Transcripts For CSPAN LIVE 20240704

Because of the popularity of these programs the reality is they are dramatically oversubscribed. New era is four times oversubscribed which i believe shows how important this program is to electric cooperatives across the country and how important it is to see this long overdue investment. Its great to see this and highlight the excitement of the rural coops across the country. Mr. Secretary for new era, can you share an update on how we might see application start to move forward in the process . We are in the process of completing the evaluation of approximately 70 projects of the number that was submitted. As you indicated it was a very Popular Program and oversubscribed. In an effort to determine which of these programs are feasible from a technical standpoint and from a financial standpoint. Once those evaluations are done, those projects will be ranked. And then well basically compare those rankings to the resources available. And begin a more detailed conversation to assert whether or not the project is worthy of commitment. I think your goal is try to get award sometime later this year. In the meantime, we are aggressively promoting the reprogram over 5,000 grants already awarded. We are going to see awards on a quarterly basis and youll see base awards here sometime in spring. I appreciate that update. Its clear usda staff and officials have expend add hue amount of effort and time to get these programs up and running and Program Applicants have spent time and capital to write and submit applications. Could you say tell us about the remoping and amending the programs at this stage where the usda has reviewed applications. Secretary vilsack we are not in the circumstance where you reopen unless there are Additional Resources that become available. I would be happy to take a look at what additional projects could be funded. We have a limited resource and working within those constraints. Miss caraveo i would like to reiterate my colleagues of the programs at the usda. I had county commissioners here from my district. No sign of slowing down, snap applications in one of the largest counties in my district are up 26 . They are not down. So i think it is very important to remember the implications of snap and when we talk about, first of all, who gets snap, it is 96 snap participants are u. S. Citizens. Only 4 are not citizens. 3 of those are lawful permanent residents. And most importantly for me as a pediatrician, 42 of snap recipients are children. Children. Like the ones i find in clinic every day where 2 3 of the kids that i saw did not have enough to eat and were it not for snap would not have anything to eat. Can you quickly expand more on the impact of snap on families and the children that we always purport to care about in this congress . Secretary vilsack there is research to indicate the snap program is one of the most if not the most effective Antipoverty Program we have. There is research that shows when you provide snap benefits families purchase more new tr eugs treurbs food and have Better Outcomes for their children. Ms. Caraveo i thank you for the work you do. And thank you for answering the questions. I yield back. Thank you very much. I recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, mr. Rouser, for five minutes. Mr. Rouser thank you, mr. Chairman. A note about large farms versus small farms. Its the larger farms that can survive the onslaught of the government. Federal, state, and local. The smaller one goes out of business and the bigger ones get bigger because its the only way to survive. Mr. Secretary, chicken plants across the country have been operating at higher speeds for more than 25 years through the fsi waivers. Under president clinton a study allowed 20 poultry plants to operation up to 175 birds a minute. Plants invested millions of technology, grew their Partner Farms and maintained worker safety and inspection standards all the way. These pilot routes led to the new poultry inspection system. Today 47 plants operate under this system. Farms all across North Carolina have built operations to support increased capacity. Plants have designed staffing and Facility Needs around these speeds. Osha tkat why from 1994 to 2019 osha data from 1994 to 2019 shows illness and injury down 91 . Evidence that faster line speeds dont compromise worker safety. A 2020 proposed rule incentivizes more plants to adopt these improved processes and new technologies while increasing speeds, but was repealed by this administration. Instead, your agency informed companies with line speed waivers that to keep them they were required to, quote, opt in to a study on worker safety being conducted outside of the agency. Now, i want to point out to the committee that this was the soul source contract and not a competitive bid. And no member of the study team is from a Land Grant Institution which knowledge of the chicken industry, but instead are associates of the university of california system. A member of that study team testified in front of osha against a Company Participating in the study and is vocally critique add number of other plants. Considering the work of other team members and the information requested before each plant visit, that far exceeds the scope of the study. There is a clear bias against the industry and leaves any objective observer to the conclusion this is a gotcha operation. Mr. Secretary, real quickly, can you submit and are you willing to submit in writing how much is being spent for the study, the source of that funding, and how the 10 members were selected . And why are they all associated with a university of california. Mr. Vilsack be happy to respond to questions. I think its fair to say that there is litigation thats essentially driving a lot of this effort. Issues raised concerning worker safety as a result of this. Line speed. This is a process of trying to make sure we get the right data. The significant data to be able to support whether line speeds are a result of additional worker injury or not. If they are not, then obviously line speeds will continue. If they are, then there is going to betohave to be adjustment. We dont have all of the data we need. And thats the reason why we have entered into an agreement with the producers. This is not a situation where they were they had the choice. They had the choice. These plants chose to participate in this study. Mr. Rouser they chose to participate in the study in good faith. And its turned into something that they didnt anticipate. Arent you concerned about a bias study here . Secretary vilsack dont prejudge the study. It hasnt been concluded yet. Mr. Rouser the old adage personnel is policy certainly applies here. I have to move on quickly to another matter. Usda is currently developing the next set of dietary guidelines. This is specific to alcohol. Federal law requires that scientific and medical knowledge support any changes to the dietary guidelines on the consumption of alcohol. How is the Technical Committee process ensuring that this mandate is followed . Have you been following that . Secretary vilsack its my understanding this is outside of the datier guideline conversation. Mr. Rouser alcohol has always been included in dietary guidelines. This takes it outside of the scope of dietary guidelines. Secretary vilsack in an toefrt make sure there is a deeper review and dive on this issue, i suspect, for future datary guidelines. Mr. Rouser i mention this, there is a lot of growers around the country that produce a product that is used for adult beverages that have a great interest in this. Id like to follow up with some written questions as well. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Mr. Thompson chair thompson recognize the congress wo pg from illinois congresswoman from illinois. For five minutes thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you, secretary, for johning us here today and engaging us on a host of really important issues. I want to take a moment to say again thank you so much for joining me last summer at the Farm Progress show in decatur. I appreciated you joining me there for that. Last fall as a response to what i heard from farmers in my district in central and southern illinois, i led a letter with congresswoman pingree and congressman costa and the democrats on committee outlining our shared priority to protect the Inflation Reduction Act Climate Smart conservation funds. Miss budzinski these funds have provided a historic invest nour farms and already served many Rural Farmers in my home state of illinois. I was also very excited to see that 100 of the obligated i. R. A. Dollars made it into the hands of farmers in illinois, and to my colleagues i would encourage you to explore the new Inflation Reduction Act Data Visualization tool that the usda put out yesterday to see the difference that the i. R. A. Has made in your home states. I also want to take a moment to celebrate the release of the 2022 ag census yesterday. Champaign county in the 13th congressional district, my district, was a top 10 producer of both corn and soybeans in the united states. One of the central themes, my question, central theme of my first term is creating opportunity. I had bills to improve land access to increase Research Funding at usda. And to expand markets for farmers. All of which i hope will be a part of the farm bill base textk to how the Inflation Reduction Act funding bottom line is i think farmers understand what they need to do this. But they need help and assistance. Thats why act Inflation Reduction Act. We saw a large scale landscape activity where we saw over 1 billion of requests for limited 400 million. The farmers are responding by saying, give us more. Help us do more of this. We are anxious. And we saw the same reaction to the Climate Smart Agricultural Partnership initiative where we can create commodities that are utilizing conservation programs. And the result that have provides an Market Opportunity for them. Ms. Budzinski i had another question on equip. In 2022, most three out of every four equip applications across the country were denied. Only about half of the approved ones got funded. So i consistently hear from farmers in my district that they wantr even exceeding expected outlays of i. R. A. Money to bridge this gap . Secretary vilsack its exceeding the resources that are available. I think there are two issues. One is making sure you have tecl assistance to help are there. Recently a third issue has cropped up which is trying to figure out wayses in which we can speed up the process. Nrcs has stream hrao eupbd the process. They looked at ways they can have preapproval so resource can get into the field more quickly than in the past. I think its a combination of thoel all three to meet the need. If you take resources away from the i. R. A. Thats going to impact and affect our ability to do more work. Ms. Budzinski i yield back, mr. Chair thompson the gentlelady yields back. Recognize the gentleman from mississippi, mr. Kelly, for five minutes. Mr. Kelly thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, i first want to say i concur with almost everything mr. Rouser said about the poultry. In 2022u. S. D. A. Informed poultry countries with line speed waivers to continue to reap the benefits of operating at higher speeds, bringing more chicken to the market during historic inflation, and record high food prices, they had to opt in to this study. A study being conducted by researchers whose bodies of work evidence significant bias against the chicken industry. When reading from usdas food and Safety Inspection service constituent update, july 29, 2022, said establishments with a current line speed waiver must agree to participate in a study and provide worker safety tkwrat to receive a modified waiver. That update directly contradicts the narrative plants were allowed to opt into this study. Usda demands theyar teus pate to keep their higher line speeds a decision would be hard for plants to make since they place orders much in advance and risk take ago significant amount of supply off line if they went back down to slower speeds. The companies that have continued with their waivers have since been subject to researchers and their plants who are going far beyond their intended purpose to determine what threat if any increased line speeds pose to safety. Mr. Secretary, can you explain why your department lauded this waiver participation as voluntary when it clearly is not. Secretary vilsack there is litigation, congressman. And essentially in an effort to try to avoid a complete shutdown by a court order of line speed increases, we basically created the opportunity for folks to continue to convince the court that this was a good faith effort to make a determination whether there were unsafe practices involved. If we had done what you are suggesting, essentially what would have happened is judges would have shut us down. And this happened in our porkline speed issue. Judges will enjoy the use of line speed and everybody would have had to slow their lines down. You tell me, would you have preferred everybody slowing their lines down . Or would you have preferred praoet creating an option for people to continue at the line speeds that they had invested in . Mr. Kelly i would prefer to have a researcher that is not intended to do the opposite of what they are intended to do. Secretary vilsack dont assume the outcome of this study until it occurs. Mr. Kelly when an inspector comes in they find what they are looking for, if they are looking for certain things. I can say from experience that an i. G. Inspection could be good or bad depending on the intent. Next question, mr. Secretary, i have heard from mr. Producers about constant challenges with the h2a program regarding regulations and rules issued by the department of labor, one issued a year ago requiring employers to pay varying wage rights to h2a workers based on their daily job function. This has put the potential to double wage rates for employers, not to mention at a huge Regulatory Burden to try to track the work of every employee throughout the day through each task they do. Did the department of labor consult with usda on this rule . Secretary vilsack we have an ongoing conversation about rules relay lating relating to farm labor. The reason this rule is structured the way it is because there was a general wage rate being applied to a variety of jobs, some of which were required significant qualification. And were much more complex. I think the effort by the Labor Department was to try to respond to the value of that service. Mr. Kelly they went overboard here. Small farms are at a high disadvantage here. I guess we are trying to put them out of business. You are out there and you are picking up potatoes, loading a truck, they need you to drive a pick up truck to the store to pick up a part. All of a sudden you get classified at the rate of a truck driver at 40 an hour instead of 20. You see how driving a pickup truck is not driving a big truck. They still classify you as a truck driver. You have to be paid that wage for the remainder of the day. The remainder of the time you work there. You do see where this could be very confusing and hard on small operations. Secretary vilsack thats one of the reasons why it would have been helpful if you passed the farm worker modernization act. Mr. Kelly we didnt make this rule. Secretary vilsack in a sense you made by not creating the opportunity for a structured stable, security predictable system. Mr. Kelly i would just say as the secretary of agriculture it seems to me that anyone with even a laymans understanding of farming would have flagged how problematic and how burdensome this rule is to our small operators. They literally cannot compete because we are overburdened with regulations when you have to traffic every task every work does. Well have more people tracking their task than doing the work. With that i yield back. Chair thompson pleased to recognize the gentlelady from maine, congresswoman pingree, for five minutes. Ms. Pingree thank you very much, mr. Chair. Thank you so much, mr. Secretary, for being here today. I really appreciate all the things you have been talking to us about all going to talk about the importance of getting a farm bill done, we have to remember that we need the funding for your agency as well. And the 18 cut that was proposed is ludicrous. Im counting on my good friend, mr. Bishop, to fix it lets hope we get it to the floor. We have been talking about Climate Change and disaster resilience. What i see now as the extreme weather we are all facing and our farmers are facing. You were very kind to come and visit us in maine last month after we horrendous storm. In december that caught our forestry and farming folks off guard and really impacted our state with the flooding and the high winds. One of the farmers we showed you pictures of was chuck, a dairy farmer. He lost two bu the on bat weathr we had. We had frost that destroyed our fruit crops in the spring. Wet weather in the summer. Left hay couldnt be harvested. This has been a continued impact our farmers. I just want to talk a little bit about the tools you are trying to provide to help farmers to be more resilient. We want to make there is Disaster Relief aid. We appreciate your request for more of that because its getting more expensive. So much of what youre doing is try to prevent the disasters that we are facing in terms of how farmers deal with drought and flooding. Can you talk a little bit about what the work you are doing is to help farmers have more resilient fields and deal with some of this adverse weather . Secretary vilsack i would say there are three or four steps. We continue to focus some of our Research Efforts on figuring out exactly what works and what doesnt work in the field. Basically create a more resilient farming operation. Certainly would encourage continued investment in our research initiatives. Secondly, the Climate Smart agriculture commodity initiative, 141 projects across the states, all major kphoditys, looking at 205 different practices to determine the viability of those practices in terms of resiliency and sustainability. I think well learn a lot from that experience. We have nearly 100 universities involved and engaged in that effort. We are beginning to see a lot of interest in that. We have mentioned today a number of times the i. R. A. And the investments in conservation. Whether its the equip or c. S. P. , or from a largescale landscape the Regional Conservation Partnership program, that also is significant. We are also using our Risk Management tools to encourage more cover crop activity. By providing incentives for the use of cover crop. This most recently ag census indicates thats beginning to work as we see an expansion of that. Its across the board efforts to try to make sure we are a good partner with farmers, ranchers, and producers. Ms. Pingree thank you for that. I do want to say i know it comes up often. People criticize your use of the c. T. E. , community, credit corporation, and having that flexibility sometimes talked about like its a sacred cow. I appreciate how you are putting it to beneficial use. As you said doing the kinds of research and the scale projects at different scales around the country so people have the examples of what to do. Thank you for that. One more specific question on the organic Market Development funding. I know you have talked a lot about how you get farmers extra income and growing organic produce or organic food for the market istkeurpbl pleased to see the usda is providing 10 oro begannic grants. Across the markets organic grants. Could you tell us about the demand for the program. Where the fund something coming from and how we can support more of that organic market work . Secretary vilsack the america rescue plan provided resoar for us to establish an organic marketing assistance program. The application for that program is available. I think through october of this year. Theres been a bit of interest in that to assist farmers in terms of offsetting the cost of marketing. And then as you indicated we really wanted to take a look at trying to right size the supply and demand of organic opportunities across the country. So we have awarded a number of entities resources to be able to tell us how do we create demand . How do we make sure the demand is being created where the supply is or conversely, how do we create the supply where we already have demand so we basically right size. I think we have also created a transition program. Making it easier for people who want to become organic producers to do so with mentoring. With assistance on conservation costs associated with the transition. And with some Risk Management opportunities as well. Ms. Pingree i have gone over my time. I appreciate mr. Chair indulging the extra minute. Thank you. Chair thompson i thank the gentlelady. I recognize the gentleman from nebraska, mr. Bacon. Mr. Bacon welcome here to, mr. Secretary. I have two questions. One on cybersecurity. And a followup on trade. First on cybersecurity, there is a recent article published in the joint forces quarterly to weaponizing wheat. By air force Lieutenant Colonel schumerman. He had such a Security Status on American Food supply and his findings are disturbing. I would like to submit that for the record. Chair thompson without objection. Mr. Bakeon he identifies agricultural cybersecurity as one of the most pressing threats to our agriculture. Russia, top cyber adversary, own for targeting cloud infrastructure. We have had Cyber Attacks on Industry Leaders like j. B. S. State sponsor attackering targeting grain storage facilities. Mr. Secretary, i have been working on a bill for a couple years called the american Agriculture Security act of 2024. Establishes Research Centers that american Land Grant Institutions across the nation with the purpose of researching physical, biological, skaoeuber securities to afplgt they would be operated like the uarcs used by the d. O. D. They show promise with their billtary. Mr. Secretary, whats your military. Mr. Secretary, would this move us in the right direction . What else could do we do to protect our farmers . Secretary vilsack we will if its funded. Its no good enough to set up a center unless you have the resources. You are right to put a spotlight on t land grant universities are already doing some this. Perhaps not as coordinate add fashion as they need to. At usda we are focused on making sure the private sector is hardening their assets. Hardening their i. T. Against these kinds of attacks. Obviously you mentioned j. B. S. When Something Like that happens, our role and responsibility is to evaluate the impact on the market of a disruption, significant digs rupgs. Which we did in that case. And convene the industry to remind them of the importance of investing in protection. There is an inner Agency Effort in this administration to focus on cybersecurity and on a. I. In particular. And take ago look at the entirety of our portfolio from food safety to snap bias, to market Man National Park plays, to market manipulation. Mr. Bacon d. O. D. Runs something similar. My second question is on trade. If i had to provide the number one feedback, maybe criticism, of the administration i hear from nebraska producers, i believe would be in your home state as well in iowa, we dont hear much from the administration on trade. I very well come very well come very seldom hear the president talking about that. Could you tell us what the administration is doing and clearing up the misperception if anything. Secretary vilsack sure. First of all it was mentioned by representative scott the establishment of the regional ag promotion program. Nearly 1 billion being invested at the request of senator stabenow and senator boozman. Bipartisan request to invest in trade. Focusing on diversification of our Market Opportunity. We are overreliant on the top four markets from an ag perspective. We want to put resources to increase our presence, promotions, and partnerships in a number of countries, particularly in southeast asia. Number one. Number two, i think sometimes i think the focus people have when they define trade, they talk about trade agreements of the the reality is you dont have trade Promotion Authority its difficult to imagine a trade agreement being negotiated when the people we are negotiating with realize there are 535 folks who can negotiate again. Without trade Promotion Authority, thats an issue. In the meantime we are working on trying to reduce barriers. I can tell you roughly 21 billion of trade opportunities have been created or maintained as a result of wins looking at reducing trade barriers. The u. K. In wood pellets and biomass. Canada and the clean fuel. Japan, beef quota. Higher plenty ethanol. India preservation of apples expanded cherry access. Philippines expanded access to pork. China, almond. Argentina, apples and bears. Israel, processed meat and eggs. There are a whole serious of things that have occurred, the cumulative impact and effect of them is to either protect or expand trade opportunities. Thats what we are up to. We are expanding trade missions. And considering reverse trade missions where we bring people from other countries here in the u. S. Its a combination of many things that dont necessarily get the headlines, but particularly effective in terms of trade. Mr. Bacon the iowa farmers and nebraska farmers, we like to feed the world. Thank you. Chair thompson i thank the gentleman from nebraska. I recognize the gentlelady from washington state. Thank you, mr. Secretary for being here. We had undersecretary torres small visit our district and representative bacons point we had a productive conversation around trade and foreign access to our apple growers. Our state, washington state, particularly on the west side, is dominated by much smaller producers. Miss peres right ms. Perez we have about 558 acres. Much smaller. We are larges our smaller producers. At the same time im seeing really troubling reports on average the American Consumer about 40 of the fresh fruits and vegetables they consume are from overseas or our trade partners here. This together paints a troubling picture that our smaller producers are really in trouble. Im getting squeezed out of the market. I want to make sure we have a farm system that allows the small and mediumsized farms to thrive. They shouldnt have to depend on agrow tourism or agrotourism. These are really important ventures on their own. But they shouldnt be necessary for farmers that want to continue and pass on their farm to the next generation. Im asking what are your thoughts . What is the usda currently doing to support the stability and viability of these small and medium sized producers . How can congress be a better partner in this work . Secretary vilsack i would be happy to come to your office and give you a rather extensive discussion about what we are doing. Climate Smart Agriculture commodity initiative. Helping smaller producers getting added proposition. When they do the right conservation there is a conservation benefit and Greenhouse Gas reduction, they are getting paid for t the use of the Renewable Energy for America Program to reduce the cost of electricity, and producing excess electricity which could be combined with their neighbors to pro neighbors to provide a transition. Expanded access to processing, local processing. Over 400 programs, projects invested by usda tphflt last three years in the last three years. Focusing on purchase agreements. We provided your secretary, commissioner, investigate director of agriculture in washington with millions of dollars encouraging them to have direct connection and contracts with local producers. Small producers. To be able to provide those fruits and vegetables for schools and for the food banks. Using our procurement dollars as well for that purpose. Reducing fertilizer costs with investing in new fertilizer capacity. There is a broad away of strategies. And the goal here is to create new income streams. Its not just the commodity that they are selling that they have to survive on. The reality is they also have a farm job offfarm job. The question is do we have the farmer with the off farm job or can we figure out a way the farm can have three or four different sources of income simultaneously. I would be more than happy to show you the investments we made. Particularly in washington specifically. Ms. Perez we are excited about the growth and processing in particular. Thank you for the support. I want to change gears and talk about another important issue. Effectivelys drug the wildfire crisis it requires Forest Management activities, including removing trees and other low value material. Timber sales working in conjunction with other tools, like prescribed burns, habitat restoration. Where we can have safe forests while growing rural economies. Last week the e. P. A. Updated max rule which will significantly tighten air quality standards. Im concerned about the impact this new rule will have on our Forest Product industry and ability to conduct prescribed burns. When i burn the bacon its probably reaching air quality standards that might trigger in my house. We lost 731 acres and i want to make sure we are utilizing every tool at our disposal. Can you speak to how usda and e. P. A. Are working together to promote the use of prescribed fire. Generally how can we be better partners when tackling the wildfire crisis . Secretary vilsack we entered into an m. O. U. To provide the redescription on restriction to the us of fire. That was a result of negotiations and recently concluded and assigned m. O. U. Also we have our wildfire crisis strategy where we are investing resource from the infrastructure law and the i. R. A. Into more hazardous fuel reduction. Finally, we are creating Market Opportunities for that wood by developing cross limited and timber projects and focusing on wood innovation. Ms. Perez i yield back. Chair thompson i thank the gentlelady. Recognize the gentleman from south dakota, mr. Johnson, for five minutes. Mr. Johnson thanks, mr. Secretary, for being here. You had and i have had productive conversations in the paft. Managed forests are healthy. And unmanaged are tinderboxes. For a lot of different reason we have seen a lot of timber sales decrease. The last information i saw was 80 different units had failed to meet their harvest targets in the last five years. The Black Hills National Forest this is important to us. We were proud to host the First Federal timber sale in 1899. We have been dealing with these issues for a long time. What can we do together to better hit better provide these forests the treatment they need . Secretary vilsack i think two issues. One is the forest itself. I think our wildfire crisis strategy is directly designed to increase activity where it needs to be increased in order to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. So continuing to invest in that system is important. You provide add down payment with your bipartisan infrastructure law provided a down payment with your Party Infrastructure law. That will take a decade or more of commitment. Thats number one. Two, making sure we also have activities for our mills. I know thats been an issue, particularly in the black forest area, which is why we are literally transporting wood from the western states to that mill in south dakota so that it maintains viability. We are continuing to do that. Mr. Johnson i do want to give you kudos for that, mr. Secretary. When i first heard the concept, the idea that there would be timber from elsewhere brought in, i thought there is no way the bureaucracy will make that happen. And the fact that it has happened i think is a testament to you and your team. I think chris french and others have done a good job of teg me that you all want to get telling me that you all want to get these things done. More timber sales. More treatment so we can have healthier forests. There is still it seems like there are a lot of holdups. It feels like there is some bureaucracy further down the food chain. Im going to continue to look forward to working with you and your team to do what we can to hit more of the center of the target. I also want to talk a little bit about high path obviously this country has a lot of great poultry producers. And in south dakota we have a lot of turkeys, fessants. We have seen as a fessants pheasants. Devastating to the growers that have as of right now are the only real solution when we have an outbreak is a total depop. Talk to us a little bit, mr. Secretary, about are we getting closer to developing a vaccine solution that would not unduly harm trade so that we can have some alternative to total depop . Secretary vilsack you asked a trick question by adding that trade piece. Because theres clearly a distinction between if you are a broiler and broiler industry, thats a concern. If you are turkey industry or egg laying industry, you are in a different place. Heres we are with vaccines. We are probably 18 months or so away from being able to identify a vaccine that would be effective for this particular h. B. A. We are dealing with now. The problem is it mutates. You have to basically create ultimately a vaccine that is available for all strains. Theres that issue. The second issue is, how do you deliver the vaccine . Do you deliver it in a way that is efficient and effective and less expensive . Or is an injection required . When you are talking about hundreds of thousands of birds, thats difficult. So we are trying to develop the process for distributing the vaccine. Then the other issue is whether or not you can get to a point where by vaccinating you can distinguish between a bird thats been vaccinated versus a bird thats sick. We are working on that. We have work to do. There is a commitment to get it done. There is a commitment to begin the conversation on the trade side. To begin asking our trading partners how do you feel about this, what are your concerns about it so that we eventually some time down the road get to a point where i think you want us to be. Its going to take its very complex and its going to take some time. Mr. Johnson you are talking 12 to 18 months . Secretary vilsack to get the vaccine for this particular type. Not true for every type. We still have work to be done on how to actually administer it. We are nowhere near being able to do it from a standpoint of the impact of trade. We would have a circumstance where if we vaccinated today, we would have a number of our trading partners say we are not interested in your chickens. Mr. Thompson the gentleman yields back. Recognize dr. Adams from North Carolina for questions. Ms. Adams thank you, mr. Chairman and the ranking member. Good morning, secretary sill vac. Thank you for vilsack. Thank you for coming back and appreciate opportunity to speak to you. I appreciate the range of issues you have raised today. I want to follow up on them again. Equity in usda and in agriculture. Usdas purchasing power, addressing competition, and distributing resources to distressed and disadvantaged farmers. Via the i. R. A. I especially appreciate you naming Food Security as pb issue. I want to address something we have been hearing in and around this committee as we approach a farm bill. Recent pay for proposals have suggested that requiring the thrifty food plan be held cost neutral in future evaluations would save Something Like 30 billion over 10year projection. These proposals have been accompanied by talking point that says not a single recipient of snap will lose benefits. I worry that thats not true. Pulling cuts from future benefits and calling them savings, concluding there will be no cuts is disingenuous. The thrifty food plan is the backbone of snap as it helps to determine the amount of dollars our neighbors who are enrolled in the program get each month as they face the harsh reality of inflation in the grocery check out n my district participants in my adams hunger initiative, who represent over 30,000 people on snap, celebrated the long overdue reevaluation of the thrifty food plan in 2021. And they fear any threats keeping thrifty up to date in perpetuity could spell trouble. I understand when previous thrifty food plan evaluations an administrationive position was made to hold them cost neutral. The consequences of this decision resulted in assumptions about how he low income families would have to stretch their food budgets. Prior to 2021, the thrifty food plan assumed weekly diet of a family of four would include 12 pounds of potatoes, 25 pounds of milk, 20 pounds of orange juice, five rounds of fresh oranges. I dont think any of us could reasonably eat a diet consisting substantially of potatoes, milk, oranges, for long periods of time. Let alone get our children to do that. My question is how would holding future thrifty food plan reevaluations cost neutral impact the ability of the threaty and thrifty and therefore snap benefits to be based on a realistic food plan . Could it undermine our ability to improve the diet of snap participants by making it more and more difficult for them to afford more expensive but critical foods like fruits and vegetables . Secretary vilsack the only data point i have, congresswoman, is the fact that when we basically looked at the thrifty food plan based on what is happening for american families, at the grocery store, based on data that was specific, that was based on the scanner activities and information, what we saw was that we were underfunding, it you will, the foundation of the snap program to the tune of 20 . I think the challenge and problem is, if you try to maintain a steady course, you are essentially going to transition away from looking at whats happening at that particular time in grocery stores, and over time you are going to create a benefit that will not adequately support the families that need the help. Ms. Adams thank you, sir. Switching gears, im pleased to see the ongoing commitment to the 1890 and 1994 land grant universities included in your work on next gen. And your letters to governors with secretary cardona about land grant funding. Because for too long these institutions have been underfunded. Can you discuss previously how you would ensure that 1890s are being brought to the table in conversations about future research, education, and extension priorities . Secretary vilsack we have looked at ways we can incorporate historic black colleges and universities, all minority institution, many of our programs they have taken food advantage of the Climate Smart niche ive. You mentioned the next gen program. Our Scholars Program is at record levels of participating. We have increased research. We established more certainties of excellence at hbcus. Most recently the nutrition, precision nutrition effort at southern university. We are looking at the possibility of establishing a Veterinarian School at the Eastern Shore of maryland. There are a lot of exciting opportunities for us to continue investing. We have need a budget and farm bill to do that. Miss adam thank you very much. As a proud hbcu graduate 1890, 40year professor at hbcu, i appreciate your support. Thank you very much. I yield back. Chair thompson recognize the gentleman from iowa, mr. Feenstra. Mr. Feenstra thank you, secretary, for being here. We have a loft kphoplalitys. You being our governor for many years. I want to talk about whats happening in iowa a little bit. What im hearing. I was talking to 250 pork producers on friday. And im hearing this all over. You know the first question that was talked about from our chairman was prop 12. My question is, what are you hearing from our trading partners like canada and other trading partners . Is usda concerned about trade disputes through usnca . Will this be a big issue because of prop 12 . Secretary vilsack its been raised in our conversation was the canadian pheupb 13er minister. They want to have shraeurt and indication of some clarity and indication how we are responding. Obviously we are in a relatively early phases of all this. Will i tell you we are looking at ways we can help and assist the pork industry. We know its under a lot of stress. We recently purchased roughly 100 million of pork products in our feeding programs using the c. C. C. And section 32. The good news is we have seen a significant increase in pork exports. A lot of work still to do to try the system. I think well go through a bumpy period. Where farmers have to make a decision about whether they participate in that market or whether they are going to be more localized. Thats one of the reasons why we focused on building a local and regional food system so you have an option you dont necessarily have to participate in a national system. That you have the opportunity to sell directly to your school. To an institutional purchaser like a university or college. You have many of them in your district. Mr. Feenstra i want it on the forefront, prop 126789 we have to do our work. In congress we have to pass something to preempt it. You hit on something with trade. Trade to me is when you start looking at our corn commodity. We are growing so much extra corn. That could go to ethanol. That gets hurt by trade. We have a lot of pork going to mexico. Yet i look at the administration and say, we havent had any new free trade agreements in the last three years. Where do you see how can usda help on the free trade agreements . How can we expand export markers . To markets. To me we are doing Amazing Things growing the product but no place to g that being said there is a lot of competition. We are seeing a loft our competitors claiming some of the expert markets we used to have. Secretary vilsack a couple things. First of all one of the reasons why the competition is steeper because folks in the past, in our competition, invested more fully and completely in their infrastructure. And allowed them to squeeze the difference in the gap we once had. Fortunately for us we have the bipartisan infrastructure law thats going to allow us to reclaim that competitive edge. Number two, the reality is i have a hard time understanding the focus on trade agreements when im pretty confident, maybe im wrong, but do you believe you can pass trade Promotion Authority in this congress . You havent been able to pass a budget. You havent gotten a farm bill through. Can you pass trade Promotion Authority . If you cant, why not . The reason is people have an attitude about trade that requires us to rebuild Peoples Trust in trade. Farmers understand it. They absolutely understand t not the rest mr. Feenstra its a huge deal. In the u. K. They are doing individual trade agreements on ag with kansas and other states. I just wish our federal government was a little more engaged. Secretary vilsack we are engaged. Its not just trade agreements. Its breaking down barriers. I mentioned this earlier. A lot of trade wins have occurred. Dont get the headlines but they have occurred. We have 21 billion of trade wins in the last three years. The other issue is china. Lets be honest about this you can continue watching this hearing on our free mobile app, cspan now, as we take you live to the floor of the house where today members will work on legislation related to liquefied natural gas exmortgages. And a bill to raise the cap on state and local tax deductions. You are watching live coverage on cspan