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I would like to acknowledge that this conference does include as much as $3.4 million of the $6.8 million I requested be set aside for the 1890 Land Grant Colleges, which also includes many of our Nation's Historically Black
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I had hoped that the conference committee members would have deemed it more than reasonable to fund this area to the full $6.8 million that was requested. Given the fact that the minority 1890 Land Grant Colleges did not receive any land-grant funding from the United States, unlike other land grant colleges, prior to 1967 with formulary funding not beginning until 1972. Since 1988 Federal funding for agriculture programs has declined by 8 percent and the base funding that supports agricultural scientists and extension educators has eroded by 16 percent. This has obviously had a devastating negative impact on the 1890's. Federal support for basic research in the decades since the 1950's has decreased from an annual growth rate of 22.9 percent in the 1950's to 2 percent in the current decade. Flat support for food and agricultural sciences compounded by the lack of adequate state matching funds have created an alarming erosion in the conduct of 1890 research and extension services. Although the Congress encouraged States to provide a 30-percent match for 1890 landgrant programs in FY2000, several 1890's are facing nearly insurmountable barriers in getting states to comply.
I hope that the actions taken in this bill to provide additional dollars to 1890 Land Grant Colleges will mark a new era of Federal support to these Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Within the measure's $34.1 billion for domestic food programs is $4.1 billion ($37 million less than requested) for the women, infants and children (WIC) program. The bill appropriates $873 million ($5 million less than requested) for conservation programs; $973 million ($39 million more than requested) for the Agricultural Research Service; and $1.5 billion ($84 million less than requested) for the Rural Housing Service. It also provides the administration's request of $973 million for the PL-480 Food for Peace Program.
In addition, the measure modifies the eligibility rules regarding automobile ownership and monthly housing costs for food stamp recipients. Current law prohibits food stamp recipients from owning a car worth more than $4,650 or paying monthly housing costs of more than $275. Under the agreement, States could set their own caps for the vehicle allowance and gradually raise the housing cap over 5 years to $340 per month.
I would like to thank the conferees that worked on this conference report. However, I will vote ``no'' on the rule because of several failings in the bill and I will reluctantly vote ``yes'' on the legislation.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. HINCHEY) the sponsor of the key amendment that would have prevented drug companies from discriminating against U.S. importers and would have ensured that U.S. importers could purchase drugs on the same terms and conditions as foreign purchasers.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to express my profound appreciation to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. SKEEN), the chairman of the subcommittee, for the work that he has done and the leadership that he has provided on this initiative, along with the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. KAPTUR), the ranking minority member. It has been a profound pleasure to serve on the subcommittee with both of these Members.
Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill in many respects. The agriculture bill here contains increases in farm conservation and rural development programs. It contains important increases in rural housing, business, and utilities programs that are critical to small communities across the country.
In addition, it contains important recognition for the Rural Economic Area Partnership Zone Program. It also includes funding for important agricultural research initiatives.
In addition, it contains a little more than $3 billion in critical emergency assistance for farmers and ranchers who have suffered through another year of bad weather and low prices.
There is also $138 million for apple farmers struggling to overcome loss of markets and devastating weather that have occurred over the last 3 years.
I want to make it clear, that particular provision for specialty crops was originated in this House in the Subcommittee on Agriculture Appropriations and nowhere else. So, for the first time, apple farmers and other growers of specialty crops are going to get recognition for the difficult circumstances under which they operate.
This bill is a good bill. It provides assistance for dairy farmers, $1.6 billion in crop losses for all farms all across the country. All farmers are going to benefit from it.
So if my colleagues are going to vote for this bill, as I am, vote for it for the agriculture and the rural development provisions in the bill, all of which are exemplary and good. Do not vote for it for the provision on prescription drugs. Because the prescription drug provision in this bill is a shell, it is a fake, it is a sham. It will not provide prescription drugs at reduced prices for any American anywhere. It is designed precisely in that way, to prevent any consideration to reduce prices of pharmaceuticals imported from Canada or anywhere else because the bill fails to recognize the ability of the pharmaceutical companies to insert language that will prevent that from happening.
[Time: 16:30]
This is a good bill in many respects. However, it leaves to the next Congress the necessity to deal with the issue of the high cost of prescription drugs in America.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I just wanted to end by pointing out an important clarification here. The gentlewoman from Missouri indicated there was a Supreme Court case or an appeals court case and inferred that it supported her point of view.
Let me say that the Supreme Court declined to review the SmithKline case so the appeals court stands. If the law requires you to use labels, you must. And that is exactly what the Democratic amendment required, exactly what the Waxman amendment required, exactly what the DeLauro amendment required in the subcommittee markup.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. EMERSON).
Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, the judge said that they hold that the Hatch -Waxman amendments that already exist to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act require the labeling be used, be given by the drug manufacturer to the generic which means then, or to the reimporter in our particular case, and that it is not an infringement of copyright liability and, therefore, the drug company will have to provide the labeling under the discretion of the FDA. The FDA has broad discretion in this area and, therefore, all of that is covered in the language that exists in the bill that we are about to vote to pass.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a good deal about what the bill does do and does not do in terms of two provisions, prescription drug reimportation and trade sanctions. I would like to remind my colleagues that both of these issues more properly belong in an authorization bill, not appropriations. But they are here in our bill and represent some progress in helping our senior citizens get affordable medicines and helping our farmers and ranchers sell more of their products. That is a great marriage.
If Members want to criticize this bill for what is not there, then I would remind them that this bill also does not have campaign finance reform, it does not have managed health care reform, and it does not guarantee peace in the Middle East. What this bill does, among other things, is improve our environmental and water resources, provide food and nutrition for the vulnerable in our society, protect our food and medical supplies, and keep our system of agriculture the best and the strongest in the world.
Oddly enough, that is what this appropriations bill is supposed to do. That is why every Member of this body should recognize the good that this bill will do for their constituents and vote ``aye.''
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, while I am troubled by the failure of this measure to include funding for the disaster that befell our onion farmers in 1999, I will support this measure because it provides vitally important assistance to many farmers, growers of speciality
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I would also like to express my concerns over provisions in this bill in the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Title relating to Iran and other nations on the list of terrorist nations. We should, in my view, not be modifying our present policies toward Iran and Libya where we have in place a de facto prohibition against government credit for our exports to those countries.
The waiver on the prohibition on financing for commercial exports to Iran, Libya, North Korea or Sudan for national security purposes is, in my view, overly broad. Next year, we need to revisit this issue so we can ensure that the U.S. Taxpayer is not supporting commercial exports to terrorist countries, unless there are urgent humanitarian reasons to do so.
We also need to clarify that in providing licenses for the export of goods or services to countries promoting international terrorism under the current guidelines of the Department of the Treasury, we should keep the procedures in place for the denial of each and every license for any export to a person or group found to be promoting acts of international terrorism.
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I believe overall that the Agriculture Appropriations Conference report is a very good bill. It contains many admirable provisions including language that would allow the reimportation of prescription drugs. Data shows that a single does of a drug that costs a senior citizen $1 in the United States only cost 64 cents in Canada, while in Italy the same drug costs only 51 cents. I support drug reimportation--I am convinced this is one way to reduce the cost of prescription drug prices without imposing price controls or burdensome regulations on drug manufacturers. Indeed, I voted in favor of these provisions when the Agriculture Appropriations bill first passed the House and I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1885, the International Prescription Drug Parity Act, which contains many similar provisions.
Also included is funding for a number of initiatives which I strongly favor, including $1.5 million for pink bollworm control programs, $500,000 for aflatoxin research in Arizona. $5 million for the Water conservation and Western Cotton Laboratory move from Phoenix to the University of Arizona's Maricopa Agriculture Center (MAC), $495,000 for the International Arid Lands Consortium (administered by UA), $369,000 for the Southwest Consortium for Plant Genetics and Water Resources, $200,000 for hesperaloe and other natural products from desert plants research (conducted by UA), and $4,177,000 for shrimp aquaculture research. And I voted for a bill which contains these provisions when it passed the House on July 11, 2000.
However, during conference deliberations on the Agriculture Appropriations bill, an amendment was inserted into the bill that was not considered by an committee in either the House or Senate. This provision has serious repercussions for U.S. industry. Because of my strong opposition to this provision, I will reluctantly vote against this bill today.
Under the amendment adopted in the Agriculture Appropriations conference report, antidumping and countervailing duties which are currently paid by the importing industry would be transferred from the U.S. Treasury Department directly in the petitioning company. This is a major change in our current antidumping and countervailing duty laws with potentially disastrous consequences. Under current law, antidumping or countervailing duties are assessed to offset the dumping or subsidy and paid to the U.S. Treasury. Payment of the duties readjusts the market to replicate conditions as if dumping or subsidization had not occurred. The theory behind this law is to level the playing field between U.S. producers and foreign importers so that each may compete fairly for access to U.S. consumers. The provision inserted into the Agriculture Appropriations bill does much more--it double compensates the petitioner by no only offsetting the alleged injury, but also providing a windfall subsidy to the petitioner.
This provision will encourage other countries to adopt a similar industry subsidy. U.S. exporters facing dumping duties will end up directly subsidizing their competitors instead
of paying duties to a foreign government. Because U.S. companies are the biggest targets of AD/CVD actions, this threatens our exports.
Subsidization of industry by any government which is a member of the World Trade Organization violates the WTO Agreement on Subsidies on Countervailing Measures. The U.S. Government supported this Agreement because we sought to eliminate foreign subsidies which undercut the ability of U.S. industry to compete abroad. Payment of AD/CVD duties violates the Agreement which could lead to retaliatory tariffs against innocent U.S. exporters.
The lure of a potential monetary windfall could spur additional litigation under our AD/CVD laws. In order to be eligible for the potential windfall, U.S. industry would be encouraged to join in the filing of AD/CVD petitions. Otherwise, they would not be eligible for any payments which might be made under this new provision. Furthermore, the promise of monetary compensation would take away any incentive to enter into ``suspension agreements'' or settlements whereby a foreign producer agrees not to sell below an agreed price in an antidumping case. More cases means more duties, on the backs of this U.S. industries which depend on steady supplies of products which may subject to AD/CVD.
Because of the serious implications of this ill-considered provision, I am reluctantly voting against the Agriculture Appropriations conference report.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly voted against this bill though there is much in it that merits support. However, the benefits accorded to farmers in this bill are disproportionately skewed to large operations, not to smaller-scale, family farms. If people want to step back and provide benefits for small farms, I will be the first to look at ways that we can do that in a cooperative fashion. But this bill is not targeted. We continue to pour unprecedented sums to agriculture without addressing the apparent failure of the so-called ``Freedom to Farm'' bill.
Several provisions illustrate the lost opportunities. We missed an opportunity with Cuba in this bill. We successfully trade with China. Why can't we pursue a rational trade policy with Cuba? Cuba trade will hasten the departure of Fidel Castro, leader of one of the last remaining bastions of communism.
There is a rider for the sugar industry buried in this conference report that subverts the reform the 1996 Freedom to Farm bill was supposed to usher in. It will do nothing to change the $352 million in loan defaults taxpayers are paying this year, no GAO's estimated $1.9 billion cost of the sugar program to consumers.
As pointed out in an October 1 editorial in the Washington Post, the drug reimportation language in this bill is unlikely to do much to address the problem of affordability of prescription drugs. The five-year time limit on the bill will significantly minimize the effectiveness of this token effort to address the skyrocketing cost of pharmaceuticals. These narrow provisions won't have the impact for our seniors that real solutions to the prescription drug crisis world have.
This bill does not do enough to address the serious problem of hunger in the United States. Even in this time of unprecedented prosperity, many families are hungry. Oregon has one of the highest rates of hunger in the nation. Yet, the conference report provides less funding to food stamp programs, less funding to school breakfast and lunch programs, and less funding to the WIC programs than what was originally allocated in the House and Senate versions of this bill.
We can do better.
Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to being attention to one of the concerns I have with this bill. To be specific, I was very troubled to find that the conference report being considered today includes language which restricts funding for the American Heritage Rivers Initiative (AHRI).
When this bill first came to the floor in June, it included language which prohibited funding for the Natural Resources Conservation service (NRCS) from being used for the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. I offered an amendment to strike this language out, and it was adopted with unanimous support from this body.
In light of this body's support for my amendment--and the fact that no such similar language was in the bill passed by the other body--it is difficult to understand why the conferees found it appropriate to include the restrictive language in the conference report. As I have noted on the floor in the past, I understand that some enmity exists for the American Heritage Rivers Initiative by those who feel that the initiative represents an intrusion of the federal government into local affairs. Though I'm confident that an examination of AHRI's record will show that their concerns are entirely unfounded, I will not attempt to dissuade my colleagues from their opinion.
These Members had the opportunity to protect their communities from this phantom threat when the initiative was implemented, having been given the power to veto the involvement of their districts in AHRI. I would like to remind my colleagues that the only communities which remain in the initiative are the ones which have actively chosen to participate, including communities in my district, and so I resent these actions undertaken by Members--behind closed doors--which certainly will have a negative effect only on communities other than their own.
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