Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. As I understand it, Senator Harkin still has 10 minutes to speak on the Daschle amendment. Is that correct?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, the two votes will be stacked. We have reserved 10 minutes for the Senator from Iowa to speak on the Leahy amendment and 10 minutes for him to speak on the Daschle amendment. If he wishes to yield back his 10 minutes on the Daschle amendment, there will be no objection.

Mr. BENNETT. We will work that out in a way that will protect every Senator's rights. But to move us along now, time having been yielded back on the Leahy amendment, I would ask that the Chair recognize the Senator from Pennsylvania for 15 minutes to lay down his amendment. During that 15-minute period, we will codify all of these various agreements and bring that unanimous consent request forward.

Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent that following the vote on final passage, the Senate insist on its amendments, request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate to consist of the members of the subcommittee and Senators Stevens and Byrd.

Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent to reconsider the votes of all the amendments that have been sent forward and for that motion to be laid on the table.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, we are ready to move to final passage. I have some housekeeping details before we do that. Amendments Nos. 2121, 2122, 2123, 2124, 2125, 2126, 2127, 2128, 2129, 2085, 2130, 2131, 2132, 2133, and 2134, En Bloc

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and request that the time for the quorum call be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, half an hour evenly divided.

Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to yield.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I send to the desk a group of amendments, all of which have been cleared on both sides, and I ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc and that they be approved en bloc by voice vote.

Mr. BENNETT. If the Senator will stay on the floor for a moment longer. If he doesn't talk when he comes back at 2 o'clock, we will accept the amendment now, at 1 o'clock; is that acceptable?

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have no objection.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am thinking we should not plan on any votes until maybe 2 or 2:30. I understand there are some conflicts going on on both sides of the aisle. I would say to the Senator, if he is going to insist on a rollcall vote, we should stack it at that time. I have a problem with the Senator's amendment in that the offset he cites is from buildings and facilities at the Department of Agriculture. One can say, well, you can always find an extra $5 million, but that is an account that is committed to lease payments and other contracts that have been established for a while. It is $5 million, which in the scheme of things is not all that much money, but the offset is a bit problematical. We did fund this program at the requested level of $10 million, so it is going above the level. These are the only comments I have on the amendment. I say to the Senator, if he insists on a rollcall vote, we possibly could set a time some time after 2 or 2:30 where the votes might occur, and I would hope to stack some votes at that time on amendments.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to adopt the pending Kohl amendment, No. 2073.

Mr. BENNETT. Then I have some perfecting amendments and then final passage.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the vote on final passage, the Senate insist on its amendments, request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate----

Mr. BENNETT. The Senator is correct.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I thank the senior Senator from South Carolina for bringing this matter to my attention. I encourage you to pursue this designation with NRCS. Additionally, In encourage NRCS to give every consideration to the Senator's proposal.

Mr. BENNETT. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from New York, and assure him that I will take his concerns into consideration when conferencing the House and Senate bills.

Mr. BENNETT. And I the same.

Mr. BENNETT. I concur with my colleague's remarks. We will allow USDA to remedy the problems my colleague from Iowa has described. If USDA does not take action immediately and make substantive advances to fix these problems, we'll likely give them something more than encouragement in next year's agriculture appropriations legislation.

Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator from New York for his kind remarks, and would be happy to engage in a colloquy with him.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask for a voice vote.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I say to the Senator and to all Senators that I was prepared to go on further tonight but I have been informed that no amendments will be offered tonight. Therefore, no more debate and certainly no more votes. I would be happy to welcome the amendment from the Senator when he is prepared to offer it. It is certainly my intention to go forward tomorrow. I hope the decision not to offer any amendments tonight will be lifted by tomorrow and that we will have amendments before us and therefore items to debate and vote on.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am pleased to present the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee report to the full Senate and to recommend passage of this bill. I am very grateful to the ranking member, Senator Kohl, and his professional staff. It has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my service in the Senate to see how Senator Kohl's staff and our staff have been integrated and have performed as truly professional staffs, regardless of any partisan affiliation. I think one of the reasons the bill moved as smoothly as it did through subcommittee and full committee is that the staffs have worked together in such a professional way. I am grateful to Senator Kohl for his wisdom in the people he has chosen, and I am grateful to them for the professional way in which they have handled it. The bill is at the 302(b) discretionary allocation level of $17.005 billion. That is $873 million less than the fiscal 2003 level, which was $17.878 billion. It is always difficult to bring an appropriations bill to the floor that has an allocation lower than the previous year and, in this case, it is almost $1 billion lower. That has made the challenge of putting the bill together extremely difficult and, once again, underscores the accomplishments of the professional staff as they have dealt with this challenge. To run through the various titles of the bill and help people understand what we are talking about, I will give you the following numbers. On title I, dealing with agricultural programs, we have a total of $26.776 billion, of which $20.658 billion is mandatory. This is $1.318 million more than fiscal year 2003. On food safety, it is $783.761 million, which is an increase of $28.9 million over fiscal 2003. The Agricultural Research Service is at $1.092 billion. The Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service is at $1.118 billion. The Animal and Plant Inspection Service, APHIS, is at $711 million. That takes care of title I. Title II, conservation programs, come in at a total of $973 million, which is $48 million less than fiscal 2003. Conservation operations are at $826.635 million. Title III, rural economic and community development programs, the total appropriated funds will be $2.588 billion, which will support a loan level of $4.353 billion. Single-family housing is at the $4.084 billion level. The Rural Community Advancement Program is at $769.479 million. Distance learning, telemedicine, and broadband is at $685.963 million. Title IV, domestic food programs, there is a total of $44.088 billion, of which $39.164 billion is mandatory. This is $2.197 billion more than fiscal 2003. Food stamps will be funded at $27.745 billion. WIC, Women, Infants, and Children, will be funded at $4.639 billion. Title V, foreign assistance and related programs, there is a total of $1.486 billion, which is $349 million less than fiscal year 2003, which included supplemental funding of $369 million. Title I, development food assistance, is $131.67 million. Title II, emergency food assistance, is $1.192 billion. McGovern-Dole international food for education and child nutrition, which is a new discretionary account, is funded at $25 million. On the overall bill, title VI, related agencies and the Food and Drug Administration, this is an increase. It is $1.482 billion, $16 million more than in fiscal 2003. The Food and Drug Administration gets $1.39 billion in direct appropriations, plus an additional $302 million in user fees. The committee provides $10 million toward the Government's share of the medical device review user fee program. Finally, title VII, general provisions, the committee includes limitations on several farm bill mandatory programs. We do not freeze these programs at a level below fiscal 2003, and we do no harm to existing programs by these limitations. The committee did not include a limitation on the mandatory funding level for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP. Now, in the bill, there are necessary pay costs for employees covered: $131.208 million. I will make a personal and parochial observation with respect to this bill. Utah is in its fifth year of the worst drought in memory, which is a situation shared by many Western colleagues. We have not provided emergency funding for the drought, but we have made substantial investments in farm programs and conservation efforts that we think will help producers deal with these weather-related disasters. This is an appropriations bill, not an authorizing bill. I know there is a strong temptation to use appropriations bills as a vehicle to catch up on authorization situations. Senator Kohl and I have agreed that we will oppose any authorizing amendment regardless of how salutary it may be, unless it has been cleared by both the chairman and the ranking member of the appropriate authorizing committee. I am grateful to Senator Kohl for his willingness and leadership on this particular issue. We have done our best to accommodate Member requests in this bill. This is not always possible. The fact that we are almost $1 billion less than fiscal 2003 makes it difficult. We have done our best to be as fair as we can and as complete as we can. If there are any funding amendments, therefore, offered on the floor, they must be offset. It is the desire of the leadership, Senator Frist and Senator Daschle, to finish this bill today. I think that can be done. But if it is to be done, we are going to have to have full cooperation of all of the Senators. We know of some of the amendments that have been proposed. We have done our best to deal with those amendments at the staff level and in the committee by having conversations and occasionally colloquies. But we understand there are some amendments that will be proposed, will be debated, and will be voted on. I ask for the cooperation of all of my colleagues and that, first, they come to the floor in a timely fashion to offer their amendments; secondly, that they would understand we need to move through these amendments as quickly as possible in order to meet the leadership's request that we finish the bill tonight. I am hoping we can finish it in good time tonight. We will stay, as I understand it from Leader Frist, as long as we have to stay to get the bill done. While the time seems to be hanging heavily on people's hands right now, I hope they will come to the floor and offer their amendments now, rather than rushing in at 10:30 tonight and saying: I have an amendment, and I need to have it brought up. I will do my best to allow full and fair debate on each amendment, but I am prepared to offer a tabling motion if it appears to me all of the arguments have been made. I believe we know which are the more controversial amendments. I have talked with people who stand on both sides of those amendments and suggested to them the arguments have been made; there is really nothing new to be said about it. While we did get the information on the record, we really need to come to a conclusion and move on these particular amendments. I don't think there is any amendment on which a Senator is undecided. I think the controversial amendments have been sufficiently discussed prior to coming to the floor so that everyone pretty much knows where he or she stands. I will use the tabling motion judiciously. I will not attempt to cut anybody off or violate his or her privileges, but I will do what I can to keep the bill moving in a timely fashion. Amendment No. 2073