Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we proceed to the Allard amendment No. 3572; that there be 60 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the amendment, with the time equally divided and controlled in the usual form, with no second-degree amendment in order prior to the vote; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. I do not modify my request.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am certain the Senator will have another unanimous consent request of his own very shortly, as he just enunciated. I just proposed five requests for votes in relation to amendments that are relevant to the farm bill. As we just heard, there are objections to each one of those. We are ready to move ahead. We have been here now a week, over a week, on this farm bill, and we are stuck, dead in the water. Again, my friend, Senator Chambliss, said he wanted to send to the desk a list of amendments that have been looked at. Not all of them have been filed, as I understand, but they have been talked about. As I understand it, there are 255 amendments. That is ridiculous. Of course, we are not going to have 255 amendments. But at least we could work. We are here; we could be working now. We could debate the Dorgan amendment and vote on it today. There are five requests I just offered right now, five amendments we could dispose of this afternoon. The other side objected to each one of those. Again, I am extremely frustrated, as the chairman of the committee. We got a bill through. We worked very hard on it. Senator Chambliss worked very hard on it. Yet we are stuck. We got it through committee. There was not one dissenting vote in the committee, not one. It is a good bill. As Senator Lincoln said--I heard her speech this morning--it is bipartisan, it is multiregional. There are a lot of compromises in it, as is true in any bill. But we got it through without a dissenting vote. Yet we cannot even work on it on the Senate floor? We cannot even work on it. Forget about passing it, we can't even work on it. I just propounded five requests to have debate and votes on amendments, relevant amendments to this farm bill, and every time it was objected to. I don't know. I just want to make it clear that we on this side are ready to do business. We have been for a week. We could have been debating relevant amendments. We could have almost--we could have been done with this bill by now. I want to point out a little bit of history. On the last farm bill, when I was privileged to chair the committee at that time in the Senate, in 2002, we had 10 days of consideration in December and 6 days in February. That was it. Mr. President, 53 amendments were considered, not 255. In 1996, we had 4 days of consideration, 24 amendments to the bill; in 1990, 7 days of consideration, and we proceeded to vote on it. This is very frustrating. We are here. We are ready to do business. We are ready to debate and vote. Yet the leadership on the other side says no. The leadership says no. I wanted to make it clear, fundamentally, basically clear to all Senators and anyone watching: We on this side have been ready, are ready, are willing to debate and vote on these amendments. It has been objected to on the other side. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I see my friend, Senator Chambliss, is on the floor. I think we are both very frustrated. I don't think, I know we are both very frustrated that we are stymied on this farm bill. We are not moving anywhere. But in hopes that maybe we can get something moving, I am going to propound some unanimous consent requests to see if we can't break out and move ahead. So I inquire of my colleague, Senator Chambliss, as to whether we can agree to a time limitation for debate with respect to the pending Dorgan-Grassley amendment. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that there be 60 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the Dorgan amendment No. 3508, with the time equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote in relation to the amendment; that no second-degree amendment be in order prior to the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that we proceed to the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment regarding farm program reform; that there be 2 hours of debate with respect to the amendment prior to a vote; that no amendments be in order to the amendment prior to the vote; that the time be equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the amendment.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership as it relates to U.S. policy on nuclear fuel management.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet in executive session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 9:30 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. committee on homeland security and governmental affairs

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a business meeting to consider pending committee business. Agenda Legislation S. 2324, Inspector General Reform Act of 2007; S. 2292, National Bombing Prevention Act of 2007; S. 1667, a bill to establish a pilot program for the expedited disposal of Federal real property; S. 1000, Telework Enhancement Act of 2007; S. 2321, E-Government Reauthorization Act of 2007; H.R. 390, Preservation of Records of Servitude, Emancipation, and Post-Civil War Reconstruction Act; and H.R. 3571, a bill to amend the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 to permit individuals who have served as employees of the Office of Compliance to serve as Executive Director, Deputy Executive Director, or General Counsel of the Office, and to permit individuals appointed to such positions to serve one additional term. Nominations Robert D. Jamison, Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Wiley Ross Ashley III, Assistant Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and the Honorable Ellen C. Williams, Member, Postal Board of Governors. Postal Naming Bills S. 2174, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 175 South Monroe Street in Tiffin, Ohio, as the ``Paul E. Gillmor Post Office Building;'' H.R. 2089, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 701 Loyola Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the ``Louisiana Armed Services Veterans Post Office;'' H.R. 3297, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 950 West Trenton Avenue in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, as the ``Nate DeTample Post Office Building;'' H.R. 3308, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 216 East Main Street in Atwood, Indiana, as the ``Lance Corporal David K. Fribley Post Office;'' H.R. 3530, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1400 Highway 41 North in Inverness, Florida, as the ``Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Weaver Post Office Building;'' H.R. 2276, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 203 North Main Street in Vassar, Michigan, as the ``Corporal Christopher E. Esckelson Post Office Building;'' H.R. 3325, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 235 Mountain Road in Suffield, Connecticut, as the ``Corporal Stephen R. Bixler Post Office;'' S. 2110, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 427 North Street in Taft, California, as the ``Larry S. Pierce Post Office;'' H.R. 3382, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 200 North William Street in Goldsboro, North Carolina, as the ``Philip A. Baddour Sr. Post Office;'' S. 2290, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 16731 Santa Ana Avenue in Fontana, California, as the ``Beatrice E. Watson Post Office Building;'' S. 2272, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service known as the Southpark Station in Alexandria, Louisiana, as the ``John `Marty' Thiels Southpark Station;'' H.R. 3446, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 202 East Michigan Avenue in Marshall, Michigan, as the ``Michael W. Schragg Post Office Building;'' S. 2150/H.R. 3572, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4320 Blue Parkway in Kansas City, Missouri, as the ``Wallace S. Hartsfield Post Office Building;'' S. 2107/H.R. 3307, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 570 Broadway in Bayonne, New Jersey, as the ``Dennis P. Collins Post Office Building;'' H.R. 3518, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1430 South Highway 29 in Cantonment, Florida, as the ``Charles H. Hendrix Post Office Building.''

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, in order to conduct a markup of pending legislation. Immediately following the conclusion of the markup, the Committee will conduct a hearing on the nomination of Michael W. Hager, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Human Resources and Management. The committee will meet in room SD-562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Medicaid Providers That Cheat on Their Taxes and What Can Be Done About It.''

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing. The hearing will focus on the need to improve the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is responsible for coordinating and directing Federal climate change research. It will also address the need for improved communication of climate information to decision makers.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 14, 2007, at 10:30 a.m., in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Shareholder Rights and Proxy Access.''

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on November 14, 2007, at 2 p.m., in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Sovereign Wealth Fund Acquisitions and Other Foreign Government Investments in the U.S.: Assessing the Economic and National Security Implications.''

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, be authorized to meet in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``No Safe Haven: Accountability for Human Rights Violators in the United States'' on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 10 a.m. in room SD-266 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Witness list Panel I: Sigal P. Mandelker, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, and Marcy M. Forman, Director of Office of Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC. Panel II: David Scheffer, Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago, IL; Pamela Merchant, Executive Director, Center for Justice and Accountability, San Francisco, CA; and Juan Romagoza Arce, Executive Director, La Clinica del Pueblo, Washington, DC.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Karla Bromwell of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Virginia Murphy, who is on detail from the Department of Agriculture to the office of Senator Feinstein, be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of debate and any vote on H.R. 2419.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the leader yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank our majority leader for all the support he has given us in getting this bill through even when we worked in committee and working with the Finance Committee to make sure we had the necessary money to meet our obligations and bringing it to the floor in a timely manner. We had all last week; we couldn't get anything done. We have this week before we go home for the Thanksgiving break. We could finish this bill, I say to our leader, we could finish this bill if we could just get the other side to agree to start the process. We have an amendment, I say to the leader, before us which we could debate. We could even put a time limit on it. We have another amendment on which we could put a time limit. We could get two or three or four amendments done today. But, I say to the leader, I am very frustrated that we have the farm bill out here, we are ready to go--we have been ready for some time--there are amendments filed, and we would like to get started on it, but we can't until the minority leader agrees to move ahead and says we can bring up some of these amendments and move ahead on them. I just hope we don't waste another whole day. I ask the leader, is there any way we can get the other side to kind of help move us along? I have talked to my ranking member, Senator Chambliss. He wants to move ahead. He has the desire, as I do. As the leader pointed out, this bill came out of committee on a bipartisan vote. There are going to be amendments, and I may support some and not others, and I am sure my ranking member will support some and not others, but that is the amendment process. I think we have a good bill that is going to wind up getting a lot of support on the Senate floor, and the sooner we get to it, the better off we are. So I am just kind of perplexed, I guess, as to why the minority leader won't let us move ahead or why we can't get some amendments and time agreements.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, earlier today, President Bush vetoed the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. I wish I could say I was surprised but, frankly, few actions by this President surprise me anymore. This is a good bill, a bipartisan bill, a bill that cleared both Houses with clear, strong majorities. In fact, the first one cleared here by 75 votes. It is a bill that reflects the critical education, health, job training needs of our country, especially for Americans who are at the bottom rungs of the socio- economic ladder. The bill was endorsed by more than 1,000--actually 1,075, to be exact--health, education, social service, and labor organizations in this country. There are disability groups in this letter, disease advocacy groups, school groups, community action partnerships, religious groups--millions of people across America are represented on this letter. This morning President Bush turned his back on all of them. He seems to have no problem pouring billions of dollars into Iraq for schools, hospitals, job programs, health needs, but when it comes to those priorities here in America, the President says no. After spending all these billions of dollars on schools, hospitals, job programs, and health needs in Iraq, it is time to start investing some of that money here in America. The President insists we have to stick to exactly the top number in his budget. Frankly, if we did that, we would be cutting programs such as the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program for the elderly at a time when we know fuel prices are going to be extremely high this winter. The President completely zeroed out the social services block grant and cut the community services block grant by 50 percent. Under the President's budget, we would be cutting the National Cancer Institute. At a time when we are starting to make some progress in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and so many other things, he cuts funding for the NIH. Again, we need to put more money into special education to help some of our beleaguered property tax payers in our States. We have a backlog of several hundred thousand cases in Social Security. People who have paid in all their lives to Social Security, if they have a problem and they have an appeal pending or a case to be heard--there are 700,000 backlogged. It is about a year-and-a-half wait right now to get Social Security. It is unconscionable. We put money in there to reduce the backlog. We wanted to fund more community health centers as one of the great things we have done in this country to help people who are not getting their health care needs attended to, to get them at their community health care centers. It has done a great job nationally. We put more money into the Head Start Program. And No Child Left Behind--we put more money in there to meet our needs in title I schools, teacher training. These are all provisions that were in our bill. As I noted before, it was bipartisan. I worked very closely with Senator Specter, our ranking member. There were dozens of provisions and funding increases in the bill that were requested specifically by Republicans, those on the other side of the aisle who requested that we increase funding in these areas. Unfortunately, it seems Mr. Bush is more interested in provoking a confrontation than in governing responsibly. He recently dismissed the funding in this bill as ``social spending,'' as though somehow it pays for ice cream socials or Saturday-night socials or something such as that--social spending. I never heard it referred to like that. It is out of bounds, it is out of touch, it shows how isolated this President has become. Every dime of additional funding in this bill goes to bedrock essential programs and services that have been shortchanged in the last few years. I mentioned them: community health centers, Head Start, NIH, special education, student aid, social services block grant and community services block grant, Pell grants. These are all things that have been shortchanged. The President's budget would cut NIH, LIHEAP, special education, and eliminate the community services block grant, job training, housing and emergency food assistance for our most needy citizens. Apparently, Mr. Bush sees this as frivolous social spending. I couldn't disagree more. We have to keep the President's veto this morning in context. During the 6 years Republicans controlled Congress, Mr. Bush did not veto a single appropriations bill, including many that went over his budget. He never vetoed one of them. Now Democrats are in charge. Yes, we have gone over budget in some of the areas I mentioned and not only with the support but the encouragement of Republican Members who wanted to add more money. I guess because the Democrats run Congress now, the President says he will veto them. He did. He vetoed the bill this morning, but he never vetoed one in 6 years even though they were above his request. It smacks of the most blatant form of partisanship and politics. It kind of goes beyond the pale. A few weeks ago the President sent up a new supplemental spending bill. We will be working on that this week. I don't know if we will pass it this week or when we come back in December. It is more than $196 billion, mostly for Iraq. The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that Mr. Bush's war in Iraq will cost a staggering $1.9 trillion in the next decade. Yet he vetoed this bill, over $12 billion in funding for education, health, biomedical research, and other domestic priorities. You ask: $1.9 trillion, $12 billion, what does it mean? Look at it this way: Do away with all the zeroes. It means Mr. Bush is asking for $1,900 for Iraq. Yet he vetoed this bill because we spent $12 more than what he wanted. That shows misplaced priorities: $12 billion a month for the war in Iraq, yet he vetoed this bill which is $12 billion for a whole year. What is most disappointing about the President's veto this morning is his total unwillingness to compromise. Any time we work out bills, we compromise. That is the art of democracy. We compromise. No one around here ever gets everything he or she wants, but we make compromises. We do it in committee; we do it on the floor of the Senate. We do it between the House and the Senate. Then when all is said and done and we work in conference, usually the President will work with us to work out problems. This is where the White House is. Where do we meet? The President never came to our conference--I shouldn't say the President didn't, but his people never came to our conference to offer compromises, where we might meet halfway. When the President sent down his veto message, he mentioned two things about our bill: One, it had the lifting of his ban on stem cell research; two, it spent more money than he wanted. I thought a compromise might be: OK, we will take off the stem cell stuff, and you agree to the spending priorities we have. We voluntarily, to try to meet the President halfway, said: OK, we will take off the stem cell issue, even though Senator Specter and I both believe strongly in it. It passed the committee with only three dissenting votes. The Senate has spoken at least twice in support of an embryonic stem cell bill to take off the handcuffs the President has put on scientists. But even that wasn't enough. Then we went to conference. We thought: OK, will the President now try to meet us somewhat on the spending part? The answer was no. It was his way or the highway. We either agree totally with the President or he is going to veto it and the White House will put pressure on the House because that is where the bill goes for an override, to keep them from overriding his veto. It is sad the President has taken that position. Under the Constitution, Congress does have the power to override a veto. It happened last week with the water resources bill. He vetoed it. Both the House and Senate voted over two-thirds, as is constitutionally required, to override the veto. We could do it on this bill that funds education, everything from Head Start, elementary education with title I, No Child Left Behind, elementary and secondary education, college with Pell grants, student loans, forgiveness of loans if you go into certain occupations such as medically underserved areas, legal services, or become a prosecuting attorney--the type of occupations that don't pay a lot of money but are needed in our country. On health, especially all the biomedical research that was in that bill for NIH, the money for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for making sure we get more flu vaccine this year stockpiled, not to mention all of the efforts that CDC is doing in stockpiling other vaccines in case of a terrorist incident, something that might happen--we hope it doesn't, but we have to be prepared for it--that is in this bill he vetoed. I mentioned things such as low-income heating energy assistance for low-income elderly. This is all in this bill. Now it is up to the House whether they will vote to override the veto. It will be interesting to see how many House Members would vote to override the President on the water resources bill but would not vote to override a bill that deals with health, education, community block grants, NIH, the Centers for Disease Control. It will be interesting. The Water Resources Development Act was an important bill. I was strongly supportive of it. It goes basically to meet one of the urgent infrastructure needs of the country: waterways, to make sure we upgrade our locks and dams and make sure they are adequate to the environmental needs and river transportation needs for the next century. It is vital. The Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor appropriations bill is sort of the counterpart of that in terms of the human infrastructure, making sure we have the best educated populace, that we meet the health care needs of people, that we invest in cutting edge research, that we have good job retraining programs. We just had a case where a Maytag plant, after all these years, closed in Newton, IA. We need job retraining programs. That is in this bill the President vetoed. It is human infrastructure needs. It will be interesting to see how many House Members vote to override the President when it comes to the physical infrastructure but now will not vote to override the President when it comes to the human infrastructure. I hope it is very few. I hope we get the same number of votes to override the President's veto on this Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor appropriations bill as we got on the water resources bill. It is a sad day that the President would veto this bill. We went out of our way to meet him halfway, but he said absolutely not. It is his way or nothing else. That is not the way we do things. The President is not acting responsibly, quite frankly, in this area. I don't know what we can do. If the House overrides the veto, I am pretty certain we would have the votes here to override the veto. We would have to wait for the House to act first. I hope they do, and I hope we get it. I hope we vote to override the veto. But until then, we have to see what the House is going to do. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, it is hard to believe, but we are on the farm bill. As any casual observer might notice, we are not doing anything. We sit here with an empty Chamber. The farm bill has now been on the floor for over a week. The farm bill was laid down a week ago yesterday, as a matter of fact, and nothing has happened. Why hasn't anything happened? Because we can't get anything from the other side. We want to move ahead. We wanted to ask unanimous consent to go ahead with an amendment with a time limit, vote on it, and move to another amendment, but the other side refuses. The Republican leadership refuses to move ahead on the farm bill. I suggested earlier today that we may at least want to have some amendments up. We cannot get consent on the other side. So here we sit. At this rate, we may not have a farm bill. We worked very hard on it this year. First, on the other side in the House, they got a farm bill passed early. We met and worked hard on it all summer long and worked with the Finance Committee to get extra funds to meet our obligations. I am checking on this right now, but I believe we had a record movement of a farm bill through our committee this year--a day and a half, a short day and a half. Now, this is my seventh farm bill. I have never seen anything move that fast. It was the result of weeks and weeks and months and months of working with the other side, with everybody working together, hammering out agreements, before we brought it to the committee. That is a good way of doing things around here. You establish relationships, figure out what people need to make sure they take care of their constituents. We came out of committee with not one vote against the farm bill. That never happened before, either, to the best of my memory. We always have a split vote coming out of committee on the farm bill. So it took a day and a half to get it out. I commend my ranking member, Senator Chambliss, who worked very hard on his side to pull things together. I don't even know how many amendments we had in that day and a half--four, five, or six--not very many. We disposed of them; we either adopted them or not. When we voted the bill out, we didn't have one dissenting vote. So you would think a bill such as that coming to the floor could be handled rapidly. But then we got here and we wanted to move it, so our majority leader, exercising his right as majority leader, said we will do this bill and we will do relevant amendments. If it is relevant to the farm bill, we will take all comers. Bring them all. That sounds good to me--open debate, open amendments. Bring on the amendments to the farm bill. But the other side said, no, they may have some extraneous amendments dealing with children's health care, estate taxes--I don't know what else. We may have had some on this side too. But we were agreeing that we would not take any non-relevant amendments, whether they were from Democrats or Republicans. I thought that was a pretty good way to proceed, to just focus on the farm bill. The Republican side said no. We have been locked here for over a week. I say to my friends in farm country--farmers, ranchers, agribusiness, the suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, shippers, those who sell seed, the elevator operators, fertilizer dealers, and those in the livestock industry, who want to know what the farm bill is like so they can plan ahead on whether they are going to milk more cows or fewer cows: Will the milk go to class A or class B? Will we feed more cattle or will we shift to feeding hogs? What is the lay of the land going to be? They need certainty. The livestock market is volatile as it is, but they need some certainty as to what we are going to do here. That is why we worked very hard to get the bill done, hopefully, by December, which is not unusual--except for the last farm bill when I was chairman at that time, the House was in Republican hands and the Senate was Democratic, and we got it through ahead of schedule. But for that one exception, every farm bill comes in late. That is just the nature of things around here, I guess. We usually get them done by December. The present farm bill is expired. We are now on a continuing resolution. I say to my friends in farm and ranch country, you ought to be calling up the minority leadership and saying we ought to get this farm bill through. We have to get it through. But if we don't move soon, we will have an extension of the present farm bill. We will just extend it. All the work we have done this year will be for naught. We will have to pick it up again some other time. That may be what will happen because of the fact that we cannot get an agreement to move ahead. We are stuck here at 6:20 in the evening, and we have been on the bill 1 week with not one amendment. All we ask is for the other side to bring forth amendments, and we will get ours and start moving. I know we are trying to work things out. After a while, my patience runs out. Next week, we have Thanksgiving. People want to go home for Thanksgiving. If we don't finish the farm bill this week, it is going to be hard to have a farm bill done before we go home for Christmas. I know what it is like after Thanksgiving when we come back. We have 3 weeks, and we have all our appropriations bills. I am chairman of one of the appropriations subcommittees. We have all that to do. We have the Iraq war funding to consider, and we have some tax bills. Everybody is going to want to get out of here and get home for Christmas. I say to all those watching, if we don't get a farm bill done this week, it will be hard to get one done this year. Maybe we will have to go into next year sometime to get it done. I hope that doesn't happen, but here we sit with no action, and there are going to be other things to be brought up this week, such as conference reports. So here we sit. I hope we can reach some agreement and move ahead rapidly. If we don't, it looks as if we may be in for a long continuing resolution on the farm bill--either into next year or beyond. I don't know when we can finally get it done. But it is too important to just leave it go. We would like to get it done. Is there everything in the farm bill I would have wished for? No. Senator Chambliss and every member of the committee could say the same thing. That is the art of compromise. This bill is a good compromise among all regions of the country. I hope we can move ahead. I want to talk a little about one area of the farm bill about which I feel very passionate. Even though we have done some good things, we haven't done as much as we need to do, considering the enormity of what confronts us in terms of the loss of our soil, the pollution of our water and waterways, and the degradation of whole areas of this country because of intensive cropping or lack of good practices. We are facing a dire circumstance in this country where we are going to lose the productivity of our soil. Almost like global warming, it may reach a point where the scales have tipped so far that to get the productivity back, to clean up our waterways might be almost impossible or will cost so much money that we won't be able to do it. All of the farmers I have fought for so hard over these last 32 years are what I call the front line of conservationists. Farmers and ranchers want to protect the soil. They want to leave it better for future generations. When you are caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of all of the input costs, what it costs to produce a crop, the demands on those crops, and some negative incentives in the system right now in terms of Government support to farming and ranching--you put all those together, and there is a counterpressure, if you will, from the Government and from society at large against the farmer being a good conservationist. We are placing tremendous demands on our food and fiber producers in this country--tremendous demands--and, with the ethanol boom and others, even more demand for the productivity of our soil. So what is happening right now, in many cases, is we are pushing it to the limits and beyond the limits to what soil can carry and what our water can carry, and now we have to think about being really good conservationists, not on the scale of the individual farmer but on a national scale. I wish to take some time to talk about conservation and what is happening in our country at large in terms of conservation and what is happening to our soil and water in America and why we have to do something about it and why little steps, little things aren't going to do it. We need some big steps, big interventions, just as we do on global warming. The previous two speakers talked about that. If we just tinker around the edges, it won't mean anything. It is the same with conservation. We need a national commitment to a conservation ethic to restore, renew, and preserve our waterways, our soil, our wildlife habitats, and, yes, the source of our water. All that needs to be preserved. I have some pictures I wanted to point to here, some charts to give an idea of what I am talking about. I will bet you, Mr. President, a lot of Americans have seen this first picture somewhere. Every school kid has seen it in a history book. It is reprinted time and time again in one of our periodical magazines, talking about the great Dust Bowl of the 1930s. What was the Dust Bowl? It took place in the panhandles of Oklahoma, Texas, some in New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, up into Nebraska, and stretching up into South Dakota. This is one of the famous pictures taken in Cimarron, OK, in 1936 in the Dust Bowl. You can see there is no grass, nothing. You can see that the top of the posts are covered with dust. And there is a farmer and his kids running to take shelter from yet another one of the dust storms. That was in Cimarron County. The year before that, in 1935, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the Soil Conservation Act passed and the Soil Conservation Service began providing help and service to farmers on conservation. The next picture shows what happened that year. This is another famous picture, of a dust cloud in Kansas. On April 14, 1935, a dust storm started in eastern Montana, western North Dakota, rumbled through South Dakota into Nebraska, across Kansas into Oklahoma and into Texas. This dust storm was called Black Sunday. It was the biggest dust storm ever. In fact, it was preceded the previous year by a dust storm that swept from west to east that dumped dust on New York City. New York City got so dark it had to turn on its lights. Ships at sea could not dock in New York City because of the dust. There is a wonderful book that I recommend that was released last year. This book by Timothy Egan is called ``The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.'' I recommend this book. First of all, it is a great read. He tells a wonderful story about the Dust Bowl, but he tells the history of the whole area and what happened in that area in the 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, up to the 1930s. Here is what he said: By some estimates, more than 80 million acres in the southern plains were stripped of topsoil. Mr. President, 80 million acres. In less than 20 years, a rich cover that had taken several thousand years to develop was disappearing day by day. Eighty million acres of grassland turned over, grassland that he says in the book was laid down almost 20,000 years ago. As he said, this was land the buffalo couldn't hurt, the tornadoes, the fires, and the floods struck, but the grasslands stayed, and they came back year after year. But then there was the land rush. That area was opened up to homesteaders. They came in with plows and new equipment. They plowed it all up, turned it over. As one person said in Timothy Egan's book, he looked around and said: There is something wrong here; the wrong side is up. The dirt is up and the grass is down and the wind started blowing. And then came Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, the worst dust storm in recorded history. I don't mean in this century; I mean in recorded history, the worst dust storm ever. Again, when people look at that picture and they read about Black Sunday, they say: That is all over with; we took care of that situation. But look at this next photograph: a dust storm, the same as you saw before, and this time with color photography. That is a dust storm in the same area in Kansas, taken last year. The same huge dust storms rumbling through the plains because we have, once again, stripped the soil bare, turned the wrong side up, and we lack good conservation practices. Here is another picture. This one could have been in the thirties just as the first picture I showed, but this was taken in South Dakota last year. Here is a fence. We can barely see it. The top of the fence is almost covered, and it stretches as far as the eye can see. That is just dust and a few tumbleweeds. That is South Dakota last year. I hope we can recall the lessons of the thirties and what putting marginal cropland in production will really cost us. This farm bill will prohibit allowing newly broken native sod into the Crop Insurance Program. That is vitally important because you cannot be covered under the disaster provisions of this farm bill unless you buy crop insurance. So if you turn over native sod, you cannot get crop insurance on the newly broken land, and you will not get disaster payments, and you will not be eligible then for all the other programs. So there is a strong provision in this bill to at least save some of the native sod because history can and will and does repeat itself, as we have just shown. That is the dust. Here is the water. This is a cornfield in my part of the country. We can see that it has rained, and there is water running off. It is running probably into a ditch, that ditch drains probably into a small stream, that small stream runs into a bigger river, and that river goes into either the Missouri River or the Mississippi River. What happens is when this soil and water runs off, it is taking with it phosphorous, and it is taking with it nitrogen, washing down into the river. What happens to it? When it goes down river, it winds up down south of New Orleans. In this next photograph, the red area is called the hypoxic area, the dead zone in the mouth of the Mississippi. This picture was taken by satellite this year. That area in red is now the size of New Jersey. These nutrient levels are so high, that it triggers an explosive growth of algae; when the algae dies, the decomposition process consumes all the oxygen, so all marine life dies--no crabs, no shrimp, no nothing. So, again, the water we saw running off these fields goes into the Mississippi, and this is what happens to it. What can be done about it? There are things that can be done about it. This picture show us one. I showed you a picture a little bit ago of the water running off the field. That wouldn't happen here. This is the Boone River watershed, Hamilton County, IA. We see buffer strips along the streams. So if there is a heavy rain, any runoff will be trapped by the trees and the grasslands and whatever else is in between. Those nutrients are good for trees. It makes them grow. The trees keep the nutrients from going in the water. Practices such as this are promoted by several conservation programs--the Conservation Stewardship Program, the EQIP program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the Conservation Reserve Program, especially the continuous signup. What is so important to note is that these are incentives paid to farmers to do these strips. One might say: Why wouldn't farmers just do that on their own? Why? Because of economics. The Senator was present today when I mentioned earlier about my backyard. I happen to be one of a few people who actually lives in the house in which he was born. Not many people can say that. I actually live in the house in which I was born. A lot of people say: Harkin, I live in the house I grew up in. I said: That is not what I said. I live in the house in which I was born. I wasn't born in a hospital. I was born in a house, as were all my five siblings. We lived in a small town in rural Iowa. People were born at home. In my home, we have a nice backyard with fruit trees. My wife planted a nice garden out there. Ever since I was a kid, I always thought I knew where the end of our garden was to the east, and there has always been a field there, about a 140-acre field with corn and beans. Because of the high price of corn and the high price of beans, the owner of that property sent a notice to all of us who live around it saying: I just had my property resurveyed, and my property is about 6 feet more into your property than what you think. He has his rights. No one ever bothered to think about it in the past. We had our garden there, and we had our trees. As a consequence, I am going to have to have some of our bushes and trees taken out and move the line back. I guess I mind a little bit, but the guy is within his rights. One might think: What does 6 feet mean? Up until now, 6 feet never meant a hoot to any farmer who farmed that land, and it has gone through three or four different hands. No one ever cared about it. Because the demands are now so high on the owner of that property, and I am sure the farmer who farms that land says: You know, that extra 6 feet, I can grow a few more rows of corn in there and get some more money. So before next year we have to move everything back, and they get another 6 feet. I tell that story to demonstrate the pressures that farmers are under to plow and plant right up to the fence row or anyplace they can get. I don't know the farmer who owns that land in this photograph, but I can tell you his economic pressures are to plant right up to the stream, to get rid of all that buffer and plant right up to the stream. Why doesn't he? Because he is in a conservation program that is giving him incentives, payments to provide a continuous strip through there. He might have made a little more money if he had planted right up to it, but he has probably a CRP agreement for 10 years, maybe has a CSP contract. I know a lot of farmers in Iowa who have done buffers like this. You know what, Mr. President. They feel better about it. They feel better about it because they know they are helping keep the water clean. They are farming the way nature really meant for them to farm. But because of economic pressures, they need help. That is what this farm bill does, it provides some help and support. They get a benefit, but I can tell you, he probably would make more money if he plowed right up to the stream. But he is willing to give up a little bit as long as he gets some help from the Government to put this buffer in. They feel better about it. What do we get out of it? Cleaner water, fish, not hypoxia down in the Gulf of Mexico. It cleans up our waterways. It preserves our soil for future generations. That is what is in this farm bill, to help them continue to do that. I talked about the Midwest. How about the East? Here is a farm in Pennsylvania that uses many of our conservation practices. We see strip cropping and contour farming. They have some corn, maybe some alfalfa in there for livestock. It is good conservation practice. It looks as if he has a good rotation practices on this land. There is one other item in this photograph. We see the city out here. It is encroaching on his farmland. There is a program called the Farmland Protection Program which buys easements on land, permanent easements on land. So that land cannot be converted to development; it has to stay as farmland. Again, here is a farmer. He could be getting CSP, the Conservation Stewardship Program. He may have gotten some EQIP money, and he may be getting farmland protection program money. I don't know. But those are all programs involved in preserving the land. We can see the strip cropping on the hillside and the contour plowing. That is what he has done to hold back the water. Again, part of our farm bill is to provide money for the Farmland Protection Program. Here is something a little bit closer to where we are here in the Capitol. Any of us who have been around this area for any time knows the Chesapeake Bay is polluted. Now, not all of that Chesapeake Bay pollution is because of farmland. There is a lot of industrial waste coming from factories and from other places up and down--plants, people dumping stuff out and going into the Chesapeake Bay. That has to be stopped. But a big part of the Chesapeake Bay problem is the nutrients coming off a lot of our land, such as livestock waste. It comes from the whole Chesapeake Bay watershed, which extends all the way to New York State. So New York State, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, a little bit of West Virginia, all that water dumps into the Chesapeake Bay, eventually. Here is a farm in New Castle County, DE. Again, this is a prime example of conservation of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Prior to this picture being taken--you can see some wetlands and farm fields in the background--where that wetland is, crops used to grow. So from those fields, nutrients ran off right into the bay. Through conservation programs and through the Wetlands Reserve Program, this farmer has gone back and, with the help of conservation, has put this back into a wetlands, secluded off from the Chesapeake Bay, so any runoff filters through the wetlands. It filters through the wetlands before it gets to the Chesapeake Bay. If anybody wants to see how a wetlands works, you don't have to go more than about 15 miles from where this Capitol is, southwest of here. There is something called the Huntley Meadows Wetlands Reserve. I recommend it highly for anyone. Go down there and take a stroll through the wetlands. They have done a great job. They have preserved the wetlands, and it is right in the middle of a city. All of a sudden you go from housing developments and busy thoroughfares up Route 1 and down south, and all of a sudden you are in a wetlands area. A lot of the runoff from apartment houses and businesses and parking lots and everything else drains into this wetlands. By the time it gets through and dumps into the Potomac River, it is clean. The wetlands cleans it up. It is 15 miles from here where you can see it happen, Huntley Meadows. This bill provides $160 million for the Chesapeake Bay to do this kind of work to back up into the farmlands, restore wetlands, and help farmers build the structures and do the things to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. We can do it. This farmer did it in Delaware. Now, this photo is from Georgia. Well, you can't see much except this shows pine trees back here. All pine trees back here, but in the past they were overgrown and so thick that wildlife could not use it for habitat. So they thinned it out to provided for some wildlife cover in that area. One of Senator Chambliss's priorities was to add a feature to the Conservation Reserve Program that will result in better management of soft wood pine stands currently enrolled in the CRP. The Senate bill invests $84 million in this effort. Again, showing the breadth and the depth of what we are doing on conservation in forested areas in the South, making sure we have good conservation at work there also. And lest we forget about the West, this is Arizona. This is well- managed grazing land. The Conservation Stewardship Program provides incentives to increase current conservation, use better management practices, such as rotational grazing that better utilizes the resource base and increases wildlife habitat. The Senate bill continues to devote 60 percent of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to livestock needs. Again, it is hard to see here, but what we are trying to show with this is that with fences, with rotational grazing, you don't feed down all the grass and don't create areas where the wind blows all the dust, or if they have a heavy rain it runs the soil off. This is good conservation practice and rotational grazing. You graze for a while, then you move them on. But in order to do that, you obviously need some fences, and fences cost money. So we provide that kind of help. If a rancher wants to get involved in good conservation practices with rotational grazing, we help with that. We help with that. So even in the Arizona southwest, we can make a difference. Well, now you might wonder about this picture. Well, we are all familiar with the problems affecting honeybees and other pollinating species. In this farm bill, we have made strategic changes to help with this issue. In the Conservation Reserve Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, we emphasize the creation and improvement of both the native and managed pollinator habitat. We require the Secretary of Agriculture to update conservation standards to include consideration for pollinators. Now, our Senate bill provides clear direction to focus conservation programs on creating, improving, and maintaining pollinator habitats and to revise and update conservation practices to include pollinators. Again, together these practices will help to establish better pollination. We know we have had a problem with honeybees dying. We don't know exactly what is causing it. They are doing a lot of research on it now. But we do know one thing. In order for our prairies once again to blossom and do all the kinds of conservation work we need, we need that little animal called a honeybee for pollination purposes. So this bill invests in that also. Coming full circle, when I started off my talk, I showed pictures of the great Dust Bowl in Kansas and places such as that--eastern Colorado. That is where this picture was taken. If you could take a picture of here in 1935, you would see the Dust Bowl. What has happened in this area, obviously a housing development has grown up, but in the foreground you will see grassland. That is a grassland reserve. They can't build houses there. You see a part of it, but this is a huge grassland reserve--protected by an easement that ensures that it stays in agricultural production. Grass will grow there, and livestock will graze, and the grass will hold the soil down, and keep the dust from blowing. So, again, in this Grassland Reserve Program, there are about a million acres enrolled right now, but we haven't been doing it very long. Remember, I mentioned in the Dust Bowl that 80 million acres--80 million acres--were turned up. We have a million in protected grassland. We have a long way to go. We have a long way to go. But we put in $240 million for the Grassland Reserve Program in this bill to continue the program. Now, again, I want to digress a little bit on this grassland. You see, one of the other things we are doing in our farm bill is we are providing money for ethanol--cellulosic ethanol. Ethanol not made from row crops, such as corn, but cellulose made from grass, such as this. With the research we are doing, we know we can make ethanol from these grasses. We are getting the right enzymes to make it economical. The scientists and engineers tell me that in 5 years or so we will have an economical means of making cellulosic ethanol. We are already investing in that in several ethanol plants around the country. Imagine, if you will, this huge area of grasslands in the Plains States, where I showed the picture of the Dust Bowl. This is the picture I showed earlier of a dust storm in Kansas last year. Now imagine, if you will, that rather than cropping this land, as we do every year, we have grassland. Now, as Timothy Egan pointed out in his book, nature has a way of selecting the best ecosystem over a long period of time. Nature does that, whether it is the rain forest up in the Northwest, the bay area here for shellfish and others, and backwaters, where all the fish life starts, or in the grasslands in the Plains areas. So over thousands and thousands and thousands of years, nature laid down this thin topsoil, and on top of it grew grasses-- buffalo grass, blue stem, others--and through selectivity, over periods of time, were the hardiest to grow there. They sent their roots down 20, 30 feet into the ground, and they could withstand years of drought, the worst blizzards, and grass fires that used to sweep across the Plains. Anyone who has ever read the Laura Ingalls Wilder book ``Little House on the Prairie'' knows how she talks about the threat of these huge fires sweeping through and all of that kept coming back, the grasslands that were there. Millions of buffalo ranged up and down there and had enough food to sustain them forever, and in 20 years we turned over 80 million acres of it that then dried up and blew away. But think about this. We are going to have cellulose ethanol made from grass. Ten years from now, fifteen years from now, twenty years from now, we could see much of this land back into grassland. Not for buffalo to graze on but being grown as cellulosic feedstock being cut for ethanol and making fuel for our country. You don't have to plow it up. You leave it there, you cut it, it stays there and grows the next year. We can have the best conservation, we can have our grasslands, and we can produce the fuel we need for this country and do it in a way that is in concert with nature. So that is why it is so important we get this grassland back and provide the incentives to protect as much of this grass as possible, and that is why we put $240 million into this bill. The last couple of things I want to show is the Conservation Security Program, now renamed the Conservation Stewardship Program, which has enrolled about 15 million acres since 2002. This was a new program put into the farm bill in 2002. You see, most conservation programs are programs designed to give incentives to someone to take land out of production, put it into grassland, put it in trees, wetlands and buffer strips. And that is an important part of conservation. But there is a lot of working lands. We need farmers to be better conservationists on working lands, lands that are being cropped. That means, for example, putting on the right amount of fertilizer and other management practices that can make a big difference for the environment. Through the Conservation Security Program, I saw areas where farmers enrolled, and transitioned to precision agriculture, with equipment guided by the Global Positioning System. They had soil tests done of their farm, and rather than applying the same amount of fertilizer all over, they put the right amount of fertilizer wherever they applied it--more one place, less in another place. They were able to monitor and get the right amount of fertilizer so it wouldn't run off. They were able to buy equipment so they could do minimum tillage, where they didn't have to turn the soil over with the plow. They could combine, cut the cornstalks and leave it right there on the ground. I visited a farm in southern Iowa this summer that was in the Conservation Security Program. With help the farmer received from the program, he had purchased some equipment to do what I am talking about. Then he took me over his land. He had corn last year. This year, he is planting beans. So he is on a rotation, which is good for the soil. But he left all his cornstalks chopped and laid on the ground. At the time of my visit, there was rain in his area. It rained almost 5 inches--5 inches in about 12 hours. Now that is a heavy rain. We drove all over his land in a four-wheel drive vehicle. He hardly had any soil runoff because that rain would hit those cornstalks on the ground, slide off--he almost had literally no soil runoff. Right across the road was a farmer who was not in the program and was planting corn up and down the hillsides and there were ditches where the water had taken that soil and run off the farm into other ditches, into streams, and the soil was gone. The program in the 2002 farm bill was a conservation program to help farmers be better conservationists on land on which they were actually producing crops or livestock. They didn't have to take land out of production. They just had to do things better: minimum tillage, crop rotations, buffer strips, applying with the right amount of fertilizer--that type of thing. For producers who have been able to enroll, it has worked wonderfully. But there has been one problem. The administration decided to allow enrollment on the basis of a watershed rotation. Over eight years, the program would supposedly cover all the watersheds in the country, but it has fallen far short of that goal. That is the bad news. The good news is in this farm bill we get off the watershed rotation, and make CSP a national program--producers in every watershed and region of the states would be eligible to enroll, every year. Producers are ranked based upon the level of conservation they are already doing, and how much new conservation they are willing to do as part of the contract. We are strengthening this program. It is hard to see on this chart, but the conservation security program is in every State in the Nation. It is all over, from Washington, Oregon, California, all across the east coast. A lot of people have said it is mostly for the Midwest. That is not true. On the east coast, on the far west up in Idaho. We even have some in Alaska, even some in Hawaii--again, to protect our soil and other resources. The point I want to make here is in the last 5 years since we put this program in, we have enrolled 15 million acres. I know that sounds like a lot, but under the new program we have in this bill, with the funding we have, we will enroll 13.2 million acres each year in this program--13.2 million acres every year. We had 15 million acres in 5 years. We will do almost as much every year for the next 5 years. This means by the end of this farm bill we will have about 80 million acres enrolled in this program. What will that mean? It will mean cleaner water, better wildlife habitats, less soil runoff; a better environment, a healthier environment for farmers, their families, and for all of us. That is why this program is so important. It is sad to say, the House didn't put anything into this program and actually cut the program from baseline. It is an important program, one that can do a lot of good for our country. But it needs to be funded properly to give producers a fair shot at enrolling for it to do the good it has the potential of doing. Last, here is the kind of thing we are looking at here. We talked about the soil and the land but it all comes down to people and the kind of people we have farming, and their families. That is what it comes down to. How do we nurture beginning farmers? How do we get young people involved in this? Here is a young dairy farmer, Matt Fendry. He is 25 years old. He farms near Lanesboro in southeast Minnesota. He is a beginning farmer. He sells his milk through Organic Valley out of Lafarge, WI. Matt, like many beginning farmers and ranchers, will benefit from the provisions we have in the conservation title. Here is how we do it. For beginning farmers like Matt Fendry, and socially disadvantaged producers, we have included a special increase in cost-share rates up to 90 percent. So if the young man here wants to do good conservation work on his land--maybe rotational grazing the grassland for his cattle--it probably will cost him a little bit to get some things established. He can get back 90 percent. He only has to put up 10 percent of this money. The Government will come in for 90 percent for a beginning farmer. Ten percent of our conservation programs will be reserved for beginning farmers. And for the first time we will allow the Secretary of Agriculture to advance up to 30 percent of the value of an EQIP contract to beginning and socially disadvantaged producers so they can purchase the materials they need for conservation work. Most of the EQIP money that will go to Matt for what he will do for good conservation would come after he does it, maybe a year after. That means he would have to borrow the money, and pay interest. Now we give the Secretary authority to get what he needs, 30 percent up front, so if he needs to put in fencing, buy seed, whatever he needs to get this operation going using good conservation, he can get up front. I think that is probably the bottom line here on my whole talk this evening, and that is what can we do for conservation. But what can we do to get young people involved in a way so they start from the very beginning, not just being a producer but being an environmentally conscious producer and one who, from the very beginning, protects our soil, our water, and our wildlife habitat? That is the goal of this. You can see I am very passionate about this. I am passionate because if you read history, you know what we are doing. We saw it in the photos at the beginning of my presentation--we are repeating the mistakes of the past. We are abusing the land and pushing it beyond its productive capacity. As I said--the farmers want to protect their soil and their land. But the economics of agriculture drives producers to produce as much as they can when prices are high. The farm bill has to counter those pressures. It is not good for this country. It is not good for our society. It is not good for rural America. So we need to make some changes in this farm bill and redirect it and guide it toward more conservation. Back in 1998, I was wondering why it was that Europe was spending so much of government money on their farmers, yet they were complying with the World Trade Organization restrictions on farm subsidies. We are spending less money on our farmers and somehow we are not complying. I wanted to see what were they doing in Europe different than we were doing. So I traveled around and visited a lot of their farms. No matter where I went, I saw a pristine countryside. I saw a countryside with small towns that were vibrant. I saw soil that was protected, waterways that were decently clean--some areas better than others. Finally I began to figure it out, what countries like France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, England, and Denmark were doing. They were making ``green payments'' to farmers, payments to farmers for conservation. Under the WTO, that is in the ``green box,'' which means it doesn't count against WTO limits. So some of the Europeans figure out here is the way we support our farmers, our small towns, our communities, clean up our water, provide for a beautiful countryside, and, guess what, we don't take a hit in the WTO because of that. That made me think. I come back, traveling around through this country, I see the wind blowing, I see the dust storms, the soil erosion, the hypoxia maps in the Gulf of Mexico, what is happening to the Chesapeake Bay, and I think: Wait a minute, why aren't we doing that? We have a program now, a direct payment program--$5 billion a year, $25 billion over the life of this farm bill, that started in 1996, of direct payments to farmers. To qualify for direct payments, all you had to do is have base acreage and a certain crop back in 1981 to 1985. You don't have to plant anything to get this money. Moreover, the bigger you are, and the bigger the base you had, the more money you get. The result is that these payments lead to a cycle. More direct payments means a greater opportunity to expand. More expansion means more direct payments. It is like a black hole, there is nothing to stop it. I am concerned that this cycle is hurting family farmers. It encourages producers to get bigger and bigger. Yet here we go, $5 billion a year, $25 billion over the life of this. It seems to me it would make much more sense and would be more supported, I think, by the general populace, if we took that money and put it out in green payments to farmers to build the buffer strips, the contours, the wetlands, the grasslands--yes, paying farmers to help them use the right amount of fertilizer and do rotations and things such as that, that help preserve the soil. Conservation programs are perfectly acceptable under WTO. We get a lot out of it. I am hopeful in the coming weeks, maybe as we go to conference on this farm bill, we can do more for conservation. I want to say we did a good job on conservation in this bill. I am not denying that. We put good money in conservation. I thank my ranking member, Saxby Chambliss, and all the others on the committee. It was a hard fight but we got the money in there. But it is not quite enough when you look at all the other things in the farm bill. We moved the ball forward, but I think with the demands on our farmers now, what we see happening around this country, we need an even greater commitment. We need to do a lot more in conservation than we have ever done before or pretty soon the scales will tip so far that the kind of money it is going to take it to do it will be prohibitive. That is why I take the time of the Senate tonight to talk about conservation. We need a better conservation ethic in this country. As we consider the farm bill, we need to be talking about soil and water conservation, helping farmers be better stewards of the soil and water. I am hopeful as we move into more debate we can make a few changes that will add some money to conservation before we go to conference. We have done a lot in the farm bill, but we have a lot more we can do. So I ask any Senator out there who has an amendment, if you have not filed it, you better file it because pretty soon we may cut it off. I am not encouraging amendments, you understand. I am just saying, if you have one, you better get it in in a hurry, and we will take a look at it. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Reid, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 206, the nomination of James Kunder to be Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; that the nomination be confirmed; the motion to reconsider be laid on the table; the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and the Senate then return to legislative session.