Anyone who has driven through cotton country has experienced the pinwheel effect when passing field after field of cotton, watching parallel rows of cotton pass one after another. What most people don’t know is how those fields went from a blank slate of dry, brown dirt to a vast expanse of snow-white cotton. For Shawn Holladay, a fifth-generation cotton farmer in West Texas, it takes daily mainte... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway sent a letter to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Timothy Massad requesting he not move forward on any controversial regulations during the final months of President Obama’s administration. In the letter, he asked Massad to refrain from “pushing through controversial regulations,”; adding, “W... Read more »
Remarks as prepared for delivery: Over the course of the 114th Congress, we have heard from 55 witnesses at 15 different hearings in our series on the Past, Present and Future of SNAP. We have heard from witnesses discussing their experiences as SNAP recipients, from state agencies implementing SNAP across the country, from charitable partners that work with SNAP recipients, from innovative organi... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing to evaluate the innovative strategies retailers are utilizing to improve access to nutritious food. Committee members heard from organizations that are working creatively to provide nutritious food to low-income individuals in low-access areas through online platforms and incentive programs. “Communities across the country ha... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry held a hearing to highlight how voluntary conservation practices have improved the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Witnesses explained how the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is working with farmers and local conservation districts to successfully improve water quality, habit... Read more »
Remarks as prepared: Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing. Over the course of the 114th Congress, the Conservation and Forestry Subcommittee has held a series of hearings to highlight the success of voluntary conservation by our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and foresters. Today’s discussion, “Healing the Bay the Voluntary Way”, takes a more focused approach to this discussion. The Chesapeak... Read more »
Remarks as prepared for delivery: The United States has a long and complicated relationship with our neighbor to the south. While our close proximity to Cuba makes the island nation a natural trading partner, the stranglehold the Castro regime has had on Cuba has long prevented normalized relations between our two countries. That stranglehold resulted in the United States imposing an embargo on tr... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing to examine the potential for expanded agricultural trade between the United States and Cuba. Much of the conversation centered on the Cuba Agricultural Exports Act (H.R. 3687) and the potential for removing financing restrictions that have limited agricultural exports to Cuba. “The history between the U.S. and Cuba is long an... Read more »
Today, the House Agriculture Committee approved H.R. 470, the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act; H.R. 5883, legislation to amend the Packers and Stockyards Act; and H.R. 845, the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act. “Thank you to my colleagues for advancing these three bipartisan bills. These individual pieces of legislation help prioritize federal forest land owne... Read more »
Remarks as prepared for delivery: Thank you all for being here today as we consider three straightforward bills. H.R. 470, the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest Land Adjustment Act, transfers Forest Service lands in Northeast Georgia. The transfer will help boost the area’s economy through improving recreational activities on the land. H.R. 5883 amends the Packers and Stockyards Act which was e... Read more »
