Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chairman. With that assurance, I will drop my objection and let this legislation move forward.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I would like to say a few words about my strong support of the Mississippi Sioux Tribes Judgment Fund Distribution Act. In 1967, the Indian Claims Commission rendered a judgment in favor of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, the Devils Lake Sioux Tribe (now the Spirit Lake Nation), and the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribe of Fort Peck, to satisfy land compensation claims. In 1968, Congress appropriated $5.9 million for this settlement. In 1972, Congress passed legislation to provide for the distribution of this award to the three Tribes. Twenty-five percent ($1.5 million) was set aside for lineal descendants who are not tribal members. Funds were distributed to the Devils Lake Sioux and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux in 1974, and a partial distribution was made to the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribe in 1979. However, because the original judgment did not include shares for the lineal descendants, the issue has been tied up in litigation and the lineal descendants' share of the funds has remained undistributed since the passage of distribution legislation in 1972. Since that time, the interest on the fund has grown to nearly $15 million. The bill we have approved today will distribute 71.6005 percent of these funds to the lineal descendants, and 28.3995 percent to the Tribes. I say again, as I have said on numerous occasions, this situation has gone on long enough. Neither the Tribes nor the lineal descendants benefit from these funds being tied up in court. The Indian Affairs Committee has worked with the Tribes, the Department of the Interior, and representatives of the lineal descendants to craft the compromise embodied in this legislation. Mr. President, I am pleased by the passage of this legislation, which helps finalize a judgment made three decades ago. This legislation is a fair compromise, one that will help break the stalemate that has prevented the distribution of these judgment funds. I thank my colleagues for their support and assistance.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to be joined by Senator Nickles and Senator Inouye to introduce legislation that directs the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) to develop a classification standard appropriate to the occupation of physician assistant. Physician assistants are a part of a growing field of health care professionals that make quality health care available and affordable in underserved areas throughout our country. Because the physician assistant profession was very young when OPM first developed employment criteria in 1970, the agency adapted the nursing classification system for physician assistants. Today, this is no longer appropriate. Physician assistants have different education and training requirements than nurses and they are licensed and evaluated according to differnt criteria. The inaccurate classification of physician assistant has led to recruitment and retention problems of physician assistants in Federal agencies, usually caused by low starting salaries and low salary caps. Because it is recognized that physician assistants provide cost- effective health care, this is an important problem to resolve. This legislation mandates that OPM review this classification in consultation with physician assistants and the organizations that represent physician assistants. The bill specifically states that OPM should consider the educational and practice qualifications of the position as well as the treatment of physician assistants in the private sector in this review. Mr. President, I believe that this legislation will make an important correction that will help federal agencies make better use of these providers of cost-effective, high quality health care.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to be joined by Senator Nickles and Senator Inouye to introduce legislation that directs the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) to develop a classification standard appropriate to the occupation of physician assistant. Physician assistants are a part of a growing field of health care professionals that make quality health care available and affordable in underserved areas throughout our country. Because the physician assistant profession was very young when OPM first developed employment criteria in 1970, the agency adapted the nursing classification system for physician assistants. Today, this is no longer appropriate. Physician assistants have different education and training requirements than nurses and they are licensed and evaluated according to differnt criteria. The inaccurate classification of physician assistant has led to recruitment and retention problems of physician assistants in Federal agencies, usually caused by low starting salaries and low salary caps. Because it is recognized that physician assistants provide cost- effective health care, this is an important problem to resolve. This legislation mandates that OPM review this classification in consultation with physician assistants and the organizations that represent physician assistants. The bill specifically states that OPM should consider the educational and practice qualifications of the position as well as the treatment of physician assistants in the private sector in this review. Mr. President, I believe that this legislation will make an important correction that will help federal agencies make better use of these providers of cost-effective, high quality health care.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I rise to discuss the conference report that is before us as well. I want to start by acknowledging the efforts of the chairman of the committee, Senator Cochran. Senator Cochran, I think, is really one of the most decent Members in this Chamber. He is somebody I respect, somebody I like, somebody who has made a real contribution in the Agriculture Committee in previous years as well as being chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee. So I acknowledge right up front he is someone, I think, who has the best interests of American agriculture at heart. But he is not the only one to make the decisions. He has to make the decision, not only in the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, but in a conference committee. It is a conference between the Senate and the House. And what has been brought back to this Chamber is inadequate. I represent North Dakota. North Dakota has been absolutely devastated by what I call the triple whammy of bad prices, bad weather and bad policy. That triple whammy has washed away farm income. This chart shows the Government's own figures. From 1996 to 1997, we saw a 98-percent drop in farm income in the State of North Dakota. That is a crisis by any definition. It is a combination of terrible prices-- we have the lowest prices in 50 years--coupled with natural disasters-- we have had an outbreak of scab and other fungi because of continuing overly wet conditions--and then we have, on top of it, bad policy. The last farm bill, I don't know how else to say it, is bad policy. It is its own disaster, because, in previous times, if prices would have collapsed, there would have been an automatic adjustment mechanism. That automatic adjustment mechanism has been taken away, and the result is now, when prices collapse and you have a natural disaster, there is not much there. The result is literally thousands of farmers in our State being forced off the land. When the Secretary of Agriculture came to North Dakota, his crisis response team told him over the next 2 years we could lose 30 percent of the farmers in North Dakota--30 percent. That would change the face of our State forever. We have no choice but to fight. We have no choice but to come out and plead with our colleagues to do better and to do more, because if we fail, there will be dire consequences, not only in our State, but in other farm-belt States as well. It is not just conditions in North Dakota, although we have had the worst conditions. The price collapse is affecting everybody in the farm belt. This chart shows what has happened to spring wheat prices over a very extended period. This shows what has happened to prices from 1946 to 1998, 52 years of prices. You can see we are at an all-time low. In 52 years, this is the lowest they have ever been, adjusted for inflation. This is it. At no time in 52 years have prices been lower than they are today. It is not just spring wheat prices. We lead the Nation in production of spring wheat, or at least in many years we do. Barley is also a major crop in North Dakota. Again, 52 years of history, and here we are today, the lowest prices in 52 years. When I talk about the triple whammy of bad prices, bad weather and bad policy, the bad prices are abundantly clear. We have the worst prices in 52 years. We have looked at spring wheat. We looked at barley. This chart shows durum prices. Does it look familiar? It is exactly the same pattern, the lowest prices in 52 years. You can look back on the whole period of 52 years, and prices have never been lower. When we then look at what our colleagues have brought before us from the conference committee, we can see that the Republican plan does not measure up. The Democratic plan is $7.5 billion. Some estimates are as high as $7.8 billion. The Republican plan is $4.1 billion. I must say to you, Madam President, and say to my colleagues, honestly, even the Democratic plan will not solve this problem. If you go back to 1986, the Federal Government spent $26 billion because we were faced with a similar farm economy. We are not going to be anywhere close to that. We will be less than half of that level of funding this year, even if the Democratic plan passes. Make no mistake, the Democratic plan does not solve the problem, but what our Republican colleagues are offering is totally inadequate. It is not going to stem the tide. It is not going to prevent literally thousands of family farmers from being forced off the land. I just had a series of meetings all across my State, and every town I go to, there are large meetings of farmers. It is very interesting because usually when I hold meetings like this, it is just farmers. Not this year. Now it is Main Street businesspeople. The mayors and city councilmen in the cities and the bankers are all coming to these meetings, many of whom have never attended a farm meeting in my 12 years in the U.S. Senate, stopping me afterwards and saying, ``Senator, there's something radically, radically wrong, and unless something is done and done quickly, not only is that farmer going to fail, but the Main Street businesses are going to fail and the towns themselves are going to fail.'' For the first time ever in my experience, mayors and city councilmen are coming to my meetings and telling me that the cities are going to fail unless something dramatic is done and done quickly. If we look at the constituent elements of the plan, the first part involves support on the income side. The Democrats call for removing the marketing loan rate caps. The Republicans call for increased transition payments. There is a dramatic difference here. The Democratic plan costs over $5 billion; the Republican plan, less than one-third of that. The difference here is the Democratic plan says that the loan rate caps that were put in the last farm bill at a very low level, artificially low level, especially on the commodities that we produce in our part of the country, leave farmers in a circumstance in which if prices collapse, they have no protection. Some have said, ``Gee, you're going to give a loan to farmers who have an income problem? Isn't that just digging the hole deeper?'' Let me explain for those who may be listening that a marketing loan in agriculture is not like a normal loan. A marketing loan in agriculture works this way: A farmer gets a loan--and in the farm bill, on wheat it is $2.58, but if the price goes below that, if the farmer sells for not $2.58 but sells for $2, he doesn't have to pay back the difference between the market price and the loan rate. That is why it is called a marketing loan. He only pays all of it back if prices exceed the amount of the loan level. This doesn't build debt. This is a floor under income. It is to guard against the kind of price collapse that we have occurring now. Unfortunately, in the new farm bill, the loan rates were capped at an artificially low level. They did that because of a budget consideration. That is why these loan levels were set at such low rates, because, frankly, agriculture was cut dramatically at the same time the new farm bill was put in place. In fact, much of the problem that we are experiencing with the new farm bill is not the specifics of the farm bill as much as the budget limitation that we were under when the farm bill was written. In fact, the support for agriculture was cut in half at the time the last farm bill was written. In the previous 5 years, we had been getting about $10 billion a year to support agriculture. Under the new budget agreement, that was cut in half, to about $5 billion a year. That is one reason we are in such desperate shape, because our major competitors, the Europeans, are spending almost $50 billion a year, 10 times as much as we are to support our producers. It is not too hard to understand that the Europeans are on the move, they are on the march, they are gaining market share because they are doing it the old- fashioned way: They are buying these markets. Madam President, one thing we have to ask ourselves is do we want to roll over, do we want to play dead, do we want to fly the white flag of surrender when our major competitors are spending 10 times as much as we are to support their producers? I said at the time I thought it represented unilateral disarmament, that the United States was making a profound mistake, because the Europeans have a strategy and they have a plan. And, oh, how well that strategy and plan are working. Their strategy and their plan is to dominate world agricultural trade. If you look at the trend lines in agriculture, you can see that their strategy and their plan are working very well. They have gone from being major importers to being major exporters in just 10 years. In the United States we are going backwards. If you look at our world position, it is slipping. And it is slipping in part because we are not in this fight. We have ceded it to our competitors. Why do they have a different view? In part, because they have been hungry twice in Europe. They do not intend to be hungry again. But more than that, they have decided it makes sense to have people out across the land. They do not want everybody forced into the cities. And we have to make a decision in this country. Do we want everybody to go to the cities? Because if that is what we want, we are on schedule. We are right on track because that is what is going to happen. We are going to see the people from the farms move into the cities because you cannot make a living on the farm. So the first part of the difference between these two plans is on the income side of the house. The Democrats have a plan of over $5 billion of assistance. The Republicans are offering $1.6 billion. If you look at the specifics between the two, you again see that the Republican plan just does not measure up. The Democratic plan on wheat would provide 57 cents a bushel. When prices are at the lowest they have ever been--prices in my State are down to $2.50 a bushel on wheat. That is the least they have ever been, at least in the 52 years we have looked at putting these records together--the lowest prices in 52 years. The Democrats have a rescue plan of 57 cents a bushel. The Republican plan would provide 13 cents a bushel on wheat. And 13 cents a bushel is not going to pay many bills, very frankly. When I tell the farmers back home that the Republican plan would provide 13 cents a bushel, the reaction is a combination of mystification, anger, and disbelief. They cannot believe in this circumstance that the best we can do is 13 cents a bushel. On barley, the Democratic plan is 23 cents; in the Republican plan it is 6 cents a bushel. On corn, the Democratic plan is 28 cents a bushel; the Republican plan one-quarter of that, 7 cents a bushel. And on soybeans, the Democratic plan is 28 cents a bushel; the Republican plan is 2 cents. Madam President, that is the income side of this proposal to deal with the crisis. On the indemnity relief plan, that part of the plan that is designed to deal with the natural disasters that are occurring around the country, the Democratic plan is $2.48 billion of money that would go out to farmers; the Republican plan, $2.43 billion. And you can see the differences in the two plans. The Democratic plan has $935 million for multiyear loss indemnity; $960 million for the 1998 loss indemnity--that would go primarily to the South, the second part there, because those are folks that have just suffered losses in 1998. In our part of the country, we have multiple-year losses--3, 4, or 5 bad years in a row because of natural disasters. The third element of the Democratic plan is for noninsurable, uninsured crops, $250 million. There is a fourth element, $50 million for flood compensation. These are for folks who do not qualify for anything. Their land is under water. And we have people in North Dakota, northeastern North Dakota whose land has been under water now for 5 years. They have no income --none. The Republican plan is silent with respect to those people. They get nothing. They have been getting nothing; they continue to get nothing. I guess there is at least a consistency to that--nothing; that is what they get. Those people--I just talked to one fellow who has put in everything he has. He had an insurance settlement--put that in--and his lifetime savings. This fellow used to be a world champion bull rider. He put all his lifetime winnings in. Every single thing his family had he has put into the pot. He is a remarkable, remarkable man. Five years in a row he sees more and more of his land going under water, and his response is really remarkable. He is just hopeful that something good is going to happen. He is just happy to be alive. But he is really counting on us to do something. The Republican plan does nothing. Emergency livestock assistance, there is $200 million in the Democratic plan. There is $31 million for farm operating loans. There is $40 million for an FSA increased workload; $10 million for U.S. Forest Service assistance; $10 million for tree assistance--for a total of $2.48 billion. You can see the comparable elements to the Republican plan, which is roughly equivalent. Madam President, another way to look at this is to look at individual farmers. What happens in these different plans? So we took three examples from North Dakota and looked at individual producers with individual situations and compared what the two plans would provide the individual farmer. Chart A relates to our first producer. We are not using names here because we thought it would be more appropriate to label them A, B and C. This chart represents a typical North Dakota producer who farms 500 acres of wheat, 300 acres of barley and is suffering only from low prices. He has not been affected by the bad weather. And we look at what he would receive under the Democratic plan, which is $12,630. In the Republican plan it is about one-quarter of that. This is a circumstance in which somebody has not been affected by bad weather, just the very low prices. Producer B represents a circumstance that shows a typical North Dakota producer, what they can expect to receive from suffering not only low prices, but also has repeated years of crop loss due to natural disasters, such things as flooding or the crop disease scab. So this is producer B who is suffering from low prices and from natural disaster. And under the Democratic plan this farmer would get $22,130; under the Republican plan they get $12,686. Producer C is somebody who has really got the triple whammy. This producer is not only affected by low prices, he has also had repeated years of disaster and has flooded land. Under the Democratic plan they would get $28,000 of assistance; under the Republican plan $12,686. Madam President, these are specific examples of what people would experience under the two plans. I say to you that neither one of them are going to solve the problem. I mean, that is the truth of the matter. This problem in my State is so deep and so serious that neither of these plans is going to solve the problem. In fact, if we do not do a lot more next year, there are going to be thousands of farmers who never get into the fields because their bankers will not finance them. If you are looking at what we are doing, we are shoring them up to try to get them to next year, trying to allow them to survive the winter. But the hard reality is--the harsh reality is if we do not do something dramatically more this year and next year, those farmers are not going to plant because if you look at what the Republican plan does and what the Democratic plan does, it provides money this year. I guess we are all praying that prices increase. I hope that happens. I hope that happens. But with the collapse in Asia, I think, frankly-- the collapse in Russia as well--it is probably unlikely that prices will increase substantially. And that means when the banker looks at the income statement for a farmer, under the Republican plan what they see is that we have moved forward the AMTA payments. We all agreed to do that. Republicans are providing 13 cents more a bushel this year in assistance, but there is nothing for next year. The AMTA payments that are supposed to be paid next year have been pulled into this year. So when the banker looks at the income payments for the farmer for next year, all he looks at are the price projections for the commodities that are going to be produced on that farm. Bankers are telling me they are not going to be able to extend loans to farmers next year if either one of these packages passes because we are not doing anything about next year. The families are going to their bankers in February and March to get operating money for next year. I had blown up a letter I got from a constituent back home that explains it very well. This is from Steve and Stephanie Johnson. Stephanie wrote the letter from Luverne, ND: I am writing in hopes that it will encourage you to quickly push forward the farm assistance program that is in the works. She goes on to describe that they are farming near Luverne, ND, they have 90 head of cattle, 13 head of horses. They raise corn, wheat, barley, sunflowers, and canola. She works as an RN outside the home, 24 to 40 hours a week, which pays part of their health insurance and most of their bills. Her husband works usually 12 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week, and he works 24 hours a day during calving time in February or March. He made $12,000 of farm income this year, of which $2,000 and an income tax return of $1,000 went to pay part of the 1997 operating loan balance. So that leaves her husband with $10,000 for the entire year of 1998. As she points out, that is $833 a month without benefits. That amounts to $2.30 an hour. That doesn't include the labor that she and her son have put into the farm either. She says: The really sad part of this is we didn't have to take operating loans in the 12 years my husband has been farming until 4 years ago. The cattle and the horses have helped us break even in the past, but in these last few years we can't even do that. She says in capital letters: With skyrocketing production costs and plummeting prices it is obvious that you can't quite break even. Something needs to be done quickly. Madam President, she goes on to say: We are in no way asking for handouts, only fair prices. We have to pay whatever price the retailers put on our products, but we have no way to set our prices on our products. She concludes by saying: We are not sure if we will farm next year, my husband doesn't want to lose everything he has worked for in the past 12 years. Nor do I think either of us can take any more stress. We are losing numerous family farmers in our area, in the past few years, 4 of our neighbors quit or were forced to quit. Isn't it time to do something? Madam President, it is time to do something and it is time to do something that is much more significant than what is in this conference report. The truth is, it is not going to solve this problem. It isn't even a Band-Aid on the problem. At least a Band-Aid covers a wound. I can say if this is the best we do, then we are consigning thousands of farmers--thousands of farmers--to the auction block, because that is exactly what is going to happen in our State. Finally, to put this in perspective, this chart shows what we are spending to support our producers and what the Europeans are spending to support theirs. We are spending $5 billion a year; they are spending nearly $50 billion a year. If we add $7 billion to that total, we are still being outspent nearly 4-1. I submit that it is pretty hard to win a fight when the other side is outspending you 4-1, much less the 10-1 that is currently happening. I hope before we are done with this legislative session that we will go back to the drawing boards and substantially strengthen the package that is before the Senate. It is absolutely critically important to the State I represent, and I think it is fair to say that there are many other States whose farm producers are in much the same shape as the people who are farming in North Dakota. Bedeviled by the triple whammy of bad prices, bad weather, and bad policy--not much we can do about the weather; perhaps not much we can do in the short run about prices; we can do something about the policy that is passed on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I implore my colleagues to join with others of us who really want to make certain that farmers have a fighting chance, a chance to get through this winter, a chance to be out plowing those fields again next spring. I thank my colleagues for their attention and their patience. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise in support of the defense authorization conference report that is before us today. In particular, I would like to thank the conferees for their support of an amendment I offered in the Senate dealing with Russia's tactical nuclear weapons. I was pleased to have the cosponsorship of Senators Kempthorne, Kennedy, Bingaman, and Levin when this amendment was passed by the Senate in June. I would like to thank them again for their support. Mr. President, my amendment focuses on an issue that I believe has received too little attention. That is the question of the tactical nuclear weapons in the Russian arsenal. Those weapons, that are thousands in number, are among the most vulnerable to acquisition by terrorists and dictators. The conferees' approval of my amendment is timely. Recent stories in the Washington Post have indicated that the international terrorist, Bin Laden, may have made attempts to purchase Russian nuclear weapons and that Iraq's nuclear program is much further along than previously expected. Unfortunately, the chances are increasing that the Bin Ladens and Saddam Husseins of the world may acquire nuclear weapons. That danger increases as Russia's economic meltdown continues. As Russian soldiers go unpaid and funding for security systems comes under pressure, Russia's massive tactical nuclear arsenal becomes the world's best source of warheads for terrorists and others who wish this world ill. Mr. President, the threat of tactical nuclear warheads being sold and the threat of them being stolen is growing. This chart refers to a CIA comment on the ``loose nukes'' question. As they responded to an inquiry from my office: We cannot rule out the possibility that a small number of nuclear warheads are missing. The Russian nuclear accounting system is archaic and inefficient. Years of crisis have left once-elite troops impoverished. . . . We take claims of lost warheads seriously. On the question of tactical nuclear warheads, I offer these observations--the first from the Congressional Research Service: Questions exist about the locks employed on [Russia's tactical nuclear weapons] and possible breaches in security at storage facilities. Many now believe that the risk of acquisition or use by rebels, criminals, or rogue military leaders may be greater for tactical nuclear weapons than it is for strategic nuclear weapons. From the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, I quote: Because of their larger numbers, smaller size, and in some cases simple design and relative ease of employment, non- strategic nuclear weapons pose more difficult command, control, and safety concerns than do strategic nuclear weapons. Mr. President, the point is that there is a threat. There is a threat of these thousands of tactical nuclear weapons that the Russians still have in their arsenal being diverted to the uses of those who are a danger to all of us. Terrorist use of a tactical nuclear warhead could be devastating. This is a comparison to what happened out in Oklahoma City. That fertilizer bomb was .0002 of a kiloton. The ``Fat Man'' atomic device dropped in 1945 was 14 kilotons. The smaller tactical weapons of today are 10 kilotons. The larger tactical nuclear weapons of today have a yield of as much as 300 kilotons. I think we need to understand the destructive potential of these weapons in the Russian arsenal. Russia's tactical nuclear arsenal is still massive. We can go back to 1991. The United States had roughly 15,000 tactical nuclear weapons at that time; the Soviet Union had 20,000. If we look today, the United States is down to 1,600 tactical nuclear weapons; the Russians still have from 7,000 to 12,000. My colleagues know that there are treaties that deal with strategic systems and conventional systems. There is nothing on tactical nuclear systems. That is why I believe the amendment that is in this bill is important. I believe it is time for Congress to: No. 1, go on record as concerned about the significant ``loose nuke'' dangers associated with Russia's tactical nuclear stockpile and its growing strategic relevance; No. 2, call for the Russians to make good on the 1991 and 1992 Gorbachev and Yeltsin promises to deeply reduce tactical nuclear weapons, just as the United States has followed through in good faith on President Bush's promises in September of 1991; And, No. 3, get more information from the Pentagon and the intelligence community about this threat. This chart perhaps sums it up best. The bottom line on Russian tactical nuclear arms is, to quote General Eugene Habiger, former Commander in Chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, on March 31, 1998: It is time for us to get very serious about tactical nuclear weapons. Indeed, it is time for us to get very serious. This amendment is a beginning. I thank the Armed Services Committee for their support for this amendment. I would like to take a moment more to thank those members of the Armed Services Committee who will no longer be in the positions they currently occupy. We are going to miss Senator Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a wonderful man, somebody who has become a good friend. I am going to miss him very much. And Senator Dan Coats will also be retiring, and is also a terrific person. Dan Coats has been in many ways the conscience of the Senate, somebody we can look to time and time again for moral leadership. Of course, I also want to recognize the chairman. This is the last bill that we will have before us with Senator Thurmond as chairman of the committee. Senator Thurmond, we want to recognize the enormous contribution that you have made to this body and the enormous assistance that you have provided to all of us. I also want to recognize Senator Glenn who will be retiring. He will be going into space. Senator Glenn has been rock solid on these issues. We are certainly going to miss him in this Chamber. Senator Thurmond is not leaving us, thank goodness. I have a feeling Senator Thurmond will probably be here long after I have left and perhaps long after most other Members have left. He has been able to stay in this Chamber for longer than anyone else in our history. Even though he is stepping down as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I have no doubt that Senator Thurmond will continue to lead us in many other ways. I want to recognize those who will be either changing their roles or leaving the Senate as we consider this bill for the final time this year. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. THURMOND addressed the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as remains on our side in the stead of the Democratic leader, as manager on this issue.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. My colleague is precisely right. It will be a tragedy for this country if we let this circumstance unfold. The hard reality is if we fail to act and act decisively, literally thousands of family farmers are going to be pushed out of business. And they are not coming back. I just went to a meeting in my State--one of the major farm organizations--and I stood at the back of the room. It was so striking because so many of the heads sitting in the chairs in front of me were white haired. The farmers of this country are aging and aging dramatically. There were hardly any young people in the room. It is easy to understand why, because, as Senator Dorgan read from the letters of young people, they were saying to their parents, ``Gee, will you hold it against me if I don't go into farming?'' Well, it is pretty hard to justify going into farming. It is pretty hard to justify staying on the family farm because we, as a country, have said, as a matter of policy, ``We're not going to be there for you.'' Our competitors are going to spend $50 billion a year supporting their producers, and we are going to spend one-tenth as much. So we say, ``You go into the fight, but you go unarmed.'' Mr. President, we can do better than that. America is better than that. And the loss to this country will be incalculable if we push an entire generation of farmers off the land. I know that at some point we will wake up and we will say, ``Gee, we have a program to get people back out there.'' And what will it cost us then, as we realize it makes no sense to push everybody into the cities of America, that instead we ought to have people spread out across the land? But right now we are headed on a collision course with economic reality. And that reality is: Our farmers are at such a disadvantage that they cannot survive. So that is the question that is before the body tonight. And that is the question that is going to be before the body tomorrow. Are we going to do something to help these family farmers through this valley of extraordinarily low prices and natural disasters or are we just going to let them go? I pray that we respond and help family farm agriculture survive in this country. It is right at the heart of what makes this country strong. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. I think back to the Interior appropriations bill. I don't know how many days that was on the floor here. It was day after day after day. In fact, when I look back on the last several months, it is hard for me to recall our dealing with anything of great significance. In fact, there have been long periods where nothing was dealt with on the floor, and then we are told, ``Well, the future of family farmers that hangs in the balance, there is just not enough time to deal with that, not enough resources to deal with it.'' Interestingly enough, our competitors don't have that view. The Europeans, who are our major competitors, are spending $50 billion a year to support their producers. We spend $5 billion, and we wonder why we are losing the fight. We would never do this in a military confrontation, but in a trade confrontation we seem to think it is fine to say to our farmers, ``Well, you go out there and compete against the French farmer and the German farmer, and while your at it, go take on the French Government and the German Government as well.'' That is not a fair fight. I say to my colleague, it seems to me as though we have the time to make a difference in the lives of literally thousands of farm families all across America who are facing a financial disaster. This isn't some kind of downturn, this is a cliff, and thousands of farmers are being pushed right off it. The question is, What are we going to do? Are we going to do nothing or next to nothing, or are we going to fight back? Are we going to say to the Europeans, ``No, we're not going to accept a circumstance in which you simply buy these markets, you go out there and because you have so many more resources,'' because somehow in Europe they have decided they want people out across the land, that that is good social policy.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, very briefly, I thank my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan, for once again standing up and speaking out on behalf of the farm families of our State and farm families all across the country, because these are desperate times. In North Dakota, from 1996 to 1997, farm income declined 98 percent. That is according to the Government's own figures. That is a disaster by any definition. Last night, I was absolutely shocked to learn our Republican colleagues killed each and every attempt to strengthen the financial aid package for farmers. It makes me wonder what part of disaster they don't understand. We have the lowest prices for farm commodities in 50 years. That is right, the lowest prices in 50 years. Combined with that, we have a whole series of natural disasters all across the country, including our State, where a terrible fungus called scab is loose in the fields that dramatically reduces production and that which is produced is discounted when the farmer takes it to the elevator to sell it. The result is a tremendous cash flow crunch on our farmers, forcing thousands of them off the land. We have record farm auctions. I have bankers stopping me in every town I go to and saying, ``Senator, there is a disaster occurring. There is something radically wrong. What is being done?'' Last night, our Republican colleagues said, ``Well, what we propose to do is provide a dime and three pennies for every bushel of wheat and other grains.'' A dime and three pennies. Frankly, that is worse than a Band-Aid. A Band-Aid at least covers a wound. If that is going to be the answer, then we might just as well say that the farm policy coming from our friends is a policy of liquidation; a policy that says to family farmers, ``You're done; you might as well sell out, because this country does not value what you do.'' Mr. President, this can't be the way it ends. We have a disastrous farm policy. I have said our farmers are being hit by a triple whammy of bad prices, bad weather and bad policy. We can't control the weather, we can't control the prices, but we can do something about farm policy, and we have an obligation to do so. When our colleagues are saying we ought to cut taxes by $80 billion and then turn around and say, ``But we can't add $3 billion to this package to provide financial support for family farmers,'' they have described their priorities very clearly. Unfortunately, the conclusion is, family farmers are left out. They are being told, ``Forget it, you don't matter.'' That is just unacceptable. There is going to be a fight. We are not going to go quietly in the night as thousands of farm families are shoved off the land. That cannot be an acceptable conclusion to this year's legislative business.

Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I just say to the Senator from Louisiana, this is specifically designed to help every State that has suffered income loss. The reason the funding has been expanded is because of the losses in Louisiana, the losses in Oklahoma, the losses in Texas, the losses in Georgia. This is designed to help every State that has experienced income loss, including the Senator's State of Louisiana.

Mr. CONRAD. If I might respond to the Senator from Louisiana and assure him, as the author of this provision, it is designed specifically to help every State that has experienced income loss.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise to support the package of amendments that is before us, because agriculture in my State is in a crisis. I have previously referred to it as a stealth disaster, because it is flying below the radar screen of much of the national media. Unlike the disasters of last year that were very visual, this is hard to take a picture of, because this is a circumstance where we have collapsing prices and falling production, and the combination of the two is pressing farmers and forcing them into selling out. I draw my colleagues' attention to a May, 1998, front-page Wall Street Journal story that examined the agricultural crisis in the heartland of America. It pointed out very clearly that on the northern plains, the new farm bill is yielding pain and upheaval, and, indeed, it is. They point out that the dramatic drop in wheat prices was already, back in May, creating desperate problems for farmers in my State, but also in the State of the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone, who just spoke. This is a problem that is now recognized not just in our home areas, but across the country. Indeed, not only has the Wall Street Journal written articles on what is happening, but the New York Times. This is a story that ran in July, 1998. They point out we have a desperate crisis in agriculture. We have seen, in fact, two front-page stories in the New York Times, a front-page story in the Washington Post, all talking about the extreme conditions farmers in North Dakota are facing. Just moments ago, the respected Farm Journal released a survey of 1,000 wheat and corn farmers. The support for changes in farm policy in that Farm Journal survey is overwhelming: 73 percent of those surveyed believe that our current farm bill does not provide adequate income; 77 percent believe Congress should modify the farm bill; 73 percent believe we should lift the caps on marketing loans; 85 percent believe we must stop the import of surplus grain from abroad; 86 percent believe the United States should reestablish the farmer-owned and controlled grain reserve. Only 40 percent of farmers surveyed believe that they will be farming in 5 years. Mr. President, only 32 percent said they would encourage their kids to farm. This is a survey done by the Farm Journal, perhaps one of the most respected farm journals in this country. The level of support for a change in farm policy is overwhelming, and of course it should be, because what is happening is an unmitigated disaster. This chart shows what is happening in my home State of North Dakota. North Dakota farm incomes were washed away in 1997. From 1996 to 1997, according to the Government's own records, there was a 98-percent reduction in farm income--a 98-percent reduction. By any measure, this is a calamity, and the result is that literally thousands of farmers are quitting. In fact, the Secretary of Agriculture visited North Dakota in June, 1998. When he came to visit with area producers, he was told by his own crisis response team that we might anticipate losing up to 25 or even 30 percent of the farmers in my State in the next 2 years. Mr. President, this may be a stealth disaster, but it is a disaster nonetheless, and it requires a response. The drop in farm income is not just limited to North Dakota. In fact, we are seeing farm income drop in a majority of States. This shows the decrease in farm income from 1996 to 1997 in State after State. You can see North Dakota, unfortunately, led the way. But not very far behind were Missouri, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Virginia, Minnesota, Wisconsin. You can see that the heartland States in many cases were those most affected. In 1998, this picture is even getting more serious, because we are seeing other States deeply affected, some of them by natural disaster, all of them--all of them--by collapsing prices. Mr. President, we have to understand that this disaster is a result of really two factors: One, natural disasters in my State--overly wet conditions that have led to a dramatic loss in production because of fungus that has gotten loose in the fields. That fungus has caused dramatic crop losses. But on top of that, we have very low farm prices. In fact, we have now reached the lowest level in real terms for farm prices in our history. This shows spring wheat prices from 1946 to 1997. You can see in 1997 already we were nearing the all-time lows for wheat prices. Look what has happened in 1998. The bottom has fallen out. We have the lowest prices in real terms in history. In nominal terms we have the lowest prices in 21 years. The result is a collapse of income for farmers and the result is thousands of farmers being forced off the land. I had a blowup made of some of the ads that are in the farm journals back home. Auction, auction, auction--we are absolutely being flooded with auctions all across North Dakota and Minnesota, parts of Montana and South Dakota and Wisconsin. And one of the interesting things to note is, it isn't old equipment being auctioned off. It is new equipment--1996 cultivator, 1996 swapper, 1996 disc, 1996 tractor. These are farmers who thought they were going to be around. They thought they were going to be in farming, but they are being forced off the land. Mr. President, in North Dakota, wheat prices last week hit $2.50 a bushel--$2.50 a bushel for a commodity that takes about $5 a bushel to produce. Some have said, ``Well, they just plant more and make it up in volume.'' It reminds me of the story of the fellow that was selling shovels. He was buying them for $20 and selling them for $16. And he was so excited because he was selling lots of them. One of his friends with a little cooler head said, ``You know, it's not working out so well if you buy them for $20 and are selling them for $16. You're losing $4 on every shovel.'' This fellow, who was the ultimate optimist said, ``I'm going to make up for it in volume.'' You are not going to make up for it in volume. You are not going to make up for it in any way when you are losing $4 on every shovel you sell. The same thing is happening on every bushel of wheat. When it costs you $5 to produce, and you are getting $2.50 at the market, you are not going to stay in business very long. That is the hard reality. That is the simple truth. Mr. President, that is what is happening in my State and many others. Something must be done. And it must be done quickly or we are going to see an exodus from agriculture unlike any we have seen in our history. Mr. President, it is not enough to define the problem. It is also important to look at what is causing the problem. Let me just put up a chart that shows what we did in the last farm bill. In the last farm bill we dramatically cut support for agriculture. In the previous 5-year farm bill we averaged $10 billion a year in support for American producers. In the new farm bill, that has been cut in half--$5 billion a year for support for our agriculture producers--a dramatic reduction. In fact, this is the biggest cut in Federal spending of any part of the Federal budget. I am someone that has been a deficit hawk the entire time I have been in the U.S. Senate. I deeply believe in balanced budgets, not because that is the thing to do, but because it makes economic sense. It takes pressure off interest rates and allows America to be more competitive and allows us to get back on track. That is exactly what has happened since we started dramatic reductions in the deficit since 1993. Mr. President, it is important to understand that no sector of the budget has taken bigger reductions than agriculture. If we look at what our competitors are doing, we see why it puts us in a very difficult position. Because our competitors in Europe are spending much more than we are at supporting their producers. Mr. President, I indicated that in our country we are spending $5 billion a year to support our farmers. But in Europe, they are spending nearly $50 billion a year to support their producers. This is an unfair fight. It is one thing to say to our farmers, ``You go out there and compete against the French farmer and the German farmer.'' That is fair. It is not fair to say to our farmers, ``And while you're at it, you go compete against the French Government and the German Government as well.'' That is not a fair fight. But that is exactly what we are telling our farmers to do. This represents unilateral disarmament in a trade war. We would never do this in a military confrontation. Why are we doing it in a trade confrontation? Mr. President, $50 billion a year by Europe to support their producers; $5 billion a year by us to support our producers. Is it any wonder that we are losing the fight? Is it any wonder that Europe is on the march and on the move? Is it any wonder that Europe, who believes they have a strategy and a plan, believes that that strategy and plan are working? Mr. President, we have to wake up in America. We have to understand that our competitors think we are asleep. They believe that we have been prosperous so long that we are not going to be willing to stay the fight. They believe that America is going to roll over and that they are going to be able to resume agricultural dominance. Mr. President, if you examine the trend lines so far, they are right, because if you look at what the Europeans are doing, they have gone from being major wheat importers to being major exporters. Their share of the world grain trade has increased year after year after year. And it is time for America to decide, do we fight back or do we surrender? I do not believe America wants to surrender. I believe America wants to fight back. Other countries want farmers out across the land, not huddled in the cities. That is the choice before us, Mr. President. Because unless we respond, unless we react, unless we help our producers in this fight, they will lose. And that will be a sad day for America. That will be a day we live to regret, because agriculture is at the heart of America's economic dominance. Make no mistake, agriculture is right at the heart of the strength of America. And if we are to surrender that position of dominance, we will rue the day we allow it to happen. Mr. President, the last farm bill we passed dramatically reduced support. I put a chart up that showed spending per year for our farmers was cut in half. This chart shows the payments that are going out to farmers. In 1998--that is the year we are in--you can see this is the best year; this is the best year under the new farm plan, the best year. Look where it goes from here--down, down, down. Mr. President, this cannot be allowed to stand. If you look at it from the individual producer's standpoint, here is what happens to the per bushel support that they get under the new farm plan: 1996, 1997-- you can see 1998 is the second best year in terms of per bushel payments to our farmers. And then it goes down, down, down. Again, Mr. President, we have our farmers going on a one-way escalator, and it is an escalator going down. It is an escalator leading to defeat. It is an escalator that says to our farmers, forget it, because this country is not going to stand behind you in this worldwide trade confrontation. We are going to give up. We are going to surrender. We are going to wave the white flag. We would never do that in any kind of military confrontation, and we should not be doing it in this trade confrontation. As we look at what is before the Senate in terms of this package, we have an increase in indemnity payments. A number of weeks ago, I introduced on the floor an indemnity plan to help farmers because they are suffering from natural disasters. So many farmers in our State have had 5 years of extraordinary conditions, very bad conditions for the growing of grain, conditions that have led to this outbreak of disease, conditions that have led to a steep drop in production. We put in place crop insurance. It is supposed to be the risk manager for our farmers and help them in disastrous circumstances. One of the things we have learned about this new program of crop insurance is that it does not work where you have multiple years of disaster. It does not work. The reason it doesn't work is because your production history and base are determined on what your last 5 years of production have been. If you have suffered disaster after disaster, your base is reduced; that determines what you get paid under crop insurance. If you have had 5 years of disaster, your base is so reduced that there is not a safety net, even though the farmers are paying for it through crop insurance premiums. The first thing we need to do, and the Senate has already agreed, is to provide a system of indemnity payments to those who have had experienced repeated losses and suffered sharp income declines. Those indemnity payments that we passed in the U.S. Senate were for $500 million. However, since we passed them, the losses have mounted. They have increased because of drought and disasters in Oklahoma and Louisiana. Because of other natural disasters around the country, we are seeing the income losses mount. In this amendment we are proposing $1.5 billion. Already, the USDA tells us that to provide the same level of support we had when we passed the $500 million amendment in July, it would now take $1.1 billion today to provide the same level of assistance. We are proposing to go to $1.5 billion to cover these mounting losses with respect to an indemnity payment. In addition, we are recommending that we lift the marketing loan rate caps, these artificial caps that were put in place in the last farm bill. On wheat, those caps are put in place at $2.58 a bushel; $2.58, when it costs about $5 a bushel to produce the product. Obviously, those marketing loan rate caps in no way cover the costs of production. The result is devastating losses to farmers' income. The result is devastating losses of farm families. That is why we are recommending lifting those loan rate caps. No, not to $5; no, not to $4; no, not even to $3.50; but to about $3.20. We think that is a reasonable proposal on top of the indemnity plan to get some money out across the land so farmers are not forced off their farms. Those are the two key elements of this plan: an indemnity payment plan and lifting of the marketing loan rate caps. I have already indicated, according to the Farm Journal and their survey just released moments ago, that the overwhelming majority of farmers support lifting the marketing loan rate caps. Now, we will hear some argue that if you lift the loan rate caps, prices will increase and, therefore, production will increase, and therefore a further glut on the market will be created. I had my staff call the Chief Economist's office at the Department of Agriculture and ask them if that scenario is plausible. They told us, no, it is not plausible due to the structure of the marketing loan program. If we lift the loan rate to $3.20 a bushel, a farmer can take out a loan for that amount. If he ultimately markets the grain for less than that, he can keep the difference. Only if he sells the grain for more than that $3.20 does he repay the entire loan amount. That is the way the marketing loan works. By the way, this is not unprecedented. We have a marketing loan in place for cotton and rice. It has worked extremely well for those commodities. What is wrong here is that the loan rate that we have set is simply too low. It is not allowing farmers to recover sufficient income to be able to stay in business. Again, some have argued if you do this you will get more production; you will raise prices. The people at USDA, the Chief Economist's office, say that is not true. Because of the way the marketing loan rate is structured, a farmer sells for whatever the market brings. If the market is $2, he gets $2. If the market is $2.50, he gets $2.50. But he gets to keep the difference between the marketing loan rate amount and what he gets for his product in the marketplace. He only repays entirely if, in fact, he gets more in the market than the marketing loan amount. It is, in effect, a safety net. A producer sells his product at whatever he can get for it, but then he is able to keep the difference between the marketing loan rate amount and the market price. I don't think those who argue that this is going to build stocks have studied this proposal carefully because this applies for just this year. Those who say it will lead to more production are going to have to answer the question, How is that? America has already planted and harvested its crops for this year. How is it that we will have more production when we have already produced this year's crop? This marketing loan rate increase only applies to this crop year. How is it, we have to ask those on the other side, that this is going to lead to more production when, in fact, the production for this year is already determined? We have already planted. We have already harvested. This marketing loan rate increase is not going to increase production because there is no way to increase the production that is already in the bin. This year is a closed album. Some say it is going to induce others to produce more. Europe has finished their crop for this year. Canada has finished their crop for this year. We have finished our crop for this year. Who is it that is going to produce more because of a marketing loan rate increase in the United States? The Chief Economist for the United States Agriculture Department says it is not going to induce a price increase anywhere. The fact is, this is a way of getting financial assistance to farmers who are in a disastrous condition now. What are the alternatives? If somebody else has a better idea, another alternative, I am glad to listen to it. But right here, right now, we have what the farmers are calling for. What the farmers are calling for is to take away these artificial loan rate limits and give farmers a fighting chance against this incredible international competition, where our chief competitors are spending ten times as much as we are in order to support their farmers. I have indicated that Europe is spending nearly $50 billion a year to support their producers and we are spending $5 billion. In support of exports, the margin is even more dramatic. In 1997, we spent $56 million supporting agricultural exports; Europe spent nearly $8 billion. This was a ratio of about 138-to-1. Now, I defy my colleagues to explain how it is we win a fight when our side is being outspent 138-to-1. How is it that you have any chance of winning when the other side is outspending you 138-to-1? Mr. President, I hope very much that my colleagues will move to support this amendment, that the attempt to table this amendment will fail, and that together Republicans and Democrats will decide to back our producers, support our farmers, to say to our chief competitors, the Europeans: ``You are not going to buy these markets. America is not going to wave the white flag of surrender, because this country deserves better.'' It would be a profound mistake to let 20 or 30 percent of our farmers be washed away because other countries have put a higher value on their producers. Mr. President, I hope very much in the coming hours that people will reflect very carefully on the vote that we are to cast, that they will understand that we are in a trade confrontation, that our chief competitors are outspending us 10-to-1 in terms of overall support for producers. In exports, they are outspending us 100-to-1. Now is the time to respond, fight back, and the time for America to say that we are not going to allow our competitors to put our farmers under because our country is not willing to stand behind its producers. Mr. President, this will be a defining moment for this year. This will be a defining moment on the floor of the U.S. Senate when we vote on this amendment. I hope very much, on a bipartisan basis, that our colleagues will stand behind our farmers and our farm families and not allow them to be pushed off the land, to be forced into the cities, and to be left with a very hollow legacy. I just want to close by saying I just had a farmer call me, whose family has been on the land for over 100 years. They are farmers in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, which is some of the richest farmland in the world. He told me, with tears, that this was the last year for him and his family, that they could not go forward any longer, that it was not possible for them to survive this collection of natural disasters and disastrously low farm prices. Mr. President, the person that made that call to me is somebody who is recognized in our State as one of our very best farmers. He has won award after award. This is not a case of bad management. This is not a case of people who are spending money foolishly. This is a case of people who have worked hard and committed themselves fully. In fact, in this family, both the man and wife have off-farm jobs as well as full- time farm work. And every member of that family has made a commitment to farm this year. But because of these disastrous conditions, they have said this is their last year. Mr. President, America will be stronger if that family stays on the farm. America will be better if that family stays on the farm. But it will not happen unless we are willing to help them fight. It will not happen unless we are willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with that farm family to give them a fighting chance. It will not happen unless we recognize that we are in a trade confrontation and that we have sent our farmers very lightly armed into a battle in which the competition is heavily armed. I have spent many hours meeting with European agricultural leaders. It is clear to me that they have a plan and they have a strategy. Their plan and strategy is to regain agricultural dominance worldwide. I hope we don't show the white flag of surrender and give in to our competitors and walk away from this fight. We ought to say today that America is standing by its producers and we intend to fight and we intend to win. I yield the floor. Mr. JOHNSON addressed the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I rise as a strong supporter of national missile defense. But I also rise as a strong opponent of the Cochran bill that is before us. I believe so strongly in national missile defense that I have introduced legislation promoting national missile defense that has passed the U.S. Senate. I support national missile defense because we have an unpredictable and rapidly emerging ICBM threat to this country from the so-called rogue states. The Rumsfeld Commission recently alerted us to the growing need for national missile defense. As I have said many times on the Senate floor, we must be prepared before we are surprised. But the bill before us is fatally flawed because it does not include the correct criteria for a decision to deploy. It says that we should deploy ``as soon as technologically possible.'' Mr. President, that isn't the right test. Let's make sure that we deploy the best initial system, not simply the first one off the shelf. The first one off the shelf may be significantly inferior to one that follows soon thereafter that would be a far more effective system of national missile defense. Further, the Cochran bill is also seriously flawed because it has only one criterion--``as soon as technologically possible.'' It completely disregards three other vital criteria for national missile development: No. 1, treaty compliance. As the Joint Chiefs have said in several letters, the ABM Treaty and START accords must not be endangered. Mr. President, I direct my colleagues' attention to a statement by General Henry Shelton, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He said that the effect that ``NMD deployment would have on arms control agreements and nuclear arms reductions should be included in any bill on national missile defense.'' Are we going to listen to the top military leadership of our country on this question? I hope so. I hope we are going to listen to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The second key criterion is cost. A system we can't afford, such as one with space-based weapons, is a fantasy in the short run and protects no one. We need to have a system that we can afford. The third criterion is use of proven technology to ensure performance and contain costs. We ought to use technology we know will work. Again, rushing to failure will not protect one single American family. Mr. President, we are in a development stage on national missile defense, and that is where our efforts must be. I applaud our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee and Armed Services Committee for fully funding aggressive development of national missile defense. However, the Cochran bill, at this point, is counterproductive because it applies the wrong criteria to the decision to deploy. The Senate should again vote no on cloture. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor and give back the remainder of my time.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, today we have asked the President of the United States to intervene to bring the parties back to work at Northwest Airlines, to get the planes flying, and to do it before Labor Day. We had hoped that the two parties would reach agreement on their own. This is a dispute between private parties, but it has a distinctly public result, because all jet service is shut off from North Dakota. We had asked the Secretary of Transportation to bring the two sides back together. He did that yesterday. I have now had a chance to talk to the Secretary at some length. I have had a chance to talk to the two sides, and it is very clear to me, although the Secretary, I think, did the very best job possible in the circumstances, that the two sides have not resumed negotiations today, and they have no plan to resume negotiations tomorrow. In fact, they have no plan to get back together until Saturday. That is too long. That is unacceptable. We need the two parties to resolve this matter and to do it promptly so that the public trust can be restored, so the public can move, so the blood supply that comes into the biggest hospital in our State can move, can be supplied, so that key parts that are needed for important plants in North Dakota can come in by air, and so that our own traveling public can move. It is not too much to ask these parties to immediately go back to the table and to resolve their differences. Given the continuing impasse, we believe it is imperative that the White House acts, and acts promptly. That is what has triggered our request today to the President to invoke his emergency powers and bring the parties back to work, to get this airline up and operating again. I hope the President will be listening closely to our plea to get the relief that our State so desperately needs. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to say that when I came to this Chamber I was 100th in seniority. I sat up here at the end of the line. When I came to this Chamber, I had not served in the House of Representatives before this. So I didn't know many of the Members. But there was one Senator who was always unfailingly courteous, polite, and warm. And that is the Senator from South Carolina. Whenever he saw me, there was a cheery word, a note of encouragement, and a willingness to be helpful. I have never forgotten his courtesy and his kindness. Once again, this week, when my chief of staff died suddenly, among the very first Senators to call me with condolences was the senior Senator from South Carolina. He called my office. When he saw me in the hall, he took me aside and said how he felt about the loss of my top aide. Mr. President, we are here to celebrate a record of a remarkable stream of votes by the Senator from South Carolina. But, more than that, I think we want to celebrate the kind of man that he is and the contribution that he makes to this Chamber and to this country. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD

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

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, my Senate family suffered a tragic loss Friday night. My Chief of Staff, Kent Hall, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. I have lost a dear friend and a trusted adviser. North Dakota has lost a strong and able advocate. Kent Hall worked for me my entire tenure in the U.S. Senate. I can still remember my job interview with him in 1987. It took place in my makeshift office in the Hart Senate Office Building. I had a jelly doughnut sitting on my desk, and Kent commented to me as we began the interview that if I ate a doughnut every day I would gain 25 pounds in a year. Along with his terrific sense of humor and his assurance, Kent brought with him a remarkable ability to analyze events. He was trained as an economist and he was always calm, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Kent Hall drafted the first speech that I ever gave in the U.S. Senate. It was entitled ``For North Dakota's Future and America's Future.'' It was about the policies that would be necessary to stabilize the commodity-driven income of a State like North Dakota. Although Kent began in my office as my chief agricultural aide, he was later promoted to Legislative Director and then to Chief of Staff. Throughout his twelve years with me, he always gave a thorough and complete analysis to whatever problem was before us. Kent was interested in issues and he was interested in improving conditions for people. That is what motivated him, that is what drove him. He was especially interested in farm families because he had grown up on a farm in Iowa and he had relatives who were still on the farm, so he had a special understanding of their needs. He had special expertise in agricultural economics. I can remember very well Kent Hall working all night, during the drought of 1988, to devise a disaster assistance formula that would be most favorable to North Dakota. Kent was a perfectionist, and he was ready to do whatever it took to get things right. He was so committed that he was willing to stay up all night to make sure that what we were doing would get the job done. That was Kent Hall. I remember him staying weekends and holidays during the flood disasters of last year. In fact, during that entire year I think he took one day off. I remember him working this year as the agricultural crisis spread across our State, working unceasingly to help our farmers. More than that, though, Kent had a special way about him. He brought a calmness to an office. He brought a calmness to a situation. He had a twinkle in his eye because, as he always liked to remind us, he was an Irishman. So today he would want us to think about the good things and to celebrate his life. This morning we had a chance, with Reverend Ogilvie, to share with the members of my staff and his widow the life that Kent Hall lived. He lived life fully, he loved life, and, most of all, he loved his family. He leaves behind two young children. He leaves behind a wonderful wife. Even his marriage was not uneventful. He married Michelle Reilly, who works for Senator Harkin, in March of 1993. I don't think anybody will forget that day. It was the worst snowstorm in 20 years. It shut down the entire city, but Kent Hall was undeterred. No snowstorm could stop Kent, and that wedding went on. Many friends celebrated it. Their wedding, in fact, occurred very close to St. Patrick's Day, which was almost like a holy day to Kent Hall. I still have staff who remember the St. Patrick's Day parties at his home. There was always green beer, and lots of it, and everyone was welcome. The births of Kent and Reilly's two children, Caiti and Austin, were the highlights of his life. He talked about them all the time. My staff and I always knew when they had said their first word, taken their first step, or even if they just kept Kent awake during the night. Those of us who knew and loved Kent Hall will miss him terribly. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and children today and in the days to come. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am taking the floor today to introduce a bill which will respond to a critical problem faced by farmers. This proposal would amend the provision in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 the temporarily reinstated income averaging for farmers. When income averaging was eliminated as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Congress acted primarily on the assumption that fewer tax brackets and dramatically lower marginal tax rates would substantially reduce the number of taxpayers whose fluctuating incomes could subject them to higher progressive rates. Congress was also concerned that income averaging, as it existed at that time, was effectively targeted on taxpayers who actually experienced wildly fluctuating incomes. Today, it is hard to imagine a group of taxpayers whose incomes fluctuate more wildly than farmers. There is no place where that kind of fluctuation is more vividly demonstrated than in my own state of North Dakota. In 1996, North Dakota farm income came in at $764 million. A year later, it was $15 million. That is a 98 percent decrease, Mr. President! Fluctuations just don't come much wilder than that. Reflecting on the situation, I think Congress made a mistake eliminating income averaging altogether in 1986--at least with respect to farmers. Fluctuating income is a fact of life in agriculture, and to the extent that the Internal Revenue Code can respond to that reality, it should do so. The change we made in 1997 was a good one, but it did not go far enough to help many farmers who desperately need it. That reinstatement of income averaging for farmers should have made farmers' incomes in 1997 eligible for averaging and the reinstatement should have been permanent. The bill I introduce today does both. This bill will provide modest, but much needed, assistance to farmers who were devastated in 1997, and provide it in a way that is consistent with the approach Congress took in the Taxpayer Relief Act last year. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object--but I do object to what has occurred here, in terms of the way we are dealing with each other. When I worked to put together an indemnity plan, I went to Members on the other side and I consulted with everyone. On this matter, there was no consultation.

Mr. CONRAD. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. CONRAD. No, no, I have reserved the right to object. I just say this: My name was raised as having been consulted; I haven't been consulted. I was not consulted. So, when my name is raised on the floor of this body and it has been said publicly that I was consulted, that is not the case. In fact, I heard a rumor that this was occurring and went to another Member. I am just saying, in terms of the way we treat each other here, this is not quite the way it ought to be done. I would hope we would truly work together to advance the interests of our farmers who, in many parts of our country, are, indeed, financially troubled. There is no question this proposal is of some help. It is no new money, but it is of some assistance. But I couldn't be silent when it is suggested people came and consulted with us. That did not happen. The Democratic leader is precisely right; there was no consultation, at least with this Senator.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, perhaps it is healthy that we had a discussion on the farm crisis started again tonight. It is unfortunate the way it came up because, typically, those of us who represent farm country have tried to work together. That did not happen tonight. That is unfortunate. There is no great harm done. In fact, we passed something that will be modestly helpful, although it represents no new money. Mr. President, the reason there is such a high level of feeling about what is happening in farm country is because we face an unmitigated disaster. In North Dakota, farm income declined 98 percent from 1996 to 1997. The result is a massive number of auction sales, and the result is that the Secretary of Agriculture came to North Dakota and his crisis response team said that we are in danger of losing 30 percent of our farmers in the next 2 years. That is a disaster of staggering proportion. Of course, it is not limited to North Dakota because we have the lowest prices for wheat and barley in 50 years. Those prices continue to crash. I just received a phone call from a farmer back home in North Dakota, who heard this debate occurring and he said, ``Don't they know down there that just shuffling payments is not going to solve the problem? Don't they know that this kind of shell game is not what is needed? What is needed are additional resources to fight what is an international trade war. Don't they know that Europe spends 10 times more supporting their producers than we do supporting ours? Don't they know Europe is spending 100 times more than we are supporting exports? Don't they understand the result is not only the lowest prices in 50 years, but in addition to that, disasters that are not being addressed?'' The disaster in North Dakota is the outbreak of a disease called scab, a fungus that is loose in the fields, which cost us a third of the crop last year. That combination of the lowest prices in 50 years and losing a third of the crop to this horrible disease, scab, has meant devastation to farm income. As I indicated, there has been a 98 percent reduction in farm income from 1996 to 1997, with literally thousands of farmers being forced off the land this year, and many more coming next year. One of the major agricultural lenders in my State called me and told me, ``Senator, there is something radically wrong with this country's farm policy. If a State like North Dakota, which is one of the breadbasket States of our country, is in a farm depression, then there is something radically wrong with the farm policy. Mr. President, I just want to conclude by saying that we do face low prices in North Dakota. It is not just in North Dakota because now it is spreading to other States as well. They are being hit by the low prices, but they are also being hit by these disaster conditions. In different parts of the country, it is different kinds of weather disasters. In Oklahoma and Texas, it is overly dry conditions, a drought. It's the same thing in Louisiana. In our part of the country, it is overly wet conditions that led to this outbreak of the fungus called scab. In other parts of the country, it has been hurricanes. The combined result is a farm crisis worse than anything we have seen since I have been in public life. I have been in public life now for over 20 years. Mr. President, I hope when we return that we are ready to aggressively address this problem. What we did tonight will help. It is not new money. It just moves money forward. That will be of some assistance. But it in no way solves the problem. We have a crisis of staggering dimensions, and it requires our full response. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.