David Thomas: “This conference report is in front of us tonight due to a number of Members doing yeoman's service. There is a provision…”

“This conference report is in front of us tonight due to a number of Members doing yeoman's service. There is a provision in this bill that was alluded to by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture that is long overdue to be changed. This gentleman from California started his congressional career on the Committee on Agriculture, and I tried to do something about it at that time. This was an opportunity to do something to correct the record that is long overdue for correcting. The gentleman I am going to recognize to speak was one of the first to come to me to suggest that this might be an opportunity that we could take advantage of. I have to tell my colleagues that as far as a State-wide race in North Carolina, I have received only one phone call from those individuals. I have worked beside only one of those individuals for far more than a decade, and the provision of removing the tobacco buyout was placed in the House bill long before it was placed in the Senate bill. I can assure anyone that had we not been able to put it in the House bill, it would not have been in the Senate bill, and so for all of those people who are now going to receive a payment, the argument about how much they are going to get, whether or not it is greater than someone other's offer, is all moot.”