I am an advocate, obviously, for expansion of those opportunities in places that are unserved.

My hope is that a few months into your job as we get through the appropriations process, that we would invite you back.

I would ask if you would assure me that you will do everything as the commissioner to see that our subcommittee, its members, get appropriate, full, complete, and timely responses to inquiries we make to the FDA.

This decision potentially has significant consequence to a lot of people, from producers to consumers, and I would ask that you initiate a broad discussion among those affected by this decision before a conclusion is reached.

I applaud those efforts. We have seen a number of just individuals--Gary LaGrange, who is retired military in my hometown, has created opportunities for veterans returning with traumatic injuries to enter farming, in this case, beekeeping…

But my hope is that a few months into your job as we get through the appropriations process, that we would invite you back.

But my view is that the government program is the subsidy, not creating additional service in places that are already served.

Agriculture supports more than 16 million jobs nationwide and forms the backbone of our rural communities.

I think it was 2010, maybe 2011, the law was changed to allow the sales.

Thank you for your passion and for your compassion.

This issue of Cuba will be one of broad interest in Congress.

my understanding of the current state of the law in regard to Cuba is that we can sell agriculture commodities, food, and medicine to Cuba for cash.

I would ask you and encourage you to consider the appointment of a veterinary medicine practitioner, a doctor of veterinary medicine, to that position.

The Universal Service Fund is important to us, as you would guess.

It is about the result. It is not about--I mean, FSMA is designed in a way to create safe food, not a regulatory checklist.

I have expressed an ongoing concern about the ability for particularly rural telephone companies to be able to repay loans.

The guidance documents are just guidance. And the entity being reviewed can perform compliance in a different way than the guidance documents.

Commissioner, I saw recently that the Director of the Center for Veterinary Medicine announced that she was leaving the agency.