Jerry Moran

In the absence of these agricultural offsets, it is not just agriculture that is negatively affected... the entire U.S. economy.

this means a huge tax increase.

Mr. Secretary, welcome to the Agriculture Committee. When we first met in this room back in January, I invited you to Kansas, and I would again extend that invitation.

So what we are doing is we are transferring wealth, income from those who can least afford it, at least in this example of Kansas and our mean income, to those who are better able to afford it.

A quarter to a third of what income we produce in agriculture comes from our ability to export agricultural commodities.

This is a serious issue for us, and I am delighted that Mr. Peterson has called this hearing.

H.R. 2454 is a cap-and-tax bill.

That is how difficult it is. That is the reason I keep saying this next decade is going to be extremely difficult.

We had this conservation with the previous panel and one of my concerns is about our competitiveness.

I am astonished by that, knowing what the consequences will be.

If this Waxman-Markey bill does not include agriculture offsets... we will be at a horrible, horrible disadvantage in agriculture.

If we are setting the template... we ought to make certain that we do it right, as compared to just do it.

And I guess my question would be, do you endorse this bill, or do you just endorse the concept behind the bill?

We are here, I think, to determine the success of that fix, and I hope we learn that from the CFTC.

We have been through this a long time. We have had a long conversation and discussion in Congress about a broad Zelener fix.

What seems to be developing, and, in fact, we have talked here among ourselves that if we put the three of you in a room we would have a broader Zelener fix.

I do think there is an agenda out there. I don't think it is an agenda by this Administration; I think it is an agenda by some people that probably best describe a western state governor--I won't mention his name--that thinks that we all…

I really don't understand--I understand exactly what you are saying and I agree with the comments that are made about the science, about the--certainly the unfairness, the injustice of evaluating different forms of fuel by different…

I don't think it is necessarily fair to pin on the new President what happened when the ball was rolling earlier.

This Congress has seen in the past significant improvements on our funding for health services.

I would welcome anyone on the Committee who would like to work with me to see if we cannot get the VA to move in a more expeditious manner.

I want to make sure that you all are participating in that process. Because mental health services needs to be a significant component.

Despite the additional money, we still cannot attract and retain the necessary professionals to provide the services.

I think it is, it is not only disappointing to me, to the professionals who want to provide the services, but more important it means that there are veterans who could be served that are not because of the bureaucratic nature of the VA's…

One of the concerns I always have about the provision of health care services for our veterans is the geographic disparity.