Liz Saville Roberts: “I rise today to read a statement I am sending to Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman regarding USDA's approach to…”

“I rise today to read a statement I am sending to Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman regarding USDA's approach to emergency farm legislation. The letter goes like this: ``Dear Mr. Secretary''--Dear Dan, we are personal friends-- We all agree that we need to get the emergency agriculture bill out of conference, passed and get the assistance to our farmers as fast as possible. In this regard, I am concerned with recent comments you have made regarding how these payments should be funded and made available to farmers. Instead of using the current Agriculture Marketing Transition Act--[and the acronym for that is AMTA--instead of using that] payment system that farmers and their lenders were promised and banked on several months ago, you and others within the Administration have recommended alternative payment plans. In your September 15 testimony before the House Agriculture Committee, you said: ``There is an immediate need to provide cash assistance to mitigate low prices, falling incomes, and in some areas, falling land values.'' But then you said: ``Congress should enact a new program to target assistance to farmers of 1999 crops suffering from low prices. The Administration believes the income assistance must address the shortcomings of the farm bill by providing counter- cyclical assistance.…”