Rae Oliver Davis

I am happy [Representative Pingree] is here with us today and will shortly offer some introductory comments of her own.

The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, enacted in 1996, fully addresses this concern.

I wish to place into the record a Memorandum Opinion drafted by the Department of Justice for the USDA General Counsel that not only spells out the direct protection of the Emerson Act, but also describes the preemptive effect on state…

I commend my colleague from Maine, Chellie Pingree, for putting this on the Congressional radar.

Forty percent of the food grown in the country is wasted. That amounts to 133 billion pounds of food wasted.

The permanent tax deduction for food donations was identified in recent legislation and was enacted as part of the last omnibus.

Tackling food waste in this country is, and should be a nonpartisan issue that will be most successful by engaging everyone in the food chain.

earlier this year, Mr. Rodney Davis, my colleague from Illinois, and I did, in fact, request that the Appropriations Committee provide an additional $100 million for the cost of storing, transporting, and distributing food.

I will now recognize our Ranking Member, Rep. Peterson, for his opening remarks.

The Corps needs to take a serious look. If you are going to be the experts, the issue area experts, on where to locate Federal agencies like the NGA, get it right.

I was very disappointed, General Jackson, to see that the President did not put a request for funding for NESP.

If you are truly serious about moving these priority projects forward, then can you tell me why the President did not request a single dollar in his budget?

I worked with my colleague, Mrs. Napolitano, to permanently authorize the Corps of Engineers to continue funding the Veterans' Curation Program.

As a veteran, and I know there are many veterans here today, I appreciate everything that the Congress does to help our veterans transition.

This impacts all of our districts, and I know even in your own district, the St. Martin Parish School District issued bonds last year to build new schools and improve existing ones.

I support having a tax system that allows for everyone to keep as much of their hard-earned money as possible.

We look forward to continuing to work with our colleagues in Congress, educational institutions, the private sector, and, most importantly, students to push for common-sense solutions to the ever-growing problem of student loan debt.

Washington disagrees on how to strengthen our infrastructure, but I believe decisions made by local communities handling local projects tend to be more efficient than one-size-fits-all policy from Washington, D.C.

We need the existing tax incentives employers receive for tuition assistance to be applied to student loan repayment.

Man, if we ever get to that point, we are truly done.

Thank you, Chairman Davis and Ranking Member DelBene, for the opportunity to address the Subcommittee.

I had an amendment in the 2014 Farm Bill which would establish a permanent subcommittee of the EPA Science Advisory Board to ensure the voice of agriculture was represented in the Agency's decision-making process.

Obviously, as Federal policy-makers, we are here in this Committee hearing room talking about how we in America can better feed those who are hungry.

We are trying to feed people who are hungry. We are trying to give them access to food...

Our immigration system is broken and badly in need of repair.