VIDEO: Press Conference

SECRETARY TOM VILSACK: Good morning. I am joined today by three of America's farmers: Mr. Peterson from Iowa, Mr. Contente from California, and Mr. Miller from Texas. And we are here today to talk just for a few minutes about the Recovery and Reinvestment Act and its impact on rural America. A lot of the conversation throughout the last couple of weeks about the Recovery Act has been focused on urban centers and suburban areas, but I think there's a story to tell about what USDA is doing to put its resources to work.

First of all, let me talk about the recovery aspect of our efforts focused on getting additional resources in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the SNAP program. One million Americans are beneficiaries of that program. Roughly 7 million of them live in rural communities like these three gentlemen.

Today we are announcing that we are putting together $145 million to go to communities throughout the United States, to increase the reimbursement rate and increase the average SNAP payment to families. A family of four will receive about $80 additional assistance each month beginning April 1. That $145 million will generate another $261 million of economic activity in the communities. Why? Because for every $5.00 that's invested in the SNAP program, the economic activity it generates results in $9.20 of economic activity.

We are also providing additional resources for food banks that are stressed, and $25 million is going out to assist for the administrative expense of expanded need throughout the country. That's the recovery side.

There is also a rather significant story to tell on the reinvestment side. Let me start with rural water and wastewater projects. The Congress has appropriated a substantial amount of money at the President's request. Today we announced roughly $400 million in grants and $140 million in loans will be used to fund over 400 projects throughout the United States. These projects will put people immediately to work. For every million dollars we spend in wastewater and water treatment facilities, it generates 23 jobs. These are construction jobs; these are permanent jobs administering these facilities.

That means with just this announcement today we're going to put 13,000 Americans in rural America back to work. We're also going to invest in the Forest Service projects. The Congress and the President appropriated over $980 million to the Forest Service for a variety of projects. We're going to put $98 million of that to work immediately the first week of this effort. We will generate about 1,500 jobs in helping to maintain our forests and to rebuild some of the infrastructure in our Forest Service properties.

This is going to be targeted primarily at young workers. The youth unemployment rate in America today is roughly 21 percent. We're going to immediately put 1,500 young people to work to better maintaining our forests, which over time will also improve their health.

We're not going to stop there. Additional resources are going to go into single family housing. Approximately $1.1 billion in the form of loan guarantees and direct loans are going to be used to address a significant backlog that has occurred. Roughly 10,000 rural homeowners are going to be helped and assisted. This is going to create 5,000 construction jobs as we build new homes and refinance purchases.

We're also going to put money together, something that I know that Chris Peterson is very interested in, in the Flood Plain Easement Program. Iowa is obviously extremely interested in that. The sign-up for the NRCS for that program begins today and ends on March 27th, a very condensed time period. We hope to put folks to work taking several projects to fruition quickly.

We're also going to provide additional money for direct farm loans: $145 million is being released in the next week. This is going to help a little over 2,000 farmers provide the operating capital they need to get their operations started. And 50 percent of these farmers will be beginning farmers; another 10 percent will be socially disadvantaged farmers.

We will this week also have the first of three public hearings on broadband. As you know, $2.8 billion is available in USDA to access and to expand broadband in unserved areas. We anticipate and expect a very vigorous effort and a very quick effort to try to put those monies to play immediately. We believe that as these monies are invested, thousands of jobs will be created installing these lines and improving the infrastructure that will serve rural America and that will provide access to worldwide markets.

These resources are in addition to the announcement last week of $100 million being made available for School Lunch Program equipment purchases as well as additional resources that are going to play in maintaining and better improving USDA facilities around the country. This will also create construction jobs, which will impact and affect communities throughout America, including rural America.

In short, with the announcements today we begin the process of putting USDA money to work. We begin putting America back to work, which is consistent with the President's direction. We send a strong message that USDA is going to be very active and very aggressive in putting these resources to work. This will be, of course, in addition to accelerating the implementation of the Energy title of the Farm Bill, working over the course of the next couple of months to put the Conservation Security Program into play and making sure that the safety net is available for farmers.

So with that, I'd be happy to take questions.

Yes?

REPORTER: In the Farm Bill is a program I think you're pretty interested in, it's the fresh fruits and vegetables program for students. And there's a kind of a conflict that's developed between a lot of the school districts and the state programs and the FNS over what's 'processed' and what isn't. And it basically leaves schools to be concerned they can't bring anything into the classroom that's fresh fruits and vegetables. They can't have carrot sticks or apples that are sliced. There's a conflict on what, they think it's going to shut them out of the program. I was just wondering if that's something that you're going to be looking at so the schools can in fact get their fresh fruits and vegetables into class where they can eat them, they don't have cores laying around, and have their snack and be done.

SEC. VILSACK: I think it is important for us to send a message that we are very interested in promoting fruits and vegetables in a variety of different forms to get more integrated into the school lunch, school breakfast, and school snack programs, as well as after-school programs, as well as in childcare facilities throughout the country.

There are multiple reasons why this is important. First and foremost, it's about improving the diets of young people. When 35 to 36 percent of our young people are at risk of being overweight or are in fact overweight, that creates a real problem today and well into the future with onset of juvenile diabetes and what that can mean for those youngsters as they enter into adulthood. It is part of our health care crisis and part of a strategy for reducing health care costs in this country.

The second reason it's important is because the Ag Census tells us that there have been a lot of small producers started recently in the last five years, 108,000 new small operations. Most of those are specialty crop operations, growing fruits and vegetables, nuts. Many of them are marketing through the farmers market system that is in place. If we want to transition those small producers and income producers to become mid-income producers we've got to create new opportunities for them to distribute the product that they can produce.

That means that we need to work more closely in establishing local and regional distribution centers. It means we have to work more closely with local purchasers, institutional purchasers. So part of the emphasis will be on creating that kind of system. So we will work through whatever issues there may be as it relates to the safety and security of those supplies as we build those systems up.

But I think it's very, very important for us to make a commitment to fruits and vegetables in a multitude of forms as part of the school lunch, school breakfast, and school snacks.

Phil?

REPORTER: -- go anywhere on the Hill because of the opposition that's been expressed by Democrats as well as Republicans. I understand the Administration may be rethinking this as well. Where are you going with this proposal, and is there another way that you can get this kind of money without tying it to gross sales?

SEC. VILSACK: Well, I think this conversation has begun, Phil. And I think it will continue. I think as President Obama has said on many occasions, we don't necessarily have all the right answers. There may be different ways to do what we think needs to be done. At the end of the day, I think what we're interested in is making sure that payments that are made go to farmers who need them and who are entitled to them, and that we encourage farmers to think creatively about new future income opportunities that climate change in particular provide.

I believe Agriculture is aggressively engaged in the climate change discussion, and it's at the table as a cap and trade system is formed and as offsets are discussed. There are significant income opportunities, in my view far in excess of what we're talking about in terms of direct payments. And knowing these operators as I do, my guess is if you gave a choice between something like that -- that's our goal, that's our hope. We're absolutely willing to work with Congress. They may have better ideas, and we're open to better ideas.

But I think it's important for us to pursue an agenda that creates new income opportunities for use of land in a socially beneficial way, as well as making sure that farmers understand these are tough economic times; and as we deal with the fiscal realities of trillion dollar deficits, all of us are going to have to come up with creative ways to reduce that deficit.

Chris.

REPORTER: I'm Sally Schuff of Feedstuffs. The agenda you have outlined today, the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, sounds like there's a lot of work for a lot of agencies within USDA. Have you any announcements to make on when those agencies will have their new under secretaries (unclear)?

SEC. VILSACK: No. I can just tell you that we've made an aggressive effort to provide names that are going through the process, and it is an appropriately difficult process to go through and to complete because these people will be charged with significant responsibilities, and they will also be exposed to information of a highly sensitive nature. So you want to make sure you've got the right people.

But we are still in the process of awaiting word from the White House, the FBI, and all those engaged in the vetting process. But we have submitted our names, and we are anxiously awaiting their working at USDA. I can testify to that.

Chris?

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, Chris Clayton with DTN. And you spoke earlier this morning at the National Farmers Union meeting about the effort to increase blend levels in biofuels, in the ethanol. First, what do you know about where the EPA is at in that process, and what is the role that USDA will play in helping in that rulemaking process?

SEC. VILSACK: Chris, I've had a number of personal conversations with Administrator Jackson, encouraging her and her team to take aggressive action on the blend rate. I think one of the things, the role that USDA has, is to make sure that regulators appreciate the stress that the biofuels industry is under generally. I think with oil coming down we've seen a much more competitive market. We've seen margins evaporate, and we've seen a number of these 171 ethanol producers really being concerned about being able to get through this difficult time.

It is an infant industry, and so it's going to have some growing pains. It's going to have some ups and downs. And what we need to do is to provide some degree of stability. And increasing that blend rate quickly would provide increased market opportunities and increased stability.

I think USDA can also encourage the EPA to take a longer view as it goes through the science and the research and examines research that was recently given to them about an even higher increase in the blend rate. Our view is that if we can get to 12 to13 percent by just simply understanding that it's significantly not much different than 10 percent, it's an insignificant difference, and under the rules and regulations EPA could do that.

If you get to 15 percent or higher, there may be more review required, and we appreciate that. But the help is needed now. So that's one thing.

Now the second thing I think USDA can do, and it continues to do, is to work with processing facilities to work with ethanol production facilities that are facing some stressful times as they go back to their lenders if they want to reconfigure their loans creating a little bit more flexibility, USDA does have loan guarantee programs that could be of some benefit, especially if the bankers are willing to work with us in restructuring the terms so that they are a bit more favorable either in interest rates or payments or principal.

So those are two main responsibilities I think we have.

And we've also been working with EPA to make sure that, as they deal with the directions to take into consideration indirect land use, that they formulate that, that they calculate that appropriately. And I think we can provide some technical advice and technical information about how to calculate that appropriately so that you don't distort the benefit.

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Chris Doering with Reuters. I'd like to follow up on Chris's question actually there on ethanol. Last week an ethanol trade group came out with a proposal and submitted paperwork to the EPA looking for a 15 percent blend rate. Would you back that? And do you think that safety data is there as far as the impact that a 15 percent ethanol blend would have on an engine?

SEC. VILSACK: First of all I appreciate the fact that the group that made the announcement also recognized that the science and the research they were providing would be additional support for an immediate move to 12 to 13 percent. And I think that's the first step in the process. And our hope is that the EPA can come to the same conclusion we have, which is that that's something that can be done within existing regulations without a great deal of time being spent reviewing the science.

I've not had a chance to actually look at the science that was presented. I know that those who presented it are quite confident in it. And if their confidence is well-placed then my hope would be that EPA would embrace that and would look for opportunities in the future after they've done their due diligence to increase the blend rate even greater.

But today, it seems to me, the focus needs to be on that 12 to 13 percent increase, because that's something that can happen more quickly. It doesn't require as much of a review, and can send a very strong message to the industry that we are interested in maintaining the infrastructure that we have. We've invested a lot of money in that infrastructure, and as we gravitate to second and third generation biofuel feedstocks, we want to make sure that infrastructure is in place.

REPORTER: -- quick question. (unclear) 15 percent range?

SEC. VILSACK: We are for whatever is going to increase opportunities in the biofuels area. There's no question about that. You know, 15 percent, we'd love to see 15 percent. Right now my focus is on 12 to 13 percent because I think it's doable more quickly, and it sends, I think, the right set of signals to the industry that we are with them. Again, this is an industry -- we have a tendency to think of this as a more mature industry than it really is. It's just getting started. There are going to be fits and starts and highs and lows. What we need to do is to work with them, work with the private sector, work with investors, work with lenders to basically smooth that process out so it becomes a bit more predictable.

We have 171 operations in place. We've got a number that are either under construction or idled that could expand if we have a higher blend rate. There are markets that many of these farmers are interested in making sure are created and maintained for the crops that they're growing. And there's additional research that could lead to every single farmer in this country and a multitude of new opportunities in terms of better utilizing our crops for biofuels.

And the President has been very clear about this. He wants to see a continued shift away from fossil fuel. He wants to see less dependence on foreign oil. He wants to see rural America help us double our use of renewable energy in the next couple of years.

All of that speaks to the strengths of rural America and part of what we announced here today: rebuilding the infrastructure of small communities so that wastewater treatment facilities are in a position to respond to those new production plants that will be built; making sure that the forests are adequately maintained because there's woody biomass opportunities as a feedstock for biofuels; making sure that there are decent housing opportunities; making sure that companies have access to the latest in technology through expanded broadband.

All of that is important reinvestment in rural America that will allow us to prosper. And at the same time, recognizing that there are going to be some folks that struggle, we've got the SNAP program, we've got the Emergency Assistance to Foodbanks, and we have operating loans available to beginning farmers and existing farmers so they can put their crops in the ground. That's what this is all about.

Thank you all.