Safety Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security (Chairman) Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health (Chairman) Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife Political positions and votes Agriculture In 2007, Lautenberg voted for an amendment to the 2007 farm bill which would have limited the amount of subsidies that a married couple could receive to $250,000; the amendment failed. However, he voted against eliminating farm price supports and eventually voted for the 2007 farm bill as well. He supported increasing the minimum wage. Civil liberties Lautenberg was not in the Senate at the time of the original Patriot Act in 2001; when the 2005 re-authorization came to the Senate floor, Lautenberg voted against cloture, but voted in favor of accepting the conference report. In March 2011, he stated to an assembled group of constituents that Tea Party Republicans "don't deserve the freedoms that are in the Constitution ... but we'll give them to them anyway". Environment and energy Lautenberg, who had a pro-environment voting record, wrote a bill in 1986 that established the Toxics Release Inventory, which required companies to disclose the chemicals they released into the environment. He also co-sponsored the Consumer First Energy Act of 2008, which would have repealed $17 billion in tax breaks for oil companies and re-invested the $17 billion in renewable energy development and energy efficiency technology. However, the Senate rejected a cloture motion on the bill in June 2008. One of his main priorities in his final term was a bill he authored with Republican Senator David Vitter that would overhaul chemical safety laws. Lautenberg favored alternative energy sources, and voted in favor of giving tax incentives to those who use them. Foreign policy In 1996, Lautenberg voted against a bill that eliminated the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the United States Information Agency, the Agency for International Development, and the International Development Cooperation Agency and allowed the President to withhold 20% of funds appropriated to the United Nations if any agency of the organization does not implement consensus-based decision-making procedures on budgetary matters that assure that significant attention is given to the specific interests of the United States. He opposed capping foreign aid, and voted to give billions of dollars to the International Monetary Fund. He voted against