"The administration's paltry plan for farmers is out-of-touch with the economic crisis in rural America. Not only is the proposal for economic relief payments almost half the size of what Congress passed last year, the program for counter-cyclical payments penalizes smaller and mid-sized farmers while rewarding large operations. I'm committed to working for a farm safety net that helps farmers survive the current depression, and to putting pressure on the administration to aggressively open new markets at home and abroad to increase farm income.
"If the administration really wants to help the farmers, it will immediately announce that it will block any efforts to waive the Clean Air Act's oxygenate requirement. By doing so, ethanol can replace MTBE which will increase farm income by $1 billion per year and create 13,000 new jobs in rural America."