Gilbert Gutknecht: “it is a very simple amendment, but I think it is very important and one that an awful lot of groups are paying attention…”

“it is a very simple amendment, but I think it is very important and one that an awful lot of groups are paying attention to. There is a program we have had in the farm bill for a very long time, the Wetland Reserve Program, that has become extremely important on a variety of fronts. It is important to wildlife, it is important to our water quality, it is important to flood control, and I think it is important to most Americans who care about the environment. It is especially important to those of us in Minnesota. We have 10,000 lakes. We take water very seriously. And the Wetland Reserve Program is something that we want to do everything we can to preserve and keep at its current levels. Currently, we authorize in the farm bill about 250,000 acres for the Wetland Reserve Program. And I understand how difficult it has been for the subcommittee and the chairman and the staff to squeeze all of the requests into the amount of money that they have been allocated in this appropriation bill, so I have a great deal of empathy for the problems that they have. But I wanted to come to the floor today to offer an amendment to restore to 250,000 acres the overall authorization for the Wetland Reserve Program. Currently, under this bill that authorization drops to about 144,000 acres. I understand that the committee had to find $82 million. And by passing this amendment we create an $82 million hole in their bill, and I am empathetic to that.…”