Conrad Burns

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I rise this evening to oppose the Schumer amendment. I think my good friend from New York underestimates Americans. The greatest example of why we vote is in his little domain. It is called Ellis Island, a wonderful place to visit. I recommend all Americans do it. See the photographs of people who came from everywhere, some having everything they owned in a little bag, not very much money, not speaking the language, not understanding the system, really not knowing what kind of a land this was. It took a lot of get-up-and-go to do that. The bottom line was freedom--freedom and opportunity. They knew in their own hearts, after they had not been here very long, that that freedom and opportunity also demanded responsibility. They didn't ask if there was a health plan. They didn't ask if there was a minimum wage. They didn't ask for anything. They just wanted that freedom and opportunity. Here is where I think we underestimate Americans. If you go down and want to pick up tickets to the theater or to a sporting event and they are in ``will call,'' they require a photo ID, don't they? We all fly on airplanes. Yesterday, after Salt Lake City, I don't know how many more lines I want to stand in. But most of us fly on airplanes. If you don't have a photo ID, are you going to get on? No, sir. You step up there. You pull out your little ID before you can even get in to the gate area. I did that. We all have new ID cards here. Some of you might have noticed; some of you might not. I pulled mine out the other day and gave it to the one doing the screening. She looked at it. She said: ``I don't recognize that kind of an ID card.'' I said: ``Well, it has on there what I do. It has a picture of a nice-looking fellow and a number.'' ``It doesn't make any difference. I don't recognize it.'' I put that one back. I pulled out one for Sam's Club. That one worked good. I went right on through. Most of the seniors I know vote absentee if they can't make it to the polls. They preregister. They understand what voting responsibility is and how precious most Americans think that right is to vote. By the way, I am getting tired of going through these detectors wearing boots because I always have to take them off. They have steel shanks. That requirement has cost me seven pairs of socks. I can't have holes in them anymore, and they have to match. The seniors in my State of Montana notably have one of the largest percentages of votes in every Federal election. They get absentee ballots. My good friend from Oregon, I am sure, has a mail-in ballot. That is kind of a mail-in absentee. It has to match a registration somewhere. There has to be somebody there. What this bill requires is the validity of a person. I had an amendment that was rejected by this body--I still think it was a good amendment--that we could purge our lists every 4 years instead of, as this bill requires, every 8 years. Those counties that have universities and institutions of higher learning carry an enormous list of students who desire to vote in that county, and those names have to be carried for 8 years. I do not have one election administrator in one county out of the 56 in Montana who really thinks they can embrace this legislation at all because there are some mandates in here that maybe we can't comply with. Let me give an example. We don't have electricity or running water at every polling place in Montana. That is hard to believe, is it not? We have old, abandoned country schoolhouses still used for polling places. But they don't hold school there anymore, so they fire up the old stove and take their lanterns. That is where they vote. And if something comes up, you know everybody in the county. The county is probably as big as Delaware and only has 1,800 people. Everybody knows everybody anyway. There is very little room for fraudulent votes. What we are saying here with this legislation is that we don't quite trust the American people to do some things for the privilege and the right to vote. If they really want to participate in the political process, they will do all the necessary things. You are not registered to vote. Would you like to register to vote? Well, I would. So they fill it out. Who mails it in? Usually the guy who is working the neighborhood. That could be me. The seniors I know and the people I know who have a hard time making it to the polls vote absentee. We forget about this. We go into this debate every time. I am saying we are talking about something that may be very important, but I don't think it is important because we have underestimated the American people. You never want to do that. They know what the proposition is. They understand what it is to register to vote. They pay taxes in that county or that township. They protect their right to speak through the polling box. Don't underestimate them. Everything we do, everything we do, from picking up tickets for the theater or a sporting event or anything else, requires that photo ID. I would admonish anyone to go out and tell anybody, from the first-time voter through the oldest voter, that they can't vote, because they can find ways to do it--register by mail, absentee. I have to believe what we are trying to do here is to maintain the status quo. We leave ourselves open, with these huge lists, to fraud-- we invite it, in fact--when it boils down to the responsibility of each and every citizen to be in a position to vote. So I ask that this amendment of my good friend from Oregon--and we know each other's States very well, and we also understand the people there very well. I venture to say you would get a higher percentage of voter turnout in eastern Oregon than you do in western Oregon. They know the responsibility, and they understand it, and they welcome it. So I hope my colleagues will vote to table or defeat this Schumer amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. BURNS

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

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I rise today in joining the Secretary of Agriculture in applauding the decision that was reached by our U.S. Trade Representative this morning on the 301 investigation into the Canadian Wheat Board and on durum wheat. I think Minnesota is a producer of durum, as we are in the Dakotas and in Montana. In her statement--and I associate with her words this morning--we support the immediate actions outlined in this decision, which will help us to move forward, removing the longstanding barrier in U.S.-Canadian relations. We are committed to working with the USTR in our country and, of course, with the WTO, and those trade negotiations should produce discipline which will lead to fundamental reform. As you well know, that has been a bone of contention among grain producers in this country and, of course, with this Government and its relationship with Canada. This morning, I heard a statement from a colleague who quoted a news article from a western producer in Canada, and by a secondhand source, that claimed the Secretary of Agriculture urged her Canadian counterpart to lobby Congress regarding the farm bill. I find that very unusual. In fact, I asked the Secretary this morning about that. I picked up the phone and called the Secretary and she denied making any such statement in its entirety. She did call the Minister of Agriculture in Canada, and he apologized for misstatements of his staff. Of course, I find that everybody is entitled to their opinion and everybody is entitled also to the facts. I would find it very unusual if another country got involved in the internal affairs of another. They usually do not do that, although we are now, it seems, at the end of the debate of the farm bill. That is not going to weigh in as it goes into conference. It is important legislation. If there was ever a time for solidarity in agriculture, it is now. I say that to agriculturalists around the world because it seems as if we have gotten into this mindset that it is a right to have what we produce, when basically we have to figure out a way to make a living at it, one. Two, we don't like to see hungry people either, but quit putting up rules and regulations and deal with the market forces that would allow us to produce food and fiber in this country. It seems in this community and in the agricultural community, if we want to take a shot at somebody, instead of using a straight line, we use a circle for firing squads. That usually isn't a very good situation. This morning, I again join the Secretary of Agriculture in this 301 finding. Now we will move on and try to deal with the situation with the Canadian Wheat Board. Living on the Canadian border is always a source of irritation whenever we have to move livestock and grain back and forth across the Canadian border. Of course, with the culture as it is in our State, and as it is in Alberta and Saskatchewan, our values are alike. Most of our problems are from east of the 100th meridian in understanding the situations we have to deal with in our production of food and fiber. So I hope we can work this out and get away from misstatements or misguided statements and come together in the agricultural community and work together because I think the time has come that we are going to need some solidarity, especially from producers. I don't see processors having a hard time or purveyors having a hard time or any distributors of the food product having a hard time. But I know there are hard times when it comes to the production of food and fiber because we can't get a handle on our cost of production. We have to continue to think about that as Americans and think about the security that we have. Ours is about the only country in the world where you can have fresh lettuce in grocery stores in the wintertime in Minnesota. It is a wonderful system in this country. You don't know how great it is until you travel around the world. Nonetheless, there are some misgivings about what it costs and the work that it takes to get the beans to the table. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I think this gets down to where we really want to be in cleaning up this situation on voting lists, registrations, and everything that goes with elections. Whenever you have a list that is inaccurate, whether it be by address or by name or by whatever, and there is a huge list of names on the inactive list, this absolutely invites fraud and mischief. It also invites the situation where, if you are a voter and you want to vote and that list is inaccurate, you may not be able or allowed to vote. That is why the purge of the list at least every 4 years is necessary. I am adamant on this because I come out of county government. I was just a little, old county commissioner, but I understand the challenges one has putting on elections. I also understand the cost. I also understand what it costs to maintain a database that is accessible and easy to change as the times or the circumstance would suggest. This may be a part of our problem in facing the challenges of elections, trying to keep ``one vote, one person'' and making sure that person is on the list and can vote. I ask support of my amendment. I understand the work the managers have done on this legislation. I fully understand that and I fully understand where they come from. But as we move forward, if we have difficulties and we see the difficulties of maintaining the lists, then we can also reconsider this at a later time. I appreciate the cooperation of the managers, and my good friend from Connecticut, and I will yield the remainder of my time, but first I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BURNS. This is a simple amendment that allows clerks and recorders and election directors in each of the counties to purge their lists. I am sure all States have college towns with a transient population. In Missoula County, there are currently 86,266 registered voters. What is noteworthy about that is, of the 86,266 registered voters, there are only 76,067 eligible voters. We have over 10,000 voters, 1 out of 8 registered, that our election officials are required to keep on the list but who cannot vote in the county. That is only one county in one State across this Nation. If we are going to suggest changes in the way we cast our votes on the national level, it makes sense to allow election administrators to purge their lists in less than 8 years. Right now, the legislation calls for that purge every other Presidential election, or every 8 years. I suggest in my amendment we do it after two Federal elections to make sure the list they have is accurate and it is not outdated. Not purging leads to mischief, it invites fraud, but it also jeopardizes the integrity of one of our basic fundamental rights; that is, the right to vote. It is a simple amendment. It is an amendment that needs to be implemented. We have counties that have a population of only 1,800 people with 2,500 square miles in the county, and we cannot purge those lists in those counties. We have some polling places that have no electricity. Everybody found that sort of humorous. Imagine the migration from the rural areas to cities, which is quite evident in my State. Some old country schoolhouses have been maintained but have no electricity. The only heat is an old potbellied stove. But they become a polling place during elections. There is no telephone, no electricity, and they are lit by lantern. It works very well. We do not want to change that. This amendment calls for the purge of the lists after every other Federal election is held, meaning it would be purged after 4 years. And that is a long time. It makes good sense. It is common sense that we do it this way. It helps out in handling the expenses of counties in conducting elections. I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BURNS. I don't think it is going to take much more than 15 minutes. If you had somebody scheduled in front of me, I say to the Senator from Connecticut, I would facilitate that.

Mr. BURNS. I thank my good friend from Connecticut. I call up my amendment.

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, if I am out of line, I could be put back in line very easily.

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, this is a very simple amendment.

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I believe the Senator from Montana is ready to call up an amendment. Amendment No. 2887

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. I thank my good friend. Mr. President, this amendment is pretty simple. It allows the director of elections in each county or the secretary of state to purge the list every 4 years, or every other Federal election. Right now, they cannot purge it but every other Presidential election. So you are carrying dead weight for 8 years. It costs Missoula County $16,000 just to maintain these big lists. It also makes a lot of people ineligible to vote even though they are on the list. This is strongly supported by the secretaries of state of your States. I ask for your support. This makes more sense. This is where the mischief is in elections. I yield the floor.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. I thank my friend. Madam President, how much time remains?

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I raise two points. Members on this side of the issue spend a lot of time talking about ``shadows.'' Senators have to ask themselves, why is this in this bill, No. 1; and, No. 2, why is it important? What is the reason for it? Have we been given a reason why this was in this legislation when it was offered as a stand-alone bill? It did not even gain enough recognition to have a hearing in committee and now we are going to put it into law. I want the other side to defend why they want this piece of legislation. Why do they want this section? I don't want Members to go back to the cloakroom or offices and turn off the TV and not listen to this. I have not heard one reason why it is important to anything that has to do with the production of food and fiber. It is in there to leave us to fight it. What are we fighting? We don't know. I have not heard anybody come down here and do that. I was gone yesterday and they probably did discuss it and I probably missed it, but nonetheless these ears and these eyes have not heard or seen the reason for this legislation or this section to be in this piece of legislation and what it has to do with food and fiber production and the security of the American people to have their grocery stores full. That does not make a lot of sense to me. We are going to vote on it.

Mr. BURNS. How much on the other side?

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I rise to support the Crapo amendment. From the statements that have been made with regard to having water language in the agriculture bill at all, it is pretty indicative of what has happened since the legislation was introduced. There has been no hearing on this legislation. It started out as a version of S. 1737. The bill never had a hearing. It has never seen the light of day. It has never seen any lightbulbs. Any time that happens in the Senate, most of us fear not what is in it but what is not in it. This summer, we had a crisis in the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon, southeastern Oregon, and northern California. Anybody who depends on water for irrigation and their farm operations should be very concerned about this amendment. We have heard a lot of Western Senators make statements, but this is not only a problem that is confined to the West. We now have a little argument over a river that runs between Alabama and Georgia. As populations grow, we will hear of more conflicts in areas where water law or water policy has never before been considered. Last weekend, of course, all the papers were full of Enron, but there was a very interesting article in Monday's Washington Post with regard to a National Science Foundation study that was released. It was very critical of the science that was a part of the decision to shut off the water to the agricultural interests in the Klamath Basin. Madam President, 1,500 farmers were denied water for their irrigation projects. Crops burned up. We have seen filings of bankruptcy, people losing their farms because in farming, a tenuous endeavor, one cannot afford to see one crop missed or they will not have anything at all, all because of the Endangered Species Act. That made me wonder about a lot of other studies the Government has done. Are they credible? And what kind of responsibility have we taken on as a Government to make sure that the science is correct to the best of our knowledge? Ever since, any legislation that comes before this body that has to do with the Endangered Species Act as it relates to water raises many questions. Congress has had a longstanding policy that water rights, even water rights for conservation, even water that would be classified as preservation, always had to come to terms with the States involved. It is a State's right of controlling and adjudicating its own resources. This Government has never even taken a look at that until the beginning of the last administration when we had a Secretary of Interior who was very forthright in his belief that the Federal Government should control all water resources across this country. This is a part of the farm bill that is most troubling to most of us. We will have more to say on this before we vote on this amendment, which comes up on Tuesday. I assume that is the tentative schedule. We see new terms entered in this issue. We know what an ``endangered specie'' is. We have a definition of a ``threatened specie.'' But this is the first time we have heard the term ``sensitive specie.'' Maybe that category is those who serve in this body. As we look at what happened in the Klamath Basin, as we look at another little item that happened in Washington State when there was a deliberate planting of the Canadian lynx hair to prove this was habitat for another specie that is on the threatened list and yet has not been classified as endangered just to control the use of the land, we have to look with a very suspicious eye at what we are doing to this country and its ability to produce food and fiber for its citizens. Can that agenda be so treacherous as to deny us, the American people, the ability to clothe and feed ourselves? Right now, with the attitude I see in some communities, I would say that is the case. There are a lot of unintended consequences of this language that could happen later, and all of them are negative. There is nothing positive. This does nothing for agriculture, as we know it, and our ability to produce crops and fiber. From that standpoint alone, I ask my colleagues who represent States where agriculture plays a major role in their economy to take a look at this and ask themselves: Is this farm policy? Is this food security policy? I can see no way that one can find a positive answer. Any time we have big brother, who has the big checkbook, standing in the wings to control the lifeblood of any crop, whether it falls from the sky, whether it runs down our streams, or the capillary or the underground rivers of groundwater under their control, something so vital that it is even recommended we have eight glasses a day--or it used to be--something so vital to life, would we want that kind of control in the hands of a government, sometimes a government that is insensitive to what we have to put up with in the production of food and fiber for this country? So as the weekend rolls on and as we take time to study this issue, I think that is a question for this body. Do we pass legislation that has never had a hearing, that has never been presented before any committee, and then wonder about the question that is being raised tonight? Remember, we are doing business that will affect people with real faces, with real investments, in the real world. It is not some harebrained idea that has been generated in this 17 square miles of logic-free environment because it does have a true effect on every person who lives in this country, not just us who live in the West but everybody who lives in this country. I thank the Chair for allowing me this time. I will have more to say at a later date. I yield the floor.

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I thank my friend from Iowa. I don't think we have any other route until we complete this study. Maybe we can enlighten our friends down at the CBO. They came up with unbelievable numbers. We changed our language, on their recommendation. There was a point of order raised when we first offered the amendments; they were wrong then. Then they suggested the language. Now they say the language is not good enough. So here we go again. I take issue with their numbers. However, I will not take issue with the recommendation made from the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture. We need to complete some sort of a comprehensive study of rural areas and the impact that CRP, specifically this program, has had on rural communities, when you take good land out of production or you pay the same for highly erodable land and highly productive land. I think we can work on some language. We would like to see what happened. Maybe they will put some little fellow somewhere to work, give him a job for the next 2 or 3 months and maybe we can come back and change some of this. It defies common sense. They say that is about all the sense I have-- pretty common--but it defies common sense that this would have an impact on the budget or outlays of money when we talk about the enrollment of acres into a conservation program, designed for a good reason, but that has gone astray. We are trying to fix that. That is all we are trying to do. If it requires a study and we have to go back and visit with those people, that is what we will have to do. I thank my friend and his staff for that recommendation. I think it is a good recommendation. Amendment No. 2607, As Modified, and Amendment No. 2608, As Modified, Withdrawn

Mr. BURNS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I will withdraw these amendments. If the manager of the bill will permit me a hold somewhere in there, say, if we get the language worked out, then we can reoffer these amendments, referring to the section that he recommended in his opening statement. I appreciate the help of my good friend from Iowa.

Mr. BURNS. I thank my good friend from Indiana. I do not think I will take that much time because these amendments were pretty well discussed prior to the holiday break. There was some question about a budgetary point of order. I have since modified these amendments, and they are in concert with the budget and ready for consideration because it is a change in policy on how we handle CRP, the Conservation Reserve Program. One of the amendments limits the number of acres--these will be the new acres coming into the system or any acres that are renewed--a farmer can enroll in the CRP. What we are seeing in rural America is that instead of selling the farm or the ranch to a younger farmer or putting the acres into production, those acres are enrolled in the CRP and they do not produce anything. In other words, the farmer who enrolls them takes the check and it is like going to Arizona--he is still getting the paycheck and still paying for the farm. I think this is wrong. Those acres are enrolled for a good purpose. The original intent of CRP was to put marginal acres in the CRP and leave the good acres to production. What happened? The trend has reversed, and farmers are putting in some good land. It forced some of the fellows who needed to raise their production into breaking up some land that was marginal for grain production. This one amendment calls for a limitation on the number of acres a farmer can put in the CRP. It is not the total acres of a county or a State but for each farmer. The other amendment deals with the form of payment. As I said, we had one payment for everything. It was designed to take those marginal acres, highly erodable acres, out of production for a conservation reason--wildlife habitat. It worked. Land was set aside. The population of upland birds, sporting birds, and wildlife returned to those areas. Then, because payment for the acres increased, good land was being put into the CRP. That was not the intent of the Conservation Reserve Program. What my second amendment says is we will pay higher prices for those acres that are highly erodable and should not be farmed and should be set aside for conservation purposes--in other words, it is just good conservation--and a lower price for the highly productive land because that is the land that should be in production. I do not know how many people have gone through our rural areas, but CRP has not been a great thing for our smaller towns. One does not see dealerships. Machinery dealerships have gone away, and feed and wheat houses have gone away because good land was put into the CRP and taken out of production, and nothing happens on that land. That is not what the original intent of CRP was about. As I stated to the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, these issues have been pretty well aired. The purpose, as far as I can see, is good conservation. It also is good business practice. If there are questions, I will certainly entertain some conversation on these amendments. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I thank my ranking member. I assume my two amendments are in order.

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

Mr. BURNS

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 5 minutes. And I daresay I would not use that much time.

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, is there any time to respond to the statement made by the Senator from Iowa?