Sanford Bishop: “This amendment would cut funding for the Office of Civil Rights at USDA by an additional 19 percent. The bill already…”

“This amendment would cut funding for the Office of Civil Rights at USDA by an additional 19 percent. The bill already guts funding for USDA. Any further cuts would just make a bad bill worse. The Office of Civil Rights at USDA is there for one purpose, and that is to make sure that every American has an equal opportunity to access the programs of USDA regardless of race, regardless of gender, regardless of national origin. USDA over the past decades has been required to pay billions of dollars to folks who were stakeholders who were denied equal opportunities to access these programs. If we cut this, we will be hamstringing the ability of USDA to do the right thing. We want to stop this before it spreads. It has already done too much damage to access for minorities, for women, and for various ethnic minorities, so we must fund this office. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. It is another amendment that does nothing to serve farmers, nothing to serve rural America, and it has no place in this bill. We should fund the USDA in a way that makes its programs accessible and available to every single American. Mr. Chair, I urge that this amendment be rejected, and I yield back the balance of my time. {time} 2145”