Thank you, Chair, and thanks to all of you.
I hear the comments being made primarily by Mr. White, but also by Mr. Bacon and Mr. Banack, around how this thing evolved. Quite frankly, the dilemma for us as a committee is that we don't have control of this piece of legislation. We can't amend it; we're not allowed to. This has to go back to the finance committee. It's part of what in the jargon is called OB 2, omnibus bill number two.
I hear your request for hopefully going forward. Mr. Hoback is suggesting maybe it is, but I wouldn't hold your breath, because it will probably be in OB 3, in which case you will still be dealing with the finance committee, not us.
Inasmuch as you are here, and I appreciate your being here, the reality is that the finance committee makes the amendments, not us. We don't have the ability.
I hear my colleagues across the way saying whoa, but it's true. Their instructions to us were very specific as to what we were allowed to do. We can hold the hearing, we can hear you, and it gets it on the record. That's important, believe you me. It's very important that we hear from you and that you are on the record. That's a big part of what this is going to be.
The difficulty for us is that we can only make suggestions, and we're hearing a lot. Let me put that political piece out there. Hopefully the next piece comes to us, so that when we hear from you, we're making the amendments based on what your input is and we're crafting the legislation for agriculture through the agriculture committee, because I think that's where we should do it.
Let me go back to the bonding issue. I'm hearing from the three pieces of the chain here: Mr. Banack for the farm side, Mr. Bacon on the other piece of things, about the security of the issue.
Mr. Banack, is it fair to say that until you get some sense of security, you'd like to see it where it is, and let's not rush out of it?