Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that when I yield the floor, the Senator from Arizona be recognized to speak on his amendment; that on the disposition of the amendment of the Senator from Arizona, the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, be recognized to offer his amendment; that there be 2 hours for debate on the Cochran amendment, evenly divided, and at the end of that time, there be a vote on or in relation to the Cochran amendment, without further amendment to the Cochran amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I thank my friend for yielding. I say to my friend from Virginia that the very issues he is talking about in peanuts is in the committee bill. He doesn't have to vote for Cochran- Roberts. The same provision is in our bill. It is the same thing for the peanut farmers of Virginia. We took care of that in our bill. I know my friend from Virginia is also a strong conservationist. I know he believes in good conservation. I think my friend from Virginia, if he looks at the peanut program, will see what we do in our bill. They just copied the same thing that we already voted on unanimously, I think, in committee on the peanut provisions. That is in the bill. I hope he will take a look at the other things that are in the amendment that Cochran-Roberts cut--such as conservation and some other things which they cut in the bill. I know my friend from Virginia is a strong conservationist. He is a good hunter. I know that. He believes in the right of hunters and sportsmen. That is what we have in our bill. Our bill is strongly supported by the sportsmen of America. There is a lot of conservation that they took out. I wish the Senator would look at that.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. Amendment No. 2671 To Amendment No. 2471

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to table the Cochran-Roberts amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry for the information of all Senators: Am I correct the next order of business under the unanimous consent agreement is the Cochran-Roberts amendment, 2 hours evenly divided?

Mr. HARKIN. I assume all time has expired.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first I want to take a little bit of time right now to once again respond to my friends on the other side of the aisle and wonder why 1 week before Christmas, less than 2 weeks before the end of this year, they continue to hold up the farm bill. We had another cloture vote today in good faith, thinking that maybe over the weekend some minds might be changed; they might think secondly about stopping a farm bill that is so important to farmers in rural America. But on the vote we just had a little bit ago, I believe, if I am not mistaken, we had three Republicans vote for cloture. I am sorry, four Republicans voted for cloture. We picked up one. I am told by my friend from Mississippi we had four all along. Again, we see this stalling tactic, dragging out the farm bill. One of the press people outside just stopped me and said that a Senator on the other side said the reason this bill has so much trouble is because it is such a partisan bill. I would like to point out again to my friends and my farmers in Iowa and all over this country, this bill came out of the Agriculture Committee, every single title, on a unanimous vote, Republicans and Democrats. You can't get much more bipartisanship than that. Quite frankly, I will submit this is the most bipartisan bill to come out of our committee since I have been serving on it for the last 17 years in terms of support on both sides of the aisle on the final bill that came out of committee. Obviously, we disagreed on the commodities title, but that was still bipartisan. It was not unanimous, but it was still bipartisan. To those who say this is some kind of a partisan bill, I say: Look out the window. It is daylight out there. It is not midnight. It is daytime. Look at the bill for the facts of what happened when that bill came from committee. This bill has very strong bipartisan support. Again, there is a lot of politics now being played on this bill--a lot of politics being played. It is a shame. It is a shame that our farmers and their families, farm families all over America, facing the uncertainty of what is going to happen next year, are being held hostage by certain political games that may be going on here. It is just a darn shame. It is about time that we bring this bill to a close. We have the votes. We can have the debate, and we can have the votes. But it is obvious that for whatever reason, people on the other side of the aisle do not want this farm bill passed this year. I have said before we could finish this farm bill. We could have finished it today. If we had had cloture, we could have finished this thing today. This morning I talked on the phone to Chairman Combest from the other side. I said: If we finish this bill, can we go to conference? He said: Sure, we will go to it right away. So they are willing in a bipartisan way. The Republican leader of the Agriculture Committee on the House side said to me this morning: If you pass the bill, we are ready to go to conference today, tonight, tomorrow and begin to work this thing out. I am disappointed and saddened, not for me but for our farm families, especially in my State of Iowa and all over this country, who are being held hostage for whatever reason I can't discern.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. HARKIN. The Senator from Arizona is a gentleman. I appreciate that. I wonder if we can then agree--I will yield the floor and the Senator from Arizona will be recognized. I will ask unanimous consent that on the disposition of the McCain amendment, the Senator from Mississippi be recognized to offer his amendment; that there be a time agreement on the amendment of the Senator from Mississippi, with 2 hours evenly divided.

Mr. HARKIN. I will reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HARKIN. How much time do I have left?

Mr. HARKIN. I yield myself another 5 minutes. If anybody tells you we are going to violate WTO, that is nonsense; absolute, utter poppycock. Then under the amber box, we also have nonproduct specific. This is what we spend on crop insurance and conservation, things such as that. Under this nonproduct specific, right now, I believe, again, we are allowed $10 billion. This is 5 percent. We are allowed 5 percent of the value of our total agricultural production that we can use here for things such as for countercyclical and for crop insurance, we are allowed to spend 5 percent. We are right now, I believe, at about $7 billion. Under 1731, we will be even lower than that. We will never even get close to that 5 percent, or $10 billion cap. I also draw your attention to the green box. This is conservation, rural development. We are allowed to spend anything we want, anything without violating WTO. So what does Cochran-Roberts do? They take money out of this. They cut funding for conservation. They cut funding for rural development. They even cut some money out of research, when we have no limits on how much we can spend there. So don't let anybody fool you to think that somehow we are not compliant with WTO. We are. The last thing I will discuss--and this is not specific--is to show what they were cutting in conservation. Under the wildlife incentives program, wildlife habitat, we put in $1.25 billion. They put in only $350 million. This is for 5 years. Under the farmland protection program, where we buy up farmland and keep it from going into urban development, we put in $1.75 billion. They only put in $432 million. The conservation security program, $387 million, we put in 5 years; they zeroed it out. The Secretary of Agriculture earlier put out a book. It is called ``Food and Agriculture Policy, Taking Stock for the New Century.'' Here it is on page 10, conservation and the environment. They say, the principles for conservation: Sustained past environmental gains. Then on page 81--if I remember this book right, on page 81 it says ``the new approach.'' They are talking about incentives for stewardship on working farmlands. The new approach is broader. It may be the best option for compensating farmers for the environmental amenities they provide as well as recognizing the past efforts of ``good actors'' who already practice enhanced stewardship. The Department of Agriculture and the administration have supported conservation on working lands, helping farmers who have been good stewards in the past. That is what we do. We put the money in there, $387 million, just what the administration said they wanted. Cochran-Roberts zeroes it out. And guess what. I am told the administration supports Cochran- Roberts. They zero it out. Something is not adding up here. Something is not adding up here on this because the administration now is saying they support Cochran- Roberts. I don't know if they do. Does the administration support your amendment?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I want the talk, literally, about five things that I think Senators should consider before they vote on the pending Cochran-Roberts amendment: direct payments, loan rates, the issue of WTO and our trade agreements, conservation, and then I want to mention a little bit about total spending in the bill itself. There seems to be some confusion that somehow the Cochran-Roberts proposal is bigger in direct payments than what we have. But I would point to this chart which shows why looks can be deceiving. Under the Cochran-Roberts amendment, for example, on soybeans--I just used one crop; it could be any of them--the payment rate on direct payments is 60 cents a bushel. Actually, it is 60.68 cents per bushel. Under our bill, it is 55 cents a bushel. So to the casual observer, looking at this, you would say: Well, of course, Cochran-Roberts is better; it gives more in direct payments than what you do, Harkin, in the committee bill. But here is the catch. Under our bill, we pay for the whole base. We have 100 acres of soybeans. So we take 100 acres, and we just took an average of 38.25 bushels per acre, times 55 cents a bushel; that is a direct payment of $2,104 for that 100 acres of soybean base. Under Cochran-Roberts, take the same 100 acres, and they use the old triple base back. That is a 15-percent reduction. Actually, that came in the 1990 budget reconciliation bill, if I am not mistaken. It was that triple base rule, and they put it in there. So now it is not paid on 100 acres, but it is paid on 85 acres. They have the same 38.25 bushels an acre, just like we have--the same yield--and they pay on 85 acres. And then they only pay 78.4 percent of that. Where did that 78.4 percent come from? That is comparing the yield during the base period from 1981 to 1985 to the yield from 1998 to 2001. And it comes out to 78.4 percent. So when you get through all the convoluted workings of the Cochran- Roberts amendment, the same 100 acres of soybeans that a farmer would raise next year, they would pay $1,547 for that 100 acres under Cochran-Roberts. We pay $2,104, even though our payment rate is 55 cents a bushel. Theirs is more than 60 cents a bushel. But we do it honestly, openly. Update your base and update your yield: 100 acres times your yield, times 55 cents. They say, oh, they are paying 60 cents a bushel, but it is on 85 acres--15 percent less than the 100 acres--times your yield, times 78.4 percent. So I hope no one is going to be fooled that somehow Cochran-Roberts has more direct payments out there than we do. It is just not so. It may be higher, but it is on fewer acres, and it is on 78.4 percent of the yield of that field. So, again, when it comes to direct payments, Cochran-Roberts is convoluted. They go back to all these old payment acres and outdated yields. But we actually pay more. Next, I would like to cover loan rates. Under Cochran-Roberts, they continue current law, which establishes maximum loan rates and allows the Secretary to lower the loan rates according to a formula of 85 percent of the 5-year average price for grains and oilseeds. You drop high and low-price years. So we can look at this. This will be the loan rates shown right here on this chart. Let's just take wheat. I know the Senator from Kansas likes wheat. It is a big crop in his area. It is a good crop for the country. Under our bill, the loan rate for wheat, right now, is $3 per bushel. Now, Cochran and Roberts might tell you that really their loan rate is going to be $2--what is it?--$2.53.

Mr. HARKIN. I am sorry. It is $2.58. That is what they are saying, $2.58 per bushel. But that is the highest they can go. It is not the lowest they can go. Under their loan rates, because they use this old formula, it can go down from $2.58 to $2.30. If we have a high stocks- to-use ratio, which we do right now in wheat, the Secretary has the authority to lower that another 10 percent, down to $2.07 a bushel. So, again, under Cochran-Roberts, the loan rate can go to $2.07 a bushel for wheat. Under our bill, it can go no lower than $3 a bushel. On corn, it is the same thing. Under corn, Cochran-Roberts caps it at $1.89, as shown right here on the chart. We are at $2.08. They say: Hey, cap it at $1.89. That is all the higher it can go, but it can go a lot lower. It can go down to, I think, $1.56 a bushel, as shown on this chart right here. So don't think that this is the Cochran-Roberts loan rate, as shown on this chart right here, not by a minute. It is down in here someplace, down around in here, as shown on this chart. This is our loan rate: $2.08. The same is true of all the other grains--sorghum, barley, and oats. So when it comes to loan rates, Cochran-Roberts, again, is trying to fool you. They are trying to say: Their loan rate is less than ours, but it is pretty high. That is not so. Because under the formula, it can be reduced down, and then the Secretary has the authority to reduce it even lower. We do not give the Secretary that authority. We take that authority away from the Secretary. Our loan rates are honest. It is $3 for wheat. You cannot go a nickel lower than that. The Secretary does not have the authority to lower it. On WTO, there have been some questions raised about WTO compliance, whether or not we are going to be okay on the WTO. Under WTO, we have what is called an amber box. This is product specific, what we spend on our crops. Under the WTO provisions, we are allowed to spend $19.1 billion a year. I understand some people over here have said that under the committee bill we might exceed that; then we will be not in compliance with WTO. Well, we used CBO estimates to determine how much we might spend. Right now under the current levels of spending, we are spending about $11 billion. We are allowed 19.1, but we are spending about 11. Under 1731, using CBO estimates we will be spending about $13.6 billion. The maximum that we would spend under 1731 would be $16.6 billion, a far cry from $19.1 billion. Again, if we are allowed to spend $19.1 billion to support farm income and to support family farmers and get them a better price for their grains, why should we be down here at $11.1 billion? Why don't we get closer to $19.1 billion? Again, even under the worst case scenario, using CBO estimates we are going to be almost $3 billion less than what we are allowed. Why should we handcuff ourselves? I ask--I hope my friend will respond--why do we have to be down here at such low levels? We might as well take advantage of what WTO has given us, $19.1 billion, and use as much as we can without exceeding this. Under the WTO rules and under our bill, if it looks as though we ever are going to exceed this, the Secretary has the authority to cut payments. So there is an escape hatch. If the worst possible case scenario happened--worst case happened--it would have to be about like it was in 1985. If we had a year like 1985, we might get close to 19.1. But that was 16 years ago. We haven't had a year like that since, and I don't think it is likely we ever will. Again, under WTO we are in full compliance. That is a red herring.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, under the unanimous consent, I move to table the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my chairman for his kind words and I thank him for his leadership. There is no doubt we need to make education the top priority in this Nation. No one in the entire country, let alone this Congress, has made this more of a top priority over all of the years we have been working on this issue than the chairman of our committee, Senator Kennedy. I commend him and I commend Senator Gregg for their leadership and for working to bring this bill to fruition. There is a lot in this bill. We know kids are behind in science. We know it has been level in the fourth and eighth grades, but we know by the time they get to the twelfth grade they fall way behind. There is no doubt in my mind we need to make schools accountable and we need to make teachers and principals accountable. In order to do that we have to have the resources for it, and that is why I commend my friend, the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, who has fought so hard and so eloquently to keep pointing out time and time again we cannot demand accountability unless we include resources. I am hopeful, having passed this bill, that the Bush administration will follow through with support for the appropriations process. I happen to chair the appropriations subcommittee that funds education. Now that we have the bill and we have the authorization, the next step is to get the appropriations. I await the Bush budget next year. I want to see the budget President Bush is going to send down and I want to see if he is going to put the money behind the rhetoric and leave no child behind. That is really going to be the true test next year, the budget the President sends down. Lastly, I want to thank all of the Senators who have worked so hard to try to get full funding for special education, to get it on the mandatory side, to get it off the plate where we are pitting kids with disabilities against other kids in our schools, to just get rid of that once and for all and make special education a mandatory funding item. We had that in our bill. It was supported in the Senate by both Republicans and Democrats, and in conference, I might add. It was only because of the intransigence of the administration, in holding the Republicans on the House side, that we did not get full funding and we did not get mandatory funding for special education. One of the biggest losses in this bill is that we did not get mandatory full funding for special education because now we are going to be right back in that same rut again, with kids with special needs in schools fighting with their parents saying why should they get all this money, what about our kids in schools? And you are going to have continued problems until we step to the plate and we provide that 40 percent of funding we promised 26 years ago. Lastly, I thank the chairman and Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg for including two provisions which I think are extremely important. One is the elementary and secondary school counseling program. I believe a lot of this violence is because kids are not getting good counseling. I thank them for keeping it in. The second is the effort and equity formula for title I. It is important that States put in more money and equalize their funding so our poor kids get the money they need in the schools. I thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg for keeping those two provisions in the final bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Wasn't that the credit bill we did then?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I take the remaining few minutes we are in session today to respond to earlier statements of my colleagues, Senator Roberts and Senator Cochran. Before I do that, I will respond to the editorial in the Washington Post today at the bottom of the editorial page, entitled ``A Piggy Farm Bill.'' I thought in honor of that I would wear my piggy tie today. I have a tie with pigs on it, but they are little pigs, not big pigs. That is what the farm bill is about--helping the little person, helping the family farmer who does not have a lot of economic power like the big corporations and the big businesses all over this country. The Washington Post has it all wrong. They say the farm bill ``would institutionalize the insupportable excesses of the past few years. . . .'' Excessive spending in the farm bill is what they are alleging. They say we are spending too much money, we should not do this because it is too much money going out to our farmers. I had my staff do a little research. I thought I would put it in light of what we are spending in this country. During the Depression, public support to farmers was first established. In 1940, Federal farm support accounted for 3.9 percent of the Federal budget and .4 of a percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. In 1963, farm support accounted for 3.1 percent of the Federal budget and .55 of U.S. GDP. Over the last 3 years, Federal farm support has accounted for about 1.1 percent of the Federal budget and .2 of a percent of U.S. GDP. In the farm bill we have before the Senate, S. 1731, for the next 5- year period, Federal farm support is projected to account for about .65 percent of the Federal budget, the lowest ever, and .1 percent of U.S. GDP, the lowest ever. In 1963 it was .55 percent of U.S. GDP. When the Washington Post says we are spending too much of our national income on agriculture, I have to wonder, what are they talking about? Look at the past. We are spending less and less of our national income on agriculture. I will have more to say about that next week. Now I will respond to Senator Roberts and Senator Cochran, and Senator Grassley, my colleague from Iowa, who spoke this morning about the possibility that this bill would violate the WTO. He was greatly concerned about making sure we maintain our support to agriculture within the WTO limitations. I agree. I believe we should. We helped hammer out the WTO; we should remain within it. However, we should not be slaves to it to the point of neglecting the interests of U.S. farmers just because of WTO limitations. Here is the data. This chart is complex, but under the so called ``amber'' box we are allowed every year $19.1 billion to spend on support for agriculture in this category. That is what the concern is about. Right now the ceiling is $19.1 billion. That is what we are allowed to spend under WTO annually. Right now, the yellow is where we are, at a little over $11 billion. Under the projections of S. 1731, the bill before the Senate, under the baseline projection, we will go up to slightly less than $15 billion over the 5 years, in any given year over the 5 years; the maximum would likely be right at $16.6 billion--a lot less than the $19.1 billion we are allowed. To hear some Members talk, one would think our support to U.S. farmers ought to be way down here. But as my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, pointed out, time and time again, if we are down there, we are unilaterally disarming against the Europeans who are way up here. My point is, under the bill in the Senate, we are nowhere near coming to the $19.1 billion allowed under the WTO. I hope people do not have some kind of scare tactics out there that we cannot do anything to have an effective farm program. We cannot have loan rates. No, we cannot do that. We cannot have countercyclical payments. No, that might disrupt WTO. I will point to this chart next week to show we are nowhere near the $19.1 billion. My main objective on this farm bill is to have a sound farm bill for our farmers. My principal goal is not to satisfy the bureaucrats at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. I repeat that: My principal goal is to help farmers in America, it is not to satisfy the bureaucrats at the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. We want to stay under the $19.1 billion. And we will. But there is no reason we have to be so intimidated that we do not design a program that utilizes fully our ability to operate within that $19.1 billion. We have a safety valve in our bill. If the Secretary of Agriculture at any time estimates we are going to be above the $19.1 billion, she can take action ahead of time, in an orderly manner, to limit our support to U.S. agriculture. Second, in response to trade, we have been diligent in our farm bill in responding to the needs of our farmers to sell their products abroad. In this bill for five years, we devote $1.1 billion in added funding to promote trade overseas, such as through the Market Access Program and in the Foreign Market Development Program, Food for Progress, and a new biotechnology and trade program. Over 10 years, the CBO estimates that our bill would provide a total of $2.1 billion in added funding for advancing our trade opportunities overseas. Again, the bill we have before the Senate, S. 1731, came out of the committee on a voice vote and with a unanimous vote on all titles--you cannot get much more bipartisan than that; every single title was unanimous, except the commodity title. It was not unanimous, but it was bipartisan. Senator Roberts earlier this morning said our bill would take us back to the failed agricultural policies of the past. I have heard that phrase so many times before--I thought we had given up on that phrase. Which farm policy is he talking about that failed? Obviously the most failed farm income protection policy we have had is the so-called Freedom to Farm policy of the last 5 years. Don't take my word for it. Ask any farmer in America what they think about the Freedom to Farm bill. They have suffered through years of depressed incomes and have had to rely on the uncertain prospect of emergency farm income assistance year after year. You will not find a more failed agricultural policy in this country than Freedom to Farm. But the Cochran-Roberts bill continues Freedom to Farm. That is all it is. It is the son or the daughter of Freedom to Farm. It is Freedom to Farm II. I say to all my friends in agriculture, if you like Freedom to Farm, you will love Cochran-Roberts because that is exactly what it is. When my friend from Kansas, Senator Roberts, says the farm bill will take us back to the failed policies of the past, he must be talking about his own proposal because it is Freedom to Farm that has failed us. What we do is we build four strong legs for farm income support in our bill. Yes, we do keep direct payments, but not as much as what Cochran-Roberts does. Then we have modestly higher loan rates to help farmers when they need it the most. We have a countercyclical payment to farmers when prices are low. And we have conservation payments to farmers for being good stewards on their land. The Cochran-Roberts bill is really focused on only one thing, direct payments, exactly what we have had under the failed Freedom to Farm. There is a farm income stabilization account proposal, but it is only an add-on to the direct fixed payments. So if you have low prices, you get the same payment as you got when you had high prices. I will admit that if we have high prices for the next 3 or 4 years, the Cochran-Roberts bill will give farmers more money than what they would get under S. 1731. That is what they told farmers in 1996. In 1996 we had high prices for agricultural products. It was a good year for farmers. So they said: Oh, what we will do is we will have these direct payments out there. No matter what you get, we will have the direct payments. It looked good to farmers. Then commodity prices went in the toilet, we had very low prices, and every year for the past four years Congress has had to come in with an emergency bailout, emergency money for farmers. Is that what Cochran-Roberts wants? More of that? Where every year we have to come back, again and again, for more emergency money for a failed farm program? That is what will happen. That is what will happen if Cochran-Roberts is adopted. It will be just like we had in the last 5 years. At least under our bill we have better loan rates, loan rates that will guarantee farmers that they will not get any less than a certain amount. Couple that with our countercyclical payments, and farmers will know that no matter how low that price goes, they will have income protection at a set level. They are going to have that support in our legislation. My friend from Kansas said the problem with loan rates is you have to produce the crop to get the loan rate. If you do not produce it, if you do not get a crop, you don't get a loan rate. Every farmer knows that. That doesn't come as any big revelation. What he is saying is their direct payment is better because they put more money into direct payments than into loan rates. So if the producer does not have a crop, there is at least the higher direct payment. I am surprised to hear my friend from Kansas say that the direct fixed payments are needed to cover crop loss. He has been taking credit, with former Senator Kerrey from Nebraska, for being the author of the crop insurance reform bill that we passed last year. That bill beefed up the crop insurance program, both in terms of loss of crops and in revenue protection. So not only do you have crop insurance but you have revenue loss insurance. That is what crop insurance is there for. That is why we put money into it. The Senator from Kansas with good reason touted his crop insurance bill last year. Now he must be saying that crop insurance is not enough after all to protect against crop losses. I don't know for certain if that is what he is saying. I look forward to hearing from him on that question next week. So that is what crop insurance is for. If you have a lost crop, that is why we have a very sound, good, crop insurance program. The reason we have a loan rate is so at harvest time, when prices are the lowest, that is when farmers need the money and that is when they can get that loan rate. And it goes to the farmer. It doesn't go to the landlord in the way direct payments do. It goes to the farmer. That is where the loan rate goes. The Senator from Kansas said farmers and lenders can bank on direct payments. He forgot one thing: And landlords can bank on it, too. There is probably nothing that has driven up land prices more and created more of a land price bubble in the last few years than Freedom to Farm payments. AMTA payments are creating a land price bubble out there that has created real uncertainty and risk. So what our bill does is provide direct payments that phase down but continue. We also have modestly higher loan rates. We keep those loan rates at the set level. We don't allow the Secretary to reduce them. Under the current farm bill, the Secretary may reduce loan rates. We say she cannot any longer. We also establish a good countercyclical payment in case of low prices. And of course we have our direct payments under the conservation program. So, again, that is why I believe S. 1731 is a more balanced bill. It is one that has a safety net for farmers. Yes, I will be the first to admit that if prices are high--they aren't now--but if prices are high, farmers will receive more payments under Cochran-Roberts. If you believe the prices will be high, as they were in 1996, you may want to vote for Cochran-Roberts. But if you think we will have some years where prices are low, as they are now our bill is the better bill. And look at the projections. We are not having projected huge increases in prices in our commodities in the next few years. S. 1731, the bill that is before us, the committee-passed bill, is the one that provides that safety net to farmers. Last, I want to thank so much our majority leader, a valuable member of our committee. He is someone who knows agriculture intimately, who has spent his entire adult life, in both the House and the Senate, working on behalf of farmers. Senator Daschle has provided the leadership that we need to get this farm bill through committee and here on the floor. He has taken that leadership position to make sure that our farmers have that safety net, that we have good conservation programs, and other programs in this bill, including especially the new energy title in this farm bill. I pay my respects to Senator Daschle for his great leadership on this. He has provided that leadership because he knows what the farmers, not only of South Dakota, need, but he knows what farmers all across this country need. They need the bill we passed out of committee. And we need to get it done. We are here on Friday. We will be back again the first of the week. We will have another cloture vote on Tuesday, and we will see if our Republican colleagues are willing to let us come to closure on this bill. I say to my good friend from Indiana--and he is my friend; I know we have a little disagreement here on some aspects of this bill, but this is the crucible of democracy, to work these things out. Senator Lugar knows I respect him highly and have great admiration for him. I hope we can obtain a finite list of amendments; I hope we can list those amendment and bring this bill to closure early next week. The farmers and rural communities of America are demanding this. They need it. They need it before the new year comes. I am hopeful next week we can bring this to a close and we can give the farmers the Christmas present they need and they deserve, and that is a farm bill that they can count on, one that will shore up farm income, one that will keep us within the WTO limits, but also one that will make sure that if there are low prices, we are going to be there for our farmers and we are going to have a countercyclical payment and we will have that safety net there for farmers which we have not had in the present farm bill. Again, I hope we can bring this matter to a close early next week. Amendment No. 2604, As Modified

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I know two Senators are waiting to speak on the bill. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. That is true.

Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate my friend's comments. Quite frankly, I find little with which I can disagree. Everything you have said is basically correct in terms of the historical analysis, where we are, and the various pressures that go on in the Chamber. We all understand that. I will take a little bit of sympathy anyway. I don't mind. But we all have these different demands and expectations, as the Senator full well knows from his stewardship of this committee in the past. The only further thing I might point out again is the old numbers game. Last year was the highest net cash income, things like that. We have heard that before. I think I mentioned this to the Secretary one time. I said: If your income last year was $1 million and mine was zero, our average is $500,000, so why should I have any help? So last year the livestock sector in America did pretty darn well. The crop sector was low, but if you averaged it all out, it looked pretty good. If you just look at the crops, we weren't in very good shape. That is basically what this bill is about, the crops. The last thing I will say again to my friend, I am not so upset about the amount of money we spend on agriculture. The Washington Post editorial this morning, I know, called it a piggy bill. I said earlier, in honor of that I wore my piggy tie today. It has little pigs on it. We are in favor of the little pigs. I pointed out earlier--I don't know if my friend from Indiana caught this--that I looked at historically how much of our GDP we spent on agriculture: In 1940, about four-tenths of a percent of U.S. GDP on agriculture; in 1963, .55 percent of U.S. GDP on agriculture; over the last 3 years, two-tenths of a percent of U.S. GDP; under our bill, S. 1731, projected about .13 percent of GDP. I don't think that is a lot of our gross domestic product, .13 percent to spend on agriculture. I don't think that is a lot. Again, we can debate on how the funds are spent. I do not agree on how it all has gone out. The bigger you are, the more you get. Almost every day we have had a hearing in the committee, I always ask the same question: Should we support every bushel, bale, and pound that is produced in this country? That is what I think the debate ought to be--how we fashion those programs to help shore up a safety net, but not to encourage people to get bigger and actually use the Government largess to help people get bigger and to artificially boost up land prices. Certainly, that is a principle motivation for my focus on greater support for conservation and on a new program of income assistance tied to conservation. I have said enough on this matter today. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed that the President has announced that the United States is withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The President is adamantly pursuing a unilateral approach at a time when we so clearly need international cooperation in the war against terrorism. We now know beyond dispute that we cannot simply withdraw within our border, with a magical shield to protect us. All our gold-plated weapons systems could not prevent the terrorist attack, and they can't hunt down every terrorist. Our national security depends on international intelligence, international law enforcement, international financial transactions, international aid, in short on our relations with other nations. Yet for the first time since World War II we are walking away from a major treaty, dismaying our friends and inciting those who could become our enemies. While Russian President Putin has given a measured response, I fear our intransigence could endanger cooperation not only on terrorism in Asia but also on further reductions in nuclear arms. And China, whose much smaller missile arsenal is most directly threatened by our missile defense plans, will almost certainly build more missiles, making the world less safe. For our close allies, abandoning what we used to call the ``cornerstone'' of arms control is just the latest in a series of provocations. Last week we torpedoed negotiations on the Biological Weapons Convention, having earlier axed a verification protocol, at a time when we face a biological weapon attack. Wouldn't a little verification of foreign labs that use anthrax be useful right now? We abandoned negotiations on the Kyoto global warming accord, gutted the small arms treaty, and walked away from the United Nations Conference on Racism. We rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and dismissed the convention on land mines. How can we expect full cooperation from other nations on terrorism, when we dismiss their concerns, refusing even to negotiate, on critical issues including biological weapons, nuclear arms control, and global warming? Make no mistake, we have no technical need to withdraw from the ABM treaty at this time. Most experts agree that research and testing could continue for years without violating the present treaty. And the Russians have offered to amend the treaty if needed. Unfortunately, this administration refused to take yes for an answer. If we are to maintain international cooperation in defeating the terrorists, and also in protecting the global environment, ending child labor abuses and promoting human rights, and improving the global economy, we must ourselves show some regard for international norms and concerns. Friendship is not a one-way street. I hope we wake up to that fact before it is too late.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to highlight two provisions in the Defense appropriations bill we passed last Friday night that are of great importance to Iowans. I have spoken here before of the continued health and environmental legacy of the nuclear weapons work at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, of conventional munitions work at the same plant, and of the secrecy issues that make it difficult to help the workers there. In the last couple years the Department of Energy has made real, if slow, progress toward addressing these issues. Two provisions in this year's Defense appropriations bill promise similar progress in addressing concerns of workers on the Army side of the plant. Last year an amendment I offered to the Defense authorization bill required the Pentagon to review its secrecy policies to ensure that they do not harm workers at defense nuclear facilities, to notify workers who may have been harmed by radioactive or toxic exposures at these plants of these exposures and of how they can discuss them with health care providers and other officials, and to report back to Congress. But six months after the bill passed the Secretary had not even designated an official to carry out the provision. There still has been no notification and no report to Congress. My amendment to the Defense appropriations bill this year clarifies that provision by explicitly including employees of contractors and subcontractors of the Defense Department, a colloquy last year between Senators Levin and Warner and myself had clarified this intent, and by limiting its scope to facilities that manufacture, assemble, and disassemble nuclear weapons. The amendment also applies similar provisions to the Army side of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. It requires the Department to determine the nature and extent of exposures of current and former workers there to radioactive and other hazardous substances. It requires the Department to notify the workers of such exposures and of how they can discuss them with health providers, cleanup officials, and others. These actions are to be taken, and the Secretary is to report back to Congress, within 90 days of passage of the Act. I am pleased that the Defense Department has supported this amendment, and I hope that this time the workers in Iowa will quickly receive the support they need. Another provision in the bill provides $1 million for a health study for workers on the Army side of the plant. The University of Iowa is in the second year of a study funded by the Department of Energy of the health effects of exposures on workers at the nuclear weapons facility. The new funds will begin a similar look at the health of workers on the Army side of the plant, who were exposed to many of the same radioactive and toxic substances. The work is to be done in conjunction with the Department of Energy study. I believe that these two provisions will help the workers on the Army side of the plant to address the same questions that workers at the nuclear facility in Iowa and around the country have faced: what dangers have they encountered while serving our country, have they been harmed, and how can they get help? I would like to thank the managers of the bill for their assistance in including these provisions, in passing another amendment I offered on the Iowa National Guard's CIVIC project, and in addressing other concerns of the people of Iowa in this bill.