I probably have put a lot of pressure on the Chairman to look not just at the coast, but look at the Midwest.

I ask unanimous consent that Alexis Young, an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session of the Senate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

first, I want to acknowledge and thank Chairman Pat Roberts and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow for their incredible hard work and commitment to draft such a strong bipartisan farm bill. We would not be here today if it weren't for their…

this is incredibly frustrating to me because it should be the most robust audit program in the Congress and in the Administration, and it seems to me it is not.

The frustration that I have is that we come here and we are picking around the edges and getting distracted without really thinking about the overall structure of oversight.

I would be more sympathetic if she had not conveniently released a press release yesterday.

I appreciate so much what the IGs do and what you do, Mr. Dodaro.

when you do not do those audits, you do not see the patterns in behavior that either could be deterred or they could be, in fact, prosecuted and deterred.

I think it is important that we not ignore some additional legislative tools, whether it is additional incentives to work with the States...

We need a structure because if we just deal with taking care of the waste, fraud, and abuse of today, there are going to be other opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse.

Well, time is wasting.

the bottom line is if she was not prepared to testify in front of us, she should not have been prepared to send out a press release.

And I want it sooner rather than later.

I rise today in support of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also referred to as the Senate's farm bill. As a member of the Senate Ag Committee, I was proud to work with Senator Roberts and our ranking member, Senator Stabenow of…

I thank our ranking member. This is truly a bipartisan bill that we brought out of committee through the hard work and the leadership of both our chairman and ranking member. So I appreciate all of her diligent, good efforts on the bill…

What I always tell people is--I do something that a lot of people here do not do, which is represent rural America.

I might argue that one of the reasons why you see a decline is the increasing interest rates and burden put on young entrepreneurs by the challenges that they have, which includes student debt.

I think it is difficult for someone like me to explain to a worker at Bobcat who puts on a shirt every day and gets dirty that he pays more than people living on trust funds.