Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. It is fire blights. A Graham amendment for country-of-origin produce labeling, a Bumpers amendment relating to sense of the Senate on program funding levels, a Feingold and Jeffords amendment on small farms, a Dorgan amendment relating to planting penalty limitation, a Craig and Lugar amendment on biodiesel fuel, and a Bumpers amendment on Rural Housing Service Award. We had cleared a Hatch amendment on interstate meat distribution, and we understand a question has been raised by a colleague. We understand the question has been answered, so we can now add the tenth amendment to the list, by Senator Hatch, interstate meat distribution plan, and a colloquy that would go along with that. Those are 10 amendments that have been cleared on this side. If the distinguished comanager of the bill agrees, I am prepared to offer a unanimous consent request that they be considered en bloc and agreed to en bloc.

Mr. COCHRAN. The Levin amendment is regarding tree assistance-- disaster assistance for tree plants.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator from Connecticut for his agreement to set aside his amendment while we proceed to other business so we can near the time we are ready to conclude action on this bill. We hope that will be soon. We have nine amendments that I think have been cleared on both sides. My proposal would be that we consider them en bloc and that they be approved en bloc, and statements relating to the amendments be printed in the Record, and that motions to reconsider the votes and to table the motions to reconsider be considered as passed. That will be my request. I want to be sure that we do have the list, and I will read the list for the benefit of my comanager of this bill. There is a Brownback amendment on the census of agriculture, a Levin amendment on tree assistance, an amendment for Senators Kerrey and Roberts on farm policies studies.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the letter from Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to me that I referred to be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, in deciding on the offsets for this amendment, one of the offsets for $5 million in savings is from funds that would be used by the Department of Agriculture for information technology. These funds are provided through the Commodity Credit Corporation. I have a letter from the Secretary of Agriculture responding to that offset and suggesting that the Department supports it. I want to be sure that we understand one provision in this letter and its implications. He says: The statute of limitations waiver is one of my highest priorities in this legislation, and this amendment and its offset have my support. If enacted, USDA will not seek to restore the computer spending reduction through future appropriations. With that understanding, Mr. President, I am able to support the amendment. It has been my intention to assist the author of the amendment in his effort to get this passed in the Senate. What it does is to waive, as a legal defense, the statute of limitations that had run on claims that were going to be filed, or that had been filed by certain persons who claim to be the victims of discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This amendment does not guarantee that everybody who has a claim on the basis of discrimination is going to win or is going to prevail if the Department decides to resist. It gives the Department, though, an opportunity to negotiate those claims, to make decisions about which ones are meritorious and which ones are not. But it does not permit the Department to use as a defense the fact that the statute of limitations has run. It was a peculiar and unique statute of limitations when it was first granted under the authority of previous legislation. It permitted claims to be filed on this basis within a window of opportunity of about 2 years. Most of them fell within this 2-year period. Some farmers did not understand that they had to file a claim in writing and go through certain steps in order to keep that statute from running, and so there was a lot of misunderstanding about the fact that this statute had been imposed and limited to the duration within which claims could be filed. Some lawsuits have been filed now contesting the statute. This is an effort to say to those claimants that we are not going to let you have your claim fail on the basis of not having complied with that early 2- year statute of limitations. So that is going to be removed. Your claim will be decided now on its merits. And that is up to the Department; and that is up to the claimants. That is my understanding of the amendment. I congratulate the Senator for his initiative and his hard work in getting us to this point. We support the amendment and hope the Senate will approve it. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this is an interesting part of the President's budget. When we reviewed it, we noticed, first of all, that over $400 million in new user fees were proposed by the President to be assessed on the food and poultry processing plants all around the country to generate money to pay for the inspections that are performed in those plants by Federal employees. This was a proposal for a change in the law and the legislation. Our committee, of course, doesn't have jurisdiction to change the law. We simply appropriate the money, consistent with existing law. And so without the jurisdiction to make those changes, our committee could not consider that as a part of our bill. The legislative committees in the House and Senate have not acted on these proposed user fee impositions, and so there are no funds available to be allocated, as the President proposed, to pay for the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture. Nonetheless, our committee approved and suggested in our legislation to fund increases in the Food Safety and Inspection Service's account. So our appropriation that is recommended by this committee for Food Safety and Inspection Service activities amounts to $605,149,000, as compared with the administration's request for funding the Food Safety and Inspection Service of $149,566,000. That is more than $350 million in additional funding that this committee has proposed than what the President recommended be appropriated for that activity. Now, when you generate that kind of fund in your proposed budget, you have an opportunity to spread those proposed dollars around and spend it elsewhere. That is what the President has done, and that has made up for his so-called Food Safety Initiative--and more. The Food Safety Initiative--so-called ``new initiative''--calls for the expenditure of about $100 million in new funding added to a variety of different programs in the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Our committee is not critical and not, in any way, opposing these increased expenditures in the initiatives that the President has requested. Our budget allocation didn't give us the luxury, though, of an additional $350 million. Our allocation doesn't presume any increase in funding for discretionary programs this year--no increase. We are all operating under the Balanced Budget Act restrictions, under the allocation that is provided to subcommittees like the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. So if we increase something, we have to take the money from other accounts. So we did provide not only the full amount needed to continue the inspections of meat and poultry inspectors throughout the country, with no new increase--no new user fees, no new taxes on those plants. But we also provided increases in funding for the Agriculture Research Service, Food Safety Research Program, and for the Food and Nutrition Service, Food Safety Grant Program. These are additions over last year's levels. We were able to find other offsets in the budget to accommodate those increases. So I suggest that the committee has been responsive to the need to continue to upgrade the quality and the aggressiveness of our Food Safety Research and Inspection Programs. We think, of course, that there can be more done, it can be a more efficiently operated system. For that reason, some of us on the Governmental Affairs Committee are actively participating in the investigation that is chaired by the distinguished Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, who is looking into the issues presented on the imported foods--fruits and vegetables, primarily--that have to be inspected under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration. She has done a wonderful job leading the staff of that committee to try to find out what the options are for improving those activities, making sure that they are doing as good a job as can possibly be done to accommodate the needs resulting from the huge increases in imported foodstuffs that are coming into the country. These are enormous challenges. I don't think anybody has the magic solution to the problem. I think on both sides of the aisle we are very interested in solving the problems that are presented. We have heard some very impressive speeches made today on that subject. We can continue to make speeches. But I think we should continue to work together--that is what I suggest we do--with the administration, with the Congress, to try to do the best possible job. I think the American people can be reassured that an enormous amount of effort and an enormous amount of money is being invested to achieve that goal. If you add up the total of all of the dollars that are appropriated, we are spending more money to not only inspect the meat and poultry that is being processed in this country, but fruits and vegetables as well. Research and education programs, how to handle foodstuffs, and at the farm on how to produce the foods so they will be free from contamination, an enormous amount of effort is being invested. So we hope this amendment can be accepted by the Senate, frankly. Offsets have been identified in a number of areas. We have tried to get the administration's reaction to these offsets. We haven't heard from them on some of them. We have checked with the Congressional Budget Office to see if this amendment violates the Budget Act. We have been assured that it does not. So because we are going to have to continue to work to resolve our differences with the House, there may be some adjustments in which the House insists. But we will work very hard to make sure that when we come back from conference to the Senate with our conference report that it will reflect a genuine effort and a sizable investment of discretionary funds in the food safety area, both for the Department of Agriculture's activities and the Food and Drug Administration's activities. Mr. President, I know of no other Senators who have requested an opportunity to speak on the amendment. I am prepared to go to a vote and suggest that we agree to the amendment. Incidentally, I have been authorized to express the support for that recommendation from the Senator from Arkansas who is the ranking member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am hopeful that we can continue now with consideration of amendments of Senators who wish to offer them on the agriculture appropriations bill. We sent word out through the cloakrooms at 3 o'clock that we were prepared to conclude consideration and approve amendments, recommend acceptance of Senators' amendments, which have been brought to the attention of the managers, and those that could not be agreed upon, we would offer them for Senators and get votes on them if they wanted us to do that, or move to table them and dispose of them in that way, so that we could complete action on this bill. We need to complete action on the bill today and move on to other matters. I notice the distinguished Senator from Iowa is on the floor. He has an amendment to offer. I am happy to yield the floor to permit him to do so. Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. I appreciate your bringing this study to our attention and we will look into this situation prior to conference.

Mr. COCHRAN. What were the conclusions of this review?

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I join my friend from Arkansas in thanking the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for his comments today. It is always a pleasure to hear him recount the history of our country. In doing so, I can't help but remember the time and effort and diligence he put to the task of writing the ``History of the U.S. Senate,'' which we have in our offices and others have had an opportunity to enjoy and appreciate over the last several years. It is one of the remarkable acts of scholarship that has been turned in by a U.S. Senator and probably ranks No. 1 in the list of books written by active Members of the U.S. Senate, for all of which I think we owe a deep expression, and sincere expression, of gratitude to the Senator from West Virginia. Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, we are now moving toward the point where we are wrapping up the consideration of amendments on the agriculture appropriations bill. A number of Senators have advised the managers that they do not intend to offer amendments that they had originally proposed to the bill. We are encouraged by that, and with some effort I think the Senate can complete action on this bill very soon. We are awaiting the arrival in the Chamber of Senators who have suggested that they will offer amendments. We encourage them to come to the floor, offer those amendments, and let's debate them. If we can agree to them, we will recommend that to the Senate. We appreciate very much the cooperation and assistance of all Senators who have been helpful to us in this effort. 1998 LOUISIANA DROUGHT AND CROP DISASTER

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Montana, Mr. Burns, be added as a cosponsor to the Conrad amendment that was previously offered and agreed to by the Senate.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, in further discussions with the Senators from North Dakota and others, I am prepared to recommended that we accept the amendment offered by the Senators from North Dakota and take the issue to conference under the same understanding that I read into the Record last night when I accepted, and the Senate agreed to, the amendment offered by the Senators from Florida, Mr. Graham, and Mr. Mack, who was a cosponsor of that amendment. The statement is as follows: The Department of Agriculture advises us that they cannot at this time verify whether available disaster money has been depleted. I understand this has been a devastating disaster for Florida and that other areas of the country have also been affected by various disasters. We will work with the administration and the House conferees to address the needs of the areas affected by these recent disasters and to determine whether these needs are being met through available funds. It is my hope that the Department of Agriculture and the Office of Management and Budget are assessing the need for additional funding to meet the needs resulting from these most recent disasters, and that the President will soon submit to the Congress requests for supplemental funds, which are determined to be required. It is also my understanding that the proposal in this amendment is a new program. I had suggested that it was a description of an existing discretionary program of the Department of Agriculture, and that I had misread or misunderstood the proposal offered by the Senators. Nonetheless, I am prepared, under the same understanding, to recommend to the Senate that we accept this amendment. It has been, in this amendment, described as an emergency, which would require an emergency finding not only by Congress, but by the President, in order to avoid having an offset of the funds that are contemplated to be spent under the amendment. But because it does have the emergency declaration, it does not require an offset, and I am advised by the chairman of the Budget Committee that it is not subject to a budget point of order. On that basis, I recommend that the Senate approve it. I understand from my good friend from Arkansas that he has no objection to this recommendation.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, last night, after we had our last recorded vote, there were two amendments which we discussed and recommended to the Senate that we accept and they were accepted, one of which was offered by the Senators from Florida. Senator Graham offered an amendment, it was cosponsored by Senator Mack, and it dealt with disaster problems that exist in Florida because of the recent wildfires that we are all familiar with because we saw these vividly photographed on television. For days and days, fires raged throughout the State of Florida. As a result of that, the Senators are asking that emergency funds be made available to compensate victims of that disaster who were involved in agriculture. I invite the attention of the Senators to the record of the discussion of that issue last night. The proposal was to make available funds from the account that has been described by the Senators from North Dakota. There is no indication right now, from the Department of Agriculture, whether or not the disaster fund that is discretionary with the Secretary has been depleted to the extent that replenishment is necessary in order to compensate the victims in Florida. What I said during the discussion of the amendment involved an assurance that we would receive from the Department of Agriculture and the President a supplemental request for funds to replenish that discretionary disaster fund of the Secretary's, so that appropriate disaster relief could be made available to agriculture producers and others who are eligible for those funds. That satisfied the Senators from Florida, and, on that basis, the amendment was accepted by the Senate. I am prepared to make the same suggestion to the Senate on this amendment. There is no question that there are differences, however-- one of which is that farm producers would have to show that, out of 3 of the last 5 years, there had been declarations declaring disasters, either by the Secretary of Agriculture or the President, in the areas where eligibility would be considered to have been established. At least that is what I understand the amendment provides. The point is this: The year is not over. This fiscal year that we are appropriating money for right now begins on October 1. We don't know what the full needs for agriculture producers around the country will be by the time we get to the beginning of the fiscal year. I am suggesting that it may be appropriate to take this proposal to conference with the House and await the receipt from the President or the Secretary of Agriculture of specific requests for supplemental funds beyond that requested in the budget that has already been submitted by the administration for next year that they foresee will be needed to replenish the Disaster Assistance Discretionary Fund of the Secretary to compensate disaster victims for their losses. There are other programs available to provide benefits, Senators realize. There are crop insurance programs, there are other assistance programs that are authorized in the 1996 farm bill. As I understand it, this does not create a new disaster assistance program, and because it doesn't, it is not subject to a budget point of order. I am mentioning that idea that I have as an alternative way of considering this and would like to have the benefit of other Senators' thoughts on it, particularly those who chair the legislative committees on the budget and on agriculture legislation. It may be we can work out some way to take this amendment to conference. If that is not possible, then the question will be whether we move to table the amendment and bring this issue up later as a freestanding bill--that is a possibility. This legislative session doesn't end with the passage of this agriculture appropriations bill. There may be other opportunities to assess the disaster situation around the country. I thought since the similarity between the amendment offered by the Senator from Florida last night which was accepted by the Senator, and the presentation of the amendment which we have heard now from the Senators from North Dakota were so similar, that it presented us with the same alternative that we exercised last night. Let me read what I said on the floor of the Senate last night: . . .the Department of Agriculture advises us that they cannot at this time verify whether available disaster money has been depleted. I understand this has been a devastating disaster for Florida and that other areas of the country have also been affected by various disasters. We will work with the administration and the House conferees to address the needs of the areas affected by these recent disasters and to determine whether these needs are being met through available funds. It is my hope that the Department of Agriculture and the Office of Management and Budget are assessing the need for additional funding to meet the needs resulting from these most recent disasters and that the President will soon submit to the Congress requests for supplemental funds which are determined to be required. I am prepared to suggest to the Senate that on that basis, we take this amendment to conference, but I will not make that suggestion without further discussing my idea with the appropriate legislative committee chairmen. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I think we are at a point now where we can ask the question, What is the will of the Senate? Because that is the question. We have an amendment here that proposes a new program of spending based on an emergency of about one-half billion dollars. I think that is the number. Five-hundred million is the total projected cost of the bill, but it is based on an emergency that is declared in this legislation to exist in agriculture. We understand the President has agreed that there is an emergency, not specifically that this amendment describes that emergency, but that a response should be made by the Government to deal with this problem. Now, I know that there are Senators who are wondering, well, what are the criteria? How are farmers going to be declared eligible to participate in payments under this program? There are questions that are very legitimate and, frankly, this legislation does not tell us much about that. It is leaving a lot of discretion in the hands of the Secretary of Agriculture. That is very clear. And this amendment could be subject to the criticism that it is too much, there is too much discretion. I am confident the department would have to issue regulations and describe some program payment benefit scheme that farmers would have to be governed by in terms of applications and eligibility. So there are some legitimate questions that can be asked. I am willing to listen to the advice of other Senators and be governed by the will of the Senate on this issue. I do not want to reject this out of hand and say that it is not a good amendment. I think it is based on a legitimate interest in helping deal with very real problems that exist in certain parts of the country, primarily in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, where half the payments are projected to occur under the amendment, but there are other States as well. We know that Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado would be eligible. We know that southern-tier States, parts of States in the Southeast, North Carolina, in addition to South Carolina; there are some parts of my State, I am told, that would benefit from the legislation. So it is time now in the consideration of this amendment for Senators to take a look at the proposal and come to some consensus on what to do about this. We can accept the amendment on a voice vote, the managers could accept the amendment, if that is the will of the Senate, or if some Senators want to have a record vote on the amendment, we could do that. I had been told earlier that this amendment would probably be subject to a budget point of order in that it would violate the Budget Act. But because of changes the drafters, the authors of the amendment have made within the language, I am advised that the Budget Committee staff director has told us there is no violation of the Budget Act. That could be confirmed by a statement from the chairman of the Budget Committee, and I would like for him to tell us that formally before we make a decision on whether a point of order would be made on the basis of the Budget Act. Those are my reactions to the proposal, and I will await other Senators coming to the floor to let us have some suggestions and guidance about how to proceed at this point.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. I say to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, I appreciate very much his going forward and offering this amendment. We have been discussing the amendment and the problems that he identifies as emergency problems because of drought and other problems throughout the agricultural sector. We are very sympathetic to these problems and the need for Congress and the President and the Department of Agriculture to act in a positive way and in an effective way to address these problems and to try to help solve them. We have been advised there may be a problem with the Budget Act in getting an amendment, as drafted, approved in the Senate without having the amendment subject to a budget point of order. We have discussed this with the chairman of the Budget Committee. And there are other Senators with whom we have discussed the problem as well. There is a lot of concern on both sides of the aisle that we have a bill for agriculture appropriations that takes into account all of the problems we have in the country, and that we respond in a thoughtful way. We are continuing to work on this issue. I want Senators to know that I hope we get it resolved so we can approve an amendment of some kind to provide relief, such as that sought in the amendment of Senator Conrad. But while we await further negotiations on this subject, I agree with the Senator that we probably should suggest the absence of a quorum. Some Senators are away from the Capitol right now who want to be involved in this discussion. I expect we will be able to make progress on it in the early part of the afternoon. If there are other amendments that can be offered by Senators, we would encourage Senators to come to the floor to offer those amendments. We could set aside this amendment for that purpose to receive other amendments. And some of them may be agreeable. We are willing to work with all Senators. We appreciate the assistance we have had from many today indicating a willingness to reach agreement on proposed changes to the bill. I am hopeful we can complete action on the bill today, and I pledge to Senators that I will work very hard to try to help make that a reality. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COCHRAN

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

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

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I have suggested to the Democratic manager, on the other side, that this amendment ought to be accepted. But I understand that there are some Senators who have objections to certain provisions of the resolution. My observation is that at the beginning of the debate on this bill there was a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, which we approved unanimously on a recorded vote, that talked about the plight of agriculture, the problems in production agriculture, the low prices in some commodities, disasters that occurred in some parts of the country. It is a very uneven situation in agriculture right now. But the serious problems are serious. There are serious problems that need the immediate attention, as that resolution said, of the Congress and the President. This resolution spells out what some of those specific things are that can be done by the Congress and the President to relieve problems in production agriculture and strengthen our agricultural economy. So I applaud the Senator from Iowa for going further than the sense- of-the-Senate resolution in getting into the details of some specific ideas that he has for improving the plight of farmers and those involved in the agriculture sector. I intend to support the resolution. I recommend the Senate approve it. There will be some others who will have other ideas, and they are here on the floor to speak to them, but I suggest to Senators, if you do want to be heard on this resolution, you should come to the floor and express yourself on the resolution, because I expect we will vote on it--whether it is a voice vote or a record vote--and that could occur soon. Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, at the request of the majority leader, I am pleased to make the following announcement concerning the schedule of the Senate today. This morning, the Senate will immediately resume consideration of the agriculture appropriations bill. It is expected that Senator Grassley will offer an amendment which will be considered by the Senate. Following disposition of the Grassley amendment, it is hoped that Members will come to the floor to offer and debate any remaining amendments to the agriculture appropriations bill so that the Senate can complete action on this legislation by early afternoon. Following disposition of the appropriations bill, the Senate may resume consideration of the VA-HUD appropriations bill or begin the legislative branch appropriations bill. The Senate may also consider any other legislative or executive items cleared for action. Therefore, Senators should expect rollcall votes throughout the day and into the evening during today's session.