And the destructive impact that can have, the way they would close down roads, the difficulty they would create for people. And obviously the loss of livestock that comes with that. Weve seen over the years blizzards that have taken their toll on one of our states most important industries. But the storm damage that i saw yesterday when i toured western south dakota really was epic. You cant look at the mountains and branches that were piled high waiting fordice posal or the for disposal or scenes of pastures scattered with dead livestock. This snowstorm started out, madam president , as heavy rain. And i know the distinguished chair had much of this in her state of north dakota as well. But that soaked the livestock. Then it turned into a raging blizzard with heavy snow and sustaining winds of 60 to 70 miles an hour. These winds drove livestock for miles, some more than 12 miles from their pastures. The fortunate ones lasted through the storms miles from their origination but still al
With each one of you to try to craft a longterm piece of legislation to guide our nations farmers and ranchers and give them the certitude they need. My home state is the home of over 48,000 farms, and we have over 1 billion in farm exports a year. So this is a pretty big deal to us. Im honored they gave me an opportunity to be here and work on it. We strongly prefer to keep the usda food safety and Inspection Service catfish inspection program. In addition, the setting of target prices, which are vital to many alabama farmers. I also support giving the livestock industry relief from the troublesome mandatory country of origin labeling mandates. The negotiations we face will be tough, and i am certain that not any conferee is going to go home with everything they want. But its important that we be responsible stewards of the taxpayers dollars by maintaining the programs that are working and reforming those that dont. I believe we can work through these differences in a timely and bipar
Every single american in a very positive way. Some of the keys id lieblg to em fa sies in this bim,en hansed Crop Insurance. Ive heard from across my state that farmers and rampblers wanten hanszed com snurnsz. Thats absolute lip a priority. We need to continue the sugar program, the Livestock Indemnity Program for our producers. We need conservation rules that make sense in the house vergsz, you do tie i think that is the right approach, and, obviously, under the Current Program if enroll in the program, you are also tied to the compliance requirements. We need strong support for ag research. For all of you that live and work in farm country, look what ag research has done for genetics and production. Its unbelievable talking about productivity. We have to support the programs. The senator was nice enough to mention the work done on a bipartisan basis. Shes been an absolute leader in the conservation programs, particularly rural Water Management. The Regional Conservation Partnership
Well, good afternoon. Its been a long time in coming, but we are here. And its wonderful to have the opportunity to have all of us here today together. I was thinking, mr. Chairman, that when you and i started, i remember when i came into the house, we were kind of at the low end of the totem pole on the Agriculture Committees. And now we both have the honors of working together. And it really is an honor to work with you as we bring this final farm bill home. And thats what were all doing. This has been a wonderful process with our four agricultural leaders, with Ranking Member peterson, with Ranking Member cochran, and our first farm bill to pass the senate with Ranking Member pat roberts. We have had a very important, and i think, precedent setting opportunity to show how to govern. And we also have been working together for three years in a bipartisan way to reform and streamline agricultural policies that work were families and farmers and taxpayers going back to the super committ
Can model and maybe i can go to an example. It works and it works really well. It is a profit maker. It is a government arm, but a phenomenal example of how all things government are not bad, right . We need to figure out how we do that for infrastructure. We need to have a summit approach to that topic alone, because i think ports and rail and airports and all that, this is becoming a bottleneck. The Positive Side is the reason our Energy Market has become what it has become is because we have infrastructure. This countrys pipeline and Storage Networks and energy, which is why it is so important that we do not disable that that is why we have a Domestic Energy sector that is so competitive, to make a point. There is Proof Positive to why your question is something we ought to tackle. We move products all around the world, and our supply chain is world class. It rides on infrastructure, and and we see infrastructure across the world, and we have opportunities to improve the infrastruct