GRASSLEY: Last week, I learned that an EPA employee who heads the department writing the indirect land use guidelines has never set foot on an American farm.
I understand she has met with people in the Agriculture Committee, but I don't think anybody can fully appreciate the impact of their rules and regulations by sitting inside the Beltway. And I'm talking about over a long period of years she's been there.
After hearing her comments, I made a verbal invitation to employees at the EPA to visit my farm to see firsthand how things are done on a working family farm. EPA staff immediately called on Friday morning to indicate that they would like to try and work something out.
So my staff is in the process of trying to find time in my schedule and the EPA staff schedule when we can all be in Iowa.
I think it would be incredibly beneficial as they read the comments and then write the regulations for indirect land use that they see the impressive things that farmers are doing to produce food, feed and fuel while using less energy and preserving our natural resources.
While indirect land use may be the main issue right now, we'll be sure to discuss other items that may impact agriculture in a very detrimental way.
Tom Rider?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator. Senator, a University of Missouri think tank came out with a E-15 study that's showing minimal impact on ethanol, corn and food prices -- curious if you've seen that study or what you think about that.
GRASSLEY: I haven't seen it, but you know, I think a lot about it. It verifies what we've been speaking about over the last 15, 18 months about the increased price of food being related to the increased price of ethanol, or I should say corn being used for the production of ethanol.
And I think we've disputed in so many ways, including scientific studies that overwhelmingly say that the relationship is so minimal it's not worth talking about, but the increased cost of energy generally has increased the price of food to some extent.
But that is more petroleum, obviously, than it is ethanol.
Gene, "Iowa Farmer"?
QUESTION: No question, Senator.
GRASSLEY: Ken Root?
QUESTION: Senator, I wonder if you could elaborate more on why you think it's important for EPA officials to have a awareness or a sensitivity to agriculture.
I know you brought Steve Johnson to your farm once before. I'm not sure you really changed his mind any, but he did make you a courtesy call. Do you think you can do more than that this time?
GRASSLEY: Well, don't forget, I was going to show him about the dust coming out of a combine, and it was raining in Polk County that day, or Dallas County, wherever we were. It wasn't on my farm because it was too far away to fit into his schedule.
We may have to make the same accommodation someplace in central Iowa for these folks coming out so that they may not actually visit a Grassley farm, but they're going to be visiting a family farm in Iowa when they come.
It's important for the reason that I think you have to experience to some extent the impact of what you're -- you're doing.
And I think it's important, for instance, in fugitive dust if they could see that when God makes the wind blow 30 miles an hour that you can't actually keep the dust inside your property line, or you drive down a gravel road in Iowa -- that the dust isn't going to stay inside the fence lines, and just see the reality and, in a sense, the stupidity of the rules that they're about to make, the impact that it makes, or think in terms of 40 years ago, point solution versus non- point source pollution.
You know, you think of a sewage pipe coming out of a municipality or some industrial waste coming out of a factory. It's a point of -- of pollution. It can easily be identified.
But water running off of a farm is non-point source pollution, and it was pretty much that way because when God decides it's going to rain, it's going to rain.
And when it decides that it's going to rain a lot and you have runoff on the farm instead of soaking in, it's quite a bit different. It's something that's very difficult to -- to regulate.
So obviously, when you go to a -- of EPA and a court deciding that a nozzle on a sprayer is a point of pollution on a farm, it's pretty much stretch -- stressing what congressional intent would have been decided 40 years ago when the law was originally passed.
So I think coming out and seeing the reality of -- of how nature fits into the farming operation that obviously, if you've never been on a family farm, you aren't acquainted with -- that it would help this bureaucrat to understand agriculture and the problems of agriculture, and that you just don't willy-nilly regulate without upsetting the -- the miracle of -- of food production in the United States.
QUESTION: Senator, do you agree, though, that in many cases their minds are already made up, they're just trying to justify it?
GRASSLEY: Well, you know, I don't give up, and so maybe their mind is made up, but you know, in -- in public policy or in politics generally, you know, you don't know what you do, may not have any -- you may not know the good that will come out of some move you make.
But if there's no known negatives that can come out of it, then I think you do it.
GRASSLEY: That's the way you make a lot of decisions in public policy, because it's not a sound science.
So I don't know of any known negatives of bringing these people to Iowa on a family farm to see what I have to show them that -- that -- that's going to make any things worse than they potentially are.
And so maybe it'll do some good.
QUESTION: Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Dan Skelton?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator. Will you lobby hard to see that Administrator Lisa Johnson -- Jackson is one of those bureaucrats that you invite to -- to the Iowa farm?
GRASSLEY: Well, of course I will. I don't know that she is unaware of agriculture as much as the woman I quoted on -- on the issue, but -- who -- who said she's never been on a farm.
And maybe coming from California, Lisa Jackson would be very much up on agriculture, because it's a very strong agricultural state, although I'm not sure the family farm institution is quite as strong there as it is in Iowa.
Stacia Cudd? Gary, Arkansas?
QUESTION: Senator, I just walked in. I apologize. I missed most of the teleconference. I wanted an update from you on the livestock concentration legislation you're co-sponsoring.
GRASSLEY: Well, what it basically does is to make sure that there's more transparency and spot markets are taken care of to a greater extent.
You know, we've had a -- such an increase in forward contracting that it has made spot market less -- less viable and consequently, for the independent producer, maybe less of a market, fewer markets, fewer marketing hours.
You know what, you -- it's one thing to have fewer marketing days, but when you just got a few hours in there -- but -- and -- and obviously, you know, we don't do away with forward contracting, but it -- it just makes sure that we set a fairer price by making sure that a certain amount is marketed on the spot market.
QUESTION: Have you talked with the Obama administration on their views on this legislation?
GRASSLEY: Not yet, but I'll be glad to -- surely glad to do that. And obviously, you know, to some extent this fits in with my feelings that maybe the -- the Packers and Stockyards Act hasn't been used as effectively as it should, or the fact that antitrust in justice hasn't been as concerned about concentration in agriculture.
And I get a feeling that -- that there's going to be a lot more interest in the Packers and Stockyards Act in this administration, and then you know I recently communicated with Varney, head of -- of that antitrust division. She's more interested in a agriculture than anybody I've heard.
So I don't know what -- how they'll view my legislation, but I think generally speaking I can say this administration's going to be very open to considering collusion in agriculture to a greater extent than other administrations both Republican and Democrat.
And maybe I shouldn't use the word collusion. I ought to say just the lack of -- of -- of market or less -- less competition.
QUESTION: Has there been an effort to -- to score this -- CBO -- to see if it would cost money?
GRASSLEY: No, but if that's something we have to do -- but I'm not sure that it does cost money, because you -- you see, here's -- here's what your -- unless a little bit for administration -- but you aren't talking about spending taxpayers' money out to some program to farmers.
You're talking about whatever it takes for the administration to be more of an impartial referee in the situation -- writing rules, et cetera.
QUESTION: In the past, have there been any suggestions from CBO that disrupting vertical integration either costs or saves money in other industries?
GRASSLEY: No, but what we have had is that there have been some studies that have shown that a lot of this more efficient production of agriculture hasn't filtered down to the consumer the way it should have to save the consumer more money.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Let's see. I've gone through the entire list. Anybody that I didn't call want to jump in, or anybody that I did call?
QUESTION: Senator, this is Chris Clayton of DTN. Just kind of following up on that line of questioning, have you met with Dudley Butler yet and spoken to him about what CHIPSA (ph) might be doing outside of new legislation?
GRASSLEY: No, but don't -- don't forget that there is meetings on the Packers and Stockyards Act in Des Moines, as an example. And I'll have -- Amanda of my staff will be going to that meeting. If you want to interview her after the meeting we'd be glad to make her available for interview.
QUESTION: Is that something that's going on this week, or what?
GRASSLEY: Yes. I think on Wednesday.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: OK.
I forgot to call Matt Wilde.
QUESTION: OK. Yep, Senator. Hi. The CDC continues to describe the obesity -- obesity as an epidemic. In your opinion, does farm policy play a role in this -- in this -- in this from -- that some advocacy groups claim that it does play a role. What do you think?
GRASSLEY: I think that they're trying to make excuse for people doing two or three things that would take away the obesity problem. One be -- one would be -- the number one exercise you can do is push yourself away from the table or, number two, eat at the table and don't sit down nibbling things while you're watching television.
Get out and exercise. I run three miles this morning. I would advise anybody that's obese, get out and start walking. But the most important thing is don't gobble down all the food.
Now, I don't know how you can blame the family farmer or even people in between for -- for people eating too much, because you know why people are obese? They take in too many calories...
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: ... or don't burn off enough calories. It's that simple.
QUESTION: OK. Well, some of the advocacy groups I've talked to said that basically there's just not enough choice out there, and we have -- too much of the type of food that is affordable now is not healthy and -- is not very healthy food, and that the fruits, the fresh foods and vegetables is what cost more, and that the -- so some people just choose to -- to buy the less healthy food and a little bit more of it because -- because that's what they can do.
GRASSLEY: Yeah. No, it's because they had the choice to do it, and that's what they want to do.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: You know, you get down to -- just like -- you know, it's easy to blame the tobacco companies for people smoking, and maybe there's things that the tobacco companies put into cigarettes that make them a little more -- more of a problem.
But still, until you smoke that first cigarette, you're never going to become a nicotine addict.
GRASSLEY: So you've got to put it on the backs of the people that are making the decisions to do what they're doing.
Nobody's forcing anybody to go to McDonald's and buy all of their calories. You go there because you want to go there.
By the way, my staff reminded me I got Lisa Jackson -- where she's from mixed up with Nancy, the head of the Environmental Quality Office in the White House, who's from California. Lisa Jackson, I should say to all of you, is from New Jersey, but the same thing would apply -- the necessity of her coming to the farm to see actual farming operation.
And there's a lot of difference between the garden truck farming in New Jersey and the farming that we do in the Midwest.
QUESTION: Senator, what is Nancy's last name, and what's her title?
GRASSLEY: Yeah, Nancy Sutley -- I met with her last week -- Sutley. And she would be chairman of the White House Office of Environmental Quality. It's -- it's called the Council on Environmental Quality.
QUESTION: Senator, this is Dan and Spencer again. And a number of countries continue to ban imports of U.S. pork, and both USDA Secretary Vilsack and Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey yesterday commented on that, that a month after discovery of the H1N1 in humans, those bans are still in place.
Does something more need to be done to -- to break those down and -- and allow pork into those markets?
GRASSLEY: Well, the only thing we can do is just fight more with the countries that are doing it, and advocate more as American policy makers and diplomats to the people that are doing it.
Now, I did -- I did read in the Farm Bureau Spokesman over the weekend that -- that China was more at fault than anybody else, and there was an indication that they were doing it to protect their own China pork producers to a greater extent, and that Japan, for instance, and South Korea, for instance, are big users of our pork, and Japan, the biggest, was not putting those restrictions on because of H1N1.
So I don't know how bad it's spread, except China is such a big market. So you know, we can't do anything more than do what I think we do well and do in an intellectually honest way -- is just insisting that these policies that restrict trade be based upon sound science.
And obviously, restricting for H1N1 is not sound science because you don't contract that flu from eating the meat.
OK, anybody else want to jump in?
QUESTION: Senator, Tom Rider in Yankton and WNAX again. I understand that the Senate Ag Committee's expected to meet Thursday to talk about regulations on derivative markets. Any advice that you have for them, sir?
GRASSLEY: Yeah. First of all, they're going to include a lot of things other than just derivatives. They're going to go into -- let's say petroleum as an example, and the extent to which some speculation in that area ought to be regulated. It ought to be.
And I spoke last September to people in the previous CFTC about that. And there are people friendly to that point of view. And I believe maybe even the new chairman is friendly to that point of view.
And I hope -- I hope that the committee makes a sound point to the CFTC that they ought to be doing this. On derivatives, it's a little difficult to regulate derivatives. That is not a commodity that's easily measurable like a bushel of wheat or a barrel of oil.
But for sure, there needs to be much greater transparency in derivatives.
OK, anybody else? OK. Thank you all very much.