Said earlier our foreign friends, we had a meeting in baltimore where over 30 countries came with representatives to talk to them about the appropriate way of banning boultry if we have this, that its not fair to your poultry producers because theres an incident in oregon or iowa the ban production from you and so were continuing to work on that, as well. The last thing were trying to do is to convince congress that this is a longterm issue. Im pretty sure this isnt the only time were going to have to dole with Something Like this is to see if we could complete the funding for the poultry Lab Improvements that i think are absolutely necessary in modernization of that lab. That would be good. Would this virus be available fairley soon or whats the timetable . Well, you know i would hope it would be but i dont want to speak for the company in terms of how quickly they can turn it around. But, you know im pretty impressed with the fact that in a relatively short period of time weve come a long way. The previous fires was 60 effective, which means if you treated 100 birds 60 wook okay, but 40 wouldnt. Thats not enough. You have to get it to 100 or close to it for it to be effective. Im about out of time, so i wont get to can this question but i still am hearing a real problem as far as Legal Services and suing our eventual ability growers and costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars on frivolous lawsuits. So, you know that needs to be addressed. And we need to come up with a solution and i yooet yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you. The chair now recognizes himself for five minutes. Mr. Secretary earlier when you were answering the questions about the cios, you indicated that there were stove pipe cios and the various agencies in your department. As i understand it youve hired a chief cio now to oversee those agents . Theres always been a chief cio, but that chief cio wasnt empowered, if you will, to have sufficient oversight and sufficient responsibility, in my view, to basically be able to know and to be able to channel all other cios from each missionary in the proper direction. So do they now have to report to that one individual . Yes. And theres a process i think on a directive that i signed some time ago that said, listen youre all in this together, youre not going to be operating separately and distinctly from each other. Im glad to hear that. We had the exact same thing in the department of homeland security. And its a real mess. If you dont empower one individual to have direct authority over those individuals because they want to do their own thing. And they do and that creates a lot of problems. Glad to hear it. Many people, including myself, that the epas water of the id rule is expanding the epa aegz jurisdiction beyond what they statutorily authorize. If the epa determines there is a jurisdictional water in a producers field but Natural ResourcesConservation Service is not identified it as a wetland, how will that work . How do you reconcile that . The correct answer is i dont know and the hope would be that that doesnt occur. I think theres still an awful lot of work to be done in terms of this issue. I dont think weve resolved it. I think theres going to be a lot of litigation and concern about this. My focus is were in the business of trying to help farmers determine whatever it is they could do. Thats why were trying to figure out what we can do to be better at ncis more efficient more timely to be able to use resources more effectively. That is our focus. What if usda identifies wetlands that the corps and epa have not identified . What will that mean for the farmers and ranchers . Will these wetlands be clean water access wetlands . I dont know the answer to that question. Those are technical questions and, frankly i just dont know the answer. I fear theyre going to end up in litigation and thats so unfair to our farmers and ranchers. I think thats a pretty safe bet today. Thank you. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady whose name i cant see from here. Miss custer. Sorry. You have five memberships. Thank you very much. I wanted to say first off thank you very much. Im very excited in New Hampshire that we have growth in farming. I think one of the few states 5 increase in new farmers. A lot of emphasis on farm to table and buying local and farmers markets really taking off in our region. I wanted to talk to you about the prach r Program Beginning farmers and ranchers and an Inspector Generals report issued in may of 2015 about the generation of farmers that are retiring from the industry and how we can encourage and i dont want to say young people, because sometimes its young people and sometimes its not the young people. It may be people seeking a second career. Despite considerable resources provided by usda agencies the Department Lacks sufficient performance goals, direction coordination and monitoring to ensure success that fund were being used effectively by farmers. And i just wanted to see if you could comment on that. How can we implement effective performance rules to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being well spent in this regard . Well, ive asked the deputy secretary to lead this effort and she is traveling around the country visiting with a number of organizations and groups who are interested in getting into farming or folks who are encouraging people to get into farming. One of the issues that has cropped up is this issue of land tenure. Candidly, you mentioned the fact that there are going to be a lot of people retiring and leaving the farming business. That is probably true. The the question is what happens to the land . Whoever owns that land what is their ultimate goal here or their relatives ultimate goal . Is it to maximize return or is it to create opportunity for the next generation or is it a combination of both . Frankly, ive asked the this task force to come with recommendations on this issue of land tenure. What can we do should we do . As usda with reference to our programs to ensure that there is that proper balance so that its not a focus simply on bottom line but its a focus on next generation. Number one. Number two, you all asked us to create a liaison position with the military which we have done. Karas is actively pursuing efforts to try to get into military bases with information about farming opportunities. And basically providing opportunities for us to actually go on base to talk to folks that may be retiring or thinking about retiring about the opportunities that exist in farming. I think its also helpful the recent alliance to create a more positive image about farming and a more supportive image to push back a little bit on some of the folks who are constantly critical of farmers. And i have seen recently some very very positive good ads. I saw one yesterday from corn growers that was fabulous about the opportunities in farming. And i think the more we are we focus on the positive aspects of farming the more we focus on all kind of diversity within farming and diversity size of operations, methods of production, crops being produced and people, the better its going to be in terms of our ability to attract more young people younger people or more folks into this business. Were seeing an uptick in beginning farmers. We still have more to do. And i appreciate you bringing up the military. I would encourage you our Veterans Administration in vermont on the border with New Hampshire has the programs for veterans in farming because of the connections to working with their hands, working outdoors, there is Good Mental Health aspects conducive to a better transition back into civilian life. I also wanted to commend your deputy for come to New Hampshire to have an event with women farmers. And i really appreciate that. I think that is something that we need to look into and i look forward to working with you on all of these programs to bring in different constituencies to farming. You know if i can, mr. Chairman, the issue of veterans is one that i care deeply about. Its obviously personal to me because of a nephew that served in afghanistan who is now potentially hopefully thinking about a career after a he graduates from college in Forest Service. These folks are good problem solvers. One of the challenges that weve seen at usda and ive asked secretary mcdonald about this is were trying to get more veterans to work at the usda and were trying to get more veterans to work in federal government generally. Weve had some success. But the attrition rate, folks coming and leaving is disproportionately high. Why is that. What do we need to do to make sure these folks are acclimated to get back into a system inspect the Forest Service is nice because it has a military mindset, but the other missionaryists, i think we need to continue to do a little more work so we make it a welcoming place for veteranes and that should increase the number of people getting into farming from veterans. Mr. Secretary you mentioned a vaccine thats 100 effective for ai. I wonder if that might be in reference to a company out of iowa. Its not. Its a different company. The seed strain congressman, has been done by our researchers in concert with another company. But there is nothing to prevent vaccine from participating in this once we get it figured out. And im hopeful there will be an open competition to that and we can bring all the technology to the table and i appreciate your words on that. The key here, i think, is for whatever entity gets to it first being willing to provide the Licensing Arrangements and we would absolutely facilitate that because no one company this is my belief. I dont know if this is right or not. But no one company is going to be able to produce as much as we need as quickly as we need it. Hopefully well be able to get a lot of folks working to collaboratively together. We stockpile it enough so if this thing does hit and hits us hard were in a position to respond quickly. Theres much to be said about vaccines, and i appreciate your comments on this. I happen to have gone to watch a demonstration project in iowa right before the fourth of july that is taking out by that demonstration more than 99 of the soluble phosphorous that was expended at the discharge of the plant. And i just wanted to bring that to your attention that theres new technology thats emerging here that looks like it could effectively solve the phosphorous problem that we have. I mentioned that and i didnt know if that was something that you were aware of. I wasnt aware of that. What i was referring to was the use of foss ferus at the base of a tree thats been hit by this and somehow thats an impact on minimizing the consequences. I will get that information to you and ask you to pass that along to your people that will be focused on it. Sure. And then thats then another piece of this, theres so much to be said about bird flu. And i wanted to make sure that the committee is aware and the public is aware of how big this is. Ill say i know of no livestock disease problem ever in the history of this country thats met the magnitude of this maybe on influenza that we have. And im open to my rebuttal to that. However, into that, were looking at nationwide 48 million birds that have been affected by this. 8 75 of players in iowa. So this is devastating to a very localized region in the country. And it began in the turkey region in minnesota as far as the midwestern component of this is concerned. I know the usda deployed people up there quickly. By the time it hit in iowa my numbers are about 47 turkey locations were positive before it spilled over into two turkey locations in iowa. From there it hit the large laying operation near harris, iowa, and accounting. Thats when i think it became such a large epidemic that it was for a time out of control. So i wanted to speak with you about the things that need to be prepared for another event that may happen. And the focus on the east coast im glad to see that here. I think its very appropriate that they do that. But the resources that youve had, i think you testified here that they were at least adequate to this moment. And im happy to be supportive if you need more resources. I would want to bring to your attention some of the things like the Emergency Response component of this. The level of urgency that i thought i should have seen more in line with a flood or hurricane, i thought that level of urgency should have been higher. The chain of command so we know what that order of command is and who we can community with. Maybe look tts core of engineers approach on how they bring a lot of resources into play under a military style command so there can be a quicker response. You mentioned the disposal. That was the biggest problem. It was the biggest problem from the beginning. Im very troubled by what we had to do and some of that is composting birds outside. An attempt to cover them with sawdust or cover silver, but still exposed to birds that can carry that disease elsewhere. There are a number of epidemiological studies that is at this point not completely complete. It is going to be, i think, the key to how we bring biosecurity to bear which might well be the key to how we set up something maybe under rma for an income interruption type of insurance for our producers. Not only the layers. So there are a lot of components of this that i would like to weigh in on. I should write a series of open he hads on this and have a talk or is there a better method so that we can convey if the next disaster pray it doesnt that i can be in a position to see can be implemented for solutions. He think the first stop is any ideas you have come to the meeting in iowa and share them which is designed to get people to discuss this openly and fully, number one. Number two i agree with you in terms of the instant command process. Thats why we are setting up a much different system. I agree with you disposal is an issue. Its not dictated just by the federal folks. That is why identify instructed our team to begin to think about where this could potentially happen in states that have not yet been hit. Where in landfills can we begin having discussions now to acquire them with what this is all about, why its not a risk for them to participate in disposal disposal issues absolutely. No question thats an issue and thats why were looking at ways in which we can do a better job of that. The study is going to be supplemented, i think, by next week. We may learn additional steps in terms of biosecurity and i think longterm the issue of a Disaster Program makes a lot of sense. So theres an awful lot of work thats been done, going to be done. If you have input, id be more than happy to receive it next week. Thank you. Mr. Labafa for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. And thank you, secretary bill for being so available to this committee and to faithfully coming as often as you do. Its appreciated. I just wanted to follow up on previous talks in the past about californias drought situation and emergency or relief funding that was made available which was announced february of 2014. And intended for Emergency Assistance in the drought period. So actually it was in response to 2013 drought and so we still have additional years of on top of that. We just need some more help with the state fsa offices on getting that out there because weve had only a handful that have actually been issued of drought relief funds that have been processed. We have and i have the email from one of the state here that shows that theres still outstanding 180 applications of an initial 5. 4 million that was approved in an account and theres at least 3. 9 million still remaining in that same reserve that needs to be disbursed in response to the 2013. So were here in 2015 and for those that really need that, they must be having a lot of answers here having to provide their bankers, etcetera. Can you help us with whatever its going to take to expedite in 2015 asap to get those dashls of those 180 appear applicants, get those out and the remaineder of those funds, get those disbursed please . Conch man, as a result of your efforts, were prioritizing the county because of your concerns. Its not just our office. We work and have to work through the state of companys rules and regulations. Theres a Cultural Resource review, a tribal preservation officer that are involved in reviewing these projects. It depends on even for something as simple as the disbursement of funds . Yes, yes. It is california. The producer has to basically submit their receipts and then he is essentially reimbursed for 75 of the work. So were we will do what we can. We understand how important this is. Thats why we allocated Additional Resources in 2014. Why we just recently announced Additional Resources in 2015. Thank you. We understand the problem. All right. Can we work with you on finding ways to where youve run into roadblocks to be able to move those hurdles . Sure opinion this should not have any cultural effect. Im not pointing at you sir. Just the other end of the process. If we can hem us find that, it doesnt have that negative effect and need all that review. Is that reasonable . Yes, it is. And just to follow up on one of my previous questions, talked about the waters v. United states ruling on the epa. To the other side of that, if the usda were to identify a wetland that the corps or whoever have not identified what would that mean for farmers and ranchers . Would that make those wetlands identified as uca a clean water act wetland, too, do you think . Congressman, i apologize. I just dont have the information and knowledge to be able to answer your question accurately or adequately. But i have obviously been asked this question by you and variations of it by other members of the committee. Im certainly happen to go back and ask our team to brief me on there and get me up to speed on precisely how best to answer. I appreciate it. The United States waters are a moving target, too. Maybe if we can anticipate a this some of these things woernt happen. Ing, sir. I agree with you that its a moving target and it may very well take a political process and a judge at some point in time to figure it out. But i apologize that im not able to answer your question. So thank you, sir. The question that i have, and its because my district right now sometimes you hear around this nation where people are lack of water, lack of water, lack of water, well, we would like to send some to them. And im just