Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation and for working through this bill. It has taken a good while. But I believe, all in all, we have come out with a well-balanced bill. It is a comprehensive bill, and it does reflect a great deal of bipartisan cooperation. I especially commend and thank my ranking member, Senator Lugar, the former chairman of this committee, for all of his help and his support, his guidance, his suggestions, his very close working relationship to get this bill through. We had an excellent working relationship in the committee. We did that expeditiously. I knew we were going to have to have votes on the floor. As it turned out, we did have quite a few on different parts of the bill. But I believe, all in all, the relationship has been a great relationship. I thank Senator Lugar and his staff for that. I also thank Senator Reid for all of his help in pulling people together and getting the votes structured and making sure that we had an orderly process on the floor. I thank our majority leader, Senator Daschle, also a member of the Agriculture Committee, for all of his guidance and leadership in bringing this bill to its final conclusion. I thank Senator Lott on the other side for working with us. There were numerous times when I went to Senator Lott, and we discussed what we were going to do. I can say, without any hesitation, at no time was he less than most helpful in moving this process along. So I thank Senator Lott for that. We have had some disagreements, of course. That is the crucible of democracy that we have. We have had our votes. But what may not have been fully reflected on the floor is the extraordinary degree, I believe, of bipartisan cooperation and collaboration we have had throughout the bill. As I mentioned a number of times, all titles that we reported out of the Committee were reported on bipartisan votes. We have a demonstrated bipartisan majority for this bill on the Senate floor. So, as I say, the bill is comprehensive. It is balanced. It is the economic recovery vehicle and jobs bill for rural America. We have met our responsibilities to farm families, rural communities, consumers, and the environment. We have done so while fully complying with our budget limitations. I believe the highlights of the bill are the following: First, we restore and rebuild the farm income safety net that has been missing for the last 6 years. Second, we have doubled our commitment to conservation. There are more resources devoted to conservation in this bill than any farm bill that has ever come to the Senate. We are proud of that. We have a new conservation program--the Conservation Security Program--that will move us in a new direction in this country, that will expand conservation to every part of America. Whether it is a corn or soybean field in Iowa, an orchard in Michigan, a citrus orchard in Florida, a vegetable farm in New Jersey, or an almond farm in California, this Conservation Security Program is going to promote conservation throughout the country. Third, on rural development, we include substantial new funding for a variety of rural community development activities. We also create and fund new rural development initiatives, including new programs for rural equity capital investments in rural America. Senator Lugar and his staff, and my staff, have worked closely together to develop this consensus rural development title. I believe it is going to provide for crucial new investment in rural America. Fourth, we have a new title in the farm bill that has never been in any farm bill, a renewable energy title, with $550 million mandatory spending over 5 years for things such as ethanol and soy diesel, and for biomass, wind energy, and hydrogen energy. If nothing else, we learned from September 11, I think, that we have to address our dependance on foreign oil. This bill will start to do that by developing the renewable energy resources in our country. Fifth, nutrition. In our bill we now over twice what the administration proposed. The administration proposed $4.2 billion in increased nutrition spending over the next 10 years. We have $8.9 billion in this bill. So we can be proud of the fact that we make this great effort to make sure no one goes to bed hungry in America, to make sure we have an adequate system of nutrition assistance through food stamps, emergency food assistance and commodity distribution, in addition to school breakfast and school lunch and other programs. Lastly, on credit, agricultural trade, agricultural research--all of these titles make substantial improvements to what we have done in the past. So, in conclusion, I thank Senator Lugar. I thank all of the staff. I thank the staff on our side. I want to thank all of them by name: Vershawn Perkins, Frank Newkirk, and Bob Sturm. I especially thank Bob because all of the time we were out of our office in the Hart Building, we crowded into his space. I really thank Bob Sturm for all of his help in working out the situation of taking care of our staff. I thank Terri Roney, Lloyd Ritter, Charlie Rawls, Erin Peterson, Doug O'Brien, Stephanie Mercier, Mary Langowski, Jay Klug, Susan Keith, Eric Juzenas, Sara Hopper, Amy Fredregill, Alison Fox, Kevin Brown, Seth Boffeli, Karil Bialostosky, Rich Bender, and, of course, our outstanding staff director, Mark Halverson. I cannot say enough good things about Mark and all of the long hours he has put in. I do not know if he has slept in the last 4 months. I do not know if he has or not, but I think he deserves a break now. He has performed superlatively in, guiding, directing, and working with our staffs. On the other side I will not mention all of the minority staff. I know Senator Lugar already did. But I do want to mention Keith Luse, the minority staff director, formerly the majority staff director. Again, I thank Keith Luse for all of his wonderful working relationships with me personally, with Mark Halverson, Charlie Rawls, and all the people on our staff. It has just been outstanding. I just cannot thank you enough for all the kindness and generosity you have given to me and to our staff throughout this process. So, Mr. President, this is a bill that we can go to conference with that we can be proud of. It had strong bipartisan support as we came out of committee. We worked our problems out on the floor, and I think we have a bill that will revitalize and renew rural America. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I call up the amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Domenici amendment is a reflection of failed policies. What it basically says is you pay dairy farmers when markets are good. But when the markets are bad, as Senator Landrieu has pointed out time and time again, there is too little help for our dairy farmers. That makes absolutely no sense. Second, we have a balanced dairy program in the bill, carefully crafted, so that no parts of the country are discriminated against. What the Domenici amendment does is it upsets that. It will foster regional fights again and again and again in the future. We do not want that. We have it carefully crafted in this bill. Third, we just overwhelmingly voted for payment limitations, but in the Domenici amendment, no matter how big you are, you can get more and more payments. There is no payment limitation whatsoever, no matter the size of the dairy operation. For those three reasons, I believe the Senate should turn down the Domenici amendment and keep the underlying bill that is fair to the whole country.

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend from Arizona that my staff tells me that as they have developed the managers' amendment over the last few months, staff has made available the various versions. That they have been e-mailed out constantly to the staff of Agriculture Committee members, so that any one who wanted to, at any point in time, could have seen what was being requested and considered as an amendment. As for the later amendments, we have done the best we can to make them available as soon as possible. Again, both Senator Lugar and I have signed off on them and worked with members on our respective sides. Finally, the amendment and a summary of it is available for review. We are operating under a consensus approach to this managers' amendment. If there is an objection to putting something in the managers' amendment it does not go in. That is exactly the process that applied to the Kerry-Snowe fisheries amendment. It was our understanding that the Senator from Arizona did not want that amendment in the managers' amendment so we have dealt with it separately on the floor this morning.

Mr. HARKIN. May I respond? I asked my staff about that. At a cursory reading, as the Senator has done, he says: My gosh, we are going from $375,000 to $355 million in a managers' amendment. Here is what that is about. In the underlying substitute, there was either a typographical error or a mistake made. It was listed in the legislative language as $375,000, but it was known by everyone to be $375 million, as it was scored by CBO as the correct amount. As I pointed our earlier, if you look at all the funding for WHIP in context it makes sense. There was just a mistake made. So we are correcting the mistake in the underlying bill. A shift was also made of $20 million from WHIP in the managers' amendment, but that did not add to the score in the managers' amendment. I say to my friend from Arizona, it has already been scored.

Mr. HARKIN. I know the Senator is being a little provocative to make his point. That is OK. There is an existing program to help farmers, including minority farmers, who because of circumstances have a harder time getting credit and making a go of it in farming. While the socially disadvantaged program covers minority farmers, there was not a mention of gender, at least for all of the USDA programs involved. It came to the attention of a member--not me, but someone who wanted us to do this--that women were not adequately covered in existing law. This was just a correction to put in that program the definition that gender is a basis on which someone may qualify for assistance under the socially disadvantaged program. That way, along with other disadvantaged groups the law would include gender so women in agriculture would receive fair treatment and opportunity. It seems to me to be a very harmless type of provision to put in there. Again, I don't understand why that should be such a big item. We cleared it on both sides. I hope the Senator is not saying that every time--maybe he is saying this but I do not know--an amendment comes to the managers' package that has been cleared on both sides and is mailed out that we have to send a message to his office specifically asking him to look at it. The process is open. If the Senator wants to have his staff come over at any time, the door is open. They can look at any amendment they want.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we have examined this amendment on our side, and we have no objection to this amendment. We are willing to accept this amendment to help the fisheries in the northeastern part of the United States. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. It is in the underlying bill as fully understood. The managers' amendment is only a technical correction to conform to the clear understanding.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I will respond to the Senator from Arizona on the issue he has raised. I agree fully with the necessity of openness and providing an opportunity for review, and we have certainly sought to do that to make this amendment available. At the same time, we cannot operate as the Senate unless we have an element of trust in those who have been appointed or elected to lead our committees on both the majority and the minority side. That is why we as a Senate delegate to committees both the authority and the responsibility to develop legislation, to have hearings, to come up with the bills and to bring them on the floor. I ask any Senator, how could we ever operate as a Senate if every line, every paragraph, every little item in every bill had to be fully debated and discussed and if every Senator is obliged to sit down and go through and debate every item on the floor? It is impossible. That is why we have built up a system involving openness but also trust. That is why when we receive a request for an amendment, if a senator comes from one side and says, he or she wants to put this amendment in the bill, in the managers' amendment, I look at it to make my judgment and then go to Senator Lugar, the Ranking Member on the other side. I say: Someone on our side is suggesting they want to do this; would you take a look at it, talk to your staff, go to whomever you want to on your side and look it over. I go to Senators on my side and see if there are any objections. If no one raises any objections, and it is good policy we put it in the managers' amendment. We also are careful that items added through the managers to the bill are not of such major importance that they substantially affect the underlying legislation. That is true of the amendments in here. The Senator spoke about billions of dollars being in the managers' amendment. That is simply not so. We have kept within the budget allocation. Nothing in the managers' amendment goes beyond our budget allocation. I asked my staff to add up the total in the managers' amendment, all of the items in there. That is, what additional cost is in the managers' amendment that is not in the pending legislation already? It adds up to only about $38 million more over 10 years in mandatory spending than is already in the underlying bill. It is not billions of dollars: $38 million over 10 years. These are items that are not large. There are some technical changes, adjustments and so forth. But it is a very small amount of money when you consider we are talking about a $73.5 billion bill. I say to my friend from Arizona, we must operate on a system of trust around here. Obviously, with trust there has to be sunshine. The underlying bill and earlier versions of the managers' amendment have been out there for quite some time. Additional amendments were recently added in order to wrap up the bill. These were available for anyone to see. In addition to the checking I described earlier, any Senate staff or any Senator who wants to come see what is in the managers' package can at any time. They just need to ask. There is no secrecy. That is the way we operate. I hope the Senator from Arizona is not saying from now on, no matter how available and open we make the process, we will not trust anyone. We cannot trust Senator Lugar; we cannot trust Senator Harkin; we cannot trust Senator Kohl; we cannot trust Senator Roberts. Everything has to be brought onto the Senate floor for every Senator to debate and vote on the most minute detail. We would never get anything done in this Chamber. This managers' amendment has been carefully drafted. It has been vetted. It has been fully aired and exposed to the sunshine. It has been out there for people to see as it has been drafted. I did not go to the Senator from Arizona and----

Mr. HARKIN. I object. Because it is clearly a technical correction that you have taken out of context. What you contend is that real money has been added in the managers' amendment and that is not true. What CBO scores does matter because CBO recognized the typo and we fixed it in the managers' amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. I am delighted to yield for a question.

Mr. HARKIN. I am not certain what that is all about. I am told there may have been some after 6 p.m. But, again, I say to the Senator from Arizona, these were cleared on both sides. We never kept any from Senator Lugar. He never kept any from us--not on either side. We have had our staffs look at them. We have checked with other members. That is what I am talking about--openness and availability but also trust and trusting whether or not committee chairmen and their staffs are sensitive enough, and ranking members are sensitive enough, to say: We don't need to burden the entire Senate with this. We can make a judgment, check as appropriate and make the amendment available. I also say to my friend from Arizona, even though these are in the managers' package--first of all, it is not billions, it is $38 million, I say to my friend.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. HARKIN. No, there is $375 million already in the underlying bill that has been scored by CBO.

Mr. HARKIN. This was a clear technical amendment. If you look at the underlying bill you will see that previous fiscal year funding was all in the millions. The fact that the latter years were in thousands is obviously a typographical mistake. This did not add any money to the managers' package because it already was scored by CBO as being in the millions. I say further to my friend----

Mr. HARKIN. I am not sure what you would like to debate here.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend from Minnesota, my neighbor to the north, he is a very valuable member of our committee. When this bill is done and I go on to conference, it is my intention as chair to fight for all of the amendments that we in the Senate have adopted on this bill because it will be the Senate's position. Certainly in this area on the EQIP program, I believe the Senator's amendment improves what we have done in the underlying bill, and certainly I will do everything I can to make sure we keep those provisions.

Mr. HARKIN. As I understand the floor situation--I will consult with my ranking member--with the hour of 3 rapidly approaching, under the unanimous consent agreement previously entered into, all amendments to the pending S. 1731 have to be offered prior to 3 o'clock this afternoon.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, what is the pending amendment?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that amendment be set aside so I may offer two other amendments. The first amendment I send to the desk on behalf of Senator Kerry and Senator Snowe.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator for yielding. I did not think we were on the amendment yet. Madam President, I will make a statement. I made a lengthier statement on Friday when I offered the second-degree amendment for my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley. Farmers and ranchers have long sought a ban on a packer's ability to own livestock. The reasons are simple: When packers own livestock, it gives them a greater ability to manipulate the market because they control the supply, and packer ownership shuts out farmers from the market because the packer fills its plant with company-owned animals. This past December, the Senate responded to these problems by adopting the Johnson-Grassley amendment by a 51-to-46 margin. That amendment prohibited packers from owning, feeding, or controlling livestock for more than 14 days before processing. After that amendment was adopted, the packers created a firestorm with a lot of smoke and mirrors about the word ``control.'' They somehow argued that the amendment would affect forward contracting and marketing agreements, even though the amendment did not affect these types of arrangements. Nevertheless, the packers gained some traction by the pure repetition of this argument. So Senator Grassley, Senator Johnson, myself, and others worked with interested groups, such as the American Farm Bureau, to further define ``control'' so the packers could not even pretend to make the argument that the amendment affects marketing contracts. This is what the Grassley second-degree amendment does. It makes it clear that farmers may still contract for the sale of their livestock. The amendment does this by stating that it does not affect relationships where the producer ``materially participates in the management of the operation with respect to the production of livestock.'' We use these words because they are familiar terms to farmers and agricultural lawyers. This phrase draws a clear legal line. Now about the study. Farmers do not want another study that concludes there is a strong correlation between captive supplies and lower prices. The USDA has told us this a number of times before. A report, released on January 18 of this year, included a 15-page appendix of all the previous studies dealing with packer ownership and captive supply. In summary, all these reports basically said: As the packer's use of captive supplies increases, the farmer's price for livestock decreases. So we know the facts. We have had study after study. We know what is good for our farmers. The National Farmers Union, the American Farm Bureau, and over 100 other farm, commodity, and rural groups are supporting the Grassley amendment. They do not want another study to tell us what the other studies have already told us. They want to limit the packer's ability to manipulate the market; they want a ban on packer ownership; and that is what the Grassley amendment does. That is why I strongly support it and urge our colleagues to support the Grassley amendment. I thank the Senator for yielding me this time.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote.