Tom Harkin

Mr HARKIN

Mr HARKIN. I appreciate that commitment. I look forward to working with both of you early next year to move legislation to assist these hospitals, in Iowa and throughout the country.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--it is Friday afternoon. As chairman of the Agriculture Committee, I am seeking to get the agriculture bill done, and Members want to get finished and go home. We only have 1 amendment left on the farm bill, which can be disposed of. We can, I hope, shortly go to final passage on that. If we don't get to the farm bill we could be here for a long time. I say to my friends who are here, we do want to wrap up this farm bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again, as I understand the situation--and I stand to be corrected if I am wrong--we have a managers' package at the desk, which has been cleared on both sides; that the amendments which were objected to previously now are put back in; that there is an amendment in that package which sets a lower program level in a USDA program offsetting those amendments. With that, I understand the managers' package is acceptable; am I correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all pending amendments be withdrawn; that no further amendments be in order; that the substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to, the bill read the third time, and that the cloture motion be withdrawn; that without further intervening action or debate, the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill; that upon passage, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees.

Mr. HARKIN. I am informed that it has.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the final passage of the farm bill.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the managers' package of amendments is at the desk. Under the previous order, I ask that it be agreed to.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we will very shortly go to final passage of this bill. I will ask unanimous consent shortly to wrap that up. But first, again, I want to respond in kind to someone I didn't know until--well, we knew each other sort of slightly when he was in the House and I was in the Senate during the last farm bill, when we did that one, and then he came over and he took over as chairman of the Agriculture Committee here and did a great job. In fact, I say to Senator Chambliss that we wouldn't be here today were it not for his leadership of the Agriculture Committee in the previous years where he traveled the country and chaired hearings all over the United States. He came to Iowa and I appreciated that very much. He laid the groundwork for what we did this year. He has become a friend and a close worker. I can say honestly that in the development of this farm bill, Senator Chambliss and his staff worked very closely with us. I can't think of any one instance in which we were surprised or anything came up that we didn't know about. I hope that worked both ways. We had a very open relationship on this, and I thank Senator Chambliss for his many kindnesses and for working so closely with me personally and with others on the committee, and working with his side of the aisle to bring us to this point today. It has been a great relationship. I look forward to going to conference and getting this bill worked out as soon as possible after the first of the year, and I look forward to getting this done, hopefully even before the end of January. I also thank all of the members of the committee. We have a great committee. I can honestly say this farm bill has the imprint of every single member of our committee. There is something in here that each one on both sides of the aisle contributed to, either specifically or generically, whether it is energy or conservation or farm income protection or specialty crops or nutrition--literally every person on this committee had his or her hand in developing it. So we have a great committee. I am very proud of every single member on this committee. I also want to recognize and thank members of our committee who, as leaders on other committees, were instrumental in completing this bill. Senator Conrad, played a key role as chairman of the Budget Committee and senior member of our committee. Senator Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and Senator Grassley, the ranking Republican member of that committee, worked to obtain critical funding for this legislation and helped shape it in our committee. The bill we are passing today, the Food and Energy Security Act, is a solid, forward-looking, fiscally responsible bill. It conforms to a strict budget allocation and pay-as-you-go budget rules, yet still addresses the varied geographical and philosophical views of Senators in a very balanced way. This is my seventh farm bill, and as I've said many times before: farm bills are bipartisan, not partisan. There are regional, philosophical and other differences, to be sure. It is a very bipartisan bill. We obviously had regional concerns, budgetary concerns and differences of views, but I think we have answered those in a very balanced way. We do so much in conservation and nutrition, specialty crops, energy initiatives, disaster assistance and crop insurance programs, stronger income protection and promoting new opportunities for farmers and rural communities in this country. This is a bill that is good for farmers and ranchers. We have provisions in here for young, beginning farmers. We have provisions in here to help people transition to organic farming. We have major new investments in initiatives to help producers of specialty crops. And we continue and improve income protection for dairy producers. I wanted to say thank you to Senator Chambliss and all of the members of the committee, and I also want to recognize all of the committee staff members because these staff members have worked very hard and they deserve recognition for the passage of this bill here today. First and foremost, I thank our very capable staff director, Mark Halverson. Mark is a farmer in his own right, farms in my State of Iowa and works here, so he combines it all. He is a lawyer, he is a professional staff person, and he does actually farm. So he brings a lot of expertise and has been a guiding hand in all of this. I thank Martha Scott Poindexter, the chief of staff on the Republican side, for all of her guidance and for all of her great work. I thank you very personally, Martha Scott. Thank you. And, I say thank you to Todd Batta, who did so much on credit and forestry; Richard Bender, on rural development; Eldon Boes, who did so much on energy; Phil Buchan, on conservation; Dan Christenson, on nutrition and specialty crops; Kate Cyrul, our communications director; Katharine Ferguson, who does some of everything, covering issues and keeping our committee on track; John Ferrell, on livestock; Kerri Johannsen, on energy; Susan Keith, our general counsel, who has now worked her second farm bill with us and covers all of the commodity title. Then there is Peter Kelley, who set up all of our hearings; Amy Lowenthal, our counsel; Tina May, again on conservation; Stephanie Mercier, who did so much work on crop insurance and on trade; Derek Miller, who put together a great nutrition title; Adela Ramos, who did all of our title work on the research title and food safety; Jonathan Urban, who worked hard on getting the reauthorization of the Commodity Exchange Act last night; and, of course, Dave White, who has done so much work on conservation. I also thank our chief clerks, Bob Sturm, of course, and Jessie Williams. As we know, Bob has retired, but he comes back once in a while to help and we appreciate that; and we appreciate Jessie Williams' hard work. I would also like to mention all of the staff on the Republican side. I thank Martha Scott Poindexter, the chief of staff on the Republican side; Vernie Hubert, Hayden Milberg, Cameron Bruett, Kate Coler, Betsy Croker, Anne Hazlett, Christy Seyfert, Dawn Stump, Patty Lawrence, Alan Mackey, Erin Hamm, Matt Coley, Jane Anna Harris, and Carlisle Clarke. They are all good, dedicated people who worked very hard on this bill. I now wish to propound a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that all pending amendments be withdrawn, that no further amendments be in order, that the substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to, the bill--Mr. President, I am told the managers' package still has not been worked out. I had assumed it was. It still has not. So we are going to have to wait a few more minutes to get the managers' package put together and make sure it is agreed to. With that, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again this is a great vote--79 votes in favor of the farm bill is a great vote. I think it is an affirmation of the hard work our committee put in all this year to get to this point, on both sides of the aisle, with Senator Chambliss leading his side. On our side, we had great cooperation and great work from all the members of our committee. So I look upon this very strong vote as an affirmation of this hard work. And, indeed, it was hard work. Someone said to me a little bit ago: Gosh, December 14 is late in the year to do a farm bill. I remembered the 1981 farm bill was passed on December 17 at 2 a.m. in the morning. How do I remember that? Because my daughter was born 2 hours later, at 4 a.m. in the morning. So, to me, this is early. But nonetheless, it is a great bill and we are delighted to get it through. We look forward to going to conference now. I wish to say one other thing. Late last night, I received a phone call from Senator Biden and Senator Clinton and Senator Dodd and Senator Obama. They all reached out to me to ask: Do you need our vote for the farm bill? Because we want to be there to vote for it. We had taken a whip count, we knew we had a good bill, we knew we would have more than enough votes on this, and so I told each of them their vote was not needed. But they each assured me, Senator Biden, Senator Clinton, Senator Dodd, and Senator Obama, if their vote was needed, they would have been here, and had they been here, they would have voted for that farm bill. So I wish to thank each of them, and I want the record to show Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd, and Obama would have cast their votes in favor of the farm bill were they able to be here today. I appreciate their support, and, of course, I wish each of them excellent luck in the future. With that, again I thank all my fellow Senators, I look forward to our conference and wrapping up our conference sometime soon, in January, but this is a good bill, and you can take it home. It is a good bill for rural America and for farmers and for everyone who eats food in this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. I sure hope not.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. We are working out a unanimous consent agreement now. It is bouncing back and forth. Hopefully within a few minutes or so, we will have that. I have a feeling these votes might be stacked. I can't say right now. I have a feeling they will probably be stacked.

Mr. HARKIN. I asked my ranking member about that. He would insist on 60 votes. I am not insisting on 60 votes. He informed me that it would require 60 votes. Amendment No. 3851 to Amendment No. 3500 (Purpose: To promote legal certainty, enhance competition, and reduce systemic risk in markets for futures and over-the-counter derivatives, and for other purposes)

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. HARKIN. I thank Senator Chambliss. It is a great effort, a great product. I see one of the main architects of the provisions of this bill, and I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. HARKIN. We have 19 minutes?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask the Senator, will he yield me 4 or 5 minutes?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the Senator from Montana. I am a cosponsor of the amendment. First, I will just make an observation. In this body, out of 100 Senators, we have 2 bona fide farmers, one on the Republican side, my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, and one on our side, the Senator from Montana, Mr. Tester. These are people who actually do farm--not just own a farm, but they actually do farm. So when I hear them talk about things in agriculture, I give a lot of weight to it, not that they are always right, obviously. They would not claim that, I am sure. But you have to give some weight to their arguments, especially when they are making it on behalf of farmers. So when this amendment was first offered by the Senator from Montana, I began to look at it and consider it because I, too, had thought about the issues raised by the Senators from Kansas about whether it would be restrictive of a packer who wanted to provide premiums. I think he maybe mentioned an Angus cut or a cowboy cut, Black Angus bone-in rib eye, those that have premiums. So I was concerned. I asked my staff: Let's look at this and make sure we are OK on this. I think the way the amendment is drafted does, in fact, allow those kinds of contracts to be made because they are not manipulative of a marketplace. What the Tester amendment really goes to, I think--and I think it is clear in the way it is drafted--it goes to the packers who, let's say, might engage in collusive practices that would, in fact, depress the market price on a certain day or during a certain time and then claim they have a pro-business reason for doing so. I have not seen a business yet, in case after case--where they have colluded or where there has been some dealings--where they have not said, well, it is better for their business. Of course, if they can increase their profits, it is always better for their business, but increasing their profits at what expense? At the expense of a farmer who is relying upon the livestock market. So I think the amendment is one that really gets to the heart of the case, the Pickett case. We all know about the Pickett case. I think the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals really went riding off the range. I do not know where they came up with some of their thoughts on that. It is not the first time that the courts have gotten off course. The Packers and Stockyards Act was enacted to protect producers from packers. That was the intent, and it has been the intent ever since, to protect producers from packers. It was never intended to be some bill to ensure that packers are competitive or that they are competitive with other packers. That was never the intent of the Packers and Stockyards Act. It is to protect producers from packers to make sure there is as level a playing field as possible out there for the market to work. Markets: many buyers, many sellers--that is how a market works. If you have many buyers and one seller, no market. If you have one buyer and many sellers, no market. You have to have many buyers and many sellers for the market to work. That is what the Packers and Stockyards Act aims to protect. So, again, the amendment is not in any way intended to infringe upon contracts or forward contracts or the kinds of contracts that were mentioned in terms of giving premium prices for different kinds of meat produced. It was never intended--I know the Senator talked about the law of unintended consequences, but, again, I think the amendment is clear. The intent is to ensure anti-competitive practices in the marketplace are not allowed--are not allowed--regardless of a business justification. So, again, right now I think we have a case where the packers--I know a lot of them--I would like to say the ones I know are honest and above board, and they are. But that does not mean they all are. When it comes to making a profit here, maybe dealing something on the side. Eventually they will think they have a green light to engage in collusive practices to manipulate the market, and all you have to do is go into court and say: Business justification. What is the business justification? I made more money. I made more money. But at whose expense? At whose expense? That is why this amendment is so important. I think it is important we shine a light and at least clarify for our producers that the Eleventh Circuit Court's opinion on this is not the law of the land. We decide the law, not the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Schumer amendment No. 3720 be withdrawn.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?