Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider that vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to reserve the remainder of the time, the 2 minutes and the 8 minutes, and now proceed to recognize Senator Enzi who had two amendments offered which are going to be accepted on this side. I don't know if the Senator wanted any time at all, but to move the process along, I see the Senator from Wyoming is on the floor. I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the time be reserved and that we now go to the two Enzi amendments. I ask unanimous consent if we could just take 5 minutes on the Enzi amendment and then return to the Wellstone amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. It is a good amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. To make it clear, we are going to debate now for about 20 minutes on my substitute and the underlying McConnell amendment. That will be set aside. The vote will then occur on my second-degree amendment at 5:45.

Mr. HARKIN. There may be intervening business between now and then, but there will be no votes until 5:45; is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment. I send it to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, please clarify, how much time do I have?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, what we have in front of us is the McConnell amendment, which reduces loan rates by less than a quarter of a percent. He takes that money and basically puts it into nutrition programs. Frankly, my history in both the House and Senate in the Agriculture Committee for 27 years is one of very strong support for nutrition programs. Let's look at the record. The House of Representatives, in their farm bill, has $3.6 billion over baseline for nutrition programs for 10 years--$3.6 billion. The Senate bill, as we reported it from committee, had $6.2 billion, almost twice as much for nutrition programs over the same period of time. Due to certain amendments that have been offered and agreed to already on the Senate floor, the amount of money for nutrition now in the pending farm bill is $8.4 billion. That is well over twice what the House has. Could it be more? Yes. We could always do more, of course. But we have tried to keep a well-balanced bill. I submit we have done a lot to address the underlying concerns of accessibility, of assets--of a lot of things--for people who need food stamps and other nutrition programs. The McConnell amendment, if you divide it all up, would put about $49 million a year additional into a program that already is spending $20 billion a year. Now, $49 million is a lot of money, but compared to $20 billion? I submit this will have almost no effect on the underlying nutrition programs. Really, the way I see this amendment, it is an attempt to take some more money out of commodity programs by reducing the loan rate, which is important as an income support for farmers in my part of the country and, in fact, all over America. What my amendment does is it says: OK, if you are going to nick the loan rates by a quarter of a percent, let's then leave it as an income support for farmers--one way or the other. Last Saturday in Denver, CO, President Bush said one of the things he wanted to see in a farm bill was farm savings accounts. He said that. I think the distinguished ranking member has proposed this in the past. Senator Grassley, my colleague from Iowa, has supported this proposal in the past. Others have supported farm savings accounts. We plan to propose a pilot program in the underlying manager's amendment. It provides $36 million for a pilot program. It is not very much, but at least it was there to try to test the idea to see if it was acceptable and see if it would work. Some said that is not enough money. My second-degree amendment basically says we will take the less than quarter percent cut out of loan rates, but we will take that money, which is about $510 million, and we will put that into the farm savings account as a pilot program in 10 States. With that much money, perhaps we could really find out whether or not this program would work. The President said he has wanted it. Other people have been supporting it. I have some reservations about the idea, but there are plenty of people on the other side of the aisle, and the President, who have supported this idea. So in the spirit of bipartisanship I would like to include this pilot program so we can all find out exactly how it works and give the USDA some time to work out the details. Again, the President has requested this program. The pilot program will include 10 States. It will run from 2003 to 2006. To make the program viable, we will ramp up funding to $200 million by 2006. The pilot program allows the farmer to set up a savings account. The Secretary of Agriculture will then match the producer's contribution. A producer's contribution is limited to $5,000 a year. The farmer can then withdraw from the account when his farm income from that year is less than 90 percent of his farm income averaged over the last 5 years. Again, we have a strong nutrition title here. We have gone from $3.6 billion in the House to $8.4 billion here. But if we want to have the farm savings accounts, then Senators will have a choice. We have already done a lot for nutrition. I take a back seat to no one in my support for strong nutrition programs. But if the will is to nick the loan rates a little bit--and I guess this is what this is all about--at least let's leave it with some income support for farmers. I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to my friends on the other side of the aisle. Let's try this farm savings account. Let's see how it works. Maybe I will be proven wrong. I don't know that it will work, but it is probably worth a try. And I know the President wants it. The President keeps saying he wants bipartisanship. This is bipartisanship. I reach out a hand to those on the other side of the aisle and say fine, let's try the farm savings accounts. Let me point out one other thing. I mentioned the House had $3.6 billion in nutrition. We are at $8.4 billion. President Bush, in the budget he sent down, has $4.2 billion increases for nutrition programs over the next 10 years. So, as I said, I think we can be proud of what we have done for nutrition in the Senate bill. I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside and that the Harkin amendment No. 2853 be called up.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this amendment deals with a change, and that has to do with the equity portion of a part of the farm bill that just changes the mix a little bit to cover cities up to 100,000.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I call for the regular order. Might I inquire exactly what the regular order now is before the Senate?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand that the pending amendment before the Senate is the Kyl amendment No. 2850 that deals with a sense of the Senate on estate taxes; is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again, we are getting close to the end here. We only have a few amendments left that I have on my list. Most of them have been worked out. I thank all Senators for helping to work out the amendments. I think we have basically the pending amendment, as I understand it. We have an amendment No. 2851 offered by Senator Domenici dealing with dairy. We have the Leahy amendment No. 2834 dealing with organics. We have a Kerry-Snowe amendment No. 2852 dealing with commercial fisheries, and we have an Inhofe amendment No. 2825 dealing with peanuts. That is all I have on my list. I ask Senator Lugar if he has anything else.

Mr. HARKIN. A second degree?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we are now on the Kyl amendment No. 2850. I ask the assistant majority leader if we could enter into a time agreement to bring this to a close.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask the leader, could we move to that and debate that?

Mr. HARKIN. Senator Kyl is here. Wonderful. Now we can move ahead. Get the Senator a podium.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to S. 1731 on my own behalf.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I will not object, but there comes a point where we say 3 p.m.--well, is it 3 p.m. or 3:02 or 3:05? I hope we don't have a rush of amendments on either side coming in.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield the remainder of my time.