Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as part of my closing remarks, in case an objection was raised to the Training for Realtime Writers Act, I want to say this is something that can be done already by the administration, but I would point out that they have not done it in 10 years, either Democratic or Republican Presidents. Quite frankly, they are not focusing on it. They have said they can do it as part of their high-growth job training initiative, but they haven't done it. That is the point of the legislation. They have not done this. And for those interested in earmarks around here, 90 percent of the money in the high-growth job training----

Mr. HARKIN. Well, I want to close with 30 seconds, by saying that 90 percent----

Mr. HARKIN. Ninety percent of the money is noncompetitive. Over $235 million over 6 years has gone out in noncompetitive grants, and not one penny for real-time writers. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I object.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I object.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, in consultation with the ranking member, Senator Chambliss, I am going to repeat for the benefit of Senators a unanimous consent that was entered into last night and try to clarify it a little bit. There was one small change, and that was to add Senator Sanders into this debate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following disposition of the Gregg amendment, which we just did, that Senator Harkin be recognized to call up an amendment, and once reported by number, the amendment be set aside; that Senators Alexander, Bingaman, Salazar, and Sanders be recognized, 10 minutes for Senator Bingaman, 10 minutes for Senator Salazar, 10 minutes for Senator Sanders, and 30 minutes for Senator Alexander; that the Senate then debate the following amendments for the time limits specified under a previous order and in the order that is listed. First, it would be the Alexander amendments 3551 and 3553, 60 minutes equally divided; the Gregg amendment No. 3673, 2 hours equally divided; Dorgan-Grassley amendment No. 3695, 2 hours equally divided; Sessions amendment No. 3596, 40 minutes equally divided; Klobuchar amendment No. 3810, 60 minutes equally divided; Coburn amendments 3807, 3530, and 3632, 90 minutes equally divided.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3639.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, under the previous unanimous consent agreement, I ask that the amendment be laid aside.

Mr. HARKIN. Now we can go to the Alexander amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. If the Senator would suspend, I wish to ask how much time is remaining on this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. I assume in a quorum call the time is taken from both?

Mr. HARKIN. If the quorum call is put in now, might I ask the Chair to whom does the time run against?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I think it is only fair to ask unanimous consent any time under this quorum call be equally allocated to both sides.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for a couple minutes for informational purposes without taking away time from either side.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, we are about to begin 2 hours of debate on the Dorgan-Grassley amendment No. 3695. I have been in discussion with my ranking member, Senator Chambliss, about getting a couple or three votes stacked. I hope sometime during this debate my colleagues will yield me a little bit of time to announce we might have a consent agreement for two or three amendments that would occur as soon as the debate has ended on the Dorgan-Grassley amendment or time is yielded back. That is what we are working on right now. Hopefully, in the next several minutes, we will have some information about when those votes might occur. We are trying to work out this agreement. I am certain either Senator Dorgan or Senator Grassley, one of the debaters, will yield us a minute at some point during the debate to line up two or three amendments. I ask unanimous consent that at the end of the debate on the Dorgan- Grassley amendment, or time being yielded back, the Senate proceed to vote on or in relation to Alexander amendments Nos. 3551 and 3553.

Mr. HARKIN. That is right.

Mr. HARKIN. If we use all time, those two votes will occur, obviously, at about 6:20 p.m. If time is yielded back, it could be a little bit earlier than that.

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend, yes. In speaking with the majority leader, the majority leader said this is going to be a late night. We have a number of amendments on both sides that I think we can debate and we can vote on this evening. I say to my friend, yes, I hope we can vote on the Coburn amendments, the Sessions amendment, the Gregg amendment, and the Alexander amendments, and there may be a couple on our side we are trying to get cleared for short debates and votes yet this evening.

Mr. HARKIN. Go ahead.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: What is the order before the Senate at the present time? Amendment No. 3596

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have not seen the modification. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I join my colleague and concur in his remarks on the Sessions amendment. For a lot of subjects before us we get good ideas, interesting ideas that come up via amendments on bills. This isn't the first time it has happened. As Senator Chambliss said, this idea has been talked about, floated around for a while. Senator Sessions has perhaps focused it more than I have seen in the past on the savings account idea. But I think Senator Chambliss is right. This is a very complicated subject. It involves a lot of different considerations and as well as interactions with other programs in agriculture. I would just say to my friend from Alabama that I would, with Senator Chambliss, be willing to have some hearings on this next year, and I invite the Senator to testify and bring some witnesses in, as Senator Chambliss says, some agricultural economists, some agricultural producers, and see what this proposal would do. If it has legs, if it has some merit, we could move it. Just because we pass a farm bill doesn't mean that our committee is dormant for 5 years. We will be holding hearings and working on legislation. The occupant of the chair, too, will be actively involved in a lot of those discussions next year as a valuable member of our committee. So I would just say to the Senator from Alabama, I am going to join Senator Chambliss in opposing the amendment. Not that I am absolutely, irrevocably opposed to it, but it is a little bit too much of a change on a bill now, without the kind of hearings and due diligence that we should apply to it. So I will oppose it. But I will say this to Senator Sessions: I look forward to having some hearings on it next year.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, when I hear the Senator describe how the money is going out, of course it sounds bad. No one wants EQIP money going for doctors who buy a little bit of acreage and want to put in a pond and have a fishing hole. We don't want EQIP money going for that, and it should not go for that. But the way the amendment is drafted, it just says two-thirds of your income has to be from farming before you can qualify for EQIP. The problem with that is there are a lot of young, beginning farmers who are farming, but they are not making enough money from the farm to sustain themselves, and they and their spouse need to work at other jobs. They may have a night job and the spouse may have a job. Most of their income may not be from that farming venture, but the money they are earning is going into the farm and they are building up their farm asset base. I see this happening, and we don't want to discourage that. Those are the people who may need some EQIP money. They may need to build a fence for livestock production. That EQIP money ought to be there for them to do that. Maybe they are improving their land and they need a water-holding facility to provide livestock with water on an around-the-year basis. That happens in our State, and I am sure it happens in Oklahoma too. They may not be getting two-thirds of their income from farming for a while. Later, they may, as they build up their assets and become better farmers and they get more income from farming. So according to the Economic Research Service data, this amendment would bar EQIP contracts for 71.2 percent of all producers who receive them in 2006. You cannot say that 71 percent of all those people are these rich doctors putting in a fence and putting their horses out there. That may be a small part of these contracts, but it seems to me you are going after a lot of people who deserve EQIP contracts to go after some who don't deserve them. The farms that would still qualify under the Senator's amendment would tend to be relatively large farms--that is, with gross income on average over $654,000. Again, these are the producers that have a greater ability to pay for conservation. I repeat: the larger farms, where the producers get more than two-thirds of their income from farming, average over $654,000 in gross income. If you compare that to a beginning farmer, they would actually have more ability to pay for conservation on their own, but this amendment would hurt the younger farmers with lower incomes and second jobs to make ends meet. As I said, I just think this kind of a shotgun approach isn't the way to go. I wish there were some way to refine it to get at the very problem the Senator spoke about.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask that the second-degree amendment be agreed to.