Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Of course.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, our bipartisan amendment, on behalf of Senators Sununu, McCaskill, McCain, Durbin, and Schumer, takes dollars from where they do not belong--that is, heavily subsidized crop insurers--and invests them in priorities with a return to the United States, as nutrition programs, conservation programs, and initiatives that create sustainable economic development in other countries which, after all, is the key to strong export markets. Our amendment does not increase the cost of crop insurance for any farmer. That is an important point. It merits repeating. Our amendment does not increase the cost of crop insurance for any farmer. Instead, it reduces the excessive taxpayer-funded fees that crop insurers receive for servicing their customers. The savings from this amendment will be invested in programs that work--programs such as McGovern-Dole which provides school lunches to the over 100 million children around the world who suffer from hunger. There is a reason the House provides $800 million in mandatory funding for this program; the Senate provided none. There is a reason this program was developed by and is named after two of the most notable Members of this body. The reason is this program stands out. It melds compassion with common sense, feeding the hungry and building sustainable economies in the developing countries, making our country safer. We responded to a hostile Communist threat in Europe with the Marshall Plan. Our best response to a hostile threat overseas is to provide help in nutrition and education to people who desperately need it. This amendment is also about ensuring the appropriate funding levels for conservation programs. We have done a good job with conservation in the Senate farm bill and much of that credit goes to Chairman Harkin. We can do better, and it will pay off for our Nation to do so. The Farmland Protection Program received no increase in funding from the committee-passed bill. Yet it is crucial to the protection of family farms. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, protects water quality and provides farmers and ranchers with the tools they need and want to be good environmental stewards. Yet three out of four applications go unfunded. Our amendment invests in these resource conservation programs. Importantly, it invests in human decency. It invests in preventing Americans from going hungry. How, in the wealthiest country in the world, can we let too many of our people be hungry? More Americans are struggling to make ends meet, and with the savings from our amendment, children who rely on food stamps will not have to go to bed hungry. It is a smart amendment. I know some of my colleagues are skeptical about the amendment's ``pay-for.'' Some of my colleagues don't want to take money from crop insurers. That is why we must take a serious look at the excessive subsidies in the Federal Crop Insurance Program. Federal crop insurance is an essential part of the farm safety net and will continue to be in the future. However, billions of dollars that are intended to benefit farmers are instead siphoned off by large crop insurance companies. Since 2000, farmers have received $10.5 billion in benefits from crop insurance, but it has cost taxpayers $19 billion: $10 billion in benefits, it has cost taxpayers $19 billion to deliver those benefits. Where does the difference go? According to a GAO report, crop insurance companies take 40 cents out of every dollar that Congress appropriates to help farmers manage the risk of agricultural production. What kind of good business sense is that? In the same report, GAO finds crop insurance company profits are more than double industry averages. Private and casualty insurance has 8.3 percent; Federal crop insurance is literally more than double the rate of profit. Over the past 10 years, crop insurance companies have had an average rate of return of 18 percent compared to just over 8 percent for the comparable private property and casualty insurance companies. Let me repeat, no farmer under the Brown-Durbin-McCaskill-McCain- Sununu amendment, no farmer will pay more for crop insurance because of this amendment. The Federal Government sets Federal crop insurance premium rates. This amendment does not change any of that. This amendment will require that crop insurance companies share a greater portion of their underwriting gains with taxpayers. It is only right in a true public-private partnership that both sides benefit fairly. This amendment also reduces the exorbitant--and I mean exorbitant-- administrative fees that crop insurers receive for each policy they sell. A GAO report shows that per-policy subsidies to insurance companies will be triple what they were less than 10 years ago. This amendment will reduce administrative subsidies for each policy to the national average from 2004 to 2006. It is not a huge cut. It says to the crop insurance companies: Let's go back a couple years. You were getting well compensated and well subsidized. Why should we do more than that? With high commodity prices, this is still well above every year prior to 2006. This amendment provides commonsense reforms to a system of subsidies that has simply spun out of control. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN. Five minutes.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, on behalf of Senators Sununu, McCaskill, Durbin, and Schumer, I am proud today to offer the reduction of excess subsidies to crop underwriters rescue amendment to the farm bill. The rescue amendment is based on a simple premise. When resources are limited, we cannot afford to waste them. We cannot afford to overpay crop insurance----

Mr. BROWN. Yes, it was laid down on Friday.

Mr. BROWN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this amendment, in essence, moves money from the overpayment of huge subsidies of crop insurance to McGovern- Dole, a long-term bipartisan program this Congress has supported, and a few other things I will outline in more detail on Tuesday. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be set aside.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be temporarily set aside, and I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, yesterday, I stood on the Senate floor and asked for emergency funding for the Nation's food banks. I asked for that funding because there are massive shortages of food bank supplies, empty shelves, and those shortages place at risk children, the elderly, and working families, people who have lost jobs, people who have had a string of bad luck, and families across this Nation. I spoke yesterday of Norm, an elderly man in Cleveland, who, after spending his few dollars on rent, on utilities, and medicine, has $19 left. He needs the Cleveland Food Bank. The Cleveland Food Bank, I would add, was awarded the best food bank in the country last year, but it is running short, as are food banks everywhere in this country. I spoke yesterday of Christian, who has trained to be a nurse's assistant, and who just gave birth. She is unable to find a job as a nurse's assistant, even though she is well trained to do that. She runs short of food, and she relies on, as does Norm, neighborhood food programs, such as the Cleveland Food Bank and other church groups in greater Cleveland. In too many cases there is no dinner on the table. In too many cases there is no food at Christmas time. In too many cases there is just not enough food. We are the wealthiest Nation in the world. Yet we cannot feed our own people. This is an emergency. This is an outrage. Yesterday, I talked about emergency funding to overcome that shortage. We asked for $40 million until we pass the farm bill, which will have some dollars in it to provide some supply for these food banks. We found out that food banks are projecting they will run out of food in February, when originally they thought it would last until July. In case after case, food banks in Cleveland, in Columbus, in Toledo, and Cincinnati, food banks in the Chair's city of Baltimore, and food banks all over this country are running out of food. Grocery stores are contributing a little less this year, and the Government has not done its part. Yesterday, I talked about some $40 million in funding to overcome that shortage, and today I want to talk about how to pay for it. We can pay for it through shared sacrifice. The budget for Congress includes firewood for fireplaces in the Capitol, fireplaces, in most cases, that don't get used. When children are hungry, we can give up fireplaces. We can give up some travel and some new technology. We can make easy sacrifices to address a tragic need. The budget for Federal agencies includes annual buying sprees to exhaust whatever is left in departmental budgets. When children are hungry, buying sprees are offensive. We can sacrifice. We can pay for emergency funding for food banks by putting our heads together and shaving some less necessary spending from our own budgets and that of Federal agencies whose oversight is our responsibility. I am asking that we do that. Food banks need resources. We don't need firewood, we don't need buying sprees, and we can do without some other things. We need to help hungry people. I am going to propose a package of cuts to pay for an emergency increase in food bank funding. I hope every Member of this body supports me. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I wish to honor Frank Stilwell III, a great Ohioan and a great American. Despite losing his eyesight at age 7, Frank never accepted failure or special treatment. It is this unwavering drive that led him from the Kettering Public School District near Dayton, OH, to Georgetown Law School and eventually to the Federal Communications Commission, where he served as a Senior Staff Attorney in the Commercial Wireless Division. While at the FCC, Frank worked closely with tribal groups in Alaska to ensure cell phone towers did not blight sacred burial grounds. A longtime amateur radio enthusiast--in his youth he helped found the Far Out Amateur Radio Club in Dayton, OH--and an avid reader--often borrowing from the audio and Braille collections at the Arlington Public Library in Virginia--Frank was a happy, active, and passionate man, which is why his unexpected death last month at the age of 50 is so tragic. For me, Frank's passion and drive in the face of adversity is a reminder of what we are all capable of, and I hope this life lesson-- Frank's lesson to us--is not soon forgotten.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, across Ohio and the Nation, many families rely on food banks to survive. I rise to introduce an emergency assistance measure--$40 million in bridge funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program. When a child knows there will be no dinner waiting for her at home, that is an emergency. When a mother or father cannot put food on the table for a family, that is an emergency. When an elderly couple eats one small meal a day, that is an emergency. Across the country, lines at food banks are already longer than they were at this time last year. That is an emergency. It is a health emergency. It is a humanitarian emergency. In Ohio, food reserves intended to last until July are projected to run out by February. Food banks are being forced to ration food and turn hungry people away already, in a particularly bad time of year. In Lorain County, in north central and northern Ohio, the food bank has run out of food three times this winter. Remember, it is only early December. Many of us, especially in this Chamber, who are so very blessed, celebrate the holidays by buying presents for our loved ones. For too many families in Ohio and in other States across this country, food on the table will be the greatest gift they can give this holiday season. In Cleveland, one of the food distribution centers is Cooley Avenue Church of God. There, Pastor Richard Bolls hands out food to an elderly man, Norm. Of the food bank, Norm says: At the end of the month I have just $19 left after paying for my rent, my utilities, and my medicine. Normally I wouldn't get fruit and vegetables to eat. I consider this my ice cream. It was 28 degrees and windy in Cleveland on Tuesday, colder today. At 11 o'clock in the morning, Christian, a native of the Mount Pleasant area of Cleveland, and her newborn stood in line for food at the Cleveland Food Bank, recognized as the No. 1 food bank in the country recently. Christian is a trained nurse's assistant. She has been searching for a job for 6 months since she had her baby, without luck. She notices the price of food she buys at the supermarket seems to rise every day. with the cost of caring for a newborn and the rise in food and fuel prices--heating and gasoline--Christian stood in line at the food bank Tuesday because she cannot afford to feed her family without some additional help. Christian and Norm have heartbreaking stories, but their stories are not unique. More Americans are lining up at food banks this year. Most are working Ohioans and working people. Many are middle-class Americans, teetering on the edge. Additional funding for the emergency food stamp program is the most immediate Federal solution to the national food crisis. This food bank crisis underscores the need to pass the farm bill. The farm bill is an agriculture bill, it is a hunger bill, it is an energy bill, it is a conservation bill. I applaud Chairman Tom Harkin, the Senator from Iowa, for his leadership on this bill. This farm bill helps family farmers in Ohio and across the country by strengthening the farm safety net. For the first time ever, farmers will be able to enroll in a program that ensures against revenue instability, which for many farmers means either a bad yield or low prices. But either can be devastating. With the right resources and the right incentives, farmers can help decrease our dependence on foreign oil and produce clean, sustainable, renewable energy. This bill, the farm bill which we hope to pass before we leave this month, increases food stamp benefits and indexes the benefits to inflation. When the purchasing power of food stamps erodes, so does our progress against hunger. Food stamps today amount to about $1 per person per meal. A mother with two children gets about $9 in food stamps. That is the extent of the benefit. This farm bill, bipartisanly agreed to, will increase that. We are the wealthiest country in the world, a caring and compassionate people. Families in our country, especially families who work hard and play by the rules, should never, ever go hungry.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. BROWN pertaining to the introduction of S. 2431 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, across Ohio and the Nation, many families rely on food banks to survive. I rise to introduce an emergency assistance measure--$40 million in bridge funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program. When a child knows there will be no dinner waiting for her at home, that is an emergency. When a mother or father cannot put food on the table for a family, that is an emergency. When an elderly couple eats one small meal a day, that is an emergency. Across the country, lines at food banks are already longer than they were at this time last year. That is an emergency. It is a health emergency. It is a humanitarian emergency. In Ohio, food reserves intended to last until July are projected to run out by February. Food banks are being forced to ration food and turn hungry people away already, in a particularly bad time of year. In Lorain County, in north central and northern Ohio, the food bank has run out of food three times this winter. Remember, it is only early December. Many of us, especially in this Chamber, who are so very blessed, celebrate the holidays by buying presents for our loved ones. For too many families in Ohio and in other States across this country, food on the table will be the greatest gift they can give this holiday season. In Cleveland, one of the food distribution centers is Cooley Avenue Church of God. There, Pastor Richard Bolls hands out food to an elderly man, Norm. Of the food bank, Norm says: At the end of the month I have just $19 left after paying for my rent, my utilities, and my medicine. Normally I wouldn't get fruit and vegetables to eat. I consider this my ice cream. It was 28 degrees and windy in Cleveland on Tuesday, colder today. At 11 o'clock in the morning, Christian, a native of the Mount Pleasant area of Cleveland, and her newborn stood in line for food at the Cleveland Food Bank, recognized as the No. 1 food bank in the country recently. Christian is a trained nurse's assistant. She has been searching for a job for 6 months since she had her baby, without luck. She notices the price of food she buys at the supermarket seems to rise every day. with the cost of caring for a newborn and the rise in food and fuel prices--heating and gasoline--Christian stood in line at the food bank Tuesday because she cannot afford to feed her family without some additional help. Christian and Norm have heartbreaking stories, but their stories are not unique. More Americans are lining up at food banks this year. Most are working Ohioans and working people. Many are middle-class Americans, teetering on the edge. Additional funding for the emergency food stamp program is the most immediate Federal solution to the national food crisis. This food bank crisis underscores the need to pass the farm bill. The farm bill is an agriculture bill, it is a hunger bill, it is an energy bill, it is a conservation bill. I applaud Chairman Tom Harkin, the Senator from Iowa, for his leadership on this bill. This farm bill helps family farmers in Ohio and across the country by strengthening the farm safety net. For the first time ever, farmers will be able to enroll in a program that ensures against revenue instability, which for many farmers means either a bad yield or low prices. But either can be devastating. With the right resources and the right incentives, farmers can help decrease our dependence on foreign oil and produce clean, sustainable, renewable energy. This bill, the farm bill which we hope to pass before we leave this month, increases food stamp benefits and indexes the benefits to inflation. When the purchasing power of food stamps erodes, so does our progress against hunger. Food stamps today amount to about $1 per person per meal. A mother with two children gets about $9 in food stamps. That is the extent of the benefit. This farm bill, bipartisanly agreed to, will increase that. We are the wealthiest country in the world, a caring and compassionate people. Families in our country, especially families who work hard and play by the rules, should never, ever go hungry.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to oppose the Peru Free Trade Agreement on which we will vote midafternoon today. The trade policies set in Washington, and negotiated across the globe, have a direct impact on places such as Lima and Steubenville and Cleveland and Hamilton, OH. That is why voters in my State and across the country sent a message loud and clear in November demanding a different trade policy, a new direction in our trade relations. A new report this month from the Center for Economic and Policy Research says jobs paying at least $17 an hour--roughly $35,000 a year--and provide health insurance and provide some form of pension declined by 3.5 million people between 2000 and 2006. If that doesn't underscore and emphasize the decline of the middle class, no statistic does. Working men and women in Ohio know that job loss--a job paying $35,000 or $40,000 or $45,000 or $50,000 a year--does not just affect the worker or the workers' families, as tragic as that is; job loss-- especially job losses in the thousands--can devastate communities. Peru and proposed deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea are based on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the so-called NAFTA model. NAFTA's proponents promised the agreement would create new jobs from exports and that U.S. exports to Mexico would exceed Mexican imports by some $10 billion. NAFTA supporters also promised it would end our immigration issue or problem. More on that at another time. Today, imports from Mexico exceed exports by about $70 billion. Instead of a multibillion dollar trade surplus with Mexico, as NAFTA supporters promised, it has gone the other way manyfold, with a $70 billion deficit. When I was elected to Congress in 1992, the U.S. trade deficit was $39 billion. Today, after NAFTA, CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and after inclusion in the World Trade Organization, our trade deficit has grown to over $800 billion. It went from $39 billion in 1992 to, a decade and a half later, $800 billion, which is an increase of twentyfold. What NAFTA is, and what that model of trade is, is simple: A mechanism providing a source of cheap labor for multinational firms. The NAFTA model includes rules on investment and procurement that favor large companies at the expense of workers, at the expense of small manufacturers in Akron, Toledo, Lima, Findlay, and all over my State, and at the expense of the democratic process. The investor-State rules of the Peru Free Trade Agreement and these other proposed deals will allow corporations to enforce their rights under the agreement in a private trade tribunal. These are decisions where a corporation can sue a foreign government if that corporation doesn't like its foods safety rules or if it doesn't like its workers compensation system or its consumer protection laws. A company outside of the United States can sue our Government when, for instance, our Government protests the import of toxic toys from China or protests contaminated toothpaste or dog food or any of the consumer protection food safety rules that protect our families and our children. Now, here is what the investor-State rules mean. If Peru tries to make improvements to its food safety, health, and environmental laws, large corporations have a mechanism now for challenging it in a private tribunal. This isn't a government making the decision, it is a private tribunal, with generally anonymous people and trade lawyers who almost always decide in support of weakening trade protection laws and decide in support of whatever generally corporate interests are in those countries and make that decision accordingly. That is not bothersome enough. If Peru passes strong consumer protection laws or a strong food safety law or a strong generic drug law to bring prices down for its consumers, an American company can come in--a drug company, a toy manufacturer, a food processor--and sue the Government of Peru, saying we don't like these laws, and a private tribunal will make the decision. That already has happened under NAFTA, and I can give examples. It also works the other way. A company in Peru can challenge consumer law, a food safety law, a protection for our families law, if you will, in this private tribunal. Meanwhile, for other parts of the FTA with Peru, such as labor and the environment, we rely on this administration to enforce it. There is a history of this administration unwilling to use the existing enforcement mechanisms available to us--not just in terms of domestic policy, where this administration has weakened environmental laws and consumer protection laws and food safety laws, and they have done it internationally. Almost one of the first acts President Bush did in 2001 was all about the Jordan Free Trade Agreement. The Jordan FTA was once held as a standard in labor provisions. It passed in 2000 during the Clinton administration. I was as critical of President Clinton as I am of President Bush. It is not a partisan thing, but today the vote may look like that. The Bush administration turned the other way while human trafficking was rampant in Jordan. In Jordan, workers from Bangladesh come in, their passports confiscated, and they work with fabric transshipped from China. So they bring fabric produced by textile companies in China--companies with no labor standards, little environmental standards, and no real protection for workers--they bring in the textiles from China and they bring the workers in from Bangladesh. Those workers work sometimes 20 hours a day, often without breaks. These textiles are assembled into apparel in Jordan in sweatshops and exported to the United States, without duty, I might add, without tariffs. President Bush's first U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, sent a letter to Jordan's Trade Minister in early 2001, saying the United States would not use the FTA to enforce certain provisions, including the labor chapter. Even though Jordan had strong labor provisions, the administration said we are not going to enforce them. The Jordanian Government has taken steps to fix its human trafficking problem but not because of the enforcement tools available in the trade agreement; it is only because of the pressure from world opinion. There is more work to do in Jordan. Last week, it was reported that workers at a Jordanian factory, working under a subcontract, are being threatened with forced deportation after striking to protest the imprisonment of six coworkers. The National Labor committee, which has done extraordinary investigative work in Jordan, reports that the factory owner threatened to also cut off workers' food and water. This is the kind of country we pass trade agreements with which clearly has no regard for its workers, although in this case they were imported workers from somewhere else. Remember, factories in Jordan get duty-free access to the U.S. market under the Jordan FTA. How can we not be surprised at similar stories in Peru, Colombia, Panama or South Korea? Workers and consumers get short shrift. Slave wages are OK, unsafe working conditions are OK, unsafe products and food are OK, contaminated food is OK. With a total lack of protection in our trade policy, we are importing not just the goods but the lax safety standards. We are not just importing toxic toys from China, with lead- based paint covering our Frankenstein mugs at Halloween time, we are importing the values of those countries. If we are going to outsource jobs to China, Peru or Mexico or Bangladesh, they are going to send products back into the United States under production standards we would never allow in this country. We once did, but we would never allow those standards today, with the workers, the environment, the safety, and all of that. We are importing Chinese values, those kinds of values. With the total lack of protections in our trade policy, the Peru Free Trade Agreement, similar to NAFTA, which it follows, puts limits on the safety standards we can require for imports. If we relax basic health and safety rules to accommodate Bush-style, NAFTA-modeled trade agreements, then I am afraid we should not be surprised to find lead paint in our toys and toxins in our toothpaste. We have seen recall after recall after recall: contaminated toothpaste, contaminated apple juice and dog food, toxic toys with lead levels thousands of times higher than we would accept in this country. Yesterday, in Cleveland, I had a meeting and a rally with a couple of mothers who have small children--Sonia Rosado and Sara Correra. They are alarmed and concerned about what to buy their children. They asked: What toys can we buy that we know are safe? Due to trade agreements, there are more than 230 countries, and more than 200,000 foreign manufacturers exporting FDA-regulated goods to American consumers. Before NAFTA, we imported 1 million lines of food. The FDA regulated about $30 billion imported food goods. Now we import 18 million lines of foods and at least $65 billion imported food goods. The FDA doesn't inspect 50 percent of these or 20 percent or 10 percent; they don't even inspect 1 percent of imported foods. They inspect six-tenths of 1 percent. That means for every 1,000 food shipments that come to the United States, they inspect 6. For every 150, they inspect 1. It is a pretty lethal combination, when you think about buying products, whether it is processed food or toothpaste or toys from a country such as China or a country such as Peru, that don't follow the same food safety standards or protection standards we do. You have American companies hiring subcontractors in Peru or China, and those subcontractors are told over and over that you have to cut costs, cut corners, and maybe do whatever you have to do to cut costs. Well, that means putting lead in toys because lead-based paint is cheaper, easier to apply, shinier, and looks a little better sometimes. Then we have these products come into the United States and we don't inspect them in any significant number. So with this trade policy--and Peru is another extension of our trade policy with China and another extension of our trade policy similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the NAFTA model--we are doing it again. It is a lethal combination. It is a trade model that chases short-term profits for the few, at the expense of long-term prosperity, long-term safety, long-term health for the many. It is a model that works for a few and doesn't work for overwhelming numbers of Americans. Look at our trade deficit: $800 billion, almost $3 billion a day. Look at our manufacturing job losses: 200,000 in my State alone for the last 5 years. Look at wage stagnation: The middle class no longer gets a raise in many cases. Look at imported product recalls: Week after week, sometimes day after day, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says take that off the market, we can't keep selling that. Look at forced labor and child labor and slave labor: We know that is going on in China. We say: Well, their products may be a little cheaper. It helps us with profits. Companies are doing pretty well. We will accept that stuff. Look what it does to communities. When a plant closes in Gallipolis or a plant closes in Springfield, OH, families face huge tragedies-- neighbors who don't work at those plants, but neighbors see police forces cut, teachers laid off, fewer firefighters ready to take care of them in an emergency. The tax base is eroded, public services decline. They all go together. We are setting ourselves up for more. The President says he wants Congress to approve new trade deals with Peru, which the Senate will do today, unfortunately, with Colombia, with Panama, and with Korea. Secretary Gutierrez called yesterday for a vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement soon after the Peru vote. I invite the President--I would love to see the President come to Portsmouth, OH, on the Ohio River, or sit down with a machinist in Lake Erie or Toledo, or sit down with a tool and die maker, a tool and die shop owner in Akron. Their productivity is up. These workers are doing better and better in terms of productivity. That is a testament to their hard work and their skills, but our Nation's workers too often don't share in the wealth. They are making more money. They are making more profits in the history of our country, particularly since World War II: As productivity goes up, so do wages go up. No more. Workers are more and more productive as they compete on a very unlevel playing field with low income, very underpaid, sometimes slave labor, forced labor, child labor workers in other countries. They are more and more competitive, but their wages stay flat. The President wants these trade deals, and in 2002 Congress gave the President the authority to negotiate and to sign and seal these trade deals. All Congress gets to do is vote yes or no. No amendments. No particularly extensive debate. You have to vote yes or you have to vote no. You can't make any changes. When I talk to workers in Marion or Mount Vernon or Dayton or Mansfield about fast track--this kind of unusual rule that we operate trade agreements under in the House and Senate--they ask: What is the point of Congress being involved at all? All we do is say yes to the President. The reason the President wants fast track is it silences opposition, it cuts out debate, and pushes through these unpopular trade deals. We all know in this body--every single Republican and every single Democrat in this body--that these trade agreements--NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, trade agreement with South Korea, trade agreement with Colombia, trade agreement with Peru and Panama--if they came to a vote in the United States among 300 million Americans, they would be soundly defeated. We all know that. Many of us ran campaigns last year, in our elections a year ago, talking about these trade agreements and what they mean. The current system is not sustainable. People in Ohio and throughout this country will not stand for more of it. Labor unions, environmental groups, church groups, development groups are not out lobbying for the Peru Free Trade Agreement. People don't come up to me at schools or in church or in factories or in small businesses or walking down the street or when my wife and I go to the grocery store, and say: Hey, you ought to pass another trade agreement because they are working well. Our trade deficit only went from $38 billion to $800 billion in 15 years. They are really working. More jobs created; more manufacturing. Of course, they are not asking us to vote for these trade agreements because they simply aren't working. Why would we do another trade agreement when NAFTA didn't work, when CAFTA didn't work, when PNTR with China doesn't work, when these other trade agreements simply don't work? I think Americans want trade. I want trade. We want trade. We want plenty of it, but under rules that raise standards and ensure our experts have a lasting and sustainable market for consumers. Trade can be a development tool, but the way this administration pursues trade is not promoting sustainable development. We want trade with countries that will be a lasting market for American goods--a market for American goods, not just a source such as Jordan has become, such as China is, such as Peru is becoming--not a source for cheap labor. The American people want a pro-trade, pro-development, pro-working families, forward-looking approach. We have a choice. We can work with the countries we want to trade with, make sure they play fair, make sure they can purchase our products, make sure the standards of living go up in those countries over a long period, or we can continue to walk myopically, nearsightedly, blindly into even more of the same trade deals. We can continue free trade on the cheap, or we can respect the progress America has made over the last century: our hard-fought labor laws, our food safety laws, our consumer product laws that protect children, that protect our families, that give us one more reason to be proud of our great country; or we can do what the President wants and what the leadership from the Republican Party in this Congress wants. We can take two steps--we can take two steps back from this progress to accommodate lax labor and safety standards. This Congress has a choice too. We can pass legislation to combat unfair currency, or we can continue to let China cheat. We can bolster trade enforcement, or we can rely on the administration's discretion to enforce our trade laws. We can assist workers laid off to unfair trade, or we can continue to look the other way. We have heard voters in Ohio and around the country call for big changes to trade policy. We are hearing consumers demand accountability for the unsafe imports that are on our store shelves. Looking into the eyes of Sara and her children yesterday, looking into the eyes of Sara yesterday, of her friend Sonia, and seeing the look she had about why isn't the government on our side on this--it does matter. We are hearing consumers demand accountability for the unsafe imports that are on our store shelves. Passing a trade agreement with Peru is not the change Americans demanded last year, that Americans continue to demand now, and that America will continue to demand in the years ahead. I yield the floor and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 3074, the Transportation-HUD Appropriations Act; that there be 20 minutes of debate with respect to the conference report; with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators Murray and Bond or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on adoption of the conference report, without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today the Senate will break for the Thanksgiving holiday. We will all travel back to our States. We will work in our offices. We will move around our States. We will probably celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with our families and our friends. Many of us who are so very blessed will gather together next Thursday at tables surrounded by family, echoing with laughter, overflowing with food. For too many families in my home State of Ohio and across the Nation next Thursday will be very different. These families, many of whom work full-time, simply do not earn enough each month to survive without the assistance of food stamps and food banks and help from churches and help from other organizations. Too many families suffering from layoffs--layoffs caused by plant closings, the offshoring of jobs, and the downsizing of American industry--are now solely reliant on food stamps and food banks to feed their families. Adding anguish to heartache, food banks, the last hope many have for getting even just one meal a day, are finding themselves running short on food. Yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer told the story of Denise Arnold, a mother from Roselawn, OH, a suburb of Cincinnati. Since losing her job, and while looking for another job, Ms. Arnold has fallen behind on her rent and worries about becoming homeless. She has applied for food stamps, but that process takes time, and she has a son to feed. Ms. Arnold visits the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry industry to get what food she can for her family. She told the reporter: It is really rough. I have been so scared. The pantry once was able to offer a week's supply of food to those in need. Now, because of budget cuts and inadequate funding, this pantry must ration out, as so many others do, to their visitors, a few days' worth at a time, not a full week. According to yesterday's newspaper article, food pantries across the region have similar stories to report. On this floor, I have shared the story of Rhonda Stewart, a single mother from Butler County, OH, who relies on food stamps to feed her family. Ms. Stewart bravely shared her story before the Senate Agriculture Committee several months ago as we began the process of writing the 2007 farm bill. She told us she has a young son and is fairly recently divorced. Her husband--her ex-husband--has lost his job and is not able to support the son or his former wife. She has a full-time job, only making about $9 an hour. She is president of the local PTA and volunteers for the Cub Scouts. She teaches Sunday school. She does everything we ask of a citizen and a parent, and she is a food stamp beneficiary. Yet, she told us, at the beginning of the month, she and her son--she cooks pork chops once or twice that first week. That is his favorite meal. By the middle of the month, she takes him out to a fast food restaurant perhaps once or twice. By the end of the month, she always runs out of money. She sits at the dining room or the kitchen table with her son, and that last couple of days of the month at dinnertime he is eating dinner, and she is sitting there not eating. He says: Mom, what is wrong? She says: I am not feeling well, or I am not hungry. She said it happens month after month. The truth is, food stamps provide a benefit of about $1 per person per meal. So Rhonda Stewart was getting $6 per day for food stamps. She traveled to Washington to let us know what mattered most to her and to her family and to families like hers. She had every right to expect that we would listen and we would hear her. In 2006, more than 35 million Americans went hungry. We must ask ourselves, how many more will go hungry next Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday and into the rest of the holiday season? I raise this issue today because at this moment we are debating in this Chamber legislation that literally means the difference between food and hunger for Ms. Arnold, Ms. Stewart, and millions of families in this country, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of families in my home State of Ohio like theirs. In a nation wealthy as ours, eradicating hunger, eliminating poverty, investing in families should not be a political issue. It is not Republican versus Democrat. It is food and shelter versus Americans who aren't as fortunate as all of us in this body, as the staff, the Senators, all of us. This is a moral obligation, a duty that flows from compassion and the very reason we have been sent here as public servants. In November of last year, families in my State of Ohio, as they did in the State of the Presiding Officer, sent a loud and clear message that they wanted change. They demanded in no uncertain terms that the priorities championed here in Washington better reflect their own back home. Given their call for change and the unquestionable understanding of challenges facing families across the country, one must pause and reflect on what we are actually doing here. We have a responsibility to think about the priorities being debated this week, this very day as part of the farm bill. On the one hand, we have been arguing for weeks about how many tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, an industry gets out of this bill. We have been arguing over profit margins. On the other hand, we have in this legislation language that would fund food banks by an additional $110 million each year. We have legislation that would increase food stamp funding by $5 billion over 5 years and would help millions of new families with food assistance. We have the opportunity in this bill to validate for Ms. Arnold and Ms. Stewart and the millions of mothers like them across the country that their voices do in fact matter. These are not issues being discussed only within these walls. This is a question of principle. It is a call to action the public understands very well. The public understands how important are the issues of hunger, social justice, investing in families, at every level of income. I applaud Ohio food banks and businesses such as First Energy and the Kroger Company for their dedication and initiative. This year First Energy and its employees, as part of their Harvest for Hunger campaign, collected the equivalent of nearly 2 million meals. This week the Kroger Company helped jump-start a Hunger is Unacceptable campaign in greater Cincinnati. Local social service agencies in the area are pooling resources to help fight hunger more effectively. What these stories say to me is that people back home get it. They get it in Cincinnati, in Columbus, and in Cleveland. It is time that Washington gets it. I strongly urge my colleagues to remember that budgets and bills are more than ink on paper. They are a set of priorities, and they are about our values. I strongly encourage my colleagues not to delay in passing the farm bill and to remember how many families are depending on them for us to stand up for them. I fully expect and encourage families back home to continue watching what we do and to hold all of us accountable for our actions. I want to say to Ms. Arnold--with a very special mention to Rhonda Stewart--that so many of us in this Chamber hear you. We are fighting for you, and we will not give up. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I join in wishing Senator Byrd a happy 90th birthday. I first heard Senator Byrd speak, and for that matter play his fiddle, in 1974 in Shelby, OH, a city in north central Ohio. I was a candidate, right out of school, for the State legislature. I knew of Senator Byrd's reputation, but I never heard him play the fiddle, and I was honored by his coming to this small town and playing the fiddle for the assembled 200 or 300 people. I also had the pleasure of listening to Senator Byrd earlier this year as a freshman member of this body as he spoke to the Democratic caucus lunch. He talked about his background. He was born during the flu epidemic. It took members of his and so many families' lives, and his struggles, as Senator Rockefeller said, made him into the scholar and the fighter for economic justice that he has been. Then I had the pleasure of visiting Senator Byrd in his office my first month on the job. He then came out during my maiden speech on the Senate floor and made a comment that my daughter talks about to this day. He said: Senator Brown's words will be in the Congressional Record not for 100 years but 1,000 years. And my daughter called me up right afterward and said Senator Byrd said the words will be in the Congressional Record in 1,000 years. But more important than that, he gave me his collection of speeches on the history of the Roman Senate, something we all, as newer Members of the body, should have the opportunity, and should take advantage of the opportunity to learn from his writings about the Roman Senate, how we can make this Senate work better than sometimes it does. I would finally say, as the Senator from the State on the other side of the Ohio River, we share Parkersburg and Marietta and Belpre. We share Wheeling and Belmont County, Saint Clairsville, Bellaire, Flushing, across the river, and all up and down the river. People on my side of the river have such great admiration--of course, they do in West Virginia, but they have such great admiration on my side of the river for the terrific work Senator Byrd has done. I only have 4 or 5 minutes I would like to say about Thanksgiving and the farm bill. But if Senator Byrd would like to take time before that, I am certainly willing to yield or I can proceed.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, as the holiday season approaches and parents are buying toys and other consumer products for their children, I would like to put that in the context of what has happened with our economy, what has happened with our trade policy, and what has happened with the breakdown of the part of our Government--the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture--that is there for one simple reason; that is, to protect our people. The Environmental Protection Agency is there to make sure our air and water are clean, the Food and Drug Administration is there to make sure our pharmaceutical supplies and food supplies are safe, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is there to make sure other food coming across our borders and food that is produced in this country is safe, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged by this Congress, by our Government, to make sure our consumer products are safe. Through the last many years--exacerbated, made worse by the policies of the incumbent, the present administration--we have established a situation that is almost a perfect storm for bad outcomes. Last year, in 2006, we imported about $288 billion worth of goods from China. Tens of millions of dollars of those goods were toys, toothpaste, dog food, and other kinds of consumer products. When you buy tens of billions of dollars of consumer products from China, you understand implicitly that those products are made and manufactured and produced in a country that puts little emphasis on safe drinking water, clean air, food safety, purity in pharmaceuticals, and consumer product safety. So when you buy tens of billions of dollars of goods produced in China, you can bet there is a good chance much of their food or ingredients might be contaminated, much of their toys and tires can be defective. Put on top of that the fact that many U.S. companies go to China as they outsource jobs and they close down production facilities in St. Louis, in Independence, in Kansas City in the State of the Presiding Officer, or in Cleveland, in Dayton, in Gallipolis and Steubenville and Lima in my State. They close down production and outsource these jobs to China. These American companies then subcontract with Chinese companies to make these products. When they subcontract with these Chinese companies, knowing that production in China is not as safe, either for the worker or for the safety of the product, knowing that production in China can often mean contaminated food products and vitamins and toothpaste and dog food, and at the same time understand those American companies that are subcontracting with these Chinese companies, Chinese subcontractors, the American companies are pushing them to cut costs-- you have to cut these costs, you have to cut these corners, you have to make these products cheaper--when you do that, it should not come as a surprise to Americans, or to our Government, that you are more likely to get tires that are defective, more likely to get contaminated toothpaste or inulin in apple juice, you are more likely to get products that simply don't work as well, and you are more likely to get lead-based paint coating our toys. Why? Lead-based paint is cheaper to buy, less expensive to apply, it is shinier, and it dries faster. When American companies--without mentioning any names of American toy manufacturers--push their Chinese subcontractors to make it cheaper, to cut costs, to save money for these companies, it is almost inevitable that these products are going to have lead-based paint, are going to have other kinds of consumer safety problems. You have them made in China with a nonexistent safety regulatory mechanism, made by companies subcontracting with United States companies that are telling them to cut costs, and then these products come into the United States. What happens here? President Bush has weakened the whole regulatory structure. What does that mean? What he has done is dismantled a lot of the protections of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. EPA, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Agriculture. Again, why are we surprised when Jeffrey Weidenheimer, a professor at Ashland University in my State, at my request tested 22 toys bought in the local store 10 miles from where I grew up and found 3 of them had excessively, dangerously high lead content? Six hundred parts per million is what we as a country have established as a safe amount of lead--600 parts per million is safe. One of the products he tested, a Frankenstein drinking mug for children, had 39,000 parts per million. Why does that happen? Because Nancy Nord and the Consumer Product Safety Commission aren't doing their job. They have half the budget they had 20 years ago, and the budget has continued to be cut by President Bush. They have weaker rules, and they have a Consumer Product Safety Commission chair who simply says: We are doing the best we can with what we have. Chairwoman Nord has come in front of the Commerce Committee and said: I do not need a budget increase; things are just fine in my agency. She also has lobbied against the legislation from my seatmate, Senator Pryor, who has introduced legislation that will strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The solution to all this, without great detail, is to begin to change our trade policy. So if we are going to buy tens of billions of dollars of toothpaste and dog food and apple juice and other food products and vitamins and toys and tires from the People's Republic of China, from that Communist regime, that also means they are going to have to begin to follow better safety regimens for the products they produce. It means American companies that import have to be responsible. If you are an American company and you go to China, you hire a subcontractor, and you bring those products back into the United States, it is up to you, in your corporate and your personal responsibility, to guarantee the safety of those products. It means a better Consumer Product Safety Commission. It means that Nancy Nord should step aside, the Chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It means the President of the United States, who has shown little interest in that agency except to weaken and defund it, needs, actually, to appoint four new Commissioners. There are only two there now; they have five spots. The President, for whatever reason, has not replaced them. He needs to appoint a new chair to this Commission. Nancy Nord has shown she is both indifferent to making this Commission work and, frankly, has too great a bias to the companies she is supposed to police. She has traveled with them. She has traveled with them at their expense and done all kinds of things and clearly has not shown any real interest in making our Consumer Product Safety Commission work. It is up to us as Members of the Senate, Members of the House, this Government--it is up to us. Our first responsibility is to protect our people, and that means in terms of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the consumer products we use, and the toys that are in our children's bedrooms and playrooms. The road is clear, the road we should drive down. Nancy Nord should go. Beyond Nancy Nord's resignation, we need the President's attentiveness to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Senate needs to pass the legislation from Senator Pryor, and we need to move forward. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, we have for many weeks now been debating in this Chamber the 2007 farm bill. In my State of Ohio, passage of this legislation is essential to ensuring the well-being of middle-class and low-income families throughout our State. The bill is an agriculture bill, it is a hunger bill, it is an energy bill, it is a conservation bill. Melding these priorities is not easy. Melding these priorities into a bill that helps farmers, that advances our Nation's energy goals, that increases the focus on conservation, and that bolsters nutrition programs is a profound accomplishment. As we debate the complex components of this legislation, I applaud Chairman Tom Harkin, a Senator from Iowa, for his leadership. We must never lose sight that this bill is about families. Families in Ohio and across the Nation are depending on us to pass this legislation in a timely manner. This spring, I traveled throughout Ohio and heard directly from farmers about what they need in this year's farm bill. They need the same thing any other entrepreneur needs--a fair shake. They need a safety net that makes sense given the revenue fluctuations they experience. They need for Washington rhetoric about conservation and alternative energy to translate into commonsense programs and meaningful incentives. This bill will help family farmers in Ohio and in New Jersey, the State of the Presiding Officer, and across our country by strengthening and diversifying the farm safety net. Current farm programs protect farmers from chronically low prices. However, these programs do little to help farmers when prices are high but yields are low, resulting in a revenue shortfall. By targeting overall revenue rather than simply price, farmers can receive better protection against swings in prices and natural disasters. Currently, crop prices are high but volatile. Farmers' input costs are rising, as well as their overall risks. Farmers should be given the opportunity to choose an alternative safety net if it better allows them to manage their own farm's risk in today's uncertain and evolving farm environment. The average crop revenue program, brought to this bill by Senator Durbin, Chairman Harkin, and me, gives farmers a choice. The average crop revenue program will matter to help those farmers with a safety net. For the first time ever, farmers will be able to enroll in a program--it is their choice; they don't have to--they can enroll in a program that insures against revenue instability which for many farmers makes more sense than a price-focused safety net, which is the old farm program. As I traveled around Ohio, I met with Mark Schweibert, a corn farmer in Henry County in northwest Ohio who will likely take advantage of average crop revenue. He will be supplying corn to one of the first ethanol plants in Ohio. I met that same week with Ralph Dull, a hog farmer from Montgomery County, who uses wind turbines to provide on- farm energy. This farm bill makes a commitment to move beyond antiquated energy sources and to prepare American agriculture to lead the world in renewable energy production. With the right resources, the right incentives, farmers can help decrease our dependence on foreign oil and produce cleaner, sustainable, renewable energy. In a State such as Ohio, with a talented labor force and a proud manufacturing history, that just doesn't mean stronger farms, more prosperous farms; it means a better Ohio and a stronger economy. This bill will provide more than $4 billion in additional funding for conservation programs to help farmers protect our water quality, expand our wildlife habitat, and preserve endangered farmland. And this bill does something else equally important: It fights hunger. Earlier this year, when the Agriculture Committee began this process, we heard from Rhonda Stewart of Hamilton, OH. Rhonda Stewart, a single mother, came with her young son. She told us a story. She told us that she works a full-time job, has no health care, and makes about, I believe, $9 an hour. She teaches Sunday school, She is involved with the Cub Scouts for her son, and she is president of the PTA at her son's school. She plays by the rules. She works hard. She said that at the beginning of the month, as she is a food stamp beneficiary, she makes pork chops for her son once or twice that first week. Later on in the month, maybe she takes him to a fast food restaurant. Almost invariably at the end of the month, she says she sits down at the kitchen table and her son is eating dinner and she does not. Her son says: Mom, what is wrong? Are you not hungry? She says: I am not feeling well tonight. For Rhonda Stewart, who teaches Sunday school, is involved with the Cub Scouts, is president of the PTA, works hard, pays her taxes, raises a son, is a food stamp beneficiary of $1 per person per meal, and $6 a day roughly for Rhonda Stewart does not go far enough. What we do in this Chamber can help Rhonda Stewart, her family, and millions of families such as hers. The farm bill increases food stamp benefits and indexes those benefits to inflation. When the purchasing power of food stamps erodes, so does our Nation's progress against hunger. We are the wealthiest country in the world. We are a caring, compassionate people. Families in our country, especially families who work hard, such as Rhonda Stewart and her family, should not go hungry. I am pleased with the overall bill. There are some things we can do to improve it. The public is perfectly willing to help family farmers when they need it, as we should. However, taxpayers will not support massive payments to farms that have substantial net incomes or huge payments to farmers who are not really farmers, who have huge off-farm income and really just happen to own farmland. I will be offering an amendment to return some of the excess subsidies in the Crop Insurance Program to the American taxpayers and to provide funding for the McGovern-Dole program. We have heard, of course, tales of woe from the crop insurance industry over the past few weeks as they furiously lobby against this amendment. But the facts tell a different story. Instead of letting the crop insurance industry exceed even their already record returns, I think we will get far better returns with modest investments at home and abroad. The McGovern-Dole program--which would be funded with part of the revenues from the crop insurance amendment--provides funding for school lunches in developing nations. The potential benefits are immense for our national security. We responded decades ago to a hostile Communist threat in Europe with the Marshall Plan. Our best response to a hostile threat overseas is to provide help in nutrition and education for people who desperately need it. Passage of the 2007 farm bill is not just a responsible thing to do for this body, it is the right thing to do for our families, for our farmers, and for our Nation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, on March 1, 2007, the Bluffton University baseball team left Ohio for a tournament in Florida. Early the next morning on Interstate 75 in Atlanta, their trip came to a tragic halt when their motorcoach, attempting to exit the highway, fell off an overpass and landed on its side on the road below. The crash resulted in the deaths of five members of the baseball team: Tyler Williams, Cody Holp, Scott Harmon, Zack Arend, David Joseph Betts. The driver, Jerome Niemeyer, and his wife Jean were also killed in the crash. Many of the other 33 passengers were treated for injuries. For John Betts, who lost his son David in the crash, it was important to take the accident and make it into something positive, in honor of his son and the other bright, talented young men who died that morning. Motorcoach safety became his crusade. Mr. Betts has been interviewed by the media, local and national, bringing to light the need for stronger motorcoach safety regulations. He has called for seatbelts for all passengers as well as other regulations that lower the risk of injury or fatality in accidents. Mr. Betts sees upgrading the safety laws for motorcoaches as an opportunity to save the lives of future riders. More importantly, he sees it as a way to memorialize David and his teammates and, as he puts it, to make the world they lived in better than it was when they left it. Sadly, the Bluffton University baseball team's fatal accident was not unique. We have witnessed story after story about motorcoach accidents. While the investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, one thing is clear--stronger safety regulations could have minimized the fatalities resulting from this crash. The Motorcoach Safety Enhancement Act, which I introduced today along with Senator Hutchison, would address the shortfall in safety regulations for motorcoaches. Many of the injuries sustained in motorcoaches could be prevented by incorporating high-quality safety technologies that exist today but are not widely used, such as crush-proof roofing and glazed windows to prevent ejection. More basic safety features, such as readily accessible fire extinguishers and seatbelts for all passengers, are still not required on motorcoaches. As a father of four, I find it particularly disturbing to know students are still riding in vehicles without even the option of buckling up. I applaud Mr. Betts and the other Bluffton parents for their courageous fight in the midst of so much personal pain. Seatbelts, window glazing, fire extinguishers--these are not new technologies. These are commonsense safety features that are widely used. And they are features that the National Transportation Safety Board recommends be enacted into law. Yet they have been languishing for years. The Motorcoach Safety Enhancement Act would instruct the Secretary of Transportation to enact these and other safety features. It would put a timeframe on final rulings so these safety requirements do not spend any more time in limbo. This bill takes the lessons learned from the tragic events of the Bluffton University baseball team's motorcoach accident, and aims to correct them for future riders. It is my hope that in the future, parents will not have to endure the anguish and grief that John Betts and the other family members experienced. I hope for swift consideration of this bill.