Political Quotes

“I appreciate the Senator temporarily taking the chair for me at this time so I can make a few brief comments on the farm bill. I thank everyone who has been involved in getting us to this point. It has been challenging, but we have a product, as you know, that came out of committee unanimously. I thank Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss for their leadership in bringing us to this point. I also thank Senator Conrad for his budget expertise that helped get us to this point, and so many other people who have worked very hard to create a product that we all can be very proud of. We do not only support traditional agriculture, which is very important--people in my State think of automobiles, particularly as we are talking about the energy debate now--but our second largest industry is agriculture. So this is a very important bill from the standpoint of the economy of Michigan. We have traditional agricultural programs that are supported in this legislation which I am very pleased about. But we also do something very important. We take a step toward the future in this bill in a number of ways. Also very important to me and Michigan, and I appreciate my colleagues supporting the effort, is to have half of the crops grown by farmers in the United States, fruit and vegetable growers, called specialty crops, included in a very real way for the first time in this farm bill. That is historic.”