On the recordJune 16, 2011
I want to, first of all, thank my good friend from Pennsylvania for talking to me about this amendment. Earlier this week, I expressed my concerns at that time, which I still have with it, and want to make a number of points. Number one, we're not 100 percent sure what this scores out in terms of budget authority. So there is that question over it. Number two, I want to say that while conservation funding is down, farmers still have access to $5.8 billion in conservation funding. And that's for private landowners. Actually, it's $5.868 billion, to be exact. I also want to make sure that my friends know that even though there are CHIMPs in this, changes in mandatory programs, that no conservation contracts will have to be canceled because of these limitations. The Federal Government cannot and does not break farm commodity or conservation contracts without significant consequences. We are aware of that. So we have made sure that none of the conservation contracts would be abrogated. And then finally I want to say to my friend the ranking member, just to underscore some of the sensitivities that we've been through in the last couple of days, that this actually does cut the WIC program, cuts the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and it cuts the Conservation Reserve Program and a lot of the other programs which there has been so much passion about on this floor in the last couple of days.…
