Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, it is widely felt that we need to do more to protect field crops, farm animals and food processing and distribution of food from terrorist acts. I understand that is the view of the Departments of Agriculture and Homeland Security. State and local governments and the private sector all play an integral role in detecting, deterring, and responding to acts of agro-terrorism. We need coordination among the States in regard to subjects like laboratory capacity and testing protocols; training and education protocols; the tracking of animal and food product movements; and post- incident actions such as rapid response teams, common incident command structures, quarantine procedures, public information management strategies, and coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and State and local public health authorities. I believe that the Department of Agriculture needs to be as supportive as possible of such efforts.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I concur with the remarks made by the Senator from Arkansas and also express my support for increased funding for civil rights and for minority farmers at the Department of Agriculture. In the most recent farm bill, the Committee on Agriculture once again took up the issue of civil rights at USDA. Dismayed by continued complaints from both clients and employees about the inhospitable atmosphere towards minorities at USDA, the farm bill created, for the first time, the position of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. That position has been filled for several months now, and I am hopeful that the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights will be able to create positive movement in this regard. It is past time for USDA to shed the shameful nickname, ``The Last Plantation,'' that many have given it due to its civil rights atmosphere. The House recognized the necessity of doing more for socially disadvantaged farmers and USDA employees earlier this year when it passed by voice vote an amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill that increased funding for several important civil rights functions. First, it increased funding for the Office of Civil Rights by several million dollars. These additional funds will enable the Department to clear out its backlog of hundreds of civil rights complaints, many of which stagnate for months and months. We need to wipe the slate clean. As long as USDA is unable to deal with this backlog it will be difficult for it to concentrate on its primary task; preventing such complaints from arising in the first place and making the Department of Agriculture hospitable to all farmers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The House-passed amendment also increased funding for the section 2501 Program for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers. Despite being the primary program by which to make USDA programs available to minority farmers, the section 2501 program has been flat-funded for several years. The Senate bill before us today provides a little over $3 million for the section 2501 program. This modest increase over last year's funding is a commendable start, but it is not nearly enough. The House bill, on the other hand, increased funding by $5 million to a total of over $8 million. The level provided in the House bill is clearly more consistent with the need to reach out to minority and socially-disadvantaged farmers. I hope that the chairman and ranking member of the committee will agree to the House funding levels for this program in the conference committee.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I say to Senators Akaka and Kohl, I would like to clarify a specific matter related to amendment no. 2088 to S. 1427 concerning the protection of downed animals. First of all, I applaud their efforts to protect this Nation's food supply and minimize the suffering of nonambulatory animals. The clarification I have concerns animals raised by farmers and then custom processed so that all of the meat and meat products from that animal will be for the farmer's personal use. I understand that this amendment does not affect a Federally inspected facility's ability to engage in this type of processing. Am I correct that consistent with 21 U.S.C. 623(a), this section does not affect the ability of establishments at which inspection occurs under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, 21 U.S.C. 601, to slaughter animals or prepare meat or meat food products on a custom basis where the animal is raised by the person and the meat and meat products are for the exclusive use of the person and the person's household, nonpaying guests, and employees?

Mr. HARKIN. I would join with the Senator in any kind of an amendment to get rid of the section 11 cap. That is the answer right there, get rid of the section 11 cap. We effectively did that in the farm bill. The administration says no. Well, an amendment to that line would do that. In closing, the major wildlife groups in this country, from Ducks Unlimited, Izaak Walton League of America, National Audubon Society, Pheasants Forever, the Wildlife Society, and Wildlife Management Institute do not support this amendment. They sent a letter to both Chairman Bennett and Ranking Member Kohl that said they can't support this amendment if it would have a chilling effect on CRP. Again, I find myself in a strange position because in many ways I agree with the Senator from Vermont. He is right in what he is trying to do in terms of saying that we have to have more funding for technical assistance, but not in this manner because it would effectively stop the CRP program.

Mr. HARKIN. The 2002 farm bill reauthorized and increased funding for the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems, IFAFS, competitive grants program, a program originally authorized as section 401 of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998. The Initiative supports outcome-oriented, integrated research, extension, and education competitive grants to address critical emerging agricultural and rural issues related to four key areas: future food production, environmental quality and natural resource management, farm income, and rural economic and business and community development. The farm bill provides $140 million in mandatory funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation for IFAFS in fiscal year 2004. The appropriations bill before us contains a provision which prohibits the Department from implementing IFAFS in fiscal year 2004. However, the bill also allows the Department to use 20 percent of funding appropriated for the National Research Initiative, NRI, to carry out a competitive grants program under the same terms and conditions as those provided in the farm bill for IFAFS. The bill as amended also requires the Department, in implementing this provision, to request grant proposals, among the four critical emerging issues required by law, for which the Department has not issued requests for proposals for grants in fiscal year 2002 or 2003. I ask the distinguished chairman and ranking member if it is their understanding that in requiring this funding set-aside to be carried out under the same ``terms and conditions'' as the IFAFS program that the Senate bill intends for the Department to ensure that over time, all four statutorily-designated purposes for IFAFS spending are subjects for requests for proposals and reflected in the overall research portfolio of this portion of the NRI?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I comment on the Hatch-Harkin-Durbin amendment No. 2090 adopted by the Senate yesterday. This action taken by the Senate is an important step in our continuing efforts to assure that Americans have access to high quality dietary supplements to maintain and improve their health. Over 158 million Americans take dietary supplements to maintain and improve their health. From vitamin C to calcium to glucosamine to beta carotene, there is a full range of healthful supplements that are part of the daily lives of people all over this country. Consumer expenditures on these products reached a reported $17.1 billion in 2000, double the amount spent just 6 years earlier. And, according to a recent report by the Food and Drug Administration, the use of dietary supplements is likely to grow due to factors such as the aging of the baby-boom generation, increased interest in self- sufficiency, and advances in science that are uncovering new relationships between diet and disease. In response to efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to inappropriately cut off consumers' access to some supplements, in 1994, the House and Senate unanimously approved the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, DSHEA. I was pleased to have played a role in crafting this important legislation. This law balanced continued consumer access to vitamins, minerals and other dietary supplements, increased scientific research on the benefits and risks of supplements and needed consumer protections. DSHEA provides a number of important consumer protections. It requires that claims made on supplement labels, packaging and accompanying material be ``truthful, non-misleading and substantiated.'' In addition, the act prohibits manufacturers from making claims that products are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent a disease. DSHEA also provides for good manufacturing practice standards setting requirements for potency, cleanliness and stability of products. It requires that manufacturers submit adequate information as to the safety of any new ingredients contained in dietary supplements before those products can be sold. DSHEA also provided the Federal Government a number of avenues for the removal of unsafe dietary supplements from the marketplace. If the FDA determines that a product poses an unreasonable risk when taken as directed, the product can be removed from the market. If the Secretary determines that a product poses an imminent hazard to the public health, he can remove the product from sale. Finally, in order to promote expanded scientific research on the benefits and health effects of dietary supplements, DSHEA mandated the establishment of the Office of Dietary Supplements within the National Institutes of Health. This research is crucial to expanding reliable information to the American people. Unfortunately, despite some recent improvement, the history of implementation of DSHEA by the FDA has been poor. The Food and Drug Administration has failed to use the many tools provided by DSHEA. It has failed to carefully review claims for truthfulness. It has failed to put in place new good manufacturing practice standards. It has failed to aggressively remove from the market illegal street drug knock-offs and other products which are in clear violation of DSHEA requirements. Part of the problem has been resources. The FDA needs adequate resources to appropriately implement and enforce DSHEA. Congress has responded by regularly providing funds over the last several years beyond those requested in the President's budget, reaching $9.7 million in fiscal year 2003. The amendment we approved yesterday would increase funding for implementation and enforcement of DSHEA by at least 17.5 percent. It requires FDA to spend no less than $11.4 million for this purpose, $1 million more than requested by the administration. This is a substantial and necessary increase. I would like to see even more devoted to this purpose. In fact, S. 1538, legislation Senator Hatch and I introduced earlier this year would increase FDA funding to $20 million next year, rising to $65 million per year within 5 years. We will continue to work to gain adoption of this more aggressive approach. I thank the chair and ranking member of the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee for their willingness to work with us and gain approval of this important consumer protection amendment. I also want to express my support for an amendment Senator Durbin offered to expedite the FDA's action on dietary supplements containing ephedra. The FDA should make a decision promptly on this matter and it should be based on sound science.

Mr. HARKIN. Is it further the understanding of the Senator that the language added by amendment today requires the Department to request proposals that specifically enhance farm income and rural economic, business, and community development?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I understand what the Senator is doing, but two wrongs do not make a right. Now, if the Senator wants to have an amendment that would lift the section 11 cap, or that would clearly spell out that the farm bill once again in 2002--what we did--bypassed the section 11 cap, that is fine. As I understand it, as I read his amendment, as my staff has informed me, as I have looked at it, that is not what the amendment does. The amendment simply, as the Senator said, builds firewalls. By building firewalls, that goes against what we did in the 2003 omnibus bill, because in the omnibus bill we provided for a mechanism that said we could then use these funds for technical assistance, and that is exactly what we are doing. Again, I say that the Senator from Vermont is correct in that we have a situation in which money that the farm bill provided for some conservation programs is being diverted to pay for technical assistance for others. I am all for changing that but not in the way the Senator wants, because the way the Senator wants effectively cuts off signing up for the CRP program. I am a big supporter of the EQIP program, and FPP and WHIP and GRP. That is fine, and they should be fully funded, as they were in our farm bill, but we cannot abandon the CRP program. That is exactly what the effect of this amendment would do. Those of us from those States in which we have the CRP program or the CRP program in which we have continuous signup, this would take money away from this very effective program. Almost all states have land enrolled in CRP and there are 23 states that have CREPs--new enrollments in those and continuous CRP would come to a halt. We could solve this problem of TA funding for CRP and WRP for, according to estimates from USDA, $100 million a year or for $300 million from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2006. Three hundred million dollars would take care of the whole thing. Yet the administration will not provide this money at all. The President requested nearly $900 million this year for Iraq to have funds for irrigation equipment and the protection of marshlands in the Supplemental. So we have $900 million to go to Iraq for irrigation equipment and protection of marshlands, and $300 million would take care of our entire country in terms of the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program for three years. There are ways of fixing this, I say to my friend from Vermont, and ways that we agreed upon in the farm bill. The Senator from Vermont and I were together on the farm bill. We agreed on how to do this, but this is not the way to do it now.

Mr. HARKIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. I could be wrong. I want to understand, if I can make a few more comments, and let the Senator from Vermont see if this is a correct interpretation. Prior to the passage of the farm bill in 2002, there was a shortage of technical assistance funding because the 1996 farm bill limited technical assistance funding to that amount available under section 11 of the CCC. That was $56 million a year. This became known as the section 11 cap. The 2002 farm bill corrected this problem by providing an alternative source for technical assistance funds. What we did was we included a provision in the conservation title of the farm bill that technical assistance funding would come directly from the funds provided for each conservation program. This approach was not novel or untested. Congress relied on similar language in the 1996 farm bill providing funding for technical assistance for the EQIP program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, directly from EQIP funds and outside the section 11 cap. We adopted this approach for all environmental programs to ensure there would be adequate funding for technical assistance. We all agreed on that approach. That is in the 2002 farm bill. Soon after the passage of the farm bill, we got a big shock from the Bush administration because they announced that the section 11 cap still applied, despite the language we had put in the farm bill. Despite the opinion of Nancy Bryson, General Counsel at USDA, and despite the opinion of the GAO, the General Accounting Office, that the 2002 farm bill provided new authority for funding technical assistance, not subject to the section 11 cap, the White House, through OMB and then the Department of Justice, decided that the farm bill's conservation program funds could not be used for technical assistance because they were limited to the section 11 cap, thereby, largely blocking implementation of the conservation programs. We attempted to fix this in the fiscal year 2003 omnibus appropriations bill. As a result, funds from the dollar-limited conservation programs are now used to pay for technical assistance for all the conservation programs, including the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program, which are acreage limited programs. Senator Leahy, I believe, is correct that we now have a situation in which money that the farm bill provided for some conservation programs is being diverted to pay for technical assistance for others. Because of this problem, there is less conservation money going to producers and landowners than was intended or provided in the farm bill. In fiscal year 2003, almost $91 million in conservation funds were lost because that amount of money was taken from some programs and used to provide technical assistance for other programs. If the White House had implemented the farm bill as intended and as we got the opinion from the general counsel at USDA, this would not have happened. However, two wrongs don't make a right, and my problem, as I understand it, with the Leahy amendment--and I stand to be corrected by the author of the amendment--is that what would happen under this amendment is it would effectively mean that under the Conservation Reserve Program, we would not be able to enroll any new land. We would not be able to continue the continuous sign-up in the CRP program. We would not be able to continue the agreements we have in the CREP, the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. That is why, as I understand the Senator's amendment, it says that the donor programs are not available for technical assistance funds for CRP, but doesn't provide an alternative source. I ask the Senator from Vermont, does his amendment take away the section 11 cap? If we do away with the section 11 cap unequivocally and we go back to what we provided in the 2002 farm bill, then maybe the Senator's amendment is fine. That is not the way I read it. I yield to the Senator to correct me if I am wrong.

Mr. HARKIN. I am sorry. I did not realize the parliamentary situation. Are these two votes going to be lumped together?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, first, I commend the Senator from Vermont for raising the issue of funding for technical assistance for farm bill conservation programs. The technical assistance, as provided by the staff of the Natural Resource Conservation Service and other qualified providers such as engineers or agronomists, includes planning, designing, construction and implementation of conservation practices on agricultural land--this assistance is essential to allow farmers, ranchers, and landowners to carry out conservation practices. This amendment, as I understand it, would cut off funding for technical assistance for the Conservation Reserve Program. For that reason, I cannot support the amendment. Cutting off technical assistance would effectively preclude new enrollments in the CRP program, including the continuous CRP and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, otherwise known as CREP, thus hurting the environment, wildlife, and land owners.

Mr. HARKIN. I only have 10 minutes. I will have to ask for more time if I can.

Mr. HARKIN. I agree with the Senator that USDA should have followed the farm bill and the White House simply choose not to do so.

Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate the explanation of the Senator from Vermont. As I understand it, I ask the Senator from Vermont, does this not prevent the transfer of money from donor programs?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I say to the Senator from Vermont that we go back to CCC, but the section 11 cap still applies and there would be no funding technical assistance for CRP. The Senator has to know that under the Senator's amendment, new enrollments for CRP will effectively come to an end.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask for at least 5 more minutes, after yielding time.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the distinguished chairman and ranking member. I would also point out to my colleagues that the 2002 farm bill provided specific direction for the Department to pursue grant making for integrated research, education, and extension in key areas related to rural and agriculturally-based development and farm profitability and rural entrepreneurship. I would inform my colleagues that it is my intent to ensure the Department solicits proposals in at least some of these critical areas during fiscal year 2004. conservation technical assistance program

Mr. HARKIN. Thank you for that clarification. asian long-horned beetle

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I concur in this approach and also assure my colleagues of my support for continued funding for education in the FSM and RMI under this new authorization.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the assistance in this supplemental appropriations bill for victims of Hurricane Isabel and the California wildfires is certainly much needed and justified. Both of these disasters were vividly portrayed in images on television, newspapers, and the Internet. Those images drove home the need for help. We have a strong history of providing assistance from the Federal Government to help our citizens survive and recover from natural disasters. As nearly all previous disaster aid, the assistance in this supplemental appropriations bill for both Hurricane Isabel and the California wildfires does not require a budget offset. We did not tell the victims of the hurricane or the wildfires that in their time of need they had to go find money elsewhere in the Federal budget. We did not tell these victims of disaster they had to give up something that they had coming to them in order to get the help they critically need. Last year, many States across the middle of the United States were suffering from a terrible drought, and there were additional agricultural disasters in other parts of our country. Now, drought is not as spectacular as a hurricane or a fire; that is true. The damage occurs over several months, even years, not days or weeks. But the financial and human losses are still acutely real--lost farms and ranches as they are driven out of business. Farmers and ranchers have to sell off cattle and other livestock. They have dramatically reduced crop yields or no crops at all, just as if a fire had gone through. There are huge financial losses to farmers and ranchers all over our country. There are the loss of homes, loss of businesses, impacts on local communities that may never come back. There is heavy damage to the economy in the drought areas. Without help, many lives would be dramatically changed for the worse in these drought-stricken areas. Last year, we were told by the White House the only way we could get this disaster aid for agriculture was to cut back on the farm bill we had passed just several months before. For years, agricultural disaster aid has been treated as emergency spending--because it is--and not needing an offset in the budget. That is what we did for the wildfires in California and Hurricane Isabel that hit our Nation's Capital and communities on the east coast. We treated it as emergency spending. In other words, in effect the White House said the victims of drought over the last couple years on farms and ranches, the victims of other natural kinds of disasters in agriculture, had to finance their own help by cutting the agricultural programs so important to their livelihood. So in the omnibus appropriations bill last February, agricultural disaster assistance was financed by cutting the farm bill. Disaster assistance last year was estimated at $3.1 billion. To generate an offset of that amount, the conservation title of the farm bill was cut back. The Conservation Security Program was capped and its funding sharply reduced to pay for that $3.1 billion. It is ironic and shortsighted that the funds for agricultural natural disasters would be taken from the conservation title of the farm bill. Drought is, of course, devastating to soil, plants, and animals. But it is conservation practices that help farmers and ranchers conserve and enhance natural resources and, in fact, lessen the potential impacts of future drought and natural disasters. This support for conservation is much like the mitigation money the Federal Emergency Management Agency provides. When FEMA responds to a natural disaster, the Agency also provides additional dollars for measures to avoid losses in future similar disasters in that State. The farm bill's conservation programs likewise guard against future disaster losses. Taking money from the farm bill's conservation title to pay for disaster assistance in the omnibus bill set a very bad precedent, one that will haunt us in the future when we seek to respond to natural disasters affecting agriculture. That action in the omnibus bill ignored the way previous agricultural disaster aid had been funded as emergency spending. It is also exactly the opposite of the policy we follow for nonagricultural disasters. Fortunately, this precedent was not followed in funding relief for Hurricane Isabel and the California wildfire victims, and it should not have been. Those disasters were emergencies, and we should pay for the assistance by treating it as emergency spending, which we are doing in this supplemental appropriations bill. By the same token, farmers and ranchers should not have been forced to pay for their own disaster assistance earlier this year. That was an emergency, and it should have been funded just as disaster aid in this bill was funded as an emergency. So, Mr. President, I did not seek in any way to hold up this supplemental appropriations bill. There are many parts of it I was opposed to in terms of the way we are writing a blank check for some of the Iraq rebuilding. And I do not mean to impede emergency funding for California or Maryland or Virginia or any other States that were hit by these natural disasters. These are emergencies. We should respond as a nation to these emergencies. The terrible precedent of taking money from the farm bill earlier this year should be reversed, and the conservation funds that were taken away from farmers and ranchers should be replaced. The damage to the Conservation Security Program should be repaired so the program is made whole, as it was enacted in the farm bill, passed by the Senate, passed by the House, and signed by the President. The President had loudly proclaimed as one of the reasons he was signing it the strong conservation measures in that farm bill. Because of the way the money was taken out in the omnibus appropriations bill, as it came back to us as a conference report, there was no ability for any of us to amend it or to have an up-or-down vote on whether or not we wanted to have emergency funding taken out of the farm bill for disaster aid. But that is how it was done. So, I take this time to point out the difference between how we are paying for the assistance for the wildfires in California and Hurricane Isabel here on the east coast and how farmers and ranchers were treated earlier this year when they critically needed disaster assistance. Their disasters were perhaps not as visually dramatic as the wildfires or the hurricane but they nonetheless had devastating losses from disaster that had taken place over months, sometimes over years. Our nation's farmers and ranchers should have been treated the same way as the victims of the wildfires in California or the victims here on the east coast of Hurricane Isabel. It is up to us to restore the funding that was taken away, to make farmers and ranchers whole, to make our conservation programs whole, and to recognize that when we have emergencies, when we have disasters, regardless of whether it is in California or New York or Iowa or Florida, or wherever it might be, regardless of whether it is homeowners or businesses or communities, yacht basins or beach homes or whatever, farmers and ranchers ought to be treated the same way with emergency funding. So again, I will not do anything to hold up the bill or anything like that, but I just wanted to make my point that we have to treat everyone the same in this country when it comes to disasters. (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dennis O'Connor of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, 50 years ago, James Watson and Francis Crick were identifying the double-helix molecule of DNA. The first embryo transfers from donor cows to recipients were made. The Korean War ended. And the Agricultural Research Service was created. The creation of ARS was not the beginning of the Department of Agriculture's efforts in agricultural research. President Abraham Lincoln signed the act creating the department, which included the charge to ``acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information . . . and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants.'' The Department's commitment to agricultural research reaches back nearly 150 years. The ARS itself was created by Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson through a reorganization of the former Agricultural Research Administration, on November 2, 1953. In its 50 years of service, the ARS has discovered dozens of ways to protect crops and livestock from pests and disease. It has improved the quality and safety of agricultural products. It has played a critical role in developing nutrition standards and carrying out nutrition research. It has also developed techniques to maintain the quality of our soil, perhaps our greatest renewable natural resource. Its research has helped farmers work more efficiently and profitably. And it has worked to develop ways to keep food affordable for consumers. My State has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of ARS research, and the National Animal Disease Center at Ames, Iowa has played a vital role over the years in carrying out the mission of ARS. Hog cholera was one of the greatest problems faced by hog farmers in this country for more than 130 years, since it was first reported in Ohio in 1833. Outbreaks occurred frequently over the years, some resulting in the loss of more than one in 10 hogs in the U.S. In the early 1960's, hog cholera was still costing farmers $50 million per year. Agricultural research at USDA on hog cholera, much of it carried out in Ames, IA, dates back to the 1903 discovery of the hog cholera virus. ARS large scale studies starting in 1961 developed and tested a program to immunize hogs against cholera using killed virus. On the advice of ARS, USDA regulatory officials banned interstate shipment of live virus or animals vaccinated with live virus. In January 1978, Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland announced that, as a result of an aggressive campaign that employed the treatment techniques developed by ARS, that hog cholera had been entirely eradicated. ARS has had many similar successes. The eradication of screwworm in cattle and Marek's disease in chickens has saved an untold amount of money by preventing livestock losses. It is estimated that the savings from the Marek's disease program is 44.3 times it's cost for every dollar spent on immunization, $44.30 is saved. For those who suggest that domestic government spending does not help the economy, the work of ARS stands as a great example of a program that works and helps American farmers be the best in the world. So I salute the scientists of ARS for their 50 years of service to agriculture, and wish them 50 more. There are still many challenges to agriculture, and ARS will be there working to solve them.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to discuss S. 139, the Climate Stewardship Act and lay out the reasons I am supporting this bill. The chief reason I support this bill is that I believe, as do the majority of scientists, that global climate change is occurring, and is due in part to human activities. I also believe that the U.S. has a responsibility to provide international and domestic leadership on this issue, and to begin to take action. This body, the U.S. Senate, has now passed three separate Sense of Congress Resolutions, this year and last year, urging U.S. leadership and reengagement in the international process to address global warming, and meaningful U.S. domestic action to begin to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Two of these resolutions were included in the comprehensive energy bills passed by this body this year and last. Despite these resolutions, the United States remains inactive on these issues. We are not displaying enough leadership on combating global warming, either domestically or abroad. And we are beginning to see some early warning signals about the consequences if we persist in our inaction. The World Meteorological Organization, WMO, in July of this year issued an unprecedented alert, saying: ``Record extremes in weather and climate events continue to occur around the world. Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase.'' They go on to say that: ``New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes has been increasing.'' And, ``(w)hile the trend towards warmer globally averaged surface temperatures has been uneven over the course of the last century, the trend for the period since 1976 is roughly three times that for the past 100 years as a whole.'' In the United States, the WMO cited record-breaking statistics in a particularly dangerous category of extreme weather events: nationwide, 562 tornadoes occurred in May, 2003, resulting in 41 deaths--a record for the number of tornadoes in any month, far surpassing the June, 1992 U.S. record of 399 tornadoes. In Iowa, as in much of the midwest, we have been experiencing a drought--a drought that is hurting my states' farmers, and farmers across the midwest and west. These dramatic weather events that we are experiencing--the tornadoes, the drought, the warming--these are exactly what scientists have been predicting would occur with unmitigated global warming. These events should not come as a surprise to any of us, they have been predicted for some years now. The bill we are debating, the Climate Stewardship Act, will take the first, modest steps to put into place a U.S. system to begin to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, to begin to take action. It will respond to the science, and it will do it in a manner that this administration has failed to do--with meaningful policies that will not harm the U.S. economy, but will at least put us on the right path. Now I know some Members of this body and of some organizations and industries have expressed concerns that taking action will harm the U.S. economy, and will impact energy supplies. While their concerns are legitimate, they are misplaced, because scientists, economists and analysts in this administration and in the private sector agree that this bill that we are debating will not be onerous for the overall economy or for the various industries it impacts. The Energy Information Agency in the Department of Energy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in separate assessments of the bill, indicate it will have minimal impacts on fuel prices and will even lower fuel prices in the case of natural gas, for instance, by generating efficiencies and providing market signals to drive efficiency. Furthermore, the bill has specific provisions to encourage clean, renewable fuel production from the agricultural sector and other sectors, which would not only reduce our reliance on imports of oil, but would also benefit the agricultural economy and the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I support those provisions. Some critics have said that this bill would prevent the burning of coal, and would force coal-burning utilities to switch to using only natural gas. That is simply not true. Under this bill, coal use will actually increase, and financial incentives for clean coal technologies are also provided. According to the MIT analysis of the bill, coal use will continue to expand 12 percent over current usage levels, out to 2025, which is the time frame that MIT looked at. Additionally, coal prices per metric ton are expected to drop 4 percent by 2015, and 5 percent by 2020. A portion of the proceeds from the auctioning or sale of allowances in the bill will go to technology deployment programs. Specifically, integrated coal gasification systems will receive significant financial incentives. Such clean coal technologies are not only beneficial to the environment, but will ensure continued usage of this valuable fuel source well into the future, in an environmentally benign manner. The agricultural sector and rural areas will continue to bear the brunt of severe weather events that can devastate farmers and rural economies as long as our inaction continues. However, U.S. agriculture can also make important, cost-effective contributions to offset a portion of U.S. emissions of greenhouse gasses in the near- and medium- term. With the proper incentives, agriculture can provide a low-cost bridge to a less fossil-fuel and greenhouse gas intensive future, while improving the sustainability and perhaps the profitability of this vital economic sector. The Climate Stewardship Act, provides some of these incentives. A provision in the bill that I particularly support is financial incentives, through the auctioning of permits to capped sectors, to agricultural practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including clean, renewable energy sources, such as wind power. Agriculture can play an important role in mitigating global warming, and can provide valuable benefits to society. Carbon is a commodity already being traded and sold in this country and others, and farmers can not only ``farm'' for carbon, they can reap the rewards under this bill, and help keep costs of action down. To make sure farmers can take advantage of this opportunity, I have negotiated with Senators McCain and Lieberman to guarantee that a specific portion of the credits that can be sold into this cap-and- trade system in the bill will be set aside for soil carbon sequestration. Soil carbon sequestration reduces U.S. net emissions of greenhouse gasses but also improves air and water quality by reducing run-off, and improves soil moisture retention. Soil carbon sequestration occurs through improved management practices such as no- till or reduced-till farming, the use of shelterbelts, grass waterways, wetland restoration, and improved irrigation systems, to name but a few. But most importantly for the farm sector, soil carbon enhances agricultural sustainability and profitability. We know this because agricultural and soil scientists have studied this issue for years--not because of global warming, but because of the associated environmental improvements and the improved crop productivity associated with greater soil carbon. These are complementary objectives with nice overlap. As a key benefit soil carbon sequestration has the potential to offset fully 10 percent of U.S. annual carbon emissions. To help ensure that farmers and others in the agricultural sector thoroughly understand the issue of climate change, and that they can benefit from an emerging carbon market, we have negotiated additional language to institute an education and outreach initiative within USDA. The program would provide detailed information as well as technical assistance to these individuals and groups, as well as allow for the creation or utilization of existing centers on climate change. This is a win-win policy for agriculture, for our citizens, and of course for our environment. That is why I support this bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to close out my amendment. There were a lot of speeches, but not too many on my amendment. I would like to bring it back a little bit, anyway. I again point out that the pending amendment is one that basically says we are going to authorize it, but we are going to authorize it for a period of time. I say to my good friend from Oregon--and he is my good friend--I know he and others worked so hard on this bill and got a good compromise. I understand that, but I don't think that putting a time on this bill violates any compromise. As I pointed out, earlier bills have had a 5- year time limit. I know my friend from Idaho talked about monitoring, the fact we monitor bills. Of course, we monitor bills. There is that old saying: Nothing focuses one's attention like the hangman's noose. When you find that something is expiring, that is when a committee starts to act, review, and get into it, perform its responsibilities. It is in that nature I have offered this amendment. I don't think it does anything to hurt the bill or change it. It doesn't change one thing in the bill. All it says is at some point down the track, 5 years--I picked 5 years because that was in earlier bills--the appropriate committee--in this case the Agriculture Committee--will reauthorize it. Sometimes a reauthorization goes through by unanimous consent. That may be the case with this bill. I don't know. Maybe if this bill works as everyone says it will, it might go by unanimous consent or maybe we will want to change something. At least it will force the committee to do something at that time, and that is in the nature of why I offered this amendment.