Tim Hutchinson

Mr. HUTCHINSON

Mr. HUTCHINSON. May I inquire of the Chair, do I still control the floor?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I simply was going to reserve the remainder of my time for closing.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. It is my hope to close for the amendment. Is it the intent of the opponents of the amendment to use the remainder of their time?

Mr. HUTCHINSON. It is a substitute.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its consideration.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add, as cosponsors to the amendment, Senators Lott, Helms, Sessions, and Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader, the majority whip, and Senator Harkin for their cooperation and their willingness to allow us to have this debate on, essentially, the House- passed bill. This is the bill that was introduced earlier this year in an effort to break the logjam on a farm bill. It is a bipartisan bill, as it was introduced with four Democrats and three Republicans. To me, there is no doubt, as we come to this impasse, that the only way--absolutely the only way--we will get a farm bill signed into law this year is for us to take up an easily conferenceable bill with the House. I have talked with the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. If we would pass this bill--this amendment, and then the amended bill-- we would be able to conference it within an hour, and we would be able to send it to the President. That is the only prospect we have of getting a much needed farm bill to the President this year. That is why I rise to urge my colleagues to move forward and support this amendment. Since the beginning of this debate, I have been urged by the farmers of my State to try to get a farm bill completed this year. Time and time again, I have told them that I would do everything I could to get a farm bill completed this year. I have expressed support for the House farm bill. I have worked with my colleagues to craft and introduce this bipartisan proposal. It was originally, when introduced, sponsored by a number of Members on both sides. I supported, in the committee, the Cochran-Roberts plan. I supported the chairman's commodity title. In fact, I believe I was the only Republican in committee to support the chairman's commodity title. I supported the passage of the chairman's farm bill out of the Agriculture Committee. And I have supported cloture on the chairman's substitute two times. I want a farm bill. I voted in support of moving forward at every point during this debate. If this substitute is not going to move forward and go to conference, perhaps it is time for a new approach. It is clear, after two cloture votes, that the Harkin-Daschle substitute does not have adequate support to move to passage. And, may I say, if we were somehow able to move the Harkin-Daschle substitute through, get cloture, and get it passed this week, we would have an enormous gap between this bill and the House bill, and, as Senator Harkin admitted last night, it would be weeks before we could reach a consensus on those two bills. This is why I am offering the bill that I offered with Senators Lincoln, Helms, Miller, Sessions, Landrieu, and Breaux earlier this year. We can debate the merits of the bills. There is no doubt that as this day and this debate goes on, we will engage in some substantial policy issues. However, at the end of the day, we must have a bill that can get the votes necessary to pass the Senate, be conferenced, and signed by the President this year. So far, the bill that has been offered has not been able to garner the support necessary to get out of the Senate and provide the support and certainty that our farmers are asking for and desperately need. The fact that these votes appear to be breaking down on party lines should be troubling because agriculture is not a partisan issue. Agriculture spans across all of our States and should not be allowed to degenerate into a partisan finger pointing contest. That is what I have been hearing: accusations that one party or the other is blocking the move on a farm bill this year. That is why I am offering this amendment. It is my sincere hope that this bipartisan proposal can help break this logjam which is keeping us away from our home States and, more importantly, is denying our Nation's farmers the necessary fixes to what amounts to a broken farm policy. Is this the absolute best policy that can come out of this Senate? Maybe not. Will it have the type of funding numbers in it that everyone can go back to their home State and expect resounding praise for? Probably not. That is probably unlikely as well. However, we must also consider whether this proposal is, in fact, better than the policy with which our farmers are currently dealing. What I hear from the farmers in Arkansas--and I think this is true across this Nation--is that they need certainty and predictability. If they are going to have certainty and predictability, they need to have a farm bill. As they go to seek financing arrangements for this next year, bankers are looking for some predictability, some certainty in farm policy. That can only happen if we pass a bill. So the question is, is this amendment that I am offering today--one that was originally offered as a bipartisan proposal in this Chamber, and that was a bipartisan vote in the House. In fact, in the House, there were 151 Republicans, 139 Democrats, and one Independent who voted for this bill. This is the only true bipartisan approach. If it is, in fact, better than current farm policy, and is the only prospect of getting a bill to the President this year, should we not, then, on a bipartisan basis, unite behind it? I think it is clear that the farm policy in this amendment is much better than the current policy. We must also consider whether our farmers are better off with no farm bill at all, which appears to be where we are headed right now. I think my farmers have been quite clear with me on this issue, as I am sure farmers in other States have made it clear to their Senators. This amendment, as I have said, is very similar to the House-passed farm bill which ended up passing on a bipartisan basis. I realize there were many hotly contested amendments throughout this process, but in the end this bill in the House enjoyed resounding bipartisan support and should garner that kind of support in this Chamber as well. I am keenly aware that a number of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle believe they have garnered concessions from Senator Harkin and Senator Daschle and that their concerns have been addressed in the Harkin-Daschle substitute. I am aware of that. I appreciate the willingness of Senators Daschle and Harkin to make those concessions and to address concerns that various Senators had. But if those concessions come at the price of refusing to support a bipartisan approach and the end result is that we have no bill that goes forward out of this Chamber this year, we have no bill that is passed and goes to the President for his signature, then I suggest that all those concessions and all those improvements in the Harkin-Daschle substitute bill are in fact meaningless because they are not passed into law. On Monday of this week, the American Farm Bureau sent a letter, a public letter, in which they wrote: The American Farm Bureau Federation encourages the Senate leadership to expedite debate and for the Senate to complete a new farm bill by noon next Wednesday, December 19. That is the moment we have just passed. The Farm Bureau continued: It is vitally important that this legislation be enacted this year to provide an important economic stimulus to rural America before Congress adjourns. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of the American Farm Bureau in this letter. This is why I am offering this amendment. If this amendment is adopted, I am confident we will be able to move to invoke cloture and we will pass a farm bill this year. I promised the farmers of my State I would do everything I could do to get a farm bill completed this year. I am sure many of you have made the same promise. This is our opportunity to make good on that promise and on that commitment. To say to the farmers of America, I am going to march in lockstep with my party leadership in spite of the fact that the end result of that approach will be no bill, no cloture, no Presidential signature, and no farm bill by December 31, is blind partisanship that hurts the farmers of this country. This is our opportunity to pass a farm bill this year. The policies included in this amendment have been supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the House. The policies included in this amendment have been supported by both Republicans and Democrats in this Senate. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of the amendment offered today. I urge my colleagues to support the completion of a farm bill this year. It is not sufficient to say: I voted for cloture to end debate and get a farm bill this year, if you know in your heart that because of that stand, because of voting in lockstep and an unwillingness to take a bipartisan approach, an approach that we know can be conferenced with the House this year, that is a self-defeating approach that will not be a sufficient answer to the farmers in this country. This is our opportunity to get it done. Let's not waste it. I ask my colleagues for their support for the amendment. Will it have everything in it? It most assuredly will not. It will in some areas. Will the funding be as high? Will the commodity title not be as high as it is in the Harkin bill? The answer to that is, that is true. In some areas, it won't. It won't be a bill that will satisfy everybody. But it is the only vehicle before the Senate. It is the only possible answer to the conundrum in which we find ourselves. It is the only possible way we can get a bill signed into law by the President of the United States. I repeat, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee in the House has said this amendment, if adopted, would be easily and quickly conferenceable with the House-passed bill, meaning that before we leave this place for Christmas, we will be able to reward the farmers of this country with an end-of-the-year commitment that their farm policy is taken seriously by Congress, that we have risen above blind partisanship, that we are willing to put the farmers of this country above party loyalty, and that we have done absolutely our level best to get a bill signed into law by the President. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the House Agriculture Committee's Web page statement today, December 19, 2001.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I will quote a portion of this for my colleagues. This was placed on their Web page today, December 19, 2001, from House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest. He commends this amendment ``for giving farmers a real prospect of getting a finalized farm bill this year.'' He urges the Senate to pass this amendment. Chairman Combest noted: ``The Hutchinson provision is more than 95 percent identical to the October 5 House-passed Farm Security Act of 2001'' and ``Senate passage of the Hutchinson provision is the only chance to finalize a farm bill this year.'' To my colleagues who think there should be agreement on that point at this place in our deliberations, I commend Chairman Harkin for a tremendous good faith effort to move forward the Senate Agriculture Committee-passed farm bill. He has given it a wholehearted effort in the Senate Chamber. He has provided opportunities for amendments to be offered. I commend him for that, though there are still a number of serious amendments outstanding. We have twice voted for cloture. We have not seen any change in the breakdown. It is clear that as dedicated and as resolved as Chairman Harkin has been, the current Harkin-Daschle substitute cannot garner the support of the Senate and cannot be conferenced in time to get a bill for our farmers this year. Chairman Combest is absolutely right: This is our last and best hope of doing it. I suggest many of my colleagues have told their farmers face to face in their States that they will come here and do their best to get a bill passed this year. I suggest we will not have done our best without the passage of this substitute, this amendment I have offered today. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am glad to yield.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The Senator is absolutely correct. That is one of the strong reasons why this approach is preferable. I call it the 5 fat years and the 5 lean years, the 5 years of plenty and the 5 years of famine. That is the danger in frontloading.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The Senator is correct.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The Senator is correct.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I say to the Senator from Kansas that it is my understanding that because some of the decoupled payments in the Harkin-Daschle substitute are phased out, the likelihood in the course of the farm bill of it becoming out of compliance is greater than that of the House-passed bill.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The Senator is correct.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Let me finish the colloquy with Senator Roberts.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I would expect that. But this was, as the Senator knows, filed last night and laid down this morning, so there has been little time for the farm groups to weigh in one way or the other. But I think the strongest point in the question posed--while there is a lot of debate about policy, we have spent the last 2 weeks at various times debating the policy of these various bills. The strongest point that you made is the one that I have tried to base this entire amendment upon, and that is, it is the only chance we have of getting improved farm policy, a bill actually signed into law this year. That has been the hue and cry. That has been the demand of farm organizations and farmers across this country, that we finish a bill this year. This is the only way we can do it. Chairman Combest has said that. I think it is patently clear that, even were the Harkin-Daschle substitute to be agreed to at this point, the differences between the House bill and the Harkin-Daschle substitute are so great that, in fact, it would take at least 3 weeks, as Senator Harkin said last night, for that conference to be completed. We would not have a bill in time to help our farmers or to meet that demand for it to be finished this year.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I have been told my time has been reduced. We started this debate late and the vote is still scheduled for 12:50, I believe.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I will yield if the time will come from that side of the aisle.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I note many of the questions that arise in a farm bill debate--some of those posed by both Senator Warner and Senator Roberts--deal with the commodity title. Obviously, those are great concerns because all of us have our own constituencies. The Harkin substitute that we are seeking to amend includes many elements that farmers of Arkansas would support. It includes a yield update as well as a base acre update; it includes a 100-percent base acreage coverage versus the 85-percent base coverage included in the House bill and my amendment. These are, frankly, changes that would benefit many farmers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. That is one of the reasons that I have supported the chairman's mark. However, this is what we must remember. If these changes mean we will not be able to get a farm bill this year, it is time for us to seek a different approach. While some of the funding levels for the various commodities may not be as high as we have in this substitute, the average gross receipts are rather attractive to many farmers in my State and other States as well. I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Yes.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The Senator is correct.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. That is absolutely correct.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. The Senator is, of course, correct. I respect that. The fact is, the farm bill came very late in this session because we have been very involved with a lot of important legislation dealing with 9-11. My support for cloture, and the reason I urge my colleague to support it, is because we are running out of time. While there are legitimate amendments and there are important amendments, I think we had too much finger pointing, too much of Democrats saying Republicans are filibustering. Frankly, some of us question the motives on the other side. We are running out of time.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I say to my colleague from Oklahoma that my history on the Agriculture Committee is pretty thin. This is my first time on an agriculture bill markup, so I can't really answer this question. But I will say this. While the bill that came out of committee has been described as being a bipartisan bill, I was the only Republican to support that bill. So that cannot be considered nearly as bipartisan as the amendment I am now offering which originally, when offered as a freestanding bill in the Senate, had four Democrats sponsoring it and three Republicans. So I would suggest if we are going to talk about a bipartisan approach, this is far more bipartisan than the bill that came out of committee, unfortunately.