Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Idaho now be recognized for 5 minutes and that at 5:20, it be deemed that all time be yielded back by all sides relative to the motion.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I note for those people listening, under this agreement, there should be a vote beginning about 5:20 p.m.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Would the Senator yield so I may propound a unanimous consent request that I be recognized at the completion of her remarks?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I relinquish my right to be recognized at this moment as I have another commitment. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak about Senator Lott. The Senate is a place--and we have heard it today for 2 hours with wonderful eloquence and thoughts and humorous stories and anecdotes about Senator Lott--it is a place of words and language. It is also a place, obviously, of legislation, and legislation leading to laws. But, most significantly, the Senate is a place of people, of individuals--individuals who come here from all over our Nation, representing their people but always representing America, and who meld into the institutions and traditions of this extraordinary place in various ways. Certain individuals leave an indelible mark. There are not too many, but there are some who have. I would expect that Trent Lott will be one of those individuals. I have had the great pleasure and honor of working with Trent Lott off and on for a long time. I was elected in the class of 1988 to the House of Representatives. He was elected Republican whip of the House at that time. Somebody mentioned in their statement--and I served in the House with him and have served in the Senate with him for many years--that he won three major leadership elections by one vote. I know I, at least, voted for him in those three elections, so maybe I was that one vote. Our wives and our families have integrated over the years and have been close and done a lot of interesting and fun things together. Kathy and Tricia are very close friends. Trent and Kathy are close friends. And I am a close friend of Tricia. We really enjoy that friendship, and it goes back to a lot of different instances. There are a lot of stories told about Trent Lott. One of my favorites is that Trent tends to like to sing and dance. I guess that comes from his cheerleading days at Mississippi. But he has so much energy he has to let it out through song and dance. On occasion, he can be drawn into this. In fact, it does not take too much to get him to sing. We were at a gathering once, where Tricia and I and Kathy were sitting around a table near a stage, and Trent was up on the stage singing with his good friend, Guy Hovis, and then there was dance music that started. Tricia, knowing Trent as she does so well, turned to Kathy and said under her breath: If you don't look at him, he won't ask you to dance. Little did Tricia know that Kathy actually likes to dance too. So the two of them went off and danced away and had a great time. Tricia and I sat at the table dancing inside. But as a practical matter, he has an energy and a personality that is effusive and effervescent, and it draws everybody in. He is truly the American story. He is not a southern story, he is an American story. He came from a family of moderate means. His father was a pipefitter. His mother was totally committed to him. He raised himself up and went to his beloved University of Mississippi, which I think he still thinks he is going there some days he talks so much about it. His whole life has revolved around Mississippi and the people of Mississippi and the people he has helped in Mississippi. This is what has made him go: his ability to reach out and make people's lives better, to change their lives and improve their lives. He has brought all those Mississippi values here. I think there is some sort of almost genetic quality to Members of the Senate from the South. They just have this ability to move through this body with ease and with comfort and make everybody feel relaxed and enjoy them. They do not have that stoic nature that we might have, those of us from the Northeast. Rather, it is just the opposite. They have an energy and an effervescence and a personality that brings people in and causes people to want to work with them. Of course, numerous statements have been made about what a great individual he is, about going across the aisle and understanding how you go across the aisle and make things work here. That is absolutely true. He is a tremendous doer of legislation because he has the capacity to bring together coalitions. He knows how to reach out to people in a comfortable way. He also knows how to fight a fight and win it. But it goes well beyond this issue of working to reach compromise to make legislation pass because he has had a passion for getting things done. He also has a philosophy of how we should govern. He is truly a conservative, a fiscal conservative, an individual who understands the importance of giving the individual opportunity, giving the individual the capacity to succeed in our Nation because he had undertaken that and accomplished it. But it always goes back to his Mississippi roots, I believe. He now has--I think it is something Senator Alexander described because Senator Alexander and his wife, Honey, and Kathy and I had the good fortune to be invited down to visit him at Tricia's new home--we call it Tricia's home--in Jackson, MS, where they bought this very nice house they are restoring. It is an antebellum house. It is a beautiful house. He just loves the land. He loves the people who come to the house. The people he sees, he loves, throughout his day and when he is traveling in Mississippi. Of course, he loves his tractors. He has this whole shed full of tractors. I am sure there must be maybe 7 tractors there, farm equipment. Of course, only 1 or 2 of them actually work. But as a practical matter, he loves them. He loves them. He loves to just drive around his property and make sure his fields are cut. He cuts them, and he makes sure they are properly taken care of. He is working his Mississippi land. He and Tricia built this beautiful home down there, where I suspect their purpose is to gather their family which is so important to them: Chet, Tyler, their grandchildren coming over on a regular basis. Kathy and I just looked at them and said: These are special people. These people represent the values we really have as Americans--not as southerners but as Americans--the value of family, value of honesty, value of integrity, the willingness to get things done and to work hard. Succeed, and then take advantage of your opportunities to make life better for others, and that was his whole purpose in the Senate--to make life better for America but especially for his constituents in Mississippi. Of course, then came Katrina. What a devastating effect it had on him and Tricia. They had this beautiful home in Pascagoula which, again, Kathy and I had a chance to visit, an extraordinary house in a line of Victorian houses right on the waterfront. Out behind the house there was this magnificent oak tree, just huge. I have never seen such a spectacular and large tree. The storm came, of course, and it wiped out his house, it wiped out his brother-in-law's house, his sister-in-law's house, and every other house anywhere near there was devastated. He found his class ring, I believe, three blocks away, or somebody found it and gave it to him. All of their memorabilia, the things that meant so much to them, the photos of their families, their notes and comments they received from people, from Presidents and others, all the memorabilia that had represented his lifetime and Tricia's lifetime, of family and Mississippi activity was also spread and destroyed by the storm, and the house, of course, was eliminated by the storm. But I asked him, because I was so startled, if the tree was still there. He said to me: Yes, the tree is still there. The tree is still there, this huge oak tree that is so beautiful, so magnificent and so elegant. As Trent leaves this Senate, I think of this oak. He may be leaving the Senate, but he is still here, and he will be here. His memory will be here, and the way he did things, the way he taught those of us who learned from him will be here. He will leave a legacy which, like an oak, will stand for a long time in this body. It was an amazing and an extraordinary privilege to have the ability, the right, and the privilege to serve with him, and for Kathy and I to get to know him and Tricia over these many years. So we thank him for his service, and we look forward to continuing our friendship as the years proceed.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to recognize the hard work of Ms. Cindy Chang, Senior Adviser for Budget and Appropriations at the State Department's Bureau of Legislative Affairs. Cindy has worked closely with the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee for the past several years and has been an invaluable asset to the Congress. Cindy understands the appropriations and budget processes. She understands foreign policy, whether the complexities associated with the Middle East or the nuances of Southeast Asia. Cindy is also extremely responsive to the subcommittee's many and frequent requests for information. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should understand that in the opinion of the Appropriations Committee, Cindy Chang is among the brightest stars at the State Department. As the year draws to a close, my staff joins me in recognizing and thanking Cindy for her outstanding support of the subcommittee in 2007.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I support this FHA initiative. As the Senator from New Jersey so appropriately noted, this is another tool which is absolutely critical in this area, as is an amendment which I have pending to the farm bill which, regrettably, as a result of last night's cloture motion, will be ruled nongermane and therefore will not be allowed to be brought up. This amendment says essentially that if a person's home is foreclosed on, they don't then get hit with an IRS tax lien for the amount of the foreclosure which is not recovered. In other words, if you own a home and, regrettably, you can't meet your payments because of a subprime event, and your loan was, say, $100,000, and they foreclose, take it away from you, and then they sell your home but they don't get $100,000--let's say they get $50,000 of that loan paid--you get hit with a tax bill for the additional $50,000. Or if there is a restructuring, where the lenders actually rewrite your loan so you can make your payments, and that represents a writedown in the value of the loan, you get hit with a tax bill. So the irony of the event is, it is pretty devastating to people. First, their home gets taken. Then the IRS agent shows up and gives them a tax bill and hits them with a tax lien. That, obviously, is not fair, and it is not appropriate. It is a quirk of our Internal Revenue law. This amendment would eliminate that. It would eliminate that event. I do think it is important. I think it is an important element of moving forward in a way that tries to work us through this subprime meltdown which is having a deleterious effect on our economy and, obviously, is having a very tremendous personal impact on people who are affected by the interest rates on their loans jumping to a point where they can no longer pay them. So I regret this amendment was ruled out of order for all intents and purposes by the cloture motion. I believe there was very strong bipartisan support. In fact, I have not met anybody so far who is opposed to this concept. I hope it can be included in a final package, either under unanimous consent or because nobody objects to it, or, alternatively, that the Finance Committee, which I know is working on this issue, can come forward and offer a unanimous consent request to move this free standing. I think it is important we do it now. I do not think we can wait. These loans are being foreclosed on now. The people who are getting hit with these tax liens are getting these liens today. So it is very important we move promptly. So I wished to highlight this issue also as one of the issues which is raised relative to resolving this question or at least mitigating the question of how we deal with this subprime meltdown. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly on the practical implications of what we are about to do. I appreciate the positions the leaders of the bill are in. They worked hard to get this bill through. Obviously, I don't support the bill, but I feel they have every right to finish it. They have the votes to pass it, and there is no reason there should be dilatory delays. But there are three major events that are going to be impacted by this exercise. The first is an amendment which I had pending which would have given people relief when their homes are foreclosed on so they would not get hit with a tax bill. It appears that amendment, on which there was general consensus, will not be brought up and voted on. That is unfortunate. I hope we can come to this from another angle. I spoke with the chairman of the Finance Committee. He and the Finance Committee members are trying to find some way to accomplish that. I think it is wrong, when people have their home foreclosed, that they have the IRS follow them to wherever they are going, the apartment they have to move to, to hit them with a tax bill for that foreclosure. The second issue is a proposal I had--the Senator in the chair also had a proposal on this issue--which was to get some funds in LIHEAP. All of us who live in the colder regions of this country have seen our oil bills go up dramatically. There is a lot of pressure on low-income people, and the LIHEAP funds, which help low-income people deal with that pressure, are simply not going to be adequate. They are just not going to be adequate. The Senator from Vermont had an amendment in this area. I had an amendment in this area. Unfortunately, they both will fall. The third issue is the firefighters, fully explained by Senator Reid, the majority leader. I appreciate his kind words relative to my efforts in this area. I am sorry we will not be able to accomplish this effort at this time. This is an important issue. I do hope we will come back to it. I know it is high on the list of the majority leader and also high on my list. I regret the procedure that has to take place. Obviously, it is the prerogative of the leadership to do this. I can understand why they are doing it. They have been on the bill a number of weeks. The first couple of weeks we could not offer amendments. That was not our fault. As a practical matter, this session is coming to a close, and they want to wrap up the bill. And as a practical matter, the bill should be wrapped up. I regret some of these amendments that I think are very important to Americans, especially those in cold climates having to deal with heating bills and those who have had homes foreclosed, and Americans who protect us through fighting fires, those amendments will not be considered.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I was wondering, is it not true that in this Congress, none of the appropriations bills, which is the business of actually operating the Government--appropriations bills being the bills which fund things like education, things like health care, things like taking care of roads--none of the appropriations bills have passed the Congress in time to meet the fiscal year?

Mr. GREGG. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. Would the Senator yield for an additional question through the chair.

Mr. GREGG. The Senator has pointed out that we passed none of the obligations for operating the Government prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. As the Senator pointed out, we have only passed 1 of those bills out of the 12. We are now almost 3 months into the fiscal year. That happens to be the worst record in the history of the Congress, I believe. That dysfunction of this Congress was not necessary, was it? Did we not vote I think almost 60 times on issues involving Iraq, on repetitive issues involving Iraq, to the point where the Democratic leaders have essentially said: We are going to ignore the operation of the day-to-day business of the Government in order to call up 60 votes, many of which were simply political votes, and use up the entire calendar of the Congress in order to make political points, when they knew they were not going to be able to do a great deal in this area other than what they should do, which is fund the troops in the field?

Mr. GREGG. If the Senator would yield further for a question?

Mr. GREGG. My first two questions were sort of to lay the predicate for this question, which is that the other side of the aisle has spent a lot of time saying the minority is obstructing, the Republicans are obstructing. Yet was it not by conscious choice that they decided to create a legislative calendar which was totally dominated by their desire to make political points over the issue of how the war in Iraq was proceeding rather than to take up the appropriations bills, which are the proper order of the Congress, one of the first responsibilities of the Congress? The Republican side of the aisle has not resisted going to appropriations bills; it has been the other side of the aisle which has refused to bring them up. So this allegation of obstruction is really a bit of a straw dog, is it not? Are they not in the position of basically having created the problem and then trying to claim the problem is created by us when, in fact, the problem was created by the fact that they refused to take up the business of the Government, and now, in the 11th hour 49th minute, they have decided to turn to the business of the Government and they have chaos on their hands as a result of their own management?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, that is the stress program; correct?

Mr. GREGG. I think we just had our 2 minutes of debate. I suggest both sides yield back time and go to a vote.

Mr. GREGG. I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the courtesy of the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I will speak on our amendment dealing with how we get more doctors to be able to care for women in rural communities. We have a real crisis in rural America today. There is a significant shortage of doctors who deliver babies. This is purely a function of one fact, and that is that the trial lawyer bar has been so aggressive in pursuing doctors who deliver babies with lawsuits, they have essentially created a cost of liability insurance for doctors who deliver babies--OB/GYNs--that is so high that a doctor practicing in a rural community who is there to help women having children, deliver those babies safely, that type of doctor cannot make ends meet. That sounds unusual, but that is a fact. In order for a doctor to generate enough income to simply pay the liability insurance, which is generated by the large number of lawsuits filed against doctors in this country by the trial bar, it is necessary for an OB/GYN--a doctor who delivers babies--to have a very large basically urban or suburban clientele. When you get into rural America and you don't have a lot of people per square mile, where you have people who work on farms and those farms take up a fair amount of acreage, then you don't have the population base necessary for these doctors to practice and generate enough income to pay the liability insurance. What we are proposing in this amendment is a very narrow proposal. It doesn't say that doctors who are incompetent, or doctors who, unfortunately, make a mistake won't be sued. It doesn't say that at all. It simply says that in the area of rural America where we need to attract doctors so women have adequate health care, especially if they are having children, in those parts of the country--from the standpoint of population, a small part of the country--we are going to have a special consideration that allows doctors to be able to afford their liability insurance. We are going to follow what has happened in the law that has been set up in Texas and California, two States which have confronted this issue of liability insurance for doctors and have come up with a plan that has alleviated the cost of the insurance so doctors are able to practice in those States. It essentially says that in the area of economic recovery, you can recover every expenditure, every loss you had, if you were injured as a result of malpractice on the part of a doctor delivering a baby in a rural area. But in the area of pain and suffering, where so much of the huge awards occur, and where you have had these real decisions that have been in the numbers that are multiple millions, that won't happen any longer. We are going to limit recovery in the pain and suffering area to what has been the standard in Texas and California, which is $750,000 per incident. The practical effect of this is very simple. It will mean doctors who wish to practice in rural America, who wish to deliver babies for farm families and for other families who live in rural America will be able to pursue those practices and still make a living, something they cannot do in many parts of this country today, so women in these communities will not have to drive for miles and miles to get adequate health care, especially when they are having children. I know in my State of New Hampshire, if you get north of the White Mountains, one of the prettiest parts of this world, we have a very difficult time attracting obstetricians. In fact, right now, I don't think there is anybody practicing obstetrics up there because of the fact the population base is so small it cannot support those practices at a level that allows doctors in that region to be able to pay their malpractice insurance. So women in that part of New Hampshire often have to drive all the way to Hanover, NH, to Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which is a superb hospital, or down to Laconia, which has a superb hospital. But they literally have to drive through the mountains 2 to 3 hours to get to those facilities. It can be extremely difficult in the middle of winter to drive those roads. In the summer, obviously, it is not fair to ask people to drive those long distances. This is a very significant issue for rural America and for farm families in America. That is why I have offered it on the farm bill. The other side of the aisle, for whatever reason--I know the reason, we all know the reason, the trial bar--has decided to resist this amendment aggressively. They have demanded we have 60 votes before we can adopt this amendment. They have basically said: We don't care that women in America who live in rural America are not able to get adequate health care. What we care about is the trial lawyer bar, and that is unfortunate. But that is a reflection of the politics of our time. The single largest contributing group to the Democratic Party today is the Trial Lawyers Association. Those trial lawyers contribute to the Democratic Party for a reason: They want them to support their agenda. There is a simpatico there. Their agenda is supported essentially by the Democratic leadership in this Congress and in prior Congresses. The trial bar agenda includes not allowing any opening on the issue of limiting liability relative to doctors--any opening. Even something as reasonable as this which is so needed from the standpoint of health care policy, which is so needed from the standpoint of good care of children and mothers in a prenatal state, so needed in the basic fairness for American citizens is resisted, not because it is not a good idea but because they see it as an opening, a slight crack in that door of their ability to bring these massive lawsuits for other people who practice obstetrics across the country or for basically against the medical community generally. They do not want any crack in that door to occur, even if the crack in the door is meant to give American women who live in rural communities, whose families work on farms, the opportunity to be assured decent health care, especially when they are in the process of having and raising a child. It truly is unfortunate we have reached that point in this Congress where very reasonable public policy, which is to make it possible for more doctors to practice in rural America, is resisted in a knee-jerk way which has no relationship to making our country stronger, our people more healthy, and especially giving people who work in farm America a better opportunity to live a quality life, especially if they are having children. This is not an attempt in any way to limit the ability of women who are having children and find there is some negligent event occurring as a result of a doctor's care to get a recovery. This amendment does not have that impact. Recovery is in here. It tracks what happens if you live in Texas. It tracks pretty much what happens if you live in California. So it is not an attempt to do some draconian effort to basically shut down lawsuits against doctors who may practice and make mistakes in rural America. Just the opposite. It leaves those lawsuits on the table. It makes them possible. It gives adequate and fair recovery that is allowed for people in two of our most popular States. What it does do and what it is almost guaranteed to do is to bring more doctors into rural America. It is interesting to look at the Texas experience because prior to Texas passing its law, which basically tracks this language, they had a very serious, basically a crisis in the area of having OB/GYNs practice in Texas. Now they have a massive backlog of OB/GYNs who want to move to Texas to practice. They actually have the opposite situation. They now have a situation where doctors see Texas as a good place to practice. So health care, for women especially of childbearing age, is improving dramatically because there are a lot more doctors available. Their biggest problem right now is making sure the doctors who want to come into their State have the quality and ability to do the job right. So they have a big backlog now. That is a complete shift from what happened during the period prior to their passing the law. That applies to everybody, but in the OB/GYN area, they lost 14 doctors, 14 obstetricians during the period 2003, but since they passed their law, they have gained almost 200 obstetricians in the State. That is a big difference. That means a lot of people are seeing doctors who were not able to see them before. We ought to give that same opportunity to rural America, generally, and especially to farm families. That is why I have offered this amendment. It is not a big amendment in the sense of dramatic health care changes for the world or for the United States, generally, but it is a big amendment if you are a woman whose family works on a farm and you want to have a child because--hopefully, if this amendment is adopted-- you are going to be able to see a doctor without having to drive 4 or 5 hours maybe through a snowstorm, and that is important. It is important to that person, and it should be something we would do as a matter of decency and fairness and especially as a matter of good public policy relative to health care in this country. I hope people will support this amendment. I understand the other side of the aisle wants to debate a little while longer. That is fine. I understand they want 60 votes. That seems highly inappropriate to me, but that was the agreement that was reached between the leadership. As I said, I am not trying to stop this bill. It does seem to me there ought to be 60 Members of the Senate to stand up and say enough is enough; we have done enough kowtowing to trial lawyers on this issue. It is time to do something for the women who live and work in rural America and make sure they have adequate access to health care, especially to doctors who can care for them in those important and special years when they are having children. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added as original cosponsors to amendment No. 3673: Senator Alexander, Senator Allard, Senator Cornyn, Senator Corker, Senator Dole, Senator Hutchison, and Senator Voinovich.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support representing the following groups: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Dermatology Association, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, the American Urological Association, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the National Association of Spine Specialists, and the College of American Pathologists.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Illinois in going first. Let me simply make this point. This is not a complicated amendment. In rural America today, there is a distinct lack of obstetricians. Women who are going to have children are having a very serious problem finding doctors who can take care of them. That is because of the cost of malpractice insurance. This bill tracks the Texas experience and the California experience and is a very reasonable approach. You have a simple choice in this bill on this amendment. You can vote for women who need decent health care when they are having children or you can vote for trial lawyers. That is the choice. I would appreciate it if people voted for women. Thank you. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 minutes to respond to the Senator from Iowa who referred to me in his comments.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I find it extremely unique that the Senator from Iowa would take the position that he needs a program to be authorized but that we should not vote against it on the basis of it spending money because he doesn't ever expect to fund it. That, on the face of it, does not pass the laugh test. If you are authorizing a program, creating a program, you expect at some point to fund the program and spend money on the program. That is a totally disingenuous argument, in my humble opinion, to make that representation. I suggest if the Senator from Iowa believes the stress program is an important program, that is fine. We will have a vote. I happen to think the stress program is a reflection of a farm bill that has gone wild in the area of spending money--American taxpayers' money. The American taxpayers are the ones who are going to be under stress. There are a lot of industries in this country that have stress. The American farmer today is doing pretty well, as was acknowledged by the Senator from Iowa. In fact, they had a 44-percent increase in farm income just this last year. That is pretty good. Stress may be there. I do not deny that farming is an intense and difficult process. I used to work on a farm. There can be a lot of stress in farming. But I don't think we need to set up a special program with the Federal Government to create a network and a concept for stress, and then we will authorize it, and then we will fund it. This authorization is open ended, which means any amount of money can be put in this bill in later years to fund it. There are a lot of industries which have stress. We do not create a stress program for the capital markets industry which today is suffering from a meltdown. Are we going to have a stress program for Bear Stearns? We don't create a stress program for all the companies in this country that have basically been under stress by foreign competition. Do we have a stress program for those? Do we have a stress program for the person who runs the local restaurant? Do we have a stress program for the person who runs a local gas station? All of these are entrepreneurial undertakings, and entrepreneurship involves stress, but we don't need to create a stress network to address it. This is a creation of an earmark, pure and simple, in a bill filled with earmarks. And it seems to me, adding a new program--remember, there are 51 new discretionary programs put into this bill--51, and this is just 1 of them. I recognize the Senator from Iowa is totally committed to the farmers, and there is probably nobody in this Congress who has done more for the farm community than the Senator from Iowa--both Senators from Iowa, but certainly the Republican Senator from Iowa has done an immense amount. This is a bridge too far; this is a farm tractor too far. The simple fact is, we do not need a stress program for farmers, and we do not need an authorization which is open ended and which will be funded. There is no question, you do not put an authorization in unless it gets funded. I have serious reservations about this from, first, the concept of creating the program and, second, the concept of funding the program. I have expressed my reservation. I offered an amendment. We will vote on it. I presume we will lose because we always lose these votes. But as a practical matter, the American people should know this program, in my humble opinion, is not of value and is inappropriate in this context.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this is a new program. It is a new mandatory program. It is $15 million. It is not a lot of money but I think it would be nice if the Senate would make a statement once in a while it is going to be fiscally responsible. This asparagus program is not needed. It is the result of a 1990s trade agreement, the claim is made, but that is 20 years ago almost that agreement was reached. What has happened is the American consumer has benefited from that agreement and now, because the American consumer has benefited from the agreement, we basically want to raise taxes on the American consumer to make them pay because they didn't pay at the shop when they bought the asparagus. It makes no sense at all. This is a brand-new $15 million program in this bill for asparagus. The bill is replete with these types of programs. I think we ought to make a statement, at least for once, that we are going to be fiscally responsible. I hope people will vote for the amendment. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield to the Senator from Colorado on my time.