman, Congressman Fulcher, and Congressman Staubert for their support of this amendment.
This amendment falls within this farm bill under titles eight, under forestry, and title nine, energy. Consistent with these titles, this amendment will incentivize removal of excess fuel from our forests, thus reducing fire risk and improving forest health, and it will make possible the productive use of what otherwise would be considered waste. For too long, federal policy has treated timber from federal lands in only two ways: either as merchantable sawtimber with commercial value or as waste with no commercial value whatsoever. This amendment would at least partially reverse this unfortunate outcome. There is an entire category of low value woody material that could be removed from federal lands that does not fit neatly into traditional lumber markets but still carries real economic value.
And this amendment would help realize that value. Madam Chairwoman, my amendment is a practical fix. It treats federal forest material as an opportunity, not a liability. It creates value where federal policy currently perpetuates waste, and it provides land managers' mills in rural communities with another tool to make federal forest healthier, more productive, and less dangerous. I urge the adoption of our amendment.
Thank you. I yield back.
Speaker 3
Gentlemen, yields back. Mr. Burchett, you're recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 30
Thank you, chairlady, ranking member, and members of this committee. And for the opportunity to test time it for you today, I'm pleased to offer a straightforward, common sense amendment to strengthen the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or SNAP in the Farm Bill. My amendment excludes sodas and energy drinks from SNAP-eligible foods, specifically those where carbonated water and sugar, sugarcane, aspartame, corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup are the first two ingredients on the nutritional label. It does not affect 100% fruit or vegetable juice with no added sugar, milk or milk substitutes, baby formula, medical nutritional products, unsweetened naturally flavored water, tea, and coffee. The supplemental nutrition assistance program is supposed to put nutritious foods on the table, not taxpayers subsidize empty calories that fuel obesity and diabetes.
This targeted reform promotes healthier choices, protects children, and safeguards hard-earned tax dollars. My amendment is modeled after similar legislation passed in the Tennessee general assembly, and we all know that Tennessee does things the right way, at least I do, and congress should follow suit. If you've ever been in our inner cities, you've seen that these folks are being targeted by this. You see the statistics by the Center for Disease Control in the black community. It's, type two diabetes is it ravages those communities, our Hispanic communities as well, and our white communities.
Actually, in the white communities, there's more. But, statistically, just by numbers in those other two commit communities, it hits them the hardest. And I urge the committee to support this amendment, and I yield back my time. Thank you, chairlady.
Speaker 15
Thank you very much, madam chairperson and ranking member. The rest of the members of the rules committee. Twenty-two years, I've always marveled at the pain and sacrifice you take on when you are a member of the rules committee. That's just observing. I have 4 amendments.
Three of them are bipartisan. The first is referenced to title 12, amendment 356, introduced by Rep Moylan of Guam. It's bipartisan. It's good government. It fixes section 502 program, one of the fuel tools that we have under the United States Department of Agriculture to help finance housing, entry level housing.
It's been an effective program. And what this amendment would do is it would give people a chance to win before public comment, to ensure that they can work closely together with the United States Department of Agriculture. The second amendment I rise to speak on behalf of is number 266. Representative Hayes from California. I'm a co-sponsor of this.
It would reverse the snap cuts that were made under HR one. The numbers speak for themselves, according to the USDA's own data. Big measure, I didn't think it was beautiful, was passed last year. It will affect more than 3,000,000 Americans who are food insecure and in need of food assistance. California alone, over 257,000 people are no longer having assistance because we haven't even reached full implementation yet.
About one in five CalFresh recipients could potentially lose their food benefits starting June 1 of this year, excuse me. It's the largest food assistance cut in the history of the program. Number three, Californians are concerned like others about amendment 28. I'm co-leading this with Representative Luna of Florida. It's a bipartisan section that said the real concerns on the state laws like California that have the voters have passed a measure, in this case, prop 12, would prove by 7.5 million voters upheld by the Supreme Court.
Producers have already made significant investments to comply. To change the rules now, I think, creates uncertainty and disrupts the marketplace. And, the efforts to preempt state's ability to choose what works for them, I think, runs contrary to a lot of how a lot of us feel. My final amendment, that I'm cosponsoring and supporting, number 273, rep by representative Lofgren, is bipartisan. It's language that we have supported in the past for the Farm Worker Modernization Act.
If we can't do comprehensive agreement, it seems like we could work on trying to at least do incremental support. A large percentage of our agricultural workforce is undocumented. This workforce solution would stabilize America's agricultural sector by reforming the H2A guest worker program, also provide more flexibility for employers to ensure protections for workers. These are practical amendments, all four of them. Three of them have bipartisan support.
On the last one, the chairman of the ag committee, representative Johnson, put together a bipartisan subcommittee that made a reflection of recommendations on how we could alleviate the challenges in farm country as it relates to a reliable workforce. It requires that we start to fix our broken immigration system, in my opinion. Thank you very much.
Speaker 27
Thank you so very much, madam chair, and mister ranking member, and distinguished members of the rules committee. I would like to talk about amendment number 45, which is colas don't count. Madam chair, I have to say that I am very concerned about the health and safety of many Americans as the Republican majority continues to look for ways to restrict access to food for SNAP families and to reduce their SNAP benefits. Madam Chair, eating is not a luxury. It's not optional.
We can't just say giving food to people is an example of waste, fraud, and abuse. People have to eat. It's a basic principle. If you're hungry, you can't learn, you can't go to work, you can't exist, and you can't contribute or give back to the economy. Madam chair, this firm bill does nothing to address the dire crisis that is unfolding in SNAP.
According to USDA's own data, more than 3,000,000 Americans have been kicked off SNAP since the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. And the worst is still yet to come. Since HR1 passed, the cost of living, especially food, hasn't been going down. So while prices are rising, individuals and families find themselves paying more for everything: gasoline, housing. You know, you find that your food safety net is being pulled out from up under you.
Madam chair, we need to right this ship, and one way to stop penalizing people for being poor and to support them would be to be able to pass my amendment, amendment number 45, which would exclude income received from the annual cost of living adjustments under the Social Security Act and state supplemental programs like for SSI, payments from eligibility and benefit determinations under the supplemental nutrition assistance program. COLAs are meant to ensure that a recipient's benefits, like their Social Security check, are not eroded by inflation over time. But these COLA increases can decrease a SNAP recipient's benefit amount or cause them to become ineligible. And so the larger the COLA, the bigger the impact. And for many seniors, all of our constituents, no matter blue state, no matter where they live, there are fixed incomes in which social security is the majority or vast majority of that income, and every little bit of help that they get from SNAP is critical.
With high inflation over the past years, not least now due to, you know, the trade policies, tariffs, this war we're in, this legislation will make a real difference in people's lives. By strengthening SNAP with these changes, we can better help our most vulnerable constituents. SNAP is just so especially important to help the elderly, widows, widowers, and disabled individuals get the nutrition they need while on a fixed income. And, by the way, madam chair, many SNAP households include children, and these changes are important, and prove the efficient administration of these important benefits. You know, the agenda I spoke with RFK junior, and he claims that his agenda is totally about making America healthy again.
And I think that my amendment for SNAP would add to that agenda. My mother, other amendment, madam chair, is amendment number 176. And I'm, and these are, this is a bill that was adopted. This was about the reinstatement of the able-bodied adult without dependence exception to SNAP work requirements for foster youth, veterans, and homeless individuals. This provision was adopted on a bipartisan basis during the debt ceiling debate.
A very hot and contentious, but this was one of the bipartisan products of that debate. And the one big beautiful bill took it out, did not include this provision. And so my amendment would restore this amendment. You know, we all know. We all see homeless veterans on our streets, begging, pushing shopping carts.
We know that veterans are especially vulnerable. We know that homeless people are at risk. Just a week ago, the first lady, Melania Trump, was here on Capitol Hill talking about her foster youth agenda. This is a passion for her because she realizes how vulnerable they are. And she highlighted the need to help these youth as they age out of foster care, which is when they face an increased risk of experiencing homelessness.
Oh, I'm sorry. You're tapping.
Speaker 27
Madam chair, I would, I won't, I'll just add this to the record, but I just wanna say that I would hope that our colleagues would restore this. It was bipartisan. I have to think that it was in error that it was not included in the one be beautiful bill. And, madam chair, I will yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you. If you have more than one amendment, you need to explain it in your five minutes. Mister Nells, you're recognized.
Speaker 24
I will do that. Thank you, Chairwoman Fox, Ranking Member McGovern. I'm here to advocate for my amendment to HR 7567. It's simple. We gotta save our shrimpers.
It's called the Save Our Shrimpers Act. Amendment number 21 would require the secretary of the treasury to direct US executive directors at IFIs, these international financial institutions, to use the voice in vote of The United States to oppose financial assistance for projects that support foreign shrimp farming, processing, or export. CBO has a zero score on this. American shrimpers, including those in my district, have been struggling for decades to stay afloat due to an excess of foreign shrimp flooding our markets. American tax dollars have unfortunately been utilized to finance foreign shrimp farms.
Don't take my word. It's the South, Southern Shrimp Alliance, which is driving our own shrimpers out of business. Many of these foreign nations involved in the shrimp trade heavily subsidized their shrimping industries, adding to the unfair advantage. International funding serves only to pad foreign profit margins at the expense of our domestic shrimpers. This is precisely why I introduced H.R. 2071, the Save Our Shrimpers Act, which is identical.
It's identical to the text of my amendment no. 21. HR 2071 has 20 bipartisan cosponsors and recently passed out of the Financial Services Committee. Thank you, Mr. Norman. Passed out a financial services committee by a margin of 42 to one. Inclusion of this amendment would quickly implement this policy change and bring the much-needed relief to our shrimpers.
I was encouraged, very encouraged, to see a section in title three calling for a report on international shrimp trade, and I can tell you much of what that report will find. Our American shrimpers, they're in trouble, folks. They're in deep trouble. I see it. And they desperately need our help.
Foreign shrimp now accounts for more than 90% of the shrimp consumed in the United States. 90. The majority of this imported shrimp comes from nations such as India, Ecuador, and Indonesia, where shrimp are grown on farms or hatcheries that use child labor and are ridden with dangerous working conditions. Compare that to the regulatory environment our producers operate in, and it becomes clear just how extreme the disparity is. It's simple.
American tax dollars should support American workers, not subsidize foreign trimpers who engage in unfair trade practices. I'd like to thank the co-sponsors of my amendment, representatives Troy Carter, Nancy Mace, Mike Gazelle, Barry Moore, Vincent Gonzalez, Russell Fry, for their support. It really affects the whole coast, the whole Southern Coast, the whole East Coast. Their districts, much like mine, are centered around these coastal regions. They deeply understand the impact of these trade policies on their constituents.
I'm grateful for their partnership in advancing this legislation. And I respectfully, I implore you, this committee, to carefully consider this amendment. The shrimping industry and representative Roy will know they're struggling down at Palaches. I'm with families that are third, fourth generation shrimp farmers, and they can't even send their boats out. They won't send them out because we are providing resources, money to foreign countries to allow their shrimping industry to flourish, while we cripple our own.
It makes no sense, and it's America last. This is a real simple fix to this, folks. And the American people, believe it or not, they love shrimp. I didn't realize how much the American people love shrimp. They really do.
But let's do this. This is the right time, the way to do it, and this amendment is critical to our shrimping industry and the entire country. With that, I yield.
Speaker 31
Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the Rules Committee. I'm here today to speak in strong support of my amendment to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, which would protect American farmers, support the thousands of jobs in the hemp industry, and support people who use and rely on these products. Last November, language included in appropriations legislation gave Congress one year to develop a new framework for hemp products before they become federally controlled substances. Six months later, it is clear Congress needs more time to pass legislation that protects jobs, eliminates bad actors, standardizes labeling, and requires third party testing. My amendment would provide Congress another year until November 2027 to develop this solution.
The hemp industry is facing significant challenges and growing uncertainty, and it is long past time for Congress to provide farmers and business owners with the clarity they need to succeed. This uncertainty is already having a negative effect, and it is impacting real people, real jobs, and real communities across the country, particularly in rural America. The hemp industry's impact in my home state of Kentucky and nationwide is substantial. When I served as Kentucky's commissioner of agriculture, Kentucky was the very first state to legally grow hemp. Today, hemp supports 320,000 American jobs, generates $28,400,000,000 in market activity, and contributes 1.5 billion dollars in state tax revenue.
Hemp offers farmers the opportunity to diversify, innovate, and remain competitive in an evolving agricultural community economy. Hemp is a major crop for Kentucky farmers. Nearly every farmer I know who grew hemp last year was a former tobacco farmer. That's why when I was ag commissioner, we pushed to be the first state to legalize hemp. It was an opportunity to diversify out of tobacco into a new crop.
The 2018 Farm Bill laid the foundation for the hemp industry's growth over the last few years. As a member of the conference committee for the final bill in 2018, I made it a priority to be one of hemp's strongest advocates during those negotiations. As a result, the '28 Farm Bill unleashed the industry and supported jobs, small businesses, and entrepreneurs across the country. Congress must act now to provide certainty for business owners and confidence for consumers. In September, I led a bipartisan letter to Speaker Johnson warning of the repercussions that adoption of language effectively banning certain hemp products would have on America's farmers.
That letter was signed by 27 of our colleagues, 13 Republicans, and 14 Democrats, underlining the bipartisan support for hemp farmers and the industry. Today, American farmers are facing serious headwinds. The last thing they need is inaction from Washington that puts a growing multibillion-dollar industry at risk. I was pleased to see last week that President Trump voiced his support for the industry and called on Congress to allow Americans to continue using hemp-derived CBD products while restricting the sale of products from fly-by-night companies that pose health risk. I'm proud to be here today in strong support of the hemp industry.
I urge both Republicans and Democrats to come together and support a commonsense extension. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress, the administration, and industry stakeholders to protect the hemp industry and enable it to continue to succeed. Thank you, madam chair, and I yield back.
Speaker 32
Madam chair, ranking member. I'm here today to stand with our farmers, our ranchers, and our communities and families across New Mexico and across rural America. As you know, our farmers and our families are struggling. They are hurting, and it is a perfect storm out there from tariffs to trade wars to this unchecked war in Iran that has caused the cost of diesel to spike, and farmers cannot even find fertilizer to begin their spring planting. Diesel costs are up by 46%.
Fertilizer prices are making it such that farmers can't find basic inputs to get their spring crops in the ground. The West is facing a historic drought, and New World screwworms are threatening our ranching community on the southern border. On the ground, that means higher production costs for our farmers and our ranchers who are struggling to figure out how they're gonna make it pencil out this year. And ultimately, it means that everyone in America is going to pay higher prices at the grocery store. And families are already struggling.
We all know this. We all go grocery shopping, but especially for our seniors and people living on fixed income, our low-income families. And this is on top of the largest cuts in SNAP programs since the program began, last year, with the big ugly bill. This last year, farm bankruptcies are up by almost 50%. These are not abstract policy debates.
These are kitchen table realities that are hurting real New Mexicans every day. And so that is why I am here to advocate for our communities and three amendments. First and foremost, I cannot support this Farm Bill. It fails to restore the snap cuts that went into effect last year, which we know are not only going to destabilize our farmers and ranchers, but they are going to inflict cruel and unnecessary pain on our lowest income families. Secondly, I'm here to advocate for my amendment that would make sure that every single one of our land grants and acequias in New Mexico is eligible for farm bill programs.
These are our first farmers, our tribal communities, our land grants, who have worked these lands for millennia and centuries. These are not just historic institutions in New Mexico. This is how we feed our families. And that is why I am advocating that all programs in the Farm Bill apply to them. My amendment with Jill Takuda, who's behind me, would make sure that our local USDA field offices actually have staff in them as people are seeking support during this growing season.
Between DOGE and the slashing of federal programs, we know that local offices that help our farmers and the ranchers on the ground are hurting. And finally, my amendment, also with Representative Takuda, to restore the conservation stewardship program is crucial, especially in a year when we are seeing historic drought. Now, Madam Chair, I know that you grew up farming, and I know there are others on this panel, but I just want to drive this point home. I asked one of my local farmers and a friend who runs cattle on his property in the town of Bernalillo in San Diego Pueblo, what he expects the cost of hay to be this year. Between the spike in diesel and the fertilizer inputs, we're looking at hay bales, a two-string hay bale, going from $15 a bale to $23 a bale in New Mexico.
Now for any of you here who grew up on a farm, who grew up on a ranch, who grew up with animals, that is not sustainable. That is not sustainable for raising animals. That is not sustainable for a ranching community. That is not sustainable for our food system. And so that is why we are here every day pounding away, trying to end this war in the Middle East that is causing these spikes to happen.
That's why every single day I'm advocating for my farmers and ranchers back home. That's why I'm seeking millions of dollars for our acequia and irrigation districts in New Mexico. It's why I introduced the SNAP-BACK bill to restore food aid to our communities in New Mexico, and it's why I'm seeking millions of dollars in community-funded projects to address rural hunger in New Mexico this year, because what we do in this chamber has consequences for our farmers, our ranchers, and our families, and we are here to stand with them today. I yield back.
Speaker 33
Thank you, Chair Fox and Ranking Member McGovern, for the opportunity to testify on the proposed farm bill. I'm deeply concerned by this farm bill and the process through which it was developed. Farm bills should be developed in a bipartisan manner, given the wide array of policies they include, helping families keep food on the table, making sure farmers can stay competitive. These should not be partisan issues. But my Republican colleagues are choosing to move forward a partisan farm bill that fails our farmers, fails American families, and fails to uphold obligations to the tribal nations.
My amendment to the farm bill would honor the federal trust responsibility to tribes and ensure the public has a 30-day comment period on forest service projects and activities, implementing land and resource management plans. This language is absolutely critical to tribal and public participation, and to the health of our natural resources. USDA has not been providing meaningful tribal consultation on land management decisions like the Roadless Rule repeal or forest plan revisions. Meaningful tribal consultation upholds the legal relationship between tribes and the federal government, and recognizes their sovereign status. Tribal consultation is critical for the protection of cultural resources and ensures that federal actions meet the needs of the tribal communities.
What USDA has been doing is mere box-checking exercises, not real consultation with tribal nations. Additionally, the changes by this administration to undercut NEPA requirements have impacted all communities with an interest in federal forest management decisions. Many land management plans and projects are not doing comment periods at all, which is why my amendment would set a minimum standard of at least a 30-day comment period. Sadly, this isn't the only problem with this farm bill. The partisan farm bill is bad for the environment, bad for human health, and weakens access to justice.
Here's what the farm bill does not do. There is nothing in this bill to lower food prices, improve food safety, or protect the people who feed us. This bill locks in disastrous cuts to SNAP, and the Republicans' big ugly bill, the largest cuts to SNAP in the program's history. Over 3,000,000 people have already been kicked off SNAP since HR one was passed, including 25,000 in Washington state. And my Republican colleagues are threatening to do even more damage to SNAP through another reconciliation bill.
We need to undo damage done in HR one to the SNAP program and prevent further cuts, or even more people, children, elders, and disabled people are going to go hungry. A better farm bill would ensure that family farmers are supported. Hungry people have enough to eat, that we invest in regenerative agriculture, that we look out for the people who feed us, and ensure that food is safe, healthy, and affordable. A better farm bill would not make it harder for people to hold polluters accountable, and a better farm bill would actually make sure that rural farmers are able to access the USDA offices in their communities. This bill fails to address major staffing shortages at the Natural Resources, Conservation Service, and Farm Service agencies.
It siphons $1,000,000,000 from the conservation stewardship program, one of USDA's most impactful tools to address climate change, and an incredibly popular program. It cuts the environmental quality incentive program by over $1,000,000,000 over the next five years. These are programs that boost farm resilience and profitability and are proven solutions that farmers are asking for. But this Republican farm bill fails on every count. My Democratic colleagues and I are here today to urge you not to bring this flawed bill to the floor and to instead work with us to incorporate these many amendments that have been proposed in this hearing and to craft a bill that will actually help lower costs for American families and farmers who are struggling under the Trump administration's wars and tariffs.
I yield back.
Speaker 4
Ma'am, I do wanna advocate for mister Bentz's piece of legislation. I mean, what is happening in the timber industry across the country is pretty scary for those of us for whom it's such a big part of our economy, and we need a place for the residuals to go. And so I commend him for his piece of legislation. And I, again, as I listened to the discussion about what Republicans did and didn't do with SNAP benefits in the in HR one, I know I continue to do this, but I feel like I should just read again to my Democrat colleagues who maybe didn't read the actual language in the bill. And these are the exceptions to the work requirements.
Obviously, if you work twenty hours a week, you're exempt from any of the changes, or if you volunteer more than 20 hours a week. As determined by the state agency, you're exempt. But, if the individual is 18 or over 65 years of age, they're exempt from the changes we made. So we took care of our seniors and we took care of the kids in HR1. If you're medically certified as physically or mentally unfit for employment, if you're a parent or other member of a household with a responsibility for a dependent child 14 years of age, or if you're a pregnant woman, you're exempt.
And that's the actual language that is written into the law. And so, I just, again, I mean, before you criticize the legislation, I would encourage you to read it. With that, I yield back.
Speaker 5
Read the legislation, and it stinks, quite frankly. Millions of people have lost their benefits already, and the worst cuts haven't gone into effect yet. Veterans have lost their SNAP benefits. And with all due respect to everybody here talking about how wonderful we are in terms of SNAP benefits, the average SNAP benefit is about $2 per person per meal. That's it.
I mean, so we are and mister Berchet, I appreciate the intent of what you're trying to do. But quite frankly, again, on $2 a meal per person, there's not a lot of healthy food you could buy. And we ought to be talking about incentivizing people to make better choices. We ought to talk about food as medicine. We ought to be supporting pilots that have a proven record of, you know, getting the results we want.
I mean, the Tennessee pilot that you referred to hasn't been implemented yet. But we do know other states that have tried to do that, have put their pilot initiatives on hold, Colorado, for example, because it's complicated to police everything that people buy and what they put in their shopping carts. Again, I the conversation we should be having is about, you know, is, you know, how we improve on the $2 per person per meal. I mean, I again, I you know, buy a cup of coffee in the capital here. It's more than $2.
So we want people to make healthier choices. Well, let's give them the ability. Let's incentivize them to make healthier choices. Let's not punish them. Let's not demonize them.
Let's not, you know, scapegoat them. And by the way, you know, all these new work requirements, they sound easy on paper, especially for all of us who are not on SNAP. But in real life, they're very complicated. You're 64 years old, and all of a sudden, have to meet a new work requirement, and you're having a difficult time doing that. Depending on where you live, there may be a place to volunteer.
That's that satisfies the requirement. So, you know, if we wanna make America healthy again, let's not make America hungry again. And I, again, my biggest complaint with this farm bill, I mean, I have a lot of complaints with it. But to me, what is immoral is the retention of these snap-cuts. I mean, we're the richest country in the history of the world.
We have over 40 million people who are hungry. That's not me making it up. I mean, you know, you Google it, figure it out. And for those who think that this is a way to save money, let me tell you, people who don't have access to nutritious food end up with long-term health conditions. They end up in hospitals.
Senior citizens are short in emergency rooms, taking their medication on an empty stomach. So, I mean, the idea that nobody is impacted by these cuts is so devoid of reality. I don't even know how people would say that anymore. But did you want to say anything, mister Burchett? I'm happy to
Speaker 30
Yes, sir. It's Burchett, by the way. Bird, like, under your saddle. And.
Speaker 30
Well, I'm the only person in this room that doesn't speak with an accent, so I can appreciate that. So, thank you. But, you kept alluding to healthy foods. But, you know, when I was mayor, I looked at this and because we dealt with it a lot. Now, when I was a state legislator, I've dealt with taking the soft drink machines out of high schools.
And, in that situation, there was a lot of kickbacks to the schools and the administrators. But on this situation, I think that if we look at the healthy nature of foods, if we could eliminate soft drinks, I mean, type two diabetes, just go look at just look at the numbers from the CDC alone, and they're incredible yet.
Speaker 5
I have no problem with you taking soft drink machines out of high schools or middle schools. That's easy, and then you can manage it. All I'm simply saying is that even in Tennessee, the pilot program has not been implemented yet because it's complicated. And places like Colorado that did the same thing, they've put it on pause. Again, the goal I'm in agreement with, all I'm simply suggesting, if we want to make America healthy again, you need to do it on more than $2 per person per meal, without due respect.
Speaker 30
Yeah. But the money would go a lot farther if they weren't buying a six-pack of soft drinks with that.
Speaker 5
Well, and maybe making sure that healthy food is available. But $2, I mean, and you cut it by $200000000000 in HR1. And now we're told that there's going to be more cuts and snap in the reconciliation bill coming up. So, again, I share the goal. But let's.
Speaker 14
Canyon. Thank you for the testimony. Rep Moore, I share your concern about the foster youth and their ability to get by without the amendment you've offered. So, thank you.
Speaker 20
Thank you all for taking the time to come in. Sheriff, now boil down the shrimpers' problem. What do they face? Now if I keep hearing this, you hear the broad strokes. What's the root of the problem that they're having?
Speaker 24
Africa, Asia, and India lead to receive American tax dollars. Loans and their shrimping industry is flourishing, and all of the imports that we got coming in is given our industry. Obviously, prices, we cannot compete. The American shrimping industry cannot compete.
Speaker 24
I'm sorry. The American shrimping industry cannot compete with all the foreign shrimp coming in, and it's crushing our industry here. In the state of Texas, in the year 2000, we were home to over 2,500 licensed commercial shrimpers. Today, we have less than 1,000. We have less than 1,000.
And this just isn't me. This isn't Georgia. This is Louisiana. The all the coast hunches, everybody up and down the East Coast in this in the Gulf Coast. We are providing, can you imagine this?
We provided Ecuador over $950,000,000 in loans, and there a lot of the majority of the shrimp is coming from Ecuador, and we can't compete with it. The companies, these businesses, palaches, and along the Gulf Coast are saying, mister Nelson, we don't even send out our boats. I don't wanna get into the cost of diesel fuel, but they just can't compete with the amount of shrimp that is coming in. But, yeah, we are absolutely subsidizing them. We are provide we the American people are crushing.
Tax rates are crushing our industry.
Speaker 24
We don't know what we are getting in return? We're just not gonna provide any more financial support.
Speaker 24
Well, yeah. It's a loan. It's a loan. And, yes, they would be getting paid back, but it doesn't help us at all. It is killing us.
And if you would talk to anybody along the Gulf Coast, the South Shrimp Alliance, they're just telling you we will no longer be in existence if we don't stop this silliness. And it's absolutely silly. So we're just telling the Treasury, listen. You executive directors, you're not gonna provide any more money to a company in Ecuador so they can continue to use child labor and everything else, and then send the shrimp over here for 10¢ on the dollar, and we can't compete. And that's why the shrimping industry eventually is going to just go into non-ex and everything will be imported because we can't compete.
And the American people love shrimp. They just do. And it's not because do we have the supply here? What do we have the supply? No.
We don't harvest enough shrimp ourselves, to feed the American people. We have to import the shrimp. There's no question. It's 90% now. If you could get it down to 50%, that would certainly help.
But we have to import shrimp. The problem is we can't compete with these foreign operations. We just can't compete with them because they just have less regulation. You just can't. K.
We have, yeah.
Speaker 20
Well, thank you. Congressman Burchett, how do we, you're, I think we all realize Coca Cola and all the big producers pretty much own Snap. They give money. They advertise it. They supply it.
How do we get around that, in your opinion?
Speaker 30
We get some guts and do what's right, and look after our folks. Quit taking advantage of poor folks, which is exactly what they do. They come in and these groups will say, oh, we're against this. This is plaguing our communities. And then they roll out the, they shake the money tree, and we're all just a bunch of lap dogs.
We need to get some guts. That's the bottom line. America knows it. We know it. We know this bill isn't going anywhere.
We don't have the guts to do it because we got too many big timers in our districts that call us and say, hey, man. You can't do this. We'll work on something. But, they're not going to work on it. They'll kill this amendment, and these kids are gonna suffer because of our greed.
Speaker 22
Thank you, madam chair. I do. Mister Nells, it's hard to see through the crowd here, but I'm around here on the other side of you.
Speaker 22
This shrimp issue is one we need to take a look at because we could produce more shrimp in The United States. Now you're mostly talking about getting a boat salad, but this also applies to farm-raised shrimp, doesn't it?
Speaker 22
In The United States, we had more farmers doing it, but they just can't make any money at it, so they don't do it.
Speaker 24
Yeah. But people aren't sending their boats out anymore, because we can't compete.
Speaker 22
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. And I'm focused on the farm raise because, you know, my district's in the mountains. So we're not doing any boats.
Send any boats out into the ocean for shrimp in the area. Mhmm. But there are some possibilities that you could do farm raise even in my area because we got plenty of water. Mhmm. And, one of the companies that actually provide supplies to the world for farm raised shrimp is located in our region, Novozymes, and they do the bacteria that eats the shrimp waste. Mhmm.
That makes it so that you don't have nitrogen spikes, which keeps the shrimp healthy. And they're actually located in the mountains of Virginia. Their North American headquarters is there, and they do all kinds of research. It's a great lab to go through, but it's something that we should be looking at, not hurting our own industries. And you said they're paying the interest on the loans, but correct me.
I may be mistaken. Aren't these low-interest loans? They're not commercial-rate loans.
Speaker 24
Operations. And I thank you, sir. But, you know, you got a section in the farm bill that talks about a report on international shrimp trade and stuff. So there is a section in this farm bill that deals with shrimp, and I think that this amendment is appropriate. It fits right into this thing, and it will solve a problem.
And I'm telling you, the shrimping industry is gonna love you for it. They're gonna love you for it because it's the right thing to do. Damn it. Let's do the right thing.
Speaker 22
And mister Comer, in the hemp area, and I know there's a lot of negotiations going on, and I know that you mentioned certain things with your amendment, but this is something I care a lot about and not because I use any of these products. But we've gotta have time to adjust. There are a lot of people opposed to these products, and understandably so, because we're getting a lot of stuff in from overseas that has
Speaker 22
You know, a lot of the products that say CBD or THC that are being sold in convenience stores in the States where it's legal, and it's a real problem. Isn't that correct?
Speaker 31
That is correct. Most of that’s imported from China. The solution, I think, is to get the FDA to regulate hemp. I've been trying to do that since I got here when I was on the ag committee. Now I'm chairman of the oversight committee.
Boy out of Virginia. Them in. They will not do it. That's the solution. The FDA regulated.
Speaker 22
Well, like I said, that Griffith boy from Virginia, he got a bill to take care of that, but we can't get it passed fast enough. I know. To beat the deadline that was put in.
Speaker 22
Alright. I appreciate it. Mister Burchett, do you have anything else you wanted to add to your comments previously made?
Speaker 3
That's the shortest answer I've ever heard from Mr. Birchit. Thank you all very much. You're excused. Let me call the if y'all could get out quickly, we'll call up the next group, mister Crawford, who was standing up, miss Shrior, miss Hayes, mister Carbajal, mister Whitesides, miss Captor, miss Takuda, and miss Torres. Guys, go over to the side.
Mister Whitehide, why don't you get on the end over here? Right here. Well, right there. Yeah. And, oh, that is this seat right here. Yep.
I keep telling you all our members of Congress, you could be able to Mr. Carver Hall, can you sit over here, please? Move on over so people can get in. Next. Okay. Can y'all scoot down so Mister Crawford can get in, not have to climb over y'all?
Well, okay. Then, if you would please hold your comments to five minutes. If you have more than one amendment, please do those within five minutes. I'll recognize you in the order I called your name: Crawford, Shire, Hayes, Carbajal, Whitesides, Captur, Tacuda Torres. Mr. Crawford.
Speaker 35
Thank you, madam chair. I'll try to be as quick as I can because I know everybody's got a ton of work to do. I thank you and the ranking member for giving me the opportunity to be here today. I come before you today to speak on my amendment number 272 to H.R. 7567, the Food Farm Food and National Security Act of 2026. My amendment seeks to add hot rotisserie chicken to the list of foods eligible for SNAP recipients to purchase.
By expanding access to hot rotisserie chicken, we're providing families with a high-quality, nutrient-dense protein source. This directly aligns with the new dietary guidelines for Americans established by the USDA and is a step toward ensuring that people can nourish themselves and their families with wholesome, fresh food. Hot rotisserie chicken is available at most local grocery stores that accept SNAP, and the average price is around 5 to $6. That's a great bargain considering the multiple meals you can get from one chicken, plus there'll be no additional financial burden on the taxpayer associated with this amendment. Instead, this target expansion provides families with a complete meal and greater flexibility in their meal planning, while remaining affordable and within SNAP benefits.
Currently, SNAP participants may only purchase cold rotisserie chicken, which is simply refrigerated hot chicken, due to an outdated technicality. This requirement not only degrades quality, but also wastes energy and adds unnecessary cost. Additionally, some Americans lack easy access to reheating methods, making it difficult for them to warm and consume the cold rotisserie chicken. By allowing the purchase of hot rotisserie chicken, we give families the opportunity to use it as a meal or an ingredient in countless recipes, such as chicken salad, enchiladas, soups, casseroles, and the list goes on. This meaningful change will allow families to enjoy a wider variety of wholesome meals.
And the governors from my state of Arkansas and seven other states have already requested waivers from USDA to allow their states to make hot rotisserie chicken SNAP eligible. This leadership demonstrates the growing recognition that this amendment is not only practical and targeted, but essential to our constituents. USDA stated that we grant these waivers. Requests, however, do not believe it has the legal authority to do so without congressional input, so it's time for us to act. I'll stop there, madam chair.
And, if anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to take them.
Speaker 3
We're gonna do something we don't do very often, but because of the demand of Mister Crawford to be in another place right now, we're gonna see if anyone has any questions for him.
Speaker 4
Madam chair, I just wanna say I very much support this amendment. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that people cannot buy hot foods, not just rotisserie chicken, but hot foods with SNAP benefits. They can't literally buy what I buy for my family to eat at the grocery store, but they can buy candy bars and soda pop. And it just defies logic that we would let them buy candy bars and soda pop, not hot foods, much less rotisserie chicken without a yield back.
Speaker 5
And, chair, I'd just say, I guess my only question would be, just limit it to chicken? Mean, like, what about a hot soup, or, you know, some other things? And people can't buy what you buy for your family on Snap because it's two dollars per person per meal. So.
Speaker 4
Without our, that's not my point. I'm for buying the soup too, Mr. McGovern. Well, you and I are on the same page here. There's no reason to make this a partisan exercise. We're on the same page.
I think they should buy the soup. They should be able to buy the vegetables. We're on the same page.
Speaker 3
bet. Thank you, Mr. Crawford. I appreciate it. Miss Hageman, if you'll come up and take his place, you'll go last in the group. Thank you.
Miss Schrier?
Speaker 37
Thank you, Chairwoman Fox and Ranking Member McGovern, for this opportunity to testify before you today. I first want to address USDA changes to the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program that were recently announced for the 2024 application period. The Specialty Crop Block Grant Program provides funding for states to support innovative research, market development, and education initiatives to increase the competitiveness of specialty crops. This program is particularly important to my district and to Washington State, which produces more than 300 varieties of specialty crops, and is the top producer of apples, blueberries, onions, and more. Just last year, the program supported projects in Washington to expand local market access for beginning farmers, to develop shelf-stable products, to increase crop yield, and to open new markets.
So I was alarmed to see the recent notice of funding opportunity for the program that it included a change to the 2027 application cycle that imposes cost-sharing requirements for subawardees and states. This would be devastating to growers in my district and others like mine that are already trying to stay afloat amidst increased production costs and shrinking international markets. In the 20 year history of this program, a cost share has never been required, and now is not the time to implement one. In fact, during my entire time in Congress, I've advocated to waive the matching fund requirement for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, a similar program that focuses on specialty crop research and extension. And the Farm Bill now includes a fix to have this waiver language.
It makes no sense to remove the barrier to entry to one program and then add a barrier for another, when both programs benefit the same struggling specialty crop industry. For this reason, I ask the committee to support Congressman Gray's Amendment number 305, which would prohibit a cost sharing or matching requirement for awardees of specialty crop grant programs. Next, I ask the committee to support my amendment number 97 that would strike Section 8408 regarding the suppression of wildfires. As is, this provision would revert to antiquated forest service policy that requires wildfires on forest service lands to be suppressed and contained by 10 AM the next day, or in this case would be within 24 hours of detection. Previous aggressive wildfire suppression policies increased tree densities, worsened the spread of disease, and actually contributed to the increased severity of wildfires that we see today.
This section provides no additional support for firefighting efforts when it's already a challenge to allocate the existing resources we have. Through this provision, resources to combat a fire near an urban area or a small rural community could be diverted to fight a fire in the middle of a forest that prevents, presents no immediate risk to human life or homes or infrastructure. In 2023, the forest service testified in opposition to this standalone provision because it would undermine existing strategic risk-based response that takes into account threats to human safety and public health. Additionally, the twenty-four hour timeline incentivizes speed over safety, an aggressive strategy that puts firefighters at increased risk from hazards of falling trees, for example, or burnover and smoke exposure. Ultimately, wildfire management decisions should be made on the ground by experienced firefighting professionals, not dictated by broad, overreaching federal policy.
Lastly, I asked the committee to support my amendment number 79 that would codify the state acres for wildlife enhancement initiative, also known as the SAFE initiative. Within the Conservation Reserve Program, the SAFE initiative specifically restores habitat for endangered or threatened species relevant to specific states, like the sage grouse in Washington state. As with other subprograms under the conservation reserve program, this gives farmers an opportunity to diversify their income by restoring land that would otherwise be unproductive for agricultural purposes. Together, these straightforward challenges would support our specialty crop growers, wildland firefighters, and existing programs that benefit farmers across the country. Hope to work with this committee to strengthen the Farm Bill as it comes to the floor. Thank you.
And I yield back.
Speaker 21
Thank you for allowing me to testify today on my three amendments. Last year, the House considered HR one the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP by $187,000,000,000 to give tax breaks to the wealthiest in our country. Republicans have gutted the most effective anti-hunger program in the United States, will have unforeseen consequences for generations. We're already seeing the impact. Since HR1 was enacted, more than 3,000,000 Americans have been kicked off SNAP, with losses reported in every state.
In Connecticut, more than 33,000 people have already lost their benefits, and we expect that number to rise. Families are having to choose between keeping a roof over their heads and paying for healthcare, and food becomes yet another impossible trade off. Not because their needs have changed, but because Congress changed the rules. My amendment, number 266, is simple. It would repeal the SNAP cuts in HR1 and restore full benefits to the 42 million Americans who rely on the program for food assistance.
HR1 expanded work requirements for older Americans and for parents with minor children. Prohibited the USDA from revaluating the Thrifty Food Plan. It eliminated the ability for families to use SNAP participation as an indicator for energy assistance programs or broadband access. And it created a massive unfunded mandate on the state governments. If it were as good as Republicans said it was, they'd be campaigning on this and sharing all of the wonderful aspects of it, instead of trying to change the rules and the narrative.
We have heard directly from states that the cost-sharing and administrative requirements may force them to opt out of the program entirely. These drastic cuts have hurt the farmers, ranchers, and producers who grow food, the small business owners who accept EBT dollars, and the grocers who serve our communities. Farmers stand to lose 24,000,000,000 over the next decade as household food purchases decline. My amendment is based on my legislation, the Restoring Food Security for American Families and Farmers Act, which has the support of 202 members of the House of Representatives and the endorsement of over 1,400 organizations. SNAP benefits are modest, averaging $6.2 per day or $2 per person per meal.
And these benefits are highly targeted. 92% of benefits go to households below the poverty line. At a time when grocery prices are rising and tariffs are increasing costs for families and farmers, we should be restoring SNAP and expanding access, not cutting it. Additionally, I have an amendment number 248 to strike the state cost sharing requirement for SNAP administration included in HR1. States cannot run a national program with shrinking federal support and growing administrative burdens.
Connecticut will incur an estimated SNAP benefit cost shift of $133,000,000 per year based on this unfunded mandate included in HR1. My amendment directs the Food and Nutrition Services at USDA to cover 100% of SNAP administrative personnel costs, ensuring states can administer the program effectively and efficiently. Finally, I have a third amendment, number 266, the strengthening safety nets for small farms. This amendment will address the lack of meaningful safety nets for small and diversified farms by strengthening two critical programs, the Non-Insured Disaster Assistance Program and the Whole Food Revenue Protection Program. Connecticut has approximately 5,000 farms covering 372,000 acres.
These farms contribute about $4,000,000,000 annually to our state economy, and produce specialty crops for the entire country to enjoy. Small farms, including specialty crop growers, beginning farmers and diversified operations, consistently report these programs are too complex, too limited or too expensive to be usable. This amendment modernizes both programs so they can function as a safety net for producers who feed us and are often left out of traditional farm programs. Taken together, these amendments strengthen the safety net for farmers and families. They protect states from unfunded mandates, and they move this Farm Bill closer to meeting the needs of the people we represent.
To say I'm disappointed with this Farm Bill being considered today is an understatement. I ask today that these amendments be given full and fair consideration, or at least the same consideration that we gave to shrimp. And we have careful deliberation over the harmful impacts of HR1. This testimony here today has been oversimplified. Calories are cheap.
Nutrition is expensive. There's a reason why people choose soda over fruit juice, which could be upwards of $7 or $8 for a 96-ounce container of Welch's grape juice that I just checked, compared to $1 for a sugar drink. Also, how are these things going to get to the people in rural communities? Let's have meaningful conversations about that, how we can provide access to food for people, not take it away. We have the ability to make this right.
I implore you all to do so. And with that, I yield back.
Speaker 25
Thank you, Chairwoman Fox, and Ranking Member McGovern. I appear before this committee today to offer an amendment with Representative Lofgren to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026. This amendment would insert the text of HR 3227, the bipartisan farm workforce modernization act. The men and women who work America's farms feed the nation. However, in the past few years, we have seen labour shortages contribute to high food prices.
Last year, the US agricultural workforce fell by 155,000, about 7% between March and July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Pew Research Center also reported that total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July. As economic chaos and confusion continue, it is essential we provide stability to this critical workforce. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act, is legislation that I, along with a bipartisan group of my colleagues led by representative Lofgren and Simpson, negotiated over eight months back in 2019 with input from farmers, agricultural stakeholders, labor organizations, and farmworker advocates. The Farm Work Forge Modernization Act will stabilize the agriculture sector and preserve our rural heritage by ensuring that farmers can meet their labor needs well into the future.
It establishes a program for agricultural workers in the United States to earn legal status through continued agricultural employment. Farm workers who pass through thorough background checks can seek certified agricultural worker status if they worked at least 180 days in agriculture over the last two years. It reforms the H-2A temporary agriculture worker program to provide more flexibility for employers while ensuring critical protection for workers. This bill streamlines the H-2A visa process, accommodates the need for workers in year-round agriculture, and improves the availability of farm worker housing. It establishes a mandatory nationwide e-verify system for all agricultural employment.
This serves as the last necessary piece to ensure a legal workforce for the agricultural sector. Back in 2019, this legislation passed the house by a vote of 260 to 165, and I am proud that 34 Republican colleagues joined us in voting to advance this legislation. This was a historic moment since it was the first agriculture labor reform legislation to pass the House since 1986. Unfortunately, the Senate did not take it up. The bill passed the house with bipartisan support a second time in 2021, but did not get a vote in the senate.
Now in 2024, we can make history once again. By supporting this amendment to the Farm Bill, we can once again advance a bipartisan, targeted labor solution that our agricultural sector desperately needs. Thank you, madam chair. I yield back.
Speaker 13
Thank you, chairwoman, and ranking member Lot McGovern. I'm here to speak in favor of amendment number 362, a very short, simple, but powerful amendment, to better protect our communities across the country from the threat of catastrophic wildfires. I represent one of the most wildfire-prone areas of our country. Last year, wildfires ripped through our area, displacing thousands of LA County residents and destroying homes and businesses. The personal and economic damage will take years to recover.
Wildfire fires are no longer a seasonal threat, they are a year-round national crisis. Last year alone, the United States sustained over $224,000,000,000 in total damages from natural hazards. The LA fires caused an unprecedented 53,000,000,000 in damage, nearly a quarter of the entire nation's disaster costs for the year. This isn't just about fire season anymore. It's about the permanent vulnerability of our communities.
Currently, we are trapped in a reactive cycle. According to the fiscal year 2026 interior budget, we are requesting roughly $6,500,000,000 for wildland fuel management fire management, excuse me, wildland fire management. The vast majority of that, nearly $3,000,000,000, is locked away specifically for the wildfire suppression operations reserve. Here's the problem. We're spending billions of dollars to put out the flames, but pennies to prevent the spark.
Think about it, as an analogy to cancer. In the United States, we fund surgeries and chemotherapy, the care and treatment side of the equation. We also recognize that we must research and prevent the disease, which is why the National Cancer Institute's 2026 budget is over $7,000,000,000 dedicated to research and prevention efforts, as well as billions more on lifestyle changes to prevent cancer from beginning. We don't wait for a stage 4 diagnosis to start looking for a cure. Yet in forestry, our current budget structure forces us to do exactly that.
We wait for the stage 4 wildfire before we can touch the major pots of funding. Research and prevention are upstream interventions. Here's what that looks like for wildfires. It means stopping the disaster before the first 911 call is even made. My amendment tackles two tangible pillars: fuels management and technology development.
To put it simply, fuels management is simply taking the matches away from Mother Nature by thinning out the dead brush and overgrowth that can turn a small brush fire into a $50,000,000,000 catastrophe. The impact is undeniable. Studies show that strategic fuels treatments can reduce the risk of catastrophic loss in high-risk areas by up to 70 percent. On the technology side, we're seeing incredible breakthroughs from AI-driven satellite arrays that detect smoke in seconds, to autonomous drones that can drop fire treatment in zero visibility conditions where human pilots can't fly. This is how people are developing the tools to fight twenty-first century fires.
My amendment is simple. It gives the US Forest Service the flexibility to use a portion of the dollars they currently spend on suppression for these crucial upstream interventions. We should be investing in the cure, not just the emergency room visit. I urge my colleagues to support this common-sense amendment and find ways to stretch our federal dollars. Every dollar that we shift to mitigation isn't just a saving.
Research shows that for every $1 we invest in mitigation, we save $6 in future disaster costs. Let's stop chasing the smoke, and start solving the problem. I yield back. Thank you.
Speaker 9
It's on. Okay. Good afternoon. Chairwoman Fox, ranking member McGovern, and all the dear members of the committee, as we testify on behalf of H.R. 7567, US Department of Agriculture authorizing bill, and try to move it across the finish line after three years of delay. We know that every successful farm bill has rested on bipartisan cooperation.
And, with careful balance between food production and nutrition that others have spoken about. Farmers across our heartland and from coast to coast rely on consistency and the ability to plan. That makes the forthcoming debate and amendments critical, as well as difficult. And I appreciate Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Craig for their efforts to find a path forward. I come today to say that from the region I represent, the asks by regular people at our food banks is at an all-time high.
Secondly, farm bankruptcies are at an all-time national high. Farmer suicide is above the national average and at an all-time high. Our country is importing more food now than we are exporting, just in fruits and vegetables. We import 75% of what we consume. That is not a winning strategy for agriculture.
And the Trump administration tariffs and $20,000,000,000 doled out to Argentina from our US taxpayers were not well received in regions like I represent. Imagine how those dollars could be turned to help our farmers meet some of the increasing costs that they're bearing right now. I come with several amendments to this bill, and really urge the committee to move forward in a way that allows amendments to be adopted so we can vote for a good bill. I'm supporting several amendments. I will address five.
Number 367 would strengthen the crop insurance program, making it better than what is in the base bill. I support all the amendments dealing with E15. I want to go to the 30 and beyond. Brazil's already moving to €60. We got to be smarter in my district.
I have 8 rural counties. Half the income of farmers is from fuels drawn from corn and soy. Fuels are terribly important to the survival of the American farmer across the country. Amendment 275 would address the suicide hotline 988 to help farmers access it more easily, and believe me, it's needed. The amendment 257 addresses a severe problem in the Great Lakes of tons, thousands of tons of dredge material that comes from the fertile region around the Great Lakes region.
We need to filter it, and we need to put it back into land complements, and we're asking the help of the committee to do that. Also, amendment 271 has a strong Buy American for local procurement of food and, from local producers in every way that we can do that to help the remaining generation of farmers continue. And then amendment 245 is an inflation adjustment to the senior farmers market program, nutrition program. It hasn't been adjusted for the last 2 decades. And we know how important that is for seniors to buy from local producers at local farmers' markets.
So those are the amendments I will be producing. And I couldn't urge the committee strongly enough, in order to move this bill, which America wants. Let's do it on a bipartisan basis if we can. And I think it starts in this committee and your willingness to receive all of us, to try to make a better bill. Thank you so much. And, you know, I just want to say both to Angie Craig and to GK Thompson, they have worked so hard.
Let's find a way to improve this bill so we can, hopefully, vote for it. Thank you.
Speaker 38
Thank you, madam chair. You know, last month, the Kona Low storms tore through Hawaii. I saw catastrophic flooding swallow fields, crops completely washed away, livestock gone, and one-third Hawaii farmers pushed to the breaking point. But the truth is our farmers were already drowning before the rains began. Drowning in rising costs, drowning in shrinking markets, drowning in increased uncertainty.
In Hawaii, when farms struggle, families feel it first. They're drowning too. We import nearly 90% of our food. So when our local producers go under, it's more than an economic hit. It's a food security crisis.
It's empty shelves. It's higher prices. Less fresh food in our schools. More hunger in our communities. This farm bill must be their lifeline.
That's why I'm here today to push for meaningful amendments that deliver actual relief. My amendment number 246 calls for $10,000,000,000 in one-time economic assistance for specialty crops. Every state and territory in this country grows specialty crops, and 95% of all US counties with farms produce them. From coffee to kalo, to almonds and orange trees, these crops are the backbone of local food systems everywhere. Yet only 7% of USDA farm bridge assistance, 7% of $12,000,000,000, is actually going to specialty crop producers.
My amendment would provide real relief across all of farm country, ensuring that our specialty crops aren't left behind. Additionally, I'm advocating to restore $660,000,000 that was cut from the local food for schools program. That's amendment 68. Fresh local food belongs in our schools, and the farmers who grow it deserve our support. And we also can't talk about a farm bill without talking about tariffs.
Trump's illegal tariffs cost our farmers over $8,000,000,000 last year alone, driving up the cost to produce the food, fuel, and fiber this country runs on. My amendment number 99 would reset tariffs to pre-term administration levels and expedite tariff refunds to farmers, providing the certainty they need to survive and thrive. We must also secure funding for the reimbursement of transportation cost payment program or RTCP. This critical program helps rural and island farmers manage the high cost of shipping, but is chronically underfunded, leaving farmers uncertain about their future. My bipartisan amendment number 194 would ensure reliable funding for RTCP to support producers and our local food security.
I also have a bipartisan amendment number 133 to address the administration's hasty decision to close the Institute for Pacific Island Forestry in Hilo, and ensure this world-class facility that has been doing important research has the resources it needs to continue to serve Hawaii and our Pacific territories. This farm bill also does nothing to reverse the disastrous cuts to SNAP that we've heard about here. That's my hard line in the sand. We can talk all we want about rotisserie chicken and shrimp, but at $2 a meal and 3,000,000 Americans already kicked off SNAP, too many of our veterans, our seniors, our keiki. From keiki to kapuna, they are going hungry in our communities throughout this country.
This could also be our very last chance to save rural hospitals on the brink of closure as a result of the big ugly bill and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. HHS has made clear that the rural health transformation funding cannot be used to provide short-term life support for rural hospitals. That's why I submitted an amendment, number 100, to open up USDA community facilities funds to help facilities cover workforce costs and revenue losses, and protect access to rural health care and mental health services, and keep those hospital doors open. With hundreds of amendments filed from members on both sides of the aisle aimed at improving this bill, from strengthening disaster assistance to support for local food systems to rolling back harmful pesticide provisions still left out. It's clear this bill is not yet where it needs to be.
Here's the bottom line. A farm bill, even a skinny one, that leaves out critical provisions like these and others, written without true bipartisan negotiation, is not just incomplete. It does harm. It sends a message that Congress is not listening. It locks in bad policy and makes it even harder, not easier, to build the effective, sustainable agriculture system we need.
It tells our farmers that they have to weather this storm alone, and we can't afford that, especially in Hawaii, or anywhere in this country. So let's get this right. Let's deliver a real bipartisan farm bill that keeps farmers on their land and puts food on our table. Thank you, madam chair, and I yield back.
Speaker 39
Thank you, Chairwoman Fox and Ranking Member McGovern. It's great to be here with you once again. I have amendment 178 before you. This amendment, chairwoman, you have supported and spoke in support at the last congress. My amendment has zero cost.
It is a common sense bipartisan reform to fix our nine one one system. Before I was elected to congress, I worked as a 911 dispatcher for 17 and a half years. I know firsthand the challenges our public safety dispatchers face, the stress that they are put under, and the importance of their work. 911 dispatchers are the first voices you hear when your entire world is falling apart. Nine-one-one dispatchers regularly talk people out of committing suicide.
They provide CPR instructions to people in critical health emergencies, including terrified mothers while they are giving birth. They help victims stay safe during home invasions and other violent crimes. They are the first negotiators during incidents that involve a hostage. That is not secretarial work. That work requires skill, calm, and many hours of training.
Unfortunately, 911 dispatchers are currently categorized as secretaries by our federal government. We are asking nine one one dispatchers to make life or death decisions in under ten seconds, but categorize them as though they're scheduling meetings or facilitating lunch for the boss. Currently, there are zero administrative staff who are required to undergo the amount of training and evaluation that is required for public safety telecommunicators. This is a very specialized occupation that requires professionals to think critically and use extensive skills and training to help keep our communities safe. And that is why I've introduced a bipartisan amendment to reclassify these jobs as protective service occupations.
I want to thank the members of this committee who cosponsor the bill and the cosponsor the amendment as well. We have been able to get it out of the house multiple years in a row. We've been able, the senate has been able to get it out of the senate multiple years in a row, but somehow our calendars cannot align and we run out of time. The amendment would direct OMB to recognize the lifesaving work dispatchers do each and every day, to ensure that all classification standards place the public safety first. It is time Washington stopped treating a lifesaving profession like a clerical one.
These hardworking individuals are not secretaries. Far from it. They are the first voice of public safety. I also wanna take a moment, madam chair, to mention two other amendments that I support that are before you. 5,000,000 Californians rely on CalFresh to feed their families.
That is why I'm supporting Congresswoman Hayes' two amendments to restore last year's cuts to the SNAP program. Hardworking families in the Atlanta Empire and I that I represent, and across America, are struggling to put food on the table. Prices for groceries, rent, gasoline, and utilities are through the roof. Families suffered last year, due to tariffs, and they are struggling even more now with the war in Iran, raising gas prices and the cost of everything. The 2025 tax law cut 187,000,000,000 for SNAP and CalFresh, which in my district alone is 112,000 Californians, rely on that.
One in five kids rely on SNAP. We must work together to repeal these cruel cuts, so families can put food on the table. I urge the committee to support these amendments and my amendment, and I yield back.
Speaker 34
Thank you, madam chair, ranking member. I also support additional forest management. I'm going to speak about 5 different amendments today. Amendment 244, roadless rule, nullifies the rule, notified as special area roadless area conservation issued on January 2001 at 66 Fed Reg 3244, and prohibits future implementation of similar rules by the secretary of agriculture. In 2001, the US Forest Service implemented the Roadless Area Conservation Rule known as the Roadless Rule.
This rule was designed to block access to management and use to 58,500,000 acres, creating inventoried roadless area. The roadless rule has blocked recreational access, prohibited road construction even when such roads are necessary to protect the environment and prevent active fuels management, thereby increasing the risk of catastrophic wildfires across the West. The roadless rule is an outdated administrative rule that contradicts the will of Congress and undermines the US Forest Service's mandate to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of our nation's forests and grasslands. My amendment simply removes this disastrous rule and prevents a similar policy from being made in its place. This amendment brings forest policy back in line with the law, restores active management, reduces wildfire threats, and supports the rural economies that depend on responsible timber production and land stewardship.
Amendment 250, the Grasslands Grazing Act, adds the text of H 6,300 to put ranchers with permits to graze on national grasslands in parity with those grazing on other federal lands. My amendment would insert the text of my bill, H.R. 6300, which would recognize grazing on national grasslands as an official use that is simpler, similar to FLPMA. Section 402, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, authorizes grazing permits for ten years on National Forest or Bureau of Land Management lands, with renewal eligibility subject to continued compliance of the permit holder. Grazing on national grasslands is designated by the Bank Head Jones Farm Tenant Act and authorized for ten years, but is not protected and recognized as an official use similar to FLTMA. Ranchers with permits to graze on national grasslands are not guaranteed permit renewals, and have experienced unnecessary hurdles and delays.
The exclusion of the national grasslands under FLTMA creates two classes of permits, with the grasslands having fewer rights, and what causes the loss of AUMs on multiple grasslands across several states. My amendment would be as a permanent fix to this issue, providing much-needed certainty and security for our ranchers. Amendment 259, the USDA loan cap raise, raises loan limits under Section 310B of the USDA Business and Industry Loan Program to $150,000,000. My amendment would raise the loan cap currently offered by the USDA under the USDA Rural Development's Business and Industry Guarantee Loan Program. This program serves rural America by making sure that rural businesses have easier access to loan guarantees and access to capital for industrial development and expansion. Rural businesses having access to capital directly leads to more jobs in rural America and across my home state of Wyoming.
The existing cap was set more than a decade ago and has not stayed current with the rate of inflation, nor has the cap maintained competitiveness with the industrial demand. Furthermore, the kind of projects that we need to be built for our critical mineral supply, energy development, or processing of resources in our heartland need more capital compared to a decade ago to be able to compete with our adversaries abroad. And finally, amendment 240, MCOOL amendments reinstates mandatory country of origin labeling for beef and buffalo. This amendment would reinstate the mandatory country of origin labeling for beef. American consumers deserve accurate information on the products they buy, and US ranchers deserve honest and fair competition in the marketplace.
The U. S. Abandoned MCOOL for beef in 2016, following a World Trade Organization ruling. This change lifted the profit margins of monopolistic big packers at the expense of the American rancher. The domestic market is finally providing the means for our producers to keep family ranches alive, and we must protect these operations by providing full transparency of the origin of beef in the marketplace.
Mandatory country of origin labeling is more important to grow the size of the national herd, which has diminished over the years, and stop the blending of cheap foreign beef and high quality U. S. Products. Consumers deserve the right to choose what kind of beef they buy and where they buy it from, and American ranchers deserve the right to compete in their own open market against each other. This amendment will accomplish both, and with that, I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Miss Hageman. Let me see. Mister Scott, do you have any questions? Mr. Norman?
Speaker 13
I represent the North Side of LA County, sir. But it applies to, you know, all the American West, really. Is that your question?
Speaker 20
Yes. I heard it was lost most part of the biggest ones were in Los Angeles.
Speaker 13
Yeah. That's right. In the North Side of LA County and Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 20
I agree with your statement about prevention and about, you know, you referred to cancer, which each patient, if you refer to a person, has got the obligation to take precautions to avoid cancer and take the treatment. How do you what responsibilities California have when the insurance premiums were capped? Many of the insurance companies cannot cover, and they left the state. And a lot of the people I know, there are few that are still there building, can't rebuild because of regulations. The fire hydrants did not add water to them.
I guess that was a regulation that was there. And I just looked up, there's a fire aid that was totally raised $100,000,000 for wildfire lease relief. Of the 100,000,000, 75,000,000 granted to 188 nonprofit school groups, aid for housing and food assistance. And some funds supported victims, with different problems. Of the 100000000, only 25000000 went to fire recovery.
What responsibility does California have to get the house in order before you request money from the federal government the state contributes to?
Speaker 13
Well, I think the main point I would make is that wildfire is a national challenge, sir. And we all need to do our part, right? The state needs to do its part. As you know, I'm sure, large.
Speaker 13
The natural wildlands in California are federally managed national forests. The fire in Altadena originated on land on that side. We all have things that we need to do. And so California is pushing unprecedented resources into fuels management and suppression. I want to focus on what matters.
And what matters is that if we spend all of our money on suppression, that's just going to be a hole that we push a huge amount of billions in. So what I'm trying to do here, sir, is to actually save money for the federal government because the more we can do on fuels management and smart technology that gives the right tools for frontline firefighters, we'll actually spend less on the part of the federal government as the federal government fulfills its obligations inside the US Forest Service. So my intention here is to save the federal government money, but more importantly, to save the frontline communities that stretch, yes, certainly in California, but across, you know, the West, in Utah and Montana and many other states. And I will represent to you that the fire chiefs that I talked to support this direction. They want to have the flexibility, and they want the forest service to have the flexibility to spend more on fuels management, mastication, planned burns, other things, as well as try to experiment with these new technologies that could help us find these fires on the toughest days.
Speaker 20
But would you not agree that prevention is where the money needs to be spent on, just one agency. The money didn't go to where it was meant to go.
Speaker 13
I mean, the whole point of this amendment, sir, is to push is to allow the forest service the flexibility to spend more money on prevention. So I do agree with that.
Speaker 20
Well, we had a group that came by our office. And, in South Carolina, we don't let the facts get built up in the federal lands. We manage it. These environmental wackos, we don't listen to them. And the fact that they it's worked in South Carolina.
California, it has not worked. And you got such a good state to let regulations, to let opposite good management, best management practices just hadn't happened there. And I would oppose any money going to a state that just needs to get this house in order, as it does as many of the other states.
Speaker 13
To close out this point, I think, you know, all states probably have more work they can do in terms of disaster prevention. You know, American South has work to do on flooding from hurricanes that are getting worse. The Midwest has work to do in terms of tornado readiness. I think that, you know, it's not one or the other or this thing has to happen before that thing. We will be with the increased risk of wildfires for the entire future of this country.
And I think we have to work together as partners, federal government and state government, to protect our frontline communities.
Speaker 5
Well, thank you. I want to thank all of you for your testimony, your amendments, and your patience. And we have heard from a lot of people. There's a lot more people who want to testify, which I think points out the imperfections of this current Farm Bill as it is drafted. I just want to say one thing, Ms.
Hayes, I appreciate your amendments. In particular, we hear a lot of commentary back and forth on the issue of SNAP and those who are struggling with food insecurity. I've heard everything from, you know, oh, it's illegal aliens getting all these benefits, or, you know, it's the people should just get a job or whatever. A big chunk of the people who are on SNAP are working. They're working full time, and they have kids and they have families, and it's $2 per person per meal on average.
And so maybe again, I'm on the agriculture committee as well. Maybe it won't happen in this Congress, but maybe in the next Congress. We got to spend a day listening to people with lived experiences because it's clear that the so-called experts and even members of Congress don't know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to the struggles that people on SNAP are dealing with right now. So, I thank you very much. I know we gotta move on.
But, anyway, I hope your members remain on our members. Hayes, I'll let you respond.
Speaker 21
I just wanna say, real quickly. I mean, we've belabored this point. I know where people in this congress stand on this issue. But when you're talking about someone with lived experiences, I can tell you that growing up when my grandma took us to the store with her, we didn't fill up the cart with sugar drinks and candy bars. She stretched every dollar of her benefits to make sure we made it till the end of the month.
She baked her own bread. She, on the rare occasion when she made a cake or something, did it from scratch. She went to the farmer's market. So this idea that just because a person is poor, that they are making frivolous food choices, squandering away their benefits, is just not the reality, and it's not how this works. You know, I would have loved to hear my colleagues' answer to why just chicken?
You know what I mean? This is not just about, I mean, it starts with providing nutrition, but then it goes a step further to attempting to strip people's dignity. Even people who are doing the best that they can do still fall short sometimes. Even people who are working multiple jobs still fall short. And the fact that at people's lowest moment, our response in this moment is to kick them.
When the price of everything is going up, instead of making investments in the things that we can control, it is, quite frankly, the shame of this nation. We can afford to feed people. And I'll take it one step further. We can afford to feed the children. I've heard several people.
You read the text? I've read this text over and over again. This text lowers the age of a minor child from 18 to 14. This text reverses all of the changes that were made to foster youth. This text provides work requirements for elderly people, for disabled veterans, for all of these groups.
And if it didn't, you would hear the other side championing the bill and really helping to amplify it, instead of switching the narrative. So, know how this is going to land. I'm going to keep pushing for these provisions. But it is shameful that we keep coming back to this place. And I hope everyone is listening to this, because we're not done.
We saw this in the debt ceiling. We saw this in the reconciliation. We saw it in HR1. And I expect to see it again when we come up on reconciliation again, because the cuts to SNAP and to programs that feed people are never ending. And we have the ability to stop that.
Speaker 5
I appreciate it. And again, we are hearing reports that they're looking at reconciliation for even deeper cuts in SNAP. At the same time, we're giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. I thank you. I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you very much. You all are excused. We're going to take 4 more people and then break to go vote. Mister Manion, Mister Fine, Mister Thompson, Mister Garamendi. Thank you for coming around.
Recognize.
Speaker 40
Thank you, Chairwoman Fox and Ranking Member McGovern, members of this committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here this evening on two of my amendments. First, amendment number 167 would add immersive technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality to the definition of precision agriculture technology used in conservation efforts. Earlier this year, I introduced HR 6968, the Immersive Technology for the American Workforce Act, a bipartisan bill to strengthen federal workforce development programs to better prepare Americans for the expanding role of immersive technologies in our economy. This amendment builds on that same principle, ensuring that as these technologies become more prevalent across industries, our agricultural sector is not left behind.
Precision agriculture is about doing more with less: less water, less fertilizer, fewer inputs, and better environmental outcomes. Immersive technologies are already transforming how farmers and land managers make decisions. They're being used to train producers, simulate conservation practices, and model outcomes before a single seed is planted. For example, the University of Georgia's Institute for Integrated Precision Agriculture is harnessing the power of this technology to create virtual replicas of farming systems to allow producers to test potential conservation strategies before implementing any costly changes in the field. By explicitly including these technologies in the definition of precision agriculture, we ensure that USDA conservation programs keep pace with twenty-first century innovation, helping farmers lower costs through more efficient practices.
I represent Central New York and the Mohawk Valley, a region where dairy, specialty crops, and family farms define our landscape and our economy. And right now, our farmers are facing a perfect storm of rising input costs and closed export markets. At the same time, the families I represent are dealing with a persistent affordability crisis at the grocery store. That is why my second amendment, amendment number 348, directs the GAO to conduct a comprehensive study on the impact of tariffs on food prices. We cannot have a serious conversation about rising food costs without examining the role of this administration's roughshod and inflationary tariff policy.
Farmers in my district are being squeezed on both ends. They're paying more for imported inputs like machinery and fertilizer, while losing access to foreign markets due to tariffs. This amendment is straightforward. It provides the transparency Congress needs to understand how this tariff policy is directly affecting both producers and consumers, and what we need to do moving forward to lower grocery bills of working families. Historically, the farm bill works because it is a pact between those who grow our food and those who need help buying it, which is why I'm also a cosponsor of Miss Hayes' amendment to restore $187,000,000,000 in SNAP cuts passed in the One Big Beautiful Act.
Governors from both political parties have warned that these cuts will undermine the program's viability. In New York alone, 46 thousand children and nearly 300 thousand people with disabilities rely on SNAP. In my district, over half of the SNAP households include a person with a disability. These are veterans, seniors that are on fixed incomes. Cutting SNAP doesn't just hurt the hungry, it also hurts our farmers.
Every dollar in SNAP benefits is a dollar spent at a local grocery store or farmer's market. By cutting these benefits, this bill is literally taking customers away from producers in Central New York and the Mohawk Valley. So I urge this committee to strengthen this bill by making my amendments in order, and adopting changes to fully restore staff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
Don't pay enough. Excuse me. How some people don't pay enough. But 1%, the top 1% of Americans today, pay 38% of the taxes that come in. The top 10%, 71%.
The bottom 50% only pay 3%. We're already asking people to pay a huge percentage of what it is that they make, yet we still don't have enough. Compassion used to be measured by how much of your own money you were willing to give to take care of the less fortunate. Over time, changed to how loudly you could demand others give their money to take care of the needy. But today, we don't even measure it that way.
We measure it by how much money we're willing to borrow from my children and yours, and your grandchildren, to give it away. My amendment, amendment number 335, deals with a simple idea, and that is if we're going to have these programs to take care of needy Americans, that they should only be for needy Americans. And my amendment would end eligibility to SNAP for all non-Americans. This isn't an amendment that just deals with illegal immigrants. It deals with anyone who is in America who is not an American.
We can have a big debate about people coming here. If you wanna come here for freedom and opportunity, that's a discussion I think we should have. But if you're coming to America to get free stuff, you should stay home. And this amendment would eliminate eligibility for all foreigners in this country. We've heard a lot of conflation where people who are not Americans are called Americans when they lose SNAP.
I think that's the wrong thing to do. And we've also talked about the immorality of taking these benefits away from people. But I would argue that it is immoral to continue to ask my children, your children, and our grandchildren to go into deeper debt to give free stuff to people who are not Americans. So all my amendment does, if you're American, you get SNAP, doesn't change anything beyond that. If you are not, you will lose all eligibility for the program.
That's the amendment, and I hope you'll strongly consider it. Thank you, madam chairwoman.
Speaker 41
Thank you, madam chair, and thank you, ranking member McGovern, for recognizing me, and I thank the committee for your consideration of a couple of important amendments I have to the farm bill. Let's be clear about the moment we're in. The farm bill, the farm economy is in crisis. Across our country, farmers are squeezed from every direction. The trade war closed key export markets.
Tariffs are making inflation worse. The war with Iran is compounding the crisis with higher costs for fertilizer and fuel. This is not abstract. I just met with a group of third, fourth, and fifth-generation family farmers from my district who are on the brink of bankruptcy. That's why the Farm Bill matters.
This bill is our opportunity to respond to the economic realities facing agricultural producers today, and that must include financial assistance for specialty crops. Specialty crop producers are the backbone of American agriculture, particularly in states such as California that I represent. They feed our country and much of the world, yet too often they're treated as an afterthought in farm policy. That needs to change. My first amendment number 108 would provide 10,000,000,000 in direct relief to specialty crop producers and 2,000,000,000 for crop processors.
If we're serious about stabilizing the farm economy, we can't leave this sector behind. Let's also remember that the farm bill is a food bill. It is a conservation bill. It's a research bill. It's one of the most consequential pieces of legislation that this Congress passes, which is why it's so concerning that at a time we're debating this legislation, Republicans are allowing $186,000,000,000 in cuts to nutrition programs that are gonna take effect.
Food security has always been part of the farm bill for as long as I've been around. You can't claim to support rural America while pulling the rug out from under families who rely on nutrition assistance and local economies whose programs it supports. That's why I'm offering an amendment to restore the nutrition funding cuts made by HR one by clawing back some of the generous tax breaks given to billionaires, those who are earning over $1,000,000,000 a year. Families should not go hungry so billionaires can feast on Republican tax breaks. No child submits a meal so billionaires can get another tax cut.
Republicans are taking food off the tables to serve another tax break for billionaires. The farm bill is drafted, fails our farmers, and fails the hungry. Fortunately, this committee has the opportunity to make in order amendments that address the shortcomings in this bill. I urge the committee to make these amendments in order. I thank you, and I yield back to balance my time.
Speaker 8
I thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member. I'm gonna cut short my testimony, but simply jump on what Mr. Thompson just said. He laid out very clearly why we ought to restore the SNAP programs. There have been other members here who have done that. I do fully support and sign on with Miss Hayes and her work.
So I'll let it go at that. My wife and I have been involved in food security for more than 60 years internationally and nationally. My wife served at the Department of Agriculture, where she was responsible for food security domestically as well as internationally. There is absolutely every reason to restore the SNAP program. Of course, every program can be improved, and the improvement would probably be to add more people with greater benefits, as Mister McGovern has been talking about repeatedly.
We should do it. There is no moral reason, and there's every moral reason to provide food. I've watched people starve in Africa, and I watched them starve in America. This bill, the farm bill, is a solution to at least part of the problem. I do have a second amendment, and this deals with the Forest Legacy program that I'm working with Mr. Calvert on.
We'd ask that our legislation be added to the bill. And what it does, the Forest Legacy Management Flexibility Act would allow states to access the federal government program for setting up conservation areas throughout the nation. These areas would restore the opportunity for private landowners, for the states, for other entities to conserve forest land. I won't go further in the detail of it, but it would provide flexibility, and it would also enhance our ability to deal with problems that, mister Norman spoke to earlier about, the ability to have safe forests and to manage those forests in a way. I would point out that it's not just California that has significant wildfires.
I believe in the last couple of days, there's been a very significant problem in Georgia as they're having most every state. So the Forest Legacy Management Flexibility Act would help states, local governments, and private entities to access the federal money to restore and to maintain the forest. With that, I yield back.
Speaker 4
Well, madam chair, I appreciate the fact that the fires in the state of Georgia were mentioned. And I will tell you one of the reasons that they have not been as bad is because we have a tremendous amount of private forest land, and we regularly burn. So we don't have the accumulation of fuel on the ground. And I wish that we were allowed to do proper forest management on federal properties the same way it's done on personal property in Georgia. Got to obviously, we have problems, people losing their homes and other things, but it would be much, much worse if we didn't do proper forest management in Georgia.
And I wish we could do that same thing on federal properties. And with that, appreciate you being here, and I'll yield.
Speaker 5
Thank you, Mr. McGovern. I thank you all for being here. And, mister Thompson, mister Garmindi, I appreciate your comments on Snap. I do think that being the richest country in the history of the world to find it acceptable that over 40,000,000 of our fellow citizens are hungry, that is somehow acceptable. You know, it blows my mind.
And to those who support these cuts, to people who are in need, and again, a lot of them are working full time in this country. Undocumented immigrants are not entitled to SNAP benefits. Most legal immigrants are not entitled to SNAP. In fact, in the big ugly bill, I think you banned most legal immigrants, including people seeking asylum and women who are victims of domestic violence from getting the benefits. But these cuts in this bill, I think, are immoral, and I hope that we'll have the opportunity to debate and to amend the bill.
So those of us who believe that we should restore those cuts have an opportunity to do so. I doubt that's going to happen, quite frankly. And I guess, we just have a different set of values. But I thank you for being here. You're back.
Speaker 20
I want to thank you all for coming. And Congressman Fine, I appreciate your comments. We're 100% with you. You're back.
Speaker 5
I just wanna ask your name as consent to insert in the record statements from representative Meeks and Sari Cleaver, Landsman, and Crockett, who had passed that the testimony be part of the record.
Speaker 36
Misleasure Fernandez. Thank you so very much for being here and presenting your amendments. You know, I'm sorry the airline industries are always failing me. And, but I will say it struck me in terms of listening to the different amendments. You know, I walked in, and the Republican amendment really is talking about, you know, the richest, they pay so much.
The reality is 88 of the richest corporations in America paid 0% in taxes. And that is our problem, cause many of those richest corporations, the billionaires, they made billions. And they're making more because of the big beautiful bill, because Republicans chose to give them tax cuts, and they're paying for it with hunger. And that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about hunger, and it is immoral.
It is immoral as a country to say we will give tax breaks to Trump's biggest corporate donors, not the biggest donors. Like, Tesla paid 0% in taxes. Palantir paid 0% in taxes because of the tax breaks given to them by the Republicans. So that is immoral in my mind to take food out of those who are hungry, to take it away from them in order to give these tax breaks. And when we talk about the debt, $4,700,000,000,000 in debt is what we publicans chose, because budgets are a moral choice.
And I'm gonna introduce when I get back a letter led by archbishop Rester, which included Jewish rabbis and imams and Buddhists and Presbyterians, an interfaith letter calling the big beautiful bill exactly that, immoral. And for us to do nothing now to rectify that problem, and instead have republican amendments that want to make it even worse, just tells America where the two parties stand. Republicans continue to stand with the biggest corporations, and Democrats are saying, let's help our farmers. Let's help out our ranchers. Let's make sure we have that EQIP funding.
Let's make sure we restore the funding to make sure that people in America are not going to bed hungry tonight. And thank you very much for bringing your amendments. And with that, I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you. There being no further questions, you all are excused, and we thank you for coming. Without objection, the committee stands in recess until approximately 08:15 p.m. M. Now, welcome Ms.
McLean Delaney, Ms. Hoyle, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Jackson, Ms. Pingry, Ms.
Spartz. Red light. Now recognize you for your speech, five minutes or less.
Speaker 12
Thank you, chairman and ranking chair. Before turning to my amendments, I just want to address the reality facing farmers in rural America. Across Western Maryland and this country, our farmers really are hurting. Farm bankruptcies are up 46% this year over last, due to nonsensical tariffs. Our increased workforce costs are due to immigration and USDA cuts.
These challenges have cost our producers more than $25,000,000,000, and left 70% of our farmers unable to afford fertilizer. This is a crisis driven by policy decisions and circumstances outside the control of farming families. They do need a farm bill and policies which pragmatically meet the moment. And given the challenging circumstances, many in rural America must now rely on social safety net programs related to food assistance and are unable to afford their health insurance, particularly given that many small business farms were formerly able to utilize the ACA tax credits to gain health coverage. I said during the 22 hours of farm debate bill and committee that this legislation is insufficient to meet the needs of our agricultural sector.
A bill that effectively cuts real funding by 20% compared to the 2018 bill cannot meet today's needs, nor can a bill that rescinds over $1,000,000,000 in conservation programs while claiming to strengthen agriculture. We should not balance budgets on the backs of farmers while cutting programs like EQIP that farmers depend on. In Maryland, this proposal would reduce conservation support by roughly 10,000,000. That's a stat backward for Maryland and for all of us. This bill also presents a moral test.
While many of my colleagues have raised this point, so must I. Recent USDA data shows more than 3,000,000 Americans have already lost their SNAP benefits since the pass of HR one. In Maryland alone, nearly 22,000 people have already lost access to SNAP between last July and February, and those numbers are only expected to rise. One in nine families in my district relies on SNAP, half of whom are children. And often the paper and regulatory burdens are hard and difficult for these people who are able and qualified to receive SNAP but are losing their benefits.
My state, Maryland, now must assume an additional $223,000,000 in shifted SNAP costs. And while our Governor Westmore says we leave no one behind, it places an unsustainable burden on our states while we are trying to meet hunger. The consequences go beyond households. SNAP makes economic sense. And for every $1 invested in SNAP, it does reap back $1.05 in economic activity for many of our farmers who sell into SNAP for our groceries and our truckers.
27,000 grocery stores serving SNAP recipients are losing critical revenue. And also, we are risking losing 400,000 agricultural jobs that SNAP supports. They're not figures. They represent families, businesses, and communities. Two of my amendments before this body today address the affordability crisis facing American families, a crisis made worse in part by the policies enacted under HR 1.
The first repeals the administrative cost shift provisions of HR1, which shifts SNAP costs to the states until USDA certifies that these shifts will not reduce benefits, restrict eligibility, or force states to cut other critical services. The second repeals Subtitle A until the USDA certifies it will not reduce benefits for households with children. And I believe that children should be defined as all minors under the age of 18. A farm bill that fails to address SNAP and also feed our hungry families, veterans, and elderly harms us all. And most of them in my district do work.
They just can't make ends meet, and they need supplemental nutrition to do it. At the same time, USDA has proposed a sweeping reorganization effort that threatens to close offices and limit staff and weaken research ability. This is a structural overhaul at USDA that threatens to undermine critical research, vital for our agricultural sector, lose decades of institutional knowledge through the forced early retirements of relocated career employees, and undermine key institutions farmers rely on. The Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, otherwise known as BARC, shows what is at stake in the state of Maryland. BARC is just down the road from my district.
Last week, USDA announced plans to close BARC, a centrally old institution that researches and advances crop productivity, hosts our national bees lab, protects against pests and disease, improves nutrition, and supports 83,000 farms at the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Its work underpins about 10,000,000,000 in agricultural productivity. Closing it, I would put it at risk, but more than that, it would threaten key research, further innovation, U. S. Competitiveness and our nation's health and well-being.
My six district dairy farmers are very concerned about the loss of research related to the screw worm, a flesh-eating parasite attacking livestock across. This issue is, my third amendment prohibits unauthorized USDA closures and seeks to ensure that Congress' Article One authority is followed. At the moment, we stand with the people who feed this country and don't want to allow policies that undermine our key research. In closing, I grew up in a farm family, the daughter of a potato farmer, and I will fight for ag interests and resilience. When I review this bill, I wanna make sure that the farm bill provides stability, pragmatism, and sound policy.
My concerns come from a shared, lived experience of my people that I represent, and I urge the adoption of these amendments, and that we return to passing a bipartisan Farm Bill for all of our farmers and rural communities. With that, I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you very much. Mr. Scott, do you have any questions? No. Mr.
McGovern?
Speaker 5
No. I just want to say thank you for your amendments. I support them all, and I too share your concern about USDA's reorganization plan. They're trying to shut down the Food and Nutrition Service office in Boston, which helps implement SNAP at a time when we have, because of the big ugly bill, new work requirements, new criteria about who's eligible, not to mention what's about to come in terms of the cuts. That means a lot of people who, quite frankly, are entitled to the benefit may fall through the cracks.
So I, you know, I support what you're trying to do. I thank you for your advocacy, and thank you for standing up for hungry people in this country. I yield back. Mr. Norman.
Speaker 36
Thank you so very much for coming with your amendments. And I really appreciated that you began your testimony talking about what this means for our farmers. Because some of the cuts that Republicans are proposing directly impact the ability of our farmers to withstand the crises that Trump has caused and that Republican support. And so from the tariffs, which they've all acknowledged, have been very difficult, to the increase in diesel costs and fertilizer costs, and that has consequences. And we know that farm bankruptcies are climbing in 2022.
They've increased for a second year in a row, reaching 315 filings in 2025, 46% increase. And so that's something that I'm very concerned about, and I appreciate it. Why did you choose that you wanted to make sure you talked about, like, EQIP and what that means for our farmers? I can tell you my stories, but I want to hear yours.
Speaker 12
Well, I think that you're right. All these things coming together are, I think, it's all of these costs together, it's the tariffs, it's the fertilizer, it's the increase. I think the USDA cuts have been unbelievable. But also, in terms of EQIPP, the conservation policies are incredibly important as well. I think it's a cumulative total how we're looking at the tsunami of cuts that are kind of coming at them.
And then a very unstable market with international market with our tariffs. And we are just hearing from our farmers that they don't know where to turn. And sadly, many of the farmers who have never had to apply for SNAP are themselves seeking nutritional assistance and, or, you know, are going up their health care. So it's additional costs on a household basis, in addition to being able to afford to keep their farm afloat.
Speaker 36
Right. And part of what we represent are farmers that aren't the huge cooperatives, right, that aren't the huge corporations, but rather those small and medium farmers that are essential to America, to rural America. And sometimes that it's not the only job. Right? I met with a farmer this weekend, and he said, well, you know, this means everything to me.
I inherited this land from my father and grandfather, but I have another job to keep it going. But I can't afford to keep filling up the tractor. And those that crip monies were what made the difference in dealing with the drought. Now I know that on the East Coast, we're dealing with something else. But in the Southwest, and in fact, in places like Georgia, Mr. Scott seemed to be upset about the fact that I pointed out that farmers in rural America are suffering under Trump and Republican policies.
But those, I don't know why they don't like the word conservation. Conservation is what the original ranchers and farmers were. They are the conservationists of their time, and they're taking a sledgehammer to their crib in the conservation programs.
Speaker 12
I think the conservation programs are the things that help sustainability and the long term health of our land and of our farming communities. But in addition to that, I think that the answer is that there's a tsunami of things that are happening both on a personal basis and a global basis. And they're struggling. And so many of our farmers in the 6th District, but particularly in our Ag Reserve, sell into SNAP. So that was an additional WIME as well.
Speaker 36
Right. And the idea that our farmers, I mean, people aren't going out and visiting their farmers if they are not aware that a lot of our farmers use SNAP. They're incredibly proud, but they also know that they need help because farming is not always the most profitable. They're lean years. And in those lean years, you need help.
And the multiplier effect for our farmers because some of our farmers sell into the programs where SNAP beneficiaries are utilizing them, and we need to talk about that as well. And Republicans seem to ignore that they are helping to destroy the economy in rural America. Not only is it immoral, but they are destroying our rural economy when they do this. I really want to thank you for your amendment. I want to thank you for pointing out how hard it is for states as well.
And with that, madam chair, I'll yield back.
Speaker 3
Well, you are welcome. Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Kelly. That's okay. I was going to yield to.
Speaker 5
Yes. I mean, I'm trying to just request your name is consent to ensure the record and the amendment testimony from resident commissioner Hernandez in support of his amendment number 201 to HR7567, which allows Puerto Rico to fully participate in the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
Speaker 3
And while we're doing that, I will, without objection, accept written testimony submitted from Mr. Hill to be entered into the record. Thank you. Mr. Griffith, do you have any questions for Ms.?
Delane? Okay. All right. Ms. Spartz, you're recognized.
Miss Delaney, you're welcome to leave or to say whatever you wish.
Speaker 42
Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. I have actually very important amendments, and I want to explain why it is. 85% of America food is produced by U. S.
Farmers. 97% are actually family-owned farms. And actually, each farm feeds 169 people annually. And if we think what the farm bill is really doing, you know, if you think what we're doing, we have crop insurance. But if you think of the price of fertilizer, chemicals, land, machinery, seeds, it's increased in the last 5 years.
It's from 30 up to 100%. If you think about the price of commodity, the price of commodity is decreased 40%. So if you take multiply process commodity by roughly 80%, you're losing money. Some farmers barely break even. We're going to help bankruptcies of family if we don't deal with input cost.
So insurance most of the time just goes to the insurance companies. A lot of times, farmers subsidize it. They put more of the money too, but it doesn't go people who don't have a crop interest. Maybe if you have a total loss, it matters. But in reality, insurance is not doing anything for farmers.
So, have to do something for the farmers. So, I have an amendment, it should be common sense. It should be actually a bipartisan issue. The same as right to repair issues. It should be bipartisan.
Farmers should be able to, you know, repair equipment or not have collections by large companies. And this amendment is very simple. It's actually dealing with just large farm equipment like combines, sprays, and tractors. It's exempt from emission standards. And I'll tell you why.
Because the work created when all, you know, diesel engines were plugged in and a lot of EPA standards, it's also plugged in for farmers. And that's a cost. You have to wait for the mechanic from John Deere to actually show up. It also adds cost to food. It's also a lot of farmers, they have to wait until somebody's gonna fix their equipment.
It loses power. It's a fire hazard. It's actually a very significant issue for a lot of farmers and adds an enormous amount of cost. So I think if we care about the affordability of food, if we care about American farmers, we need to start caring about the input cost. The only places that benefit are investors like Bill Gates and BlackRock.
That's who makes money, and farmers are getting screwed. So I think we should stop catering to billionaires in large Wall Street, but actually think about how we can help people to afford food and farmers to be able to survive. I hope this committee can accept this amendment. And, you know, it's just very small. It's very targeted.
It's just dealing with standards for tractors combined in large sprays. Truly large farm equipment. It doesn't deal with anything else, and I think it's extremely important. And farmers across the country are supportive of this. Indiana Farm Bureau, you know, endorses this.
You know, I talk to farmers and leadership in a variety of states, and every farmer tells you it's ridiculous what's happening. And I hope we're going to support it. And I hope even on a bipartisan basis if we care about truly the pharmacy. Thank you. I'll be back.
Speaker 43
Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Member, wanted to speak briefly about one of my amendments, amendment number 11, to include the Puppy Protection Act and the Farm Food and National Security Act. This is a bipartisan amendment that would enhance the animal welfare acts, which would close loopholes and establish humane science based standards of care to protect dogs from abuse and neglect. As legislators, we have a moral responsibility to protect our animals from cruelty and negligence, especially those suffering in large-scale commercial breeding operations, also known as puppy mills.
Key provisions of this amendment include requiring veterinary care and routine health screenings, adequate space, temperature control and access to outdoor exercise, clean, safe, and comfortable living conditions, prohibitions against harmful breeding practices, and improved socialization and enrichment requirements. I look forward to working with my colleagues on enhancing the animal welfare act, to hold bad actors and the puppy mill industry accountable. To madam chair and the ranking member. This is especially a problem in our home state of Pennsylvania. And, I personally have been subject to that unknowingly, long before I was here in congress.
I urge consideration of this amendment. And I would also like to share my support for Representative Luna's amendment number 28, to strike section 12006 or the Save Our Bacon Act from the Farm, Food, and National Security Act. Section 12 06 would harm America's small farmers and producers, threaten numerous state laws, and infringe on the fundamental rights of states to establish laws within their own borders. Demand from consumers, food companies, and farming communities has led states to adopt laws regarding the confinement of farm animals. Madam chair, my district, I'm proud to represent constituent companies that have updated their standards to be Prop 12 compliant.
Overturning the ability of states to regulate the poor products sold would punish companies that have already invested in greater human standards of production. Financially punishing family farmers and producers that seek to meet the growing demand for humanely produced pork would adversely harm these good actors. American farmers have consistently demonstrated their ability to innovate and respond to market demands without federal intervention dictating their business decisions. Today, half of all sow producers have moved away from gestation crates, supplying California, Massachusetts, and major national retailers like Costco and McDonald's, which demand gestation crate-free pork. These market driven solutions exemplify the adaptability of our agriculture industry and, also, something that we believe is very, very necessary to this amendment.
So I look forward to working with our colleagues on protecting and strengthening public health and humane standards, and not undermining the critical role states play in our federal system. And I urge the committee to adopt this amendment.
Speaker 3
Thank you very much. Now, Mr. Langworthy, any questions? K. Mr McGovern.
Speaker 5
Mister, I support your amendments. I think they're both good amendments and look forward to, you know, hopefully supporting them on the floor. And, mister Price, I have some other ideas about how we could help our farmers other than your amendment. Like, we could maybe get rid of the tariffs or get out end the war in Iran so that gas prices and fertilizer prices go down. But nonetheless, I appreciate the spirit in which you offer your amendment.
My question to you is, if these guys don't make an order because they're in charge, will you vote against the rule?
Speaker 42
Well, I'm very clear that I'm not going to support anything that we cannot truly help farmers. And we can talk about other input costs, but let's just start from something that drives it to cost. But my question is, would you support my amendment too? Are you not able to support that amendment?
Speaker 5
Yeah. I probably don't support your amendment. Lowering emission standards, trying to make.
Speaker 5
I think a better way would be to, you know, maybe lower gas prices, lower fertilizer prices, get rid of these tariffs that are killing our
Speaker 42
And we can deal with that too. We can increase production of fertilizer domestically, which actually helps a lot too.
Speaker 5
I'm not in control of this committee. Right. Your power is gonna be whether or not you vote against the rule if your member's not in order.
Speaker 42
Well, and, you know, listen, I I've been very, one of the members that willing to go and vote against the rules of my own party because I have responsibility for my own party, which, you know, it's very difficult, but I truly believe that we need to help the people on the ground. And I think it's important to help the people on the ground, and people are struggling. And if we care about food production, if we care not to be dependent on Brazil because we're gonna be importing food from them. Our firms will go bankrupt, and we have food cartels controlling our country. The only big companies right now benefit from all of this over-regulation.
So I think we should care. And I understand this is a very small, very narrow environment. And just dealing truly with just farmers, because it's so ridiculous. It's not fixable. Farmers staying on the ground with broken equipment.
And if you don't plan, it's a very tough job. You know, you go in oil and chemicals because for you, it's a very tough job, and you start losing money. Because if you don't, if your combine is broken or planter is broken, you are not able to put your crops in the ground. You start using yields. This is a huge issue.
It's a national emergency issue. So I think it's important, and we can look at other ways to do it. You know how we can increase production, not depend on countries who are adversaries. You know? And a lot of these fertilizers and a lot of chemicals are produced in foreign countries that actually do not like us.
So we're open minded to look at that, but I think this is just one narrow issue. Maybe we can move forward, and maybe we'll deal with the right to repair too. I think that should be a bipartisan issue too. But I'm trying to be very narrow and just at least make an incremental positive change for farms.
Speaker 3
Mister Scott, do you have any questions? Miss Cannon, I won't miss you this time.
Speaker 14
No. Thank you, and I appreciate the amendment with respect to the puppy mills. It has been a longstanding issue in the Commonwealth.
Speaker 36
Thank you so much. I appreciate that once again, I agree with the ranking member there. I appreciate the spirit of how do we make things less expensive and support our farmers. But, representative Fitzpatrick, if I asked you why are you here, I'm sure you would tell me that you were here because you were concerned about humane practices. Right?
And what I think is also very important about your amendments, especially with regards to why should the federal government outlaw states as they seek to promote more humane practices. Right. Is that it also, at the same time, benefits the small producers. Am I right on that? Because 100%. So can you expound on that a bit?
Speaker 43
Well, yeah. I mean, so Clemens Food Group, from you know, in Hatfield, they've been abiding by these regulations, and it's worked out great. You know, everybody appreciates it. The supply chain appreciates it. Their employees appreciate it.
They've complied with the regulations, and it's worked out great. And I think it's just patently unfair to undermine companies that are trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 36
Right. And I think that what we have in a place like New Mexico and across the country is that we have these huge meat packing programs, we have monopoly. And we need to address the monopoly. Mhmm. In our agricultural sector, because it's killing our small and medium producers. In New Mexico, our ranchers are having a hard time because the big boys don't let them sell.
They go after the grocery stores. It is a problem. And in an interesting way, these practices that the states are taking on are helping grow the small to medium producers. And I think that we should support those kinds of elements. And, you know, both of your amendments go to treating puppies, which are so adorable, more humanely.
And, you know, even if we choose to eat meat, which I do, you can't make tamales without some good pork, but we wanna use pork that's been raised sustainably and in a way that is, you know, humane. Right?
Speaker 43
And the puppy mill problem has gotten worse, actually, across America. Not always it is inhumane to the animals, but it's a fraudulent practice on consumers who are completely in the dark about, you know, the circumstances of puppies that they're purchasing, or adopting for that matter.
Speaker 36
Right. Right. And I think that these are things that come from the heart. And I think it's really important that we take up legislation, that we allow votes on the floor about legislation that touches issues like this, that come from the heart, but also have a good effect on consumers. And I think that that's why you're here.
Speaker 36
But on things that come from the heart, I do also, I mentioned earlier, that I was gonna bring up again the interfaith letter that was provided to Congress on 06/26/2025 with regards to the moral test of what we're doing in terms of whether or not we will allow people living in America to go hungry. And, madam chair, I'd like to introduce the letter dated 06/26/2025. It is signed by, you know, it's signed by archbishops. It's signed by rabbis, it's signed by Baptist.
Speaker 36
Yeah. Thank you very much. And I wanna just read from it. It says, from our, open quote, from our various faith perspectives, the moral test of a nation is how it treats those most in need of support. In our view, this legislation, the big beautiful bill, will harm the poor and vulnerable in our nation, to the detriment of the common good.
Its passage would be a moral failure for American society as a whole, and I think I personally think that we are engaged in another moral failure today when we fail to address those snap cuts and its impact on rural America. And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Speaker 3
Thank you. Mister Griffith, do you have any questions? Thank you. I believe that no one else is here to ask questions. So, Mr.
Fitzpatrick, Ms. Thanks, thank you very much for coming back.
Speaker 5
You're excused. Can I ask your name as consent to insert in the record a statement from Representative Jonathan Jackson in support of his amendment and Representative Val Hoyle.
Speaker 3
Without objection, so ordered. Is there anyone else seeking to testify on today's agenda? Seeing none, this closes the hearing portion of the meeting. Without objection, the committee stands in recess subject to the call of the chair.
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