Cory Booker

And I think it is important the trends. New Jersey actually has a lot of farms. We actually are the Garden State and produce a lot of this nation's produce.

Neighbors do have the right and the need to know.

I think it is a step backward.

The issue of air emissions from large CAFOs and the impact of those emissions on neighboring property owners is indeed a very serious issue, life threatening issue.

I hope it is as well as my partnership with Senator Fischer. She and I were a great tag team.

I am really grateful, Chairman Rounds, to be able to serve with you on this Committee; it is exciting to have the opportunity to partner with you.

We must protect our farmers and ranchers from unnecessary regulatory burdens.

I just want to make sure of commitment by the Department of Transportation and everything is on schedule to achieve something we all can brag about as testimony to the Trump administration's cutting red tape.

We should have a fair standard because I know these programs. This would crush every area of our country if you shifted that to what you represented to the Senator.

Do you agree that checkoff funds should only be used in ways that benefit all farmers paying into them?

Do you agree that it is good to have periodic independent audits of those checkoff programs so there is a fundamental fairness?

Do you agree that it would be beneficial to make those programs more transparent so that family farmers... can quickly see the budgets and expenditures?

What I saw there, no human being should have to live in those conditions.

I really want to be clear here, because I do not think it should be contract farmers, who, too, are living in challenging conditions, often making very low wages at really rough margins.

I met with local residents in a large group and heard their stories, painful stories about how the drinking water in their wells has been poisoned by runoff from the CAFOs.

I was so astonished by this; we don't really have these in New Jersey, that I actually went down to Duplin County to see, firsthand, what was going on.

My belief is, very strongly, that we should stay in NAFTA and we should do everything we can to make it work.

I am very much a pro-trade person, and have voted that way throughout my career.

Will you come to New Jersey, for some visits to the Superfund sites?

You know probably about Executive Order 12898, which requires the EPA to identify and address disproportionately high and adverse human health effects that affects, disproportionately affects minorities.

I don't know if you believe this personally, but do you think that children handling dangerous pesticides is a good idea?

I am really concerned about how much you are taking into account the environmental burdens that are disproportionately impacting communities of color, indigenous communities, and low income communities.

We really have the urgency--the threat--of these Superfund sites growing.

I was alarmed--I know this is a budget recommendation about the 30 percent cut; this is an area that needs a lot more attention.

Well that's kind of the kind of despotism that is not America. This is not who we are.