Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask for an additional 30 seconds on both sides.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. Actually, the result of passing the Smith amendment would have the perverse result of decreasing the impact of the stimulus and increasing the debt, increasing the deficits, which is the worst stew you could cook. Mr. President, I point out that as we started this whole question of stimulus, the budgeteers on the House side and the Senate side on a bipartisan basis agreed to a set of principles to apply. One of them was a stimulus sunset. That principle says: All economic stimulus proposals should sunset within 1 year, to the extent practicable. This amendment, as well intended as it is, violates that basic principle. Yesterday we heard from Chairman Greenspan. The headline in the Washington Post today is: ``Greenspan Doubts Need for Tax Cuts.'' While we may agree or disagree on that question, I frankly think additional stimulus would be a good insurance policy, but I think it should be, with respect to this provision, 1 year. I think that gives us the greatest stimulus and does the least damage to our long-term deficit situation. Chairman Greenspan yesterday said he is very conflicted about a stimulus package. He said: Since the nature of the coming recovery remains uncertain and may be relatively weak, having some additional stimulus could be helpful. I agree with him on that. He said: On the other hand, such a package would deepen the budget deficit this year which would not be a good idea. Mr. Greenspan went on: There is a possibility, depending on the provisions of a stimulus plan, that it could have a modest negative effect on the long-term economic outlook. Mr. President, it is very clear that the best advice we have gotten is that we should have stimulus, that we should have it limited to 1 year so we do not dig the hole deeper in the outyears in light of the dramatic change in our fiscal condition. I will conclude by showing what the amendment of the Senator will do. The revenue lost this year is $39 billion, but that pales in comparison to the loss from 2002 to 2006 of $82 billion.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. It is precisely the case. Again I say, I am a supporter as well of bonus depreciation. I agree with everything the Senator from Oregon said with respect to the merits of bonus depreciation, but I have to say to my colleague, I think it would be a profound mistake to do 2 or 3 years because that simply encourages people to wait rather than creating an incentive to act now, to invest now, to give lift to the economy now. The message that is being sent is wait. That is not the message we ought to send. That is not just the conclusion of this Senator or the conclusion of the Senator from Maryland but the Congressional Budget Office, which at my request did an analysis of the various stimulus proposals and concluded on this whole question that, ``A longer period would give a bigger average yearly boost, but more of it would come at the end of the period than at the beginning, delaying the stimulative effect.'' Delaying the stimulative effect. Is that what we want to do, delay the stimulative effect? I do not think so. That goes directly counter to what a stimulus package is supposed to do.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, in order to understand and evaluate this amendment, the first thing we have to do is understand our current economic condition. The day before yesterday, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Crippen, informed us that the projection of $5.6 trillion of surpluses over the next 10 years that was made only 1 year ago has now been eroded dramatically, and that what is available to us over the next 10-year period is not $5.6 trillion but $1.6 trillion. That is a loss of $4 trillion of projected surpluses in only 1 year. If we look to the causes for that dramatic change in our fiscal condition, what we see, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is that tax cuts accounted for 42 percent of the reduction in projected surplus; 23 percent is the result of economic changes from the economic slowdown; 18 percent is from other legislation, mostly as a result of the attack on this country of September 11 of last year; 17 percent is the result of certain technical changes. Examples of that are increased costs of Medicare and Medicaid. I think it is critically important, as we evaluate these amendments, to understand our current fiscal condition. The implications of this dramatic drop in the projected surpluses are that we have gone from a circumstance in which we were told last year that we would be virtually debt free as a Nation in the year 2008 to now Director Crippen telling us that instead of being debt free in 2008, we will have $2.8 trillion of publicly held debt. As Chairman Greenspan reported to the Budget Committee yesterday, that is the tip of the iceberg because we have other liabilities--so-called contingent liabilities--of another $10 trillion. Mr. President, I think that should sober us in our deliberations today. The implications of all this are serious and far-ranging. It means the total Federal interest costs that we can anticipate are going up by over a trillion dollars. We were told last year we would expect interest costs to the Federal Government of $622 billion over this forecast period. That has now been increased to $1.6 trillion, an increase of over a trillion dollars. Mr. President, perhaps most alarming is that the truth is there are no surpluses left--no surpluses. The only place there is surplus money is in the Social Security trust fund account. If we remove the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund, what we find--last year, we were told we would have $2.7 trillion in non-trust-fund surpluses. Now what we see is a $1.1 trillion deficit. What this means is any proposal before us will take the payroll taxes of our firemen, our policemen, our farmers, our carpenters, our teachers, those who work in our factories, even our own employees, and we will be taking every penny to pay for any of these provisions--however meritorious-- right out of the payroll taxes of the taxpayers of America--taxes they were told were being levied to pay for Social Security and Medicare and are now being taken not to pay for Social Security and Medicare--oh, no--but now to pay for any tax relief provision that is being considered in this Chamber. Mr. President, I believe that sets the very high bar with respect to any of these proposals. Now comes this well-intended amendment. I have high regard for the Senator offering this amendment. He is a respected member of the Budget Committee. I support bonus depreciation as part of a stimulus package, but bonus depreciation over 3 years defeats the purpose of a stimulus package. Stimulus packages, as Secretary Rubin described it to us, as Chairman Greenspan described it to us, are designed to change economic behavior now--not 3 years from now but now. And if instead of doing 1-year depreciation, we do 3 years' depreciation, what we have actually done is to encourage people to wait to make the investment. That is precisely what we should not do. What we need to do is encourage people to invest now.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to offer for the Record a preliminary scoring by the Budget Committee of the conference report to H.R. 3338, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002. I will be submitting a final, official statement for the record after CBO completes its scoring of the conference report. Preliminarily, the conference report provides $317.207 billion in nonemergency discretionary budget authority, almost all of which is for defense activities. That budget authority will result in new outlays in 2002 of $212.907 billion. When outlays from prior-year budget authority are taken into account, nonemergency discretionary outlays for the conference report total $309.256 billion in 2002. By comparison, the Senate-passed bill provided $317.206 billion in nonemergency budget authority, which would have resulted in $309.365 billion in outlays. In addition, H.R. 3338 includes $20 billion in emergency-designated funding. That funding represents the second $20 billion previously authorized by and designated as emergency spending under Public Law 107-38, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery from and Response to Attacks on the United States. An estimate of the impact on outlays from the emergency funding is not available at this time. The conference report to H.R. 3338 violates section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 because it exceeds the subcommittee's Section 302(b) allocation for both budget authority and outlays. Similarly, because the committee's allocation is tied to the current law cap on discretionary spending, H.R. 3338 also violates section 312(b) of the Congressional Budget Act. The bill includes language that raises the cap on discretionary category spending to $681.441 billion in budget authority and $670.206 billion in outlays and the cap on conservation category outlays to $1.473 billion. However, because that language is not yet law, the budget committee cannot increase the appropriations committee's allocation by the amount of the pending cap increase at this time, putting it in violation of the two points of order. In addition, by including language that increases the cap on discretionary spending, adjusts the balances on the pay-as-you-go scorecard for 2001 and 2002 to zero, and directs the scoring of a provision in the bill, H.R. 3338 also violates section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act. Finally, the bill violates section 311(a)(2)(A) of the Congressional Budget Act by exceeding the spending aggregates assumed in the 2002 budget resolution for fiscal year 2002. The conference report to H.R. 3338 violates several budget act points of order; however, it is good bill that addresses the Nation's defense needs, including the defense of our homeland. The President and Congressional leaders from both parties agreed in the wake of the September 11 attack that more money was needed to respond to the terrorists and to protect our homeland. This report follows that bipartisan agreement and includes language that raises the cap on discretionary spending. I urge its adoption. I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the budget committee scoring of H.R. 3338 be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to offer for the Record the Budget Committee's official scoring for the conference report to H.R. 2506, the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002. The conference report provides $15.346 billion in discretionary budget authority, which will result in new outlays in 2002 of $5.537 billion. When outlays from prior-year budget authority are taken into account, discretionary outlays for the conference report total $15.106 billion in 2002. By comparison, the Senate-passed version of the bill provided $15.524 billion in discretionary budget authority, which would have resulted in $15.138 billion in total outlays. H.R. 2506 is within its Section 302(b) allocation for both budget authority and outlays. In addition, it does not include any emergency designations. I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the Budget Committee scoring of H.R. 2506 be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, section 314 of the Congressional Budget Act, as amended, requires the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to adjust the budgetary aggregates and the allocation for the Appropriations Committee by the amount of appropriations designated as emergency spending pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended. The conference report to H.R. 3061, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2002 includes $300 million in emergency-designated funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistant Program. That budget authority will result in $75 million in new outlays in 2002. Pursuant to section 302 of the Congressional Budget Act, I hereby revise the 2002 allocation provided to the Senate Appropriations Committee in the concurrent budget resolution in the following amounts.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to offer for the Record the Budget Committee's official scoring for the conference report to H.R. 3061, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002. The conference report provides $123.371 billion in discretionary budget authority, which will result in new outlays in 2002 of $50.089 billion. When outlays from prior-year budget authority are taken into account, discretionary outlays for H.R. 3061 total $107.791 billion in 2002. The conference report provides virtually the same amount of budget authority as did the Senate-passed bill, which provided $123.37 billion. The conference report is at the Senate subcommittee's section 302(b) allocation for both budget authority and outlays. Included in the conference report's total is $300 million in emergency-designated funding for the low-income home energy assistance program, (LIHEAP), which will result in new outlays of $75 million in 2002. In accordance with standard budget practice, I am adjusting the appropriations committee's allocation by the amount of that emergency- designated spending. Additionally, H.R. 3061 also provides $18.874 billion in advance appropriations for 2003 for employment and training, health resources, child care, and education programs. Those advances are specifically allowed for under the budget resolution adopted for 2002, and, combined with all other advance appropriations considered by the Senate to date, fall within the limit imposed by the resolution. Further, the report adopts the Senate provision extending the Mark-to-Market Program for multifamily assisted housing. That provision, which is included in the above totals, is estimated to save $355 million in 2002. Finally, the report includes language that extends by one year certain benefits regarding mental health parity. Because that provision includes language directing how its costs are to be counted for budgetary purposes, it violates section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the budget committee scoring of this report be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Pursuant to section 311 of the Congressional Budget Act, I hereby revise the 2002 budget aggregates included in the concurrent budget resolution in the following amounts.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I would like 1 minute if I may.

Mr. CONRAD. I have said many times that the House-passed farm bill represents a good starting point. But it is a starting point that can be improved. For example, the House bill falls well short of the bill out of the Agriculture Committee in its treatment of commodities such as sugar, soybeans, sunflowers, canola, barley, and the pulse crops of dry beans, lentils, and chickpeas. In dairy, the Senate bill is substantially better than the House bill. The House bill skimps on commodity support in its first year, providing less than half the support provided by the Senate bill in its first year. If the House bill prevails, we may very well find ourselves back here late next year considering supplemental support for agriculture again. I believe our goal should be to improve the House bill. We cannot do it if we simply accept it today. The chairman has made clear what is before the Senate is not even the House bill.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, section 213 of H. Con. Res. 83, the FY 2002 Budget Resolution, permits the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to make adjustments to the allocation of budget authority and outlays to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, provided certain conditions are met. Pursuant to section 213, I hereby submit the following revisions to H. Con. Res. 83. The revisions follow: Current Allocation to the Senate Committee: ($ millions) FY 2002 Budget Authority.......................................21,175 FY 2002 Outlays................................................17,856 FY 2002-06 Budget Authority....................................69,640 FY 2002-06 Outlays.............................................52,349 FY 2002-11 Budget Authority...................................114,692 FY 2002-11 Outlays.............................................80,210 Adjustments:...................................................... FY 2002 Budget Authority............................................ 0 FY 2002 Outlays..................................................... 0 FY 2002-06 Budget Authority......................................37,751 FY 2002-06 Outlays...............................................34,465 FY 2002-11 Budget Authority......................................66,150 FY 2002-11 Outlays...............................................66,150 Revised Allocation to the Senate Agriculture Committee:........... FY 2002 Budget Authority.........................................21,175 FY 2002 Outlays..................................................17,856 FY 2002-06 Budget Authority.....................................107,391 FY 2002-06 Outlays...............................................86,814 FY 2002-11 Budget Authority.....................................180,842 FY 2002-11 Outlays..............................................146,360

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank my colleague from North Dakota. I thank our colleagues, Senator Roberts and Senator Cochran, who are valuable members of the Senate Agriculture Committee and have a sincere dedication to agriculture. We have appreciated working together even when we have had disagreements, some of them strenuous disagreements on farm policy. There is no doubt in my mind about the genuine commitment of Senator Roberts and Senator Cochran to the rural parts of our country and to agriculture in America. Certainly their hearts are in the right place, and they are thoughtful and valuable members of the Senate Agriculture Committee. With that said, we do have a profound disagreement with respect to this amendment. If you liked the Freedom to Farm policy, then this is the amendment for you. This is a Freedom to Farm policy warmed over. Freedom to Farm had a shelf life of about a year. We were promised under that policy permanently high farm prices. That is what we were told over and over. What we saw was something quite different. What we saw was a collapse of farm prices after that legislation was put in place. In fact, I have shown on the floor many times the chart that shows the prices that farmers pay going up continually and the prices that farmers receive dropping like a rock after Freedom to Farm was passed in 1996. The prices farmers receive have been straight down, like a one-way escalator going down, ever since Freedom to Farm passed. We have had to pass four economic disaster assistance bills for agriculture since Freedom to Farm passed, four economic disaster bills costing over $25 billion because Freedom to Farm was a disaster itself. This amendment before us would continue that failed policy. Senator Roberts keeps warning about a return to the failed policies of the past. How about the failed policies of the present? (Mrs. CARNAHAN assumed the chair.)

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, how about the failed policies of the Freedom to Farm bill, which has been such a disaster that each and every year for the last 4 years we have had to come to the Congress and pass an economic disaster assistance package for our farmers or see literally tens of thousands of them forced off the land. Even the authors of the House-passed bill labeled Freedom to Farm a failure. After 18 months of hearings, they concluded that one major change was needed in current policy. The change that the House agricultural leadership agreed upon was the addition of a countercyclical form of payments--payments that would increase if prices fell. That one feature sets the House bill apart from current policy. Yet the Cochran-Roberts bill and the Bush administration reject this fundamental feature. After 18 months of hearings, the House concluded there was one critical missing element. They put it in their bill. It is in the underlying bill, but it is not in this amendment. It is a countercyclical form of income support. Compared to the committee-approved bill, this amendment is particularly unfriendly to the so-called minor crops--commodities such as sugar, barley, sunflowers, and canola, which are crops that are critically important in my home State--and not just in my home State but in dozens of other States as well. For example, the Cochran-Roberts amendment fails to repeal the loan forfeiture penalty for sugar. If you are a cane or beet sugar producer, that one shortcoming will reduce the effective support rate of the sugar loan program and directly reduce the income of sugar producers. I find it particularly puzzling that the administration has endorsed the Roberts-Cochran amendment. After months of urging that we delay the process until next year, after months of opposing the additional farm money set aside in the budget resolution, and after issuing a policy report that indicts current policy for transferring the majority of farm dollars to a minority of large farmers, the administration has apparently done a double flip and has now endorsed the amendment before us that is a testimony to the status quo. The very thing the administration has opposed they now endorse. I guess one could ask: Are you surprised? Well, after the administration's performance in the farm bill discussion, nothing would surprise me anymore. First of all, they came out and said: Don't do a farm bill this year. Don't use the money in the budget resolution. Just wait, the money will be there next year. Then they came out and endorsed Senator Lugar's approach. And then the next week they took back that endorsement. Then they called the farm group leaders to the White House and said: Call the members of the Agriculture Committee and tell them not to write a farm bill this year. The money will be there next year. Well, anybody with an ounce of common sense could look at our fiscal condition and see what is abundantly clear to anybody who cares to look: The expenses of the Federal Government are going up with the war, the income is going down with economic conditions. That means every part of the budget is going to be squeezed. And we have a Secretary of Agriculture calling members of the committee telling them don't act this year, wait until next year, the money will be there. How is the money going to be there? How is the money going to be there, Madam Secretary? How can that be? The Cochran-Roberts amendment also maintains the status quo with regard to loan rates. It freezes them in place rather than increasing them as the committee bill does. The amendment continues direct payments to farmers regardless of whether prices are high or low. It doesn't matter, send checks. Let me just look at the differences commodity by commodity--the difference in the effective support level between the committee bill and Cochran-Roberts. Let's start with wheat. That is No. 1 in my State. You can see on this chart that the loan rate in the committee version is $3 a bushel. Cochran-Roberts keeps it at the current level of $2.58. On payments, the committee bill has 44 cents a bushel; Cochran-Roberts, 51 cents. The effective support level of the committee bill, $3.44; $3.09 under Cochran-Roberts. On barley, the committee bill, which is before us, has a loan rate of $2; Cochran-Roberts has a loan rate of $1.65. The payments are 18 cents a bushel in the committee bill, for a total support level of $2.18. Cochran-Roberts has a loan rate of $1.65 and payments of 21 cents, for a total support level of $1.86. On corn, the committee bill has a loan rate of $2.08, with payments of 25 cents, for a total of $2.33. Cochran-Roberts has a loan rate of $1.89, payments of 26 cents, for a total of $2.15. On soybeans, the committee bill has a loan rate of $5.20, coupled with payments of 52 cents, for an effective support level of $5.72. Cochran-Roberts has a loan rate of $4.92, payments of 36 cents, and an effective support level of $5.28. On rice, the committee bill has a loan rate of $6.85, payments of $2.40, an effective support level of $9.25. Cochran-Roberts has a loan rate of $6.50, payments of $2.19, and an effective support level of $8.69. Finally, cotton. The committee bill has a loan rate of $55, payments of $12.81, and a total effective support level of $67.81. Cochran- Roberts has a loan rate of $51.92, payments of $11.38, an effective support level of $63.30. On each and every commodity, the advantage goes to the underlying committee bill--the same amount of money, but it has been done in a different way in the committee bill. It gives a higher level of support for each of these major commodities than the amendment before us. Let me address one other element of Cochran-Roberts that I think is particularly deficient--the so-called farm accounts. There has been a lot of talk here about targeting of benefits of the farm bill to family-size farmers. But in this area, Cochran-Roberts has targeting in reverse. They are targeting to the best-off farmers, those who have the highest incomes; they are targeting to those who have the biggest profit margins because they have set up a circumstance of matching funds that requires a farmer to have $10,000 to set aside. In my State, a significant majority of farmers don't have $10,000 to set aside to qualify for the matching funds, or to fully qualify for the matching funds. So what you have here is Robin Hood in reverse. They are going to take from those who have the most need and give to those who have the most resources. I don't think that is a policy that can be sustained. I don't think that policy can be supported. Madam President, I add that the previous discussions on this proposal have had the program administered by the IRS that has the information on the money that people have to put in the program. To avoid a jurisdictional problem, they have decided to convert USDA into the IRS. They have decided to make the USDA all of a sudden administer tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of these accounts, but they do not have the information upon which to make the judgment of whether somebody qualifies for these accounts. This is big government writ large. This is an invitation to a massive,, expansion of bureaucracy and a duplication of bureaucracy. These are the records that the IRS has, and all of a sudden we are going to duplicate these records at USDA. That is an administrative debacle that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. How many tens of thousands of employees are they going to have to hire at USDA to administer these accounts? They do not have the information. They are going to have to gather the information. Can you imagine the potential for fraud? Talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. We will have everybody and their mother's uncle writing asking for their $10,000, and who is going to--I do not know how this ever got morphed into a program from IRS that has the information to administer such a program to one being run by USDA. They have 100,000 employees at IRS. We are going to have to have 20,000 employees at USDA to run this program. We are going to have to hire 20,000 new Federal employees to run this program. Can you imagine the invitation to fraud when you say to any farmer out there if they put aside $10,000, they can get a matching amount from USDA and they do not have the information upon which to make these judgments? That alone ought to defeat this amendment because that is an invitation to a disaster. That is an invitation to an expansion of bureaucracy unlike one we have seen in the 15 years I have been in the Senate, and that is an invitation to waste and taxpayer abuse that I think in and of itself should defeat this amendment. I end as I began. Although I have been tough and direct with respect to my criticisms of this amendment, I do have great respect and affection for the authors. Senator Cochran and Senator Roberts are very level-headed people who have done everything they can in the light of their philosophical leanings to support farmers across this Nation, and for that I respect them and I am grateful to them. But I very much hope this amendment, which I think is terribly flawed, will be rejected. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for his remarks because he is right on target with respect to this amendment. This amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire is a mistake. When the Senator from New Hampshire gets up and tells our colleagues that the world price for sugar is just over 9 cents a pound, it is not true. That is not what the world price of sugar is. If one thinks about it for a moment, it could not possibly be because the cost of producing sugar is over 16 cents a pound. In fact, it is about 16.3 cents a pound. So how could it possibly be that the world price for the commodity is just over half of what it costs to produce? It cannot be, or the entire sugar industry worldwide would be bankrupt. This is very clear. I do not think there is anybody who really knows the sugar industry who does not understand that the cost of producing sugar is between 16 and 18 cents a pound. That is what it costs to produce. So anybody who tells you that the world price is a fraction of what it cost to produce is firing with blanks. The hard reality is, that is not the world price of sugar. That is a dump price for sugar. I guess it is easy to understand how these misassumptions occur because people are not familiar with the industry. The fact is, the vast majority of sugar in the world moves under long- term contracts. When they go to this so-called world price, they do not have what is the true price of sugar. What they have is what sugar is dumped for outside long-term contracts. It is a fraction of the sugar that is sold in the world. If you want to do a reality test, what I am saying has to be true because if it was not, the entire industry would have gone bankrupt long ago because they would be getting a price for their product that is a fraction of what it cost to produce. I respect the Senator from New Hampshire. I like him. I serve with him on the Budget Committee. He is one of our most able members. But when he talks about the world sugar market, he just has it wrong. When he says the price of world sugar is less than 10 cents a pound, that is not accurate. That is a dump price. That is the sugar that sells outside of long-term contracts. The occupant of the chair, the Senator from Hawaii, is deeply knowledgeable on this matter. The Senator from Hawaii has helped lead this debate many years in this Chamber. He understands the industry, and he knows that the vast majority of sugar in the world sells under a long-term contract. That is what I think is misleading the Senator from New Hampshire. Those long-term contracts are not part of this calculation on the so- called world price because, in fact, it is not a world price; it is a dump price. It is for sugar that sells outside of long-term contracts, that those who have produced more than they sell under long-term contracts go out and dump. I want to go to the next point that I think is very important for people to understand. That is the developed countries' retail sugar prices. The United States is 20 percent below the average. This chart shows what retail sugar prices are in developed countries: Norway, 86 cents a pound; Japan, 84 cents a pound; Finland, 83 cents a pound; Belgium, 75 cents a pound; Denmark, 75 cents a pound, and on it goes. I am part Swedish, 62 cents. I am part Danish. Sugar is 75 cents there. Norway--I am part Norwegian, too--is 86 cents. They are paying a lot more in those countries for the retail price of sugar than we are paying. I am part German, too. Germans are paying 45 cents per pound. Where is the United States? We are third from the bottom. When our colleague from New Hampshire runs out here and says to everybody that the consumers are getting gouged, it is not true. It just does not stand up to any analysis. The fact is, we are third from the bottom in the developed world on what we pay for sugar. I can understand how confusing the economics of this industry are to those who are not familiar with the industry and not familiar with agriculture, but the reality is very simple: What farmers are getting has been going down and going down substantially over the last several years. We are on the brink of a massive failure of sugar producers all across this country because of the collapse in the prices they are being paid for their product. The Senator from Louisiana showed the prices that sugar producers are receiving is down 24 percent. That is the reality. The other reality is that consumers in this country are getting on a relative basis, on a comparative basis, looking at what consumers pay in other developed countries, a very good deal. The truth is, it is a very competitively priced product in this country and right around the world. Finally, the point I think is so important to me and so important to understand is when the Senator from New Hampshire says the world price of sugar is under 10 cents a pound and farmers are getting paid 18 cents or 22 cents and there is this huge profit, he does not have it right. The world price of sugar is not 9.5 cents a pound. That is the dump price. That is what a small minority of the sugar produced in the world sells for, that sugar which is outside of long-term contracts. That is where the vast majority of sugar sells, and the vast majority of sugar sells for about 20 cents a pound. That is the reality, that is the fact, and we should not be misled or misguided as to the economics of this industry. It would be a disaster for thousands of families who produce sugar all across this country if the Senator from New Hampshire were to prevail. You cannot be an island unto yourself. The fact is, the sugar industry is supported in virtually every country within which it is produced--in fact, every country. Not virtually every, not almost every, but every single country. That is what we are up against. Either we can fight back and give our people a fair fighting chance or we can roll over and play dead and wave the white flag of surrender--give up, give in, and let these people go broke and be poorer for it as a nation. I hope the Senate will respond, as we have, so many times in the past in recognizing that this industry is important to the strength of rural America, just as the rest of agriculture is critically important to the strength of rural America. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, when I saw the Senator from Minnesota was speaking on the farm bill, I wanted to come and thank him publicly for the role he has played as a new member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Senate Agriculture Committee deals with some of the most difficult issues when we are dealing with a new farm bill. This has been a debate that has extended over a long time. I point out that the Senator from Minnesota, as a new member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, in my judgment, has become one of its most thoughtful members. We saw that with respect to the amendments he offered and his debate, both in the public sessions and also the sessions in which there were only members discussing how we would proceed. I thank him. It is awfully good to have a new colleague from a neighboring State who has done his homework on the issues in this farm bill. I believe that is the case with the Senator from Minnesota. I commend him for the role he has already played. One of the things that happens around here is you develop respect based on your credibility, and the Senator from Minnesota I think has laid a basis that will serve him well for many years to come in the Senate. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the role of the current occupant of the chair as well who is also a new member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the former Governor of the State of Nebraska, almost a neighbor to North Dakota, but someone with whom we have shared interests and somebody who has played a very important role as well in bringing this farm bill before the Senate. We can acknowledge there were many who said we would never be here. There are many who said we could not get a bill through the committee this year, we could not get a bill on to the floor of the Senate. Now they are saying we cannot get it out of the Senate. We will see. We know there are those who are opposed to moving this legislation this year. I think they are badly in error. Let me say why. We are faced with the lowest prices in 50 years in agriculture. In October, the price review for agriculture came out, the so-called producer price index. It indicated the biggest drop in prices that farmers received in 91 years--the biggest monthly reduction. Our major competitors are not waiting. The Europeans have clearly a plan and a strategy they are pursuing and pursuing aggressively. They are already providing their producers nearly 10 times as much in per acre support. They are providing 28 times as much in export subsidy to take markets that have traditionally been ours. They hope we are asleep. They hope we will not act. They hope we will debate this bill to death and not move forward. I hope they are wrong. I believe they will be proven wrong. It is incredibly important to this country that they are wrong because if Europe prevails, if they are able to maintain this differential in which they are continuing to grab market share that traditionally has been ours--remember, in the last 20 years they have gone from the biggest importing region in the world to the biggest exporting region. They have done it in 20 years. They have done it the old-fashioned way: They have gone out and bought these markets. We in this country will regret it for a very long time if we lose our world dominance in agriculture. We are very close. The stakes are enormous, and this farm bill is the test. I hope we pass it. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, section 215 of H. Con. Res. 83, the fiscal year 2002 budget resolution, permits the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to make adjustments to the allocation of budget authority and outlays to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, provided certain conditions are met. Pursuant to section 215, I hereby ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the following revisions to H. Con. Res. 83.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. So there is no time on our side?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, might I inquire about the parliamentary situation?

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator for his courtesy. Once again, the Senator from Indiana demonstrates his generosity of spirit and the reason why he is held in high esteem by everyone. I thank him for his courtesy. We have talked about why we are discussing a farm bill now, why it is critically important. I believe it is critically important because of the economic conditions we confront. We are faced with a circumstance in which the farm families I represent in the State of North Dakota are facing some of the most difficult times they have ever confronted. I think this chart says it very well. This green line shows the prices the farmers have paid for the inputs they use to produce goods, what happened to those prices from 1991 to 2000. You can see that the prices farmers are paying have gone up considerably in this period. On the other hand, the red line shows the prices the farmers receive, and you can see what happened there. Since the 1996 farm bill, that line is almost straight down because prices have collapsed. That is the reality of what has happened in farm country. It is the reason why the new farm bill is so important to consider. This shows the same pattern, just the prices that farmers have received for wheat. Again, we can see that the peak was at the time the last farm bill was considered. Look at what has happened. Since that time, since 1996, the red line shows the price of wheat over this period through and up until this moment. Wheat prices have absolutely collapsed. This black line is the cost of production for wheat at $4.26 a bushel. You can see we are at about $2.50. We are far below the cost of production. It is not just wheat, it is commodity after commodity. One of the key reasons that agriculture in America is in crisis is because our major competitors are doing much more to support their producers than we are doing to support ours. This chart shows what the European Union is doing to support their farmers. This is support per acre. The red bar is what Europe is doing--$313 an acre of support. The blue bar on the chart represents what we are doing in the United States, which is $38 an acre. So they are outsupporting their farmers by a huge margin. By the way, these are not Kent Conrad's numbers or the Agriculture Committee's numbers; those are the numbers of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the international scorekeepers. They are the recognized international scorekeepers. This tells the story. That is why it is so important we pass a new farm bill and that we do more to support our producers. If we want to level this playing field and we want our farmers not to be facing a stacked deck, then we have to act and act now. It doesn't end there because this chart shows what has happened with world agricultural export subsidies. These are the most recent numbers worldwide. You can see that this pie chart represents all of the world's agricultural export subsidies. The blue part of the pie is Europe. They account for nearly 84 percent of all the world's agricultural export subsidies. The United States shares this tiny red piece of the pie, 2.7 percent--not 27 percent but 2.7 percent--less than 3 percent. So our friends in Europe are outsubsidizing us for exports by a factor of 28 to 1. It is no wonder there is hardship in American agriculture, when we see the Europeans buying markets that have traditionally been ours. They are going out and getting these markets the old-fashioned way. They are paying for them. Again, this is the World Trade Organization's information. It demonstrates conclusively what we are up against and the need for this farm bill to start to level the playing field. There has been a lot of talk about the spending in this farm bill and that it represents an increase. This is the baseline for agricultural spending, this red line. You can see the baseline is coming down dramatically and would continue to decline under current law. This farm bill does represent an increase over the baseline. You can see that the green line here represents the Senate farm bill. But you can see that, while it is higher than current farm policy, it also will be in steady decline. Farm spending will take a smaller and smaller share of the Federal budget. I might say, before we leave this chart, that while this is more money than current farm law provides, it is actually less money than current farm law plus the economic disaster payments we have made in each of the last 4 years. This chart shows how important Government payments have become to farm income. If we look at each of these bars, the red part is Government payments as a part of overall farm income. We can see back in 1992, farm income was just under $50 billion. In 1993, it actually went down. In 1994, it was about the same. In 1995, there was a big slip when prices were down. Then prices went up right at the time we wrote the last farm bill. Then we can see farm income started to decline, and decline quite markedly. As a result, Government payments increased as we passed in each of these 4 years economic disaster assistance to keep the farm sector from imploding, to keep the farm sector from mass bankruptcy. We can see now what a big chunk of farm income is represented by Government payments. Again, that is the red part of each of these bars. Each of these bars represents net farm income, and we can see how critically important Government payments have been, again, largely as a result of what the Europeans are doing. I believe we have arrived at the hour of 4:30 p.m. The agreement was we would turn to an additional amendment, so I will yield the floor. Again, I thank the Senator from Indiana, the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, for his courtesy.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes at this time. I don't want to use up the Senator's time.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise today to note the accomplishment of the University of North Dakota football team, who on Saturday won the NCAA Division II football championship, defeating Grand Valley State University of Michigan. It was a nail-biter, and one of the most remarkable, last-minute comebacks in the history of championship football. UND's spectacular defense held the Grand Valley State team to 14 points, but with less than three minutes to play, and 80 yards to go, we were trailing 14-10. A field goal wouldn't do it. We had to drive the length of the field and score a touchdown. It looked as though the championship would slip from our grasp. Moving the ball out to their 41-yard line, UND faced a crucial fourth-down play, needing four yards to keep the drive alive. Quarterback Kelby Klosterman linked up with wide receiver Luke Schleusner on an incredible 58-yard pass play, landing us on the one- yard line. Running back Jed Perkerewicz took the ball the final yard in the last 29 seconds to win the game and the championship for Grand Forks and North Dakota. It was the first national football title in the school's 105-year history. These were well-matched teams and worthy opponents. Yardage and time of possession were very close, almost identical. UND's 80-yard final drive made the difference. Imagine the pressure. Only minutes left on the clock, a national championship at stake, and nearly the whole field left to drive. It's a measure of this team's grit and determination that the final drive was marked by two fourth- down conversions. Converting on a fourth down is do or die, fail, and it's all over. UND did it not once, but twice. That's a demonstration of real character. All of North Dakota is celebrating this tremendous win, but this is an especially sweet victory for the people of Grand Forks. They know about comebacks against long odds. After the floods of 1997 all but destroyed the town, and badly damaged the university, they came back. And Grand Forks is on its way to being bigger and better than ever. Grand Forks is a comeback town, and North Dakota is a comeback team. I could not be more proud of these fine young athletes and their coaches. And I look forward to the conclusion of a little bet that Senator Dorgan and I made last Friday with our dear colleagues from Michigan, Senators Levin and Stabenow. I look forward to hearing them recite the words of the UND fight song, loud and clear from the steps of the United States Capitol this week. While the two final plays in the game put us over the top, everyone knows that at UND, it's teamwork that matters. Every member of this team contributed to the victory. I would ask to have printed in the Record the full roster of this championship team, and their first-rate coaching staff. They have made us very proud. The roster follows: University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux Team Roster No. 1, Thayne Bosh. No. 2, Jesse Smith. No. 3, Dustin Thornburg. No. 4, Jamel Alkins. No. 5, Adam Roland. No. 6, Shad Carney. No. 7, Jeff Glas. No. 8, Caleb Johnson. No. 9, Kelby Klosterman. No. 11, Cameron Peterka. No. 11, Jamaal Franklin. No. 12, John Bowenkamp. No. 13, Joe Wilson. No. 14, Evan Nelson. No. 15, Brian Loe. No. 16, Josh Ranson. No. 17, Bret Bentow. No. 18, Jim Miller. No. 19, Tom Maus. No. 20, Ryan Manke. No. 21, Peyton Ross. No. 22, Cory Urban. No. 23, Tony Hermes. No. 24, Willis Stattelman. No. 25, Craig Riendeau. No. 25, Demetrius Charles. No. 26, Adam Stratton. No. 27, Josh Copple. No. 29, Tom Miller. No. 30, Gregg Olson. No. 32, Jamaal Griffin. No. 33, Adam Dehnicke. No. 33, Danny Gagner. No. 34, Riza Mahmoud. No. 35, Matt Nelson. No. 36, Chris Beatty. No. 36, Travis O'Neel. No. 37, Jed Perkerewicz. No. 37, Matt Hillbrand. No. 38, Josh Brandsted. No. 38, Mike O'Neil. No. 39, Brian Wilhelmi. No. 40, Digger Anderson. No. 40, Eric Schmidt. No. 42, Ross Brennan. No. 43, Matt Vanderpan. No. 44, Tyler Dahlen. No. 45, Chad Mustard. No. 46, Jason Gravos. No. 47, David Wisthoff. No. 48, Josh Kotelnicki. No. 49, Blaise Larson. No. 50, Mac Schneider. No. 52, Andy Hendrickson. No. 53, Mike Mularoni. No. 54, Troy Newhouse. No. 55, Tom Irvin. No. 56, Josh Christofferson. No. 57, Brook Maier. No. 58, Eric Halstenson. No. 59, Jake Nordick. No. 60, Ross Walker. No. 61, Dan Schill. No. 62, Josh Cranston. No. 63, Ryan Grant. No. 64, Brennan Marsh. No. 65, Stephen Larsen. No. 66, Mike Gruchalla. No. 67, Jason Peterson. No. 68, Matt Knutson. No. 70, Brian Osterday. No. 71, Dave Butler. No. 72, Ben Murphy. No. 73, Chris Kuper. No. 74, Mike Crouse. No. 75, Brian Dokken. No. 76, Ben Olson. No. 77, Barry Smith. No. 78, Matt Buisker. No. 78, Mike Bryant. No. 79, Mike Wacek. No. 80, John Kyvig. No. 81, Dan Graf. No. 82, Justin Klabo. No. 84, Jesse Ahlers. No. 85, Erik Ahlstrom. UND Fighting Sioux Coaches and 2001 Staff Dale Lennon, Head Coach. Kyle Schweigert, Assistant Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator. Chris Mussman, Offensive Coordinator. Tom Dosch, Defensive Line/OLB. Tim Tibesar, Inside Linebackers. Curt Sienkiewicz, Running Backs. Tim Belmore, Wide Receivers. Cooper Harris, Graduate Assistant. Greg Lotysz, Graduate Assistant. Mike Mannausau, Graduate Assistant. Jon Young, Graduate Assistant. Steve Westereng, Head Football Athletic Trainer. Paul Chapman, Director of Strength and Conditioning. Dan Benson, Director of Media Relations. Lon Carlson, Football Equipment Manager. Cindy Klug, Office Secretary.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank my colleague from Alaska for his graciousness with respect to the time. Once again, he has demonstrated why he is one of the most respected Members of this body. He is truly a gentleman. Madam President, the question before us is whether or not the additional funds to strengthen homeland defense and to rebuild what has been destroyed in New York should be approved. The basic question is whether or not it goes over what is provided for in the budget. There is no question it is over and above what is in the budget. That is because America was subjected to a sneak attack on September 11. Terrorists attacked this country and that has required a response. It has necessitated increases in spending for national defense. It requires us to build up our defenses against bioterrorism. It requires us to strengthen the security at our airports, at our harbors, at our nuclear facilities. All of that costs money. Of course, it was not in the original budget agreement. These are funds over and above what was anticipated because no one could have anticipated in April a terrorist sneak attack against the United States. I am chairman of the Budget Committee. I have argued all throughout the budget process, all throughout the tax process, for us to respect the integrity of the trust funds of the United States. They are in danger. They were in jeopardy before the attack on September 11. Our first priority has to be the defense of this Nation. I think each and every Member of this Chamber understands that is the first obligation of each and every Member of this body and of the other body. The basic argument on the Republican side is we should wait: We probably are going to have to have these additional expenditures, but we should wait until next year. Their argument is this adds to the deficit. I think we should look at what else is being proposed, what else is being considered in this Chamber to evaluate the merits of their argument. The fact is, the Republican stimulus plan that is also being considered simultaneously with the legislation before us now adds $146 billion more to deficits than the Democratic stimulus plan. The Democratic plan in 2002, with all that has happened--the attacks on this country, the additional spending, the economic downturn--will have a $32 billion deficit in 2002. The Republican plan will generate a deficit in this fiscal year of $47 billion. In fact, we could accommodate the entire additional spending to protect this Nation and to rebuild New York and not have more of a deficit than the Republican plan for fiscal year 2002. For 2003, the Democratic plan has a deficit of $3 billion. The Republican plan has a deficit of $66 billion. That is 22 times as much of a deficit for the year 2003 than it is in the Democratic plan. For 2004, the Democratic plan emerges from deficit with a $45 billion projected surplus, while the Republican plan is still in deficit by $23 billion. Over the first 3 years of this budget plan, the Republican overall budget blueprint will create $136 billion of additional deficits, of additional debt. The Democratic plan will actually have $10 billion of surplus. So there is a total difference between the two plans--the Republican stimulus plan over the Democratic stimulus plan--of $146 billion of budget deficits and of additional debt. What Democrats are saying is we ought to accommodate the $15 billion that Senator Byrd has identified that is critical to strengthening our homeland defense and to keeping the promise to rebuild New York. We can do that. We can do that and still have $130 billion less of a deficit than the Republican budget plan. To the extent this is an argument over deficits, there is no argument because the Democratic plan has far less in deficits--more than $130 billion less--than the Republican plan. We ought to thank and commend the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Byrd, and the Defense Appropriations Committee chairman, Senator Inouye, for coming forward with a plan that is responsible to defend America and to keep the promise to rebuild New York. I yield the floor.