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Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, a longtime organic farmer and member of the House Agriculture Committee, voted against House Republicans’ Farm Bill proposal during the Committee’s markup on Thursday night, citing the bill’s failure to support farmers in Maine and across the country impacted by PFAS contamination, fisheries, food insecure Americans and children, foresters, and historic Inflation Reduction Act investments in climate-smart agriculture.

“I'm incredibly disappointed there is no investment for our farmers impacted by PFAS contamination. I received a letter this week signed by 47 organizations across the United States, also expressing their disappointment that this is not in the bill,” Pingree said during the markup. “Maine, unfortunately, has been a leader in PFAS contamination and understanding the impact it's had on our agricultural lands. […] We're leading the pack on this. And the National Departments of State Agriculture have included addressing PFAS contamination in their 2024 priorities. So, I know it is coming to all of your states, too, and for this bill not to have anything in there about this beyond what it does is just wrong.”

Pingree also defended the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), which in recent years has been critical in getting food from local farmers in Maine to hungry families during the pandemic, rebuilding farm infrastructure in agricultural communities hit by severe weather events, and supporting farmers during Trump’s trade war with China. 

“Using [CCC] as a mechanism for funding this bill is absolutely wrong,” Pingree said. “[…] One of the reasons it's so hard to negotiate every single item in this bill is because the big items are so fundamentally flawed, and the funding mechanism just does not work for those of us who care deeply about this bill.”

“This is a negotiating place,” Pingree concluded. “We have a great bill in the Senate to work from, and I hope we can put these two bills together and move forward.”

Learn more about Pingree’s Farm Bill priorities here.

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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Well, first, I just want to say I'm very proud to be a member of this committee. This may not be our best day; it could be a very long day, but I've been fortunate to be on this committee off and on since I first came to Congress in 2009. I had to fight my way back here to [work] on this Farm Bill. I’ve gotten to work on other farm bills, and it's a really honorable committee to serve on. And I'm just proud to serve with all of you. I want to thank everybody else who's here today, because we're all working hard on this. It's been interesting to hear all of your stories about the districts you come from. And we all have a little bit more insight into the challenging work that we're doing here. Thank you to the Chair, the ranking member, and the staff who we've put a lot of time in this.

And I particularly want to thank the Chair for the listening sessions that you held around the country. I was privileged to visit a couple of your districts, spend some time with all of you, see a little bit more about what you do in your district, and I learned a lot through that. And I also want to thank the people who came to my district, including the Chair and so many others.

You had a chance to hear a little bit more about the 7,600 farms in Maine, hear about the concerns that they had: the need for more research, support for our specialty crops and organic agriculture, the need to protect farmland and provide resources for our forestry and wood products industry, the need to address hunger [which] we've talked about so much today, and to better serve our aquaculture and fisheries sectors.

There are some things in this bill that I'm really happy to see, and we've talked about some of that today: resources for local meat processing, allowing states to make greenhouse gas emissions reductions a priority for EQIP funding, enhancing agroforestry which is so critically important, establishing an aquaculture advisory council at the USDA, and making the Wood Innovation Grant Program more accessible.

But I am sorry to say, as we've all been discussing all morning, this is there are so many big issues in this bill that we have to address before we can get it to final passage. And we don't think these are big issues because we're hunger weirdos or because we're armchair critics. We are seriously concerned because this is an extremely important bill that we only get to do once every five years.

We've talked a lot about our concerns about the cuts in the Thrifty Food Plan, and so much of that has been discussed. We'll continue to discuss it. But I just want to be clear: the cost neutral, Thrifty Food Plan language will also results result in cuts to TEFAP and Summer EBT. The Fundamental Emergency Food Assistance Program to our food banks will account for and accounts for nearly 20% of the food that goes to our food banks, and so many of us depend on them when SNAP isn't enough. Also, in my state, nearly 100,000 kids in Maine will receive Summer EBT and the spike in hunger that is going on in my state in so many others is felt deeply for children in Maine. So, we cannot allow these cuts to also impact that. 

Now we're going to negotiate some other things in this bill that I have deep concerns about. And we'll get a chance to talk about the [Commodity Credit Corporation] … using that as a mechanism for funding this bill is absolutely wrong. Restricting the ability of the [Agriculture] Secretary to use that for the things that we care deeply about—that's absolutely wrong. Taking away the climate guardrails…  

One of the reasons it's so hard to negotiate every single item in this bill is because the big items are so fundamentally flawed, and the funding mechanism just does not work for those of us who care deeply about this bill.

 I just want to mention a couple of other things that I think are really important that didn't get into the bill, and I hope that we can continue to negotiate on these. I'm incredibly disappointed there is no investment for our farmers impacted by PFAS contamination. I received a letter this week signed by 47 organizations across the United States, also expressing their disappointment that this is not in the bill.

Maine, unfortunately, has been a leader in PFAS contamination and understanding the impact it's had on our agricultural lands. Our own legislature has allocated something like [$60] million to help those farmers. We're leading the pack on this. And the National Departments of State Agriculture have included addressing PFAS contamination in their 2024 priorities. So, I know [PFAS] is coming to all of your states, too, and for this bill not to have anything in there about this beyond what it does is just wrong.

There's not enough in here about the fisheries. And I know so many of you don't have an opportunity to have the wonderful fisheries that I do in my state, but I sent a bipartisan, bicameral [letter] outlining a number of priorities to support fisheries, such as allowing farm credit lending for fisheries-related businesses. They're not in the base text.

The Rural Forest Markets Act to help small forest landowners, concerns about food date labeling – not in this bill. Some of the damage this bill does to solar capacity, whether it's through the [property assessed clean energy] PACE program or other programs that are so vital to our farmers are wrong in this bill. I don't have enough time to go on and on and on.

And I know you don't all want to hear me do that. I know we've been saying this is just a start. This is a negotiating place. We have a great bill in the Senate to work from. And I hope we can put those two bills together and move forward. I yield back my time.

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