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.
“FARMERS FACE ENORMOUS AND IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the in the House of Representatives section section on pages H4197-H4198 on April 6.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FARMERS FACE ENORMOUS AND IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for 5 minutes.
Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the full Agriculture Committee hearing that we held on March 16, the focus of which was the 2018 farm bill and the role of climate change.
Recently, The New York Times wrote a series of stories and produced several videos denigrating rural Americans for providing the country with the safest, most abundant, and most affordable food supply in the history of the world.
Let's set the record straight. U.S. agriculture accounts for less than 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and that is according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Over the last 70 years, U.S. agriculture has tripled food and fiber production while usage of land, energy, fertilizer and other inputs has remained steady.
Early in the first session of this Congress, several of my Republican colleagues and I introduced a slate of climate-friendly and farmer-
focused bills. These bills are driven by commonsense solutions to benefit our environment and our farm industry.
Our farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers are the original climate champions. While there is more to be done, we must prevent efforts to fundamentally upend our commodity, conservation, and crop insurance programs to appease Washington think tanks. We must also reject complicating our programs and making climate the focus of every title of the upcoming farm bill reauthorization.
Madam Speaker, under the umbrella of natural land solutions, which includes farmers that grow crops, livestock, and our foresters, the research has shown that at this moment, based on the technology they use, they are responsible for sequestering 6.1 gigatons of carbon annually, greenhouse gas emissions.
To put that into perspective, that takes care of all the greenhouse gas emissions that are emitted on those lands, plus sequestering an additional 10.1 percent. So truly, the American farmer, rancher, and forester are the climate change champions anywhere in the world because of our science, technology, and innovation.
We must ensure agriculture production remains viable in rural America to keep production from increasing in areas of the world with lower environmental standards, worse labor conditions, and fewer food safety considerations. And that is why a robust safety net is critical to keeping farms and production here in the United States while lowering overall global greenhouse gas emissions.
Madam Speaker, our country and our farmers face enormous and immediate challenges including higher food prices, record inflation, and input costs, attacks on our energy independence, crop-protection tools, and dependable labor.
Now, these are the issues I hear about as I travel my district and the country. These are the issues we should be addressing.
I hope at the end of the day we recognize that our voluntary, locally led, incentive-based conservation system is working as intended, and that we must not undermine its continued success in supporting the environment and producers.
American agriculture is science. American agriculture is technology. And American agriculture is innovation. The demands of a 21st century farm economy, and economically viable climate solutions, depend on tools and policies that continue to unleash and increase the United States agriculture productivity.
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