Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

SPEECH OF
HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO
OF CONNECTICUT
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2011

The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1) making appropriations for the Department of Defense and the other departments and agencies of the Government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, and for other purposes:

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the cuts to the Agriculture and FDA budget in H.R. 1. They are rashly made, and they will endanger both our food supply and our families.

During my time as Chair of this subcommittee, we worked hard to provide the resources to better improve the safety of food, drugs and devices. We expanded access to fundamental nutrition and hunger programs. And we invested wisely in key areas like conservation and rural development. This continuing resolution threatens to undo all of our hard work.

Instead of cutting special interest waste, like the subsidies that go to high-income farmers and corporate farms, this continuing resolution hurts everyone else. It hurts the economy, will cost us jobs, and it threatens the middle-class and working families we were elected to represent.

We are already playing a dangerous game in terms of food safety--Far too many of the dishes on our kitchen table get there uninspected. But under this continuing resolution, there would be 2000 fewer firm inspections--and 10,000 fewer import inspections--conducted by the FDA.

In fact, both the FDA and USDA would have to furlough thousands of inspectors under this plan. That is more than just a food safety problem. It means the nearly 6,300 meat and poultry plants across America would be legally required to stop operating--costing approximately $11 billion. And it would mean, by the basic principles of the market, that the price of meat and poultry would increase for every single family in America.

In addition, this CR rolls back the budget of the Farm Service Agency--forcing a 40 day furlough of all employees and meaning long delays and less help for farmers and ranchers.

In cuts food aid to the lowest it has been in a decade, 15 million people would lose desperately-needed emergency food assistance, which will endanger our war efforts and the security of our troops in Afghanistan. And 2.5 million more women and children lose the vital aid provided by McGovern-Dole, a program with long bipartisan support.

There are many terrible ideas in this CR, but perhaps the unkindest cut of all is what will be done to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and the Women with Infant Children feeding program. Instead of slashing subsidies for oil companies and saving $40 billion, the majority has decided to deny over 100,000 low-income seniors from receiving food packages, and cut almost $750 million from WIC, a program serving our most vulnerable citizens.

They are quite literally taking food from hungry seniors and children's mouths, and giving it to the special interests--corporate farms and oil companies--who write their checks. It is unconscionable.

I urge my colleagues to vote against these reckless and irresponsible cuts, and to work together on a budget that better reflects our priorities as a nation.

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