Political Quotes

“I am very sympathetic to the gentleman from Iowa's concerns regarding the reduction in the bill's mandatory energy programs in the farm bill, in particular, the Rural Energy for America Program. The gentleman from Iowa is indeed a valued member of our subcommittee, and he was very instrumental in developing many parts of the overall bill, and I appreciate his input greatly. A number of factors went into our decision for which programs to reduce in order to achieve the $1.1 billion reduction in the bill's funding level over this last year. As I did mention, as he noted, in our full committee markup, I committed to working with the gentleman from Iowa to see where we could find alternative offsets, and we will continue to do that as we move forward. So I thank the gentleman for bringing this to our attention again here on the floor of the House.”