Senator Marshall: Not a Single Democrat Voted for the Farm Bill

Senator Marshall Hosts Local Press Call on Farm Bill Progress and NIL Legislation

Washington - On Thursday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), hosted a local virtual press conference to discuss the Senate's progress on the Farm Bill, which passed the Senate Agriculture Committee this week on a Republican party-line vote.

This legislation includes year-round E15, five years of certainty for farmers, $65 billion in crop insurance funding, and higher reference prices, as well as 22 priorities requested by Kansas farmers. Senator Marshall also discussed legislation to establish a national rulebook for college sports while protecting Title IX, women's athletics, Olympic sports, and Kansas universities.

Click here or on the photo above to download his full remarks.

Highlights from Senator Marshall's remarks include:

On the Farm Bill:

"Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining us. I guess it's still more morning here as well. So, good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us. I wanted to talk a little bit today about the Farm Bill as well as the name-and-likeness bill. You know, first of all, as you know, we did get the Farm Bill out of committee yesterday with Republican votes. Every Democrat voted against the bill. What they voted against was year-round E15 and five years of certainty for American farmers."

On five years of certainty for American farmers:

"I think sometimes we lose perspective of why a Farm Bill is important to everybody. That five years of certainty is going to allow that Kansas farmer to plant a wheat crop this fall, despite maybe having had bad drought and lost their corn crop for the most part, or maybe even though we had a really bad wheat harvest this year, it's going to allow them to provide them the monies to fund this year's wheat crop. When we have a constant supply of agriculture products, this lowers the cost of groceries for Americans. Americans pay one-third to one-half of what other developed nations pay when it comes to groceries. So that's why this Farm Bill is important to everybody."

"When I talk about the five years of certainty, you know, recall that we already added funding for the $65 billion of crop insurance funding. We increased reference prices on the Working Family Tax Cuts bill, so they're good for this fall. But then for the five years of certainty is what we're looking for."

On getting the Farm Bill to the Senate floor:

"You know, the biggest news of the week is Mitch McConnell did make it back, so we had the votes to overcome the fact that every Democrat voted against the Farm Bill. You know, the question is now, as we move it to the Senate floor, will we get the Democrats to vote for this before we leave here in a couple weeks, or are they going to play politics and continue to make sure that Republicans don't get any type of a win? That couldn't be more frustrating to me. This is a win for everybody, and it's so disappointing to see the Democrats continue to play politics, trying to do everything they can to gum up these bills, which would be so helpful for everybody."

On SNAP:

"I think it's important to remember why the Democrats are voting against this. They want to perpetuate fraud. Even Kansas saw our fraud rate on SNAP go from like 5% to 12%. You know, traditionally, Kansas has always been underneath that 6% guardrail, but across the nation, including in Kansas, we saw the fraud rates go up in the previous five to six years."

"And look, I think the Kansas - we would give anything to anybody. We don't want anybody to go hungry, of course not. But on the other hand, we don't like to see the fraud, and that's what the Democrats are hanging their hat on. We gave them a year and a half already to get the fraud rates under control, and guess what? Kansas is working on getting that fraud rate under control."

"So we gave them a year and a half. They wanted two years in addition. Our middle position was to give them another year. So, in reality, we gave them two and a half years to get their fraud rates under 6%, and then the government, the federal government, would continue to pay the full 100% - the full administrative costs of administrating SNAP. So that's why the Democrats continue to vote against it."

"We'll see if we can get some Democrats to break rank. We'll probably need, you know, 10 or 12 of them to get to the 60-vote threshold to get this across the finish line."

On Kansas priorities in the Farm Bill:

"I think there's some - the difference between being a Senator with a little experience versus a rookie House member is, on the House Farm Bill that we worked on 2017-18, I think we had maybe two priorities in that Farm Bill. This one has 22 of the priorities the Kansas farmers asked me to include - 22 out of the maybe 120, 130 different bills within a Farm Bill. Twenty-two of those are ours, and one of the ones I'm really proud of is the ReConnect program, which continues to build out high-speed internet across rural America."

"Another priority for mine is rewarding healthy choices. So, within the SNAP program, our bill would have rewarding people for making dairy choices as well as high-protein choices as well. And I think when you remember, when you're thinking about a Farm Bill, about, oh, I don't know, 70% of a Farm Bill, two-thirds of it is towards the SNAP program. That's the only way we get Democrats on board with this is including them in the SNAP program."

On conservation and bipartisan priorities:

"I'm really proud of some of the conservation bills that we have within this Farm Bill as well. And again, all 22 of mine, they're all bipartisan. Everything in this Farm Bill is bipartisan bills within it. That's important to remember."

"So, my conservation bills are done with Senator Michael Bennet from Colorado. I went out and did a roundtable with him and his ag producers. He came back to Kansas. We did one as well. And what our program does is reward farmers when they use less water. It's one very simple plan, and the other thing we've tried to do is impact input costs. So, we have some legislation here to help with biofertilizers, getting them across the finish line as well."

On year-round E15:

"So, at the end of the day, the Democrats walked away from year-round E15, and what does that mean? It means about - let me think about this - about a half a billion bushels more of corn will be crushed if we go to year-round E15. Something we've been fighting for decades on. So that's the Farm Bill."

On the name-and-likeness bill:

"I also want to talk a little bit about the name-and-likeness bill that we got through cloture yesterday on the Senate. We still have a couple more votes to take on it, but the vote was 74 to 24 in favor of moving forward. So that's a good number, and we think it's going to get across the finish line."

On protecting college sports:

"When I think about this name-and-likeness bill, I think about it saving college sports from themselves. You may know, but I went to college on a track scholarship. I ran the decathlon. These scholarships are so important, not just for football and basketball, the big money makers, but also all the Olympic sports. And, of course, I think it's important to protect ladies' sports as well."

On protecting Kansas universities:

"So, as I look at this bill, to me, the goal was to make sure that, you know, specifically Wichita State, K State, KU had at least somewhat of a level playing field. Now, we're never going to have the budget that Texas or Ohio State or LSU has, but we can try to level the playing field."

"This bill is not perfect, but I think it puts some guardrails. It puts some guardrails around what college sports are doing and what universities can do, and again, I think hopefully save them from themselves as well."

On Title IX and Olympic sports:

"Importantly, this doesn't touch Title IX. You know, fully protect what is there to make sure that women have their right to athletics as well. And again, this big emphasis on protecting the Olympic sports program as well."

On a national rulebook for college sports:

"The next thing I would talk about this bill is it gives us one national rule book rather than each state having their own rules. And again, I think that helps level the playing field and get rid of some of the bad actors."

"It has a hard ceiling on direct school payments to about 22% of the athletic revenue. So again, even though it's not going to perfectly level the playing field, I think it's going to slow the arms race."

"So it has a hard ceiling on direct school payments; there's a retention pool to blunt the booster bidding war as well. It's a $27.5 million retention pool."

On the college sports bill's guardrails:

"So, those are just a few of the pieces of this bill. We're going to have to get - we would have to get 25 lawyers in here to explain all of it. But I think it's a step in the right direction. Again, puts some guardrails, slows down the arms race, levels the playing field for K State, KU, Wichita State, as well as our Division Two schools. We'll see the benefit from this as well. So, happy about that."

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Contact: Payton Fuller