Thomas Massie: “I respectfully disagree with my colleague's characterization of this amendment that it changes permanent law. In fact…”

“I respectfully disagree with my colleague's characterization of this amendment that it changes permanent law. In fact, all it does is limits the spending that can be used to promulgate any new rules. Its only period is for the extent of a year. The next year, the next fiscal year. In fact, were it changing permanent law, we would not have allowed it as an amendment to this bill. Mr. Chair, I serve on the Rules Committee, and we vet hundreds of amendments for this very constraint. This is not one of the amendments that changes permanent law. If I could change permanent law, would I change permanent law? You are sure right that I would, and we will try that in the farm bill, but we can't change permanent law on an appropriations bill. The reason I have introduced this amendment is I have found on the USDA website, they haven't done the rule yet, but they are thinking about doing a rule to limit how many families could share an animal. Listen, there are four meat-packers that control over 80 percent of the meat that is processed in the United States. Our President himself said it from that very podium during a state of the Union speech. It is a problem. We all know it. There is one exemption that allows people to get out from under the thumb of the multinational corporations that process most of the meat in this country, and that is the custom slaughter exemption that allows somebody who owns an animal to have it processed for themselves.…”