WEBVTT

00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:09.470
the chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky thank you Mr chairman I rise today with four of my colleagues to offer a bipartisan amendment that simply

00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:18.269
requires the DEA to comply with federal law despite clear language in the recently passed farm bill that specifically allows State agricultural

00:00:18.279 --> 00:00:28.189
agencies and universities to grow industrial hemp for research the DEA decided to ignore the plain text of a federal statute officials in my home

00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:37.590
state of Kentucky were recently forced to file a lawsuit in federal court to compel the DEA to release industrial hemp seeds intended for a University

00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:46.950
Research pilot program what a waste of time money and the Court's limited resources States cannot launch Industrial Hemp pilot programs if the

00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:56.189
DEA seizes the seeds before they reach their destination and although the DEA did recently agree to release the seeds my

00:00:56.199 --> 00:01:05.670
Amendment ensures that this type of DEA action won't happen again again if this were simply about seeds I wouldn't be here we've got that we've got that

00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:15.070
resolved but there are further issues there are more issues for instance the DEA has been very ambiguous on whether

00:01:15.080 --> 00:01:25.550
they are going to assert authority to say that hemp can't be grown on private property listen where else are you going to grow it it's not like the government has farms and the the farm bill is clear

00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:37.030
in this language the farm bill says that the state authorities shall register these sites not the DEA yet the DEA refuses to acknowledge that Furthermore

00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:47.469
with regard to the seeds the DEA requires and this I found ridiculous that the seeds and these are industrial hemp seeds with no active THC must be

00:01:47.479 --> 00:01:56.149
kept under lock and key with only three keys available and you and the way we've got these stor in Kentucky now is you put your handprint on the door and you

00:01:56.159 --> 00:02:06.630
can get into these hemp seeds you want to know how ridiculous that is by the end of this growing season we're going to have thousands of pounds of hemp seeds not 250 pounds of hemp seeds

00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:15.790
there the question is what is the DEA going to do going forward we just want them to Simply obey the law the fact is that growing hemp for research purposes

00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:25.070
has always been legal so why hasn't it been done because it required interfacing with the DEA and the DEA purposely used regulations to stop any

00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:33.350
of this research the farm bill that I co-sponsored was to clear the way for hemp Industrial Research not to

00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:41.430
perpetuate a broken process where the de DEA obfuscates and delays but to give that freedom to State and local

00:02:41.440 --> 00:02:46.040
governments and I reserve the balance of my time