Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I have no objection.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. HARKIN. I commend my colleague from California on her thoughtful comment on the dangers of smallpox. I agree with her that much more research on new vaccines and therapies is needed and am proud of the many companies across the nation that are leaders in this important effort. As my colleague indicates, the CDC has recently developed a strategy for vaccination in response to a smallpox outbreak and the funding provided in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill will help the CDC in carrying out this goal. Additionally, I believe that the funding provided for the Office of Emergency Preparedness for bioterrorism-related activities can be especially useful in making the vaccine available to first responders.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time does the Senator desire?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we all remember the dark days of the Iran hostage crisis between 1979 and 1981. Fifty-two Americans were taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held in captivity by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers for the ensuing 444 days in the newly-established Islamic Republic of Iran. They were brutalized by their captors and the pain and suffering of these brave Americans and their families throughout that ordeal cannot be over-estimated. A constituent of mine, Ms. Kathryn Koob, from Waverly, IA, is one of two women former hostages who endured this nightmarish experience. Last December, she joined the other 51 American heroes taken hostage and their families in filing a lawsuit in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia seeking redress of this grievous miscarriage of justice and payment by the Government of Iran for the damages and injuries they incurred. If these plaintiffs are successful, the Federal courts could order payment from Iranian cash and assets still frozen in the United States. Incredibly, the U.S. Justice and State Departments in mid-October and, at the latest possible hour, intervened in this case, Roeder v. the Islamic Republic of Iran, seeking to vacate the Federal judge's default judgment in favor of the former hostages and their families and to have this lawsuit dismissed altogether. De facto the Bush Administration is siding with the Government of Iran and against our own people who were taken hostage and treated so cruelly during the Embassy takeover. How could this be, especially when we are united as a Nation in a war against terrorism and the U.S. State Department itself continues to document and declare the Government of Iran as the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world today? The Government of Iran has never had to pay one cent to any of the Americans taken hostage or their families. If U.S. Justice and State Department attorneys get their way, the Government of Iran will never have to pay anything and the hostages and their families will never be given their day in Federal court to pursue justice and be awarded compensation. That is why I am today introducing legislation, The Justice for Former U.S. Hostages in Iran Act, to prevent this grave injustice from being compounded. My bill would reaffirm the clear intent of this Congress expressed in four prior enactments and make crystal clear that this group of hostages and their families have the right to pursue their Federal lawsuit to its rightful conclusion and to be eligible to receive compensatory damage awards from the Government of Iran, should the Federal courts so determine on the merits. The position of the U.S. Justice and State Departments, contrary to the claims and interests of the American hostages and their families, is that the U.S. Government must honor a little-known executive agreement called the Algiers Accords that Presidents Carter and Reagan entered into in January, 1981 in order to get our hostages released from captivity inside Iran. The Algiers Accords, among other provisions, required the U.S. to immediately transfer to Iran through Algeria $7.9 billion in frozen assets in exchange for the freedom of our people. But also buried in the fine print of the Algiers Accords is one very specific provision which singularly strips the hostages and their families of their rights and flatly prohibits any of them from ever being able to sue the Government of Iran and make that regime pay for their pain and suffering. Ironically, under the terms of the Algiers Accords, U.S. companies can take the Iranians before an international tribunal at The Hague and recover damages for their lost property, but the Americans actually taken hostage and their families alone, are prohibited from doing the same. This is patently unfair to those American heroes and their families who suffered the most from this hellish experience. The Algiers Accords is not a treaty. It was never submitted to the Senate for ratification for obvious reasons. It is a shabby executive agreement that was negotiated under extreme duress and entered into between the executive branch of our government and the Government of Iran because the Government of Iran, at that time, was daily threatening otherwise to put all of our hostages on trial in Iran as ``spies'' and to execute them. In fact, the Algiers Accords, from their inception, have functioned as little more than a ransom pact with kidnappers acting in the name and under the sponsorship of the Government of Iran. Last week, the Federal judge hearing this case expressed a reluctance to make a final judgment and to order the Government of Iran to pay damages unless the Congress takes further legislative action to clearly and irrefutably abrogate the Algiers Accords insofar as necessary to allow the Americans held hostage and their families to sue in federal court and recover damages from the Government of Iran. The next court proceeding is this unresolved matter has been scheduled for January 14. I appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor this legislation with a sense of urgency and fairness. Unless the Congress acts promptly to reaffirm and clarify our prior enactments, the U.S. Justice and State Departments will block the only path still open to the hostages and their families to pursue justice, to get a federal court judgment against the Government of Iran for its brutal and criminal misconduct, and to require this on-going state sponsor of international terrorism to pay for the pain, suffering and injuries they inflicted on Kathryn Koob and these other courageous Americans. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we all remember the dark days of the Iran hostage crisis between 1979 and 1981. Fifty-two Americans were taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held in captivity by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers for the ensuing 444 days in the newly-established Islamic Republic of Iran. They were brutalized by their captors and the pain and suffering of these brave Americans and their families throughout that ordeal cannot be over-estimated. A constituent of mine, Ms. Kathryn Koob, from Waverly, IA, is one of two women former hostages who endured this nightmarish experience. Last December, she joined the other 51 American heroes taken hostage and their families in filing a lawsuit in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia seeking redress of this grievous miscarriage of justice and payment by the Government of Iran for the damages and injuries they incurred. If these plaintiffs are successful, the Federal courts could order payment from Iranian cash and assets still frozen in the United States. Incredibly, the U.S. Justice and State Departments in mid-October and, at the latest possible hour, intervened in this case, Roeder v. the Islamic Republic of Iran, seeking to vacate the Federal judge's default judgment in favor of the former hostages and their families and to have this lawsuit dismissed altogether. De facto the Bush Administration is siding with the Government of Iran and against our own people who were taken hostage and treated so cruelly during the Embassy takeover. How could this be, especially when we are united as a Nation in a war against terrorism and the U.S. State Department itself continues to document and declare the Government of Iran as the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world today? The Government of Iran has never had to pay one cent to any of the Americans taken hostage or their families. If U.S. Justice and State Department attorneys get their way, the Government of Iran will never have to pay anything and the hostages and their families will never be given their day in Federal court to pursue justice and be awarded compensation. That is why I am today introducing legislation, The Justice for Former U.S. Hostages in Iran Act, to prevent this grave injustice from being compounded. My bill would reaffirm the clear intent of this Congress expressed in four prior enactments and make crystal clear that this group of hostages and their families have the right to pursue their Federal lawsuit to its rightful conclusion and to be eligible to receive compensatory damage awards from the Government of Iran, should the Federal courts so determine on the merits. The position of the U.S. Justice and State Departments, contrary to the claims and interests of the American hostages and their families, is that the U.S. Government must honor a little-known executive agreement called the Algiers Accords that Presidents Carter and Reagan entered into in January, 1981 in order to get our hostages released from captivity inside Iran. The Algiers Accords, among other provisions, required the U.S. to immediately transfer to Iran through Algeria $7.9 billion in frozen assets in exchange for the freedom of our people. But also buried in the fine print of the Algiers Accords is one very specific provision which singularly strips the hostages and their families of their rights and flatly prohibits any of them from ever being able to sue the Government of Iran and make that regime pay for their pain and suffering. Ironically, under the terms of the Algiers Accords, U.S. companies can take the Iranians before an international tribunal at The Hague and recover damages for their lost property, but the Americans actually taken hostage and their families alone, are prohibited from doing the same. This is patently unfair to those American heroes and their families who suffered the most from this hellish experience. The Algiers Accords is not a treaty. It was never submitted to the Senate for ratification for obvious reasons. It is a shabby executive agreement that was negotiated under extreme duress and entered into between the executive branch of our government and the Government of Iran because the Government of Iran, at that time, was daily threatening otherwise to put all of our hostages on trial in Iran as ``spies'' and to execute them. In fact, the Algiers Accords, from their inception, have functioned as little more than a ransom pact with kidnappers acting in the name and under the sponsorship of the Government of Iran. Last week, the Federal judge hearing this case expressed a reluctance to make a final judgment and to order the Government of Iran to pay damages unless the Congress takes further legislative action to clearly and irrefutably abrogate the Algiers Accords insofar as necessary to allow the Americans held hostage and their families to sue in federal court and recover damages from the Government of Iran. The next court proceeding is this unresolved matter has been scheduled for January 14. I appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor this legislation with a sense of urgency and fairness. Unless the Congress acts promptly to reaffirm and clarify our prior enactments, the U.S. Justice and State Departments will block the only path still open to the hostages and their families to pursue justice, to get a federal court judgment against the Government of Iran for its brutal and criminal misconduct, and to require this on-going state sponsor of international terrorism to pay for the pain, suffering and injuries they inflicted on Kathryn Koob and these other courageous Americans. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield 1 minute to my friend from North Dakota.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time remains?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will yield myself 5 minutes, and I would appreciate the Chair announcing when my 5 minutes is up. Mr. President, first of all, this is not the House bill. This is not even the bill that my friend from Arkansas introduced last night. In order to comply with the budget, they made changes, and what were the changes made? It is very interesting. Let's just take a look at two areas. The Hutchinson amendment really does gut conservation. In the Senate bill we put $21.5 billion. The House has $15.8 billion. The Hutchinson amendment lowers that to an even $14 billion. But here is where most of the money came from. I say to my friend from Arkansas, Senator Lincoln and others, we are interested in the small towns and communities. We want rural development. In the Senate bill we had $1.7 billion--listen to this--over 5 years for rural development. The House bill has $1.17 billion over 5 years for rural development. So we are pretty close. The Hutchinson amendment has--listen carefully--$200 million over 10 years for rural development. Gutted. So if you want to have a balanced farm bill and one that helps our small towns and communities, forget about that amendment. He guts rural development and puts it all into commodities. But even putting it into commodities, they backload it in 10 years. What we have done is said there is a crisis out there right now and we need to help farmers right now. For the life of me, I do not understand, Mr. President, why the Senator from Arkansas would want to hurt his own rice producers. Next year, under the committee bill, the payment per acre for rice is $148.13 under our bill. Under the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas, the payment will be $96.18 per acre for his own rice farmers. Why he would want to offer an amendment to penalize his own rice farmers, I have no idea, because they go back to the old bases and yields. We update the yields. Look at next year. Our payment next year is $148 per acre on rice; the Hutchinson amendment is $96 per acre on rice. With corn, we pay $36.67 per acre; the Hutchinson, $26 per acre. Wheat is $18.90 under our bill, $15.54 under Mr. Hutchinson's amendment. This amendment is not well thought out. It is not even the House bill. It is not the House bill at all. One more time for the record, I say to my friend from Oklahoma, nine titles were approved in our committee unanimously--unanimously. Bipartisan, not one dissenting vote. Senator Lugar and I worked it out. We worked it out with Senator Hutchinson and all the Republicans and Democrats on the committee. The only title that did not come out unanimously was the commodity title. Even the Senator from Arkansas voted for that, so at least it has some bipartisan support. When the Senator says this is some kind of hugely partisan bill, that is nonsense on its face. All you have to do is please check the record. This bill had strong bipartisan support in the committee. Again I respond to my friend from Kansas who said we robbed the crop insurance program to increase loan rates. Let the record show, all we did was include a provision that extends the very same provision that Senator Roberts put in his crop insurance bill last year. It was OK when he put it in last year. All we are doing is extending it. Now somehow he says it is not OK. We did not gut the crop insurance. If it was good enough for Senator Roberts last year, it is good enough for us to put it in now and extend it into the future. That is all we did. We did not in any way touch or gut the crop insurance program. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time do I have, Mr. President?

Mr. HARKIN. I will yield 2 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I want to respond to my friend from Oklahoma. I spoke with Mr. Bob Stallman this morning on the phone. He is the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. He referred to this letter. He referred to the conference call they had yesterday. That is true, they are opposed. He said to me--and I asked, May I relate this? He said yes--they are absolutely in favor of cloture, of bringing this to an end. But then again he said they would be opposed to the bill if it had that water right in it. But he told me on the phone this morning they were absolutely in favor of cloture and bringing it to a close.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield 30 seconds to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. HARKIN. The time for games is over. The fact is, the White House itself has said we should not have a farm bill this year. The ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Lugar, has said that. The Secretary of Agriculture has said that. The entire Republican hierarchy downtown and here have said time and time again we should not have a farm bill this year. Since this amendment is different from that of the House, it would still require a conference. Again I say, Mr. President, now is the time to pass a good bill. If we get cloture today and we can close this bill down, we can conference our bill in the next 2 days and we can go into conference with a good bill, not with an amendment that is less than what the House has. I urge defeat of the Hutchinson amendment. I move to table the Hutchinson amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the order of business now before the Senate?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand there is no time remaining. I ask unanimous consent that I be given 1 minute and that the other side be given 1 minute prior to the cloture vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we will now go to a cloture vote. It will be the third cloture vote. The majority leader has said that will be it, because this is Wednesday. To finish the 30 hours after cloture, if we got cloture, would require the rest of the week. We all want to get out of here by Friday or Saturday--I hope. So this really would be the last opportunity to have closure on the farm bill. We have had good votes. We voted on the Lugar substitute. We voted on Cochran-Roberts. We voted on Hutchinson. There may be other amendments. They should be germane. Somebody said about cloture, it cuts off amendments. It does not cut off any germane amendments to this agriculture bill. So let's have the cloture vote. We get our 30 hours. At least then we can finish the bill. Then the staff can work on it in January, and when we come back on January 23, we can meet in a short conference and get the bill to the President before the end of the month. If cloture is defeated, I can assure you, all of my fellow Senators, the President will not get this bill until sometime in March or April, if even then. So this is the last train out of the station. I hope we can get it done.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. What was the final vote, I inquire?

Mr. HARKIN. We would have had 55. Senator Akaka was missing, of course. This is a sad day and not a very bright Christmas next week for farmers and ranchers and people who live in rural America. What we have said to them is: You don't count; you will come on the tail end of everything else. We will do this, we will do that around here, but when it comes to our farmers and ranchers, you are at the tail end. That is what my Republican colleagues have said. Go take a hike, they said to rural America. We will deal with you later. We will deal with you later. I come from a town of 150 people. I was born and raised there. I bet I am the only Senator in this Chamber who lives in the house in which he was born. I wasn't born in the hospital; I was born in the house. I still live in that house in a town of 150 people. I have a strong feeling about people who live in small towns and communities that need rural development, that need sewer and water, need better communications, telecommunication centers in our country, who need job opportunities. Our farmers surround these small communities and this is what they need for them and their families and their livelihood. We tried everything humanly possible to get this bill passed, in good faith, working in a bipartisan manner. Facts are devilish little things because facts give lie to rhetoric. We hear all this rhetoric from the other side that this is a partisan bill. If it wasn't so partisan, we could get it through. But the facts are devilish things. And the facts are that every single title of this bill we worked on, I worked closely with my ranking member, a good friend, an honorable person, someone who cares deeply about agriculture. We worked on these. We worked them out in committee. Every single title got a unanimous vote, all Republicans, all Democrats, but one title, commodities. Senator Hutchinson from Arkansas voted with us, so it was bipartisan. Basically, the same thing happened in 1995. We had to deal with the commodity title in the Chamber. I understood that. But then we had all the amendments that gutted nutrition, gutted conservation, that went after rural development. And we had all decided in the committee, unanimously, on what we reported out. The facts give lie to rhetoric. They have the rhetoric. They have been hit with the rhetoric, but the facts are on our side. This is one of the most bipartisan farm bills ever to come out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The facts are there and cannot be denied. Again, they talked about reaching more of a bipartisan consensus. Again, the facts are devilish little things. We had three big amendments offered on the Republican side that were sort of in the nature of substitutes for a committee bill. One was the amendment offered by my friend from Indiana, the ranking member, Senator Lugar. Then we had the amendment offered by Senators Cochran and Roberts. And then this morning we had the amendment offered by Senator Hutchinson. If you listened this morning, you heard Senator Hutchinson and others saying this would be the only bill; if only we would pass the Hutchinson bill, it could be the only bill that could get through conference and get to the President. The facts are devilish things. The Lugar amendment got 30 votes. The Cochran-Roberts amendment got 40 votes. The Hutchinson amendment this morning got 38 votes. What are they talking about? I assume what they mean when they want a bipartisan bill is they want the 30 or the 40 people to decide. That is not bipartisan. We had the votes. What it showed was the majority of the Senate wants the committee bill, but for some reason they will not vote for cloture to give the 60 votes. I ask, what is partisan about somewhat higher or lower rates? What is partisan about that? What is partisan about fixed payments, which we have in our bill? What is partisan about countercyclical payments, so that if the price goes down we come in and help farmers out? What is partisan about a strong conservation program, that even the Secretary of Agriculture, in the book they published earlier, touted widely? This is a balanced package. It was right down the middle. It was not radical. It was not partisan. When you get a bill that can get unanimous votes on our committee on every title except one, I say that is a pretty doggone good bipartisan bill. It may not be what every single person wants. Not everything in that bill is something I would want. But I recognize you have to balance interests--not only between parties, but you have to balance them geographically and between crops. That is what we did. Now, let me talk about the cloture vote. Cloture is a funny sounding word. I assume when farmers and the people in my small towns in Iowa and places where I live are watching this on C-SPAN, or they pick up the newspapers, or watch it on television, or hear it on the radio, they wonder what cloture means. All it means is that we bring the bill, finally, to an end at some point. There is some point at which we end. Even after the cloture vote, 30 more hours are added onto the almost 3 weeks we have already been on it--30 hours with germane amendments allowed. Obviously, nongermane amendments would not be allowed. Is the other side saying they want a farm bill on which they can add everything that is not germane? Go out and tell that to the farmers. Tell them they stopped this bill because they wanted to add a stimulus package--some tax giveaway program or some other extraneous matters. I say to the farmers and ranchers and people in my small towns, all cloture means is we were going to reach the point of a final vote. It did not say how you vote. But there would be 30 more hours with amendments that were all germane to the farm bill. Even my friend from Iowa, my colleague, had an amendment on payment limits. He was upset this morning. There was a little to-do last night and this morning about it. We worked it out so his amendment would be germane. Yet he still voted against cloture. What more can you do? What more can you possibly do? This is not a good day for farmers, for agribusiness, for our bankers and lenders all over rural America. I have been here 27 years. Not as long as my colleague from Indiana, but I have been here 27 years. I have been on the Agriculture Committee 27 years--in the House and then here in the Senate. I have been through over a half dozen farm bills; about four of those in the Senate. Some of them have been pretty tough debates. We have had tough debates here. Farm bills engender tough debates. Sometimes I kind of like it. They are good debates. But in all of those years, I have never seen a more partisan attack on a committee-reported bill than I have seen in the last couple of weeks on the floor of the Senate. The administration, time after time after time, and the President's chief advisers, have said they do not want a farm bill this year. They want to put it off until next year sometime. The Secretary of Agriculture has also repeated those words. I would say with all due deference to my friend from Indiana, I assume he has said repeatedly we should not have a farm bill this year; we should do it next year. All right. That is OK, if that is their point of view. But let's vote on it. Let's let the majority of the Senate work its will. Yet we did not. So I would say, look to the administration. Obviously, they have their troops in order here because, I have to tell you, it is not in the best interests of a lot of people who voted against cloture to vote against cloture. They know it. Their farmers know it. Their farm organizations know it. Yet because the administration lowered the boom and said no, no farm bill this year, we don't get cloture. We do not bring it to a close. Again, hope springs eternal. I said I would do everything humanly possible to try to bring this to a close this week. I believe that I have met that commitment. I am not a dictator. I cannot force anyone on the other side of the aisle to vote one way or the other. I can only use reason, logic, and the facts, that is all--and have votes and let them debate and then have the amendments. We have done that. I am fearful next year when we come back, we are going to have new budget estimates. We are going to lose a lot of money out of this. There will be a hue and cry out of the administration that we cannot afford this. We are going to put our farmers and our ranchers in a terrible situation next year, all because of the vote that was held 15 minutes ago. How do we plan? How do farmers plan? There is huge uncertainty out there. So I hope as Senators who voted against cloture--have a Merry Christmas. I wish them all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Think about those farm families out there who are going to be worrying about what kind of farm program they are going to have next year.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I feel constrained to say a couple things about what my friend from Texas has said. I wrote this down when he said it because I thought it was a pretty astounding statement. He said the end result of all economic activity is consumption. Think about that: The end result of all economic activity is consumption. Whether that is true or not, and if I were to go ahead and assert that it was true, I do not think there is anything inconsistent with saying people ought to know what they are consuming. But I would even go further than that and say, from a learned former professor of economics, I still find that an astounding statement; that the end result of all economic activity is consumption. If that is the case, let's bring back slavery. Hey, the cheapest thing for the consumers is to have free labor. Why not? Let's do away with all environmental laws that protect the environment. Why not? If the end result is consumption, then forget about all that nonsense. Worker safety laws? Forget about all that nonsense, if the end result is simply consumption. I really think what this amendment is about, and others that are like it, is really more about transparency in markets, I say to my friend from Texas, who is an economist, transparency in markets, truth in labeling, transparency, and information to the consumer. If a country wanted to all of a sudden say that the horse meat they eat is beef, could they sell it in this country as beef if that is what they call it? It is red meat. They are in the same family of animals as cattle. They just call it beef. Why can't they sell it in this county? Truth in labeling, letting the consumer know what they are consuming, that is what it is all about. We have had a long discussion on this. I would like to bring this to a close. I am going to ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Arkansas get 5 minutes, the Senator from Mississippi wants 1 minute, and then for wrapup the Senator from Arizona will be recognized for 1 minute, after which time I would be recognized for a motion to table. I ask unanimous consent that be the order.

Mr. HARKIN. I am willing, obviously, as the Senator knows, to enter into this time agreement. We seem to have an objection over here. I see the Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside; that the Senator from Arizona be recognized to debate his amendment that is pending; that the time be limited to a half an hour evenly divided, at the end of which either a motion to table or an up-or-down vote would be in order.