Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement in regard to an announcement today by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) that the U.S. will request a Dispute Settlement Panel against China concerning that nation’s $100 billion in excess subsidies—in a single year—for corn, rice, and wheat. USTR also announced t... 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 »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) joined U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and a bipartisan group of Members of Congress in announcing the U.S. has launched a new trade enforcement action against China at the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a result of China’s excessive government support fo... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) issued the following statement after the Turkish government announced a three percent duty on all U.S. cotton fiber imports into Turkey. This action follows the country’s unfounded investigation into whether U.S. cotton was dumped into Turkey, an allegation the National Cotton Council has challenged, saying it has no... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, House Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway (R-TX) delivered remarks on the House floor in favor of H.R. 1567, the Global Food Security Act of 2016. Watch the video and view the official remarks below. Remarks as prepared for delivery: "Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1567, the Global Food Security Act of 2016. "With the world population rapidly i... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the House Agriculture Committee completed its two-day examination of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) organization and program administration. Over the past two days, members of the committee heard from 25 undersecretaries, administrators, and other department officials across USDA’s seven mission areas, on a variety of topics, which included an accounting for ... Read more »
Washington, D.C. - Today, the Committee on Agriculture began Part I of a two-day hearing series examining U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organization and program administration. USDA officials from the Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services (FNCS), Food Safety (FS), and Rural Development (RD) mission areas served as witnesses. This hearing series follows a similar series the committee held w... Read more »
Remarks as prepared: Today and tomorrow, we have before us most of the undersecretaries of the Department of Agriculture. Each of these witnesses is responsible for an important mission area within USDA. Accompanying our witnesses are administrators who manage agencies and programs within these larger mission areas. These folks lead the network of nearly 100,000 USDA employees who carry out the la... Read more »
Remarks as prepared for delivery: I am pleased that Secretary Vilsack could join us for this annual hearing to assess the economic conditions in farm country. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Secretary. In assessing the situation, I think it is fair to say that America’s farmers and ranchers are falling on some very hard times right now. Worse yet, I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. To q... Read more »
