Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our virtual press briefing.
This is James Sorsonski here with Katrina Shanklin,
a Rep. Katrina Shanklin in her campaign for Congress,
and we'll start it off by kicking it to Katrina.
Thank you all so much for being here.
We are here to talk about the farm bill with Congressman Mark O'Kan.
And I also want to start out by reminding folks
that Representative Derek Van Warden likes to call himself the cheese king.
He certainly likes to brag about being the first Wisconsin member
on the Agriculture Committee in over a decade.
But when he has the opportunity to stand with Wisconsin farmers
and do right by them, he repeatedly fails.
And this isn't the first time recently, in fact, this year,
Congressman Van Warden actually used his time in the House Agriculture Committee
to derive farmers exports to China and comparing that to Nazi Germany.
This is hundreds of billions of dollars in an export market to China.
And yet again, last night in the House Agriculture Committee,
when he had the opportunity to focus on bipartisan wins
and building a bipartisan coalition to get things done for farmers,
he chose to take the easy way out and stand with his party instead of the people.
There are many things we're going to talk about today.
I think first and foremost, just focusing on the fact that the SNAP cuts really fail
to create that durable and lasting bipartisan coalition that ensure the bill's passage.
We know the farm bill is already late.
We know that this markup is unlikely to pass the cynics.
And we know that that's because of the many ways
in which House Republicans led by Congressman Van Warden
failed to work with the other party to get things done and to deliver for farmers.
So with that, I'm going to kick it over to Congressman Mark Pocam.
There we go. I unmuted. Hi, everybody.
So let me just start with what Katrina said.
I mean, you know, this is a bill that has a very delicate balance of interest
for both rural and urban members.
That's why we have things like supplemental nutrition assistance
combined with some of the agricultural supports to make sure that we can have a farm bill for everyone.
Because in the third congressional district, in my second congressional district in Wisconsin,
clearly we have people who benefit from all aspects of it.
In particular, one of the biggest misses of this bill is the SNAP benefits.
There is a cut. And, you know, Derek is telling you something that is blatantly false.
And I'll explain why that there are no cuts to the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
In fact, this is one of the few things when he first came to office, he came to my office,
he promised me that he would never cut SNAP benefits because he benefited from them growing up.
That promise is broken in this bill. In fact, if you look at it,
there's about a $27 billion cut over the next five years because they capped the rate for any increase,
which ignores inflation. And I accept there is inflation and greedflation going on right now in food.
But this does not allow for an increase. And right now you get about $6 a day or about $42 a week.
But in a year or two years or certainly five years, that erodes your ability to buy food.
And that is a cut to the reality of being able to buy food already only at $6 a day per person.
There's in my district about 25,000 people who benefit from this in the third congressional district,
32,000 plus people benefit from this program.
And that's estimated that of that $27 billion cut in five years,
2.3 billion of that would likely have been spent on dairy.
So there's a ripple effect that also hurts dairy farmers and others in the market when that happens.
There's a reason why all the nutrition and poverty groups oppose this bill,
including groups like Meals on Wheels. Don't forget, it's not just kids out of poverty.
We often focus on that with SNAP, but they're seniors.
We actually did two mailings last year in my district to try to get encourage lower income seniors to apply for SNAP benefits so they can get food assistance.
And this also affects them. So, you know, groups like that are opposing this bill.
It also goes further. And this is absolutely a cut.
It gets rid of the summer electronic benefits transfer, about $500 million worth of food assistance that would give grocery benefits to low income children over the summer when schools are closed, 450,000 kids in Wisconsin alone benefited from this program.
And that was all cut by this. Katrina.
So, in addition to these massive cuts, which Republicans are denying and claiming are not true, knowing that this large coalition of nonpartisan organizations who feed the food insecure are saying, of course, it's a $27 billion cut.
In addition to that, it really risks the long term way that we should be able to pass a bipartisan farm bill.
We've already seen in the past, Congress kicking the can down the road, they certainly have given that we're already in May and they have until September, but it was actually due last September.
And in addition to that, we know that when there are harmful cuts to important programs like SNAP, you risk the durability of your bipartisan coalition, you risk a farm bill getting passed and signed into law.
That's what Republicans chose last night.
They certainly chose to obfuscate on the record. And Derek Van Warden was a leader in that, and that's inexcusable when it comes to feeding the kids and seniors and families of the third congressional district, as well as when it comes to delivering for farmers.
They want results, they don't want partisan games.
Moving on, we have another program that we'd like to highlight the commodity credit corporation.
So, because most Republican members on the House Agriculture Committee really wanted to redirect the $50 billion in savings for the CCC, that means that there's more money going to peanuts rice and cotton, and far less going to corn and soybean farmers in Wisconsin.
And that's huge, not only for Wisconsin, but the Midwest. So just a few examples, 187% increase for rice, 153% more for cotton, 114% more for peanuts, only 36% more for corn over five years.
And so we're talking about over a billion dollars and grants loans and assistance through the commodity credit corporation to Wisconsin in the last two years.
So these limits that are spent that I would say Republicans have created through this farm bill are really inequitable and are going to hurt Wisconsin farmers in the long run.
So it will certainly cut into their bottom line, if and when commodities change.
And at a time of increasing uncertainty among farmers, it creates, I think even more inequity between Midwestern farmers and Southern farmers, again, Derek Van Warden likes to break, that he's a guy on the House Ag Committee who's going to get things done for farmers, but it seems that he hasn't delivered
for Wisconsin farmers with this action.
But you know, it's even worse is that money has been used in Wisconsin. In fact, recently, the Secretary of the USDA was in Wisconsin to talk about how they use this to increase domestic fertilizer production, so that we can save farmers money and this was used
during COVID as well. Instead, Derek Van Warden sided with peanuts cotton and rice, none of which I know we have giant crops of in Wisconsin.
The next area, as Katrina said, Derek calls himself the cheesy king I'm sorry the cheese king of Congress, but his actions are anything but that in fact, one program in particular I want to focus on is the dairy innovation fund this is a fun
program that helps dairy farmers bring products to market during the appropriations process and I know this well because I serve on the Appropriations Committee.
In the last budget, Republicans zeroed that line out it was $25 million to help dairy farmers, Republicans zeroed it out so Derek couldn't even convince his own party in the majority to have funding for that was strike one.
He and Brian style introduced an amendment to add $10 million to have $10 million for the fund, which passed but that's 40% of what was previously there so he stood for our farmers 40% of the time that I consider that strike too.
And then when it got passed by the Senate they've already passed more money. It was the House Republicans that lowered the amount of money down then from that again with no help from Derek Van Ordon in this year I think was the classic Derek Van Ordon fail.
He introduced an amendment to increase the fund to $36 million.
And then he withdrew it before there even was in vote with incorrect information on why so again he completely failed dairy farmers yet again that strike three look I'm going to introduce an amendment when we get to the farm bill to increase that fund to $40 million in light of
a avian avian flu and some of the effects that we're seeing right now we know milk that's pasteurized is safe, but this could affect dairy products coming to market we need to be increasing the fund not withdrawing amendments that would help the fund.
Again, Derek Van Ordon just failed Katrina.
So all of these things are striking and they really show that Derek Van Ordon doesn't truly understand Wisconsin agriculture and doesn't deliver for Wisconsin farmers.
They think the most bizarre part of last evenings antics for Derek Van Ordon is very on brand for him.
He spent a lot of time in the last hour or so of the house agriculture committee markup talking about child labor.
He was delivering for Wisconsin workers and protecting our kids.
He chose to stand against an amendment that actually was asking USDA and do well to exist current child labor laws that date back to the 1930s and ensure that they when they see a violation public publicly publish a list of companies that would use child labor
and eligible for USDA purchasing so essentially ensuring tax dollars don't go to companies that put kids in dangerous environments like meatpacking facilities.
And instead of debating the merits of the amendment he spent a lot of time going down a road where it sounded like he was really defending some of these harsh labor practices and child exploitation.
But didn't only waste an hour of the committee's time when it came to protecting kids it seemed like he was protecting companies who abuse kids members of the committee even brought up significant child labor violations that have happened in Wisconsin recently.
They didn't seem to get through to him.
And that just really shows he's not ready for prime time he's a freshman on the house agriculture committee. We expected more from him we expected him to deliver we expected him to do his research and understand how important the farm bill is to not only feeding
families our seniors and our kids, but also how integral the farm bill is to our dairy farmers are cranberry growers are potato and veggie growers are farmers from across Wisconsin and the supply chain.
Wisconsin has an over 100 billion dollar agriculture industry and about one in 10 work in some form of job related to agriculture.
So this is part of our history and our heritage it's also a key component of our future.
Derek then or in field, we don't know if the farm bill will pass because of House Republicans antics and partisanship because they chose to bypass the bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans, who support funding snap.
And so with that I will kick it over to Congressman Pokan and we are looking for a question.
Yeah so we're going to try to do Q&A and this is the part where I volunteered to screw up because we'll do our best but I guess we're going to ask if you can do your raised hand function.
And then I'll do my best by what is on your titles to have you unmute and take the question.
Since I'm not a techno expert I'm going to apologize ahead of time for screwing things up because I think there's a good chance that may happen.
But if you could just where I think the reaction is that reactionary we can raise hand and I'm not seeing hands I'm not sure if that's on this like normal.
Otherwise, if people want to unmute I guess we can try to do it that way but hopefully I can get one person at a time and then we can try to answer any questions so.
I'm not seeing any hands raised so I'm guessing that function is not on here today so if people can unmute to ask a question and James if we have them all unmute if there's a way to undo that so they can individually ask questions otherwise we will have to do it in the chat
area I apologize again this is above my pay grade as a member of caucus.
Okay, I think what I have you do then because I know you can do the chat function is if you could put your questions there and if there is a way James you can figure out how to unmute as we get questions that may be the best way to try to address this otherwise.
I'm not seeing anything yet in the chat so James can i'm going to try something and chat and see if it comes out so i'm just going to put hello okay so mine shows up at least I don't know if other people are trying.
If you are and i'm not seeing it I apologize I said this is probably the weakest part of trying to put this together i'm not quite sure how we have this working.
Yeah Mark this is James let's just give it a beat.
Just try to manually unmute folks so feel free to come off mute try to jump in the chat everybody here should also have my full contact information so if for whatever reason.
I just had a hand raise I see it but i'm not sure if others do maybe you're not allowed but if you're unlocked now you can try the hand raise or just try to unmute and we can take any questions.
There we go there's one from Tim hunt can you talk about the producer check off programs and how they are dressed the farm bill i'll tell you that i'm going to tell you this I should have said this at the top they finished this at midnight.
And the language we only got a few days prior to that so i'm not going to be able to tell you every provision of the bill immediately because one i wasn't there at midnight and with the they had about 50 amendments.
So some of these issues i don't know if we have particulars we can talk about any of the things that we addressed or any of the top line issues, but I don't have anything on the check off program from what they did.
So Tim it worked by him putting a question in that way if others have questions again i apologize if we're not getting it with the unmute function.
And while we're waiting for another question I will just say I also don't know if.
The opportunities for fairness and farming or off act made it into the farm bill I will check but I know that there are groups in Wisconsin and across the country that are really champion increasing accountability of check off programs, especially as it relates to transparency and auditing the dollars that are being spent for promotion dollars.
And I support that and we'll be looking for it in the farm bill we'll keep advocating.
It may go there we go pet quite low forgive the repetition but please address the cut not a cut situation would snap.
Since the date backs to old budget fights when GOP folks would say something about a cut wasn't technically.
Yeah so this is I mean the classic Madison Washington kabuki dance when it comes to talking about this, but real people get it way more than politicians so.
Derek is again saying there is no cut to the snap program, but for the next five years there will be no increase to the snap benefit.
Now unless Derek is going to figure out how to magically make sure there is no inflation in the next five years.
If you get $6 a day and in a year you still have $6 a day and in five years you have $6 a day milk is going to go up and other commodities are going to go up.
And you will be able to buy less and less because of a specific provision the Republicans have that doesn't allow for any increase in benefit.
In addition to it there is a cut to the summer EBT program that does help kids who won't be in school who normally would have got free or reduced lunch.
So that is the specific language why you know it's only a politician would say it's not a cut if in a year or five years you can buy less with that amount of money, because I'm sure Derek will somewhere claim that there is inflation going on
and I will agree with him there is inflation going on, but if there is and you don't address it, you clearly know what you're up to Katrina there's a second question for you in there.
It's a snap is beneficial to rural families, not just urban.
Absolutely, before I add to that I really want to add to this.
I watched the House Agriculture Committee debate and saw multiple members of Congress were defending these cuts by saying we're just providing oversight only Congress should have the ability to enumerate these funds and really using the opportunity to claim that it was some kind of executive branch oversight
at the end of the day what they're arguing is they're using process and incorrect process to justify cuts to kids and seniors that's what they're doing and they're they're hoping that their semantics and obfuscation will work.
But the people of Wisconsin are incredibly smart we cannot be fooled and that's by all the hunger and food security groups in Wisconsin are making very clear that this is not a tenable situation and we know as a result it's not going to pass the Senate in this
way, shape and form and that's really the point of this press conference, Republicans chose politics and their party over the people of Wisconsin and when it comes to Derek van word and that's not a surprise.
In terms of rural communities benefiting from snap, we know that for every dollar we fund and snap it generates almost two dollars in local economic activity and a lot of that really creates local jobs in rural communities.
The economy is strengthened I would say duly by that extra $1 of that or $2 in benefit from that $1 investment.
These are places where they may not have large manufacturing companies or processing plants, but when we have that spending at the local mom and pop Main Street grocery store, we know that that doesn't just help the family who's being fed but also the supply chain within the community
from the business to the money that they're spending and other businesses on Main Street.
And so I would say, you know, snap is incredibly beneficial not only to urban and suburban communities but rural.
That's why there's such a strong coalition of their hat band, a strong coalition of both Democrats and Republicans strongly supporting it.
It covers the majority of the farm bill.
There is a reason it was intentionally farm the farm bill has always included snap first and it's because that's how you get the votes to support agriculture.
And food security in communities across Wisconsin and the country.
Gavin from the lacrosse newspaper.
Any idea how many people would be impacted by the stamp cut. So there's about 41 million people nationally on the program in the Wisconsin third district that Derek currently represents 32,485 people are currently getting benefits from that.
In the second congressional district my district, 25,223.
So, Derek is essentially going to tell almost 33,000 people in western Wisconsin that somehow that same dollar they have today five years from now is going to buy somehow the same amount of groceries and clearly that's impossible.
So here we are with WKOW the bill did receive a lot of support from house Democrats.
What changes are we going to see from Senate Democrats version? Well, for one, their version is out and for one, you definitely will see this Katrina said is so important.
This balance between the supplemental attrition assistance program and the traditional farm supports, because it's vital to seeing the bill pass. I mean, in a 101 of how farm bill passes is you have to have people in urban areas and rural areas vote for it.
And when you do what the House Republicans did by making it so extreme, and Derek not even then doing anything for the Wisconsin interest that he should be representing, it makes it less likely to pass.
So there'll be a conference committee, the Senate will have their own version.
But, you know, we have to get this done by September 30th. That's when we extended the farm bill to it was supposed to be done last September 30th.
We extended it to the end of last year. We extended it to September 30th and the clock is ticking.
And this makes it harder to get a bill done when you have something as extreme as Derek Van Ordon and the Republicans have proposed.
And I want to add that it is incredibly important that this bill be bipartisan.
We wanted to see Congressman Derek Van Ordon deliver for Wisconsin farmers because that benefits everyone. He chose not to house Republicans chose not to work with Democrats to make this a tenable bill that we knew the Senate would pass.
Instead, you know, looking at the the chairwoman's comments of the 24 farm bill going through the house and heading to the Senate, it's clear that she believes there will not be a path forward with this current farm bill.
It's split the farm bill coalition in a way that she says makes it impossible to achieve the votes for it to become law.
That's a shame.
And that's on house Republicans. They chose that. Derek Van Ordon chose that.
What I would do as a member of Congress is very differently.
I would have reached my hand across the office to ensure that we were not putting farmers economic security at risk and that we were not putting our families economic security at risk.
So that was a choice. It is possible to change course and to fix this should they choose, I think, in the future will have better members of Congress who are bipartisan from day one.
But it's been disappointing to see the lack of forethought given they had an entire year of extra time to do the right thing here and Derek Van Ordon has failed again.
Yeah, so on Tim's question, I'll just do quickly.
If we don't have a farm bill renewed after September 30th, you'll lose some provisions one that's.
Excuse me, extremely important to Wisconsin is milk pricing milk pricing would go back to 1940s law, which would devastate dairy farmers in Wisconsin. We would get prices would go way up.
It's done regionally by how far you are from certain communities and people would not buy dairy product because of how much our dairy product would have to go for.
And that's one of the reasons why we watched even last year is the deadline got extended. That provision is really important. That's why playing games with this politically like Derek Van Ordon did.
Risk things that are really important are dairy farmers.
Right.
So the fact quite low has a question for you. Katrina on here. I don't know if you're can read it on the side or you want me to read it, but specifically about antitrust enforcement increasing competition that benefit both farmers and consumers.
And then the second part I can just answer very quickly.
There's no nothing about visas in this bill.
That would happen in separate legislation.
Great. So the question on, if what I would do if I were elected.
And if we had a house majority in terms of antitrust enforcement and increasing competition. So I'm strong for antitrust enforcement. We have to ensure that our agricultural markets are competitive.
This is what's best for our farmers. It's also what's best for consumers. And it's what's best for keeping farmers farming. We know that due to the huge consolidation, especially in dairy and especially in the meat, meat packing industry.
That it's become harder and harder for a family farmer to make ends meet.
And nowhere does that most illustrated then in Wisconsin.
We've seen bankruptcies of dairy farmers over the last decade plus.
And a lot of it is because not only due to other economic forces, but because of the lack of, I think, thoughtful policy to support our dairy farmers over as it relates to antitrust enforcement. So I appreciate that question a lot.
I appreciate that the Biden administration has been working on antitrust in a number of industries.
I think most recently, since we're talking about inflation, you know, the, the Kroger merger, then looking at that very closely is a good example of how we can utilize antitrust laws to protect consumers to keep companies and players in the marketplace and to increase competition.
Right. Well, I know we generally try to keep this to a half hour. I don't see any other questions. If there are, please put a last question in. Otherwise, I'm going to wrap and then kick it off to Katrina to do the final words. But, you know, this is one where.
Derek Van Orton is not serving the people of Wisconsin and certainly not the people of the third district well.
You know, we've watched his failure on this bill, whether it be on things like the dairy innovation fund, on not supporting the most needy children and seniors through the SNAP program by not looking out for things like corn, soybean, and things grown in Wisconsin as opposed to cotton rice and peanuts.
That seemed to be the biggest beneficiaries and bizarre stances that I guess are, you know, kind of characteristic of Derek Van Orton when it comes to things like trying to stand up for giving taxpayer dollars to companies that abuse child labor.
As bizarre as that is, that is what happened yesterday by Derek Van Orton. You know, it's time for a change in Katrina Shankland as a state legislator since when I came to Congress 12 years has proven the ability to work bipartisan way over 200 bipartisan bills passed.
She understands the importance of the farm bill very clearly has been in a competitive state assembly district for years.
And I think she is very well suited to be my colleague and my partner in getting strong agricultural policy for South Central and Western Wisconsin. So Katrina.
Thank you. So I serve on the agriculture committee in the assembly and I know what it takes to get good bills done for agriculture because I've done it over and over again for years. And when I look at a bill, I'm not the one who's written it.
I go to my colleague right away and I work with them if I have any issues that we can push it forward together and see it become law for farmers.
But what concerns me about Derek Van Orton's approach to the farm bill, I get that it's, you know, his only a second year in office and he's just got on the agriculture committee so maybe he doesn't know.
The farm bill is the most important bill that we can pass for agriculture.
And instead, he chose to play politics and to risk its passage. He helped split a long term and lasting bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats on funding SNAP.
And he put food insecurity for families, seniors and kids in the balance by doing so while also risking farmers economic security.
So as somebody who has worked in good faith with both parties to pass strong economic policy for agriculture into law. I'm disappointed to see Congressman Congressman Van Orton's actions, but I also know that the solution is November.
That's why I'm running to replace him on the house agriculture committee and lead on supporting our farmers and supporting our families in Western and Central Wisconsin. So with that, I appreciate you all being here.
And we're happy to follow up with you individually if you have any other questions. Thank you all so much.
Thanks everybody.
Recording.