Washington, D.C. - House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) final rule implementing the SNAP retailer provisions in Section 4002 of the Agricultural Act of 2014. This provision was intended to improve access to healthy food, particularly when an individual has limited access to large gro... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing to explore recruitment challenges and scholarship opportunities in 1890 Land-Grant Universities. As a network of historically black colleges and universities dedicated to providing educational opportunity for all through innovative scientific research and community-minded extension programs, the 1890 Land Grant universities h... Read more »
Remarks as prepared: Good morning. Today we will discuss one of the Committee’s longest standing areas of jurisdiction—agricultural research universities. More specifically, we will hear from our “1890s” institutions—the land grant colleges and universities for African-American students established pursuant to the Second Morrill Act of 1890 (pronounced moral). Last July, we held a hearing to celeb... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) unveiled a new report summarizing the committee’s two-year review of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Committee members heard from 60 witnesses in 16 hearings over the course of the review known as the Past, Present, and Future of SNAP. The report can be viewed here. SNAP has grown from a ... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) released the following statement after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released a re-proposed rule on position limits. “I want to thank Chairman Massad and his fellow commissioners for reproposing the position limits rulemaking. The Committee on Agriculture has heard repeatedly from end-us... Read more »
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 »
