Thad Cochran

Mr. COCHRAN

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

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of the time on this side. I ask for the yeas and nays, and I ask unanimous consent that this vote be limited to 10 minutes.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am going to ask unanimous consent--we are probably not going to take any time for debate before the vote on final passage. I ask unanimous consent there be 10 minutes available for concluding remarks before the vote on final passage. I do not expect that to be used, but I put that request.

Mr. COCHRAN. The same can be said about the National Warm Water Aquaculture Research Center in Stoneville, MS. The expansion of the aquaculture industry in Mississippi, and the Nation has been responsible for sustaining rural economies that were recently in dire situations.

Mr. COCHRAN. As the Senator from Alaska noted, the subcommittee did address rural development grants, but was unaware of the problem in Alaska. I appreciate the Senator bringing this problem to my attention. I urge the Department to give equal consideration to an application to address this problem as those included in the committee report.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this rollcall vote be limited to 10 minutes.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just make this point. I have brought to the floor a chart showing the dollar value of agricultural exports by State. We are trying to aggressively go after market share with our agriculture commodities. We are trying to promote and expand the business that we are able to do in overseas markets, and we are making good progress. One of the reasons why we are is because of this program. Senator Bumpers and Senator Bryan have tried to kill this program. They tried it back on April 6 when we had the supplemental appropriations and rescissions bill on the floor. The Senate rejected their amendment. Yesterday, it rejected an effort. Here is another amendment. This is an effort to rewrite the whole program that is under the purview of the Agriculture Committee. We should not be asked to do that on the floor of the Senate. The Senators are not that familiar with the details of the program, the eligibility, the restrictions, and the safeguards that are written in there already. In addition, this amendment reduces the mandatory spending level for this program. That is a decision for the Agriculture Committee to make. They are under a reconciliation instruction. I understand the Agriculture Committee is considering this change. I yield the remainder of my time to the distinguished Senator from Washington [Mr. Gorton].

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota last night offered this amendment. We talked about it a good bit. I was determined to come to the floor and move to table it and ask for the yeas and nays. But he modified the amendment. He sent a modification to the desk and, by so doing, this amendment applies nationwide to farmers who have had weather-related disasters. I am confident that there are some situations where there ought to be an opportunity for some disaster assistance. You may remember, I was on the floor arguing strongly for a cotton disaster program and the Senate did not approve it. I think one reason why they did not is that it was crop specific. This amendment does apply to all crops. It takes money from the Export Enhancement Program to do this. The payments are going to be capped at a $2,500 per farmer limit. It may even go less, because only $35 million is available nationwide. Depending upon the needs out there and the justifications for these payments to reimburse for advance deficiency payments where a farmer has not made a crop because of disaster, it may exceed $35 million. If it does, there will be a proration of that available money so each disaster victim may get less than $2,500. I am going to vote for the amendment but I hope this has explained it to the extent Senators will know what they are voting on and understand the amendment.

Mr. COCHRAN. I move to table the Feingold amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, let me say in response, last night we debated this fully. We had the opportunity to talk about all the different kinds of agricultural research--applied research, basic research, research that is targeted to specific problems of a region or a State. There is a very carefully balanced mix of research dollars in this legislation. Some of it--most of it, as a matter of fact--is done by the Agricultural Research Service at Federal laboratories, by scientists employed by the Government. Some of it is done through a National Research Initiative which is a competitive, peer-review program as the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin said. Other dollars are allocated by formula, or under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture, which very closely monitors the use of all funds to determine that the research being done has merit and will benefit American agriculture. That is the important part of this. I am not so much concerned with how we divide these funds, but we think the bill before the Senate provides a proper balance. Members of Congress have had a say-so in how these dollars are allocated, and that is how it should be. They are accountable to the taxpayers. If you turn this all over to a group of scientists somewhere, they are going to have their own buddy system, in effect, and you may see States and regions that will get left out, and I think it might be my region that may get left out. You may have the large, more wealthy and well-entrenched hierarchy of academia in the Northeast and the Midwest dividing up all the money among themselves, and I am against that. The system we have now that is reflected in this bill and the appropriations that we have made here and recommended to the Senate, I think, are very thoughtful. They are well crafted to make sure we serve agriculture broadly. I hope the Senate will support our efforts.

Mr. COCHRAN. I could not agree more with my distinguished colleague and Alabama. The research that has supported the growth of this industry has been essential.

Mr. COCHRAN. Not only do we have the opportunity to turn our trade situation around relative to aquaculture, there is also a real human factor to be considered as well. Nearly 300,000 Americans are employed in aquaculture related work. The catfish industry alone accounts for 121,000 domestic jobs and nearly $2.5 billion in income. If we are able to facilitate the growth of this industry, the economic impact potential is overwhelming.

Mr. COCHRAN. The Senator is correct. The report language should not be read to limit the activities of the certified State mediation programs which receive grants from the Federal Government.

Mr. COCHRAN. I agree that the suggestion by Senator Heflin is desirable and should be carried out as long as it does not result in duplication of ongoing research activities at other research facilities.

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

Mr. COCHRAN. I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall on this Conrad amendment be limited to 10 minutes.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I commend the distinguished Senator from Arizona, and others, who are supporting this initiative for working with the managers to craft the language so this will be acceptable. We are going to recommend the approval of the amendment. It is being drafted, and I understand as soon as it is, it will be offered, and we will recommend that the Senate adopt it on a voice vote. I know other Senators are here with other amendments. Until we have an opportunity to formally act on the amendment, I will yield the floor. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, when the Senator from North Dakota brought this amendment to my attention and said that he would offer it, my immediate reaction was I favored it. I thought it certainly tried to do some of what we were doing yesterday, or endeavoring to do, when we offered the disaster assistance proposal to benefit those cotton farmers in the South who had suffered such terrible losses this year because of the infestation of army budworms, tobacco budworms, beet army worms. These damages were heightened and made much worse because of the serious weather conditions. The excessive heat in many areas of our State, and I think this is true of Alabama and other Southern States, made this disaster possible. We are told by the entomologists and the experts this is a weather-related disaster, but it is more commonly referred to as infestation of pests that have caused these damages. In my State alone, over $100 million in losses are going to be sustained, they say, by cotton producers alone. So I think this amendment may very well help some of those farmers. They were denied any extra help under the amendment that we had before the Senate on a rollcall vote. I think one of the reasons that amendment was defeated is because it was crop specific; it was targeted only to cotton producers. This amendment is not targeted to any specific kind of crop or farmer or region or State. Before we get to a point of voting on the amendment, I am going to try to find out from those who know whether it will apply and provide assistance to Mississippi cotton farmers. I may end up voting for the amendment. I hope I can support it. But at this time tonight, I am not able to recommend approval of the amendment, because of the questions about the offset and the scoring. If it is going to cost $35 million, where does the Department, or the ones making these estimates, think the benefits will go? Will they all go to the prairie, the North part of the farm belt, the Dakotas and that part of the country, and if so, how will it actually work? So there are questions that we still have to explore, and I hope by tomorrow when we get to a vote on this amendment, we will have those answers. I am certainly not going to criticize the Senator for bringing this amendment up. My heart is where his is, and that is with these farmers who have sustained these terrible damages. I regret that the crop insurance program that we have now is big on promise but short on delivery of benefits to help in the recovery from serious disasters. That is what we learned, I think, in Mississippi this year, that the new Catastrophic Crop Insurance Program is a disaster in itself. There has been a lot of hype. Farmers were told, ``Don't worry, you're automatically eligible for these benefits. For $50, you're signed up.'' It sounded too good to be true, and guess what? It is too good to be true, because the benefits they are getting do not nearly equal what others had been getting from ad hoc benefit assistance programs in the past. They were told, ``You are going to get about the same level of benefit that you would have under a disaster assistance program passed by Congress.'' It has not turned out that way. I sympathize with the farmers who have been misled and have not bought additional insurance to make up for what their losses could have been. Those are my reactions to the amendment, and comments. We will have an opportunity to vote on the amendment tomorrow. Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I am constrained to object to that. We made it very clear last night what the times were. We have Senators who have rearranged schedules to be here.

Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object, Madam President, I was unable to hear the entire consent request. Could the Senator restate it?

Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. I ask unanimous consent that the following be considered the revised list of conferees to accompany S. 219, the regulatory reform bill, and S. 4, the line-item veto bill. I ask unanimous consent that the list be printed in the Record.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, what is at issue here in this amendment that will be offered by the Senator from California is a provision of the Senate bill as approved by the Appropriations Committee, which I will read. It is section 729 and found on page 83 of the bill: None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to develop compliance guidelines, implement or enforce a regulation promulgated by the Food Safety and Inspection Service on August 25, 1995 (60 Fed. Reg. 44396): Provided, That this regulation shall take effect only if legislation is enacted into law which directs the Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate such regulation, or the House Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry receive and approve a proposed revised regulation submitted by the Secretary of Agriculture. This regulation, which has been promulgated after a great deal of discussion, public comment on the proposed regulation has the effect of prohibiting and actually preventing poultry producers and processors in the Southeast and Southwest from exporting their products into the California market. That is the practical consequence of the regulation as drawn and promulgated by this administration. The origin of the initiative came from California to restate the regulations and rules regarding the labeling of poultry products with respect to whether they were frozen, chilled or not and what should be disclosed in that connection and how you measure the temperature with respect to which regulation or label would be appropriate. This was all driven by the poultry industry in California which is a high-cost producer and processor of poultry products. High cost: High labor costs, regulations that are imposed locally and in the State of California, that elevate the price at which poultry products can be sold in California. Different regulations with regard to the way these imported products are sent from the Southeast and the Southwest into that market, are packaged and labeled, could be drawn so as to increase the costs of and maybe even make it impossible to ship deeply chilled poultry products into that market. So this issue was developed as a way for the California poultry industry to keep competition out of their market, to keep lower cost poultry processing firms in the Southeast, like in my State of Mississippi, from competing and undercutting the price being sold by California poultry producers in their own market. To let the Senate know that this is not an issue that has been just hastily or capriciously injected into this appropriations bill, back in April, we were trying to convince the administration of the seriousness of this situation that would be caused throughout many parts of this country if this regulation were to be approved. I am looking at a letter, which I will have printed in the Record, dated April 4, 1995. It is written on the letterhead of Senator John Warner of Virginia, but it is signed by 19 Senators: Senators David Pryor, John Warner, Mitch McConnell, Jesse Helms, Howell Heflin, Paul Coverdell, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond, Richard Shelby, Bennett Johnston, John Breaux, Jim Inhofe, Sam Nunn, Christopher Bond, Lauch Faircloth, Rod Grams, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Don Nickles. What we said in this letter addressed to the acting Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety, is that we believe it is appropriate for the Food Safety and Inspection Service to consider changes in the existing Federal standards, but we have major reservations about the standards that the Food Safety and Inspection Service are proposing. We talk about the consequences of the proposed regulations at that time, illogical from the point of view of measuring the temperature of chilled poultry and then having it labeled ``previously frozen'' or ``frozen'' and the consequences of that in terms of the businesses that deeply chill the poultry to protect it from contamination as it is transported across the country to other markets in the United States. I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, that a copy of this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. COCHRAN

Mr. COCHRAN. I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the resolution appear at the appropriate place in the Record.