Joseph Skeen: “Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring before the House the conference report on the fiscal year 2001 appropriations bill for…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring before the House the conference report on the fiscal year 2001 appropriations bill for Agriculture, Rural Development, the Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. This bill has two main parts. The first titles, Title I through VII, comprises the regular fiscal year 2001 appropriations bill, which has a total budget authority of slightly less than $15.3 billion. The second part, which is Title VIII, is the emergency title, and that totals just over $3.6 billion. The administration advised us that it would not submit a formal request for disaster assistance, so as we have done in the past, we worked informally with program managers at USDA and with House and Senate colleagues to address as many concerns as possible. I believe that we have a good conference report that deserves the support of this body. We were able to make significant increases over the fiscal year 2000 level in research, food safety, domestic feeding, and conservation programs. This bill also contains compromise language in two critical issues: prescription drug importation, and sanctions of agricultural exports.”