Courtney statement after opposing stripped-down, House-passed Farm Bill

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Joe Courtney today opposed the 2013 Farm Bill, which passed by the House by a vote of 216-208.

"In January, I re-joined the House Agriculture Committee to make a difference for the farmers and consumers of my state," said Congressman Courtney. "Over the last three years I worked steadily with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle of the Committee to craft a multiyear Farm Bill that would benefit Connecticut. What was presented to the House today blatantly cast aside this multiyear, deliberative process and replaced it with a haphazard, partisan measure hastily stitched together by Republican leadership in the dead of night -- hours before it was voted on – to placate the most extreme members within the Republican Conference."

"By removing nutrition provisions from the bill and repealing permanent law, House Republican leadership united opposition to the legislation from over 530 farm and nutrition groups from every region of our nation, and representing every nook and cranny of our national agricultural community. The bill also proposed elimination of a comprehensive dairy safety net for our nation's dairy farmers through inclusion of the controversial Goodlatte/Scott Amendment."

"Today's House Republican bill broke the four-decade strong farm-and-food coalition by dropping nutrition spending from the legislation. Rather than working across the aisle to advance a proposal to address the needs of our nation's farmers and our neediest Americans, the House Republican Leadership instead offered a cynical, partisan, and disappointing stunt. It is time for this chamber to come together to craft a bipartisan bill to reauthorize and reform our nutrition and farm programs."

"For decades, farm policy represented a cornerstone of bipartisanship in Congress. Today's sad developments demonstrate the state of dysfunction in Washington and the partisanship that has gripped and paralyzed House Republican leadership."

Congressman Courtney is a member of the House Agriculture Committee and a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Dairy Farmers Caucus.