AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

House oF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
Wednesday, February 8, 1928.
The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o’clock a. m.,
Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen (chairman) presiding.
The CuarMaN. The committee will be in order.
(The committee thereupon proceeded to the consideration of H. R.
10568. which is as follows:)

TH. R. 10568, Seventieth Congress, first session]

. BILL To foster agriculture and to stabilize the prices obtained for agricultural commodities
 by providing for the issuance of export debentures upon the exportation eof
such commodities
Be it enucted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,

DECLARATION OF POLICY

SectioN 1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress—
(a) To afford to those agricultural commodities of which surpluses above
jomestic requirements are produced in the United States the same degree of
protection which is afforded to industry in the United States by the tariff,
and to prevent such surpluses above domestic requirements from unduly
depressing the prices obtained for such commodities, and from causing undue
and excessive fluctuations in the markets for such commodities, and to these
ends—
{b) To provide for the payment, upon exports of such commodities and of
products of such commodities, of export premiums, by means of export debentures,
 sufficient to equalize the difference between the cost of producing such
ommodities in the United States and the cost of producing such commodities
in competing foreign countries.

NATIONAL ENYPORT DERENTURE BOARD

Sec. 2. A national export debenture board is hereby created, which shall
ronsist of the following members ex officio: The Secretary of Agriculture, who
shall be chairman; the Secretary of Commerce; and the Secretary of the
Treasurv. Two members shall constitute a quorum.

GENERAL POWERS

Sec. 3. The board—
(a) Shall maintain its principal office in the District of Columbia and such
ther offices in the United States as it deems necessary.
(b) Shall have an official seal which shall be judicially noticed.
{c) Shall make an annual report to the President and the Congress of the
United States. . »
(d) May make such regulations as ure necessary to execute the functions
rested in it by this act.
(e) May (1) appoint and fix the salaries of a secretary and such experts and,
ln accordance with the classification act of 1923 and subject to the provisions
of the civil-service laws, such other officers and employees; and (2) make such
expenditures, as may be necessary for the execution of the functions vested
in the board

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