this is a Department that intersects American lives every single day in multiple ways.

I am glad you are at USDA. USDA touches each American's life multiple times a day, food, housing programs, research and assistance.

The President has provided a directive to us to accelerate the implementation of the energy provisions of the farm bill.

I think it is a critical diplomatic program. I think it is a critical humanitarian program.

We want to aggressively implement the energy title provisions of the 2008 farm bill.

We want to develop an ecologically sustainable forest and private working land system.

We are losing a lot of population in rural areas.

May I suggest you or your staff take a look at a bill several of us put together and have for a series of years called the New Homestead Act?

If your sales force isn't costing you anything, why would you cut them off?

Wouldn't they atrophy themselves over time then, and why wouldn't you let it take the natural course?

I hope people watching this see the problems with having government run a private sector business.

Programs that will increase demand such as the Drive America Forward Act sponsored by Senators Stabenow and Brownback would be helpful.