The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE FARM BILL” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H8734-H8735 on July 26, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE FARM BILL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, it's a pleasure to be able to address my colleagues, and thank you for your leadership as well.
Madam Speaker, I wanted to speak this evening on the legislation that is before this House that takes a completely new turn in farming and the agricultural agenda for this Nation, and there are certain elements that I would like to highlight.
When you think of an agricultural bill, you think immediately of farms and ranches, particularly of large size, almost a large conglomerate of a series of farms that provide the food engine for America. But this bill draws my attention and support because of the number of other elements and turns and new directions that this legislation takes.
It's important to note that this bill has a new definition, one of nutrition. This bill reauthorizes nutrition programs, accounting for two-thirds of the bill's funding to help low-income families in need, including the food stamp program that keeps many Americans from going hungry. The bill increases the minimum benefit under the food stamp program for the first time in 30 years.
Just this past week, Madam Speaker, we announced the increase in the minimum wage, the first time in 10 years. One of the greatest tragedies here in this most powerful Nation and powerfully economic Nation is the number of people in America that go to bed hungry. The greatest disaster of that is that a huge percentage happen to be children.
This bill eliminates the current gap on child care costs to help the working poor meet rising costs. In addition, it nearly doubles the fund for emergency food assistance programs and expands the fresh fruit and vegetable snack program to all 50 States.
This bill focuses on an expanded view of nutrition and, in fact, increases the spending for nutrition by billions of dollars and expands the feeding of children by millions of dollars, but yet, it focuses on the family farmer and provides them with a resource base in order for those family farmers to survive.
I also applaud the fact that struggling, socially disadvantaged, and African American families who have farmed over the years and were abused under the United States Department of Agriculture and suffered, in fact, in a lineage of discrimination now will have a remedy, now will have recourse to a number of sections in this legislation that addresses the inequity of the treatment of black farmers, a number of extensions and protections that will make them whole after years of devastating, if you will, treatment by the United States Department of Agriculture.
I want to acknowledge the Agriculture Committee, the bipartisan work that they did, the chairman and the ranking member, Chairman Peterson and Ranking Member Goodlatte, on recognizing the work of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus that worked so very hard and the members of the committee that included David Scott and included the task force, Benny Thompson and G.K. Butterfield and a number of others that continued to work on this issue.
I had an amendment that I hoped to continue to address and that was to address the question environmentally of increasing the conservation fund for African American socially disadvantaged farmers. We still need to move in a direction of increasing the ability to, if you will, draw out of a dry arid land farming land or ranching land a survivable farm or ranch. I will continue to work on that issue. Even though that amendment was not made in order, I believe it's an issue that is crucial to continue the support and build a family farming system here in America that is still valuable and worth saving.
I do have an amendment that focuses on school lunches and school breakfasts, an issue in my district. Large corporations are now serving the Nation's schools for children who sometimes get no other meal other than school breakfast and school lunch. We're going to stand on the floor of the House and debate the question that it is the sense of this Congress to ensure that these lunches are nutritional, that they don't increase juvenile obesity, for we see a number of our children being overweight because of the food or lack of food that they have.
One other point as I close is simply to say the importance of alternative fuel is also counted in this legislation.
Overall, this legislation takes a new direction for America, an agricultural agenda, and I look forward to debating my amendment tomorrow.
____________________
