Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President. I rise to raise some significant concerns about S. 1389, the Homestake Mine Conveyance Act of 2001, which has been attached to the Department of Defense-Supplemental conference report. This legislation will have serious adverse implications for the Federal Government most notably, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)--due to its unprecedented legal protections provided to the State and the Homestake Mining Company and its potentially significant budgetary costs. While some modifications to the original have been made to the bill to address many of the problematic legal and programmatic issues, these changes were modest at best and the bill as a whole still has significant legal, budgetary, and policy implications that could negatively impact NSF and EPA. This bill is an improvement over the original legislation introduced by the senators from South Dakota, but it is still problematic and troubling. As the ranking member of the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, I believe in deferring to the scientific expertise and judgment of the NSF and its Science Board in determining which projects had scientific merit and deserved funding. The Congress should not be in the business of legislating what is scientifically meritorious. The Homestake legislation totally circumvents the merit review process long- established and followed by the agency. The reality of this matter is that the South Dakota Senators are using NSF as a means to save jobs that will be lost from the closing of the mine. While I appreciate the effort to save people's jobs, it should not be done by undermining the scientific merit review process. This is simply the wrong approach and creates a new, dangerous precedent. Further, the broad indemnification provisions in the bill, even with the proposed modifications, are sweeping. The Federal Government would also be required to provide broad indemnification to both the Homestake Mining Company and the State for PAST and FUTURE claims related to the site. The sweeping and unprecedented language is in conflict with, and greatly expands, the Federal Government's potential tort liability well beyond provided in the Federal Tort Claims Act. The Federal Government's liability with respect to environmental claims would also be potentially unlimited. It is unclear whether the bill affects Homestake's obligations under court-approved Consent Decrees (CD) that the Federal Government has already entered into. These CDs address certain remediation and natural resource damage claims. There are additional legal issues related to the Anti-Deficiency Act and tort law concerning compensation after the fact of injury. Funding this costly project would also potentially sap funding for other current and new initiatives that have scientific merit and which the Congress and Administration fully support. Critically important scientific research initiatives such as nanotechnology, information technology, and biotechnology initiatives may be significantly impaired. Major research projects related to astronomy, engineering, and the environment could be cut back or not funded. I hope my colleagues will be sensitized to the dangerous legal, budgetary, and policy implications of the Homestake legislation. I am extremely troubled by this legislation and hope that political pressure does not influence the ultimate outcome of the proposed project in the Homestake bill.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut and the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. These Senators are experts in laws of elections. Having both served as chairman of the Rules Committee, they are well known as experts in this field. I appreciate their permitting me to join them as we work to craft what I think has rightly been described as a very important piece of legislation. We are in this joyous holiday season. We hope we have delivered a package that is not only wrapped nicely but contains provisions that will be of significance and a significant improvement in our election system. As has been said already, truly, voting in elections is the heart of our democracy. If you do not do it, if you exclude some people, and some people do not do it right, then our entire system suffers. One of the great freedoms we enjoy in this country is the freedom to have every qualified person vote. As Senator Dodd has pointed out, even if a person has certain disabilities, we ought to make it easier for that person to vote. People ought not be denied a right to vote where they are otherwise qualified if they are poor or in places where in the past they have not had adequate opportunity. Senator Dodd started to work on this process of reforming elections to make it easier to vote. I had some experiences that suggested to me we ought to add a second part to that; that is, make it easier to vote but tough to cheat. I think both sides of that equation are important if we are to assure the fullest and fairest participation in our electoral system. I think this compromise achieves that. We need to make it easier to vote. For those who have been confused by machines or confounded by lack of phone lines to get questions answered, this proposal says we should let the voter know if he or she has made a mistake. If the system has made a mistake, then we set up a new system to give that voter an opportunity to cast the ballot which can be counted after the voter is identified as being a legitimate voter. As has always been mentioned, we don't try to throw out any particular system. We don't say that ``one size fits all'' and Washington is going to tell every local election official that this is the kind of system you have to use. Some 23 different States, I believe, use at least in part paper ballots. In some areas that is how they vote. In my hometown we vote by punch cards. I do not know when anybody has challenged the balloting there as having problems. Voter election officials might say check your card to make sure it is punched out. It is a simple thing. But it works. In St. Louis County, the largest voting jurisdiction in Missouri with the most diverse population--from some very wealthy areas to areas in great need which qualify as an enterprise and empowerment zone, a wonderful diversity of people with long-time residents and newly arrived immigrants--they use punch cards. Their error rate is 0.3 percent--one of the lowest in the country. Clearly, it isn't a problem there. We don't say you can't use punch cards. For disabled voters, as has already been mentioned by Senator Dodd, who has been a true champion, we require polling precincts to improve their voting system so voting machines are accessible even for those who are visually disabled. For those new citizens whose English proficiency is still a work in progress, we want to make sure that newly arrived people with different languages are not excluded from the protections of voting laws. If we have a credible population in a jurisdiction that speaks a different language and has literacy problems, we must publish the election information in their language. All of these steps go a long way toward achieving the goal of making it easier to vote. Senator McConnell's insistence on a commission--which would be a full- time commission, a bipartisan commission, that would help solve these problems--is a tremendous contribution. I think that is going to make a difference. But let me tell you how my interest and enthusiasm for challenging voter fraud was reignited. You have heard that old story about: Deja vu all over again. Well, on the night of the general election, in November of 2000, we were ready to see the votes start to come in in St. Louis. But lo and behold, a case was filed in the court in St. Louis City challenging the voting process, saying that people were being illegally excluded. As a matter of fact, the plaintiff who filed the case had been dead for over a year. He alleged that long lines were keeping him from voting. I suggest that the long lines may not have been at the polls that kept him from voting. He probably had other problems that were keeping him from voting. But we heard wind of this and lawyers went in and went to the court of appeals. And the court of appeals shut down that scheme within about an hour, after a few votes were cast. I say deja vu all over again because--the funniest thing--I first ran for Governor in 1972. I am from an outstate area. I ran against a candidate who was from St. Louis City. I had a pretty good lead in the outstate area, and on election night we were starting to get ready to see the votes counted and we heard that in St. Louis City they kept the polls open. They kept the polls open hour after hour after hour, and it reached around midnight. The charge was that, in a Democratic- controlled city, in a Democratic-controlled State, the Democratic election officials were making it more difficult for Democratic voters to cast votes for Democratic candidates. Now, if that raises some eyebrows, I think it should. But we set about cleaning up the system and getting good election boards in place. And we thought that old trick of keeping open the voting machines in areas where they are heavily partisan was over. But, no, it came back on election night 2000. We asked for an inquiry. As we started kicking over damp rocks, more and more little election frauds crawled out. We found out that, for example, there was sort of a system of provisional votes. Voters could go before a judge and say: I have been denied the right to vote. And the judge would say: Here is an order. You can go vote. Well, they voted. They cast their ballot. And they were not segregated. When we went back to look at them, we were kind of interested. They said: You have to put down what your reasons for not being able to vote were. And one of them wrote on the line: I'm a convicted felon. Sounds like a good reason for keeping them from voting. But the judge ordered that person be allowed to vote. Another one said: I just moved here, and I wanted to vote for Al Gore. It seemed like a good reason to that judge, so that person was allowed to vote. The Missouri Secretary of State went back and examined those 1,300 ballots that were cast. Ninety-seven percent of them were illegal, people who were not lawfully registered as required under the Missouri Constitution. They were allowed to cast their votes anyhow. There were 13,000 of those provisional votes in St. Louis County. We have not even completed an examination of those. But we also went and we started taking a look and doing some research, and we found there was some mess in the city of St. Louis. Some 25,000 voters--10 percent of the voters in St. Louis were double registered. Some voters were registered three times. Some were registered four times. The champions were registered five times. We have not completed an investigation to find out how many of those people took advantage of their multiple registrations, but we believe there were significant numbers. There are investigations going on by the appropriate authorities. Obviously, if they find specific evidence, we trust they will take appropriate actions. While I was accused of being partisan in calling attention to the St. Louis City fraud in November of 2000, something happened. There was a partisan primary for the mayor's race in March of this year. And lo and behold, on the last day of registration, 3,000 mail-in registration cards were dumped on the City Election Board. The interesting thing about them was that most of them were in the same handwriting and the same ink. Many people who had accused me of being partisan, though of the other party, now found it to be of great interest to look into the bona fides of these registrants. Fortunately, we had a very aggressive and inquiring media in St. Louis that went out and started looking. It is amazing how many vacant lots in St. Louis City were teeming with voters. Where they were registered were empty lots. The secretary of state did a little investigation of multiple registrations at one location. This is not apartment houses; this is supposedly a single family dwelling. They limited their examination to those places where eight or more adults were registered from one single family unit. They found over 250 of them--truly remarkable living conditions, and probably warrants some further investigation. These drop houses were potential sites for massive voter fraud. Under the current system, mail-in registration allows you to register to vote by mail, motor-voter. When motor-voter passed, most people focused on registering people where you get your motor vehicle licenses. You have to show up. You are buying a car. You have an address. That makes a lot of sense. But mail-in registrations required the local government to register those voters. Then they said the only way you could get off the rolls was if you showed up on the list of dead people, if you asked to be removed, or if you had not voted in two Federal elections. The problem with people who were registering from these drop houses is, No. 1, there probably were not any people to die. They are not going to show up on the dead rolls. They certainly were not going to call in and ask their names be registered. Frankly, if you had gone to the trouble of registering a bunch of phony names, you certainly were not going to fail to vote them. Simple common sense. Those things kind of heightened my interest. They got me looking at what we could do. We have agreed, in this bill, that, No. 1, one of the most important things we are going to do is have a statewide voter registration base, a database. This is important to make it easier to vote. And it is important to make it tougher to cheat. And that list has to be cleaned up. But it also says, if you are registering by mail, you cannot just send in a ballot with no further identification. We require some identification. Either you show up in person to vote the first time or you send in--either with your registration or with your vote--a photo ID or a bill mailed to you at that location with your name and address on it. If you pay a water bill there, and your name is on it, it is a pretty good indication that you are there. If you are paying bills from there, that is a start. There are a lot of things that need to be done. I think there are a lot of jurisdictions, given the power that these new statewide databases will give them to check, to cross-check, that will be able to find if there are phony voters and clean up some of these multiple registrations, some of these double, triple, quadruple, quintuple registrations, and maybe begin to shut down on fraud. There has not been any final determination other than the initial reviews of the secretary of state, but I can tell you, just in St. Louis City and St. Louis County, there was enough evidence of questionable voting that the warning given by the court of appeals in St. Louis should be taken to heart. That is, that it is a significant denial of the right to vote if you have your vote diluted by multiple votes cast by some other person or by votes cast in the name of a nonexistent person. If people are not registered to vote and they are permitted to vote, that is a denial of the right of franchise. This bill takes very significant steps towards curing that. One other thing. The Carter-Ford Commission said all people who register to vote must affirm their citizenship. That seems to be reasonable. I understand that one of the al-Qaida members actually voted in Colorado. A couple more illegal immigrants suspected of being involved with the September 11 activities were registered in Michigan. I don't know whether or not they managed to vote. I guess my favorite, one that was uncovered by the media in St. Louis, was when they looked at the mail-in registrations, they did some groundwork and they focused on Ritzy Mecker. They went to inquire about the whereabouts of Ritzy Mecker. They finally tracked down her owner and found out it was a mixed-breed dog. I don't know what Ritzy's preference in the election was. I don't know whether Ritzy was a Democrat or a Republican. Maybe she voted a split ticket; I don't know. But the kind of thing that went on there is a kind of Ritzy Mecker-voting system. We want people who are adults, U.S. citizens, not felons, registered to vote, to be able to cast one vote, but the people who don't fall in that category should not be voting. And the dogs that don't fall in that category should not be voting. One of my dear friends in State government when I served there, Tom Villa, his father was a legendary alderman, Red Villa, Albert ``Red'' Villa, legendary; he died in the early 1990s. But in this most wonderful of seasons, I can tell you that he came back to register for the 2000 election. Does your heart good to know that, yes, you can come back from the dead and register. We would like to see the photo ID of those people who have registered to make sure they have not departed us. As I said some time ago, I like dogs. I have a great respect for the dearly departed. But I really don't think they ought to vote. When we talked about the fraud in the city of St. Louis, another good friend of mine, State representative Quincy Troupe, talking about the danger he saw in the primary of illegal registration, said about St. Louis: The only way you can win a close election in this town is to beat the cheat. Time is long gone when we ought to have to ask candidates for office to beat the cheat if they want to hold office. This legislation we have crafted will be worked on in the Chamber. I imagine it will be worked over good, and we may be able to improve on it. But as my colleague from Kentucky said: We have hashed out a lot of these issues. I hope we can explain what we have done to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle so we can get strong support. It is incumbent on us and the time is now. We have come to this place after a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that we and our staffs have put in, and I thank the staffs of my colleagues, my colleague from New York, Senator Schumer; my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Torricelli; their staffs. I thank particularly my chief of staff Julie Dammann and my counsel Jack Bartling. I haven't seen them for 3 months. I am looking forward to having them back in the normal office business after the Christmas recess. I hope that the mutually worked on effort is going to produce something that will be a real present for all Americans in this holy season. I thank my colleagues. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, as a member of the conference committee, we spent nearly 6 months crafting this bill. I am pleased to rise in support of this landmark legislation which leaves no child behind. As many of my colleagues have already mentioned, this bill provides the most comprehensive education reform since 1965. I take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the leader on our side, the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, and the manager of the bill, the chairman of the committee, the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy. Their tireless work to bring this bill to the Senate has placed comprehensive education reform within reach of all students across the country. Too many children in America are segregated by low expectations, illiteracy, and self-doubt. In a constantly changing world that demands increasingly complex skills from its workforce, children are being left behind. Over the years, we have empowered the Federal Government and faceless bureaucrats while burying our educators and schools in regulation, redtape, mandates, and endless paperwork. As a result, we have disenfranchised educators and slowly eroded the opportunity for creativity and innovation at the local level. At last count, the Federal Government had 760 different education programs operating within 39 different agencies, boards, and commissions. Each was launched as a step toward reform, but each new program comes with added regulation and paperwork. By one estimate, compliance consumes 50 million hours each year, the equivalent of 25,000 full-time employees just to process the forms. Ask the teacher who has to deal with 760 programs, or the administrator who has to handle it, just how much this detailed reform and direction from Washington has helped them focus on their children. In my State they will say ``not one bit.'' Today, nearly 70 percent of low-income fourth graders are unable to read at a basic level. Our high school seniors trail students of most industrialized nations on international math tests. Nearly a third of our college freshmen must take a remedial course before they are able to begin college level courses. This is why President Bush has chosen education reform as a cornerstone of his administration. This conference report reflects an agenda that President Bush outlined during his first days in office. It emphasizes flexibility, local control, accountability, literacy, and parental involvement. I am honored to have had a hand in shaping that policy. Parental involvement, early childhood, and parents as teachers are issues I have worked with a long time. I am pleased the principles of my direct check for education were included in the legislation. Over the years, I have worked with Missouri educators to develop the direct check approach to education reform, which consolidates Federal education programs, cuts Federal strings and paperwork, and sends the money directly to local school districts. Like my direct check proposal, this conference report recognizes that educational reform and progress will take place in the classrooms in America, not in Washington, DC. This report consolidates a myriad of existing Federal programs and allows States and local school districts to make decisions on their own, to determine their priorities. By reducing the mandates, as well as the costly and time-consuming paperwork that local school districts must endure to obtain Federal grants and funding, parents and teachers are empowered to take back control of educating our Nation's children. To me, the issue is simple. We must empower our States and local school districts with flexibility to utilize the limited amount of Federal resources as they best see fit to educate our children. This conference report does just that. Local schools will immediately be given the flexibility they need, where they are most needed, because a school in Joplin, MO, may have different needs than one in Hannibal, Kansas City, St. Louis, or Boonville, MO. Some schools need new teachers. Others may need new textbooks or computers, or wish to begin an after-school program. We simply cannot continue to ask teachers and local schools to meet higher expectations without empowering them with the freedom and flexibility to do the job. This legislation strikes a delicate balance. It keeps the Federal Government out of the day-to-day operations of local schools; gives States and school districts more authority and freedom; and requires performance in return. Education, while a national priority, remains a local responsibility. I believe that those who know the names of the students are better at making decisions than bureaucrats at the Department of Education. Parents, teachers, local school boards are the key to true education reform, not big government, Washington-based educational bureaucracy. In addition to giving local schools more control, I am pleased this conference report recognizes parental involvement and increases resources to our very successful Parents as Teachers Program which we hope to provide to every State in the Nation as well as foreign countries. It strengthens accountability, it provides the necessary funds to attract and retain quality teachers, and develops literacy programs to guarantee all students will be able to read by the third grade. With its emphasis on the child rather than the bureaucracy, this legislation offers an opportunity to make real progress in our schools. The great Missourian Mark Twain said: Out of public schools grows the greatness of a nation. One-sixth of the American population is enrolled in public schools. The content and quality of their education will determine the character of our country. I thank the managers of this bill for their courtesy to me as well as for their great work over the 6 months in bringing this conference report to the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I ask my good friend from Iowa if he has read on page 4, line 13: Limitation.--The President shall not reverse, preclude, or amend an agency action that is necessary to protect-- (A) human health; (B) safety; or (C) national security. The manager has raised an excellent question. I believe we have totally addressed it in this bill. Further, the President, before he takes action, must find that it is in the public interest. I believe the protection is built in.

Mr. BOND. I ask my colleague to read the provisions in the amendment that describe the congressional notification and congressional review, beginning on line 19 of page 4, ``Reversal preclusion, or amendment of any agency action . . . shall be subject to section 802 of title 5, United States Code.'' We did not spell it out there, but that is the expedited congressional review procedure. Again, I apologize for the way this is drafted. Legislative counsel has said to get to expedited congressional review on page 4, lines 19 through 22, do that job.

Mr. BOND. Being in no worse position than I am now makes me think of the eighth place Cardinal hitter who was facing Kurt Schilling. It is not a very attractive spot. But we will take our swings in any event.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to Senator Thomas.

Mr. BOND. The President, under this law, can only act after an agency action has become final and the President is directed to take into account the public record because the agency action could not be taken under the APA without a public record. That is why we specify it must take into account the public record, the one that was developed in the issuance of the regulation which is subject to the President's discretionary review.

Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair. Last night I laid down an amendment which I think enhances this farm bill and focuses on what is important for agriculture. We have had a lot of discussion about how we have to help farm families. Clearly, they are struggling. This country has been in a recession for about 15 months. We have been under attack by terrorists for about 3 months. But farmers across this country and their families and those with whom they work closely know they have been in recession for 4 or 5 years. The collapse of the overseas agricultural markets has driven prices down. That is why, among other things, it is vitally important that this body pass trade promotion legislation because we must get those markets back. In the meantime, we look for things we can do to assist farmers. We are going to send them financial assistance. In the last several years as they have suffered from low prices, we have provided very significant amounts of money to help fill in the void left by low market prices. We can do research for them. Research in new ways of doing business made our farmers continually more productive. We must be sure adequate transportation exists. In the heartland that means keeping the vital waterways of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers open to transportation so we can have economical and efficient ways of getting our farm products to market. But there is one thing farmers tell me they are concerned about, perhaps more than anything else. While they are concerned about the weather, they understand you cannot change that. They are concerned about crops and pests and their interaction. They are concerned about markets. As I said, markets have been down. But the one thing that really frustrates them is that too often our Government seems to have farmers in their sights. They want to accomplish all kinds of good purposes, but they want the farmers to do it. The farmers who control much of the land of the United States are the ones to whom the Federal Government says: We would like to see this done, and we will have you, the farmers, who are trying to earn your living off the land, make the changes that we think are good policy whether it be environmental policy, whether it be economic or income distribution policy, or whether it be food policy. Some farmers tell me that they spend more time preparing for public hearings than they spend on their combines. The amendment before us today says farmers are going to get a chance to have an advocate at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We all know that regulatory requirements are necessary. They often carry out the purposes that have been approved by the Congress. They are authorized by law, but the problem is sometimes the regulatory agencies that are trying to carry out those purposes know nothing about agriculture or farming or how the individual farmer trying to earn a living for himself or herself and their families is affected by it. We are trying through this amendment to give the USDA the responsibility and the tools to help farmers who are being oppressed. This is a life preserver thrown to farmers whose livelihood or safety is threatened by bad Federal regulations. I introduced last night two letters with lengthy endorsements from farm and agricultural organizations, nationally and from my home State of Missouri. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Grassley, Enzi, Hagel, and Miller as cosponsors. I hope we will have more who will come to the floor and be willing to speak on behalf of this legislation once they understand its importance. Let me go through the legislation very briefly. It is unlike the rest of the farm bill. A lot of people are still trying to read through the 900 pages of the original farm bill and 900-plus pages of the amendment that was dropped on us. This one is easy. It says the Secretary may review any agency action proposed by a Federal agency to determine whether the action would likely have a significant adverse economic impact on or jeopardize the personal safety of agricultural producers--farmers. If the Secretary determines that it is likely to have such a significant adverse impact, the Secretary, No. 1, shall consult with the agency head, call him up on the phone, and talk with him; No. 2, advise the agency head on alteratives to the agency action which would be least likely to have a significant economic impact or jeopardize personal safety. Then, if after a proposed agency action is finalized the Secretary thinks it would have a significant adverse impact described above, the Secretary may defer to the President, who not later than 60 days after the date on which the action is finalized reviews the determination of the Secretary. The President can reverse, preclude, or amend the agency action if the President determines that overturning that action is necessary to prevent the adverse economic impact and is in the public interest. In considering this, the President takes into account the public record, competing economic interests, and the purposes of agency action. The President may not overturn an agency action that is necessary to protect human health, safety, or national security, significantly limiting his options. If the President chooses to overturn an agency action, the President has to notify Congress of the decision and submit a detailed justification. Congress then has the opportunity to review the action under the expedited procedures set forth in the bill which I was very pleased to sponsor back in 1996, the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, which provides for expedited review in the Senate without the chance of filibuster. By majority vote in both Houses, the President's action overturning any of these adverse impact agency regulations could be reviewed. That seems to me to give the President the power to step in. It is my intention to provide, first, the Secretary of Agriculture with the responsibility of looking for these agency actions that may have an adverse impact, calling them to the attention of that agency head, and working to resolve the problems so the objectives of the proposed regulation can be achieved without imposing the burdens that the Secretary believes would be unnecessarily inflicted on farmers. If that does not work, then the President has the discretion to resolve disputes and say in this instance the public would better be served if we overturned this regulation and issued a new one. This amendment should force USDA to be more aggressive in protecting and fighting for farmers. It should help make other agencies more responsive to the needs of farmers. We can help families with $170 billion in spending that we are talking about here today. But if we really care about them, and if we really care about their economic contributions, the social value of farm families, and certainly their contribution to feeding our Nation, protecting our food security, and our national security, then we ought to provide that the agency designed to serve farmers has the power and the responsibility to speak up for farmers to ensure that they are not overrun by an unthinking, ill-considered undertaking and ill-considered action. We protect the blind mussels or other endangered species. We ought to be concerned about a farm community being threatened or endangered. I think this gives the farmers some limited leverage in assuring that they are protected. It will not be necessary very often for the President to intervene once people know he has that power because agencies should, with this mandate to the Secretary of Agriculture, work out the problems in advance. This Presidential discretion which can be reviewed on an expedited basis by the President is a fail-safe mechanism. This country has been in a recession for 15 months. We have given the President broad discretionary power since September 11 to conduct war and fight crime. We have appropriated tens of billions of dollars to help restore the strength of this country. We tried to help the airlines, and we are pursuing an economic stimulus package. Parenthetically, we absolutely must pass legislation to shore up the insurance agencies to provide assurance that terrorism insurance will be available. We will have a major shutdown in our economy if we don't get that done. I urge the majority leader to take this up immediately because we may be finding ourselves without insurance as of January 1 if we don't. I urge him to go back to the bipartisan measure worked out by the leaders of the banking committee and to pursue that legislation. To go back to the farmers, as part of the stimulus we are going to provide assistance to the unemployed. We should recognize that farm families in rural America have been in a recession for 4 years. One of the things we can do in addition to providing dollars is to give them some protection from their Government. That is something they told me. If you ask the farmers in your State, I assure you that you will be told it is vitally important. There is a challenge, limited as it is, that when resource issues affect farms and their families, it is OK for the Government to fight for the farmers. In the past, the fight has always been one-sided against the farmers. In this instance, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment and send a message to farmers that we believe farmers are worthy of protection. We want the Government to make every sensible attempt to act as an advocate. We believe the USDA should be active and visible in fighting for farmers. We believe that the President and the Congress are capable of this and can be trusted with the public interest. This says to the administration that farmers don't always have to be at the bottom of the food chain. I urge support of the amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, may I inquire what is the pending business?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I have no objection to that. We have held discussions. I believe the majority side will propound a second-degree amendment. I have personally no objection to that. But there will be a vote up or down on the amendment I have provided. Perhaps at that time, if less than 60 days have elapsed, we will ask for 2 minutes on each side so the distinguished manager from Iowa may reiterate his objection. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, we intend to get a vote on this one way or the other. We would like to do it. I think we can save everybody a lot of trouble if the majority side has an amendment on which they wish to vote. They can get that up first. I would have no objection to doing that if they will then give us an up-or-down vote on my amendment.

Mr. BOND. The definition of agricultural producer on page 2 is the owner or operator of a small or medium-sized farm or ranch.

Mr. BOND. That would be up to the Secretary of Agriculture or the President to decide. It is not large. There are large corporate farms in the State of the Senator from Iowa, my State, and the State of the Chair. I think the Supreme Court said it well in describing obscenity: You know one when you see one, and it is not going to be a specific farmer or rancher who comes in. This is going to have to be a judgment made by the Secretary of Agriculture who has to defend his or her judgment based on how generally it affects small and medium-sized farms and ranches, not the large ranches, and I think that test is adequate. I do not think one needs to have the technical definition of so many acres or so many hundreds of thousand dollars.

Mr. BOND. Not later than 60 days.

Mr. BOND. I yield myself such time as I may require. I welcome the distinguished majority assistant leader. He came in after we had the discussions. We have clarified the issue of whether any safety regulations can be waived. Explicitly, this law says he may not waive where safety regulations are imposed. It also includes human health or national security. Now, the distinguished majority whip has pointed out this somehow overrides the power of agencies. We don't elect agencies, we elect a President and we elect a Congress. The power exercised in the agencies is delegated by the President to the agencies. This is Presidential power. We are seeking in this law simply to say when one of these agents of the President does something that is really stupid, that is really bad, that hurts farmers, the Secretary of Agriculture can say: Mr. President, you must look at this action. And he only has 60 day to do it. There are limitations. He cannot overturn where human health, safety, or the national security interests are involved. Then he can go back and tell the person to whom he delegated the power to make the regulation, to carry out the law in the first place: You have to do it differently. Not only is he limited, but this law says Congress can use expedited congressional review to overturn his decision. This is strictly limited. The President does not even have the power in this provision that the Director of Fish and Wildlife has to stop things that farmers want to do or that transportation officials want to do. Incidentally, we checked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There is no advocacy counsel in Agriculture as there is in SBA, for small businesses. So this is giving the Secretary of Agriculture the responsibility we think should have been there in the first place, narrowly circumscribing the powers the President has to overturn it. As my good friend from Nevada is leaving, I might say if he wishes to offer a second-degree amendment, obviously we would vote on that. But we intend to keep coming back to get a vote on this one as well. I will be happy to work with him. If he has other ideas he wants to put up as a second-degree amendment, that is fine. But we will do our best to make sure we have an up-or-down vote on this amendment. With that, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BOND. My friend from Nevada makes a very reasonable request. I will be happy to have side-by-side votes. I have no objection to setting this aside. I need to check with the ranking member. But personally I have no objection so long as we can have side-by-side votes. I will defer to the ranking member.

Mr. BOND. I understand my colleague's concern about action taken 5 years later. Will my friend look at page 3 and read lines 8 through 10? Does that language not say: If, after a proposed agency action is finalized, the Secretary determines that the agency action would be likely to have a significant adverse economic impact on or jeopardize the safety of agricultural producers, the President may, not later than 60 days after the date on which the agency action is finalized, review the determination of the Secretary; reverse, preclude. I believe the language is specific, and I appreciate my colleague directing his attention to that.

Mr. BOND. Is the language not clear?

Mr. BOND. I ask the time be charged equally.

Mr. BOND. May I inquire----

Mr. BOND. Madam President, may I call the attention of my friend and colleague to the top of page 4 which says that before the President takes any action in conducting a review, ``the President shall consider (A) the determination of the Secretary under subsection (c)(1)--this is on page 4--``(B) the public record.'' The public record is there. The President has to consider the public record that was developed by the agency in the process of issuing the regulation. The public record must have in it all the information, and the President can only act after consideration of that public record.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, this doesn't change in any way the powers of Congress. As a matter of fact, it gives Congress a new power for expedited congressional review.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I yield myself such time as I may require. First, before I get into the discussion of this amendment, which I think is very important, I want to add an earthly endorsement to the holy blessings that our Chaplain just brought upon our very good friend and colleague, Senator Barbara Mikulski. It is a great honor she receives today. We all rejoice with her. She has been an outstanding Member of this body, one whose compassion, commitment, and good humor have seen us through many difficult times. As one who has had the pleasure of working with her on the Veterans Affairs, HUD, Independent Agencies appropriations subcommittee, I can tell you there is no finer, more dedicated servant in the Senate. It is with great joy that we congratulate her on the very outstanding and generous award made to her today by the land of her forefathers, the Government of Poland. With that, we say good wishes and congratulations, Barbara. It is a well deserved honor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Madam President, a couple of months ago I never thought I would say I am glad to see Curt Schilling again. We saw far too much of him as a Cardinal fan. We congratulate the Diamondbacks on an outstanding year, a great victory and, as I think they used to say in Brooklyn, wait until next year we look forward to renewing the contest. The Diamondbacks were magnificent and, yes, I guess I am even glad to see Curt Schilling.