Agriculture in Texas is a $100 billion per year industry and is vital to our district’s economy and to the state of Texas. I have the pleasure of representing 14 counties, and farming and ranching are major economic drivers in many of these counties. Farmers and ranchers in our district work tirelessly to put food on tables.

Farmers face a number of challenges–excessive regulation, increasingly competitive foreign markets, and rising costs of planting, growing, and harvesting a crop. Farmers and ranchers have an important job, and as a Member of the House Appropriations Committee, I work to ensure they have the resources needed to carry out their operations.

One bill I cosponsored this Congress was the RESTORE Act, which would ensure that Texas farmers and ranchers received disaster aid through the WHIP+ program for losses that they incurred as a result of Winter Storm Uri. With my support, this legislation was able to be enacted into law.

Additionally, I advocated for a regulatory change in the Emergency Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) in 2021 that would allow redfish farmers in our region of Texas to receive aid as a result of Winter Storm Uri.

I’ve voted to get government regulators out of the way because Texans know how to manage Texas land and agriculture better than Washington does. I have cosponsored legislation that would terminate this Administration’s proposed “30 x 30” land grab and reaffirm a narrower definition of Waters of the United States. Solutions should be driven by the farmers and ranchers who live and work in agriculture every day, not unelected bureaucrats in D.C. Congress should stay focused on helping American farmers and ranchers secure fair and open markets overseas for their products.

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