[Pages H3784-H3799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2419, FOOD,
CONSERVATION, AND ENERGY ACT OF 2008

Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 1189 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

H. Res. 1189

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider the conference report to accompany the
bill (H.R. 2419) to provide for the continuation of
agricultural programs through fiscal year 2012, and for other
purposes. All points of order against the conference report
and against its consideration are waived. The conference
report shall be considered as read. The previous question
shall be considered as ordered on the conference report
without intervening motion except (1) one hour of debate
equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking
minority member of the Committee on Agriculture and (2) one
motion to recommit.

{time} 1045

Unfunded Mandate Point of Order

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1189
because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional
Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order
against consideration of the conference report which includes a waiver
of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act which causes a violation
of section 426(a).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Arizona makes a point of
order that the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974.
The gentleman has met the threshold burden to identify the specific
language in the resolution on which the point of order is predicated.
Such a point of order shall be disposed of by the question of
consideration.
The gentleman from Arizona and a Member opposed, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cardoza), each will control 10 minutes of debate on the
question of consideration.
After that debate, the Chair will put the question of consideration,
to wit: ``Will the House now consider the resolution?''
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I raise this point of order realizing that it
is a bit of a stretch. The reason that we have this point of order in
law is to guard against unfunded mandates being levied on the States.
In this case, there are a lot of unfunded mandates being heaped upon
taxpayers. I realize, as I said, this is a stretch. But I have to do
this today because the rule that is before us does not allow anybody
opposed to the bill to claim time in opposition to the bill.
Now how is it that a bill of this import, a bill that will spend over
the next 10 years about $300 billion, is not important enough to allow
those who are opposed to the bill to claim time in opposition to it?
Instead, the structured rule before us today allows time to be split
between the majority and the minority. Now those who will be
controlling that time are people who are in support of the bill. How is
it that we can discuss a bill this large, this important, that spends
this much money, and that heaps this kind of burden on the taxpayer,
yet again, without having a real discussion?
When we have a bill before the House, we have time called ``general
debate.'' In this case, general debate is between those in the majority
who support the bill and those in the minority who support the bill.
Now how is that debate? Why is it that the Rules Committee can't see
fit to actually allow people who are opposed to the bill to claim time
in opposition to it?
With that, I would love to hear an explanation from the Rules
Committee why we have a structured rule that does this.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This point of order is about whether or not to consider the rule and
ultimately the underlying conference report. In my opinion, it is
simply an effort to try to kill this bill without any debate, without
an up-or-down vote on the conference report itself. It is nothing more
than procedural roadblocks, something the other side has been using a
fair amount recently. I don't believe it will work.
The gentleman has talked about the fact that he is not able to speak
in opposition. The gentleman had an hour's worth of debate the other
day on a motion to recommit. It is also my understanding that the
chairman is working with the opposition to allow them time to discuss
the bill within the rules that were set up.
This conference report is far too important, Mr. Speaker, to be
blocked by a parliamentary tactic. We have worked on this bill for
nearly 2 years and have accomplished what many of us thought was an
impossible feat by bringing it to the floor.
Make no mistake about it. The Republican obstruction will ensure that
a farm bill will not pass during this Congress. So despite whatever
roadblocks the other side tries to use to stop this bill, we will stand
up for America's hardworking farmers, for the hungry and for the
millions of other Americans who will benefit from this farm bill.
We must consider this rule, and we must pass this important
conference report without further delay.
Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding I have the right to close. But in
the end, I will urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' to consider this
rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. Again, I realize this bill has been in discussion for a
couple of years. And I will come to that a little later as we talk
about why earmarks had to be airdropped into the bill at the last
minute. If we have been discussing this bill for 2 years, then couldn't
we actually discuss these earmarks that were to be added to the bill
instead of airdropping them into the conference report when nobody in
the House or nobody in the Senate had even seen them? So it is hardly a
defense to say that we have been discussing this for 2 years, nor is it
a reason to deny those who are opposed to the bill an opportunity to
actually claim time in opposition.
Let me read from the House rules. If the floor manager for the
majority and the floor manager for the minority both support the
conference report or a motion, one-third of the time for debate thereon
shall be allotted to a Member, Delegate or Resident Commissioner who
opposes the conference report or motion on demand of that Member,
Delegate or Resident Commissioner.
We waived that. And we are not doing it. And let me tell you why I
think that is the case. Now if I were supporting this bill, and I had
been touting this bill as some big reform to our farm programs, I would
flat be plumb embarrassed to bring this bill to the floor in its
current form. I would be embarrassed.
What has got most of the attention, the problem that we all note,
that everybody across the country realizes, is how in the world can we
have a situation where multimillionaire farmers are collecting
subsidies courtesy of the taxpayer?
And the real effort in here, what the President wanted, what others
wanted, and what many of us here in the House argued for, was to put a
cap on how much income you can have and still receive subsidies. The
President suggested $200,000 adjusted gross income.

[[Page H3785]]

Remember, adjusted gross income is your income minus expenses. All of
us here collect a salary of about $169,000. By the time we deduct
things for mortgage interest, medical expenses and charitable
contribution, it brings that down by at least one-third, maybe even
one-half. Under this legislation, a farm couple can have farm income
and nonfarm income totaling $2.5 million and still receive direct
payments under this legislation.
Now, if I were bringing a bill to the floor and had touted this bill
as reforming, man, I would want to hide that as well. I would not want
somebody to be able to stand up and say, how is it that a
multimillionaire farm couple can still collect subsidies from the
taxpayers? So I commend the Rules Committee and those who are in
support of the bill for actually putting a rule together that minimizes
opposition that can be raised and that the only way people can stand up
and oppose and be guaranteed time in opposition is to use a maneuver
like raising a point of order against the bill.
I should mention there are other problems with this and other reasons
why this rule should not go forward. We are waiving PAYGO rules. Now
one thing the majority said when they came into power is we will not
waive PAYGO. We are going to live by PAYGO. When we give money out, we
have to make sure that that many money is in the Treasury or we won't
do it.
This waives PAYGO because there is simply no way you can be in
compliance with PAYGO and pass a $300 billion farm bill. And in this
case, the writers of the legislation did something very creative. They
actually went baseline shopping. What PAYGO says is that you have to
take the current baseline, the most current baseline of spending, and
total up your spending in the bill based on that current baseline.
Instead, what the authors of this legislation did was said, oh, let's
go to last year's baseline because we spent less money then and it
means we can spend more money in this legislation. Baseline shopping.
It is as if I were to say, I don't want to pay so much in taxes this
year. So I am going to use last year's wages that I was paid, and I am
going to report that instead. Now if I did that, I would be thrown in
jail. But we are allowed to do this here. We are allowed to say, we
will take whatever baseline we want as long as it allows us to spend
more money in the legislation. And then when the bill comes to the
floor, we will just waive the rule that required us to be honest in
terms of bringing legislation that complies with PAYGO.
I would love an explanation from the Rules Committee as to why PAYGO
was waived in this regard.
And I would reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to respond to my friend from
Arizona with regard to the PAYGO issue, even though that is going to be
addressed in the rule and not in this motion that he has brought
forward now.
I didn't raise a point of order in your motion so you can have plenty
of time to speak.
Let me tell you also that the chairman and the ranking member have,
in my understanding, provided 10 minutes to both the Republic and
Democratic opposition to this bill out of their time today. So we will
be complying with the rules of the House. It is my understanding there
will be 20 minutes in opposition.
With regard to PAYGO, the Senate and the House have adopted different
rules. In the 1990s when the House and Senate had statutory PAYGO, both
Chambers had the same rules with regard to PAYGO. The House rules talk
about one issue with PAYGO. The Senate rules with another.
In this rule, we have tried to reconcile, we started this bill and
actually passed it in a conference report, or we passed it out in chief
from the Agriculture Committee to this floor and to a conference
committee in 2007. That work was not completed in 2007, and thus we
have this bill on the floor today.
There are many reasons why this bill didn't get finished in 2007. But
because we have different rules in the House and Senate, we have
decided that in order to make this bill work and achieve a conference
report that we can bring to this floor that we will be discussing this
further as we discussed the rule. But we have dealt with that in the
rule.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. May I inquire as to the time remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Arizona has 3 minutes.
The gentleman from California has 6\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. FLAKE. I will gladly yield to my colleague from California on the
Rules Committee for a question.
Did we waive the PAYGO rules in this rule?
Mr. CARDOZA. We have accommodated the Senate PAYGO rules as we have
moved forward. And it is my opinion that this is a technical situation
because we started this bill and passed this bill off the floor in
2007.
Mr. FLAKE. Reading from the House rules after the beginning of a new
calendar year----
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order.
I believe we are supposed to be talking about the unfunded mandates
in this bill. If the gentleman would like to talk about the PAYGO
rules, we should talk about this when we bring up the rule which that
is germane to.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman should confine his remarks to
the question of order.
Mr. FLAKE. I can well understand why the other side does not want to
talk about PAYGO and why I should confine this debate to unfunded
mandates because PAYGO was, in fact, waived here. PAYGO was waived. And
were it not waived, it would be subject to a point of order, the same
point of order that the gentleman is lodging against this debate right
now. So I can understand that. And I guess we will have to go with the
flow.
There is another point of order that will be raised shortly with
regard to the waiver of the earmark rules that we have in place as
well.
So let me get back. This is an unfunded mandate on the taxpayers, of
course. According to the Environmental Working Group, the Federal
Government handed out $13.4 billion in farm subsidies to 1.4 million
recipients, $11.2 billion of which related to various commodity support
programs, programs that the underlying bill simply does not change.
The taxpayers have a huge unfunded mandate here that we are going to
be paying off for a very, very long time.
With that I will gladly yield the balance of my time to the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized
for 1\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. KIND. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank my friend and colleague for yielding me a little bit of time
to speak on his motion.
There is one, I think, serious concern that many of us who have been
advocating reform under the commodity title, the so-called commodity
subsidy programs, and that is what was done with the two subsidy
programs now where funding currently isn't going out. And the reason it
is not going out under the loan deficiency program and the counter
cyclical program is because market prices are high.

{time} 1100

That's a good thing, because farm income is good, debt to asset ratio
has never been better in farm country.
But what this bill proposes to do, instead of holding those programs
constant, they are actually increasing the loan rate under the loan
deficiency program and the target price under the countercyclical
program, which means that if things do turn south in farm country, if
prices do drop--and we know how cyclical agriculture can be, and these
are safety net programs--those programs will trigger much sooner and at
a much greater expense than what I fear is being accounted for right
now in this bill.
That, I think, speaks to the unfunded mandate concern that the
gentleman from Arizona and myself, and others included, have in regards
to the so-called reforms that we are just not seeing under the
commodity title, not when they go in the opposite direction with the
LDP and the countercyclical programs by dialing up the loan rate and
the target prices of those two programs and triggering them at a much
earlier time and at a much greater expense for the taxpayers of this
country.

[[Page H3786]]

There is a whole lot of other reform that we felt were justifiable and
reasonable under the commodity title.
Quite frankly, we don't get there. In fact, if you look at the
payment limitation caps that exist under the direct payments, it would
only affect two-tenths of 1 percent of farmers in this country, hardly
the type of reform we would like to see.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that we will deal in
the debate on the bill chiefly with regard to what the level of reforms
is.
I would just like to tell my colleagues and my friends from both
Arizona and Wisconsin that there are, in fact, significant reforms. In
fact, if you take the ratio when this bill was first brought up in
2002, you have a situation where the nutrition part of this bill,
versus commodities, was by a ratio of 2-1, $2 for nutrition for every
dollar of commodity payments.
In this particular act that we are going to be bringing to the floor
later today, it is my understanding, and my work with regard to the
reforms, that there have been so many reforms put into this bill that
the nutrition title versus the commodity payments is actually a 5-1
ratio at this point. I would say that indicates, as just one of many
indicators, that you will see as we conduct this debate the significant
reform that has happened in this bill.
I believe this is good work. I am very proud to be a part of bringing
this bill to the floor. I believe it complies with the House Rules,
and, I, again, want to urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this
motion to consider, so that we can pass this important piece of
legislation today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and ask for an
``aye'' vote.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, Will the House now consider
the resolution?
The question of consideration was decided in the affirmative.

Point of Order

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1189
under clause 9 of rule XXI, because the resolution contains a waiver of
all points of order against the conference report and its
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Arizona makes a point of
order that the resolution violates clause 9(b) of rule XXI.
Under clause 9(b) of rule XXI, the gentleman from Arizona and the
gentleman from California each will control 10 minutes of debate on the
question of consideration.
Following the debate, the Chair will put the question of
consideration as follows: ``Will the House now consider the
resolution?''
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, this second point of order, and I will be
calling for a vote on this one, is raised because of earmarks that have
been airdropped into the legislation.
As the gentleman mentioned, this is not a new bill. This is not
something that just popped up last week and that there was a need to
add $1 million for the National Sheep and Goat Industry Improvement
Center, but that was something that had to come up at midnight and be
dropped in when nobody had seen it in either the House or the Senate.
This bill has been under consideration for a long, long time, and
yet, still, we have earmarks that have been airdropped into the
legislation, a number of them. Now, the gentleman may say in defense,
we have listed the earmarks that have been airdropped in.
It is true that some have been listed. If all of them were listed,
why would we waive all points of order against the bill? If the
majority was confident enough that all earmarks have been listed, then
we wouldn't have waived the points of order against it. I will speak
specifically about a few of these earmarks.
But let me just mention some of them that are in the bill. There is
authorization language for a National Products Research Laboratory.
Again, this was airdropped in at the last minute when it hadn't been in
the House version of the bill, hadn't been in the Senate, it was
airdropped into the conference report. There is authorization language
for a Policy Research Center, authorization language for Housing
Assistance Council.
Now, what that has to do with the farm bill, I am not sure, and the
problem is, we will never know until the bill was passed because it was
airdropped in at the last minute.
That's the problem that the majority party correctly identified when
they took control of this body, that we have a problem with earmarks,
and they are being dropped in at the last minute without notice.
That's why decent rules were actually put in place to try to curb
this abuse. The problem is, in this rule, we are waiving those rules.
We are waiving those rules so the old practice can continue on just
like it always has.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
As my colleague knows, this point of order is about whether or not to
consider this rule and the underlying conference report for the farm
bill. This point of order today is just another effort, in my opinion,
by the other side of the aisle to block this critical legislation that
we have worked on for nearly 2 years.
They don't want to debate, and they don't want to vote on this
conference report. They simply want to obstruct through a parliamentary
tactic.
I want to make it very clear that the farm bill fully complies with
the earmark disclosure rules contained in clause 9 of rule XXI. I would
suggest to those raising the point of order that they look in the
statement of managers, and they will see a list of the earmarks. If
they can't find that list, we will be happy to provide it for them.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' and to consider
this important rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that we are being accused on
this side of trying to stifle debate on the bill, that we don't want
debate on the bill when I am here to argue against a rule that waives
these points of order and a rule that also does not allow opposition to
claim time.
Now, the majority will say, well, we will yield you time now. Now
that we have been caught on this, we will yield you some time. That's
not the same as controlling time.
When I control time, I can yield time to my colleagues. If I am
yielded time, I can't do that. I don't control time in opposition.
Our House Rules say that if both the majority and the minority are in
favor of the bill for the leadership, that somebody opposed to the bill
has a right to claim time in opposition.
That was not done here. With a bill this important, you wonder why
that has happened.
Back to the earmarks, the gentleman mentioned that there is a list of
earmarks that was listed, it's right here, a number of them. Now why in
the world we had to have more than a dozen earmarks airdropped into a
bill that has been under consideration for the past 2 years, I simply
don't know.
But when you read some of them, you kind of wonder why, like I said,
Housing Assistance Council, Sun Grant Insular Pacific Sub-Center,
Desert Terminal Lakes, Nevada. This is all we know about them.
If you dig into them, you might find something untoward, you might
not, but the fact is we don't have time to do that. That's why we have
earmark rules that give us time to actually vet them. Those rules are
being waived here, and we should not be doing that.
Let me mention also, the gentleman said they are all listed. They
aren't. There is quite a controversial earmark in this legislation that
does not show up on the list. It's a $250 million tax refund to the
Plum Tree Timber Company. Now, this is an earmark that allows the
Nature Conservancy to purchase that from the Plum Tree Timber Company.
Now, the Plum Tree Timber Company, as I understand, is not mentioned
in the legislation, it is simply described. It would be like saying I
am going to give a subsidy to the gentleman who stands 6-feet tall,
weighs 175 pounds, has blue eyes and his middle name is John, but we
won't say the rest of it.
That's exactly what we are doing here. In an effort to get around the
scrutiny that might come if somebody actually said now why is a subsidy
actually going to the Plum Tree Timber Company.

[[Page H3787]]

It is no wonder that the rules have been waived here. If I had
something like this in this bill, I would waive the rules too, because
I wouldn't want anybody to talk about it. I would also not want anybody
who is opposed to the bill to claim time in opposition to it.
If I were sponsoring this legislation that I said reformed the farm
subsidy program to make sure that multimillionaire farmers don't
continue to get subsidies on behalf of the taxpayer, I would hide it as
well. I would do exactly what the Rules Committee has done here and the
supporters of the legislation have done.
Because under this legislation, a farm couple earning as much as $2.5
million in adjusted gross income, that's your income after expenses are
taken out, can still receive direct payments under this legislation.
Also, the other subsidy programs, rather than reform or to get rid of
the loopholes that were allowing people to get extra subsidies, we
simply waive the limits there. This is called reform?
I mean, is it any wonder that the rules have been waived and debate
has been stifled here on this critical legislation?
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
chairman of the committee, who I believe has done a fabulous job in
bringing this bill to the floor, Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I haven't seen the entire list that's being talked about
here, but a couple of the things that have been mentioned are not
earmarks, and I don't know why the gentleman continues to characterize
them as such.
First of all, this is not an earmark, it does not define Plum Creek.
What it says is that these bonds can be used for any habitat
conservation plans that protect native fish or any forest land covered
by these habitat conservation plans.
We know of at least seven habitat conservation plans that would
qualify under this provision. So, therefore, it's not an earmark. The
Cedar River Watershed Habitat Conservation Plan in King County,
Washington, the Plum Creek Timber plan, which is also in Washington,
the Washington Department of Natural Resources Forest Practices Habitat
Conservation Plan in Washington, the West Fork Timber plan in
Washington, the Plum Creek Native Fish Habitat Conservation Plan in
Montana and Idaho, Green Diamond and Pacific Lumber, both in
California.
So this is not an earmark, because any of these would qualify. There
are probably more that we don't know about. Now, this was in the Senate
bill, so I don't know what you are talking about airdropped.
A couple of the others that I heard you mention were also in the
Senate bill, and there is another one that you characterize as an
earmark, which is not an earmark, and that's the salmon recovery
disaster plan which was a plan that was actually first passed in the
2006 Congress by the Republican majority, was implemented in 2006.
Fifty million dollars at that time was put out to the people that were
in the commercial fishing industry, primarily off the coast of
California.
At that time there was a partial shutdown of the salmon season. Now,
this year, we have a complete shutdown of the salmon season all along
the coast from California to Oregon to Washington State. So it's much
broader, and it not only shut down the commercial fishing, it shut down
the recreational fishing in those areas.
What we are doing is replenishing this disaster fund with money that
is exactly similar to what was done, what was in the statute and it was
actually disbursed in 2006, because the disaster is much bigger this
year than it was in 2006 because we had a partial shutdown. Now we have
an entire shutdown of three States.
So this is clearly not an earmark, this is in the disaster title of
the farm bill that goes along with the other disaster provisions that
are in the farm bill. You know, I don't know, I guess because
apparently some people think that being against earmarks is popular
and, whatever, they try to make this into an issue.
But a number of the provisions that were raised by the gentleman are
clearly not earmarks. The House bill that passed out of here had no
earmarks.
We had to deal with the other body, and we took some provisions from
the other body, because that's how a conference works. You know, there
is a lot worse stuff that was in that bill that we took out. I just
want to clear the record that a number of things being talked about
here are not earmarks, and I would encourage my colleagues not to
support this point of order.

{time} 1115

Mr. FLAKE. The gentleman mentioned the National Marine Fishery
Service earmark. It was added at the last minute. It may have been in a
2006 bill, but it wasn't in this bill until it was air dropped into the
conference report. Now $170 million, that may well be a disaster there,
but why in the world, if it is a disaster, why isn't it covered?
Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. FLAKE. I would.
Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. The House bill didn't have a paid-for
disaster provision in it, the Senate bill did. And so when we molded
these together, we put these disaster provisions in, and we paid for
them, the first time that we actually paid for a disaster with pay-as-
you-go money, and we included the California disaster in the process
and paid for it.
This is not a new program. As I said, it is not an earmark, and it
was brought in because we were dealing with a disaster. This is clearly
a disaster. Any place that you have a complete shutdown of a commercial
fishery, they are going to be in asking for help from the Federal
Government. That is appropriate. This was brought in, the permanent
disaster program from the Senate, and funded when we molded them
together.
Mr. FLAKE. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for the
clarification. I still would point out we have a $3.8 billion permanent
disaster title added to the bill; and still, in addition to that, we
are funding these kinds of programs directly and specifically.
The gentleman can argue that it is not an earmark. I think that a
casual or a tortured reading of this would both say this is an earmark
when you are naming a specific entity to receive a specific amount of
money and when it wasn't in the House bill, that is an earmark. So
there is a good reason for this point of order.
The gentleman said, and let me go back to the PAYGO issue. The
gentleman mentioned that this rule he thinks is in compliance with
PAYGO. Let me read what this conference report says and see if anybody
can decipher this.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman raised a point of order with
regard to earmarks, not with regard to the issue of PAYGO. That will be
discussed in the rule itself. It will be germane to that later
discussion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. If the gentleman may confine his remarks to
the question of order.
Mr. FLAKE. If I might respond, the gentleman, after he raised his
last point of order went on to talk about the reforms in the bill which
clearly didn't have anything to do with the unfunded mandates language
that I had raised or that I had talked about or that he had raised a
point of order for. Clearly, I understand that they don't want to talk
about this. I understand that. That's why the rules are waived. But to
stand now and to raise a point of order against my point of order
because I am not addressing specifically the question that they want to
address or that they would rather dispose of is, I think, a little
spurious.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on both sides?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has 5 minutes
and the gentleman from Arizona has 1 minute.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, when the gentleman says we talked about
other issues in the last point of order, I was trying to be gracious
with regard to the time and the discussion and allow the gentleman to
speak. I raised an issue on the point of order on PAYGO because we are
going to discuss that in the rules discussion, in the discussion of the
rule.
I would just remind the gentleman that in the time he has taken on
these

[[Page H3788]]

two points of order, he will probably have discussed this bill more
than any other Member on the floor, even after we agreed to give him 20
minutes of debate on this topic. So I think that the gentleman thus
protests too greatly, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the other side. You notice the words used, that we
have graciously agreed to give them. Under the rules, the House rules,
those who are opposed to the bill are required to be given the chance
to claim time in opposition, not to be at the whims and graciousness of
those who support the legislation. That's why we have rules, and that's
why in this case the rules have been waived.
I understand completely if I had waived the PAYGO rules, when so many
on that side of the aisle, bless their hearts, have been diligent
sometimes on raising the issue of PAYGO and saying we shouldn't violate
it, if I had violated PAYGO and waived it like this, I would want to
waive every rule as well and stifle all the debate I could because it
is embarrassing, frankly.
I don't have time to yield.
I would just say in my remaining 15 seconds, we have a bill that
deserves a lot more debate than it is getting. This is important
legislation. We are waiving PAYGO rules, and let me just say what this
rule says: Therefore, while there is a technical violation of clause 10
of rule XXI, the conference report complies with the rule. It says
there is a technical violation, but we have complied. It simply doesn't
make sense.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize that this conference
report fully complies with the earmark rule. In my opinion, it fully
complies with the spirit of PAYGO.
Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield to the chairman who would like
to respond on that question as well.
Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman, and I wasn't going
to prolong this, but just like I had to take issue with saying earmarks
were there that aren't there, I take very much issue with your saying
we are waiving PAYGO. We are not waiving PAYGO. We are not waiving
PAYGO in this bill. We are meeting PAYGO requirements based on the 2007
baseline which is what we started the bill under. This is what the
rules are in the Senate.
Let me explain my point first, and then I will be happy to yield.
So the Senate has a rule that says under whatever baseline you start
off with, that you continue under that baseline with the bill until a
new budget resolution is passed by both the House and the Senate. For
whatever reason, the House has a different rule when we adopted that,
and it says once you file the Budget Committee report in the House, not
when it is passed, if a new baseline comes along, you are supposed to
use that. But clearly, we cannot write a bill of this magnitude and
this scope having two different baselines. We can't have one baseline
in the Senate and another baseline in the House. That is number one.
Number two, the common practice around this place has always been to
follow this rule, that we always use the baseline that we started off
with. That is what we have done for years. So all we are doing is
complying with what the Senate rule is because we have to do that and
it makes sense. We are not trying to waive anything. We are not trying
to get around anything. This bill, it meets PAYGO requirements and it
meets it under the 2007 baseline which is what we started the bill
under. And we are not waiving PAYGO.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and
I would just like to make this point. This rule provides for waivers of
other rules. Last night when we were up in the Rules Committee----
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I control the time under the remainder of
my motion, and I believe the gentleman is discussing the rule.
I don't yield, and if the gentleman from Washington would just
suspend for a moment, I just would like to say that I do not yield
because we are talking about a whole different topic here. I would like
to make sure that we consider the point of order that has been raised
directly by the gentleman from Arizona and not make this a wide-ranging
debate with regard to the rule.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
each side receive an additional 2 minutes so we may discuss this issue.
Mr. CARDOZA. I object.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on
consideration on this point of order, and I yield back the balance of
my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, Will the House now consider
the resolution?
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228,
nays 189, not voting 16, as follows:

[Roll No. 309]

YEAS--228

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Castor
Cazayoux
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Lincoln
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Foster
Frank (MA)
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hirono
Hodes
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
LaHood
Lampson
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Snyder
Solis
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Towns
Tsongas
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Wilson (OH)
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth

NAYS--189

Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehner
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doggett
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg

[[Page H3789]]

Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Neugebauer
Nunes
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Saxton
Scalise
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Souder
Stearns
Tancredo
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

NOT VOTING--16

Bonner
Bono Mack
Carney
Cramer
Crenshaw
Cubin
Cummings
Gerlach
Hinojosa
Lewis (KY)
Mack
Myrick
Rush
Sali
Sullivan
Weller

{time} 1151

Messrs. HELLER of Nevada, CULBERSON, ADERHOLT, McHENRY, DOGGETT and
Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida changed their vote from ``yea'' to
``nay.''
So the question of consideration was decided in the affirmative.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) is
recognized.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Clause 10 of rule XXI, the so-called pay-as-
you-go point of order says that it is not in order to consider a bill
if it increases the deficit if applied today over a period of fiscal
years 2008 through 2013 and the period of fiscal years 2008 through
2018. The effect on the deficit is determined by the Budget Committee
relative to the most recent baseline supplied by the Congressional
Budget Office ``used in considering a concurrent resolution on the
budget.''
Mr. Speaker, according to the Congressional Budget Office relative to
its March 2008 baseline, the Farm Bill will increase the deficit by
$2.9 billion over the period of fiscal years 2008 through 2018. But if
using last year's outdated 2007 baseline, CBO states that it would
decrease the deficit by about $100 million over that same period, 2008
through 2017.
Mr. Speaker, under clause 10 of rule XXI, which baseline provided by
CBO is the most recent and should therefore be used by the Budget
Committee in order to determine pay-as-you-go compliance, the March
2007 baseline or the March 2008 baseline?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Whichever one is required under clause 10
should be the one used by the Committee on the Budget.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.
Does the rule not state that it is the most recent CBO baseline?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Whichever one is required under the
alternate branches of clause 10 shall be the one used by the Committee
on the Budget.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, according to clause 10(a) of rule
XXI, in advising the Chair, the Budget Committee must use ``the most
recent baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office .
. . used in considering a concurrent resolution on the budget.''
Mr. Speaker, has Congress considered the concurrent resolution on the
budget this year?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The answer is ``yes.'' The House has
considered a concurrent resolution on the budget.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.
Isn't it true that the concurrent budget resolution on the budget for
fiscal year 2009 considered by the Budget Committee and considered and
passed by the House uses the most recent baseline which is the March
2008 baseline?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair is not aware of which baseline is
current.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Further parliamentary inquiry.
The rule providing for the consideration of the conference report to
accompany the Food Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 includes a
waiver of all points of order against consideration.
Does that waiver include a waiver of clause 10 of rule XXI, the pay-
as-you-go point of order, and in addition, to all points of order under
the Congressional Budget Act? And does this mean that a Member of
Congress may not raise a point of order against consideration of the
bill even if it is in violation of the PAYGO rule, Budget Act points of
order, or the concurrent resolution on the budget?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. That calls for an advisory opinion. The
pending resolution proposes to waive any point of order, so this is a
matter for debate.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.
Does this waiver of these points of order mean that the PAYGO rule
and the Budget Act points of order are also waived and therefore, a
Member may not raise a point of order against consideration of the bill
on those grounds?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. If the pending resolution were adopted, then
any point of order would be waived.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.
The Rules Committee report accompanying the rule provided for
consideration of the conference report contains an explanation of
waivers and states: ``While there is a technical violation of clause 10
of rule XXI, the PAYGO rule, the conference report complies with the
rule.''
Mr. Speaker, my inquiry is this: Is it possible to be in violation of
the PAYGO rule yet comply with the rule at the same time?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman may engage his colleagues in
debate on the pending resolution on that point.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. We plan on doing that, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized
for 1 hour.
Mr. CARDOZA. For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30
minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings). All time
yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Mr. CARDOZA. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on
House Resolution 1189.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.

{time} 1200

Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1189 provides for consideration of H.R.
2419, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, the continuation
of the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2007 which we passed off
this floor in September of 2007.
Mr. Speaker, the conference report rule waives all points of order
against the conference report and against its consideration and
provides that the conference report shall be considered as read.
The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and
controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee
on Agriculture, and it also provides one motion to recommit.
It should also be noted that despite the blanket waiver, the
conference report does not violate clause 9 of rule XXI.
Furthermore, I want to point out that the conference report uses the
CBO 2007 baseline, the year in which the bill passed both the House and
the Senate, and under that baseline, CBO has determined that this
conference report will not increase the deficit in either of the years
2008 through 2012 or in the years 2008 through 2017 scoring window.
Therefore, while there is a technical violation of clause 10 of rule
XXI, this

[[Page H3790]]

conference report complies with the rule by remaining budget neutral
with no net increase in direct spending. In other words, Mr. Speaker,
this bill does not increase the deficit and it is PAYGO compliant.
Mr. Speaker, as chairman of a subcommittee on the House Agriculture
Committee, and as a member of the Rules Committee, I'm pleased to offer
the Farm, Conservation, and Energy Act conference report for
consideration today. This bipartisan conference report represents the
blood, sweat and tears of many Members of the House and Senate
Agriculture Committees, including myself. I would be remiss if I did
not single out a few individuals at this time.
First, I must recognize Chairman Collin Peterson, without whom this
farm bill would have never been completed. His unwavering dedication to
seeing this bill through to completion should be an example to us all,
and I am indeed grateful for his commitment, especially in the face of
tremendous adversity.
I also want to thank Ranking Member Goodlatte, Leader Hoyer, and
certainly, not least, our Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, for their
steadfast commitment to creating a farm bill that we can all be proud
of and to stand behind, and because of her leadership, there is, in
fact, significant reform in this bill.
It is hard to believe, but we actually started this process nearly 2
years ago, starting with traveling to nearly every corner of this
country to hear directly from farmers and ranchers from all walks of
life about what they needed in a modern farm bill. We took these wide-
ranging comments to heart and crafted a fiscally responsible, equitable
and unparalleled farm bill.
I wish I could say that it was all a walk in the park. The House and
the Senate passed their respective bills in 2007, and since January of
this year, Members of the House and the Senate have been hammering out
a compromise. There have been many battles, but in the end, this
conference report is something I believe this House should be very
proud of.
While people didn't get everything they wanted, the country got what
it needed. That speaks volumes about the quality of this bill and tells
me we ended up in exactly the right place.
The Farm, Conservation, and Energy Act builds upon the past successes
of Federal farm policy by maintaining the farm bill's safety net, while
at the same time providing for substantial increases in conservation,
nutrition and energy.
However, I'm most proud of the $2.3 billion in new Federal
investments for specialty crops, an industry that has been uniformly
neglected in previous farm bills despite comprising nearly 50 percent
of total farm gate value.
Furthermore, this farm bill contains unprecedented reforms to
commodity programs by revising program eligibility and strengthening
payment limitations.
Through major changes to the crop insurance program, we have also
increased government efficiency and reduced the waste, fraud and abuse
identified in the current farm programs.
More importantly, this bill is completely paid for. Through PAYGO,
Democrats are fulfilling our promise to live within our means like
every household in America is forced to do, and I believe the PAYGO
rules, Mr. Speaker, made this a leaner, meaner and better bill, despite
the complexities that the new rules presented at times.
We pledged to stop writing blank checks with reckless abandon and
shouldering our country's needs on the backs of our children and
grandchildren. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, this legislation
adheres to the spirit of PAYGO, proving that it can be done.
Mr. Speaker, our farmers have the capacity for immeasurable
innovation and success, and they deserve the Federal Government's
commitment that's included in this bill by supporting this farm bill.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to telling my constituents of the 18th
District of California that the United States Congress has accomplished
what many thought was an impossible feat in coming to an agreement on a
farm bill.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly and wholeheartedly urge my colleagues to
support this rule and the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend
from California (Mr. Cardoza) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes,
and I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for
consideration of a final farm bill, a farm bill that is over 7 months
late. It was supposed to be completed last September when the old farm
bill law expired. It's long past time for Congress to be voting on a
final farm bill, and the one the House will consider today is far from
perfect.
It spends billions more than it was supposed to. Mr. Speaker, in
fact, despite this being called the farm bill, nearly 75 percent of the
spending in this bill doesn't even go to agriculture or farming. It
goes to pay for government food assistance programs. Mr. Speaker, let
me repeat that. In fact, despite this being called a farm bill, nearly
75 percent of the spending in this bill doesn't even go to agriculture
or farming. It goes to pay for government food assistance programs. To
me, that is very concerning.
There's also considerable dissatisfaction with the income limitations
being too high for farmers who may receive payments under this bill.
There are also concerns that while commodity prices in the
marketplace have risen since the last farm bill, the guarantees in this
farm bill have also gone up.
There are also special interest provisions that are unrelated to
farming or food stamps that have been stuck on this bill.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I agree that this farm bill is very far from
perfect, but like many of my colleagues in the House, I must measure
this bill by the impact on my constituents in my district.
And as the representative of one of the most diverse and productive
agricultural areas in this country, I will vote for the farm bill
because it does more to support the specialty crops that are grown in
my district than any other farm bill in history.
I must point out that the assistance provided for the specialty crops
grown in my district are not direct subsidy payments or handouts. What
matters most to farmers and growers in central Washington are research
dollars and help in opening up new markets abroad. Specifically, I'm
pleased that the farm bill includes a new initiative to fund research
projects for these specialty crops.
The conference report also expands the successful fresh fruit and
vegetable SNACK program to children in all 50 States. This worthwhile
program provides fresh fruits and vegetables for schoolchildren.
The Market Access Program is also very important in central
Washington and something that I've worked very hard on to support for
many years. The Market Access Program, or MAP, assists our agriculture
community in expanding access to markets overseas.
For far too long, American farm products have had difficulty getting
into foreign countries, and sometimes are unfairly blocked outright.
Fair market access and fair trade agreements help our farmers compete,
and the MAP program has proven this to be very successful.
While I will vote to pass this farm bill, Mr. Speaker, I strongly
oppose this unfair rule because it shuts down fair opportunities for
debate and votes on the House floor and because, Mr. Speaker, it waives
new anti-earmark and PAYGO rules written just last January, a year ago
last January, by the Democrat majority.
And already today, Mr. Speaker, we have had a great deal of
discussion on PAYGO and the ramifications. We heard it says it complies
with the spirit of PAYGO and so forth.
Let me just make a point of what happened last night in the Rules
Committee. In the Rules Committee, there is a provision in this rule
that waives all points of order. We had discussion up there on PAYGO.
So the ranking member of the Rules Committee, Mr. Dreier, offered an
amendment to keep all the waivers, all the waivers in the farm bill
with the exception of the

[[Page H3791]]

PAYGO provision that was adopted just a year ago last January by the
new majority. That amendment simply said if there's no problem with
PAYGO, then why not keep that provision in there. It was voted down,
Mr. Speaker, on a direct party-line vote.
So it appears what has happened here in this instance--because I
think the rules are very clear. I think Mr. Ryan from Wisconsin pointed
out exactly where we are on this and what the procedures are.
Apparently what we have done--and this to me I think is probably
unprecedented--we have adopted Senate rules in the House for
consideration of the farm bill. Maybe that's a pattern that we will see
hopefully in other things that we'll debate, like, for example, maybe
having more debate on issues because the Senate does have unlimited
debate under their house rules. So, if we're going to start adopting
Senate rules, maybe we ought to do that on the debate area.
Mr. Speaker, a conscious decision has been made to break the PAYGO
rules to increase spending by several billions of dollars.
The farm bill, Mr. Speaker, is long overdue, and I'm disappointed
that a bill that provides new levels of recognition to specialty crops,
as I pointed out in my earlier remarks, from central Washington is
coming before the House with so many other questionable provisions
within the bill.
And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Washington complains
that nearly 75 percent of this bill goes to a nutrition program. I
would submit to the House that if Republican policies with regard to
the economy weren't what they were we wouldn't have to be increasing
the nutritional support for our citizens.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Matsui).
Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
California for yielding me time.
I rise today in strong support of the rule we are considering on the
conference report to H.R. 2419, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act.
Mr. Speaker, this important conference agreement outlines the funding
for our country's agriculture policy, its conservation approaches, and
its nutrition programs. These initiatives touch each of us in some way.
Whether we're from a rural area, suburban or urban area, the farm bill
has impact on every single one of us.
As a farmer's daughter, I understand how the food we produce is truly
the backbone of our country. I am proud of our Nation's commitment to a
strong farm economy and a long-standing tradition of providing a safe
and secure food supply, not only for our country but for the world.
That is why I support this bill. From the $10 billion increase in
nutrition programs to the $7.7 billion increase in conservation
funding, this legislation provides for our entire country. I've spoken
to our producers, and this legislation gives them the safety net they
need to continue producing the food supply our Nation relies upon. I am
pleased with the balance and vision in this bill, and that is why I
will strongly support it.
I'd like to thank Chairman Peterson and Ranking Member Goodlatte for
all of their work on this bill. The chairman has shown exceptional
leadership and patience through this process. This bill turns the page
and helps start a new era of farm and nutrition policy.
I also want to thank Chairman Peterson and the committee for their
inclusion of provisions of the House-passed Regional Water Enhancement
Program. By including the Sacramento River Watershed as a national
priority in the conference report, my region will be able to preserve
farmlands, as well as provide a comprehensive approach to ground and
surface water.
Our initial focus should be on building a strong consensus on
conservation and its value for our region. We have a truly unique
opportunity to shape the vision for the watershed from the beginning.
This will help ensure that we build upon solid, local input.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be standing here today in support of this
well-crafted bill. I ask my colleagues to support the rule and the
final passage of the farm bill conference report.

{time} 1215

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield as much
time as he may consume to the ranking member of the Rules Committee,
Mr. Dreier of California.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. And I thank
him for his very thoughtful statement, as always, in his management of
the rule.
I want to begin by extending congratulations to all of those who have
worked long and hard on this important conference report, Mr. Cardoza,
and I see Mr. Hastings here, I know are strong supporters of it. And I
know that there is, in fact, some bipartisan support for this measure,
but I will say that I personally am troubled with it and I am going to
be voting ``no'' on the conference report when we get to that point for
a number of reasons.
I do feel very strongly that as we look at the international food
crisis that exists with over a billion people on the face of the Earth
facing either malnutrition or out-and-out starvation, it seems to me
that we need to take very strong and bold steps to address that. I
don't think that dramatically expanding the food programs and feeding
is the solution to the problem of a billion people who are facing
malnutrition and starvation. I happen to think there are a number of
very important factors that unfortunately this farm bill doesn't
address.
First and foremost, it's key, as we look at the fact that developing
nations in the world have failed to open up their markets so that they
can get onto the first rung of the economic ladder, they are preventing
us from having the opportunity to address that crisis of starvation and
malnutrition. Similarly, we in the United States and the European Union
have unfortunately provided two-thirds of the farm subsidies that exist
in this world. And guess what? That creates a great distortion and
further diminishes the opportunity for those developing nations to
address this very important malnutrition and starvation crisis facing
one billion human beings. And so I just don't believe in any way that
this measure effectively addresses that.
And I think, again, as a number of people have said, if we were to
see the European Union diminish its level of subsidization, then we
would do that. I was very happy in the Rules Committee last night that
for the first time our good friend from Minnesota, the distinguished
chairman of the Agriculture Committee, did indicate that he would
ultimately support that. In the past he hasn't, as I know he has said
publicly and in conversations that I've had with him privately on that.
But nevertheless, it's imperative for us to show leadership on the
issue of dramatic taxpayer subsidization of the agriculture sector of
our economy. It is just plain wrong. And I hope very much that my
colleagues, based on that, if they sincerely want to address this
starvation crisis facing a billion people, they will oppose this
measure.
Now, there was an interesting debate, Mr. Speaker, that took place
earlier on and has been going on. And Mr. Hastings made a very, very
compelling argument. Now, this is all inside baseball. I know our
colleagues understand it, and there are maybe some outside of this
Chamber who are following this debate. And it looks like it's very
arcane. I mean, we've got copies of the rules manual and we're looking
at this whole question of PAYGO and 2007 versus 2008. Well, this comes
down to a very simple and easily understood issue, and let me put it
this way:
Yesterday we had a debate on whether or not we should, in fact,
prevent 70,000 barrels a day of oil from going into the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. And the idea behind that was, of course, if we do
increase the supply of energy, prices might come down. Well, guess
what? The people whom I represent in southern California would very
much like to be able to pay maybe $2.50, $2.75 a gallon. And you know
what? If you go to last year, they were able to pay significantly less
than $4 a gallon for gasoline.
Well, how does that relate to the debate that we're having right
here? Very simply. What is it that our colleagues in the majority are
calling for? And that is, to use last year's numbers, to

[[Page H3792]]

use last year's numbers, not this year's numbers, in this debate. So
that's what it comes down to, Mr. Speaker. It is just plain wrong. I
would like to pay 2007 prices when I go to the pump and fill up, and
unfortunately I can't. And you know what? This majority should
recognize their responsibility in the exact same way.
Now, as Mr. Hastings said, last night in the Rules Committee I
offered what I thought was a very thoughtful amendment to the rule.
Everyone continued to say this is PAYGO-compliant, this complies with
PAYGO. Well, in one single sentence in the report, Mr. Speaker, they,
in fact, provide the most confusing explanation. It says, ``Therefore,
while there is a technical violation of clause 10 of rule XXI, the
conference report complies with the rule by remaining budget neutral
with no net increase in direct spending.'' What does that mean? So it
begins by saying there is a violation, and then it says there isn't. I
mean, it is so confusing.
Now, the amendment that I offered said, okay, if the majority is, in
fact, complying with the PAYGO requirements, what they should do is
they should say that they don't need to protect the item, clause 10 of
rule XXI, which very clearly states that they must be using this year's
numbers. And so, Mr. Speaker, as you said in your ruling--or your
predecessor in the Chair said, Mr. Pastor, who was serving as acting
Speaker at the time, we're having a debate on this. And it's obvious
that it can be confusing. But I bring it right back to the issue of the
desire that the people who we represent, that they would love to pay
last year's gasoline prices, but it can't be done. And in the exact
same way this is being mishandled. It is just wrong.
And so procedurally we're bringing up a bad conference report. And so
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, which, also, is a
lockdown rule, I should say, and very, very unfair in its treatment of
the rights of the minority--not that anyone cares about that. But
procedurally and institutionally I think that there should be some
concern about the fact that it's a lockdown rule, and if it does pass,
it will allow us to bring up what I think is a bill that has some good
things in it, but on an overall basis will not deal with the very
important challenges that we face.
So I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and a ``no'' vote on the
conference report.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague
from California. I would just like to reiterate that this bill and this
rule fully complies with the Senate PAYGO rules and it is totally in
keeping with the spirit of PAYGO by complying with the 2007 PAYGO
baselines as my Republican colleague, Mr. Neugebauer, said last night
when he presented the rule to the committee as the Republican ranking
member at that time, and his words were that this bill is fully PAYGO
compliant.
Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his work on
this bill.
Mr. Speaker, from my point of view the farm bill conference report is
a mixed bag. There are many things in this farm bill that I don't like.
I don't like what I consider to be an extravagant disaster assistance
program. I don't like the minuscule cuts to direct payments, and I
don't like the unnecessary subsidies. And I don't like the fact that
this bill reduces the mandatory funding for the McGovern-Dole
International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program by $756
million.
This is a program that is close to my heart, Mr. Speaker, a program
that is proven to work. Named after George McGovern and Bob Dole, this
program feeds hungry children around the world in a school setting. The
only thing crueler than not feeding a hungry child is to feed that
child for a while and then stop. And that's what has happened,
unfortunately, in this process and it's flat wrong.
I would like to insert a recently published Washington Post Op-Ed
written by both Senators McGovern and Dole into the Congressional
Record at the end of my statement.
Let me be clear, this is not the end of our fight for funds for
McGovern-Dole. And I look forward to working with the appropriators and
the authorizers to ensure that there is proper funding for this program
in the upcoming appropriations bill. I believe it is a moral
imperative.
Mr. Speaker, this is not the bill that I would have written. And, Mr.
Speaker, I suppose that I could find enough reasons to justify a vote
against this conference report. But when I look at the whole bill, I
have concluded that a ``no'' vote is the wrong vote to take today. And
let me explain why I will vote for this bill today.
Thanks to the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and Congresswoman DeLauro
and Chairman Peterson, this bill includes the most sweeping expansion
in the domestic anti-hunger safety net ever. This bill will do more to
fight hunger in America over the next 5 years than anything Congress
has done in decades. Over $10 billion will go to improve the food stamp
benefit, to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to children in schools
around this country, and to invest in America's food banks.
Over 73 percent of the spending in this bill will fund the anti-
hunger safety net. Damage that has been done over the years, the
erosion of both the food stamp benefit and the emergency food
assistance system, for example, is fixed in this bill.
Mr. Speaker, the nutrition title of the farm bill is not perfect, but
it is very, very good. I'm voting for this bill on the strength of
these improvements, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
to do the same.
These enhancements will improve the lives of real people around the
country, people who desperately need help putting food on their tables
in this time of spiking energy costs and rising food prices. This bill
will help more than 10 million people afford an adequate diet,
including over 200,000 people in my home State of Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, though, it will not end hunger in America, and it won't
end hunger around the world.
Mr. Speaker, I believe strongly that hunger is a political condition.
And I believe we can end hunger here at home and around the world if we
find the political will to do so. But ending hunger will take
leadership, leadership to stand up to the powerful special interests
that don't care about ending hunger, leadership to stand up for the
people whose interests aren't always represented here in the halls of
Congress, leadership to simply do the right thing. And ending hunger is
doing the right thing.
The face of hunger here in America is not one of sunken eyes and
swollen bellies. No, the hungry in America are our neighbors, our
children's classmates, and the seniors we see every day. Some serve in
the military, and others take their kids to soccer and baseball
practice all over this country.
The face of hunger is the face of too many in America, but that
doesn't have to be the case any longer. This bill, the effort put forth
by the anti-hunger community, that deserves such great credit, and by
many Members of Congress is just a start. With a continued and
dedicated effort, this can truly be the beginning of the end of hunger.
This bill is a solid down payment on our efforts to end the scourge
of hunger in America once and for all, and for that reason alone it
deserves our support.

[From the Washington Post, May 6, 2008]

A Slap at Schoolchildren

(By George McGovern and Bob Dole)

How can the world's hungriest schoolchildren be denied
meals while the farm bill being debated in a House-Senate
conference provides millions in subsidies for wealthy
farmers? That's what Congress proposes. In all fairness, it
should not become law.
We are puzzled that Congress wants to increase overall farm
bill spending by billions of dollars yet reduce by more than
90 percent the mandatory funding to feed hungry children. The
program at issue saves lives and has a proven ability to
break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness in poor
countries.
We are not expressing disagreement because the program,
supported by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,
bears our names. We believe, simply put, that a costly
humanitarian mistake would be made. Funding for the program
would go from $840 million over five years to $60 million
this coming year. After that, there would be no guarantee of
funding at all. The $840 million in funding represents less
than 1 percent of the proposed total spending in the farm
bill. At a time when increasingly high food prices are
pushing millions of families around the globe deeper into
poverty, we must step up, not reduce, our efforts to feed
hungry schoolchildren.
For just a few cents a day per child, the McGovern-Dole
Program has made a critical

[[Page H3793]]

difference in the lives of children and communities
worldwide, promoted American values in the most positive
terms, and helped achieve U.S. foreign policy and national
security goals. By providing meals to children who attend
school in the poorest countries, the program increases
attendance rates and student productivity and gives hope to a
new generation of impoverished children around the world. The
impact on young girls is particularly important. As their
school attendance increases, they marry later and birthrates
are reduced.
During our careers in public service, we were honored to
assist U.S. efforts to reduce hunger at home and abroad.
Americans should be proud of the bipartisan progress our
country has made. As a nation, we must not retreat from the
compassion we've shown when the world's poorest children
needed us most. We respectfully ask farm bill conferees to
restore the $840 million in mandatory funding for the
McGovern-Dole Program. Our nation must not turn its back on
the world's poorest. On the contrary, we must demonstrate
again that the United States will continue to be a nation of
compassion.
As former senators, we both know how difficult it is to put
together and pass sound farm legislation. We also know, as
does every member of Congress, how important it is to help
take care of the world's neediest and most vulnerable
children. We believe that a vast majority of the proposed
farm bill beneficiaries share our view. Americans care and
will respond positively if this needed change is made.
George McGovern, a Democrat, was appointed a U.N. global
ambassador on world hunger in 2001. Bob Dole, a Republican,
is a former Senate majority leader.

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased my friend from
California said we are complying with Senate rules, but I believe this
is the U.S. House of Representatives, and the fact is we have waived
the House PAYGO rules.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Hensarling).
(Mr. HENSARLING asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule.
I find it fascinating that our Speaker, when she became our Speaker,
said that we were going to have the most open democratic Congress in
the history of America, and yet we have a rule coming to the floor that
doesn't even allow dissenting voices to speak in general debate.
Our Speaker also at one time said the 110th Congress will commit
itself to a higher standard, pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending.
But instead, we waive the PAYGO rule. And we baseline shop. I know
that's inside baseball, but as the gentleman from California said, it's
kind of like deciding you're going to pay last year's gasoline prices.
Well, I wish we could do that.
And now we have the whole question of earmarks. Our Speaker at one
time said that she would just as soon do without earmarks. Instead what
we have are airdropped earmarks, secret earmarks coming in in a
conference report that nobody can challenge, including one, apparently,
according to press reports, that was requested by none other than the
Speaker of the House.
And so for all of these reasons, Mr. Speaker, this rule ought to be
defeated. This is too important of legislation to come before us to be
treated in such a frivolous manner.
Now, let's talk about the matter at hand, the actual substance of the
bill. At a time when we're looking at some of the worst food inflation
in the last two decades, what do we have coming before us, Mr. Speaker?
A bill that will pay out billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies to a
select group of farmers. You know, it kind of begs the question, Mr.
Speaker: Why do we have a farm subsidy program?
You know, I'm thinking about all the people who are going to have to
pay these billions of dollars in taxes to subsidize a select group of
farmers. You know, I think about the auto mechanic in Mesquite, Texas;
I think about the guy working at the grocery store in Mineola, Texas; I
think about the school teacher or the factory worker in Garland; where
is their government subsidy program? Why are we bestowing billions of
dollars in subsidies on this one select group?

{time} 1230

This is a relic of the New Deal. We are paying out money to
millionaires. We are teaching more people to be reliant upon government
programs. Now, Mr. Speaker, we need a farm program. We just don't need
a farm subsidy program.
Let me tell you what farmers in the Fifth Congressional District of
Texas that I have the honor of representing need. They need some relief
in their energy cost. The energy that it takes to run their tractors,
their combines, their farm equipment, and the cost of diesel, they need
some relief there.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Serrano). The gentleman's time has
expired.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 1
additional minute.
Mr. HENSARLING. And yet there is absolutely nothing that our friends
do on the other side of the aisle to produce any American energy, to
get us any more independent, to have independent American energy.
Also, we benefit one set of farmers at the cost of another. This
continues the ethanol mandates. It continues the tariff on imported
ethanol. Now, if you've got a bunch of corn growers, it may be very
good for them. I would say they're in high cotton, but I guess they're
in high corn. But it's not too good for the cattle raisers, not too
good for the poultry people. It's not too good for the hog farmers or
the other livestock people who are all of a sudden seeing their feed
prices almost triple. What are we doing for them?
Then let's talk about trade. Ninety-six percent of the world's
consumers live outside of America, and yet this is an anti-trade
Congress under Democrat leadership. You had the Colombian Trade
Agreement totally one way. Farmers and ranchers want to export, and
they're being disallowed the opportunity to do that.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has again expired.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman
another 30 seconds.
Mr. HENSARLING. So we need a farm bill that promotes trade, Mr.
Speaker.
Next, we need death tax relief for our farmers and ranchers. Somebody
in the Fifth Congressional District worked his whole life building a
farm and told me, ``Congressman, after the government takes theirs,
there's just not enough to go around.'' You shouldn't work your whole
life building a family farm only to have Uncle Sam take 55 percent. We
need income tax relief. That's what a farm bill needs to help the true
agricultural producers. Not a subsidy program, an assistance program
for those who work hard.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Hastings).
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I thank my good friend from California for
yielding time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in vigorous support of this rule. I would
like to thank Chairman Peterson, Chairwoman DeLauro, Chairman Rangel,
and Mr. Goodlatte, who I feel have crafted a sound bipartisan
compromise bill for all of us to support, and they are to be
complimented for their hard work during these fiscally challenging
times.
The underlying legislation makes important reforms that benefit
farmers across our Nation and assist many industries which are the
economic engine of the congressional district that I'm privileged to
serve. The bill before us today is an important achievement for the
State of Florida and for the constituents that I serve.
As many of my colleagues know, I represent, along with my colleague
from Florida (Mr. Mahoney), the second largest sugar-producing district
in the country. The Florida sugar industry has a $3.1 billion economic
impact on the State of Florida, and I thank the committees for
including the provisions that assist this important industry.
I also thank the committees for including the Pollinator Protection
Act, which I authored and which was carried by Mr. Cardoza, who is
carrying this rule and working with me. This act authorizes funding to
conduct research on colony collapse disorder to prevent the continuing
decline of the pollinator population. People, if there ain't no bees,
there ain't no food.
Finally, this bill addresses rising food prices here at home and
overseas by substantially increasing funding for nutrition programs and
food banks and promoting duty-free imports in the

[[Page H3794]]

Caribbean, thanks to Mr. Rangel, and to Haiti, where citizens are
forced now to eat mud cakes to survive.
Having worked as a boy in farms, I understand firsthand how food gets
to the table. I am proud to say that this bill serves our farmers well.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, we've detailed many of the problems with this rule, one
of the worst aspects of which is that, as has been mentioned, it allows
a bit of time travel here for the purpose of going back and choosing
another baseline that allows you to actually comply with PAYGO rules.
That should not be allowed under the rule, and that's why the PAYGO
rules are actually waived in this bill. For all the talk on the other
side about PAYGO compliance, if this bill was PAYGO compliant, the
PAYGO rule would not have been waived.
The same goes with earmarks. More than a dozen earmarks were added,
airdropped into the bill; yet we still have a waiver because we know
there are likely other earmarks added in the bill as well. So we want
to protect against that.
Also, I mentioned about the rule. It stifles debate. I don't know of
another example where a conference report has come to the floor,
particularly one of this magnitude, where those who are opposed to the
bill have not been given the opportunity to claim time in opposition.
Instead, we have to rely on the good graces of those who support the
bill to actually be yielded time to actually speak in opposition to the
bill.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, we have a real problem in this country in terms
of entitlements. We're going to have to reform Social Security and
Medicare. Tell me how, tell me why anybody out there, outside of the
beltway, should believe that we are capable of doing that kind of
reform when we can't tell a farm couple making up to $2.5 million in
adjusted gross income every year, that's income after expenses, if we
can't tell them that the subsidy party is over? How are we ever going
to reform entitlements? I asked that of my party; I ask that of the
Democrats. How in the world can anybody take us seriously here if we
can't have a farm bill that reforms the subsidy program?
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), a member of the Ways and Means
Committee, without which we could not have done this bill.
Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, the pride I want to express is, as being a member of the
Agriculture Committee, which I also serve on, a day like today makes me
especially proud of that membership because what is before us is a
collaborative product, the majority, the minority, arm in arm, working
this through to build the best farm bill we possibly could. A bill that
attends to the nutrition needs of our country; a bill that provides the
safety net for family farmers; and a bill that safeguards the highest
quality, most affordable food supply in the Western world. This
collaborative effort would not have been possible but for the
leadership of Chairman Peterson, who, at every step of the way, wanted
to be inclusive in his leadership style, having not just the majority
but the minority fully involved in writing this bill.
I also salute Bob Goodlatte, ranking member of the committee, because
he could have walked away, could have said we're just going to do the
partisan thing on this bill, but, no, instead played a very important
role substantially improving the product of this bill, by virtue of Bob
Goodlatte's contribution and the contribution of the members of his
caucus on the Ways and Means Committee.
Our farmers are putting into the ground the most expensive crop in
the history of U.S. agriculture. I had a farmer tell me last week that
running three tractors to get his crop in was running a $10,000-a-day
fuel bill. They've got horrific exposure. They need the protection of
this farm bill. Please adopt it.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am at this time pleased to
yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).
(Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join my colleague in a
little colloquy.
I understand you're going to offer a previous question on this rule?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. If the gentleman would yield, I am going
to urge my colleagues to vote against the previous question so that we
can amend the rule, not replace the rule, amend the rule so that we can
discuss energy prices and legislation to bring the price of gasoline at
the pump down.
Mr. SHIMKUS. And I would assume a way in which we would do that would
be to bring in more supply?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. It would be based on supply and demand.
The gentleman is exactly correct.
Mr. SHIMKUS. I want to thank my colleague.
Mr. Speaker, one of the best things we can do for the family farmer
in this economy is to lower energy costs. And that's why I'm coming to
the floor because I am excited about my colleague's previous question
to bring on more supply.
Now, I was pleased to see that my friends on the other side have
accepted the supply debate, and we did that yesterday with great
acclamation, saying that bringing in 70,000 barrels of crude oil onto
the market would lower gasoline prices, your quote, not mine, between 5
cents to 25 cents.
Well, just imagine if we brought a million barrels of crude oil onto
our market, a million barrels from U.S. territory. And I think that's
what my colleague is going to bring in the previous question, because
1\1/2\ years ago, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $58. Today the
price of a barrel of crude oil is $125.09. I'm telling you the public
is starting to wake up. I'm hearing it from soccer moms. I'm hearing it
from labor individuals. They understand that the cost of energy is too
high. The price of diesel has doubled.
In an agricultural country, my farmers are trying to get their corn
in. It's been really wet. And it's diesel fuel. Diesel fuel has
doubled. We've got small local truckers going on strike because they
can't afford to fill up the tractor-trailers because diesel costs are
too high. Why are diesel costs too high? Because we won't open up any
supply.
I think the previous question will be an opportunity to open up
supply on U.S. soil, and maybe we will get a chance to talk about
opening up supply on the Outer Continental Shelf.
You all agreed to it. Supply will lower prices, based upon our vote
yesterday. But that was 70,000 barrels. Our challenge is to bring a
million barrels, locally produced crude oil and natural gas. Because we
can't sustain these high prices. We can't sustain them in the family
farm.
And that's why I'm excited to be here today to continue to raise this
debate on the price of a barrel of crude oil.
Another thing we could do is take our locally produced coal----
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an
additional 30 seconds.
Mr. SHIMKUS. I want to thank my colleague for yielding.
Because we want to highlight the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a
coastal plain the size of South Carolina, a drilling platform the size
of Dulles Airport. We want to address the Outer Continental Shelf, both
on the east coast and the western seaboard and the eastern gulf. We
want to address coal-to-liquid technology, where we take coal
underneath the soil or on our upper plain, build a refinery, U.S. jobs;
operate a coal mine, U.S. jobs; build a pipeline, U.S. jobs; and lower
the cost for jet fuel so that we can have U.S. jobs.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who absolutely has been an undying
advocate on behalf of those who need it the most, those who are going
hungry in our country.
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding, and
I thank him for his perseverance in this effort as well.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the rule and the underlying bill,
historic change that will meet the nutritional needs of all Americans.

[[Page H3795]]

I want to thank the Speaker for her vision and clear priorities on
this bill and Chairman Peterson for his tireless leadership and
perseverance. Thank you for welcoming my input on something so critical
as the nutrition title.
Today, as the country faces rising food costs, food banks cannot
handle the demand, and families struggle just to keep up. Today 35.5
million Americans live in households where not everyone has had enough
food in the United States of America.
With this bill we are finally taking the right steps to provide
people with a fighting chance, ending the erosion in food stamps by
increasing the standard deduction and the minimum benefit, which has
been frozen at $10 for the past 30 years, then indexing them to
inflation. Commitments to help almost 11 million people, families with
children, seniors, and people with disabilities.
Yet the current administration is looking for ways to undermine the
legislation. The administration has argued against expanding
eligibility by excluding retirement, education savings, and combat pay
when determining that eligibility.

{time} 1245

What does it say when our soldiers who fight so bravely for our
Nation abroad are forced to scrape and scrounge for food upon their
return?
And this bill does more. It increases funding for the Emergency Food
Assistance Program, including an immediate infusion of $50 million to
address supply shortages as more families than ever are relying on food
banks, soup kitchens and food pantries for help. There is also a
dramatic increase in funding for the fruits and vegetables snack
program for our schools giving more children greater access to healthy
fresh fruits and vegetables at school. And we are providing $84 million
in funding for the McGovern-Dole program which helps reduce child
hunger, promotes education and represents a powerful opportunity for
our Nation to export goodwill around the world.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill. For too long we have
failed to meet our obligations as a Congress and as a Nation, failed to
act while too many Americans have gone without adequate food, healthy
food, and are facing hunger in our Nation today. Today, we can begin to
do something about it.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire again how much
time remains on both sides.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington has 7 minutes
remaining. The gentleman from California has 11 minutes remaining.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I will reserve my time to
allow more equity in the time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I was remiss when I introduced my
colleague, Alcee Hastings from Florida, for his undying support and
work with regard to specialty crops. He was joined in this effort by
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mahoney) who has been just a stalwart
in helping me get the specialty crop title into this bill. And I would
like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Mahoney).
Mr. MAHONEY of Florida. Thank you, Chairman Cardoza.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Peterson and
thanking Chairman Cardoza for their tireless resolve to bring this
historic legislation to a vote today. I also want to thank Commissioner
Bronson and my good friends and colleagues, Allen Boyd and Adam Putnam,
for their work in delivering to the ranchers, farmers and growers of
Florida the best farm bill in history.
This farm bill, in combination with the energy bill already signed
into law, completes the foundation upon which Florida will build a
biofuels industry that will power America's engines and make us more
secure. It means more jobs for our State. It means our children will be
able to stay in rural Florida and have jobs for the future. This farm
bill, after more than 70 years, begins to give Florida's growers and
farmers parity with commodity crops.
In Florida, we grow over 270 different varieties of specialty crops.
I welcome this $1.3 billion investment in new programs that supports
research, pest management, trade promotion and nutrition for the
industry.
Finally, this bill makes an investment in our environment by making
an additional $7.9 billion available for conservation programs. This
bill brings farmers and environmentalists together to protect our land,
our waters, and one of our Nation's greatest treasures, the Everglades.
As a Blue Dog Democrat, I am especially proud that we have been able
to accomplish all of the above without having to raise taxes or go into
debt. We don't have to mortgage the farm to pay for this farm bill.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Chairman Cardoza, for all of your work on behalf of the
farmers and growers of Florida.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Once again I will continue to reserve,
Mr. Speaker.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from New Hampshire (Mr. Hodes).
Mr. HODES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the rule
on the farm bill. Chairman Peterson and Ranking Member Goodlatte have
worked hard to put together this bipartisan bill that helps working
class families struggling with the soaring cost of food. On balance it
is a good bill for nutrition and for the small farmers of the
Northeast.
The bill will also help my home State of New Hampshire because it
includes the Northern Border Regional Development Commission Act. I
introduced this bill to help the struggling communities in the north
country of New Hampshire and the region. The commission will help bring
investment, leadership and focus to the north country's economic
development efforts.
Thirty-six counties in four States that would become part of this
commission have poverty levels above the national average, median
household income that is more than $6,500 below the national average,
persistent unemployment fed by constant layoffs in traditional
manufacturing industries, and a significant out-migration and loss of
younger workers.
The recent announcements of mill closures in Groveton, Gorham, Berlin
and Littleton, New Hampshire, confirm a clear, persistent pattern of
economic distress in this region and across the northern border.
The people of the north country need a new start and more resources
to rebuild their communities for a new economy. The northern border
commission, coupled with other efforts, will help revitalize the region
and rebuild communities which need our help.
Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this rule. The people of New
Hampshire's north country, and the northeast northern border region are
counting on us.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I will continue to reserve, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Space).
Mr. SPACE. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding his
time. I would like to thank our chairman, Collin Peterson, and Ranking
Member Goodlatte for their hard work on this good, bipartisan piece of
legislation that does a lot of good things.
It enhances conservation. It provides a safety net that our farmers
need to do the work that is so important to this country. It does some
very exciting things with energy. And in the end, it allows these small
family farms that make up most of southern and eastern Ohio to meet
their margins in a very difficult profession. But it does something
more than that. It helps meet the growing needs associated with
poverty; rising food prices, a diminishing manufacturing base, rising
costs of living.
Seventy-five percent of this bill is devoted toward nutrition, being
mindful of the fact that most of those who will be fed pursuant to the
nutritional programs of this bill constitute the working poor. In my
district many of the counties have poverty rates exceeding 20 percent
and unemployment rates at 6 or 7 percent. This means that thousands of
people in my district alone are working full-time but can't afford to
feed their families. This bill will help mitigate that crisis.
This bill is good for farmers. It helps diminish the effects of
poverty and fight the ever-growing fight against poverty in this
country and will allow for the farmers of this country to continue to
provide the safest, cheapest

[[Page H3796]]

and most abundant source of agriculture on the planet.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3
minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).
Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about the
energy issue also. There are some good things in this bill for our
farmers. I especially think the dairy provision was well done. Dairy is
very important to Pennsylvania.
I was in the food business 26 years of my life. I know how people
struggle with their family budgets. But let me tell you, the farmers
are reeling with fertilizer costs. Why are fertilizer costs doubling
and tripling year after year? And why is 50 percent of our fertilizer
now being imported? Because of natural gas costs. Ninety percent of the
cost of ammonia fertilizer is natural gas, clean, green natural gas.
This Congress refuses to produce natural gas in this country. There has
never been a gas well that polluted a beach. Look at this chart. Off-
limits. Off-limits. Off-limits. There should be another one in the
middle. There should be one up here in Alaska.
We have said that we are not going to produce fossil fuel. Natural
gas is a fossil fuel. We are not going to produce oil.
Our farmers need relief. They need affordable energy to drive their
tractors, to dry their grain after they harvest it, and to buy their
fertilizer.
Folks, this country's economic future, not just farming, but our
ability to manufacture, our ability to heat our homes this winter--
right today, we are putting $11.50 natural gas in the ground for next
winter's use. Last year at this time, it was $6.50 to $7. Do the math.
That's a 40 to 50 percent increase in natural gas costs.
We have lost half of the fertilizer factories in America. That's why
our farmers are now using foreign fertilizer. That's why it is costing
them 300, 400 and 500 percent more than it did just several years ago.
Folks, we have to produce energy in America if we are going to farm and
have affordable food, if we are going to manufacture products and if we
are going to have an economy that competes in the global economy.
We are not in a sole economy any more. We are in a global economy. We
have to compete.
In America, we pay $125 for oil. Everybody does. But we have had the
highest natural gas prices in the world for 8 years. And the margin is
increasing because we refuse to produce energy for America. All of
these other debates are going to be academic. We won't have factories.
We won't have successful farmers. We'll be buying foreign fertilizer to
grow products in this country. We'll be buying foreign tractors to
produce our farms. We'll be driving foreign cars because we won't have
a manufacturing base left.
Clean, green natural gas is the answer.
And we need to open up. And we need to drill for oil, too. There has
never been a natural gas well that has harmed us economically and
environmentally. Clean, green natural gas.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy.
The committee has taken this bill as far as they can. There are some
modest reforms, as they nibbled around the edges. But the fact is, with
the passage of this bill, most farmers will still get no help. Most
conservation needs will be unmet. And we are going to continue to give
money to people who don't need it, up to $2.5 million of farm and
unrelated farm income and as over the last 12 years, 75 percent of the
direct payments went to just 10 percent of the largest farmers. We
don't need to that.
To add insult to injury, section 1619 will hide information under the
Freedom of Information Act so the American public won't even know the
facts. This is wrong. We can do better. We can stop giving assistance
to the richest of farmers. We can redirect it to further strengthen
nutrition and the environment.
I strongly urge a rejection of the rule and the bill. And if the
President has the fortitude to veto it, I hope people will join us in
bipartisan support to sustain the veto.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I ask how much time is remaining on either
side.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Washington has 4 minutes
remaining. The gentleman from California has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. CARDOZA. At this time I would like to yield 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, despite a President that has been unwilling to negotiate
in good faith, the Agriculture Committee, on both sides of the aisle,
has produced a solid compromise. And for the first time, under Chairman
Collin Peterson's leadership, this House has provided authority for the
agricultural interests of this country to lead America forward into a
new energy age.
The committee also has provided $1 billion to secure specialty crop
production in America for a change, to try to stunt foreign imports,
while also providing critical increases for farmers markets to help
empower local family farmers. And while there are some trade provisions
that were airdropped into this bill, not by the Agriculture Committee
that should have been considered in a different manner, the agriculture
provisions of this bill are critical for transforming our economy into
the 21st century.
In a world of increasing trade deficits and economic instability, the
production of food, fiber, forestry and now fuel, are all critical for
protecting America's economic independence, and her food security.
I want to congratulate Chairman Peterson for his incredible
leadership. He is the right man at the right place at the right time. I
urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and on the base bill. I thank the
gentleman for yielding me the time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I reserve my time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2\1/2\
minutes to the gentleman without whose leadership on the bill we simply
would not be bringing the bill to the floor today, the chairman of the
Committee on Agriculture, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

{time} 1300

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying
bill. This has been a long, drawn-out process. It has been a long time
since last July when we first passed this bill out of the House.
I want to first of all commend my ranking member and good friend and
colleague, Mr. Goodlatte, for the tremendous work that he did on behalf
of this bill and his caucus. As was said earlier, this bill is a much
better bill because of the involvement of Mr. Goodlatte and the great
work that he did. I very much thank him for sticking with us here to
the end.
We obviously would have preferred to have been here earlier, but this
was a difficult bill to work out because of all the competing
interests, and the fact that we started off with $58 billion less in
baseline than we had back in the 2002 bill.
In order to make all the accommodations for the different folks that
were interested in improvements in this bill, we had to find additional
resources outside of the Agriculture Committee, which caused additional
problems. We had to deal with a much different bill in the Senate,
where you had a lot of powerful committee chairmen that brought issues
into the bill that were not in the House bill.
We have worked through all of that, and we have produced a product
here that I think it isn't perfect, but satisfies, in most cases, the
different interests in this bill. We maintain a safety net for farmers
along the lines of what we have had in the past.
I, personally, would like the safety net to be stronger than it is,
but it's what can be accomplished at this point. We have $10 billion of
new spending above the baseline in this bill, and that $10 billion is--
I guess money is fungible, but the increase in this bill for nutrition
is $10.3 billion. You could say that we have improved the nutrition
funding to the amount of new money that's put in the bill. This is
money going into the food shelves, food

[[Page H3797]]

banks that right now are empty and very much needed. There is a new
fresh food and vegetable snack program for kids in low-income schools,
and there is improvement in food stamps.
We have a good bill that has a lot of other components. I urge my
colleagues to support the rule and support the underlying bill.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
Mr. KIND. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I realize how difficult it is to put a farm bill
together in this place, but this truly represents a missed opportunity.
The so-called reforms that are being advocated under the commodity
subsidy title would only affect, at best, two-tenth's of 1 percent of
farm entities throughout the country.
With an adjusted gross income limit of $2.5 million, these income
limits don't even apply to the loan deficiency program or the
countercyclical program, two of the three subsidy programs that exist
today. At the end of the day we should produce a farm bill that's less
market and less trade distorting and more responsible to the American
taxpayer.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1
minute to the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, who, along
with the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, their persistence was
such to bring this product to the floor.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I just want to say to all of my colleagues that this has been, as the
chairman described, a very long and arduous process that began more
than 2\1/2\ years ago by listening to farmers and ranchers and other
people all across the country and holding a multitude of hearings
there, and here in Washington as well. It began under my chairmanship.
I have never seen anybody who has pursued the passage of legislation as
tenaciously and with such dedication, but also listening to so many
different people, as the chairman of the committee has done.
Mr. Speaker, as a result, this is not your father's farm bill, nor is
it even the farm bill that passed out of this House last summer. This
farm bill has more reform than any farm bill that the Congress has ever
taken up. It imposes payment limitations on farmers and those who own
land and have substantial nonfarm income alike and is well worth
consideration in this body, and I urge its passage.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance
of my time.
Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for a farm bill that is 7 months
overdue, and I want to again commend Chairman Peterson and Ranking
Member Goodlatte for their persistence in bringing this product to the
floor.
But there is another concern for farmers in our country that this
Democrat Congress is totally neglecting, and that's addressing
skyrocketing gasoline, diesel and energy costs. The cost of running a
tractor, trucking products to market, and running a farm has risen
dramatically since Democrats took control of Congress, and they have
done nothing to help farmers, truckers or millions of Americans hurt by
rising fuel costs.
One of the principles of the farm bill is ensuring that America does
not become dependent on foreign nations for our food supply. We, as a
country, have fertile fields that can produce as much food as our
country needs to eat and even export billions of dollars of foodstuffs
overseas. But we, as a country, are not using our energy sources like
farmers use our fields.
For decades, our country has been handicapped by not tapping into our
existing oil reserves. The effort to develop just a tiny portion of
ANWR has been fought and blocked to the detriment of America's energy
independence and with high prices that we are now paying at the pump.
Today I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so this
House can finally consider solutions to rising energy costs. By
defeating the previous question, I will move to amend the rule, not
rewrite it, just amend it, to allow for consideration of H.R. 5984, the
Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008, introduced by Mr. Bartlett of
Maryland, as well as ``any amendment which the proponent asserts, if
enacted, would have the effect of lowering the national average price
per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel by increasing
the domestic supply of oil by permitting the extraction of oil in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.''
With diesel and gasoline prices going up and American farmers having
to cope with these skyrocketing costs, it's time for Congress to act.
The Democrat majority has refused time and again to act. We can act by
defeating the previous question.
Defeating the previous question will be simply to allow the House to
debate rising energy prices. The farm bill will still be considered and
voted upon.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the
amendment and extraneous material inserted into the Record prior to the
vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Washington?
There was no objection.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to do
something about rising fuel costs, and the way to do that is by voting
to defeat the previous question.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will note that the gentleman from
California has 90 seconds remaining.
Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, this is a once-in-a-lifetime bill that will
meet our country's needs. Every major group, commodities, specialty
crops, nutrition groups, conservationists and others support this bill.
A ``yes'' vote on this rule and the underlying bill is a vote for
America's hungry, a vote for our environment, a vote for United States'
energy independence, and a vote to deliver on our long-standing
commitment to rural America.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all of our colleagues to support this rule and to
support the underlying bill. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and on
the previous question.
The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is
as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 1189 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington

At the end of the resolution, add the following:
Sec. 2. That upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker
shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the
House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the
state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5984)
to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for the
limited continuation of clean energy production incentives
and incentives to improve energy efficiency in order to
prevent a downturn in these sectors that would result from a
lapse in the tax law. The first reading of the bill shall be
dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of
the bill are waived. General debate shall not exceed one hour
equally divided and contolled by the chairman and ranking
minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means. After
general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment
under the five-minute rule. All points of order against
provisions in the bill are waived. No amendment to the bill
shall be in order except any amendment which the proponent
asserts, if enacted, would have the effect of lowering the
national average price per gallon of regular unleaded
gasoline and diesel fuel by increasing the domestic supply of
oil by permitting the extraction of oil in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. Such amendments shall be considered
as read, shall be debatable for thirty minutes equally
divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent,
shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject
to a demand for division of the question in the House or in
the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against such
amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of
the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report
the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been
adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered
on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without
intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or
without instructions.
____

(The information contained herein was provided by
Democratic Minority on multiple occasions throughout the
109th Congress.)

The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against

[[Page H3798]]

ordering the previous question is a vote against the
Democratic majority agenda and a vote to allow the
opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an alternative
plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling
of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
Because the vote today may look bad for the Democratic
majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is
simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on
adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive
legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is
not what they have always said. Listen to the definition of
the previous question used in the Floor Procedures Manual
published by the Rules Committee in the 109th Congress, (page
56). Here's how the Rules Committee described the rule using
information from Congressional Quarterly's ``American
Congressional Dictionary'': ``If the previous question is
defeated, control of debate shifts to the leading opposition
member (usually the minority Floor Manager) who then manages
an hour of debate and may offer a germane amendment to the
pending business.''
Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of
Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special
Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on
such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on
Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further
debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues:
Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a
resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control
shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous
question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who
controls the time for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Democratic
majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the
opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas
and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule
XX, this 15-minute vote on ordering the previous question will be
followed by 5-minute votes on adoption of H. Res. 1189; motion to
suspend the rules on H. Res. 1134; and motion to suspend the rules on
H. Res. 1176.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 232,
nays 188, not voting 13, as follows:

[Roll No. 310]

YEAS--232

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Castor
Cazayoux
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Lincoln
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Foster
Frank (MA)
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reichert
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shays
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stupak
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Wilson (OH)
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth

NAYS--188

Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Donnelly
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Hunter
Issa
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Lamborn
Lampson
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Neugebauer
Nunes
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sali
Saxton
Scalise
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

NOT VOTING--13

Bono Mack
Cramer
Crenshaw
Cubin
Gerlach
Lewis (KY)
Mack
McDermott
Myrick
Rush
Schmidt
Stark
Weller

{time} 1335

Messrs. LAMPSON and TIM MURPHY of Pennsylvania changed their vote
from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. INGLIS of South Carolina, SHAYS and JOHNSON of Illinois
changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated for:
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 310, I missed the vote
because I was talking to military officers from the U.S. Army War
College. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.

[[Page H3799]]

Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas
and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228,
nays 193, not voting 12, as follows:

[Roll No. 311]

YEAS--228

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Castor
Cazayoux
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Lincoln
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Donnelly
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Foster
Frank (MA)
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
Lampson
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Wilson (OH)
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth

NAYS--193

Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Cooper
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Lamborn
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mitchell
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Neugebauer
Nunes
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sali
Saxton
Scalise
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

NOT VOTING--12

Bono Mack
Cramer
Crenshaw
Cubin
Gerlach
Lewis (KY)
Mack
Myrick
Paul
Rush
Schmidt
Weller

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). Two minutes remain on this
vote.

{time} 1345

Mr. TIM MURPHY of Pennsylvania changed his vote from ``yea'' to
``nay.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

____________________