Mike Conaway

We are driven by consumer demand, and have responded to our customers' evolving demands for healthy food items.

Americans generally support welfare programs to help those who have fallen on hard times, the elderly, children, and disabled individuals who cannot care for themselves.

As policymakers, we must be cognizant of the various laws we consider and regulations that are proposed to ensure that Washington is not making it harder for families to put food on their table.

As a taxpayer myself, and as a steward of taxpayer dollars, I want the dollars that go toward SNAP to be well spent.

In order to maintain support from American taxpayers, we as legislators and program administrators must ensure that these programs are accountable and transparent.

SNAP dollars should provide the greatest benefit possible and allow for the maximum improvement in nutrition for the households that need them.

New Mexico has the most fouled-up SNAP program in the country.

We ask that Congress support common sense, bipartisan proposals to end the treatment of military Basic Allowance for Housing as income when determining eligibility and benefits for Federal food assistance programs.

Help us to be worthy of the trust that our constituents put in us.

Today, our witnesses will help us gain a better understanding of the various options and flexibility states have when implementing SNAP.

While it is important to empower states to employ the best policies to meet the needs of the low-income families they serve, we, as Federal lawmakers, must ensure the integrity of SNAP is maintained.

I want to thank the chairman and Chairman Aderholt for the consideration they gave to our input. They were kind in that consideration, and we certainly appreciate that. Mr. Speaker, we have heard reasons why to vote for this bill: defense…

America has been able to not only survive but thrive because our agricultural safety net helps farmers weather the bad times.

A nation that can feed itself is a much more secure nation.

With fewer and fewer Americans connected to production agriculture, many in Congress fail to recognize the importance of sound agricultural policy to our national security.

America has the safest, most affordable, most abundant food supply in the history of the world, and that is not by accident, it is by design.

If the United States is going to push China on biotechnology, it should also preempt the states so there is one national GMO labeling policy.

If we can achieve this important principle, I think we go a long way in ensuring that American agriculture harnesses the power of big data.

But, until that day becomes a reality, we cannot and we will not unilaterally disarm America's farmers and ranchers.

This hearing will give those who doubt the need for U.S. farm policy a glimpse into what American farmers and ranchers are up against every single day.

I thank the chairman of the Committee on Rules, Pete Sessions, for his kind words and also his support tomorrow. I think the bill that went through the Committee on Energy and Commerce that started life as a Joe Barton bill will be the one…

I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for his thoughts and comments. He and I are blessed to share a group of people who work across that State line between Texas and New Mexico-- our districts are contiguous with each other--who live in…

I appreciate the leadership allowing me to visit with you about something that is near and dear to my heart. I hope we spend the better part of the next hour discussing a bill tomorrow that will be before this body, which is H.R. 702…

I thank the gentleman. I want to brag on the House for having conducted this business with respect to this bill the way it has. If you go back to your grade school or your junior high civics classes, I'm a bill on Capitol Hill trying to…

I thank the gentleman from North Dakota, clearly, a State that is a major player in this oil and gas renaissance that has occurred over the last 5 years. I would also like to point out that the oil and gas business, per se, is an…