Marcy Kaptur: “I want to explain this amendment so everyone is aware of what we are proposing here. First of all, I do not think it is…”

“I want to explain this amendment so everyone is aware of what we are proposing here. First of all, I do not think it is a surprise to say to anyone in this chamber tonight that rural America and farmers are experiencing the lowest prices in modern history, in all sectors, and this particular supplemental bill is the only opportunity we have to try to offer greater assistance to those small- and medium-sized enterprises that this year, not the 2001 appropriation, but this year, in the year of 2000, need assistance in trying to reposition themselves for the marketplace. This amendment essentially provides $130 million of funds, makes them available, through the Commodity Credit Corporation essentially as an emergency. And because it is the Commodity Credit Corporation, those dollars do not flow through the appropriations process. It makes up to that amount, $130 million, available to farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives for feasibility studies to reposition their businesses, business development strategies, restructuring of their own individual operations into cooperative operations to try to meet the market that is out there, as well as the processing and marketing of those commodities to try to get them to the market.”