Dale Bumpers

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. I agree with the chairman's assessment.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. OK.

Mr. BUMPERS. The amendment has been cleared on this side.

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

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Leahy, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, could we have order? The Senator is entitled to be heard. I do not agree with what he is entitled to be heard on.

Mr. BUMPERS. This is an amendment offered on behalf of Senator Leahy dealing with reauthorization of the aquaculture program. It has been cleared on both sides.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Harkin be added as a cosponsor on amendments Nos. 4979 and 4978.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send two amendments to the desk on behalf of Senator Kerrey of Nebraska that I understand have been cleared on both sides.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUMPERS. It has been cleared on this side of the aisle.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, regarding what the Senator just said-- and I certainly do not want to take any more time--this is going to be a rather burdensome evening. I am not too hot for this agreement, to tell you the truth. But if we can move expeditiously and get these amendments disposed of--and I defer to the chairman on this--according to my list, we have about five amendments here that have not been cleared. I think that probably the first thing we ought to do is to take the amendments that have been cleared and accept them on both sides and narrow down the list. I think, perhaps, of the remaining amendments, two or three of them will fall. I think that would be an expeditious way to get a resolution of this thing. I do not know whether we are going to get an agreement tonight to say that any amendments that will not be laid down tonight will be in order tomorrow. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, let me say to the Senator from North Dakota that his amendment actually is a farm bill amendment. The chairman and I have both said in our opening statements that we hope we will not get into trying to amend the farm bill that we passed last year. I have strong empathy for the Senator from North Dakota because he has a great interest in the issue of barley. But I hope that the Senator would be willing to take the manager's word for the fact that this really needs to be considered by the chairman and ranking members of the Agriculture Committee, because that is where this really belongs. To say that if there is a package of farm bill amendments that might be approved by the authorizers at the conclusion of this bill, there might possibly be a chance--and I do not want to guarantee or promise the Senator from North Dakota this, but we might be able to do something at the end in the way of a package of amendments. In any case, whether we deal with it that way or not, there might be a possibility of doing something with it in conference. I know the Senator from North Dakota feels strongly about this, but I really feel that we probably ought to deal with this in a slightly different way, because it really is an amendment to the farm bill.

Mr. BUMPERS. Let me say, first of all, I want to cooperate with the majority leader. I am afraid, as they say, he has poured out more than we can smooth over this evening. There are a lot of amendments here that are going to require a lot of debate. For example, Senator Santorum does not have one amendment; he has eight amendments. To suggest that all of these amendments will be debated tonight, and we start voting at 11 o'clock in the morning, we would be lucky to finish by 11 o'clock in the morning if we stayed here all night the way I look at this thing. So I would suggest that we try to craft this in such a way that we say, first, these amendments be the only ones in order. I sympathize with that totally, and I think that is the first part of the agreement that we get, if we possibly can, to stop the very hemorrhaging you are talking about of new amendments. Second, I think we ought to limit the time agreement on these amendments so that we do not take 2 hours. I know Senator Kennedy feels very strongly about one amendment and wants 2 hours. So I am just saying that if we could limit the amendments in the unanimous-consent agreement--and I do not believe the Senator from North Dakota would object to that--I think we could get that done now, and that would be a major step toward getting this bill finished.

Mr. BUMPERS. That is right.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments be agreed to, en bloc.

Mr. BUMPERS. I urge the adoption of the amendments.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, this deals with a project in Rhode Island. I think it has been cleared by both sides.

Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I would like to fortify what the chairman just said. And that is, that we should not be required--and I do not think we are going to be required--to sit here all night pending some Senator deciding to come over and offer his amendment. The unanimous-consent agreement has been entered into. Everybody knows which amendments are going to be in order. Senator Cochran and I do not have any interest in sitting here during numerous quorum calls hoping that somebody will show up. So I hope Senators will be considerate enough to get them offered and disposed of this evening, if we can. And with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me ask the indulgence of the Senator from Mississippi for a moment. We have not seen the language on this yet. We probably will have no objection but before agreeing to it, we would like to see the language.

Mr. BUMPERS

Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, the Senator from Florida is actually the architect of this amendment, and he has done an outstanding job. Thirty-eight States are going to be penalized under this bill because what we are using is the 1991 and 1994 figures. If your State made a monumental effort during those years, you may be rewarded under this bill. If you did not because you could not, you would be punished for the next 6 years. West Virginia has a $13.34 per case administrative cost, New York has $106. So because West Virginia has been provident, they are going to get punished. Because New York has been improvident, they get rewarded. That is not equitable.