Tom Harkin: “These States have tremendous backlogs and needs in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to help clean up the…”

“These States have tremendous backlogs and needs in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to help clean up the water and conserve resources in these States. We had about $1/2 billion in our bill to help all of the States meet the environmental standards and needs in States. Many of the farmers in these States have to meet environmental standards, and even without requirements, farmers and ranchers strive to take care of the land. They want to do their best to be good stewards. In many cases farmers are doing this out of their own pockets with their own machinery and their own time. I believe we need to help them. We need to help these farmers meet these environmental standards. Yet the House bill provides nothing. It is too bad that the President would not even meet with us and would not try to work out some decent compromise. We were willing. The President said, no. They made their point they were only going to have $5.5 billion for our farmers; they were not going to have any conservation. We also wanted to broaden this bill out to address the needs of our specialty crop producers in America, the people who raise peas and lentils and apples and all the other fruits and vegetables that are part of our great bounty that we have in this country. These farmers are hurting, too. We tried to help them. The House bill does a little bit, but hardly anything at all, to help these beleaguered farmers.”