Jeff Merkley

The rule of law matters.

I lean more closely to the President's view, which is to continue the pressure campaign...

Attack on our country in a true sense.

We support providing assistance to address natural resource concerns facing the Nation's farmers, ranchers, and nonindustrial private forest landowners.

We need to pick our battles, would be a point I would make to you. We need more trade agreements, not less.

We need to be making certain that are other countries are our allies--the European Union, Mexico, and Canada, those who buy grain from us.

I would appeal to you all, while there is some effort to demonstrate--to give cash, I would ask that you all continue the policy that has been in the past to let us use commodities grown by U.S. growers.

I will never forget meeting these three women at a refugee camp in Kenya.

So we really would appreciate your partnership in helping to take on that specific challenge.

I know that when you come to Oregon, you may not want to leave, because it is paradise.

So I wanted, first, to invite you to come to that agricultural region, so you can firsthand see some of the impacts there...

I appreciate that very much, because those funds out in the field can do a lot.

Would you consider, as you enter that dialogue, consulting with the subcommittee here on what should or should not be in a rescission bill?

Thank you very much. And I really have appreciated the dialogue over the last year on multiple issues.

The agriculture issues that come up, a lot of the programs that are cut in here are the ones that the farmers are raising for me.

Thousands of low-income elderly people rely on this program here in America to supplement their diets.

That program has a huge impact on our soft power in the world, and also on our moral leadership in the world.

The thing that is standing between them and starvation? The United States of America.

If American manufacturing had the same level of basic research, applied research, and a delivery system like the extension service, we would not be talking about the demise of American manufacturing.

The budget before us for agriculture and rural development is cut more than $5 billion, more than 25 percent from the fiscal year 2018 omnibus levels.

I want to thank you for the decision to open up Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for emergency haying and grazing.

Let's put a stake through the heart of that, through the heart of that conversation.

It's the most horrific idea we have heard in the Northwest ever and take it off the table.

Yes, well defend it. Why are you cutting it to zero?

But let me just point out ARPA-E has been reduced to zero in your budget.