Mike Conaway: “I started to go down one path, but the disdain with which my good colleague from Florida insulted the folks in this…”

“I started to go down one path, but the disdain with which my good colleague from Florida insulted the folks in this industry is unacceptable. I rise in opposition. I wish he would get his facts correct. The total appropriation, actual money spent since '96 is $1 million. He has confused authorizations with appropriations. So if he will go and check his records, the $50 million he blasted out over and over and over was just simply incorrect. That is not the money that was spent. Sheep shearing is an important issue with respect to growing the wool industry in this country. It is about jobs. Sheep shearing is hard work, and we're trying to figure out ways to make that happen. This board is housed at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture Marketing Service. It's a board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture. It's composed of seven members--four active sheep growers, two finance and management members, and then two folks out of the USDA to make a total of nine. {time} 2250 The National Sheep Industry Improvement Center provides small grant projects to assist in the improvement of the sheep industry and the expansion of markets. Throughout the farm bill, we have attempted over and over and over again to promote production agriculture and the jobs associated with it. While sheep shearing may not be particularly exotic and folks from Florida may think it is beneath them, the folks from west Texas take a whole different view of that.…”