Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking Member Roberts Issue Statement Following Committee Vote to Subpoena Corzine

Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking Member Roberts Issue Statement Following Committee Vote to Subpoena Corzine

Washington, DC – Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Senator Pat Roberts, the Committee’s Ranking Member, today issued the below statement following a unanimous voice vote of the full Committee in support of subpoenaing former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine, to testify at a Dec. 13 hearing on the collapse of MF Global and the whereabouts of the estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer funds. The financial firm’s collapse is the 8th largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

“It’s important that citizens come forward and testify when asked by our committee, especially in a matter this serious. The committee’s bipartisan actions today demonstrate our commitment to understanding what happened to cause the extraordinary collapse of MF Global. We will continue to work to see that the futures market remains a valuable tool for investors, farmers, ranchers and small businesses and to see that the missing funds are returned to their rightful owners."

Chairwoman Stabenow: We Need to Get a Farm Bill Done Next Year

Chairwoman Stabenow: We Need to Get a Farm Bill Done Next Year
Senate Ag Chairwoman Highlights Priorities and Challenges for the 2012 Farm Bill at the Farm Journal Forum

Washington, DC – Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today said Congress must complete a Farm Bill next year before the current Farm Bill expires. Stabenow said passing a new Farm Bill is necessary to provide certainty for farmers and small businesses. Her comments came during an address at the Farm Journal Forum in Washington.

“We will resume holding hearings when Congress returns in January,” Chairwoman Stabenow said. “The goal is for the committee to complete an initial product in the spring to provide plenty of time for Congress to complete its work.”

Chairwoman Stabenow said the twelve public hearings held in 2011 and the bipartisan framework developed by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees this year will serve as a strong foundation moving forward.

“The Senate Agriculture Committee held twelve public hearings and accepted over 5,000 public comments. These hearings, and the bipartisan, bicameral effort to provide recommendations to the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction have helped us identify ways to streamline and strengthen programs to reduce the deficit and create agriculture jobs,” Chairwoman Stabenow said. “These responsible recommendations provide a strong framework on which we can continue to build.”

Chairwoman Stabenow said she will continue focusing on principles, not programs, as the Committee continues its work with Members on both sides of the aisle to develop a sound Farm Bill proposal. She said her focus is continuing to meet and discuss with farmers and other agriculture stakeholders what’s working and what isn’t to develop policies that strengthens American agriculture and ensures an abundant and safe food supply while continuing to offer proposals to increase accountability and reduce the deficit.

More information about the Committee’s hearings, as well as archived webcasts of past hearings, can be accessed on the Senate Agriculture Committee website at http://ag.senate.gov.

AFBF Urges House to Bite the Dust

AFBF Urges House to Bite the Dust

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 6, 2011 – The American Farm Bureau Federation is urging congressional members to pass H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, when it comes before the full House later this week. In a letter to House members, AFBF said the legislation would limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate naturally occurring dust, or “nuisance dust.”

“Naturally occurring dust is a fact of life in rural areas,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “It is raised by such normal activities as driving on unpaved roads and is composed of soil and organic material. The amount of dust in the air depends on wind and rainfall, two conditions that EPA cannot regulate.”

AFBF went further to say that EPA has admitted that it cannot conclusively establish a link between “nuisance dust” and adverse human health effects.

“EPA admits there are limitations to the studies it cites, which casts doubt on its validity to support additional regulation,” said Stallman. “Should such a link be established, the bill would allow EPA to regulate.”

While EPA has said it does not intend to propose stricter regulations on dust, AFBF said that still does not provide much needed assurance for farmers and ranchers, especially when final rules often differ from proposed rules and lawsuits are a dime a dozen.

“Legislation is the best way to provide certainty to farmers, ranchers and rural America that their activities will not be unduly regulated by conditions beyond their control and for substances for which adverse health effects cannot be truly established,” said Stallman.

Noem Dust Bill Heads to the House Floor on Thursday

Noem Dust Bill Heads to the House Floor on Thursday

Momentum Continues as Democrat Sen. McCaskill Introduces Companion Legislation



WASHINGTON, DC– According to U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Thursday the House will take up a bill sponsored by Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) to prohibit any further regulation of rural dust by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The bipartisan bill, H.R. 1633, was approved by the House Energy & Commerce Committee last week.



“Farmers and ranchers, like most businesses, desperately want more certainty when it comes to regulation and taxation. It’s nearly impossible to make business decisions a couple years out when you don’t know if the EPA, or some other Washington bureaucracy, will regulate away your profit margin with a single, ridiculous new regulation. That’s why there is a growing consensus behind this common sense bill,” said Noem. “This bipartisan bill reins in a regulator that too many farmers and ranchers fear will go wild without additional constraints.”



Noem’s bill, which is expected to pass the House, would exclude farm dust that is regulated at the state or local level from federal standards. If there are no state or local regulations in place, the EPA can step in if they find that there are adverse health effects associated with rural dust and that the economic benefits outweigh the cost in the local communities. There is nothing on the books today that would prohibit the EPA from further regulating farm dust at some point in the future.



If the House approves the measure, it will then head to the Senate where Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) recently introduced a companion bill.



For more information, read Rep. Noem’s testimony on the bill before the House Energy & Commerce Committee here.