Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I bring this amendment, amendment No. 1, to help supplement some of the good programs that are already existing within the existing farm bill, and what it does is it allows drainage districts to also compete for EQIP money along with the irrigation districts that exist in the country. I have worked in this arena for a lot of my adult life, and there are roughly 2,000 drainage districts in the State of Iowa, but the important part of this is that we are concerned about water quality and water management and nutrient management, and we have developed technology that, when a producer goes into a pattern tile system, a drainage system--and we used to, and we still do in most places--we just drain all that water out down to the bottom of the tile, and we do that for 12 months out of the year. And what happens is the nutrients that are applied, the nitrogen and the phosphorous, in particular, go down the stream, and it impacts the water quality downstream; and it contributes to the hypoxia in the Gulf Coast, as well.…”