Transcripts For CSPAN2 Joint Hearing On Federal Farm Disaster Programs 20240714

Culture, read the implementation of federal farmer Disaster Relief, will come to order. Thank you and welcome to this joint hearing of the subcommittee on general farm commodities and Risk Management and livestock and foreign agriculture. Im pleased to be joined by my colleague and fellow chairman mister custer and Ranking Member mister thompson, livestock and Foreign Affairs Ranking Member, and chairman peterson and fellow texan, Ranking Member, mike conaway. The first joint hearing comes at a very important time for farmers. Usda and Food Production Conservation Mission area and Farm Service Agency in the middle of a huge job. They are the home of 3 critical efforts to address the needs of farmers, ranchers and Rural Communities in our country. The Market Facilitation Program which is meant to assist farmers most direct we harmed by the administration of trade war, the expanded wildfire and hurricane endemic program which will aid in Rural Recovery from Natural Disasters and programs like arc, prc, and other supports within title i of the farm bill which provide a Risk Management framework for farmers and ranchers. It is our job on this committee to ensure these programs are structured in a way that can efficiently and most likely serve farmers, ranchers and small towns that need them right now. It is also our job to ensure these programs are implemented in a way that is fair, transparent and consistent with the law. We can get farmers the help they need while conducting appropriate and necessary oversight. I have concerns about the path usda is on when it comes to staffing. I hear from farmers alltime about understaffed local offices, resources at fsa are stretched thin. I would like to hear what plans usda has to make sure these resources are managed effectively. On top of their immediate media stories about Software Glitches and unprepared staffs to process disaster payments. It is clear usda wants to find efficiencies but is it prepared to make changes needed to deliver these Important Services even if that means increasing or decreasing staff and resources . I look forward to hearing your testimony today, mister undersecretary. I recognize chairman thompson, chairman peterson for an opening statement. I recognize Ranking Member conaway for an opening statement. Appreciate this important hearing and having us focus on the way usda is going about its business of helping farmers and ranchers in Rural America across this country but at the junction that it is difficult the process of the last eight days is shameful. It is one thing for xi jinping to use farmers and ranchers as a weapon against donald trump he knows trade negotiations with Something Else to have the powers of this body using the same good people is leverage because you dont like donald trump. This committee and usda trying to make sure america is protected and eliminate the certainty we can. But this has gone away about the cr taking the ccc funding hostas using those folks at a weapon. Shame on us for allowing that to happen. It should never happen. We are increasing this body to a terrible state. It is one thing for one of our colleagues to list donors of donald trump to harass their businesses and hurt them financially, it is entirely different for this body, this body to do the exact same thing with this funding mechanism that has always gone forward without impediments. My colleagues on the other side might say this has been done before, restrictions placed on this budget as a result of others affected future promises, not current promises at one time. These promises on Disaster Relief have been made and for us to threaten Rural America that payments would not go out in regular order is terrible. Shame on us for doing the same thing. My colleagues will say we fixed it but you didnt. You left restrictions on their. Theres a report in the face of all the things the chairman said they had to get done and added another report by october 30th or 31st of that workload and shame on us for doing that. We have not been funded. We have given certain funding as opposed to moving to 30 billion so from now on congratulations, from now on as the chairman said yesterday on the radio from now on this process will be a weapon that both sides can use to take it to their advantage, shame on us for doing that and i yield back. Mister chairman i recognize chairman peterson. I want to tell members, having been here 29 years, some of the history. This was put in place by the Republican Party in 2010 and was put in place, this restriction because at that time the republicans thought secretary bill sack was using the ccc to help Blanche Lincoln who was chairman of the senate ag committee, to earn reelection because it was a disaster in arkansas and the senate wouldnt do a disaster bill because she was up for election so what happens . They did instead is put a limitation on bill fax so he couldnt use the ccc to do it. You guys put it in place, not us. So what has happened ever since is the Appropriation Committee has waived that provision. They didnt change it but they waived it so this time it became an issue. Not a Single Member of this committee had anything to do with this, period. I object to making these accusations our members are complicit in this. We were not. I found out this came from the senate, not the house, the brouhaha came out of the senate. Whatever it is, my concern about this which i said on the radio yesterday, this is legitimate, there werent a handful of members who understood what the ccc was before the started. That is not just the latest. The president using this fund for farmers has elevated this thing. I have had people talk to me from the liberal side complaining they never knew there was a ccc or how it operated and yesterday the Freedom Caucus starting to weigh into this thing. Thats what im concerned about. Nobody on this committee had anything to do with that and without this committee this might have happened and it wasnt the house that was pushing this. It was the senate. That is where these troubles usually start so i wanted to clear the record. I now recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania, Ranking Member of the farm commodities and Risk Management subcommittee, mister thompson, for his opening remarks. Thank you for holding this important hearing regarding implementation of the 2018 farm bill provisions and Disaster Assistance. Thank you for your leadership, for attending and providing an update on the status of these important policies. Those of us representing Rural America know firsthand times are hard for farm country. Over the past years it seems there isnt a single region of the country that is immune from mother natures devastation. Not only are producers having to grab a hold of the extreme weather but profited by bad markets and everchanging landscape for global trade not to mention the policy uncertainty coming out of washington. That is why it is so important to get the 2018 farm bill completed without the threat of extensions which would only have exacerbated challenges facing farmers and ranchers. Im pleased with the timely rollout from usc and the key farmville programs despite having numerous other policies to implement which im sure we will hear about more today. House republicans made some key targeted improvements to the farm safety nets which should not be overlooked and in conference we negotiate against a senate bill that would cut 700 million out of the baseline of these critical programs. Talk about kicking farmers and farm families when they are down. People would be advocating erosion of the safety net at a time producers are looking for any lifeline available to keep their family farms and business. Im proud we are able to hold the line and produce a conference report that provides improvements from title i programs to the benefit of all crops and regions of the country. One area where congress could act now to ease the concerns of the every Culture Community would be to act swiftly to approve the United States mexico canada agreement, usmc a which made key improvements to nafta and is expected to provide 2. 2 billion in additional exports for producers particularly for dairy, the main commodity produced in my district. Beyond the access it provides usmc a send a signal to other trading partners in talks that the United States has the wherewithal to follow through on commitments made which will lead to other opportunities to expand trade like we saw with the agreement for japan. Congress wants to approve usmc a now. Failure to do so. Relationships between our negotiating partners notice for this administration future administrations as well. Thanks for holding this joint hearing, i look forward to hearing about the access to aid our farmers and ranchers. I recognize the gentleman from california, chairman for the so committee on livestock and foreign agriculture. Thank you, mister chairman. It is important these two subcommittees meet together this morning at this hearing the deals with the review of the implementation of the federal farm and disaster programs and the challenges we are facing today in farm country. For all the members that are participating, i thank you. I also want to note that it was important for chairman peterson clarify the history and the record as it relates to these activities that were most recently involved in the continuing resolution we need to pass this weekend obviously have a budget because frankly it is irresponsible to shutdown government. I always felt it is irresponsible and past actions by previous congresses to do that for political agendas is inappropriate period. Surveying the president hurt us in a hard way last year, at least i hope he did. The history of the ccc which is chairman peterson pointed out is really not known by the majority of members of congress until this last week, is important to note because frankly we should not be politicizing this. Some part of this committee my sense is that came from the senate as well but we have to deal with it. What we are dealing with today is to talk about where the safety net is. Where is the safety net for farmers and ranchers and dairy people across this country and as chairman of the subcommittee on livestock i am very interested in overseeing the new Dairy Margin Coverage Program, the reauthorization of the last farm bill and the administrations Market Facilitation Program is properly implemented and that is why we have the secretary here today in part. The dairy margin coverage for 2019 was set to end tomorrow. It is important we give dairy men and women every opportunity to sign up for this program. We will ask the secretary where we are in terms of that sign up and whether your numbers coincide with the numbers i heard. I hope there can be some flexibility with that deadline tomorrow. This year, given we have a brandnew program, at the same time you have the challenge, signed up for the 2020 program. I am sympathetic to the challenge the department is facing in that instance, but it has been tough across the land. We know the large fluctuations and amount of dairies that have gone bankrupt and been sold in every region of america, we lost our fair share in california. Men and women who have been there for generation, having to sell the dairy and it is tough and it has economic ramifications and communities where those dairies have been. Nationwide, a program in terms of success is triggered, over 1 billion in health, a quarter of 1 billion, excuse me, accord or of 1 billion in help to Dairy Farmers throughout the country and that is what the intention was. I have an issue with the president on this, i have been clear about that. The president has said farmers are better off with Market Facilitation Program payments than the access they had to china. Before the trade war. I think in the usmc a we made some headway on section 7. I can tell you the dairy market is important for california and mexico. When i talked to farmers it is not just my disagreement with this, everybody has leverage. Farmers in california are feeling the pain of it and they agree. They think it is important they have access to markets and they maintain those markets and are very fearful because of the current trade war we may never regain them and that is a concern i have. The Market Facilitation Program and how those moneys are used dont come close. The example in dairy, youre getting 16 18 in the margins may stave off bankruptcy or foreclosure by a bank for a certain time period the . 12 is not going to save dairy so i dont know what the leadership thinks. I have questions how the Market Facilitation Program is set up and how you implement it. Thank you for hosting this joint hearing with me. You have a farm background and you know how difficult it is in farm country and appreciate your participation to give us a sense with your testimony where we are going with this so i yield to the Ranking Member of our subcommittee. I have a prepared statement i would like to submit for the record and a couple comments for the sake of time because i would like to get to the real meat of the matter here but first it is important that we recognize how critical it is that we and agriculture stick together, republican and democrat. It is unfortunate that so many colleagues the dont have the opportunity to represent rural areas, lack of understanding of agriculture is significant. There is a wide gap and it is not uncommon around the countryside either. Most folks have no idea where their food and fiber comes from. We take for granted everyday of our lives it is really important we as republicans and democrats on this committee stick together and promote and educate and cajole and persuade as best we can other members of congress so they understand the nature and gravity of what we are doing as relates to production, agriculture, and a country that can feed itself quote itself is in an enviable position enabling us to be prosperous as well. The other thing i would like to mention. I have been around agriculture in these debates for a long time back to my debates on senate staff and back then i never understood why we didnt have in addition to Crop Insurance some type of Catastrophic Fund of some sort so when these disasters hit we are not waiting on congress for eight month or 12 month or 14 months or whatever it may be, but have a program in place like we have with fema where Congress Makes an appropriation every year and we have it and when disaster hits you have a base and if you need to come back and supplement that congress can. And it very clearly has Crop Insurance is valuable, you take a situation in my home state of North Carolina you have economic losses year after year after year, the hurricane of economics so to speak in the weather hurricanes coming through that absolutely devastate your areas. Farmers had millions of dollars tied up in the ground, hurricane hits in Early September and they dont have an opportunity to get anything from that investment. Meanwhile it comes at a time they stalled equity due to the economic hardships they faced over appear go of time. Then it Takes Congress month to get a disaster aid package across the finish line for a variety of reasons. This is an ageold problem. We have to come up with a better solution than we have now, Crop Insurance is valuable, very helpful, but so many times we face when it is not just quite enough. And weve got to have extra help. That is where we are. I look forward to your testimony and look forward to questions and answers. I yield back. Thank you, each of you for your views facing aquaculture in your state and across the country. I would like to request Opening Statements by other members be submitted for the record to begin his testimony and to ensure there is ample time for questions. We would like to welcome the honorable bill northey, undersecretary for farm production at usda, he is a fourth generation farmer from iowa and served as iowa secretary of agriculture from 20062018. Undersecretary northy, please begin when you are ready. Distinguished members of the committee, i am honored to be with you to discuss the work usda has accomplished and continues to deliver as we implement the 2018 farmville. Thank you for your leadership providing the Funding Authority that lets us support our nations hardworking farmers, ranchers, i am privileged to be the undersecretary for f pack, comprising three farmer facing agencies of fsa, rma and an rcs. Since Congress Passed and donald trump signed a 2018 farmville into law last december, one of the highest priorities has been implemented the dairy coverage program. Sign up began june 17th, fsa began making payments for the dmc on july 11th. As of last evening we had over 21,000 producers enrolled in the Dairy Margin Coverage Program with about 230 million being paid to ensure that our producers have enough time enrolled. We are extending the deadline from september 20thseptember 27th. Our fsa offices have and continue to make the extra effort to ensure producers are notified of the approaching deadline. We made phone calls and send postcards in the emails. Producer organizations and cooperatives have been important partners in sharing Program Information and deadlines and we will work with them to do so with this new deadline. Fsa has implemented the 2018 farmville changes as well. Rf plc sign up began september 3rd for the 2019 program and will run through next march and rma implemented key Crop Insurance provisions including multicounty enterprise units and provided Insurance Options for grazing of harvesting of wheat. I am a will provide coverage for him in crop year 2020. On the conservation side we had sign ups for continuous enrollment crp and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and fsa planning a crp general sign up in december. The crp grassland sign up to follow that. On september 3rd we published announcement of funds availability for the Regional Conservation Partnership program and additionally an rcs has implanted equip, csb and the Agriculture Conservation Easement Program in accordance with existing regulations as prescribed by 2018 farmville. New regulations will be published soon for implementation of those programs in 2020, fiscal year 2020. This past year has tested the resilience of americas farmers. Crop insurance, supplemental Natural Disaster assistance programs and shortterm trade mitigation programs have helped producers manage those challenges. To help producers who were unable to print plant crops or add significant delays in planting, usa increased flexibility in the Program Roles in its delivery by allowing earlier harvests and prevent acres, extending the filing deadline, providing cost shared to prevent plant takers by deferring interest charges on premiums. We took these actions based on comments we received from you, from farm organizations and producers and theres a lot of interest in the implementation of supplemental Disaster Relief, last week we announced fsas with plus program which provides payments to producers for Natural Disasters occurring in 201819. We began accepting payments but also included in that, in addition to the with clause is payment for stored grain losses and peach and blueberry freeze losses. In addition all producers with flooding or excess moisture related claims in 2019 receive a top of payment, 10 15 of their indemnity. Providing relief through the Emergency Conservation program, Emergency Forest Restoration Program and Emergency Watershed Program which were provided 1. 5 billion in a Disaster Relief bill. The markup Facilitation Program come part of Donald Trumps support package for farmers will provide 14. 5 billion in direct payments to agriculture producers affected by unjustified retaliatory tariffs in us farm goods. Sign up began july 29th and will run through december 6th. As of the beginning of this week we have 346,000 applications and 4 billion have been paid to producers. In february 2018, usda launched farmers. Gov, a mobile family website making it easier to apply for programs, process transactions, sign documents and access information. They can also access farm loan and assistance discovery tool with Disaster Assistance discovery tool there and begin accepting debit card payments online as well and there is more to come. Before i close i would like to acknowledge a particularly challenging time for agricultural producers. Our agencies are working hard to ensure producers have what they need to manage their risks and their land. I want to thank thousands of usda employees who serve farmers, ranchers and force 3 students daily for their hard work implementing the 2018 farmville and other programs. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Members will be recognized for questioning in order of seniority from members at the start of the hearing. After that members will be recognized in order of arrival and appreciate members understanding. I recognize myself for five minutes. Having just past the farm bill one of my primary concerns is assuring all the programs we pay for our fully and accurately administered. I know this is a priority for you as well in providing Excellent Customer Service for farmers and ranchers. Im aware you made a significant investment and comprehensive workload analysis to determine the number of staff requiring optimal efficiency giving states the ability to make decisions regarding staff placement for example. Right now we know field office is down from 11,000 in 20038500 employees currently. What is the target number of employees contained in the workload analysis and are we even close . Overall, one what the staffing model has allowed us to do, to look at those areas where we are most short in staff and for us to fill those areas first we are targeting every dollar we have in salaries and extends from appropriations to use that for staffing levels. Ideally the model says we should have more folks than we have now. We have a lot of work that is being done out there. I dont know that we will ever have the funding to get back to the levels we were in staffing 8 or 10 years ago. We are going to be as efficient with staff as we can. We are right now staffed about 90 of what we are feeling about what the dollars are that we have for each of those agencies and we are working hard to get closer to the 100 so we are working to staff up. We certainly have burdened those folks with several activities including activities in excess of the farmville activities we had but these are important programs to deliver. We look at trying to improve our software as well to make sure that works as easy as we can as we look at delivering the Market Facilitation Program, trying to make that easy for our producers and staff to be able to deliver and i think some of those things are helping, certainly some online activities, we dont expect our producers to use our services online. Having access to that allows producers to sign some documents coming in, save some time to counter as well. What is the staff number . Staff ceiling number is i can get those numbers exactly for you but it is 10,000, for fsa and we are around 9000 right now for fsa. One last question. Explain the rationale for the timing of Agricultural Risk Coverage and enrollment processes. As i understand it farmers and landowners can go to their fsa county office today and make the elections of 201920 however they can only enroll for the 2019 program right now because enrollment for 2020 do not begin until october 7th. Is that the best way to describe the situation or more openended . Can you describe what is happening . We are taking sign ups for 2019. We will start sign ups for 2020 in the midst of this. I dont remember i think it is october and so we will have focused able to come in and sign up, we are taking that 2019 sign up that will continue through march. I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, mister peterson. For five minutes. Do you say madame . [laughter] a couple questions. One of the things you said got me concerned. If you have Crop Insurance for him that was ordered in the farm bill as someplace. I have been investigating this and i will be doing more the next few weeks but i dont see how you are going to come up with the product for hemp given what i thought about it . Do you think you will be able to do this . The challenge is coming up with a product that fairly represents the risk, understanding how it should be priced. What we will offer is the ability to include it in harm whole food protection revenue including a policy that has all crops on a farm. In that case we typically will work with folks who have a history of growing. We have some previous revenue from that farm. Some folks are looking at coming up with individual policies, diving into the information coming from those areas where they have been growing hemp. 3 weeks of exploration, i will have a report for you. The question i have is about staffing situation. As i understand it, i dont understand it. I heard that you guys asked under the budget for Additional Resources or positions or something or the budget says you should have additional positions and resources but when you ask the corporation, did not include that. Going back in history we had 11,500 people working in fsa offices in 2004. Today we have 8500. I would argue we have more work today than we had in 2004. In my area, they have turned offices into a parttime office in the ced. Where i go is now spending a day or two a week, they turned it into a parttime office that is only open a couple days a week. When he comes down from that other county he brings people from that other office with him. This county that was run parttime is a completely a cultural county. There is nothing else in the county. I dont understand how this happens but my concern is we dont have the staffing that we need and i dont know if you asked for it and didnt get it or whether you had another plan going on that we are not up to speed on. I dont see how this is going to work. If you have a magic bullet i dont know about. There is no magic bullet in serving all the needs out there. We do use as Much Technology as we can, but the budgeting process is a challenging process, lots of choices you deal with, being able to look at where you have funds available, we gladly use more folks if there were more dollars. Did you ask for more . Lots of proposals inside and outside and we have the process of being able to sort through priorities through the president s budget as well as you have priorities and what you need to work through. We are looking to do everything we can to stretch the resources as far as we can. This office, optical Productivity Office report, they are doing some kind of study of your offices. That hasnt been completed as i understand. That is ongoing. We do time studies all the time to understand what programs are taking the most time, what offices and areas are seeing an increase. One of those challenges are disaster programs that occur infrequently. You cant really staff for those, you end up really challenged in areas where you have disaster on top of other programs but this is a way to measure the workload analysis at each of these offices, across the state, across minnesota and see which offices are the most short in staffing and make sure we staff their first with the available people we have. We have to have more people, if we keep having disaster programs and Facilitation Programs, the workload, the dairy program, it is a lot of things and these studies, give me one more minute. We were on the northern border, customs and Border Patrol did a study of the time of people going across the border and they went and closed the borders on a us highway, at 10 00 pm in the afternoon. I have people working on both sides of the border at midnight and we are at 4 00 in the afternoon. It is crazy. One of these studies that did that, that they claim to make these changes. They have nine places in north dakota that have 20 of the crossings we have, they left them open until 10 00. Im skeptical of these studies. I hope we can Work Together to get more people on the committee. Thank you. I recognize the Ranking Member of the full committee, Mister Conaway for five minutes. Appreciate that. I share chairman petersons concern that we opened pandoras box. Of a hemp planet stress through drought, thc levels skyrocket so we will be insuring an illegal product if we are covered by Crop Insurance. Thc levels skyrocket, so we will be ensuring an illegal product. Lots of unanswered questions. I wanted to share that. On the implementation side, in the farm bill i think we allocate some extra 100 million specifically for implementation of the farm bill. The final days of that effort we worked really hard to get, we wound up can you talk to us about where the stresses and strains or with respect to the implementation of the 18 farm billwito and what he reads you might need some help in . Thank you. Certainly the 100 million was beneficial and used and in need and mostly used for software and outreach come some additional staffing as well. In this case having 15 million we needed to go and use some of our other resources to do some of the i. T. Work and some of the staffing. So we had some other activities we were working on that we needed to prioritize the farm bill implementation period certainly did her to do the i. T. Work for that, and so we would reallocate resources to be able to try to get that done. Can you talk to us about any specific area of the 18 farm bill, with the chokepoints are really . The farther was apparently so we pulled things way from other modernization of some of our software and other kinds of things. We havent slowed any of the farm bill process down, but we had some ideas about other things were going to do that we needed to be able to use resources for the farm bill. It is our priority to get out and thats the number one activity. What im hearing though is youis have areas that shouldve been attended to and moving forward in your normal course of business that it suffered as a result of the lack of resources that are Senate Colleagues werev willing to pitch in. I want to thank chairman peterson for someone trying to get the 15 we got. It was hard to do, and dramatically short of 100 plus it was allocated in 2014. I thank you for your work and your team you have in place. Theyd work hours they dont get compensated for. They are incredible warriors. On behalf of producers in this country, their neighbors with those folks and i love what theyre doing and the go above and beyond what would normally be expected to make sure to the extent they can our farmers and ranchers are getting access to these programs that congress has put in. So please convey our thanks to them for the hard work and their continued hard work moving forward. Withthng that, mr. Chairman, i d back. Mr. Chairman . With the gentleman yield . I forgot to ask you, you created this new Business Center early, a process form hiring. As i understand it now, this ced and the county and the county commission, these be able to hire people locally but now as instead it they send this to this Business Venture center as one person here in d. C. That has to approve that before its sit back to the county for them to hire somebody. I dont think any of us here think its a good idea to have washington decide to should be hired in the local fsa office. Would you look into that . Thats a i was told speedy the decision estimate locally and the state directors, state sgds come have authority to decidede what offices those go into as well but they apparently fill out an electronic format that gets sent to d. C. And then the person looks at it for uniformity, and if its not uniform they take t out and it doesnt go back to the county. I dont understand why were letting somebody in washington makesese the decisions about who should be hired in a local county. If you give me an answer, appreciate it. Thank you. Share. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, mr. Thompson. Chairman, think its a much. Mr. Undersecretary, good to see you again. Thanks for your leadership and service. Extend my appreciation to all the hard work, working force who are under your responsibility. Appreciate what they do. We obviously need our farms, family farms to and on that level of professionalism to get connected with the resources that quite frankly this Committee Makes available through our work with the farmof bill authorizations, we authorizations. I want tobl start out on dairy. You mentioned about 21,000 farms have signed up for the gary margin coverage which i think was about 70 of the registered dairy operations. What is fsa doing specifics remain to make sure the many operations are taking full of advantage of the new program . I appreciate the oneweek extension obviously. We certainly got a lot of partners in reaching out to farmers. Last year the a signup for the program was just a little over 21,000 as well. Were actually about 80 farmers short right now of where we were in sign up in 2018. With two days of side to go. We think likely we will end up by the end of this week and service by the end of next week at more sign up for this program than weve had from mpp. As you suggest, theres other producers out theregn that i participate in the past, maybe theyre not in this is, maybe they decide not to participate in this. Other producers that have dairyy operations as well that are not participating and would try to reach out to those, make sure that there choice, they understand the value of this program, how it works a lot t better for our larger producers than it once did. It still ensures up to the 5 Million Pounds but it works much easier for our larger producers. With some b small producers that historically have not participated and were making sure we reach out to them. Phone calls, emails, postcards, everyone cut at least two two postcards over this sign of period. They had been contacted to their marketing organizations as well where theres a coop or partner association, so we worked with them all to reach out as well. So we done all that we can. We continue to do that the next week, and we are doing good reports that a lot of folks e ow. I assume well see a significant bump in the next couple of days but its important still to be able to get folks another week to make sure that if they have lost track of the date, that we chance to be able to touch them one more time and get them into be able to make that conscious choice. And get them in to make that conscious choice. With the gentleman yield . Sure. I think there is bipartisan support here. I dont know if you need a letter from us, but the flexibility as i said in my opening comments, i think it is important for the department to exercise. I think what you are saying is you are exercising that flexibility, but i think it is important, notwithstanding the efforts youve made, that you indicate you will entertain until the end of the month or whatever time. Makes sense. Thank you. We are announcing today the extension for one week, so from the 20th to the 27th. We do have to watch about getting much later than that, because we need to have signup start for the Dairy Margin Coverage Program for 2020, the first week of october. We need to get folks completed in this signup period. So that is our intention right now. I think each of us has a responsibility, as well. I know the month of august. I take every opportunity, whether it is a farm bill legislative session, on a farm, at the allamerican dairy show on saturday in harrisburg. 2400 head of cows there with kids showing them. The dairy summit, secretary perdue joined me for. Just to encourage farmers to sign up. This is a product that does work for everyone. It is affordable and i do appreciate it. The few seconds i have left, i want to reach out to the department on our other big crop that i have in my district. That is hardwood. Hardwood has been hit hard with the tariff situation, yet there is no relief. There are two things. First of all, we need to get these tariff deals done. Thats a priority. If there is a second round weve got to look at how we help these hardwoods. They have been at the tip of the spear of losses and for those in the business that have contracts on our National Forest or corps of engineer land, one of the Simple Solutions is to extend the contracts they may have for another 24 months, because they are being forced to harvest, when they are harvesting at one level and the market is not there. That is something i will follow up with the appropriate folks at usda on. Thank you. Thank you. I now recognize the chairman of the livestock subcommittee, mr. Costa, for five minutes. Thank you again, mister chairman. As i said in my opening comments i dont believe anyone wins trade wars, because i think everyone has coverage and whether it is part of their strategy or for political reasons, certainly the chinese recognize that. The language theyve chosen to use in not buying u. S. Agricultural products has really hurt farm country. Of course, at any point in time, the president is correct. The chinese have been bad actors, for 20 years. Industrial, you know, theft, copyright issues and even when weve one in the wto, they have not complied. They have been bad actors and that was recognized in the Obama Administration and the Bush Administration before that. There have been different strategies used to try to deal with it. Certainly they can buy more Agricultural Products because they need them and they have the money, but this is part of the strategy. You are not the trade ambassador, i dont hold you to that responsibility. But let me tell you when we are talking about california specialty crops, 50 billion per year ag industry in california, it is hurting hard. Throughout the country, but especially california. Pistachios, almonds, beef, plums, cherries, avocados. They face now over 50 tariffs on exports to china. The California Walnut Commission estimates the industry will lose nearly 100 million annually due to the chinese trade dispute. Meanwhile, california farmers have received about 80 million in total payments in the first Market Facilitation Program. You know, that doesnt cut it. Go down the list. Three cents per pound for almonds, six cents per pound for cherries. We think we have lost about . 30 per pound on the almond market. You know, three cents doesnt come close. I talked earlier about the . 12 on dairy. Nationwide the dairy industry estimates theyve lost more than 2. 3 billion in revenue since the trade war began and theyve received about 20 million in the first round. Beyond these losses, we are losing market share, as i said earlier, to our competitors. Those relationships are tough to rebuild after hopefully we get past this. So, while i mentioned it is not your job to negotiate the treaties, the president said he was making farmers more than whole and farmers are doing better than if china were buying. As i said, california farmers disagree with that. Mister undersecretary, you agree with the president . Will the second round of trade aid make farmers more than whole . Are they better off with this than they would be with access to chinas market or other markets . I think everyone is working for a better trade situation, not only for the products we were exporting, but the products we were struggling to export. That is where the real game will be. Our Market Facilitation Program was a bridge to get to that. It is certainly hard in that Market Facilitation Program to deliver exactly what a producer lost. Well, its not possible. Its not. 16 billion, is that the current number with the program so far question 14. 5 billion. And you spread that across the whole country in the midwest. Important commodities. The california ag industry is 16 billion. Try to spread 16 billion across the country and you talk about different states. I know farmers dont want subsidies. Weve gone through this a whole lot over the last 20 years of farm programs. They want access to markets. Level, fair trade and with a 44 of californias agriculture depending upon trade, it is the reason we need to get this usmca agreement completed i think, because it is so important to our country, as well as to our neighbors to the north and to the south. So, what is the implementation going to be on this next round . So we are still getting sign up for this participation in this program, up until december 6. We have pulled all producers that the first 50 of this secondround of mfp is guaranteed. We will look to see whether the second and third payments are needed. If we get a trade deal we will reevaluate. We certainly hope that we get a trade deal before this but it doesnt make up for the loss in the market, no . It certainly is a support for producers. It is important to be able to have something and i think it is a recognition by the administration, how important trade is to agriculture and i think it is a great reminder and appreciation for the role of trade and why there needs to be active participation in trying to get to that trade deal that is better on the other side. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the livestock committee. Thank you mister chairman and mister undersecretary, think you for being with us today. I, too, want to commend the entire team at usda and all those employees out there working really hard. As well as all the other employees at usda. They do a lot of very important work, very well. And in many cases, with limited resources, too. I want to focus in on the Disaster Relief. Record 3 billion. Those of us who in the southeast work really hard, including my friend here to my left, mister scott, on getting this package across the finish line. What do you expect to pay for losses in 2018 . Do you have an estimate of what that is going to consume and a followup to that is how much of that money do you think is going to be block granted to the states . If you can talk about your plans and thoughts on that, as well. It is a challenge to estimate what actual losses were, as we did in 2017, as well. I think certainly it is likely between half 1 billion and 1 billion and i think losses that occur from the hurricanes in 2018, we know there was some coverage covered by Crop Insurance. But this is to top up some of the Crop Insurance losses, as well as to try and cover some of those other losses. For block grants, we are still in discussions with the states as they continue to bring forward their thoughts on what block grants should cover. As you all outlined in the disaster bill, this isnt designed to pop up existing programs. This is designed to cover those things that are not covered in existing disaster programs or in w. H. I. P. Itself, so maybe timber and other kinds of things. We are still in conversations. It will be in the several hundred Million Dollar range, but it will depend what their proposals are and what they conclude those losses are. Of course, the real proof is when you go out to the producers and how many producers have losses and are interested in signing up. So we dont have a set number of what that dollar amount will be. Certainly it is going to be very important to many of the producers. Followup to that, when a producer goes in and files his application, how long do you think it is going to take to turn that around . It depends how complex that application is. We already have some producers that have completed applications. So in some cases, it is fairly straightforward. They have information from their Crop Insurance. From their Crop Insurance information last year, so they are able to complete it very quickly. In other cases we have producers who have not participated before so they have to establish compatibility first. They have to get that information and there are other additional challenges for some producers. They dont have acreage reports to look at history and compare history to what the losses were, either. So for the most part we think it will be fairly quick for most producers, but there will be some, some of the applications, that will be more complex or cover things that have more questions and require more information for the producer. What about the timing of the payment, once the application is complete, everything is done , et cetera, are we looking at a month, two months . Right now we are still making final changes in software on the payment mechanism, so that should start soon. Once a producer completes that application, it should be certainly within two weeks, that they would be able to get a payment for that application. Hopefully less than that. Just for your awareness, and i dont know necessarily that this is widespread, but ive gotten some feedback from producers that when they go to the fsa office, they are told they have absolutely no idea what they are going to be eligible for and maybe that is just a situation as it relates to the application process itself. But producers walk out of there pretty dejected, when they dont have any idea and they are told they are not sure what they will be able to receive. So i dont know if that is an education issue in some of these offices where employees have not been brought up to speed on exactly what is entailed in the disaster program. But i have heard that, so i just want to make you aware. I would love to be able to hear about those cases and where we can get more information out. For the most part, many of the places where that program is being implemented is around hurricanes and areas very familiar with the software, since we are using very Similar Software and criteria that we used in the 2017 program. For many cases, we have a lot of folks who had some experience implementing that program as well, before. Then we have been able to have training. I would love to find out if there are places we have missed and need to be able to get more touch to some of our employees out there. Both online and in person training. Train the trainer, as well. We need to make sure that it is such that when a producer comes in they have a competent, capable and interested person across the counter to be able to help them walk through that application. My office will follow through with you on that. Thank you very much. I yield back. I now recognize ms. Hayes from connecticut. Thank you, mister chairman for holding this hearing and thank you undersecretary for being here. So, i represent connecticut and my questions are specifically about our Dairy Farmers. We have 80,000 working acres of dairy farms which account for 4000 jobs, so much smaller than other districts weve heard about, but i think that is cause for so much of the concern in my community. In 2018 in connecticut, we had 110 license to Dairy Farmers and as of monday when my staff checked, only 66 of those farms applied for the dairy margin coverage. So, for a program that is guaranteed to provide, you know, protection for those margins, why do you think enrollment is not higher . I dont know in those cases. Certainly outreach has been tried in some cases. I dont know how connecticut specifically compares to what it sign up was for mpp a year ago, and whether there are some producers that choose not to participate. There are certainly groups of producers that choose not to participate in any program at all. Again, i dont know specifically in connecticut. I was on a beautiful dairy farm, modern, wonderful dairy farm in connecticut a few months ago and i know we have been reaching out to producers, both by postcards and emails and phone calls, to be able to let producers know about it. We have another week to be able to reach out to folks, if there are reasons and if you hear of reasons, or producers have not been contacted or are not aware, we certainly want to make sure they are aware and understand. This is a great program. This is a program that is going to be very constructive. Right now we know they will actually make money in 2019 because of that, but most importantly, in the long term, this is a great Risk Management program for a small amount of money for the future. A producer can no that they have a protected margin in that program, so we are seeing about half the producer sign up for five years of the program. A little short of half of the producers. Certainly many of the folks that signed up for previous programs are signed up. We continue to lose some dairy farms in all parts of the country. So compared to longago history, we have less participation than what we had with some of those producers with historical production. In some cases, some of them were not able to stay in business. We think we reached out to all the folks pardon . We have seen it in connecticut, the sum of these firms have gone under and have not been able to remain in production. I agree with you that this is a great program, but with outreach, i know in my district specifically, in connecticut 5, broadband is unreliable. So if we are using email as a method to communicate with people. I know on my staff i have gone out and done roundtables and met with farms. I would love to have joined you on a farm to be facetoface and talk to people and say this is what is available, because people are missing out on the opportunity because they dont know it exists. So if there is anything that i guess members of congress can do to help you, because it sounded like when the chairman asked have you asked about increased staff, it didnt sound like a hard yes, but i think that is something we would all be willing to support because i know it is lifeand death for my community that there are people on the ground to assist in the process. So if there is anything we can do, i think i would love to engage in that process. I think when we have these large conversations, the Small Farmers feel left behind and are afraid of what the next step is or where they fall in this conversation, so i think it is critically important. I know we go to the places where there are the most people and we maced make the most impact, but the farming communities as you well know. Thank you. Many members of done a great job in their own communication with constituents, as well as mentioning it at public events. Reminding folks, we will give another week, another opportunity to remind them that the deadline is a week from tomorrow. Have you used public radio . We have used radio. Because my farmers love the radio. Not my farmers, your farmers, too, im sure. But the radio, i communicate with them a lot. I know i send out mailers and people dont really read them, so i am thinking of anything we can do to make sure the information is shared. We will continue to reach out and do whatever we can to make sure people hear about it. Thank you. I now recognize mr. Scott. Thank you mister chairman. I suppose my friend and colleague congressman bishops district probably had more losses for 2018 than i did, but i believe i am second of the 435 members of the house with regards to losses for 2018. We know the saying, the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Certainly we recognize this is the case in agriculture. The payment for w. H. I. P. , the upper payment limit was reduced from 900,000 to 250,000 for the 2018 storms. It was 900,000 for 2017. Can you tell me why that reduction was made, briefly . I think certainly in discussions, both internal, as well as through government, we had several conversations, looking at how many folks would hit payment limits, as well as managing dollars. Recognizing there is a limited number of dollars to cover losses in 2018 and losses in 2019, but for the balance of 2019 as well. We dont know what further losses might be. Absolutely and that brings me to the second point. Forgive me, i am on a five minute clock. I want to move fairly quick. We put 3 billion and for the 2018 storms, just for the other members knowledge. Now that the 2019 storms will be paid out of that 3 billion amount allocated for 2018, can you tell me how much you estimate the 2019 losses to be . I think we are all going to agree here, no more hurricanes, right. No more disasters. But as you say, its the balance of 2019, up until now and Going Forward as well. What are the losses to date . We havent had a large number of losses to date. We had the midwest floods. Whats that . The midwest floods, do we not have an estimate on that . Much of the actual coverage would be through Crop Insurance or other crop losses through Crop Insurance, so we will see a few payments going there, but most of it, most of the w. H. I. P. Payments will go to hurricane areas. So there is almost 1. 5 billion left over from 2017 disaster payments, is that correct . It is. So i have asked that the 2017 money be appropriated for the storms of 2018 and 2019. Forgive me mister secretary, i know i am moving fast. I have a lot of things i want to bring to your attention. The usda gave an estimate on november 29, 2018 of the total losses for 2018, to date. The usda requested a total of 1 billion. For alabama, california, florida, georgia, hawaii, south carolina, North Carolina and virginia. We have not seen any updated estimates for the 2018 storms. Are you aware of any updated estimates from your economists for 2000 . 18 the 29th i am not and if there have been i have not seen a number. Im not either and that concerns me greatly. Again i apologize for moving so fast, but, for example, and i have the breakdown by commodity group, by state. Your economist, the usda economists of the georgia cotton loss was 260 million. Indemnity estimate was 111 million and 148 million would end up as the net uninsured loss. According to our ag institutions, the university of georgia. The land grant institutions and economists, you have 260 million in that slot. We show it as 550 million. You show it as 70 million. We show it is 260 million. Again, these are landgrant institution economists that we have provided this information to the usda and asked for updated estimates on what the losses are. My concern is, when we went, when congressman bishop and i were arguing for the 3 billion for the storms, we had the information from the land grant institutions. Georgia, florida, North Carolina. And we could not get the usda to move off of the 1 billion request. We effectively forced it, if you will, to the 3 billion. To this date, almost a year later, farmers have not received any payments yet from the storm, as you know. Not your fault at all. But i dont understand why the estimates have not been updated from november of last year, when we know they are not accurate. And i, quite honestly, think 3 billion will end up falling very short of what the actual losses were. I am talking about uninsured losses for the 2018 crop year. Now we take 2019 storms out of it, while at the same time we have 1. 5 billion sitting in lockbox that cant be touched. So any help from the administration in moving that 2017 money into whatever we do in a continuing resolution or appropriations process, so it can be used for the 18 and 19 storms. It is money that has already been appropriated, just cant be used. I appreciate you, i appreciate your experience in agriculture. Im concerned with the usda economist estimates. I am concerned and would suggest , this cannot take a year the next time someone goes through a storm, the way the state of georgia did. My people would not be farming today, but for a loan program through the Georgia Development authority. The governor and state legislature did it in a special session and brian kemp in the legislature came back in and put more money in it. They should not have to do that. But for them, my people would not be farming today and i look forward to their estimates from usda economists. Thank you, sir. I now recognize mr. Cox from california. Think you. Good to have you here today. I have a question regarding the competitiveness program. Did you know that cotton is not eligible for the traditional programs . In one of the pros provisions is the staple or the fema competitives program. Just like the majority of farmers and ranchers in my district, Cotton Producers are being harmed by the trade war with china, resulting in lost markets and quickly declining market process prices. My market and others working with the usda to make needed updates to the program, which the secretary heard about from some growers in my area during his recent visit to california a couple months ago. It is my understanding that the needed changes to the program are being held up, so what can you and the secretary do to help us get this done and how can this committee be helpful . Our growers are suffering and with crops being harvested, we need those Program Updates as soon as possible. I appreciate that. You know i am restricted from conversations about what activity is at omb and the actual proposals, but we continue to evaluate the inclusion of other varieties within that formula that would potentially impact the support to that program. Thank you. Anything this committee can be doing, ourselves . You know, i think continue to provide information about why there should be adjustments to that program, from the point of view of your producers, i think is always valuable. Okay. Then i have a question regarding the area Margin Coverage Program and organic dairy farms are also eligible for the program. I would like to hear about any specific outreach youve done to reach this section of the industry . We have reached out to all sorts of trade groups, trying to reach out to their producers. We certainly can get you information about what our touch has been specifically to get organic Dairy Producers, but i think associations have been involved, as well and their marketers have been involved in reaching out to their producers, recognizing that they qualify for that program, as well. So we need information about what has gone out. I am not personally as familiar with each of those outreach efforts. Thats all i have and i yield my time. Thanks. Thank you. I now yield to mr. Marshall. Sorry. I yield for five minutes. Thank you, mister chairman. Undersecretary, good to see you again. I would like to focus a little bit on the Market Facilitation Program. Some of the farmers out there, especially southern minnesota, have questions. I know you have answered this in the past, but it would be good to revisit it as to why people in counties in my district are receiving 60 or 70 per acre, where other parts of the country could be up to 150 per acre. It can vary based on zip codes and counties and neighboring counties getting different numbers for the same crops. Could you maybe go over that a little bit again and help us with how the calculations are made . I can. Thank you, congressman. The formula that was figured out, as you remember. We established the criteria for the market. The payment for the Market Facilitation Program, during planting. We wanted to be able to not incentivize the growing of one crop versus another, which is why we went to a county payment rate. Whatever they were planting, they would get the same payment rate and we would not influence planting decisions. Then we had to figure out what that payment rate would be and we look to crops grown in each of those counties and how those crops were being impacted by the trade. Some crops are being impacted by the trade curve to a greater degree than others. In some cases, they export more of their product. In some cases, export more of it to china, where we have had some issues. Obviously in the first round you saw some difference between corn and soybeans, because they are impacted differently. Certainly cotton is one of those that is impacted greatly. Some of the other products are impacted to greater or smaller degree. So what ends up in the final payment is the mix of the crops that are grown in that county and the impact on the value of those crops, based on the loss of the markets to both tariffs and historical nontariff barriers, as well. The chief economist looked back over the last 10 years to be able to look at when we had higher trading years and what nontariff barriers mightve been added through the years as well. So the difference is, there are some places where the average acre in that county, which is the mix of acres in that county, have a higher impact per acre than others in other counties. I appreciate you clearing that up again. I know the subjects im about to bring up dont directly impact you. We have fine folks behind you, you can all go back and talk to the secretary and report to the white house and others. So it is been going on in farm country for five or six years with the low Commodity Prices and high input costs is tough and has a can cumulative affect as we go through trade negotiations. There are good things that i think people of missed. Regulatory reform has been excellent. Getting rid of the high cost of energy and having u. S. Energy independence, which is important agriculture. The tax reform bill was good for farmers. Obamacare and the Affordable Care act has really crushed them and we need to do better there and get that down. Entree, my messages this. They understand china has been cheating and we have to do something, but they wanted solved as fast as possible. I know you are working on it and the trade rep and the president and everyone else is committed to that but i encourage you to get a result as fast as possible. Its good for the whole country. Secondarily on biofuels, i think we have to keep working in that area. Theyre looking at making an announcement in the near future, whether it is buying back we should be following the law the land and hope we can get that worked out because its important for corn and soybean farmers in southern minnesota. And lastly, this is just something to make sure that you stay apprised of. This africanec swine flu thats really crushed things in china, maybe half the hawks, demand for soy would be down. We cant have that here and i know youre working hard, whole department is to make sure we keep it out of the United States, keep it out of north america but that would be devastating to farmers in an array of errors so i preshift or to that. Thank you. Now recognize mr. Van drew. Thank you, chairman and welcome, undersecretary, good to see. Im from southern new jersey, which is a lot different than northern new jersey. When secretary perdue was before the full committee in february he told us he didnt think a second round of trade payments would be necessary or likely, but we obviously are in the midst of the second round. I want your opinion. Do you think from what year from the people you speak to, because youre going to have to be ready, do you think a third round of payments is likely at this point . Im still hoping that the second and third payments of the second round are not necessary because were back to a better trade environment in the short term. So right now we are focus of the temple to make these payments now foror producers. I did not believe there was a likely of a second round. I thought itcu sounded to me tht we aredu very close in agreemen, and that certainly would have been preferable for everybody. But when an agreement couldat nt be reached it was important to be able to stand up for the producers, be able to support producers. Of course. So i dont know. Ino just hope you had inside info. No. There are significant differences between the 2018 Market Facilitation Program, the mfp, and the 2019 edition of the fnp. Most notable the approach towards a payments are calculated which is based on actual production last you with this year was on a per acre basis. Can you walk to the rational or reasoning or decisionmaking why that wasic done . Good question. In 2018 we established the Market Facilitation Program going into harvest when we would be very close to be able to harvest numbers and we could look at actual production as producers could bring that information in to their fsa office and be able to provide that information. As wect look at 2019, weve lood at a crop that was growing or in some cases not even planted yet. We wanted to make sure to not influence that planting decision. So we needed to be able to have a producer that was considering between two crops, just look at what the market asked for, not look at a Market Facilitation Program payment, which wouldve been different in the first time around if we had instituted that in 2019. So we wanted to go to an acre payment to be able to provide that continuity, and yet predictability that there was support for producers that were impacted by the trade situation in 2019. And so thats why we went to the acre payment in 2019. Certainly one of the criteria for both programs was to make it pretty straightforward for our producer to be able to come up with information that they needed to comply, naked as straightforward as possible for our offices as well to be ableke to deliver it, because we were adding that onto the work that was being done in our offices and the work that a producer needed to go through. Ito think both met that test evn though they were deliveredt differently because there were delivered at different times of the production year. And you believed by using that combination mentoring on the circumstances youve achieve the maximum accuracy . I think so. Its a challenge to be able to predict what market impacts are of trade disruptions. I think the chief economist did a great job of being able to analyze of that,t, give the information back. Certainly there will always be disagreement on whether that was enough or not, or whether it is balanced right way. But i think we did anything to be able to deliver it the way we did also minimized the disruptions that the paymentf could have caused it we had gone commodity by commodityd paymen. This trade aid has committed a situation, as you know, where some farmers are getting direct payments while others like a lot of fruit and Vegetable Growers in my area have to hope that the usdas purchase of the products will be large enough to move their home market. Can you share why some of the commodities that were impacted by the trade war received mfp paymentsts while others received purchases . F as we look at the commodities that were being impacted, you could look at certainly some of the special commodities that were being impacted. Some of them we could replace that demand by creating new demand by buying them and having them offered through food banks. Hopefully, that even crates additional customers in the future. In other commodities that was impossible or we could supply enough if it was gary or pork. We did do some purchases but we also need to make some direct payments. Of course we did everyone with a larger commodities, cotton or corn orld soybeans to be able to offer purchase and have a place for those all to go. So it made sense to be able to usee the purchases wherever it could make sense to be able to offere that through other outlets. Hopefully creating additional customers, and then providebl direct payments to those that we were not able to provide purchases. The time of the gentleman has expired. The chair will now recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. Allen. P thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Undersecretary, thank you for being here today. Weve already heard a lot about the situation in georgia with thehe disaster, you know, crops being and a direct path of the hurricane, and the losses from infrastructure and just Communities Just devastated. It took a long time but we now have a Disaster Relief package, and you know, through this process i i continue to hear fr my constituents that onlya the need for immediate Disaster Assistance but also the concerns of fixing the problems they ask. Expense when signing up for the previous with program. To this, mr. Undersecretary, what has fsais done to ensure tt the new program is being admitted effectively and efficiently throughout all the local fsa offices . As we have made sure that our staff is well trained in the program, we made some i. T. Improvements as well in the way that the program operates, including the payment mechanism being hooked directly to the program mechanism. Soth that allows a little more efficiency in the offices. It is a challenge for producers when we look at individual losses, and thats the way this program was designed to be up to look at individual losses. If you and i are across the fence from each other and use over 6 loss, i suffered a 40 loss, and, and yet when the same neighborhood, we will pay based on the relative loss, and that requires a certain amount of paperwork. Often that information is already available from the Crop Insurance records. Again, that loads fairly quickly into the whip program. Can you define relative loss . How does relative loss work . Are you balancing out the losse across a certain area or how does that work . We take each individual operations loss. So we dont take a regional loss. We take an individual operations loss, and then we take into account what the operation receipt for cropiv insurance payments as well. And then we have for you to be able to have a higher amount coverage and Crop Insurance but never more than what a full guarantee for Crop Insurance would have been. No producer in this case, even with these payments, is going to be better off than it wouldve been had they had a crop, special those producers what really good crop coming. They will only be insured or the will ofca the covert or we only compare against what theyre expected normal crop would have been. I understand this became available last wednesday, is that correct . Yes. And you did comment about the software. And when with the software be readily available to fsa offices . Its out there now and they are working. Weve seen some applications back. Certainly if you any different, id love to be able to hear about that but its out there working. He we had it available for folks. We are not now yet for the First Operations making those payments. That will occur within the next few weeks. Once that happens we will start making payments bassoonist in addition to the whip plus program i worked tirelessly to secureth Disaster Assistance to our blueberry growers who suffered losses in the 2017 lateseason freeze. When do you think the provision of that was included in the Disaster Relief package made available funds through expanded coverage of the previous 2017 whip package, when do you think we will see when will the growers expect to receive this and how will this be distributed . That signup started last week as well so that started on the 11th as well. So i assume we have producers that as soon as they are aware of that are coming in the office. Again, thats using the 2017 program, so the 2017 software, payment limits, other things of 2017. Thatsdu already available and e should have producers certainly possibly signing up for that program right now. Well, you know, speaking of the trade situation, you know, when secretary perdue came to his first hearing here, i said then farming comes down 55 , and this was before he ever got into trade negotiations and they said what are we going to do about these low Commodity Prices . And he said we got bad trade deals. And so i dont know what the answer is. Obviously, lots of people have been impacted by these negotiations. But then again i think the reason we had terrible trade deals is revenue election in this country every two years and people who are in Public Service to want to take the risk of trying to fix these things. This president is taking it on and i just pray that we can get a quick resolution to this thing, and have a fair, free trade because our farmers cant compete with anybody in the world. Thank you. The time of the gentleman has expired. The chair will now recognize the gentlewoman from iowa, ms. Axne. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you, chairman and Ranking Members. Thank you for the opportunity to join this joint subcommittee hearing on disaster recovery. And thank you, mr. Undersecretary for being here. You know its always great to you. As a fellow iowan, you know as well as i do how devastating sigar severe flooding can be and how long the Recovery Process can take for our communities. Southwest iowa as you know is still reeling from the massive flooding that occurred thispl pt spring. Entire towns such as hamburger and Pacific Junction in my district went completely underwater and they didnt estimate to lose billions of dollars in damages and, of course, agricultural losses throughout iowa. A. But we all know that risk isnt over. In fact,t, western iowa is currently experiencing another round of potentially severe flooding. Ive been closely monitoring the situation and spoke with Emergency Management coordinator last night. But the Current Situation further underscores the urgency of what were talking about here today. And when i travel the district and you and i worked on this together and saw the damages in the spring, of course what i was impressed with is the resiliency of iowans. I of course we didnt wait for the government to come in and do the job. Themselves and they help one another start the really difficult and long road to recovery. Church congregations were putting out meals for those who didnt have one. Neighbors help muck out each others basement and farmers of course donated hay to each other for their cattle to graze. At the bottom line is that while i would sketch work we need to ensure the federal government does its job. Iowans got too work. A lot of iowans said they could do what resource of other, with thet deadlines were and how to get signed up. As you know i invited this past june liu adelman, a producer for my district to testify before a subcommittee hearing and he told us about the challenges he and others are facing and obtaining the necessary information and resources throughout the flood Recovery Process. So im grateful that the president was quick to declare a disaster emergency and that congress was able to pass our disaster supplemental. However, its very clear to me we need to do better job of providing a streamlined set of processes and procedures that can go into effect immediately following a disaster. And weve both talked about this issue. E. I has some specific questions i hope the usda can help us with. So, i know you have long experience with Flood Recovery in iowa and the secretary of agriculture during a a flood to 2008 in 2011. We worked together when i was part of the Sustainability Task force to address that in 2008. Do you agree that its important for the usda to a prompt and Effective Communications with those that are affected by flooding . I certainly do, and it is a challenge. They are often very busy doing other things. Sometimes even the communication tools are down, whether its internet or phones or other things, and so it is a challenge to be able to communicate with folks so we have to be even more aggressive in letting them be able to easy access to that information. During her tenure at the usda, what steps have you taken to improve usdas munication to farmers affected byy flooding . So we do extra outreach and training for staff that find themselves in a disaster situation. Often sometimes and that there is some of those folks have dealt with Emergency Conservation program for an other programs that help clean up after a flood or pick up debris. We will rebuild fences. But in some cases we have folks that have not been experienced with that so sometimes wilson didnt jump teams as well from other areas to bring into those areas. They will have their experience and what outreach work to be able to go to community organizations, work with those existing outreach, even through churches but certainly through Extension Agents and cooperatives and other Business Partners out there that can help us reach out to producers. So many different ways. We are looking at trying to do the same thing on the nrcs side and providing almost more of a permanent jump team that can come in from outside to gamble to help when we have disaster in that case its emergency watershed protection program, and infrastructure support program. Its unique but is different than are other tools but when you people with experience it possible to be able to up folks locally intimate those programs. And so glad to talk about this jump team becausewe with tk about some of the issues we face trying to get communication to folks who put kayaks in homes and we talked about male was been sent to the. Obviously that doesnt work out for the fact folks didnt think we needed congregational meals because we have not requested them. Thats because the cattlemen stepped in. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And undersecretary northey, its great to have you back in the committee. Youre doing a tremendous job at usda and i applaud secretary purdue and the team he put together. And i appreciate your work and your friendship. I dont need to tell you and its been mentioned several times about the flooding conditions and the terrible planting season that we had. In western kentucky i represent four counties on the mississippi river, very small counties in a geographic area, but one of the counties, sigmund county had 8,000 acres that didnt get planted in anything and i know that was the case in many areas of the United States along the river, and because of the terrible planting season, no doubt yields are going to suffer, large amounts of acres werent planted. When the august production crop came out, i think a lot of farmers were surprised at the reports that were projected on the fall harvest and as a result, corn prices and other commodities went down quite a bit overnight. Can you describe what caused the differences in the reports and how those users demanding the price risk that they face in response to sudden changes in prices . So, it is really a big challenge in a year like this, trying to get the numbers right. We still dont yet know what the production levels will be out there. Partly depends when the frost is and how much time there is for the rest of the season. We know its uneven, that production across the country, we certainly know, that we have a lot of plant acreage. Across the country we normally get two, three, four million, and this year its 19 million acres that are prevent plant across the country. I think as time has worked out, folks have looked at the acreage numbers, that was one of the concerns from that folks had and generally have believes that that fairly represents the actual amount of corn acres out there. Theres still a lot of discussion on what the production level should be. Im certainly not in the production prediction business. Were there to be able to respond after that, but Risk Management tools, theres a lot of great ones. Through the countries, Crop Insurance is certainly one of most important Risk Management tools that folks participate in and then the revenue coverage has been very, very valuable producers and we see high levels in that. Thank you. My next question and last question will be about hemp. I know that thats come up a couple of times today and as you know, when i was commissioner of agriculture, we were the first state, kentucky to implement a hemp program. Its been a huge success story. We have processer that are all over the state and most of the newer ones are located in my congressional district. Were very happy about that and its been a Great Success story. As we move forward, i know that senator mcconnell put language in congress to require usda to have hemp Crop Insurance and i share chairman petersons concerns about what that type of Crop Insurance product will look like and i just wanted to mention two i think so this, and ive had several discussions with people at usda, but i just want to go on the record with two things that i hope that the final product looks like or doesnt have. Number one, i dont want a product that creates absolutely no risk for the farmers, which would encourage over production. I think thats the concern that chairman peterson and Ranking Member conway have, as do i. And secondly, we dont want a product thats ripe for fraud. Ive always said that the best federal Crop Insurance product that would prevent fraud would be one that says, you can only insure what you have a contract to sell, whether thats tobacco or hemp because you know, the overwhelming majority of farmers are honest, they utilize the Crop Insurance program and i dont want a situation where a former has a contract to sell 30 or 40 acres of hemp, but they plant 100 or 200 acres of hemp. Because hemp is a very expensive crop to produce. So i just wanted to go on the record and express my concerns. I appreciate the work that you all are doing on industrial hemp. I know its a lot to digest. We went through it in kentucky and you can put a bunch of zeros on it and thats what youre doing in usda. Anything my office can do to work on the final product, as you know we are he more than willing to do that, but i do appreciate the work youre doing and just wanted to express my concerns. I wanted to yield back. The gentlemans time has expired and your concerns are recognized. The gentleman from california who represents a great part of the california Central Coast, congressman panetta. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ranking member thompson and in this, mr. Northey. Thank you for being here today, not only your preparation for being here, but also your service, thank you very much. As you heard i come from the Central Coast of california. In california as you know well, we of course have a lot of agriculture, but unfortunately we have some wildfires as well and you know, last year the california delegation and i joined with my colleagues in sending a letter to the appropriators requesting that whip include assistance for Grape Growers and other producers whose harvests were tainted by wildfire smoke at the smoke tank, as you know well. And ive got to say i was pleased to hear this year of reports that whip plus is getting off to a pretty good start. And i know that a lot of my wine Grape Growers in california who are affected by last years wildfires and the smoke are actually pretty pleased with how its been going, so its good to hear. So as we continue to roll out whip plus and the offices continue to do that, are you, in your agency, taking any specific steps to reach out to farmers who have been tainted or impacted by the smoke taint to ensure that theyre aware of the assistance that they might be eligible for through this program . I believe that there is outreach. I dont know what is that is, congressman and we certainly can make sure that thats true and certainly be glad to work with you to make sure that were working with the organizations, often, whether its the wineries or others that can help us reach out to those producers. We want to make sure that its not been covered in the past, that theyre aware that there is that coverage. I appreciate your offer and we will take you up on that. Another thing that we wills have in california, we have organic crops and speciallity crops and a lot of producers in my district, they face a lot of barriers utilizing the usdas Crop Insurance options including whole form revenue protection and the noninsurance crop Disaster Assistance program. Nap. Given that Crop Insurance and the participation by these farmers is limited to access Disaster Relief. Are there any steps being taken by your agency that its more available to organic crop producer. Nap is available where theres not a Crop Insurance product for folks and we see good participation in those specialty crop areas. And whole farm revenue protection is a great option for many of those farms with a diversified mix of crops that are hard to individually account for, but they can account for the revenue across that mix of crops. So we see participation. These are and we certainly provide outreach to encourage folks to be a part of it. Were hearing that theyre good tools for many producers, always looking at ways that they can be better tools for producers, but a mix of products for our producers. Theyre not producing common commodities in other places. Understood and i appreciate your recognition of that. In regard to that have you heard of or implementing any sort of a continuing education requirements or any training for producers to make sure that they understand exactly how this works . We do provide outreach to producers and producer organizations. Certainly our staff is available to be at other meetings, to be able to share information as well, whether its a grower meeting about something completely different, they can also our staff will share information. We also, of course, this is delivered through private Crop Insurance agents and those agents are often very active in the outreach thats done around those products as well. They will go ahead and service, they will be the ones that will make the connection, at least on whole farm ref into you protection. Its delivered through our offices and our county executive directors and others in that office will participate in some of those conversations at larger events, jut reach, field days, other kinds of things. Good, thank you very much, mr. Undersecretary. I yield back. The gentleman yields back and the chair will now recognize the gentleman from kansas, the jay hawk state. Congressman marshall. Thank you, mr. Chairman, good morning mr. Undersecretary and thank you so much for being here today. I want to talk just for a second about high quality alfalfa and the dairy coverage program. If i know thinking about farming its alfalfa. My job in the summer was hauling hay and i almost didnt look forward to the alfalfa bayh. They were heavy, 90 to 100 and i remember complaining to my grandfather. He said, looking we grow high quality alfalfa and the mama cows that are pregnant will like the protein, its like molasses to them. As i understand it, were working on a new Dairy Margin Coverage Program and the price of that alfalfa is more expensive. How is fsa integrating that into the d. M. C. Formula. Is that going to have a more accurate reflection on this. I grew up alfalfa, but ours was beef quality not dairy quality hay. I knew the wonderful smell of alfalfa in the summer. We did include as the farm bill suggested we should look at the price of dairy of high quality hay and compare that to the average hay price we were using in that dairy margin coverage formula before. Everyone is very familiar, youve got the milk price and you subtract the feed costs and the margin is what were insuring. If that cost of feed, by using dairy hay or high quality hay is a little higher, your margins a little narrower and you will trigger a payment a little earlier. We did, after looking at that and seeing that there is an an additional cost, we included in the hay portion of that feed cost 50 high quality hay and 50 all hay price. So that has narrowed the margin a little bit and i think a little more fair representation of what a producer, Dairy Producer was actually seeing for their feed costs and certainly, i think it makes it an even better tool for producers to be part of that Dairy Margin Coverage Program. We have seen times where that premium quality hay will jump in price because of a shortage. That was not being covered before. Thats a partial compensation now for those producers and i think thats an improvement of that program. Great. Appreciate your efforts on that. And i want to talk about just a great job. My fsa officers are doing, kansana arent making as many complaints. I want to a shot out to the director and others producers, interact with them once a year. Theyve already produced 112,000 applications for the Market Facilitation Program, and 30,000 applications so far for the mse payments for 2019. So i appreciate the great work that they are doing and one of the things that theyre start to go ask me questions about is updating the i. T. Systems between Risk Management agency and the Farm Service Agency and the producer data can be shared across agencies. Can you give us an update how thats coming along, the acreage crop streamlining initiative and a timeline when you think that might be able to producers . We continue to make progress there. To be able to allow information. Right now we have producers that are able to certify their acres at Farm Service Agency and have that information automatically transfer into their krCrop Insurance and vice versa. Its not where it needs to be and we look at the overall acreage. Right now thats paper driven at the downer. To put that in a better electronic form would make it easier process for the producers at the counter, but also potentially decrease the number of contacts the producer needs to be able to make because we have the information at fsa and it can automatically go to our Crop Insurance agent. So were making small steps. In the meantime, were trying to get our programs out and so we are looking to be able to make some bigger steps in the future. Okay. Quickly, last question has to do with the wildlife hurricane ind ind indemnity programs. Were hearing the pivots, age and any thoughts on those. Those flooded within the disaster program. So that signup started last week as well. And so, we have producers going in, just to provide information on what a producer had for that stored commodity, whether its hay or whether its grain that has been lost and will cover 75 of the loss of that. Go ahead. And for irrigation pivots, we have some pieces to be able to touch that, typically that has been covered through Casualty Insurance rather than through our disaster programs, but we have some pieces of equip in some cases ecp in some cases, but mostly has been covered in regular casualty. Gentlemans time has expired. And the chair will recognize the chair from south dakota. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I feel like i would be remiss if i didnt start with a thank you. Of course, weve had a wet year thats come up time and time again as we talk about disaster response. Bill, you were so good at being willing to have conversations with us earlier in the spring about moving that haying and grazing date for cover crop. Usda did it and i could tell it took some work on your end to be done. And thank you. Because there are a lot of us that are better off because of the flexibility that usda showed, the leadership that you showed. So thank you. We want to talk about the crp signup in the final days of the Obama Administration. And from a south dakota perspective we only had a couple selected even though there were thousands of applicants. And i think that was because ebi pushed acres away from traditional areas. So i just wanted to get your thoughts on that about ebi, if any amendments or evolutions of that are needed and if there are any particular pieces of advice i should give my producers in south dakota as they look toward the next crp signup. Right now were scheduled f for the next signup. The challenges in the last signup, there are few acres able to be accepted. The cap was very tight to the number of acres that were available. Well likely see a lot more acres available this time around. We have expiring acres this year. And then for signup in december, since that starts in october of 2020, well have expiring acres in september 30th of 2020 as well. So thats a large number of acres that expire at that time. So i think well see a lot larger signup than weve seen for many years. That will provide more room for producers, and i assume there will be a lot as well. The environmental index will be available for everybody. Were looking at making some adjustments. The next one will look just like this last one so if theres concerns, certainly be glad to be able to hear that. I dont know of some of the specifics on whether it targeted other areas, so, certainly glad to be able to talk through that if theres additional concerns and what that ebi will look like, but that environmental benefits index will be available publicly so each producer will be able to look at it and decide whether they want to plant a warm season, or a cool, or a warm season grass instead of a cool season grass or native. When you talk about ebi being the same. Will it be the same or fundamentally the same. It will be fundamentally the same. So, now as we look at because its just been a record wet year and good grief we had some counties in south dakota got another 8 to 10 inches last week and you folks cant buy a break. Some of them have been into a never of years of prevent plant already. They know they need another option for that continuously wet ground. Crp, is that much of an option for them . Is there any kind of prevention for plant type acres for enrollment into crp . Theres not a preference per se in looking what was prevent planted previously years, its likely that those areas would qualify, especially for Wetland Program acres, and we have that through flood plains, wetland, in Emergency Watershed Program, thats out there. We have Wetland Reserve Program as well. So sometimes connected directly to that general enrollment or other ways. Id encourage them to go to their fsa and have those conversations if they have an area theyve lost to too much water for several years and theyre thinking about how that area is costing them too much to farm, there are some programs that will make good use out of that and good public areas areas for Public Benefit out of that that they can retain ownership and be able to have some Program Participation in that. Well, mr. Chairman, i would just close by noting how good it feels to have somebody in this position who really understands what its like to work hard outdoors, what its like to have dirty hands. What its like to sit down and figure out how to run an operation with really tight margins that modern agriculture has. Youre doing a good job, sir. In large part because you get it. Thank you. Well, thank you, gentlemen from south dakota, theres a number of us who still actively farm, so i appreciate that. The last witness, and we will close the hearing following his five minutes, is the gentleman from california, since a nice port of northern california, congressman. Thank you, mr. Chairman, appreciate it. And for having this hearing today to be able to cover these matters and undersecretary northey, appreciate you being here and the work youre doing over there. Ill get through this just about last. But just quickly on we grow a lot of almonds in california, we say almonds for those who clarify. The old almond joke. I wont tell the joke, but we still have an undistributed fund from last fall. There were 63 million set aside by usda for almond producers. 25 million and leaving 38 that hasnt been issued for various reasons and some having to do with particular level of Record Keeping and farm records that hadnt really been kept and my understanding, you already have in place for 2019 a remedy for that. So we do appreciate that, the growers appreciate that. Is there a way to recapture for the to 18 crop the still undisbursed 38 million and catch up on some of those needs that were still well, for our numbers, our projections of what our spending would be for 2018, there are certainly reasons where the payment limits or agi or other kind of reasons that folks did not participate in that program. We have some that participated at greater levels than what the dollars were, some had less. What we waited for is for folks to come in and apply. And we certainly had the dollars available to do that. Its not a set aside of a certain amount of dollars for a certain crop. And so i just encourage folks to come in and participate in this years program. Its based on acres and certainly easier for some producer than a production based program was for them and certainly, we look forward to having those folks all participate in this years program. Can we apply the acres test to the 2018 for those that didnt have the farm records on that basis so we can, you know, again, capture some of that that was left behind for those losses . We dont have any mechanism to go back and look at that, including signup has closed on that and were not looking back at change. And i know it was a challenge to implement that program for lots of producers, as well as for us. Certainly in the time frame. Yes. All right. But you would still encourage them to come in and apply and maybe those records could be built or something satisfactory. The signup for 2018 for 2018 has closed, but for 2019 is now open until december 6th. Okay. December 6th. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And then in the area of the plc, Price Loss Coverage as applies to rice or others that are applicable, but and rice particularly, the crop here being what it is, producers may not receive the payment until november or december, even though the marking year ends in the summer, in july typically. Whats been done to help with the timely issuance of the payments to those producers, especially since the issue for some . I dont know when the marketing year ends and when our information is available. Typically for us to be able to make an arc for plc payment, we need last years production and the marketing years average price. So what and we can check on rice and be glad to get that information to you, but im assuming the timing is as early as it can be, considering when were able to get that information on production and price. It can be earlier and we legally do it, wed sure love to be able to do it. I assume thats why its that way. I dont know in particular on that yeah, typically the harvest will end in early to mid fall and it wont be too long after that youd have certified production amounts so it would seem that, you know, that taken in context with the marketing of the crop the following year. Were looking at ways to speed up that timeline for the plc to be available and getting cash flow would be a problem with that. Okay. Is that something you think can be wed certainly look at it. The price that we look at for plc and arc is the marketing is the marketing year following that production. So often just like the corn and soy bean payments well make for arc and plc in october, will be based on the prices from last harvest until this summer, late this summer, this fall. It would that be the entire crop has that done or more on an individual farmer basis or. Its the entire crop. The average for the crop, not for the producer, but i still will have to mr. Congressman, id have to check on rice and im less familiar with the rice and in a more timely way. Happy to have that and ill yield back. The gentlemans tired is expired. Please get back to the commodities not only to the gentlemen, but the committee as well. Be glad to. I think weve come to a close. Before we adjourn id invite Ranking Member thompson to make any remarks. Thank you for this hearing. I appreciate the fact our two subcommittees came together very timely. Secretary northey, thank you. We work really hard on this committee to make sure were doing the right things by American Farm families and i think thats evidented by the programs that weve put forward and authorized within the farm bill. And so i just take great confident to have somebody with your background, your experience and quite frankly your competency executing those programs so thank you for what youve done and i yield bank. I know i speak for the congressman, that we do appreciate the efforts to bring both subcommittees together for this important hearing today. And our staff, who worked hard to put this together as well for both subcommittees. I will now recognize my subcommittees Ranking Member for any closing comments he might like to make. Well, thank you, mr. Chairman, and mr. Undersecretary, i, too, thank you for being here. We appreciate the work that you and many great employees across the usda do, and certainly appreciate your attention to the detail of implementation of our Disaster Assistance programs. Thats just so critically important. This is a very, very fragile time, very precarious time for many in production agriculture, particularly those that have been forced to endure multiple Natural Disasters, for example, in my district, we had Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and followed up by Hurricane Florence in 2018 and low comment prices on top of that for an extended period of time as well. So its been probably one. Most challenging times in agriculture, you know, throughout, you know, the country in general, but specifically for these areas that have been hit so hard by our Natural Disasters. So, i really appreciate your time and attention and follow through on that and look foo ared to continuing forward to continuing to work with you. All right, the gentleman yields back and we appreciate the time you have spent with both subcommittees and questions youve answered. Clearly, if theres any followup, both subcommittees will reach out to you and the department. We thank secretary purdue, as was noted by almost every member, i believe, its tough times in farm country and regionally, you look across the country and from a combination of Natural Disasters that have taken place almost in every region of the country to Commodity Prices that have been impacted by a lot of factors, including this trade war that is taking place, American Farmers, ranchers, dairy men and women are trying to struggle to survive and clearly, as i say, everywhere i go, food is a National Security item. A lot of folks take it for granted. Nobody does it better than the American Farmer every day, putting food on americas dinner table at the most highest quality and at the most Cost Effective price anywhere in the world. And we do it so well, we can produce more than we can consume therefore the trade issues are critical. The fact of the matter is we must remind ourselves that with less than 5 of the nations population directly engaged in the production of food and fiber, that this is a critical issue for all americans and we must do everything we can to enis your that we provide stable markets to ensure that all of the american agriculture can make it through these difficult times because as we know, nobody does it better than the American Farmer. So i will close this hearing. The record for todays hearing will remain open for ten calendar days to receive any written or supplemental responses for witnesses to any question posed by a member and at this point this joint hearing is now adjourned. Thank members of both subcommittees. Good job. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] live tuesday on the cspan networks, President Trump makes remark at the United Nations General Assembly in new york city. Our coverage begins at 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan. At noon eastern, the u. S. House returns for general speeches and at 2 p. M. , the house takes up several bills looking at humanitarian aid. On cspan2 at 10 a. M. , the u. S. Senate continues debate on executive nominations with votes expected. On cspan 3, a House Oversight subcommittee looks at the outbreak of lung disease in ei go is rhe esignificacigarette usage. And a subcommittee look at policy in syria. Our cspan campaign 2020 bus team is travelling across the country visiting key Battle Ground states asking what issues they want them to address during the campaign. And i wish washington and congress would work on infrastructure. Every other generation of american leaders have funded airports or subways or roads and bridges and were failing to do our part. This will be the first generation of elected leaders where we left our infrastructure in worse condition than what we got it in and we should work and demand our leaders in d. C. Invest in infrastructure and make sure we protect another generation of americans and put people to work at the same time. Thats the great thing about investing in infrastructure in this country. One of the issue for all americans across all pan of economics and education, the use of credit cars determining their Auto Insurance rates, housing, insurance and employment. Most people dont realize that if you want to apply for a job, your credit score is pulled. If you want to apply for an apartment, your credit score is pulled. And youre not asking for a loan, youre asking for a place to put your head at night. If youre a College Student and your credit score is going to be low and your apartments, not because of your money and proof you can pay the rent, your credit score determines everything and thats putting everyone out. What i would like to see discussed in washington d. C. Is the importance of bipartisanship. I think we as americans have more in common than we probably have disagreements on so i would like to see us talking about the importance of reaching across the aisle and those points where we dont disagree finding could many mon ground and working toward that. The only way to move the nation forward is working together. Voices from the campaign trail part of cspans Battle Ground states tour. On the senate floor monday, minority leader Chuck Schumer called for an investigation into a whistleblower complaint involving President Trump. The complaint stems from a phone conversation the president had earlier this year with the president of ukraine that talked about former vicepresident joe biden and his son. Now, mr. President , over the weekend details emerged about president trs