'Start Advancing Actual Legislation': Hyde-Smith Calls On Congress To Enact A New Farm Bill

2 months ago

During remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) spoke about the farm bill.

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Transcript

00:00The junior senator from Mississippi. Madam President, we are now well into the

00:06month of July and less than three months away from the current Farm Bill

00:10extension expiring. As such, I would like to bring renewed focus on the framework

00:17proposed by my colleague and ranking member of the Senate Agricultural

00:21Committee. I commend my friend Senator Bozeman from Arkansas for presenting us

00:27with a framework that answers the call of farmers, ranchers, stakeholders, and

00:32taxpayers across the country. For the greater part of two years, we've heard

00:38time and time again from those who elected us to be here. In the next Farm

00:44Bill, Congress must, and these are some of the things they say we must do,

00:49strengthen the farm safety net, ARC, PLC, disaster assistance, and crop insurance

00:56among other important safety net mechanisms. Enhance conservation programs,

01:02especially those designed for our working lands, such as the CSP and the

01:08EQIP programs. Provide greater opportunities for U.S. agriculture in the

01:13global marketplace. Ensure that our domestic food assistance programs serve

01:19as a hand up and not a hand out. Offer better access to credit and financing

01:25particularly for young and beginning farmers. Dedicate adequate resources to

01:31our rural communities, which are built around agriculture. Invest more in

01:37agricultural research, which America is currently lagging behind our

01:41competitors and adversaries, despite having the brightest

01:47minds in the world and a storied history of innovation. Modernize existing

01:53policies pertaining to forestry, energy, and horticulture, among many others. In

01:58short, put more farm in the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill framework, released by our

02:05Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member, would achieve all of these things

02:09and in a bipartisan, physically responsible manner. It is our

02:14responsibility in Congress to listen to those who know best about what they need

02:20to make a living so they can continue to feed our nation and the world. When the

02:26Subcommittee Commodities, Risk Management, and Trade conducted a hearing last year

02:32on producers' perspectives of the farm safety net, a producer described the

02:38current farm safety net as two inches above the concrete. That's insufficient

02:45in today's farm economy, where producers faced extraordinary volatility, historic

02:51inflation, and record high input costs, catastrophic natural disasters, and

02:58geopolitical tensions that disrupt markets. Times are changing. New

03:05challenges and threats to rural America emerge every day. This is why Congress

03:11revisits this important multi-year legislation to keep what's working, fix

03:17what's not, and eliminate what is no longer necessary. I commend the House

03:22Agriculture Committee for advancing a strong, common-sense Farm Bill proposal

03:28out of committee, and I commend our Senate Ag Committee Chair for all of her

03:33efforts throughout this process. But the bottom line, Madam President, it takes

03:39time to move away from partisan disagreements. It's time to do that and

03:44instead work on finding common ground. It's time to graduate from concepts and

03:50proposals and instead start advancing actual legislation. Simply put, it's time

03:58for Congress to enact a new Farm Bill, one that our farmers, ranchers, and rural

04:03America have been asking for for quite some time. Thank you, Madam President, and

04:09I yield the floor.

'Start Advancing Actual Legislation': Hyde-Smith Calls On Congress To Enact A New Farm Bill

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