On the last farm bill, we had a budget surplus for the first time in 30 years. That contributed to having a lot of money available...
We will continue to hold 10 or 12 more hearings all through this year. This is the second one. We were in Fayetteville, N.C., yesterday. We will hold subcommittee hearings later in Washington, and plan to start writing the next Farm Bill early next year.
That's a situation we no longer find ourselves in. We are facing budget deficits again. The president has been offering tight budgets and we've been responding as best we can. We don't know how much money will be made available to us next year when we write the farm bill.