David Obey: “I will be voting for the bill and the rule, but before I do I would like to get some things off of my chest about what I…”

“I will be voting for the bill and the rule, but before I do I would like to get some things off of my chest about what I think the real problems are. I do not think that the committee was wrong not to include dairy in this bill because there were no provisions on dairy, and they would have been not germane to the bill to begin with. I think the committee made the proper decision. I think a number of things happened in the conference that should not have happened. Example: we had a serious debate on the issue of sanctions. I think this country's sanctions policy is deeply flawed. I think it makes no sense to use farmers as pawns in foreign policy. I did not agree with the Senate language on sanctions because I thought it was open sesame and I thought it was carelessly applied; and it could have made available to a number of dictatorial regimes around the world items which they could use to build their own foreign exchange, and we do not want to do that. I think we could have... worked out a recalibrated sanction program to meet the national interests of the country without making farmers be the infantrymen in every argument we have with a foreign power, but we did not get the chance because the conference was shut down.”