Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, December 18, 2007, in room S-216 of the Capitol at a time to be determined in order to hold a business meeting to consider the following items: pending General Services Administration Resolutions; S. 862, a bill to designate the Federal building located at 210 Walnut Street in Des Moines, Iowa, as the ``Neal Smith Federal Building,'' S. 1189, a bill to designate the Federal building and U.S. Courthouse located at 100 East 8th Avenue in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as the ``George Howard, Jr. Federal Building and United States Courthouse''; and H.R. 735, a bill to designate the Federal building under construction at 799 First Avenue in New York, New York, as the ``Ronald H. Brown United States Mission to the United Nations Building''. Pending nominations: Kristine L. Svinicki, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Gregory B. Jaczko, of the District of Columbia, to be a Member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, December 18, 2007, at 3:30 p.m. in order to consider the nomination of Steven H. Murdock to be Director, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Executive Branch Nominations'' on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Witness List Ondray T. Harris, to be Director, Community Relations Service, Department of Justice; David W. Hagy, to be Director of the National Institute of Justice, Department of Justice; Scott M. Burns, to be Deputy Director of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President; Cynthia Dyer, to be Director of the Violence Against Women Office, Department of Justice; and Nathan J. Hochman, to be an Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, Department of Justice.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Further, when such a list is made, I ask Senator Dodd or the majority leader to please place me on the list for a 15-minute timeframe on his amendment and a broader statement.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, if it is in order, I would like to start and talk for 10 minutes. I would like to make my remarks on the issue that is pending.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I strongly support bringing the Judiciary Committee version of the FISA bill before us. That is why I voted not to proceed to take up the Intelligence Committee bill. I did not cast that vote lightly because, as the Chair knows, I want to get the terrorists. I voted to go after Osama bin Laden. I voted to go after al-Qaida after they attacked us. I have voted to give this President every penny he needed to go ahead and capture Osama bin Laden. To date, much to my dismay and the dismay of the American people, we haven't captured bin Laden, who engineered the attack against our Nation. We have not caught him dead, we have not caught him alive. But we did capture Saddam Hussein, who didn't attack us on 9/11. We did get into a war we cannot get out of, thanks to the President and his backers, who have gotten us into a position where there is no way out and no end in sight. But capture bin Laden? No. I will never give up hope on that. I will give our country all the tools it needs to get him and the others who have harmed us and who want to harm us in the future. That is our most sacred responsibility and duty. But if we are not careful, if we are not prudent, if we are not honest about what we are doing here, we give bin Laden exactly what he wants, Mr. President: a country that scares its people rather than a country that protects its people, a country that takes away the rights of its people out of fear. Former Justice Thurgood Marshall said: History teaches us that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to ignore. Now, what makes America so great? It is that we have been a guiding light to the world because we have been a strong nation in all ways, and a strong nation protects the rights of its citizens, while a weak nation, a fearful nation, a nation that lives in fear, abdicates those rights. We see it around the world. Let us never see it here. We have an understanding here in America that the need for security must always be balanced against the rights of the people. Once we lose that precious balance, we are giving the terrorists exactly what they want. We cannot and we must not ever lose that precious balance. If freedom and liberty become nothing more than just hollow words, then when we try to lead the world, we will simply not have the moral high ground. We have seen this happen in our great Nation in so many areas, and we cannot today, or during the next couple of days, allow this Nation, with our permission, to look at the rights of our people and take them lightly. I quote another Supreme Court Justice, one of my heroines, Sandra Day O'Connor: It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad. ``We must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.'' When President Bush announced his foreign policy--I will never forget it--he said we need to bring democracy around the world. We need to bring freedom around the world. We need to stop the despots of the world from taking away the freedoms the people have. Yet here at home they are destroying tapes, at home they are listening in on Americans without a warrant. What is in the judiciary version of the bill that makes it much better than the intelligence version, and why was I so proud to stand with only 10 of my colleagues? I thank Senator Dodd for his leadership on this issue. That is a hard vote. Here is why. The judiciary version of the bill requires at least one specific individual target in order to begin bulk collection of international communications. You need to name one target; that is what the Judiciary Committee is saying. You just don't go on a fishing expedition. We have seen those kinds of fishing expeditions before. We have seen people herded up before. We cannot do that now, not in this century; not in this century when we are fighting bin Laden and we are fighting the forces that want to take away freedom. Second, it requires a FISA Court order to continue surveillance when a call involves U.S. citizens. That is called a check and balance. That is essential to our freedom. Third, it allows the FISA Court to decide whether surveillance continues while the Government appeals a decision against a proposed surveillance program. That is another example of check and balance. Human beings are flawed, and when all the power resides in one or two of them, we need to have a check and balance. By the way, check and balance is one of the centerpieces of our freedom, of our Constitution. In this particular area of the law, we ought to make sure it is built in. The Judiciary bill provides ongoing FISA Court supervision, including audits of surveillance programs. Again, a check and balance. And then, of course, there is the issue on which Senator Dodd has been such a leader, and that is the issue of immunity, immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the administration's warrantless surveillance program. Let me point out that there were some companies that did not go along with it. Let's not be led to believe that every company rolled over and said: Here, have at it. There were some that stood up for the law, the law that was supposed to guide them. There were some that stood up for the American people, and I thank them. To the others, what I say to them is this--I understand why they might not have stood up, but we have to get to the bottom of this issue. We cannot go around giving people immunity when they turn their backs on the rule of law. Granting immunity without fully understanding whether Americans were spied upon in a warrantless surveillance program is irresponsible because of this reason: Congress and the American people will be blocked from finding out the truth about the warrantless program. We may not find out for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. That is wrong. The American people deserve to know the truth. Again, I take it to what we are as a nation. We are a free people. Our people deserve to be protected. The ones who are bad apples deserve to be caught and face the music. We need to find a law that seeks that balance and gets that balance. I think the Judiciary Committee did that beautifully, and I wish that was the bill in front of us now. That is why I voted not to proceed to the Intelligence Committee version. Having said this, I hope we can work together and improve the Intelligence Committee bill. The Intelligence Committee version of the bill with telecom immunity puts the interests of the telecom companies ahead of the rights of the American people. In closing, this is a watershed moment for us. Why do I say that? I heard Senator Sessions come down and give a very eloquent speech. He said, ``The civil''--I am quoting him now--``The civil libertarians among us''--and then he listed all the bad things he thinks the civil libertarians among us have done. I hope every one of us--every one of us in this Chamber--supports the civil liberties of the United States of America because if you don't, you don't believe in the Constitution. That is where we get these rights. We need a FISA bill that will help us continue to track the terrorists without surrendering our rights and our liberties, and this can be done. I hope we can get a coalition together and amend this Intelligence Committee bill in a way that will do just that. We need a bill that closes loopholes in FISA that clearly have been created by advancements in technology. I understand that. But we also need a FISA bill that, while it allows us to go after the bad guys, has proper checks and balances within it. We need a bill that will improve FISA Court oversight of our foreign surveillance programs without hindering our ability to protect our country. We can do that. I believe the Judiciary Committee version of the FISA bill accomplishes these goals. We don't have to create it here. They did an excellent job. It seems to me to throw out all their work would be a big error. Finally, my point: It is so ironic and sad to me that we are losing our beautiful young people, and, by the way, not so young, some from the National Guard who are in their thirties and forties and older. We are losing them every day over in Iraq. Why? Ask the President to answer that question. He will be quick to answer it eloquently. To bring freedom and democracy, bring freedom and democracy, bring freedom and democracy. If you feel that way, Mr. President, and those who support him and have given him a blank check, then let's protect it at home in a way that allows us to go after those who will do us harm if we are not careful, and yet protects the very essence of our Nation, the very freedom of our Nation, the very essence of our Constitution that has brought us to this point where the world envies our freedom and democracy. To give it up for politics or sound bites or 30-second commercials on television would be a dereliction of our most sacred duty. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry, if I might. I wonder, is there a unanimous consent request regarding speakers postcloture at this point?

Mrs. BOXER. I would like to know this, if I may ask a question to Senator Dodd. He, at this point, is objecting to a 60-vote requirement, and therefore the regular order would be to have people speak on the motion to proceed; is that correct?

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I may yield the remainder of my hour postcloture to Senator Dodd.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like the record to reflect that I would have voted in favor of the FHA Modernization Act today. California has been at the epicenter of the current foreclosure crisis, and this bill will provide new, safe, and secure financing opportunities both for homeowners currently trapped in abusive loans that are scheduled to reset at rates they no longer can afford, as well as for future borrowers seeking alternatives to the risky and exotic loans that many turned to or were steered toward in the absence of a viable FHA product. Among its most important features, the bill would raise the current limit on loans the FHA will insure from $362,000 to $417,000. In California, where the third quarter median home price was over $568,000, the ability to access FHA loans has virtually disappeared. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, California, which previously led the Nation in FHA loan usage, has seen its FHA loan volume drop from 109,074 in 2001 to just 2,599 in 2006, a decline of 98 percent and a loss of $13.6 billion. While the increase in the loan limit provided by this bill will provide welcome relief, the House version goes even farther, permitting the FHA to insure mortgages equal to 125 percent of the median area home price or 175 percent of the Freddie Mac conforming loan limit, whichever is lower. The House bill also would give the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development the authority to raise the new insurance limit by as much as $100,000 ``if market conditions warrant.'' For California and other high cost areas, this increase would further enable borrowers to avoid the type of nontraditional and frequently abusive loans that have gotten us into our current mess, and I will be urging conferees to support the higher limits. Today, however, it is important to recognize the significant step that the Senate has taken in overwhelmingly passing this bill as we seek to restore stability to the housing market and bring assistance to the more than 2 million Americans at risk of losing their homes.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I would like the record to reflect that I would have voted for the Senate farm bill today. The bill produced by Senator Harkin's Agriculture Committee takes many positive steps to level the playing field in American agriculture by recognizing the importance of specialty crops to the Nation's economy. California is the Nation's largest agricultural State, with more than 350 different crops worth $32 billion per year. Yet our State has been largely overlooked when it comes to the billions in Federal support for agriculture. The Senate bill provides important funding for programs that will benefit California's growers, ranchers, consumers, and families. I first would like to thank Chairman Harkin for including a number of provisions I authored into the farm bill. The bill includes a version of the Pollinator Protection Act and provides $100 million over 5 years for high-priority research dedicated to maintaining and protecting our honey bee and native pollinator populations. There has been a loss of about 25 percent of the Nation's honey bee population, and it is estimated that crops that depend on a healthy bee population are valued near $18 billion, and these funds will help give scientists the resources they need to determine the causes of colony collapse disorder and to work on protecting bee health. The bill also includes my Early Pest Detection and Surveillance Act, and authorizes $200 million over 5 years to give USDA the authority to enter into cooperative funding agreements with States to enhance their pest detection and surveillance programs, increase inspections at domestic points of entry, and create pest eradication and prevention programs. With the assistance of consumer groups and labor unions, I was able to negotiate a compromise that prevented a rollback of 40-year-old meat inspection laws. The House version of the farm bill included dangerous language that would have threatened the safety of meat and poultry, but working with Senator Harkin, we were able to reach a compromise that protects the integrity of the federal meat inspection process. I also worked with Chairman Harkin to include an avocado marketing order agreement, a $2 million authorization for a National study on biofuels infrastructure, language prioritizing edible schoolyards programs in schools under the Community Foods Program, and a $15 million asparagus market loss program. The Senate also accepted two important amendments that I offered to the bill during floor consideration. The first amendment provides USDA with a framework under the existing Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, to allocate funds toward air quality mitigation efforts in agricultural communities with poor air quality. In rural areas around the country, smog and soot are threatening public health, fouling communities, and reducing crop productivity from pollution generated on farms. This amendment will provide farmers in high-priority agricultural areas with the tools to adopt new practices that reduce air pollution on farms. The Klamath River Basin and the Sacramento/San Joaquin watershed have been identified by conservation groups as being watersheds most in need of watershed assistance programs. The Senate accepted an amendment that recognizes these areas in California, as well as a number of other regional watersheds throughout the country, and prioritizes funding for these watersheds under the Regional Watershed Enhancement Program. This farm bill provides a significant amount of new funding for programs important to the specialty crops industry. Specialty crops now account for nearly 50 percent of the Nation's farm gate, and this bill recognizes the industry's importance. Included in the Senate bill is mandatory funding for specialty crops block grants, organic farmers, farmers market programs, trade assistance and foreign market access programs, the community foods program, and important specialty crops and organics research. The bill also provides $1.1 billion in funding for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program, expanding participation in the program to all 50 States. This program provides a critically important strategy in the fight to prevent and reduce childhood obesity by providing 4.5 million low-income elementary schoolchildren in 5,000 schools nationwide the ability to receive a fresh fruit or vegetable snack every day at school. Numerous studies have indicated that eating fruits and vegetables can prevent cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension, in addition to obesity. Yet less than one out of every six children eats the USDA recommended amount of fresh fruit, and only one out of five children eats the recommended amount of vegetables. The funding included in the farm bill will ensure that schools in California and in every State in the Nation can implement this important child nutrition program. Also included in the nutrition title are provisions that update and modernize the food stamp assistance program. Updates to food stamp assistance, like ending benefit erosion, increasing minimum benefit amounts, and simplifying income reporting for seniors and the disabled, are long overdue and will help provide more assistance to disadvantaged families. The Emergency Food Assistance Program also receives an important funding increase to $250 million per year, which will allow the Nation's food banks to have more of an impact on those in need. The farm bill also provides an important opportunity to protect the Nation's natural resources and its open space. Farmers can enroll in a number of conservation programs that allow them to provide habitat protection for native species, protect wetlands and grasslands, and undertake initiatives to make their farms more environmentally friendly. But the last farm bill has not done enough to provide farmers with the resources they need to fully participate in conservation activities. In 2004, California had a $143 million backlog in payments and enrollments in conservation programs due to lack of funding and acreage caps. An average of 4,000 farmers and landowners in California are rejected each year when they apply to USDA conservation programs. Sixty-eight percent of California's farmers seeking EQIP funding turned away. Nationwide, $18 billion worth of conservation applications have gone unfunded during the life of the 2002 farm bill. As a result of not enough funding for conservation programs, California is rapidly losing thousands of acres of farmland and open space. Ninety-five percent of the wetlands in the Central Valley have been lost, and 171,000 acres of farmland were lost in California from 2002 to 2004. The Senate bill takes important steps to provide farmers with more access to conservation programs, but I was disappointed that during consideration of the bill on the Senate floor, amendments to provide more funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program did not pass. The farm bill also authorizes a number of programs that will benefit California's rural communities, such as low-interest loans to rural electric cooperatives for renewable energy production and grants and loan guarantees to develop broadband access in rural areas. Lastly, I am pleased that the bill contains over $1 billion in investments for farm-based energy, including the development of cellulosic ethanol. While corn ethanol has proven to be a useful alternative fuel, I worry about its impact on corn prices related to the livestock industry, especially in light of the fact that alternative fuels can be created by a number of other agricultural sources, many of which are produced in California. The farm bill takes steps to provide incentives for the development of cellulosic ethanol. This farm bill is important for California's farmers, families, and for the State's economy, and I am pleased to be supporting it.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Inouye for all of his hard work, Senators Stevens, Bingaman, and Domenici. I could go on. I speak as a Senator from California. I also speak as the chairman of the EPW Committee and say this is a very good moment for the Senate. I see my ranking member here, Senator Inhofe. Four of the provisions in this bill we worked on together in the committee. I think we are both very pleased with them. This has been a long and winding road, as the song says. But here we are with a bill that I believe is very strong. I certainly am disappointed, because I think it should have been much stronger. To think that we could not get the 60 votes to ensure that solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal had tax incentives makes me sad. A simple part of that was also rejected that dealt with the renewable portfolio standard that makes a lot of sense and works in California. I think it would have worked. We are not going to give up on any of that. But we will fight for those another day. Today we should take a moment to say, good job. Good job to all of us to get to this moment. I want to talk a minute about the four provisions of the EPW that are in this bill. Green buildings, new Federal buildings will be energy efficient, will be green. As part of that we also passed a separate piece of legislation to retrofit the older buildings. We did it in a very simple way. We say in all of GSA buildings we want an individual responsible for retrofitting those buildings, and we will give grants to local governments to retrofit their government buildings as well. There is also a part in this bill dedicated to funding a solar wall on the Department of Energy so the Department of Energy becomes a symbol of renewable energy. There is a pilot project for the Capitol powerplant so we can get clean energy there as well. I thank Erik Olson, Bettina Poirier from the EPW Committee staff, and the minority staff as well, Andrew Wheeler and his team for all of their hard work. I have already thanked Senator Inhofe. Very special thanks to Senators Feinstein, Snowe, Dorgan, Carper, Cantwell, and to our chairman Senator Inouye, again, for their hard work on CAFE. I am also pleased that the Federal fleet of cars will now move to fuel efficiency. I don't know how many people are aware, but we buy 60,000 new cars a year for the Federal fleet, and it makes so much sense for us to go out in that marketplace and move toward fuel efficiency and fuel economy. In this bill, we have renewable fuels, fuel efficiency, green buildings. It is a great start. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend very much. I thank the chairman very much as well. Senator Bond has filed an amendment to the farm bill that I hope the President sitting in the chair will listen to me about, because it would undercut crucial food safety, health, environment, consumer protection, and other laws, most of which come out of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I am not going to go into it now, because it will be gone into later. But it would stop agencies such as the EPA from adopting or retaining safeguards for the American public. It is opposed by the following: AFL-CIO, the American Lung Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Consumer Federation, the Sierra Club, the Alliance for Justice, the National Audubon Society, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Humane Society, and many others. It would require a complex, burdensome, and unnecessary regulatory analysis by Federal agencies. It would impose a maze of ``regulatory flexibility,'' and all kinds of analyses so that it would stop us from moving forward to ensure our laws such as Clean Air, Safe Drinking Water, Clean Water, and Wholesome Meat and the Wholesome Poultry Products Act. I simply flag this for colleagues who care about food safety, who care about clean water and safe drinking water, and hope we will have a resounding ``no'' vote or perhaps Senator Bond might rethink his amendment. It gives special treatment to virtually any industry with even tenuous connections to agriculture in rulemakings. It gives special treatment to all ``agricultural entities,'' defined so broadly as to include virtually any industry with any arguable connection to agriculture or forestry, such as the food processing corporations, pesticide companies, railroads, paper mills, shipping companies, and truck and tractor manufacturers. It gives agribusiness corporations a special private right to privately comment on and seek to weaken Federal protections. The amendment creates a special process, only applicable to EPA and the Department of the Interior rules in which only agricultural industry representatives get inside information and a private chance to lobby against potential new agency rules before the proposal becomes public. This could allow large corporations to delay or kill vital environmental and health protections against toxic pesticides, water or air pollution, and other important threats. It creates a new lobbying/litigation shop at USDA to advocate for agribusiness. This new ``Chief Council for Advocacy'' would lobby agencies and even file amicus briefs in litigation challenging agency rules. It provides special new special judicial review provisions that only ``agricultural entities'' can use, which would delay or undercut Federal safeguards. It gives special standing to ``agricultural entities'' to sue agencies for failing to comply with most of these requirements. It requires Federal agencies to consider weakening all of its current rules. Every agency must review any rule it has on the books which has, or will have, a ``significant economic impact upon a substantial number of agricultural entities'' to see if ``such rules should be continued without change, or should be amended or rescinded.'' The Bond amendment would keep EPA and other agencies from doing their job to protect the American public. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Bond amendment, SA 3771. It is bad for America's health and bad for our environment.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Harkin for joining me to discuss the important issue of California's sugar allocation. I appreciate his leadership in bringing a farm bill forward for the Senate's consideration.

Mrs. BOXER. That is correct. The sugar marketing allocation formula in the 2002 farm bill took 2.5 percent of the total national allocation away from California because of the closure of sugar refineries in Woodland, CA, and Tracy, CA, between 1998 and 2000. Since that time, there have been numerous other closures, including Bayrd, NE; Greeley, CO; Moses Lake, WA; Carrollton, MI; Nyssa, OR; and Hereford, TX. However, under the current farm bill structure, only California was penalized by downward allocation adjustments due to refinery closures. Refinery closures in California fell within an arbitrary base period in the 2002 farm bill that penalized States that had refinery closures by reducing their allocation. The six other States that have seen refineries close since the arbitrary period ended have not had any allocation taken away.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mrs. BOXER. I ask my good friend if he would yield 1 minute to me to talk about an amendment that is coming later this evening.

Mrs. BOXER. Sugar beets are an important crop for many growers throughout California's San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys. Growers in California want to keep producing sugar beets, but processing refineries in California are in danger of closing if they do not recover the marketing allocation they lost in the last farm bill. If the allocation formula is not corrected to provide California with its fair share, the entire sugar beet industry in my State, with the hundreds of jobs it supports, will be in serious jeopardy. California's sugar beet industry is an important contributor to the economies of the rural communities where they are located. The city of Mendota, located in western Fresno County, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the State, a problem that will certainly be exacerbated by the possible closure of the refinery. The Mendota facility employs 300 full-time workers and as many as 500 to 600 workers when running at full capacity. The importance of the refinery to the local economy becomes clearer when you consider that according to the city's estimate there are 1,767 jobs available in Mendota. At full capacity the refinery accounts for more than one-third of the city's employment base. The farm gate value of sugar beets in California is approximately $66.7 million, and when sugar and the value of its byproducts are included, sugar beets in California contribute $130.8 million annually to the California economy.

Mrs. BOXER. My growers have assured me that if the allocation is there, they will be able to grow the sugar beets necessary to meet the need. They have told me that under the 2002 farm bill, they lost 133,750 tons raw value in allocation and would need near that amount to keep the Mendota refinery open. Senator Harkin, as much as 74,900 tons raw value in allocation is being reassigned this year from sugar cane growers, and another 6,800 tons raw value in allocation is being reassigned from growers in Puerto Rico.

Mrs. BOXER. My growers tell me that they would be willing to purchase the plant from the Southern Minnesota Company. Southern Minnesota would include 64,200 tons raw value of sugar allotment in selling the plant to California sugar beet growers. With a guarantee that Congress would provide 53,500 tons raw value in additional sugar allotment for California equaling a total allocation of approximately 117,000 tons raw value, the purchase of the Mendota refinery by California's sugar beet growers would be economically viable. Since it will take approximately 53,500 tons raw value in additional sugar allotment in California to keep the Mendota refinery in operation, and 81,700 tons raw value is being reassigned from sugarcane growers this year, perhaps it would be possible to assign the necessary amount of excess sugarcane allocation to California in order to keep the Mendota refinery operating.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I was listening to this debate and was looking forward to these amendments on the farm bill, and all of a sudden I am hearing about pregnant women, and having babies, and suing doctors, and I am thinking: What bill are we on? Why on Earth do we have an attack on women in this farm bill? And it is an attack on women in rural areas when you say we are going to have tort reform and we are aiming it at the women in rural America because we don't like the fact that they may sue if there is malpractice. Men often say, well, they are doing things to help women. Watch out when that happens. Men come to this floor and say: Oh, we are going to take care of the women. This doesn't take care of women. This puts them at risk. And they say: Oh, many more doctors will come to work in the rural areas if we limit liability. But look at Texas. What my friend from Colorado mentioned about Texas is untrue. We have the statistics. There are no more doctors in rural Texas after they passed this bill. What has happened is that women have had their rights taken away from them. Now, again, my friends on the Republican side couch this as an attack on the trial lawyers. Oh, the trial lawyers are evil, and all that. Watch out when people say lawyers are evil because when they are in trouble, the first thing they do is call the best lawyer in town. I have seen it myself, right here in the Senate. So watch out when you see a blanket attack on all lawyers. I have to tell you, when a Member on the other side gets in trouble, the first thing they do is call the best lawyer in town, but they want to take away the rights of women to sue in a tragic situation. There are numerous examples that I can talk about, but one example came to my attention for these purposes, just to show people on both sides of the aisle some of the terrible things that do happen in these childbirths. I am a grandmother, twice, and I have to tell you that in both cases--and even when I became a mom, twice--all very difficult; premature births, problems, long labors, concerns, breach babies. These are hard and difficult things. And OB/GYNs are my heroes. They are my heroes. Doctors are my heroes. But doctors make, sometimes, terrible errors, and they have to be held accountable or they will just go on and do it again and again. Now, why would we, on a farm bill, attack the women of rural America and take away their rights? Let's talk about this particular case of Donna Harnett. She happened to be in Chicago. Her doctor decided her labor was not progressing quickly enough, so he prescribed a drug to help induce more contractions. Later, when her labor was not progressing, her doctor broke her water, found it was abnormal, and rather than consider a C-section, the doctor decided to continue to administer the drugs in hopes that the labor would progress. Six hours later she had not delivered. Her son's fetal monitoring system began alarming, indicating the baby was in serious respiratory distress. The doctor finally decided, after all those hours, it was time to perform an emergency C-section, but it was another hour before Donna was taken into the operating room. During that time, the doctor failed to administer oxygen or an IV to help the baby breathe. After the baby was born, he remained in intensive care for 3 weeks, and she later learned he had suffered substantial brain damage and cerebral palsy as a direct result of the doctor's failure to respond to indications of serious oxygen deprivation and delivery in a timely manner. In addition to all that, her doctor told her not to have any more children because she had a problem with her DNA, indicating the fact that the child was disabled was in her DNA. And, he said: Any of your future children would similarly have mental and physical disabilities. Clearly, he was protecting himself in that situation and putting the blame on her. Since then, Donna has given birth to three healthy sons. She sued the doctor responsible for Martin's delivery, and she received a settlement. That settlement is helping her cover the costs associated with Martin's care that are not covered by health insurance, such as the used wheelchair-accessible van she purchased for $50,000 and the $100,000 she spent renovating her home to make it accessible for her loving son. Martin is now 11. He will be at risk for health complications, including a terrifying incident in August when he almost bled to death because his trachea tube had rubbed a hole through an artery. But he survived, and he is able to laugh and to love and to attend school in his community. Now, how would she be able to afford to take care of Martin if she wasn't able to have justice? Donna said: If there had been caps on the recovery system when my son was injured, it would have torn our family apart and Martin would be in an institution. Instead, he is able to live at home with us where we can take care of him and make sure he is happy. Why on Earth do Senators in this body want to tell a woman like that: Too bad, no help, sorry. It is wrong. I have seen it in my own State. It is wrong. It tears families apart. Everyone here says: Oh, we are so family friendly. We have family values. Well, I would like to think we have family values that extend to a woman such as Donna, to a mother such as Donna, to a loving family such as her family, who, yes, wanted to buy a van so it was possible for her to take her son in and to give her son a decent life. You know, I don't want to be a party to a Senate that would tell a woman such as Donna that she is just going to have to suffer for the mistakes of a physician. And let me be clear: I am a fan of physicians. I trust doctors. But, yes, they make mistakes. And when they make mistakes, they have to be held accountable, just as we all do if we are driving and we make a mistake. To put a cap on this and tell a woman such as Donna: Sorry, your son is your problem, when, in fact, the problem was created by medical malpractice, is an outrage--an outrage. Anyone who votes for this amendment is saying to the women in rural America: You don't matter. So they can couch it as an attack on trial lawyers, they can do that all they want, but it is about the woman, the mom, who has been mistreated in this fashion. If we want to deal with issues such as malpractice insurance, count me in. If we want to make sure some made-up case is thrown out of court, I am with you. And, by the way, there are already laws to cover that. But don't come here and say how wonderful you are being to the women of rural America by imposing a cap on what they could collect when they are damaged, when they are made sterile by a mistake, when a child gets brain damage because of a mistake, because of a mixup. That is not right. And don't say: Oh, it is worth doing because you will get more doctors to come into rural America. It isn't happening. The Texas statistics are there, and I will share them with you. In 2003, when Texas passed its law, 152 Texas counties had no obstetrician. Today, 4 years after passage, the number hasn't budged, with 102 Texas counties having no obstetrician. The fact that some rural counties lack OB/GYNs is not a function of malpractice premiums. It is a function of population. The doctors practice where the patients are. So anyone who stands up here and says: Oh, this is great because so many more doctors will come into rural America, the facts don't show that. I can tell you because now that I am of the age of a grandmother, where I see so many of these births with my friends' kids, I can tell you that these births are complicated. We want the best people taking care of our women, whether they are in rural America or urban America or wherever they are. And if there is a tragic mistake, such as the one I related to you--a doctor just ignoring what is happening to the patient, refusing to do a cesarean, depriving the child of oxygen, and then turning around and telling the mother: Oh, it is your fault, it is in your DNA, it wasn't anything I did--and then going and telling a jury, well, even if you find in favor of this woman, you cap what she can get--You are consigning that family to a life of tragedy, because the mother in the case I talked about wouldn't be able to have the people in her home to help her with her son. And she had three other healthy babies. How dare that physician try to pin his malpractice on her, tell her she better not have any more kids. She had three more healthy kids. So I stand here, Mr. President, as a Senator but also as a mom, having had two extremely difficult births, where the doctors I had, the same practice for both my kids, were wise, they were strong, they were smart, and they handled it right. Having seen my own family experience difficult births, I can tell you that you want the best handling it. You don't want to put a cap on damages so that people who are less than the best can go into this area and think: Well, I am protected. If I make 10 mistakes, I can afford it because there is a cap on it. So big deal. Disaster. And to do this on the farm bill, it borders on the humorous, if it wasn't so serious. Maybe we want to have an amendment about birthing calves on the farm bill or something like that. But what are we doing here? Taking an amendment that doesn't belong here and saying rural women are going to be picked on. That is what they are doing. I am just in disbelief that this is even before us. I hope we have a very strong ``no'' vote and put this baby to bed, because this comes up again and again. As I say, in my own State, I have met with parents who are just at their wits' end because of this travesty and they have a one-size-fits- all cap. I have met with parents whose child was born, there was malpractice, and the child is blind, the child is deaf, the child is sitting in a wheelchair. The mother and the father love that child. They are driven into poverty because the insurance will cover just so much. We say we are for families? How can we say we are for families and mean it and then tell the women of rural America: Too bad, you cannot get what you deserve if a doctor makes a tragic--indeed, an unbelievably tragic--mistake. You have to care for a child for the rest of that child's life in the most loving way you can, but we are going to put a cap on what you are going to be able to spend on that child. This is not the America I know. This is not a farm bill that should be turned into tort reform, some ideological quest by some of our colleagues. This is not an attack on lawyers; this is an attack on women. I thank you for the opportunity to speak against this amendment, and I am looking forward to voting against it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided until we go to the next speaker.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Gregg amendment No. 3672. This amendment irresponsibly strips $15 million in funding for an asparagus market loss program to help asparagus producers who have lost a significant amount of their market share because of the Andean Trade Preference Act. Thanks to the great work of Senator Stabenow, along with Senators Harkin and Chambliss, the Senate Ag Committee approved this important funding to help assist asparagus producers in California, Michigan, and Washington who have lost significant market share as a result of the Andean Trade Preference Act. The U.S. asparagus industry was and continues to be hurt by the Andean Trade Preference Act's, ATPA, extended duty-free status to imports of fresh Peruvian asparagus. The ATPA eliminated U.S. tariffs on Peruvian asparagus imports beginning in 1990. Unlike most free-trade agreements, the ATPA provided no transition period to allow domestic asparagus producers to prepare or adapt to a market that would be flooded with an unlimited quantity of zero tariff asparagus from Peru. Following the enactment of ATPA, imports of processed asparagus products surged 2400 percent from 500,000 pounds in 1990 to over 12 million pounds in 2006. As a result, domestic asparagus acreage has dropped 54 percent from 90,000 acres in 1991 to under 49,000 acres today. Michigan has lost 20 percent of its asparagus acreage. Washington State's asparagus acreage decreased from 31,000 acres in 1991 to 9,300 acres in 2006, and producers in the State have seen the value of their crop drop from $200 million in 1990 to $75 million today. And farmers in my State of California have lost nearly half of their asparagus acreage since 1990, dropping from 36,000 acres before the ATPA, to 22,500 acres today. Many of my colleagues may be asking what the market loss program will provide to asparagus producers. This asparagus program is modeled after a 2002 program for onion and apple producers that provided $94 million in assistance when the apple and onion markets were flooded with cheap Chinese imports. Market loss funds will be used to offset costs to domestic asparagus producers to plant new acreage and invest in more efficient planting and harvesting equipment. I find it particularly interesting that Senator Gregg has put forward an antimarket loss program amendment that would help farmers in my State. As a result of the 2002 farm bill, apple producers in his State of New Hampshire received more than $1 million in assistance. Where was Senator Gregg and his amendment to strike when the Senate approved a market loss program for apple and onion producers as part of the 2002 farm bill? I urge the Senate to reject this amendment. The amount in funding for the market loss program is a small percentage of the losses incurred as a result of the ATPA and will go a long way toward maintaining domestic asparagus production and helping our producers who have lost thousands of acres.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have 10 minutes from the opposition's time.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I take this opportunity to recognize the 100th anniversary of Pinnacles National Monument, located in San Benito County, CA. On January 16, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed 2,080 acres of the Pinnacles National Forest Reserve as Pinnacles National Monument. This year, we celebrate its centennial anniversary. Part of an extinct volcano, the spectacular geology of Pinnacles National Monument has fascinated visitors for decades. A variety of flora and fauna flourishes in this unusual landscape, including an exquisite chaparral ecosystem and nearly 400 species of bees, the highest known bee diversity of anyplace on earth. Situated near the San Andreas Rift Zone with the central coast to the west and Gabilan Mountain Range to the east, Pinnacles National Monument now occupies over 26,000 acres 14,000 acres of which are congressionally designated wilderness. With surrounding lands tended by farmers whose ancestors homesteaded the region, and cowboys who watch over the cattle that graze on the expansive plains, Pinnacles National Monument offers a sublime glimpse into California's past. Pinnacles is home to 20 endemic species holding special Federal or State status, and is also the ancestral home range of the California condor. Pinnacles is the only National Park site that releases and maintains this extremely endangered bird species and is critical to the overall condor recovery effort. Pinnacles is also located within the Pacific Flyway migratory route and contains the highest concentration of nesting prairie falcons of any national park in the country. Only 100 miles from the urban centers of San Francisco and San Jose, Pinnacles National Monument remains a haven of solitude for nature enthusiasts and offers a stunning reflection of California's rural history and heritage. For 100 years, Pinnacles National Monument has served as a recreational escape for hikers, outdoor enthusiasts, and those seeking a glimpse of California's rich history. It is a powerful reminder of the beauty of nature and the importance of conservation efforts. I commend the National Park Service staff and volunteers for maintaining the natural beauty and historical significance of Pinnacles National Monument. I look forward to future generations having the opportunity to study and enjoy this unique piece of our State and national history for another 100 years.