Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we already have a unanimous consent agreement.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, we have had a flurry of phone calls and consultations this morning about the dispute that has gone on over the last several days about getting to the agriculture appropriations bill so we might consider disaster relief for farmers and ranchers hard hit by drought across the country, the third worst drought in our Nation's history. My understanding of the agreement is that we will go to the India nuclear matter but that at some time today we will turn our attention to the agriculture appropriations bill and I will have the chance to offer the first amendment to that bill. Is that a correct understanding of the agreement that has been entered?

Mr. CONRAD. Very good. That is my understanding. I appreciate the Chair confirming that. There are 26 cosponsors of the legislation. It is wholly bipartisan-- many Republicans and many Democrats. I want to alert my colleagues that at some point we will go to this issue today. It is not specified when, as I understand it. Is that correct?

Mr. CONRAD. It is specified that sometime today we will go to it, and after statements of the Chair and ranking member I will be given an opportunity to offer an amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for putting this together. It has been difficult. We understand that. I very much appreciate his steadfast effort to make this happen. On a bipartisan basis, many Senators in this Chamber appreciate very much the opportunity to bring disaster assistance to the Senate and to get a vote next Tuesday.

Mr. CONRAD

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

Mr. CONRAD

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I have just been told now by leadership staff they are going to do everything they can to try to get this Agriculture appropriations bill up tomorrow and that I would have an opportunity to offer an amendment and get a vote. I have been assured they are going to bend their best efforts to accomplish that tomorrow. I appreciate that effort. I hope it occurs. Of course, that was supposed to happen today. I am also informed they want to adjourn the body for the day, and I certainly will not stand in the way of adjourning. There are many here who have families they wish to go home to, and I certainly don't want to stand in the way of that, especially with these assurances that now, once again, have been given to me that they will bend their best efforts to try to get to the Agriculture appropriations bill tomorrow and give me an opportunity for a vote. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, leadership indicates to me they wish to adjourn for the evening momentarily. I don't know if they have other matters to wrap up. I am certainly not going to hold the body here. We will come back tomorrow with the status quo being in place. That is my understanding of what the agreement would be. I understand they are going to try to work through the evening to resolve this matter so we can go to the bill at some point, with some assurance. I want to bring this to my colleagues' attention. I pointed out the horrendous weather in July in North Dakota. This is an article that appeared in the Grand Forks Herald. It said this: Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds. Some ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds, and others are either moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment. ``These 100-degree days for weeks steady have been burning everything up,'' said Walter Johnson, Steele's mayor. ``I'd go for 2 feet of snow than this.'' Farm ponds and other small bodies of water have dried out from the heat, leaving the residual alkali dust to be whipped up by the wind. The blowing, dirt-and-salt mixture is a phenomenon that hasn't been seen in south central North Dakota since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, Johnson said. More than 60 percent of the United States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said. ``It's the epicenter,'' he said. ``It's just like a wasteland in north central South Dakota.'' Conditions aren't much better a little farther north. Paul Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise several hundred cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of Steele, a town of about 760 people. North Dakota's all-time high temperature was set here in July 1936, at 121. Smokov, now 81, remembers that time and believes conditions this summer probably are worse. ``I could see this coming in May,'' Smokov said of the parched pastures and wilted crops. ``That's the time the good Lord gives us our general rains. But we never got them this year.'' Brad Rippey, a federal Agriculture Department meteorologist in Washington, said this year's drought is continuing one that started in the late 1990s. ``The 1999 to 2006 drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the third- worst drought on record--period,'' Rippey said. Svoboda was reluctant to say how bad the current drought might eventually be. ``We'll have to wait to see how it plays out--but it's definitely bad,'' he said. ``And the drought seems to not be going anywhere soon.'' Herman Schumacher, who owns Herreid Livestock Auction in north central South Dakota, said his company is handling more sales than ever because of the drought. In May, June and July last year, his company sold 3,800 cattle. During the same months this year, more than 27,000 cattle have been sold, he said. ``I've been in the barn here for 25 years and I can't even compare this year to any other year,'' Schumacher said. He said about 50 ranchers have run cows through his auction this year. ``Some of them just trimmed off their herds, but about a third of them were complete dispersions--they'll never be back,'' he said. ``This county is looking rough--these 100-degree days are just killing us,'' said Gwen Payne, a North Dakota State University extension agent in Kidder County, where Steele is located. The Agriculture Department says North Dakota last year led the nation in production of 15 different commodity classes, including spring wheat, durum wheat, barley, oats, canola, pinto beans, dry edible peas, lentils, flaxseed, sunflower and honey. North Dakota State University professor and researcher Larry Leistritz said it's too early to tell what effect this year's drought will have on commodity prices. Flour prices already have gone up and may rise more because of the effect of drought on wheat. ``There will be somewhat higher grain prices, no doubt about it,'' Leistritz said. ``With livestock, the short-term effect may mean depressed meat prices, with a larger number of animals being sent to slaughter. But in the longer run it may prolong the period of relatively high meat prices.'' Eventually, more than farmers could suffer. ``Agriculture is not only the biggest industry in the state, it's just about the only industry,'' Leistritz said. ``Communities live or die with the fortunes of agriculture.'' Mr. President, this is an article that was repeated in newspaper after newspaper across my State. This is a disaster that is virtually unprecedented. South Dakota is even worse. That is why we simply have to achieve a result. I again ask my colleagues, please, just give us a vote. These people deserve at least that. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, as this interregnum continues, as we wait for some kind of resolution--we were told an hour and a half ago that would be forthcoming in 45 minutes--I wanted to read a letter I received from a young farm family that had been hit by one of the disasters I had referenced earlier. This family is from Souris, ND. It was a letter that was written to me last year about the extraordinary rains. This is what the father of the family wrote: The rains began in earnest the last days of May 2005. Our crops were in the ground so the majority of the input costs for the crops were already realized. We received 25 inches in 33 days and the attached pictures show the result. In our local town residents were going up and down the streets in boats. We did our very best to cope with expenses but with the increased energy prices and the loss of crop income we and all the other producers in our area lost the battle. Our farm had financial reversals in the amount of $110,000. We carry crop insurance but this program does not begin to cover our risks. In speaking with loan officers at 2 of our local banks I was told that First National expects to restructure 60% of their Ag. Loans and State Bank estimated 75%-80%. This is serious business in agriculture. We have felt the seriousness of the disasters in the South from last year's hurricanes and we have urged our delegation to support help for them. However our area was understandably off everyone's radar screen yet we had the devastation here as well. Concerns abound as we look to the future. As I look out my window to the west I see a field that we have seeded since my grandfather homesteaded here in 1892. For the first time we will not be able to seed it. It is 120 acres with about 60 acres still under water from last summer. The Federal Government has placed a heavy burden on us by declaring our area as a Prairie Pot Hole Region. This means I cannot drain this excess water into a nearby drainage system. I am stuck with it. How do I begin to recover the financial losses mentioned above when the Government Regulations limit those opportunities? The water is to the top of the road on both sides and now after being this way for close to a year the road is saturated and just about ruined. I just spoke with a township supervisor and they feel they will be closing the road because of liability concerns. We are asking that you come along side us and help us through this impossible situation that has been presented to us by a combination of nature and government regulations. Please support the Disaster Relief Appropriation currently working its way through Congress. If you do, you will literally be the difference between many being able to continue to produce food and fiber for this great nation and not being able to continue this production. Thank you so much for listening to part of our story. This gentleman included pictures. I don't think these are pictures that can be seen on camera, but I will hold them up and describe them. These are six different pictures. In some of them, there is water from horizon to horizon. Here we see a view that would go for miles and miles. There is water everywhere. This is what happened last year over much of my State--as I indicated earlier, a million acres that could not even be planted, another 600,000 acres where the crops were drowned out. Now this year, as I have said before, irony of ironies, the worst drought since the 1930s. Land I have been on many times in my life south of my hometown is like a moonscape--nothing growing, just dirt; land that had been planted and nothing even emerged. To understand what happened, this is the weather for the month of July in my State. Bismarck, ND, is the State capital. It started out with a day at 90 degrees; the next day, 92. Then right after July 4 it went over 90 degrees the next 2 days. Then it jumped up to 102, and then it was 97. The next week, 96, and then it was 101, 105, 94, 101, 105, 106. This is not heat index. These were the actual temperatures. Then we had kind of a cooling, and it got into the 80s. Then on the 22nd it jumped back up to 96, 97, 96, 90s all these days, 99, 97, and then the real corker, on the 30th of July, 112 degrees. That is really hot. I had friends who went out and drove south of my hometown that day who told me it was so hot it took your breath away, 112 degrees. I am not talking heat index or any of that; I am talking the actual temperature. The crops just burned up. During this period, there was no precipitation--no precipitation, no precipitation, no precipitation that whole week, no precipitation this entire week, no precipitation until the 19th. In fact, not a drop until the 19th of July, and then there was 7/100th, then there was 32/100th, then no precipitation, none for the next period going through the end of the month. So from the 21st to the 31st, not another drop of precipitation. Meanwhile, 101, 105, 106, 112 degrees. This is why the disaster is so serious, a combination of virtually no precipitation--for this whole month, there was 39/100th of an inch of precipitation--and day after day, 90 and 100 degrees. The crops just burned up. We can say: Tough luck, you are out of here, but that is not what we have done in the past. In the past, going back to 1989, we had the disaster assistance bill, $3.4 billion. In 1990, we had disaster assistance. Every year with the exception of 1991, right through 2005. Disaster assistance in 2000 was $14.8 billion. The next year it was $11.3 billion. This disaster package is $4.5 billion for 2 years, so it is dramatically less. Obviously, that is a result of more widespread disasters, perhaps, in those years, so the cost is less, but also this is a less generous disaster bill, as we have moved to reduce things, cut things from the $6.7 billion to $4.5 billion or just under $4.5 billion. I think most people would acknowledge I have not been somebody who has ever sought to hold up the business of the Senate. I have been here 20 years. That is not how I have conducted myself. But I am left with no alternative and no choice when a commitment was made to me yesterday, both publicly and privately, that we would go to the Agriculture appropriations bill today and that I would have a chance to offer the amendment. I have reviewed the Record. It is very clear, the commitment that was made. As of this hour--we are approaching the 6 o'clock hour--that commitment has not been kept. I understand there are others who may have lodged objection to going to the bill. But there are ways to go to a bill. It happens every day here. It happens every day that we go to a bill to which somebody has an objection. We have completely reserved the rights of our colleagues. They can require a supermajority vote. They can raise a budget point of order. They can raise rule XVI. As I have indicated, it is clear to me rule XVI doesn't apply because we have written this in a way that it does not apply. They can insist on a vote. Fair enough. That is all I am asking for. I am asking for a vote. These people deserve that chance. The fact is, literally thousands of farm families in my State are hanging in the balance. Right now, they are done with production for the year. Many of these places didn't have any production. This time of year, you go to your banker, and the bankers are saying to me that if there is not disaster assistance, 5 to 10 percent of farm families in my State are finished. What does that mean? We have 35,000 farm families in North Dakota. Five percent, if my math is right, would be 1,750. Ten percent would be 3,500 farm families who are out there right now wondering: What is the Federal Government going to do? Are they going to do what they have always done every year for almost the last 20 years and provide some kind of disaster assistance, or are they going to say: Tough, you are on your own, you are out of luck? I very much hope there will be a response and it will be a favorable response. These are as good as any people I know anywhere, hard-working, decent, honest, good people. They have been hit by the most extraordinary set of conditions. This drought has been rated the third worst drought in our Nation's entire history. The flooding last year was unprecedented in my State. Outside of the 1997 floods, which was a 500-year flood--the worst flood in 500 years-- we have not seen anything like it. I don't pretend to know what is going on with the weather out there, but something extraordinary is happening--extreme weather and extreme weather conditions, unlike anything I have seen in my adult lifetime. The result is deep financial damage to thousands and thousands of people. Mr. President, I hope somewhere somebody is listening. I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CONRAD

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

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Dorgan, and I also point to the Record, the Record from yesterday, page S. 10900. It says: Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I notice the majority leader has returned to the floor. I tried to recount for our colleagues the status of our discussion, and the understanding that we had reached, that I would withdraw my amendment from this bill with the understanding that we would go to the Agriculture Appropriations bill tomorrow and have a chance to offer it there. All Senators' rights would be reserved. That is the status of it. I just ask if that is the majority leader's understanding. If it is, I will then be willing to withdraw my amendment for the Military Construction bill and we can conclude that. Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in the last hour or so we have had numerous discussions on the floor, as our colleagues have observed, and many participated in the discussion. My understanding and the general agreement we have is to go to the Agriculture Appropriations bill tomorrow. That does facilitate the progress we need to make on the current bill that is on the floor, which I hope and expect to be able to finish tonight. If that is the case, we plan on going to the Agriculture bill tomorrow. All rights would be reserved for all Senators, of course. We don't have an agreement, but that is the intention. The disaster ag relief bill is very important and has been talked about by Republicans and Democrats and we expect to debate it tomorrow. It is a more appropriate place for this amendment. So I think this is a good understanding. Mr. President, I withdrew my amendment based on that understanding. I did it in good faith. I did it to accommodate my colleagues. I did it so other legislation could move. But now I am told the agreement is not going to be kept. That is not acceptable. That is just not acceptable. That puts me in the position now of having to object to proceeding to other business. I have no alternative but to do that. I am here representing thousands of farm families across our State and really right down the heartland of the country. We have 26 cosponsors for this legislation, totally bipartisan, about as many Republicans as Democrats on the bill because we have had the third worst drought in the country's history. That is the reality. I have a letter on my desk from a man talking about the disaster. And in that letter he said to me--this is from last year when we had terrible flooding--he had 26 inches of rain over a very short period of time. The result was he had no production, and he lost $120,000. Even with the crop insurance, it did not come close to covering his bills, and that he and his wife and his family were going to be forced off the land if there were not some assistance. Let me just recount the history. Always in our past when anyone suffered from natural disaster in this country, anywhere, Congress responded. Congress responded. We responded when there was Hurricane Katrina. We responded when there was Hurricane Rita. In fact, this gentleman says: I urged our delegation to support the victims of Hurricane Katrina. We suffered the same kind of loss here, a complete economic loss, but there were no news cameras seeing our disaster. We had a slow-motion disaster but every bit as devastating. The question is, Are those people going to be given any kind of helping hand, the kind of thing we have done repeatedly in the past? Now, we don't budget for disasters. Some have said it is a budget buster. No, it is not. No. 1, there is no budget. No. 2, to the extent we have agreed on guidelines for spending, it has always been understood, it has always been the case for the 20 years I have been here that natural disasters are treated separate and apart from the budget. It is very hard to budget for natural disasters. Nobody knows the extent or when they will occur. As a result, we have always dealt with disaster spending as an emergency outside the budget. Now, how much money is being talked about here? Mr. President, $4.5 billion for 2 years of disasters. And this is a national bill. This is not restricted to one region, one location. This will assist anybody who had a loss of at least 35 percent. And if you have a loss of at least 35 percent, only then do you start to get any assistance; and then you only get a percentage of the loss, 50 percent covered. So you get nothing on the first 35 percent of loss, nothing. Only if you have a loss of at least 35 percent do you get anything. If your loss is over 35 percent, you will get assistance on a highly restricted basis. The bankers of my State have told me if this kind of assistance is not forthcoming, 5 to 10 percent of the farmers and ranchers in our State will go out of business, not because of any fault of theirs, but because of the most incredible swing in weather that we have ever seen. Last year, we had flooding that prevented a million acres from even being planted. It was not even planted. This year, we have had the third worst drought, according to the scientists, in our Nation's history, a drought that Senator Dorgan and I saw firsthand in a tour with our Governor and agricultural leaders of our State. I even saw irrigated corn--irrigated corn--in which the ears never filled out because the heat was so unbelievably intense. In one day in my hometown, it was 112 degrees. I am not talking about the heat index. I am talking about the actual temperature, 112 degrees. In July and August of this last year, we had extreme temperatures day after day after day, and no rain. It was devastating. And it is just not my State. It is right down the heartland of the country: South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, over into Minnesota, Montana. There are 26 cosponsors of this bill. It is fully bipartisan. This legislation has passed overwhelmingly in the Senate with 77 votes. So I just say to my colleagues, I was given a commitment yesterday that we would go to the Agriculture appropriations bill today, and that I would have a chance to offer my amendment; that Senators could raise any objections they might have. They could raise a rule XVI objection. By the way, we now know that would not lie against our bill. We also know that they could raise a budget point of order. That would require a supermajority vote. We are fully prepared to do that and to accept the will of the body. But what is not fair is not to have a vote. And what is especially not fair is not to keep the commitment that was made yesterday publicly and privately that we would go to the Agriculture appropriations bill today and have an opportunity for a vote. That was the commitment that was made. This leaves me with no alternative but to object to going to other business. I will make that objection. And if I have to do it repeatedly, I will make it repeatedly. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lautenberg be recognized for 10 minutes and that I be recognized at the end of that period.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, yesterday I withdrew an amendment to provide disaster assistance to farmers and ranchers for the disasters of 2005 and 2006. I did so on the basis of an assurance by the majority leader that is in the Record very clearly: we would go to the Agriculture appropriations bill today, I would have a chance to offer my amendment today, the rights of all Senators were protected, and that they would have their rights. Now I am told there is an objection to going to the Agriculture appropriations bill. I say to my colleagues, that leaves me with no alternative but to object to other business. I, in good faith, removed my amendment yesterday, took it down, with the assurance--and that is in the Record, very clearly in the Record--from the majority leader, the assurance that we would go to Agriculture appropriations today. I alert my colleagues I kept my word. I would hope others would keep theirs. If that is not to be, I will be in a position in which I will be objecting to any other business coming before the Senate. If they want to have a live quorum, we can go through that exercise, but we will go through it repeatedly. This is not fair. It is not right. We have tried repeatedly to get this bill up so we can have a vote. It has previously passed the Senate with 77 votes in favor. What we are asking for is not unreasonable. We have reduced the cost dramatically. Here, a person's word is their bond. I kept my word. I am expecting others to keep theirs.

Mr. CONRAD

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

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator DeWine be recognized for such time as he will consume and that I then be recognized following him.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I have agreed to have these matters resolved because they are urgent matters, and I certainly didn't want to in any way impede action on those items that are absolutely essential. I would very much like to resolve this matter so that the commitments that were made to me yesterday, both privately and publicly, be kept and we can move on. But I was assured yesterday that if I would take down my amendment, we would then go to the Agriculture appropriations bill today so that the amendment could be offered on that bill, with all Senators' rights reserved. That was fair. I did it in good faith. But it is not to me good faith to have commitments made and then not kept. So I find myself in the situation where I have no alternative but to object to other business being done until and unless the commitment that was made to me is kept. That is why we are in this situation. I regret it. I wish we weren't in this situation. But I have been here 20 years, and I have complete respect for other Senators having the right to raise their objections. They can raise rule XVI. We believe our amendment has been drafted in a way that rule XVI will not apply. They can raise a budget point of order. That is completely fair. That is within any Senator's right. I certainly respect that. That would face then a supermajority vote. But we have been trying for months just to get a vote, and I think we have come to the point now where I was assured publicly and privately that it would happen today. That is why I am insisting on that commitment being kept. I want to say once again, the issue is how we deal with natural disasters. I have proposed that we budget for natural disasters. At least we could look back historically. We know that on average we spend about $8 billion a year on natural disasters. Perhaps that is what we should do, budget that amount. The problem is, none of us can predict very well what natural disasters are going to occur. Obviously, no one knows when a hurricane is going to hit or a flood or a drought. So historically the approach has been not to budget for natural disasters but to consider them outside of the budget on an emergency basis, and that has been done the entire time I have been in the Senate. I don't necessarily think it is the best way or the only way, but it has been the way. There was no disaster assistance last year. There is no disaster assistance this year for those outside the gulf region. We certainly appreciate that they suffered by far the worst calamity, and I supported generous help to them. But there were others hit by natural disaster as well. In my State last year, there were 1 million acres prevented from even being planted. Another 600,000 acres were subsequently drowned out, even though they were planted, by the worst flooding we have ever seen. I flew over southeastern North Dakota and it looked like Lake Agassi, which used to exist thousands of years ago, was reforming. I was on a plane and as far as the eye could see, there was water. I earlier referenced this letter from a young farm family telling me how devastating it was to them that they lost $120,000 and now this year, the irony of ironies, suffering the worst drought since the 1930s. In fact, the drought monitor, which is the scientific analysis of drought, said the drought that has been suffered in the heartland of the country is the third worst in our Nation's history. I was on farm after farm that looked like moonscapes. There was nothing growing. Nothing. It was the 4th of July. Corn is supposed to be knee high by the 4th of July. Well, the corn wasn't as high as your shoelaces. I was even on irrigated ground and I saw irrigated corn and the ears hadn't filled out because of the extreme heat. One day in my hometown of Bismarck, ND, it was 112 degrees. I am not talking about the heat index; I am talking about the actual temperature. This isn't restricted to my home State of North Dakota. South Dakota was even harder hit. The two Senators from that State, a Republican and Democrat, are cosponsors of this legislation. The Senators from Minnesota, a Republican and a Democrat, are cosponsors of this legislation. The Senators from Montana, a Republican and a Democrat, are cosponsors of this legislation. The Senators from Nebraska, a Republican and a Democrat, are cosponsors of this legislation. The Senator from Kansas, Senator Roberts from Kansas, the former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, is a cosponsor of this legislation. Senator Hutchison of Texas is a cosponsor of this legislation. All of them have been hit by devastating drought this year. What does this bill do? It provides bare-bones assistance to these farmers. The cost is $4.5 billion over 2 years--over 2 years. So it averages about $2 billion a year. I will just put that in an historic context. In 2000 and 2001, we had disaster assistance bills that cost 1 year over $11 billion and in another year over $14 billion. This is a fraction of those. The White House objected to my earlier provisions that included something my southern colleagues asked for--I didn't ask for it, my southern colleagues asked for it--and it passed in the appropriations bill. It was in the previous supplemental that passed the Senate overwhelmingly. But the administration said: No, take that out, because you could be helping somebody not affected by a natural disaster. So we took it out and saved $1.8 billion. We took out $250 million of the assistance for small businesses that have been affected. I have spray pilots who have been completely wiped out. They had no business this year. They can't have business when there is no crop to spray. We took that out. We have made adjustment after adjustment to answer the legitimate complaints of colleagues and the administration. But now we are in a situation where we need to have a vote and have the will of the Chamber expressed. Do they support this or do they not? These farmers deserve at least that. They at least deserve to know: Are they going to have a fair fighting chance for next year? I would say to those who might be listening: Earlier this year I had 12 independent bankers in my office when the President's chief economic adviser came to see me on another issue. I asked him to step in the conference room to listen for a few moments to these independent bankers from all across every corner of the State of North Dakota, and they told Mr. Hubbard, unless there is assistance forthcoming, there will be a loss of 5 to 10 percent of their clients. They told him that 5 to 10 percent of the farmers and ranchers in North Dakota will be forced off the land and out of business. They will be done. That is why Senator Dorgan and I are here with such tenacity, because we are representing the economic lives of tens of thousands of farm families--thousands in North Dakota, but also thousands more in Minnesota, in Montana, in South Dakota, in Nebraska. Our colleagues from those States have come repeatedly to the floor with us to make this point. We have 26 cosponsors of this bill--26--lots of Republicans, lots of Democrats, whose constituents have been similarly devastated by natural disaster. Always in the past there has been a response and, frankly, generally far more generous than this assistance. But these people have not gotten the media attention. It is not like the kind of disaster where the national media focuses, such as a Katrina or Hurricane Rita, or some other devastation. But, in many ways, this is a slow-motion disaster. This is a disaster that unfolded over many days and many weeks and even months no less devastating, but it didn't get the media attention. I implore my colleagues to give us a chance to vote. That is all we are asking for. We absolutely understand that Senators have a right to vote against it. They have a right to bring a budget point of order. They have a right to raise rule XVI. I don't think it applies here, but they certainly have the right to do it, and to give us a vote. That is what was promised us yesterday. That is why I withdrew the amendment yesterday to let business proceed. But I only did it on the basis that we would be given that opportunity today. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for listening and I yield the floor.

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

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, I say to my colleague, Senator DeWine, those have been very moving tributes to fallen soldiers from his State of Ohio. He has set a good example for all of us on recognizing the service and sacrifice of those from his home State. I find as I listen to those tributes that they are extremely well done. I thank the Senator for that. I also wish to acknowledge that the Senator from Ohio will be leaving at the end of this term and that I have very much appreciated working with him. He has been one of the very serious Members of this body, and we are going to miss him. I wanted to say to him that I certainly appreciate his service in the Senate. He has always been a constructive colleague, somebody who was working diligently to try to solve problems facing the country. We very much appreciate his dedication to the country.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to say to my colleagues, I hope very much we are able to find some accommodation to work out the situation. I stand ready to try to resolve this matter. I did it yesterday. I withdrew an amendment with the assurance that we would go to the Agriculture appropriations bill today. I really expected that commitment would be kept. I don't know how else this place can run but on the good faith of Members. I did my best to accommodate colleagues yesterday and did so on the assurance, both public and private, that we would go to the Agriculture appropriations bill so we could have a vote--we could have a series of votes, if necessary--on the question of whether we are going to provide disaster assistance to farmers who have been hit by drought, flooding, and other natural disasters, something we have done routinely in the past, frankly, at far greater cost. One of my colleagues asked me yesterday: How does this compare to disaster bills of the past? We looked it up. One year we had a disaster bill of $16 billion, natural disaster. Another bill, another year it was $14 billion. This is $4 billion for 2 years. This is not some outsized disaster assistance legislation; it is barebones. We recall that the bill that passed earlier was in the $6 billion range, when I had earlier offered $6.7 billion. We are down to $4.5 billion, as we have taken out things the White House said they would object to. We took out the energy provisions, for a savings of $1.8 billion. We stripped out some of the support for small businesses, for a savings of $215 million. We did add steps to reduce the cost in response to complaints from the administration. We now have it stripped down to the barebones, $4.5 billion for 2 years. Mr. President, I thank very much those who have tried to work things out. I look forward to further discussions. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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