Maloney votes against farm bill in committee

WASHINGTON – Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY18) this week voted against the proposed farm bill in the House Committee on Agriculture.
The staunch supporter of farmers in the Hudson Valley said “this farm bill was not written for Hudson Valley farmers.”
Maloney said the measure “fails to make crop insurance work better for the diverse family farms we have in the Hudson Valley or invest in the next generation of farmers.” He said it “doesn’t do enough to support specialty crop growers who produce onions and apples and it doesn’t invest in research that our farmers rely on – like Cornell’s work to combat the allium leafminer.”
Maloney said the bill “cuts conservation programs crucial to New York where we lose ten times more agricultural land to development that we protect every year. It makes massive changes to nutrition assistance programs – like SNAP – that tens of thousands of households in the Hudson Valley rely on. These changes were designed to throw folks off the program or reduce their benefits.”
His “no” vote was criticized by Chris Martin, regional press secretary with the National Republican Congressional Committee, who questioned if Maloney’s opposition had something to do with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s opposition to the bill. “Leave it to a Washington insider like Sean Patrick Maloney to curry favor with party leadership while leaving his constituents out to dry,” Martin said.