In conjunction with this afternoon’s motion to proceed to conference on H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi named the following 10 Democrats from the Agriculture Committee and representatives from other pertinent committees who will join their Republican colleagues and comprise the House conferees for the farm bill.

 "...As it stands right now, I’m skeptical. It’s our job to be the adults in the room, and to ensure that in these early days, there is enough oversight of this new frontier to ensure that it can grow responsibly."

“The mood in farm country is bad. It’s bad because of the Administration’s trade war; it’s bad because of declines in farm income; and it’s bad because of volatile weather like the floods in the southern part of my district. Farmers and ranchers are staring a historically bad year in the face, and another hit would mean devastation for many of them. And that’s exactly what an animal disease outbreak would cause."

"I look forward to sitting down ... in conference and working to make the needed adjustments to the legislation so that we can get a farm bill passed and signed into law that protects our farmers, ranchers and consumers."

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin C. Peterson released the following statement, calling on EPA to address the larger issue of exempting oil refiners from their obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard.

 The partisan approach of the Majority has produced a bill that simply doesn’t do enough for the people it’s supposed to serve.

"What the Senate has put together reflects great work by Chairman Roberts and Ranking Member Stabenow to set partisan goals aside and focus on a bill that addresses the issues we’ve heard about throughout this farm bill process."

"We don’t have to let this process be held hostage by the demands of the extremes of our parties. We can and should take the time to get the farm bill right."

"H.R. 2 is not a work product that I’m proud of because it’s not one I or my Democratic colleagues had a proper role in producing. More than that though, I’m opposed to H.R. 2 today because it’s simply not good enough for American farmers, consumers or rural advocates."

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin Peterson (D-MN) sent a letter to President Trump today expressing concern that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is inappropriately issuing waivers to fuel refiners in order to undermine the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.