Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, this deals with the 515 housing program, the low-income housing program.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I was going to say for point of clarification, there are other amendments pending as well, so it is not like this is the only amendment offered. There is a market access amendment, Senator Kerrey has three amendments pending, and there are others, all of which are pending before the Senate now. This is not unusual. The only reason you were asking unanimous consent was so that those could be set aside and you could offer that amendment. I suggest that the clerk report the amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was rejected.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am authorized to announce to the Senate on behalf of the Senator from Arkansas that these two amendments have been cleared on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. COCHRAN. I am aware of this and am cognizant of the Senator's point.

Mr. COCHRAN. Yes, I am aware of this.

Mr. COCHRAN. I understand just how important the emergency disaster loan program is to those people whose farms and ranches have been devastated by this drought, and I agree with the Senator that it was unfortunate that the Clinton administration chose to zero out the program just when those farmers and ranchers will need it the most. The Senator has my commitment that I will seek to maintain the Senate level of $75 million when this bill goes to conference.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, that amendment has been cleared on this side of the aisle.

Mr. COCHRAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4993

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, we have reviewed the amendments, and they have been cleared on this side.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to set aside the pending amendments and send an amendment to the desk on behalf of the Senator from Kansas, Mrs. Frahm.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, this amendment has been cleared on both sides. It deals with research in the State of South Carolina. I know of no objection to the amendment.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, on behalf of the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Thurmond] and the other Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Hollings], I send an amendment to the desk and ask it be reported.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I appreciate the remarks of the Senator from Idaho, who is chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Agriculture. He is familiar with these issues, and his help and efforts to understand the implications of this amendment will be deeply appreciated. I am hoping that other Senators can come to the floor and offer their amendments or debate amendments that are pending. We had a lot of debate yesterday on the market access program. I suggest we probably debated that enough. We can vote on that at 11 o'clock in the morning, in accordance with the request of the majority leader. There may be other amendments that can be voted on at that time as well. Certainly, the market access program is one we fully debated yesterday, and I expect a vote can occur at 11 o'clock on that amendment. There are probably others as well. There may be some amendments that have been cleared. I do know Senator Thurmond had an amendment that we talked about involving research by the Department of Agriculture. It might be cooperative State research. I am prepared to submit that amendment. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside for the purpose of offering this amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. As I understand it, he has the right to offer the amendment at any time. He can offer it now, and it will become a pending amendment which will have to be laid aside temporarily to consider other amendments, or he can offer it later.

Mr. COCHRAN. It is related to forestry and comes under the jurisdiction of other committees. So I am not able to accept the amendment or recommend it be accepted. I understand there are some objections to it.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, if the President will yield, let me respond by saying this is an issue that is not an agriculture appropriations issue, as the Senator knows.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, if the Senator will yield, it has to be studied. There was a misinterpretation of estimates provided by Department of Agriculture for the payments for barley producers. But the barley producers were told that an erroneous support level would be made a part of the barley program. Then they found out later that they were wrong and it would be a lower level. Now they are caught in this situation where they do not want to have to admit that the facts were misrepresented about the support level and the basis on which it was calculated. That is why it ought to be studied because there is a difference of opinion at the Department of Agriculture as to what this level ought to be. I do not know what the level ought to be. You are saying one level. The barley producers are expecting that level that you are talking about. That is the part of the problem.

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I appreciate very much the remarks of the distinguished Senators from North Dakota on this barley issue. This is also a subject that is addressed in an amendment that has been crafted and proposed by Senator Burns of Montana. And the other Senator from Montana, Senator Baucus, mentioned to me his interest in the issue. So it is something that Senators on both sides have an interest in. We would like to see it resolved. Our problem on this appropriations committee is that we have a limited amount of money to allocate among all of these programs administered by the Department of Agriculture. We are advised variously that it would cost up to $40 million. It may not go that high, as the Senator says. It may be $38 million, or something like that. Rather than spell out specifically a support level in the legislation before the Senate, I hope that we would consider as an option language directing the Secretary of Agriculture to study the suggestion that the Barley program be revised on the grounds and for the reasons stated by the Senators who have spoken and direct that he has the authority to make changes that would result in a fair solution and equitable resolution of the difficulty holding harmless those producers in other commodity programs that already have their signups approved and already have their farm plan in operation. The reason I say that is one concern I have is that, if we do not have some language like that, the Secretary could take the funds from other commodity programs and give it to the barley producers. And I think we would have a furor on our hands, and that would be understandable. But so long as the other producers are not harmed by this change, I would have no objection to including language like that in this bill. I think it does have to be cleared by the legislative committee. Senator Lugar and Senator Leahy ought to be consulted about it. What I can say at this point is that the Senators have my assurance that I will try very hard to get language of that kind approved here in the Senate. If we cannot get it spelled out in this bill, we can do it in conference, but at some point to make sure that this problem is addressed in this bill. I cannot--like the Senator from Arkansas said--guarantee it because I just have 1 vote in here, and there are 99 others. But we can recommend and we can work with the Senators to craft that kind of language. I pledge to them my best efforts to do that. Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. If the Senator will yield, there are two parts: The study to do something equitably to address and resolve the issues; and we have to worry, too, about how the Congressional Budget Office may score language like that. I do not know what their scoring would be. I am sometimes mystified and dumbfounded by the scoring decisions that are made by the Congressional Budget Office on something like this. So we will have to reserve judgment on that basis. We do not want to put ourselves out of business because of some scoring decision that they make.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, it is our hope that we will be able to propound a unanimous-consent agreement and get an agreement to take up the remaining amendments on this bill tonight, and for any votes that are required, put them over until tomorrow. That is the effort that we are making now. There are a number of amendments that we have listed in this proposed agreement. I can read them now. We have given copies to both sides of the aisle. Senators are looking at them in an effort to determine whether this agreement can be reached. I hope it can. I know Senators are tired. They have been here all day. The leader wants us to finish this bill tonight, but it looks like we cannot because of the long list of amendments. But we can take up the amendments and dispose of the amendments. Those that we cannot dispose of, which require votes, can be voted on tomorrow. That is the suggestion for the further disposition of this Agriculture appropriations bill. I will be happy to yield to anyone who wants to ask a question about that, or to my distinguished friend from Arkansas, the manager on the Democratic side.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to table the Gregg amendment No. 4959, and ask for the yeas and nays.