Saxby Chambliss

Mr. CHAMBLISS

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Certainly, Mr. President. That is fine.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending second-degree amendment to Gregg amendment No. 3673 be withdrawn.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, earlier the Senator from Iowa, Chairman Harkin, announced a unanimous consent on two votes on amendments of Senator Alexander following the debate on this particular amendment. I ask unanimous consent, as we have agreed, that after the two Alexander votes, that Gregg amendment No. 3673 come up for a vote, and that prior thereto there be 15 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Earlier, I asked unanimous consent to include the Gregg amendment to be voted on following the two Alexander amendments. In my request, I asked for 15 minutes of debate equally divided. I now ask unanimous consent that 15 minutes be withdrawn.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. I would add to that, that the Gregg vote on amendment No. 3673 requires a 60-vote margin. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. I yield 5 minutes to my colleague from Georgia, Senator Isakson.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. At whatever time that might be.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas, Mrs. Lincoln.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia for stepping up and making a lot of common sense in their comments. All of us are appreciative of the work Senator Dorgan and Senator Grassley have done over the years in this body. They have both been very supportive of agriculture. I particularly am appreciative of that as the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. I have been to Iowa. I know the kind of farming they do there. It is different from the way we farm Georgia. I have been to North Dakota. I have seen the way their farms operate in North Dakota. It is different from the way we operate in the Southeast. There are reasons why policies have to be different for different sections of the country. I wish to talk for a minute about this claim that all these farmers getting payments are big farmers. The proponents of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment claim that 10 percent of the farmers are getting 70 to 80 percent of the program payments. They characterize these farmers as megafarmers and corporate farmers. Both Senator Grassley and Senator Dorgan talk about megafarmers and corporate farmers as opposed to family farmers they want to assist with farm programs. I wish to explain that the farmers in the States of all my colleagues fall within this 10-percent category, and they are ordinary farmers with average size operations. They have families to support, and they are a vital component of rural communities. Most of all, those 10 percent feed this country. I wish to make it clear, particularly to those who are considering supporting Dorgan-Grassley, why an overwhelming majority of the farmers in your State would fit within the category of being in the top 10 percent of payment recipients. In order to compare apples to apples, I asked USDA to provide me with the attribution data for the 2005 direct payments. I asked for the data in an attributable form because I wanted the information to reflect what the universe of payees would look like based upon the committee-supported bill which requires direct attribution. The data from USDA is pretty interesting. It provides clarity as to the size of farming operations that comprise the top recipients. In 2005, if a farmer received 1 penny more than $10,000 in direct payments, they would have been considered to fit within the largest 12 percent of producer recipients, exactly the category Senator Grassley referred to. Some of you might ask: How many acres does a farmer have to farm to reach $10,000? Critics consider them to be megafarmers, but the facts do not support this claim and here is why. According to the USDA attribution data, direct payments average $23.02 per acre nationally, which means if a farmer has 511 base acres, they reach the $10,000 level. Now, I will be honest with you. Maybe it is a good bit different in the Southeast from the way it is in the Midwest. But if you try to farm 500 acres in the Southeast and feed a family of four, you simply cannot do it. In areas where covered commodities are produced, there are few farmers who would consider themselves anything but a small farmer with this amount of acreage. Yet the critics are not interested in telling you these small farmers fit within the category Senator Grassley referenced on the floor recently, when he claimed we have 10 percent of the large farmers in America getting 70 percent to 80 percent of all the money. To better understand how so many typical farmers fall within this small percentage of payment beneficiaries, you must understand the entire universe of program participants. If one operator rents seven separate tracts from seven separate landowners, on a 75 percent-25 percent crop share arrangement, we end up with eight individuals receiving program benefits--one operator and seven landowners. Each of these eight individuals counts as a program recipient. But since the operator is on a 75-25 percent crop share arrangement, he or she ends up with 75 percent of the acres and production, while all seven landowners account for 25 percent of the acres and production on their respective farm. Or another way to look at it, the individual operator accounts for 75 percent of the program payments but only 12 percent of the universe of individuals represented in that scenario. I fail to see why this is being represented as inappropriate or unfair. It is only logical that the operator, as a program recipient, who accounts for 75 percent of the acres and production, receives more than any of the other seven individual landowners, who each account for only 25 percent of the acres and production on their respective farm. This simply reflects the one individual operator receives payments in a higher proportion than the other seven individuals due to his level of production and risk. Now, there has been conversation and statements made tonight about the fact we did not make real reforms. Let me tell you where the heart of the difference is between the Grassley-Dorgan proposal and the underlying bill. The heart of the difference is in what we call the definition of an ``actively engaged farmer.'' Under current law and under the language in the base bill, individuals or entities must furnish a significant contribution of capital or equipment or land and personal labor or active personal management in order to be actively engaged in farming. So a farmer who qualifies for payments must put at risk money, he must furnish land, he must furnish equipment or he has to be directly involved in the management of the operation. Under the Grassley-Dorgan amendment, that definition is changed so that for an individual to be considered actively engaged in farming, they must furnish a significant contribution of capital or equipment or land and personal labor and active personal management. So what that means is any young farmer--as Senator Grassley referred to--who has a difficult time getting into the farming business, if he wants to come in and start farming, that young farmer, in order to qualify for payments--remember, this is the person who is going to be out there driving the tractor; this is the person who is going to be getting dirt under his or her fingernails--they have to come up with money, they have to come up with equipment or he has to come up with land, and he has to be the guy who is making all the decisions on the ground out there. He cannot have anybody helping him with it, so to speak, who gets payments that help that young man along. Which young farmer in America today can step right out of school, step right out of high school or college, for that matter, who has the ability to come up with capital, who can come up with the $250,000 combine, who can come up with a $150,000 tractor, who can come up with even a used planter that is going to cost several thousand dollars? Who has the ability to do that? Well, the arrangement we have that is available to a young farmer under the base bill and under current law is that when a young man or a young woman wants to get involved in farming--a lot of the time it is with their family, sometimes it is without--they have the ability now to enter into a crop share or a landlord-tenant arrangement with a landowner who oftentimes is in the retiring years of wanting to slow down his farming operation or maybe completely get out of it and let someone else get into it. But if he has land, he has equipment he is willing to put into a partnership, a landlord-tenant arrangement, then that young farmer has an opportunity today he simply would not have if the Dorgan-Grassley amendment passes. It is pure and simple. So when we say we are going to be taking care of young farmers by putting a $250,000 cap on the payment limits any farmer can receive and, thereby, we are going to allow young farmers to come into an agricultural operation, we are kidding ourselves, and we are not being straightforward because that simply is not giving that young farmer any additional advantage. Now, there has been conversation about abuses of the program and that a lot of people who are not farmers--who may live in Los Angeles or may live in Washington or may live in New York--are getting payments. That is true. This is my third farm bill. I have tried in every farm bill to try to make sure that young man whom we talked about who is getting dirt under his fingernails, whether it is a young farmer or an older farmer, is the one who gets the benefit--I emphasize that, the benefit--of these safety net programs. We have sought to do that again. We have modified the language in this bill. For example, Senator Dorgan has referred to what we commonly call the ``cowboy starter kit,'' where we have base acres on a piece of farmland that all of a sudden is turned into a subdivision or into a development of some sort, and payments are made on those base acres. Well, we have taken those base acres out of eligibility for farm payments with language we have directly put into the bill because what we say is that in order for base acres to qualify, a farmer has ``to use the land on the farm, in a quantity equal to the attributable base acres for the farm and any base acres for peanuts for the farm under part III, for an agricultural or conserving use, and not for a nonagricultural commercial, industrial, or residential use. . . .'' So when we talk about the ability of somebody to own base acres and to take that land and develop it or maybe carve a 10-acre tract out of there and still get payments on those base acres, you are not going to be able to do that under this farm bill. We went a little bit further because in the committee I had a dialog with Senator Nelson and Senator Salazar relative to an amendment which they had designed to prevent commodity program payments on land that is no longer a farming operation or used in conjunction with a farming operation. We have agreed to accept some additional language relative to the amendment they proposed and we took in the committee. The amendment requires the Secretary to reduce base acres for covered commodities for land that has been developed for commercial or industrial use, unless the producer demonstrates that the land remains devoted exclusively to agricultural production, or for land that has been subdivided and developed for multiple residential units or other nonfarming uses, unless the producer demonstrates the land remains devoted exclusively to agricultural production. So we are taking the ability away from a commercial developer to ever get any farm payments. I do not know who these particular individuals are who have been referred to as the examples of who ought not to get payments who have gotten payments, but I do recognize there have been abuses, and we have sought to correct that. We have sought to correct that, and we are going to make sure any payments that go on base acres under the bill go to a farmer or an individual who is using that land for agricultural purposes and not for any commercial development or residential development purposes. Are we going to cure all the problems? Look, I wish I thought we could. I know with any program that is of this size there is going to be some abuse somewhere along the way. We do not have a Federal program in place today that is not being abused and that you cannot single out 1 or 2 or 10 individuals, particularly where we have an expenditure of billions and billions of dollars. But we are certainly doing our best to address the issue, to try to correct the abuses that have taken place. In this particular instance, we truly have made real reforms that I think are going to close every loophole we know is out there today when it comes to making sure payments go to folks who deserve the payments and that the payments are at a level that is reasonable when it comes to making sure we have a close watch on the taxpayer dollar. I wish to close this portion of my comments by saying we will detail, as Senator Lincoln said earlier, some of the specific reforms. But I will highlight one. I was involved in the writing of the 1996 farm bill, as was Senator Grassley, as was Senator Lincoln. In that farm bill, which was enacted 5 years ago, we had a payment limit cap of $450,000. In the last 5 years, from 2002 to the language that is included in the base bill we are talking about today, we have reduced that $450,000 down to $100,000. Now, that is a $350,000 reform. Senator Grassley takes it up to $250,000, but that is not apples and apples. But the fact is, we have made real reforms in the dollar amount that folks are eligible to receive from $450,000 down to $100,000. We have also made other significant changes, such as elimination of three entity, as well as the requiring of attribution to every farmer in America who is going to be receiving payments under this farm bill. With that, I will reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I think the issue is as to what time those votes will take place. As I understand the unanimous consent request, it is following the debate on the Grassley-Dorgan amendment that we go to votes on the two Alexander amendments.

Mr. CHAMBLISS

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Then I do not object, Mr. President.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. It is a second-degree amendment?

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what is the nature of this amendment?

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Yes.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. There will be no more votes today.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, let's try this one more way. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Ohio be recognized for 5 minutes, the Senator from New Mexico be recognized for 6 minutes, and then the Senator from New Hampshire be recognized to discuss his amendments, whatever they may be; that following him, the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, be recognized.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. I believe she said she is ready to go. So the Senator from New Hampshire will be recognized for 30 minutes, equally divided, on those three amendments.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, let me try this one more time. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Ohio have 5 minutes to discuss his amendment, the Senator from New Mexico be recognized for 6 minutes, and then the Senator from New Hampshire be recognized for 30 minutes, equally divided, to debate three amendments. The first is No. 3671, the farm stress program; No. 3672, which is to strike the asparagus provision; and No. 3674, which is the mortgage forgiveness amendment.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. No.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following the 5 minutes for the Senator from Ohio, the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Gregg, be recognized for 30 minutes, equally divided, on three amendments: Nos. 3671, 3672, and 3674.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I request of the Senator from Ohio, how long does he intend to speak?

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I ask that the vote originally set at 3:50 p.m. be moved to an immediate vote. Have the yeas and nays been requested?

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Yes, 1 hour equally divided for all three.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Amendment No. 3674, the mortgage forgiveness amendment.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Amendment No. 3671 is striking the farm stress program, and amendment No. 3673 is the OB/GYN liability reform.