Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement regarding the multilateral agreement reached at the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. “I appreciate the efforts of Ambassador Froman and his team in working to put an end to foreign export subsidies. “The agreement reached in Nairobi was never expected to reduce ... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement upon the unveiling of the fiscal year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill. “This responsible funding bill is a win for rural America, and I commend Chairman Hal Rogers and House leadership for including many top priorities of farmers and ranchers. I encourage all of my colleagues, e... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement in response to the inclusion of language repealing mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, also known as the omnibus. “Back in June, the House overwhelmingly passed language to repeal mandatory COOL for products challenged by ou... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Suffering under combined pressures of natural disasters and predatory foreign competition by China, India, and others, financially struggling American cotton farmers received strong backing from Capitol Hill today as 100 Members of the House of Representatives urged U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to use legal authority provided under the 2014 Farm Bill to provide cruc... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research held a hearing to discuss USDA’s use of the Census of Agriculture authority to acquire farmer’s personal financial information. The Census of Agriculture, which is conducted every five years, is an important tool used by economists; state, local, and federal policy-makers; financia... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management held a hearing to examine the current state of the U.S. cotton industry. Members heard from a variety of stakeholders—producers, warehousers, ginners, and agricultural lenders—on the current situation unfolding in the cotton belt. As Congress was crafting the 2014 Farm Bill, ref... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) arbitration panel announced its final ruling that the United States’ Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) requirements for livestock and meat imports have cost our trading partners over $1 billion dollars. Canada and Mexico are now authorized to impose retaliatory tariffs in that amount against U.S. exports. House Agriculture Committee Ch... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee held a public hearing to highlight the Farm Credit System (FCS) and its century-long mission of providing credit to agriculture and rural America, as well as the role of the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) in ensuring the soundness of the FCS and its lending practices. The committee heard from representatives of FCA on how they are working... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement concerning the inclusion of a critical provision in the Highway Bill conference report that will save Federal Crop Insurance from devastating changes that had been slipped into the Bipartisan Budget Act signed into law last month. “I strongly commend House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy for their... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee held its tenth hearing in its top-to-bottom review of SNAP, The Past, Present, and Future of SNAP, by reviewing the progress of the National Commission on Hunger in developing policy recommendations to more effectively address domestic hunger. Committee members heard from the two Commission-selected co-chairs who shared their year-long proc... Read more »
