In this bill we are investing in the neighborhood of about $47 million to wipe out the boll weevil. It poses a threat to an important U.S. commodity. It poses a threat to a way of life to many people. In fact, at the same time we are dramatically reducing the funds necessary to wipe out the Asian long horn beetle, my friend here. The Asian long horn beetle has devastated trees in New York, Illinois and New Jersey and is showing a path that could spread to over half the trees in the United States.

There is a way that we can stop this. An eradication program was begun by APHIS 3 years ago funded by this Congress that has finally started to crest the expansion of this pest. Unfortunately, in the chairman's mark we underfund by a magnitude of about $20 million what APHIS says will be necessary to eradicate the threat.

The problem that we face here in this House is we run the risk of wasting a rather substantial investment of money that we have paid in the last two fiscal years to wipe out this insect. What this bug has done since 1996 has devastated trees throughout New York, and I know the old story about the tree growing in Brooklyn. In fact, there are thousands and thousands of trees that have been impacted already and without a steady investment of funds will continue to.

What we propose to do here is not to take the optimum amount of funding. According to the State of New York, it would take about $72 million a year for the next 5 years in order to wipe out this pest, but take the minimum amount that APHIS says they require, which is $30 million over the next several years, to eradicate this threat so it does not move any further.

Right now, Ground Zero for this problem is in the New York-New Jersey area; but we have seen it spring up in the center of the country in Illinois. We have also seen how difficult it is to get a handle on it. To be very honest with you, the only way they have found to get rid of this pest once it is in a tree is to chop down the tree and scrap it and to shred that tree to bits. We cannot risk over 47 percent of the trees in this country which, according to the Department of Agriculture, are susceptible to this threat. Now is the time to cut it off at the tentacles or whatever it has. Now is the time for us to continue our battle against this.

The last thing we should be doing, Mr. Chairman, is allowing the good work of the committee in the past which has invested money to wipe this out and then say, essentially, we will stop on a dime and revert to a place where we will try to hold this in check until we have more money. We have started on this path. The only responsible thing to do is to continue on this program which will require about $30 million a year.

My amendment provides an additional $19.6 million which would prevent this pest from spreading any further.