Collin Peterson: “Mr. Speaker, I too rise in strong support today of the Agriculture Research Extension and Education Reauthorization Act…”

“Mr. Speaker, I too rise in strong support today of the Agriculture Research Extension and Education Reauthorization Act of 1997. As has been said by others, we are moving into a new era in agriculture, and research is going to be a more and more important component of our agriculture policy in this country. We in the upper Midwest and particularly in the northern part which I represent are very concerned about some specific issues with scab on wheat and barley where we have a cooperative effort in this bill to start putting more of a focus on that particular issue, and that is something we are very interested in, along with all of the other parts of this legislation. I, too, want to commend the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest], the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dooley], the ranking member of the subcommittee, and also the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Smith], the chairman of the full committee, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm], the ranking member of the full committee, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation so that we can move it ahead and see if we can get a conference on this and pass this into law.”