Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, there are several Senators who have amendments we want to consider. I know Senator Boxer has an amendment. She is prepared to offer it. We are trying to resolve most of the amendments that have been brought to our attention, but there are a few that may require a vote. I think Senator Boxer's amendment may be one of them.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. The Senator is correct. Any parliamentary inquiries can be directed to the Chair. I tried to explain the vote. It is on the Cochran amendment. We have voted on it twice--on a motion to table; and it was adopted on a voice vote. It was an amendment to the Daschle-Harkin amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. The staff is advising me that the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, at this point in the proceeding, I know the pending business is the Cochran amendment and it is at the desk. I know of no other amendments that are going to be offered to that amendment. The bill will be open for amendment further upon the adoption of that amendment. It is an amendment that has already been voted on twice, once on a motion to table and then adopted on a voice vote. I am prepared to move forward to dispose of that disaster assistance issue. I am awaiting the advice of the Chair. Do we have to have third reading? If we do, I will request it.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I think progress is being made by the managers and our staff members with those Senators who have suggested amendments to the bill. We are compiling a list of amendments that will be agreed upon. There are a few that have not been resolved and that probably will require either disposition by voice vote or rollcall vote either up or down or on a motion to table. I am just suggesting we are getting to that point toward the end of the bill when we are ready to wrap this up. We hope we are not in too late tonight. If Senators will cooperate and offer the amendments they have, we will appreciate that very much. Amendment No. 1499, As Amended

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Missouri and others who were interested in the sanctions amendment that he had offered and which had been approved in a different form earlier in the consideration of the bill for working to put this legislation together in a form that could be adopted by the Senate tonight. I know the Senators from Florida and New Jersey were interested in this legislation, and the author of the amendment has shown strong leadership in bringing this issue to the Senate and in pushing it the way he did to get it approved. I compliment him and those who worked with him to try to resolve this issue.

Mr. COCHRAN. In that event, as I understand the parliamentary situation, the Senator from Missouri could offer his amendment on sanctions for the consideration of the Senate and, at this time, it would be parliamentarily permissible for him to do it.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I have been asked to seek unanimous consent that it be in order to reoffer the Ashcroft amendment regarding sanctions, that the amendment be considered agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. I announce that I have been asked to seek that consent. I know a copy of the agreement has been furnished to staff on both sides, and it has been hotlined. I don't have a response as to whether it has been agreed to. So I am raising the question as to whether or not that consent can be granted.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, all time has been consumed or yielded back. I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I am happy to discuss this. I do not think we are going to make any progress in reaching an agreement in the way the Senator from Nebraska has undertaken to try to explore the options. This is, is it the third day? It seems as if it has been 3 days. Maybe it has just been 2. Time passes so fast when you are having fun trying to work something out. We have undertaken in good faith to try to arrive at a package of assistance that will address the needs, as we understand them, in agriculture. If the Senator has listened to the debate, as I am sure he has, there have been some Senators who do not think there should be any funds made available at this time for this purpose because the harvests have not been completed and we do not know what the losses are in some areas of the country. This year, some farmers are predicted to make more money than they did last year. In my State, aquaculture is considered to be having a very good year. There was a big feature story just this week in our State's press about that. But there are some farmers who are having a terrible time. Many of them are in the newspapers and photographs where drought has hit crops in this region of the country. We are all aware of those problems. To suggest to me that I should now look at this last amendment that has a long list of things in it and I should select things that I could be willing to accept puts me in a position that is really untenable. I think the Senator understands that. So I think his questions are not only facetious but not well intended to really achieve the result of a compromise. I cannot speak for all Senators on this side of the aisle when trying to respond to a question such as that. I can say that there is a lot of diversity in the Senate. We have come together to agree on an approach. It is a generous approach, and I think we are willing to go to conference with that. I am willing to take that to conference and defend it and improve it if we can, if the House has some better ideas.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, no, there is not.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I know of no Senators on this side who are requesting recognition to debate this amendment. I observe that there has been a lot of discussion and consideration in the Senate on all of the issues that are included in this proposed amendment. Nothing really has been changed except the vehicle for delivery of assistance--that has been changed--and a reduction in total cost. We still observe this is not a CBO estimate of the cost. The earliest cost of the Harkin amendment was over $10 billion, but then CBO sends us an estimate and it is over $11 billion. So one thing for Senators to keep in mind is that the cost of this proposed amendment is still considerably higher than the Cochran amendment that has previously been agreed to by the Senate on a voice vote this afternoon. I hope Senators will continue to support the managers' effort to table this amendment and proceed to then consider the remaining amendments we have available to be disposed of in connection with this legislation. We think the underlying amendment fully addresses the need for action to deal with the problem of lost income and disaster assistance. It may not be perfect. There is no provision in the House bill on this subject. So we have an opportunity in conference to work out differences. If there are developments between now and the time when we do go to conference with the House, we will have an opportunity to address those issues. I am hopeful Senators will understand this is our first action on this subject by the Congress. We have had no support from the administration in terms of trying to identify an appropriate level of disaster assistance for current problems. We already have a disaster program that is still being administered by the Department of Agriculture which was approved in the last Congress. That is a $6 billion program. We are willing to continue to work with the administration and with Senators in this Chamber to design the best possible economic assistance program. We think this is a very strong effort and is a sign that we are serious about dealing with the problems in agriculture. It is a strong commitment. It is a $7 billion effort that has already been agreed to this afternoon. So we will continue to talk to Senators on both sides of the aisle to try to reach a point where we have a consensus and we have an understanding that will be acceptable not only to Congress but get the signature of the White House as well. We realize that is a fact of legislative life. But this is an important issue. We appreciate the way Senators have responded to the challenge, discussing the options and voting for the measures that have been before us. But it is my intention, once the Senator has used his time or yielded it back, to yield the time that remains on this side and move to table the amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, as I understand it, under the agreement there was an opportunity for another disaster assistance amendment to be offered. It is my understanding that an agreement has been reached to limit the time for debate on that amendment to 30 minutes equally divided prior to a motion to table. I make that suggestion to see if it is satisfactory with the distinguished Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield back all time remaining on this side on the amendment. I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I don't know of any Senators on this side of the aisle who desire to debate this issue any further. We have had a full debate of all of the issues surrounding this amendment--the issues of disaster and income assistance. I observe that the proposal that is now before the Senate, offered by the Senators from North Dakota and Iowa and others who may be cosponsors, is very similar to the amendment that has already been voted on, on a motion to table the Daschle-Harkin amendment. On that vote, the motion to table was agreed to. There are some reductions in the individual items of assistance that are included in the bill, but the bill is basically the same bill substantively and in terms of the procedures used to deliver the disaster assistance. We were told also that the earlier bill had been estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to cost over $11 billion. It had been advertised as having a cost of $10.793 billion. This has been revised downward from that previous estimate to $9.83 billion. The individual items we observe that have been changed: There is $100 million less for dairy. There is a reduction in the livestock assistance program from $200 million to $150 million. There was a so- called flooded land program at $250 million in the earlier proposal which is now $150 million. There is a cancellation of the so-called emergency short-term land diversion program and also of the producers erroneously denied eligibility for the 1998 relief program. There are two programs in the emergency conservation area that have been reduced in cost, and one has been canceled. Those are the highlights of the changes that have been made in this legislation from the way it appeared when the Senate voted to table the amendment earlier in the consideration of this bill. So it is virtually the same amendment. There have been some modifications. I urge Senators to vote to table the amendment when that motion is made. It is the intention of this manager to yield back all time that remains on this side, and I will be prepared to do that whenever the Senator from North Dakota says they are ready to vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. That is right.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, after consultation with the Democratic leader and other Senators, my understanding of the procedure now that is agreed upon is that the Cochran amendment can now be adopted by voice vote. Then there will be two other amendments on the subject of disaster assistance that will be offered and voted on. The times for those votes has not yet been agreed upon. But we can take the first step by adopting the Cochran amendment on a voice vote.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, this is the modification that I mentioned in my remarks, when I sent the Cochran amendment to the desk, that we were making to add $400 million for the Crop Insurance Program to the Cochran amendment. There are other technical changes, but that is the substantive change that is made by this modification, for the information of Senators. We are also hopeful, after talking with the distinguished Democratic leader, that it is possible we will be able to move to a vote on the Cochran amendment--the details of that are being discussed now with leaders on both sides and interested Senators --and then consider any other amendments that may be offered on this subject--we know of two suggested major amendments that may still be presented to the Senate for its consideration--to have votes on those or on motions to table those amendments, and then move on to consideration of other amendments which have been suggested by Senators. We have a list of amendments the managers have agreed to accept. There are a few that we know of that Senators have indicated an interest in offering which we are not able to accept, but we hope that if there are Senators who have amendments they intend to offer, they will let us know about this. We have asked each Cloakroom to try to find out what we can expect in the way of additional amendments because we would like to conclude action on this bill this afternoon or early this evening. We think that is certainly possible under the arrangement that has just been discussed with the managers by the Democratic leader. We appreciate the cooperation of all Senators. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this is an amendment relating to economic and disaster assistance. This is the amendment that the Senate voted against tabling when a motion to table the amendment was made by the distinguished Democratic leader, Mr. Daschle. A vote has already been taken on a motion to table this amendment, but it was then, under leadership agreement on how to proceed to this bill, withdrawn. This action that has just been taken puts this amendment back before the Senate. There was an amendment offered by the Democratic leader and the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, which was also the subject of a motion to table. That motion to table was agreed to. Before the Senate now is the issue of economic and disaster assistance for farmers in the form of the so-called Cochran amendment. To refresh the memory of Senators, this is an amendment that seeks to give the Secretary of Agriculture authority and funds with which to deal with the economic crisis that exists in production agriculture today. This is funding for the fiscal year that begins next October 1, so it is not an endeavor to deal with all of the existing problems in agriculture in the current fiscal year, but it is an effort to deal with economic problems during the harvesting and marketing of the 1999 crop throughout the country. There is already in place a $6 billion disaster program that was approved last year that has been administered by the Department. Some of those checks for weather-related disasters went out to farmers as recently as June. We are hopeful if any additional funds are needed for this crop-year, the President will submit a budget request asking for additional funds. There has been some discussion during the debate on the floor that there is nothing in this amendment that provides immediate assistance for drought victims and the like. The point is, in a recent supplemental that we had on funding the military action in Kosovo, that subject was raised and an amendment was offered, which was rejected, that would provide additional disaster assistance funds in this crop- year and in the next crop-year as well. What we did was adopt the sense-of-the-Senate language that would ask the President to submit a supplemental request if additional funds were needed over and above that amount that had already been provided by the Congress. No request has been made. A letter was written to the President in June, signed by 22 Senators, reiterating the fact that we approved language requesting a supplemental request if one was needed and that nothing had been heard. We did get an acknowledgment to the letter, but we have had no subsequent request. The chairman of the Agriculture Committee, the Senator from Indiana, Mr. Lugar, has been having hearings in the Senate Agriculture Committee, yesterday and again today, getting information, getting expert advice and testimony on the condition of agriculture in America today to determine what level of assistance is appropriate, what level is needed, and what kind and character should this assistance take. We have had a long debate. Senators on both sides have expressed their views on this subject, and we are at a point now where we have to either adopt an amendment or not adopt an amendment providing disaster assistance. It seems to me it would be appropriate now, after hearing all the evidence, after reviewing all the arguments, to proceed with the adoption of this amendment and go to conference with the House and try to resolve whatever differences we may have on this issue with House conferees and then come back with a conference report for the consideration of the Senate. If we do not have a provision for disaster or economic assistance in our bill, this will not be an item that can be considered in conference. So I think it is very important for the Senate to approve this amendment, giving us a conference vehicle for further consideration of this issue with the House. If we do not approve this amendment or some other amendment that could be offered, then we will not have a vehicle. We have already expressed our views as a body on the Daschle-Harkin proposal. It was rejected. This amendment was not rejected. The motion to table was not agreed to. So it is now back before the Senate for its consideration. I am going to review briefly what this legislation contains and urge Senators to approve the amendment. We can have a record vote on that if the Senate desires or we can adopt it on a voice vote. It suits me to adopt it on a voice vote, but I am putting Senators on notice that is the issue before the Senate now. If anyone wants to request a record vote, they are free, of course, to come to the Senate floor and do that. The bulk of the funds provided in this amendment--which now has a cost estimated by the Congressional Budget Office of almost $7 billion--the bulk of the assistance is in the form of increased payments, so-called AMTA payments. That is the agricultural market transition payments. These are payments that are made to commodity producers under existing farm law, provided to help farmers make the transition from a Government-controlled and mandated agricultural production system to a more open and free market system where farmers can make their own decisions about what they plant on their crop acreage. In the past, the Government had tight controls over not only what crops could be subsidized by the Government, but how much acreage could be planted with those crops. If you violated the rules, you lost your right to Federal assistance. Under the new program, Federal assistance is provided without regard to what crop you plant or how much of the acreage you use. There is no mandatory set-aside of acreage, telling farmers you cannot plant but so much of your acreage this year, as was the case under preexisting agricultural legislation. The amount of money that would be paid directly to farmers as authorized in this legislation would represent 100 percent of the total of the 1999 producers AMTA payment. So in effect, by the passage of this amendment, we would double the amount of money that would go to farmers who are entitled to agriculture market transition assistance payments. That comes to a total of $5.54 billion. There is no redtape. There is no discretion in the Department of Agriculture. There is no special procedure for establishing eligibility. If you are eligible under current law for a transition payment, you are eligible for this additional payment. The checks go out. It was shown in the experience this year in administering the current disaster assistance program that the AMTA payment system was the most efficient way of providing assistance to farmers who were entitled to add additional benefits under an economic assistance program. So that is why in this amendment we have elected to use that vehicle to disseminate funds for disaster and economic assistance to farmers because of this year's economic stress in agriculture. But not all farmers are eligible for AMTA payments. Because they are not, most of the rest of the funds in the bill are used for disaster assistance for those farmers that they may need. The Secretary of Agriculture is, for example, given discretion to establish a program to provide assistance to livestock and dairy producers. There is a livestock assistance program in place now which was utilized to deliver disaster assistance provided last year. So, because of that experience, it seems logical that the Department of Agriculture will be able to provide regulatory guidance and eligibility standards for those who suffered by reason of drought or other conditions that have adversely affected them if they are in the livestock business. This applies to beef cattle production; it applies to hog production; and it applies to dairy. So it is a program that is included in this legislation. Other specialty crops are included as well--fruits and vegetables. Other crops and other commodities that are grown by landowners who are involved in production agriculture are intended to be included in this program, and the Secretary of Agriculture is given the authority to use funds appropriated in this amendment to provide assistance to those farmers as well. We do not try to pick and choose among farmers, whether you are eligible or not eligible for benefits. The intent is we want all farmers to benefit from this program under this amendment. There is also, at the conclusion of our bill, a provision that states the sense of the Congress with respect to a more aggressive policy with agricultural trade issues. There have been situations that have developed around the world where our producers and exporters have been shut out of markets or have been discriminated against because of tariffs or other rules and regulations adopted by other countries or groups of countries that have made it impossible for us to have access to markets that we have traditionally enjoyed or which we ought to by right have an opportunity to enjoy. We are urging the administration to be more aggressive in strengthening trade negotiating authority for American agriculture, and we express Congress' objectives for future trade negotiations. We ask the President to evaluate and make recommendations on the effectiveness of our existing export and food aid programs. I think we have heard enough about what the facts are. Senators who have been to their own States have had an opportunity to view the situation, to talk with their farmers, and to understand the stress that is confronting American agriculture today. Here are some of the Department of Agriculture's own facts and estimates that had been given to our subcommittee when we had our hearings earlier this year: 1999 net cash farm income is expected to decline $3.6 billion below last year's level. Incidentally, in 1998, net farm income for wheat, corn, soybeans, cotton, and rice was 17 percent below the previous 5-year average. For this crop-year, 1999, the projections indicate that income for the same crops will be 27 percent below the previous 5-year average. Those are the projections that persuade me that disaster and economic assistance is not only important for us to consider but is necessary for us to deliver if we have the expectation of maintaining health and vitality in American agriculture. I think the facts are clear and justify the amendment we are offering today to provide disaster assistance and economic assistance to agricultural producers for the 1999 crop-year. The bulk of the assistance is going to be made available in the most efficient way possible: through the disbursement of the market transition payments providing a 100-percent bonus, in effect, to all who are eligible for those payments. Those who are soybean farmers or who grow other oilseeds will be entitled to benefits under a special program. They do not receive these transition payments, but they will receive benefits under this amendment. The same is true of livestock farmers, whether they are beef cattle, pork producers, or dairymen. We think we have created a balanced program, one that is fair to all farmers, one that will help put money in the pockets of farmers, not just give them a promise of loans or technical assistance or other advice from the Government. Our amendment does not just add money to Government agencies; it does not just increase the size of Government agencies; it sends the money directly to the producers. We have also agreed to add to this bill, at the request of other Senators, additional funds for crop insurance benefits. That was not included in the original amendment that was offered as a part of the Cochran amendment, but it will be added to this amendment in the form of a modification. We have heard the persuasive arguments in support of that suggestion, and we have agreed to accommodate those Senators who are interested in that additional benefit. My hope is Senators will review the amendment as we are modifying the amendment and will support it, and we can then move on to the final conclusion of this legislation. Mr. President, if there is no Senator seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COCHRAN. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask it be reported.