Richard Lugar

Mr. LUGAR

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I understand I have 15 seconds remaining. I will be brief. As Senators prepare for this vote, they must know that if they vote for cloture, we are stuck; we are on agriculture and that will continue indefinitely unless there is unanimous consent to leave it. I ask my colleagues to vote against cloture. The vote on this is no.

Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Senator.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, the forum we are attempting to adopt is one in which a Senator yields time to me as manager of the bill as sort of a time bank. I will explain for all Members I am allotted only 1 hour under the rule. I can accumulate as much as 2 more hours by such allocation from Senators, which I seek to do simply to expedite the debate during those times when there are no other Senators present to speak. In that event, will the Senator yield whatever time he has remaining when he completes his speech?

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Carol Olander, Dave White, and Benjamin Young, detailees to the Agriculture Committee from the Department of Agriculture, be granted privileges of the floor during the pendency of the farm bill.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, I rise today to share a wonderful story illustrating the outpouring of support which the United States has received from friends and allies around the world in the days since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. I recently joined Senate and House colleagues for a luncheon sponsored by the Congressional Study Group on Germany. Former Congressman Larry La Rocca, a Democrat from Idaho, hosted the luncheon to provide Members of Congress with an opportunity to meet the new German Ambassador, Wolfgang Ischinger. During Congressman La Rocca's introduction, he read an e-mail a close friend of his received from his son serving in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Winston Churchill. The Congressman read the e-mail as a timely reminder of the close relationship between the United States and Germany. I found the story to be inspiring, and I wish to share it with my colleagues and the American people. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this e-mail be inserted into the Record at this time.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, today is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. In light of the tragic events of September 11, this day of remembrance and recognition has new meaning. We have spoken about a new kind of ``war'' but we are not sure what shape it will take. Whatever form, however, it will likely include casualties and perhaps prisoners, these are among the harsh lessons history has taught us. This day gains new meaning, too, when we consider the rescue workers who continue to comb through the war zones at the Pentagon and in lower Manhattan for the bodies of the fallen, the missing, in action. In time of war, an entire nation unites with a singularity of purpose. But, we all know how swiftly the Nation's attention can wane and be distracted. Those of us in this body and across the relevant Executive agencies, however, cannot be distracted from one thing; that is, a commitment to ensure the return of POWs and MIAs at the end of hostilities. The vigorous pursuit of this commitment must continue through painstaking on-site investigations, diplomatic negotiations and complete examinations of records following a conflict. As we look forward with resolve, we must recognize the work that the many POW/MIA organizations have done, led by the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, DPMO. The painstaking work of recovery operations have, in the past year, seen the return of 36 Americans from the war in Southeast Asia; however, 1,957 remain unaccounted for at this time from SEA, 1,474 from Vietnam alone. Last year, those numbers stood at 2,005 and 1,511 respectively. Seven of the dedicated men engaged in Vietnam recovery operations gave their own lives this year, even as they searched for fallen comrades. The Americans died along with nine Vietnamese in April when their helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountain about 250 miles south of Hanoi. The team was scouting excavations for six MIA crash sites. In Korea, where the fighting ended in 1953, progress continues. Ten Joint Recovery Operations have been conducted in North Korea this year, resulting in the identification and return of three Americans to their families and final resting places. Twenty-six servicemen have been identified from World War II recoveries. Teams from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii continue to implement cutting-edge DNA technology, and as renowned experts in the field, have contributed their know-how and direct assistance to the operations in New York and at the Pentagon. Just last month, another team headed off to Russia to bring home the remains of seven Navy flyers whose World War II PV-1 Ventura bomber were lost on the Kamchatka peninsula. The plane went missing from a March 25, 1944 bombing mission from Alaska to the Kurile Islands. The Navy has located family members and prepared comparison DNA samples in hopes that all will be returned at long last. Having spent time in that part of the world, I know what dedication to duty it takes to dig in that extreme weather. I understand that weather permits them only about a 30-day window. As we know well, this is a team effort requiring the commitment and dedication of the Congress, the Administration, the Departments of Defense and State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the NSA. I am hopeful that all of us, through continued humanitarian support and dedicated diplomatic endeavors will gain further information about the servicemen still missing to honor their sacrifice and provide peace and solace to their loved ones. You are not forgotten. At this point in the record, I ask unanimous consent that the names of Indiana's missing and unaccounted from the Korea and Vietnam Wars be printed in the record.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the good work the committee and the managers have done with respect to the fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State. However, there is one area in which the bill is deficient; namely, embassy security. The Department of State is requesting a total of $1.3 billion for worldwide security upgrade activities in fiscal year 2002, a 22 percent increase over the fiscal year 2001 level of $1.07 billion. This funding is to be used to: maintain extensive security enhancements; address other domestic and overseas vulnerabilities; construct modern, secure facilities; and correct perimeter security weaknesses. Over the past 3 years, the Department has invested over $3 billion in extensive improvements in systems and facilities as well as security staffing to protect U.S. diplomats, employees, and dependents around the world. The $1.3 billion requested in the fiscal year 2002 budget includes $363 million to maintain these programs at their current levels. Examples include continued funding for approximately 6,000 guards and surveillance specialists; maintenance of 490 explosives detection devices, 877 walk-through metal detectors, and 283 x-ray machines; and maintenance of almost 1,000 armored vehicles. The fiscal year 2002 budget request also includes $64 million to reinforce defenses against cyberterrorism, technical and human intelligence gathering efforts, and penetration of our domestic facilities. Included in this effort is the addition of 186 positions, 86 agents and 100 other security professionals, not only to support expanded programs but to reduce the burden on current personnel and to ensure that sufficient agents are always available to address any serious threat or emergency. The budget request also includes a total of $665 million for seven security-driven construction projects that will replace less secure embassies or consulates and U.S. AID facilities. The request also includes $211 million to address significant vulnerabilities in systems and equipment that monitor perimeter areas and control access to U.S. facilities. These funds will continue perimeter security improvements and extend the installation of protective measures to additional posts. I am disappointed that the committee mark does not fully fund the Department's priority personnel increases for improved diplomatic readiness and worldwide security upgrades. The Department's initial request had about $95 million to provide for the hiring of 360 new employees to support Diplomatic Readiness requirements. However, the committee's mark only supports about 40 percent of this new hiring. In order to have the right people in the right place at the right time with the right skills to advance American interests, the Department has put forward an aggressive plan to bring in over a 3-year period some 1,100 new employees above attrition. Funding to hire the full 360 employees is one of the Department of State's highest priorities and is supported by the authorization marks of both the House International Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as by the House appropriators on the Commerce-State-Justice bill. Moreover, the hiring of 186 additional diplomatic security professionals, 86 diplomatic security agents, 9 security engineers, 10 security technicians, and 81 civil service infrastructure support employees, is critical to the Department's efforts to improve the security of our overseas personnel, facilities and national security information. Finally, the reductions to the Department's overseas construction account, $219 million and applying $154 million in prior year construction balances to fiscal year 2002 requirements, will make it more difficult to meet the very ambitious buildings program that the Secretary of State has planned. I understand that the committee has maintained funding for embassy security in the diplomatic and consular programs and embassy security, construction, and maintenance accounts at approximately last year's levels. However, the failure by the committee to provide the administration's requested increases for additional security personnel and construction could severely hamper the Department of State's multiyear effort to improve security for American personnel serving in our embassies overseas. For example, within the funds that the committee provides for construction, funding is earmarked for projects not on the list of the most urgent, security-driven projects for fiscal year 2002, which will make it more difficult for the Department to meet its security-improvement goals. I am also concerned that the funding allocated by the committee does not appear to extend to the protection of U.S. AID employees, an oversight that should be quickly addressed. We cannot in good conscience leave the manifestations of the American presence abroad, namely, our embassies and consulates, inadequately protected. The terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon were preceded, it should be remembered, by attacks on American embassies in two African countries just a few short years ago. U.S. embassy security abroad deserves the same degree of attention by authorizers and appropriators as homeland defense. I would urge the managers of the bill to revisit this issue in the conference with their House counterparts and, at minimum, agree to the administration's request with respect to the embassy security account. Indeed, in light of the recent acts of war perpetrated against the American homeland, it would only be prudent, in my judgment, for the conferees to consider a major increase over the administration's request.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation amending the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to allow the Secretary of Agriculture to approve changes to the original purpose for which a USDA Rural Development grant or loan was made when requested by a recipient. The Rural Community Advancement Program, as established under the Con Act, consists of separate accounts to provide funding for rural community facilities, rural waste and water utilities, and rural business and cooperative development. In the 1996 Farm Bill, we provided State Directors of Rural Development with the authority to transfer up to 25 percent of funds allocated to one of those accounts for a State in a fiscal year to any of the other accounts for which funds were allocated for the State in that fiscal year. This flexibility allows a State to adjust funding among the accounts to meet changing circumstances. For example, in a given year a State may have greater demand for financial assistance for rural community facilities than for rural business development, and the authority we granted in 1996 would allow a State the flexibility to address that change in demand. The flexibility provided by the 1996 Farm Bill, however, extended only to prospective funding. It did not cover changes to loan and grant purposes needed by a community after a loan or grant has been made. Any post-award change to the grant or loan purpose would require return to USDA of any unspent grant or loan funds, or reimbursement to the Federal Government for its proportionate financial interest in any property acquired with the loan or grant funds. Communities in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Oklahoma have faced this dilemma when they have sought to provide space in grant-funded industrial parks to businesses that were too large to qualify under the terms of their Rural Business Enterprise Grant but that otherwise would have been eligible for a Rural Development Business and Industry loan. An Indiana community has unused property in its grant-funded industrial park that it now would like to use for a critically needed police station and water tower. USDA has no authority to allow any of these communities to change the authorized use for the land for which the grant or loan originally was made. The measure I offer today would allow the Secretary to approve these types of requests. Under the bill, a community could request the Secretary to approve a change in the rural development purpose for previously awarded grants and loans to another rural development purpose authorized under the Con Act. A change in purpose could be requested only for property acquired with such funds, or for the proceeds from sale of property acquired with such funds. This measure would not require the Secretary to approve requests. It simply allows the Secretary to be fair and reasonable in considering requests by communities to alter the original purpose of the grant or loan. The beneficiary of such a change would not reap any financial windfall from such a change at the expense of the Federal government. The Federal government would retain its financial interest in any property used for the new purpose approved by the Secretary. We all know how the needs of communities change over time due to economic development and demographic change. This measure allows the Secretary to be fair and reasonable in considering requests by communities to alter the original purpose of a grant or loan in response to such changes. I am hopeful my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation amending the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act to allow the Secretary of Agriculture to approve changes to the original purpose for which a USDA Rural Development grant or loan was made when requested by a recipient. The Rural Community Advancement Program, as established under the Con Act, consists of separate accounts to provide funding for rural community facilities, rural waste and water utilities, and rural business and cooperative development. In the 1996 Farm Bill, we provided State Directors of Rural Development with the authority to transfer up to 25 percent of funds allocated to one of those accounts for a State in a fiscal year to any of the other accounts for which funds were allocated for the State in that fiscal year. This flexibility allows a State to adjust funding among the accounts to meet changing circumstances. For example, in a given year a State may have greater demand for financial assistance for rural community facilities than for rural business development, and the authority we granted in 1996 would allow a State the flexibility to address that change in demand. The flexibility provided by the 1996 Farm Bill, however, extended only to prospective funding. It did not cover changes to loan and grant purposes needed by a community after a loan or grant has been made. Any post-award change to the grant or loan purpose would require return to USDA of any unspent grant or loan funds, or reimbursement to the Federal Government for its proportionate financial interest in any property acquired with the loan or grant funds. Communities in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Oklahoma have faced this dilemma when they have sought to provide space in grant-funded industrial parks to businesses that were too large to qualify under the terms of their Rural Business Enterprise Grant but that otherwise would have been eligible for a Rural Development Business and Industry loan. An Indiana community has unused property in its grant-funded industrial park that it now would like to use for a critically needed police station and water tower. USDA has no authority to allow any of these communities to change the authorized use for the land for which the grant or loan originally was made. The measure I offer today would allow the Secretary to approve these types of requests. Under the bill, a community could request the Secretary to approve a change in the rural development purpose for previously awarded grants and loans to another rural development purpose authorized under the Con Act. A change in purpose could be requested only for property acquired with such funds, or for the proceeds from sale of property acquired with such funds. This measure would not require the Secretary to approve requests. It simply allows the Secretary to be fair and reasonable in considering requests by communities to alter the original purpose of the grant or loan. The beneficiary of such a change would not reap any financial windfall from such a change at the expense of the Federal government. The Federal government would retain its financial interest in any property used for the new purpose approved by the Secretary. We all know how the needs of communities change over time due to economic development and demographic change. This measure allows the Secretary to be fair and reasonable in considering requests by communities to alter the original purpose of a grant or loan in response to such changes. I am hopeful my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, before the distinguished majority leader leaves the floor, I inquire, then, about any plans for further votes to occur today or this afternoon.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I would like the Record to reflect that Senators Sessions, Collins, Gordon Smith, and Tim Hutchinson voted ``yes'' on the unanimous consent request as granted by the Chair.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I inquire if Members on our side wish time. There are requests: From Senator Roberts for 10 minutes, 5 minutes for Senator Craig, and I reserve 15 minutes for myself.

Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chair.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, I join the distinguished chairman of the Agriculture Committee in saying the fight always goes on for American farmers. In the Agriculture Committee we have that commitment. And it is one we take with a great deal of pride and, likewise, with a high energy level. But today, Madam President, let me just say American farmers rejoice because a remarkable thing has occurred in this Senate Chamber this morning. We have come together with our colleagues in the House to pass a bill, which now, through some effort, will go to the House, to the President for signature, and to American farmers. Let me just say the benefits to American farmers are very substantial. We began this quest because American farmers, according to the best estimate of the USDA, would receive--without our action--$3 billion less in aggregate cash income this year. We have, by our actions this morning, sent to American farmers $5.5 billion. We have, in fact, exceeded the gap and, as a matter of fact, made certain that agricultural income in America for this year will be $2.5 billion more than last year. That has not escaped the attention of a good number of agricultural organizations that have beneficiaries. The American Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers, the National Cotton Council, and the U.S. Rice Producers Group have all written this morning to the chairman, with a copy of their letter to me, simply urging the Senate ``to take the necessary action and pass H.R. 2213''--the House bill-- ``without amendment and send the bill to the President.'' Each of these groups wrote to the chairman: ``Without timely action, we face the prospect of missing the budget-imposed September 30 deadline and forfeiting this crucial financial aid.'' I mention that because I appreciate their commendation of our work and their encouragement that we do precisely what we have done this morning. I want to mention that it is important that all Members understand what we have done; namely, that through the so-called AMTA payments, $4.622 billion in supplemental payments will be sent to producers in the next few days; $424 million in market loss payments to soybean producers and other oilseed producers, who received this assistance last year, will be distributed in the next few days; $159 million in assistance to producers of specialty crops, such as fruits and vegetables, will receive their money through our block grants to the States. I make that point because the only way in which money could conceivably have gotten to any specialty group would have been through these block grants to States and a distribution after finding the recipients in each of those States. I make that point because there always was an illusion that somehow money to specialty crops could come in some other way, but there are not good lists, the criteria, and the other aspects that have surrounded the so-called program crops. Therefore, this was an essential point, if the specialty crop recipients were to get their money before September 30. And $129 million in market loss assistance will go to tobacco farmers, whose names and addresses are well known to USDA; $54 million, likewise, to peanut growers; $85 million for cotton seed; $17 million for wool and mohair producers; and $10 million of emergency food assistance support. I make these points because each one of us may have a wish list of those that we would like to receive money. The purpose of this action, the reason that both Houses have taken action--and we have done so unanimously this morning--is that we saw a gap for American agriculture in total. We have tried to fill the gap. In committing compromises and bicameral compromises, we have tried to make certain that assistance came to the normal program recipients since the time of the 1930s, the specialty crops, and to many others who were identified in previous supplemental bills of the last 2 years. I regret there is difficulty with regard to the stance of the President. I simply want to support the President very strongly in the action he took. First of all, he supported the $5.5 billion of payments. He pointed out, as I have this morning, that if these are to make a difference for farmers, they need to be received now. They need to make their appointments with the country bankers as required and make certain that they stay in business. It is easy enough for us to speculate that if we did not take action now or if we took action in the by and by, somehow more might be obtained. The fact is, more was not going to be obtained for farmers now. The only way in which money could be obtained was, first of all, following the budget resolution so a point of order was not entered; secondly, recognizing that the money destined for next year in the Senate Agriculture Committee's original bill was very likely to be taken off the table before it was distributed. I want to make the point again that we suggested earlier in the debate: While we are in recess, OMB and CBO are going to come forward with estimates of our national budget picture. Almost every prediction is that these estimates will downsize the amount of money that is anticipated to be coming into the Federal Government, the amount of the surplus, the amount of money, in fact, for the appropriations bills, eight of which are still to be considered by the Senate. Already the distinguished chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the distinguished ranking member, Senators Byrd and Stevens, are cautioning the subcommittees in appropriations not to exceed the allocations of money they have received. They are cautioning them because they are pointing out the money simply may not be there. We were in a position that if we did not take action now, it is very conceivable that the money that was destined for American farmers might not have been there either. The number of claimants, whether in defense, in health, in education, in all the various aspects of American life, are very considerable. We have pinned down for American farmers today money that we want to go to American farmers. We have done so in a responsible way. We have done so with the support of the President of the United States and both Houses of the Congress. That is no minor achievement in an agricultural piece of legislation. Let me point out one further thing about the President of the United States; that is, he is determined, as I hope most of us are, to be responsible with regard to money. We have had years in this body in which Members were more or less responsible--sometimes less. As a consequence, large deficits were the result. In a bipartisan way, we have determined those days ought to be over. It does require that, finally, we do our very best to conform to the budget, that we respect the rights at least of all the other claimants to Federal funds, including taxpayers. The President is simply saying: I am going to do my duty. If I see things exceeding the budget, I am going to veto those bills. He has said that with regard to our Agriculture Committee bill. If it exceeds $5.5 billion, I am going to veto it. The President said that to me personally at 3:40 yesterday afternoon, face to face. So there was no doubt. He did not hide behind a letter from OMB, did not suggest that unnamed advisers necessarily were speaking for him. He came to the Capitol twice during this week and talked about the trust he has in behalf of the American people, all of the American people, for the integrity of our financial system and the integrity of Social Security and Medicare and all of the educational plans he has worked with the Congress to forward and all the plans for health care for the elderly that he is working with the Congress to forward. All of these are also our objectives. They fit together only if there is a certain degree of discipline and order. The President has said: I am going to provide that. You can count on me. His credibility is at stake when he says that. Sometimes Presidents say, perhaps if this doesn't work out, this and that will occur. This President said: If this exceeds $5.5 billion, I am going to veto it. I believed that. This morning, the Senate has believed that. The House believed that. We have a result in conformity with the budget. That is a victory for the American people likewise, as well as for agricultural America. Now it has, in fact, more money than the year before but some assurance that we are not going to have fiscal irresponsibility again, rampant inflation, the difficulties that come when there is not solid leadership at the top and in this body. Finally, let me say that it has been a pleasure for me to work on this bill with members of the Agriculture Committee, our chairman, Senator Harkin, with the present occupant of the chair, Ms. Stabenow, with many Members who had diverse views. One of the aspects of our committee I have found--my service is now in its 25th year--is that we do have diverse views because we come from constituents who believe very strongly about these issues and who want our advocacy and our support. We try to do that. I think we listen to each other, and we understand that there is not simply one crop in America that is dominant, that we are a very diverse group in terms of our interests. It is amazing how we are able to come together for good results. I believe we have come together for a good result on this day. I appreciate, even as I say that--I see the faces and hear the words of the Members--that not every aspect of this result is in conformity with what we might have wished would have occurred. I made the admission, as I was offering an amendment the other day--which failed narrowly by 52-48--that this is not exactly the amendment I would have started with or the one maybe I would have finished with. Nevertheless, it was an amendment that reflected the views of Members of the House and many members of our committee and, in my judgment, was in the realm of the possible. That is the final criteria for agricultural bills. It takes very little skill to paint a picture of all of the money that might go to various States or people or crops or groups in America. Simply to add them up and say, here is the total, believe me, all of these are good folks and all need the money. That is true. They are all good, and they all need the money. Agriculture does not pay well. The facts of life are that money that goes into agriculture is very important, not only for the recipients but for our country, for the continuity of all of our States and small towns in the rural areas that we try to support. At the same time, most farmers I know understand that funds are not available for everything. They want people of common sense to make certain that there is something at the end of the rainbow as opposed to blue-sky thinking and more grandiose schemes. In due course, we are going to have an opportunity, under the leadership of our chairman, the distinguished Senator from Iowa, to consider a farm bill this year or next, or whatever the context may be in the scheduling of the distinguished chairman. I will join him enthusiastically, as I suspect the occupant of the chair will, as we take a look at conservation programs that are very important for America, for rural development programs that are important, not just for farmers but often for the second income for farmers and their families and those who are important to agricultural production in America. We are going to take a look, I hope, at nutrition programs that make a very sizable difference for many Americans beyond production in agriculture. This scope of our committee's activities is broad, as broad as food, nutrition, and forestry might imply, and that is exciting. I think we are going to have a superb farm bill, and I hope we will be able to work closely with our friends in the House, with the White House, with everybody, so we move along together without misunderstandings and have the best sort of result at the end of the road with the greatest amount of agreement. I trust in the course of brokering all of these different ideas there will be some disagreement, and ultimately we will have to make hard choices. I am prepared to work on that project with that thought firmly in mind, and I look forward to it. For the moment, I believe we have great news this morning for farmers in America but likewise for the citizens of our country because we have acted in a responsible way. We will have even better news as we proceed into a new farm bill and take a comprehensive look at all the ways we might affect the lives of Americans in a very constructive way. I yield the floor.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Crapo be added to the list of speakers who have been granted 5 minutes to speak.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the Working Lands Conservation Act. The bill is intended to achieve two major goals: first, to assist our farmers and ranchers in meeting short-term environmental challenges, such as water and air quality concerns and the regulation of animal feeding operations; and, secondly, to enhance the long-term quality of our environment and sustainability of our natural resources. As some of my colleagues may recall, the Senate Agriculture Committee has a long history of bipartisan cooperation on conservation. From the Conservation Reserve, to the Wetlands Reserve, to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, we have conscientiously sought to do what is best for our Nation's environment. We have laid aside partisan differences when it has come to conservation and our natural resources are better because of our joint efforts. In that spirit, my bill joins those of several of my colleagues and represents a foundation for our work on the conservation title of the farm bill. Senator Harkin has introduced the Conservation Security Act--an innovative idea that would reward good conservation farmers for their environmental efforts and thus foster conservation and environmental improvements. Senators Craig, Feinstein, and Thomas have introduced a Grasslands Reserve Act that would protect and restore one million acres of our fragile grasslands while allowing the owners to maintain economic use of the land. Senators Hutchinson and Lincoln have a bill that reauthorizes and expands the Wetlands Reserve Program. Senator Crapo has introduced a bill, of which I am a cosponsor, that covers many of the items in the conservation title of the current farm bill. I know he has put much thought into his bill and I look forward to working with him and my other colleagues as we fashion the conservation title of the new farm bill. While there are many valid approaches on how we should foster improvements in our environment, this bill invests in our working lands--the land we use to grow our food, our fiber; the land we depend upon for sustenance. This working land cropland, pasture, rengeland, and private forests, makes up some 70 percent of the land areas of the contiguous 48 States. How this land is managed has profound effects on our economy and environment. The farm bill we are cross developing is one of the most important pieces of environmental and natural resource legislation this Congress will address. It is essential that the conservation title be a major component of the legislation we develop together. Since 1985, the last time Congress made a major investment in conservation as part of a farm bill, we have spent most of our conservation dollars through programs that set aside productive cropland as a primary means of achieving our environmental goals. These efforts are certainly worthwhile and I support continuing them. Indeed the preeminent land-idling program we have, the Conservation Reserve, was introduced on my farm in Indiana and I continue to support it. But we cannot land-idle our way to environment performance. The folly of this, solely from a resource conservation standpoint--is evident from the situation we now see after fifteen years of extensive land idling through the Conservation Reserve. After having set aside up to 36.4 million acres at one point, State water quality reports today will name nonpoint source pollution as the Nation's biggest water quality challenge and agriculture as the biggest culprit, primarily due to sediment, nutrient loadings, and pathogens. While the Conservation Reserve has many benefits, particularly wildlife habitat in the Great Plains, it is obvious that large-scale land-idling schemes will not solve all of the problems associated with water and air quality. Yet these are the environmental challenges that confront most farmers today, and the ones most likely to result in costly new regulation for our farmers and ranchers. How we deal with these environmental challenges will affect the commercial viability of farming and ranching over the next decade. A quick review of how we are spending our voluntary conservation dollars will show just how much ground we have to make up. In 1985, 97 cents of every financial assistance dollar from the U.S. Department of Agriculture went to working lands; three cents went to land retirement. Today, the situation is nearly reversed with some 85 cents going toward land retirement, primarily through the Conservation Reserve, and only 15 cents going toward working lands. This over-reliance on removing land from production comes at the expense of caring for working lands, and, given the contemporary environmental issues facing landowners, this imbalance must be addressed during our reauthorization of the farm bill. For our working lands to continue to be productive, and to ensure that agriculture can tend to its environmental concerns, I believe that the overarching goal of the new conservation title should be to emphasize conservation on working agricultural lands. Much as President Theodore Roosevelt championed public land conservation early in the last century, today we must champion the care of our working lands. Bringing conservation programs up to levels needed to address priority issues will require new funding. If you exclude the short-term emergency funding, the budget resolution provides an additional $66.15 billion for agriculture above the baseline. I believe that a significant portion of this new spending should be devoted to conservation. My bill increases mandatory conservation spending by approximately $2 billion per year. This amount would effectively double our investment in voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs. And, because of the funding provided by the budget resolution, we can enhance our working lands programs without cutting or diminishing our existing land retirement programs. To focus on working lands, our first order of business is to strengthen the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. EQIP, as it is called, offers financial, technical and educational assistance to farmers and ranchers and is generally seen as the workhorse conservation program for working lands. Congress created EQIP in 1996 by merging four other conservation programs and provided $200 million a year in mandatory spending. Today, requests for EQIP assistance far outstrip available funds and analyses show there is a demonstrated need for an additional $1.2 billion per year to address the anticipated needs of the livestock industry alone. My bill established national priorities for EQIP, makes several needed reforms to the program such as shortening the length of the contract and removing discriminatory size restrictions, and provides $1.5 billion a year to be phased-in over a three year period. In addition, my bill provides more flexibility and financial incentives within EQIP to create partnerships at the state and local level, partnerships that are essential to meeting the environmental challenges agriculture faces. My bill establishes a grants section within EQIP to leverage federal funds with funding from non-federal entities and encourages states to develop plans that bring together multiple Federal, State, and local programs to create coordinated conservation initiatives to address critical environmental challenges. There is already good experience on this score through the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and the continuous signup program for buffer practices. My bill expands this concept by making private and other non-federal entities eligible for a special $100 million matching grant program within EQIP. The grant program would create cooperative federal/non- federal ventures that would spur conservation on private lands through market-based initiatives. Under my proposal, non-federal entities would bid to have their projects approved and then combine their funds with federal money to stimulate more use of market-based solutions in areas such as water quality or carbon credit trading. For example, drinking water suppliers facing the necessity, and cost, of building new treatment facilities might find it less expensive to pay upstream farmers and ranchers to voluntarily make reductions in pollutant discharges, thereby obviating the need for new treatment facilities. Taken together, these provisions will spark creative and innovative approaches to conservation that work better for farmers, ranchers, communities, and the environment. Reforming, adequately funding, and focusing the Environmental Quality Incentives Program on national environmental issues will dramatically accelerate the amount of conservation on our landscape. But it will also require that we resolve one of the key problems we face today--the lack of qualified technical assistance to help our farmers and ranchers plan, design, install, and maintain conservation practices. Insufficient annual appropriations for USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service over the past decade have caused a steady decline in real terms in the number of field staff available to give landowners technical advice. At the same time, demand for technical assistance has ballooned as producers grapple with conservation challenges. My bill ensures that technical assistance will be available to implement conservation by reforming the so-called section 11 Cap in the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act. The Commodity Credit Corporation is allowed to reimburse agencies for work they do for the various programs under the Corporation, but the section 11 cap limits total reimbursements to no more than $36.2 million annually. The cap was put on by Congress to control computer purchases by the Department of Agriculture, but is has also had the unintended side effect of limiting technical assistance reimbursement for conservation programs. To resolve the problem, my bill exempts conservation technical assistance reimbursements from the cap. Reforming the section 11 Cap will help solve part of the problem, but my bill also looks to the private and nonprofit sector to help fill the technical assistance gap. Crop advisors, farm managers, private agronomists and engineers, conservation district professionals, and other qualified individuals could help fill the technical assistance gap for many landowners who are willing to pay for their services. My bill creates a fee-based certification program within USDA to increase the number of technical assistance providers and provides for the use of incentive payments to help farmers and ranchers pay for qualified technical assistance for nutrient management plans. In all cases, work done by third parties would have to meet the technical standards of the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Maintaining the confidentiality of producer information contained in USDA files is vital to voluntary private lands conservation. Farmers and ranchers must be confident that their private business information will not be compromised if they participate in a conservation program. Farmers and ranchers are increasingly concerned about this issue as both government agencies and non-governmental entities have attempted to secure USDA data for regulatory purposes. In order to maintain the trust that exists between producers and USDA, my bill includes provisions to protect the confidentiality of the information farmers and ranchers disclose when developing and implementing conservation plans without affecting current Freedom of Information Act procedures. Strengthening EQIP and our technical assistance capabilities are the two most important priorities my bill addresses. But there are other programs that add important features to a comprehensive conservation program that my bill reauthorizes and funds. My bill reauthorizes and increase funding for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives program. Created in the 1996 farm bill, this program provides technical and financial assistance to landowners that agree to develop wildlife habitat. The program was originally funded at $50 million over the seven year life of the 1996 farm bill. My bill increases the funding level to $50 million per year, devoting an aggregate of one-half billion dollars to wildlife habitat over the life of the bill. Similarly, my bill reauthorizes, amends, and increase funding for the Farmland Protection Program. This voluntary program, also created in the 1996 farm bill, assist state and local programs purchase development rights on farms and helps farmers on the urban-rural interface stay in farming. The program has been lauded for its assistance to communities wishing to preserve agriculture, open space, wildlife habitat and other environmental benefits. My bill expands participation in the program to non-profit organizations, allows grassland easements, and increases funding to $65 million per year. My bill preserves the Conservation Reserve Program at its current level of 36.4 million acres. This leaves room for enrolling more than 2 million acres of additional land right now, as well as the acres that become available as existing contracts expire. The bill amends the program to create an incentive to increase the amount of hardwood trees entering the program and statutorily reserves 4 million acres for the continuous signup and for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Both the continuous signup and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program target high priority environmental concerns such as water quality. My bill also makes a major new commitment to wetland restoration through the Wetlands Reserve Program by reauthorizing the program and adding 2.5 million acres to the enrollment authorization, more than doubling the rate of wetland restoration we have achieved since 1990. Of the new acreage, the bill targets 50,000 acres of wetland restoration a year to cooperative agreements with States for high priority environmental needs such as hypoxia, eutrophication, wildlife habitat, flooding, and groundwater recharge. In the area of reform, within existing USDA conservation programs there are numerous overlaps and redundancies. My bill requires the Secretary of Agriculture to aggressively look at the entire range of USDA conservation programs to identify program overlaps, explore potential consolidations, develop ways to simplify and streamline program administration, and then report her recommendations to Congress. As we continue the process of reauthorizing the farm bill, several fundamental choices lie before us and will require us to make decisions that will set the course of voluntary private lands conservation efforts for the next decade. The choices we make will determine the overall health of our environment. The Working Lands Conservation Act provides a solid basis for making those conservation decisions. The bill helps restore balance between working lands programs and land- idling programs without cutting popular programs such as the Conservation Reserve. The focus of my conservation reforms is to assist farmers and ranchers to not only meet regulatory requirements, but to proactively resolve them before they enter a regulatory context. It increases the coherence of conservation policy, protects producer confidentiality, and assures that more technical assistance will be available to our farmers and ranchers. As a Nation, we entrust the care of over 50 percent of our land to just two percent of our citizens--the farmers and ranchers who work the land and produce the food and fiber we demand. This bill recognizes that farmers and ranchers are much more than food and fiber producers. They are the most important natural resource managers in this Nation. My bill will give them the technical and financial tools they need to care for the land--and our environment, as they make a living from it. It recognizes that conservation is a shared responsibility; a partnership between farmers, ranchers, and the public. This bill strengthens those partnerships and ensures conservation will be a fundamental part of the mission of this Committee, Congress, and the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I will comment briefly on the colloquy we are having on the responsibilities with regard to the Agriculture bill. I respect very much my colleague from Iowa, the distinguished chairman of the committee, pursuing this vigorously, as I am. Without being repetitious, let me point out even if the bill were in conference as of 10:45 this morning, it is unlikely we would have success. The predicament I have pointed out and others have pointed out is an important one; namely, our conference has to find a result in a bill that will be signed by the President of the United States. The President of the United States visited with Senators on the Hill yesterday. It is not conjecture. The President indicated we ought to take seriously our budget responsibilities. The President said this directly to us. In addition, both the distinguished chairman of the committee and I have received from the President's advisers this message, and let me quote some relevant paragraphs: The administration strongly opposes S. 1246, the bill that came out of the Agriculture Committee, because spending authorized by the bill would exceed $5.5 billion, the amount provided in the budget resolution and the amount adopted by the House. If S. 1246 is presented to the President at a level higher than $5.5 billion, the President's senior advisers will recommend he veto the bill. When the President of the United States then comes to the Hill, as he did yesterday, and asks Senators whom he addressed to do their duty, this is not conjecture. I have tried to say in every way I can it seems to me we ought to take the President seriously. I offered the House language yesterday, not because I was author of the language or find all of that language to be perfection, but it is a bill that has passed the House. It is a bill that, if adopted by the Senate, would make a conference unnecessary. It is a bill the President would sign immediately, which would guarantee that money goes to farmers. I am prepared to accept the fact we have debated this thoroughly, and the Senate, by a vote of 52-48, chose to go another way; namely, to try out for size the $7.5 billion. Apparently, Senators who had an interest in the bill felt it was worth the gamble. I hope the farmers who are watching this debate understand that. I do not see many farmers on this floor. I do not see very many people even intimately involved in agriculture, with the exception of my dear friend from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, who, I know, has a son managing a farm and working the soil out in Iowa, and my modest efforts in Indiana. I still do take responsibility for that farm, do the market plan, try to understand crop insurance, try to understand the bills we do. I am not certain there are too many people here who are going to be affected by this bill. We have a lot of advocates for farmers, a lot of people pleading the farmers' case, a lot of people saying, ``I feel your pain,'' and this goes on hour by hour. In terms of direct assistance that makes any difference to farmers, not a whole lot is happening. I sincerely respect the right of any Senator to plead the case for any number of farmers he wants to plead for, but I hope ultimately common sense will dictate this is an emergency. We have heard that if we do not act the money goes away. If, in fact, we are not going to be able to act and have a bill the President signs, no money will go to any farmers from all of this effort. That is the unfortunate truth of the debate. I do not know how we arrive at a solution. Presumably, if we had a conference, to take one hypothetical, and the distinguished Senator from Iowa sat down with Mr. Combest and Mr. Stenholm or others around the table, our distinguished House Members have already told us: Take the House bill. They came here yesterday. They were in the aisle right here about a quarter after 12. They said: Please, we are planning to leave Thursday, tomorrow. The distinguished Senator from Iowa said we can all work it out; there is not much difference--just money--involved in this bill. There is all the difference from $7.5 billion and $5.5 billion. Maybe our conference would come to $5.5 billion. We could confer and accept the House bill because that is the one the President will sign, or we could speculate and say the President really did not mean it. After all, Presidents bluff, advisers send over these letters; OMB really did not mean it; this was all meant to color the flavor of the debate; let's try them on; let's settle for, say, $6.5 billion; let's split the difference as honest people might do. Try that one on for size. We will try to get it back through the House and the Senate. We hope the House is still there at that point to pass the bill. Let's say the corporal's guard remains and they wave it on. Then the President says, unfortunately: You did not hear me, but you had better hear me because this is likely to happen again and again with appropriations bills. This is a pretty small bill in comparison to things I am going to have to face down the trail, but I am prepared to do my duty; I hope you are prepared to do yours. And at last he vetoes the bill. We are gone at that point, and the American farmers have no money. I do not mean to be repetitive, but this is a fairly straightforward situation without great complexity. It is a test of wills. The Senate may decide the President really did not mean it or the President should not mean it or, on reflection, he will not mean it. Maybe that is right, but that is not the President I saw eyeball to eyeball yesterday at noon. We are looking at a very straightforward situation that I hope will be resolved. The resolution of it is to accept the House language and to get on with it. Any other course of action now is to have a rather protracted situation ending with a veto, and that would be a misfortune for the Senate and for American agriculture. I yield the floor.

Mr. LUGAR. I yield to the distinguished Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the attention the Appropriations Committee has given to this important issue. I join with my colleague from Indiana Senator Bayh in sharing with the committee our thoughts about section 315 of the bill. I hope the committee will be mindful of our strong interest in this issue, and that we believe Indiana should be specifically listed and included in any matters or discussions relating to federal proposals or legislation intended to relieve air traffic in the Chicago region. The Chicago region needs additional airport capacity and some of this capacity can be accommodated at the Gary/Chicago Airport. Throughout my service in the Senate, I have been a strong supporter of the Gary/ Chicago Airport as a viable part of the solution that will help meet the current pressing air traffic needs of the region. Earlier this year, the Gary Airport submitted to the FAA a draft of its phase II20-year master plan/airport layout plan. This effort proposes an expansion of existing airport facilities, including navigational improvements, runway extensions and construction of parallel runway. I strongly support the airport's plan for future growth and believe this master plan is an essential part of the solution to helping relieve air traffic congestion now and in the long term. It is especially important to keep in mind that the Gary/Chicago Airport today is an active, fully operational aviation facility with a 7,000 foot main runway and a crosswind runway that can help provide immediate relief to the problem of aviation congestion in the Chicago region. On June 12, I hosted a meeting in Washington with Transportation Secretary Mineta and was joined by my colleagues Senator Bayh and Representative Visclosky, along with Indiana Governor O'Bannon and Gary Mayor King. During this productive and positive meeting, we emphasized to Transportation Secretary Mineta our strong and unified support for the master plan/ALP submitted by the Gary/Chicago Airport that is currently being evaluated by the FAA. We specifically requested Secretary Mineta's assistance in ensuring that Gary's master plan/ALP receive full and fair consideration, and that the FAA work to expedite their consideration of Gary's plan. We hope Gary's master plan/ALP will be approved by the FAA this year. The problem of air congestion in the Chicago region and the urgent need for relief should be national priorities. I believe that existing, operating, regional airport facilities such as the Gary/Chicago Airport should be included as part of both short-term and long-term solutions to this aviation safety and public transportation challenge. I wish to thank the chairwoman and ranking member for their attention to our concerns about this important matter.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman for his thoughtfulness. I hope Senators will support my amendment and vote no against the tabling motion. I ask them to do this because I believe it is the only way in which farmers are going to receive any money. I will go over the situation again. If we adopt the House language, we do not have a conference, and that is very important, because in a conference with the House, other items could arise that are of concern to Senators. As it is, we know the parameters of the bill as we see them. Adoption by the Senate of the House language means we have no conference, the President signs the bill, and the money goes to the farmers. We have received from the CBO assurance that this bill must be successfully conferenced and passed by the Senate and the House before we recess, and the President must sign it in the month of August or there will be no checks. None. Senators need to know that. The fact is, we have a difference of opinion. But the specialty crops are cared for by the House bill. The AMTA payments are cared for--not in the quantity that persons in either of these categories wish to achieve but this is emergency spending. It is our one opportunity to do it. I am hopeful, in a bipartisan way, we will reject tabling; we will pass the amendment; we will go to the President, united with the House; and we will get the money to the farmers. This is very important, as opposed to having a partisan issue, as opposed to discussing how sad it was that somehow we miscalculated, how sad it was, indeed, for the farmers that we were attempting to help. Finally, I believe we are doing something responsible. I believe we are filling in the gap for income, and our estimates are that farmers will have less this year, and we are going to make certain they have more; that country bankers are paid and they can count on it; and that farmers will plant again and they can count upon it. Any farmer listening to this debate wants us to pass the bill today and to move on with the House and the President. They do not want haggling over who is responsible, which party really cares more, which crop should have had something more, or an opportunity for mischief to occur in the conference, in which finally the whole issue revolves on something other than what we have been talking about today. I plead with my colleagues, in a bipartisan way, to reject tabling and to support the Lugar amendment.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment not be read in full.

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I appreciate the agreement arrived at by the distinguished majority leader and the Republican leader for the beginning of this debate on the supplemental farm emergency amendment. I cannot emphasize, as the Chair knows as a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the importance of this moment for agricultural America, for those who have hopes that we will be successful in this endeavor. I simply pay tribute to our leadership on both sides of the aisle for attempting to frame the debate in this way: by beginning with giving me this opportunity to offer an amendment. Let me be clear that the bill before the Senate now came by majority vote from the Senate Agriculture Committee. For Members who have followed the debate yesterday--and for those who have not--we had a full debate in the committee during which I offered a substitute amendment to that offered by our distinguished chairman, the Senator from Iowa. Essentially, my amendment called for the expenditure of $5.5 billion. It was apportioned through a number of items, about $5 billion-plus of that through the so-called AMTA payments, these payments that have been made to farmers who, as part of the farm program, have had program crops in the last several years. It has been the responsibility of the Senate and the House--our Government--to make additional AMTA payments in recent years in addition to those provided by the farm bill in 1996. The reason we have chosen the AMTA framework is that the farmers to be paid are known, their names and the addresses of these farms. They have been a part of the program. As a result, their crop histories are expeditious. Members of the committee from time to time have raised questions as to: Why these farmers? Why should people who are in corn, wheat, cotton, and rice be the recipients? There is no equitable answer to that. Most of these debates have occurred in an emergency context such as the one we now have. This is July 31. By definition of the fiscal year, the payments have to be cut and received by September 30. So as a result, for programs that do not have an AMTA history and which are not clear about the criteria or the recipients, those checks cannot physically get there by the 30th. We found last year, in making a larger list of recipients, that a large list of new program procedures had to be formulated by the Department of Agriculture. That happened, and in due course the checks were cut, but frequently it was a hiatus of 6, 7, 8, 9 months. That is a part of the issue today. We are talking about the fiscal year we are in that ends September 30 and how money might be received by farmers. Farmers listening to the debate are very interested in this. The testimony we have heard is that they are counting in many cases upon these payments. More to the point, many of our country bankers are counting on these payments, counting on meeting with farmers to settle planting loans from this season's planting and the hope; therefore, that there might be loans for planting next year in the case of farms that are in that situation, literally, needing loans from year to year to continue on in business. That is why there is an emergency aspect involved. I have sought recognition this morning at the early part of the debate because I sense that we may be successful, and I have some premonition of disaster if we are not, as I read in the press, in the newsletters, in all of the communications that come to us about all the ways in which this particular debate might go. I will not try to be a prophet. My own optimistic spirit is that the debate will go in a constructive way, and that is the purpose of this amendment. I will not offer the amendment this morning, though I offered it in committee. It did have a limit of $5.5 billion. I thought it was reasonably well constructed as a compromise of various interests within the committee. Instead, the amendment I have sent to the desk--and I ask for its immediate consideration--is the identical language of legislation that came from the House of Representatives. It is a bill already adopted by our friends in the House Agriculture Committee and the House of Representatives as a whole. It is passed. At some point, probably very quickly, we will have to come to grips--this week, for example--with what we will do if we pass legislation different from that which the House has passed. The conventional wisdom is, of course, we would have a conference between Members of the House and Senate. We would try to reconcile our differences. We would report back to the two bodies at some time during this week. Presumably because of the emergency, priority would be given to this conference report. Hopefully, both Houses would pass what we do and send it to the President. The President has left no doubt what he will do if in fact this comes to him in some form with a pricetag higher than $5.5 billion, all to be spent in this fiscal year. We had, first of all, at the time of our committee debates, a letter from Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Daniels said he would not recommend that the President sign a bill of more than $5.5 billion in this fiscal year. That was fairly mild in comparison to the letter read on the floor by the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania yesterday, which was received by many Members and which, after a lot of conversation, including the President of the United States, rather vividly in much of it--the letter came to us and said the senior advisers of the President would advise him to veto the bill if it has more than $5.5 billion and extends beyond this year. They gave reasons for that, and these are debatable, and I am sure we will hear debate about them. Madam President, there is no doubt in my mind, nor should there be in the minds of other Senators or of the farmers in this country or of anybody listening to this debate, what is going to occur in the event we finally come to a conference and we have a result other than something less or $5.5 billion. That being the case, I have suggested to the Senate, and in fact taken the action of offering it as an amendment, that if we are serious about coming to a conclusion on this farm bill, we had best at this point adopt the House language. This is not my language. It is not pride of authorship. It is not my way or no way. I have already had a try at it and lost 12-9 in the Ag Committee on what I thought was a pretty good suggestion. That is another day. We are now in Tuesday of presumably our final week. The distinguished majority leader has said we are going to stay at this, not just this week and this weekend but until we pass a bill. I have no doubt we will pass a bill. The point I am making is, it had better be one the President will sign or at the end of the trail we will not have legislation. We will have an issue. Members may say: The President was wrong; he should not have done that. The President and his supporters will affirm that he was absolutely right. The net effect, however, for farmers listening to all of that, as we sort out the relative praise and blame, will be that they have no money. That I start the debate with and will probably repeat several times because it is a very critical element. If the House bill which I have offered today as an amendment did not have a lot of merit, I would not have taken the step this morning to suggest to my colleagues they adopt something that was without the merit at least that I believe it has. I want to offer, as introduction to the discussion of this House bill and my amendment, a letter that was received yesterday by Trent Lott, our Republican leader. It was written by three distinguished Members of the House of Representatives; namely, Charlie Stenholm, the distinguished ranking member of the Agriculture Committee from Texas; John Boehner from Ohio; and Cal Dooley from California. They essentially were authors and major advocates in the House of the legislation that finally emerged. They say: It is our understanding the Senate will begin floor consideration this week on the Fiscal Year 2001 Agricultural Supplemental Assistance bill. We are writing to urge the Senate to stay within $5.5 billion provided for FY2001 in the budget and to approve this measure immediately in order to provide the assistance prior to September 30, 2001 as required by the 2002 Budget Agreement. As you know, the House reported a bill that will spend $5.5 billion to assist our farmers and ranchers this fiscal year. After much debate in the House Agriculture Committee, we determined that spending more than $5.5 billion would limit our flexibility as we write the 2002 Farm Bill. We believe that if we spend more than the money allowed for fiscal year 2001, we will be borrowing against American agriculture's best chance for a comprehensive safety net. Last week the House Agriculture Committee approved a landmark farm bill that will provide a safety net for our farmers, fund conservation at an unprecedented levels and renew our commitment to needy families. Passage of agricultural assistance legislation beyond $5.5 billion will imperil these critical needs. We urge you to remain within the $5.5 billion so that we can provide long-term solutions for America's farmers and ranchers. Thank you in advance for your consideration of this request. It is signed by the three distinguished Members. We likewise, Madam President, heard from a good number of our colleagues on the floor yesterday that they appreciate the point of the House. They disagree with it--and Members will disagree with a number of our approaches--in part because all are compromises between interests that have a lot of merit. For example, in the amendment I offered in committee, the AMTA payment was somewhat over $5 billion. In the amendment we are looking at today, the House legislation, the AMTA payment is somewhat better than $4.6 billion--about $400 million less. Legislation offered by the distinguished chairman of our committee, Senator Harkin, offers about $400 million more in the end. If we take an example, for the corn farmer--and I admitted yesterday I am one--this is bad news. Moving from, say, $5.4 billion, or some such figure in the AMTA payment, even to $5 billion is difficult, and $4.6 billion is very difficult; likewise, wheat farmers, cotton farmers, rice farmers. What goes on here? In the old days, the only crops we were talking about were the program crops as I outlined yesterday that started in the 1930s. That is the way it has been all these years. Now suddenly, in a $5.5 billion bill only $4.6-plus billion is devoted to us. After all, we farm the majority of the acreage and, in terms of crops, the majority of the value. Livestock producers would say: Welcome. We were never in on the deal to begin with. Program crops meant crops. They did not mean hogs and cattle and sheep. In fact, we will take a look at this situation. We are already in some anxiety as, say, cattlemen and people who produce pork, as we heard in our committee last week. What do these programs do to feed costs? Is there an input problem for us already in what agriculture committees have been doing cumulatively? We thought there might be, and that would be bad news if one were getting no AMTA payment or consideration. In fact, we are seeing potential costs increase in the programs to help various people. My only point is within American agriculture there are many diverse, even competing, views among those who produce livestock, feed livestock, and those who produce the feed. If there was one integrated operation, perhaps it all works out, but as we have heard, many farmers in America do one or another or various things. So they are all going to look at this bill and say: What is in this for us? The amendment I have offered will be a disappointment in that respect because it is a compromise. It suggests that in order to accommodate a number of interests, and some say even in the House bill not nearly enough, there is some division of what might be coming in a more whole form in the AMTA payment. I make that point explicitly because on our side of the aisle I have heard Senators say they want the bigger AMTA payment. I am not so worried about specialty crops or about poultry or livestock. As a matter of fact, I am worried about cotton farmers, rice farmers, wheat farmers, and corn farmers. I understand that. As a matter of fact, this is a part of the business of legislation, trying to find and meld these competing interests. In any event, we have that predicament at the outset, which I admit. As I said at the beginning, I offered the amendment because I see this potentially as a way in which we will have a bill. I fear if we do not have a solution along those lines we will not have a bill. Let me go explicitly into the amendment that has been offered this morning. As was suggested by our distinguished Members of the House, whose letter I read, led by Congressmen Stenholm, Boehner, and Dooley, on June 26, the House passed H.R. 2213, which provided for $5.5 billion in broad-based market loss assistance to the Nation's farmers and ranchers. The assistance must be provided to farmers by September 30 of this year, the last day of fiscal year 2001. This market loss assistance is above and beyond $21.7 billion in payments in fiscal year 2001 that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates is already being provided to farmers in this fiscal year under current law commodities support and crop insurance programs. Excluding the new farm assistance we are now considering, the Agriculture Department projects United States net cash farm income for 2001 at $52.3 billion, down $3 billion from last year's $55.3 billion. As I mentioned in the debate yesterday, herein lies the reason at least the Budget Committees of the Senate and the House allocated the $5.5 billion for this year. They saw a gap. As I recall, they estimated the gap then, in January and February, at $3 billion or $4 billion. With updated figures, we now see an estimate that there is about a $3 billion gap between the $52.3 billion in net cash income last year and what was expected for this year. Farm income last year was supported by nearly $23 billion in direct payments to farmers, which at that time was an all-time high. If we enact H.R. 2213, the amendment I have offered, in a timely fashion, net cash farm income for this year, based on the current USDA projection, would rise to $57.8 billion, $2.5 billion above last year's level. We will have made up the $3 billion gap and exceeded that by $2.5 billion with a $5.5 billion expenditure. H.R. 2213 provides for $4.622 billion in supplemental market loss payments. These are payments to producers enrolled in the 1996 farm bill's Agriculture Market Transition Act, the AMTA acronym. These farmers have contracts, and the bill says the payments come to them throughout the entirety of the 7 years of the bill. That is the AMTA payment, $4.622 billion. The second provision is $424 million in market loss payments to producers of soybeans and other oilseeds. My first question on this provision was: How will the $424 million in these market loss payments to the soybean and oilseed producers get to them by September 30? The answer to that question, and that will be roughly the same answer but I will be explicit all the way through this list, is they are the same producers who received the money last year. It was not easy to make the payments last year, and this called for an enormous amount of research and guidance through the whole process, but the results of all of that activity are that there is now a list. The expedition of the payments will be the $424 million goes to those same people and can be paid, if we make a decision to act this week, by September 30. Next comes $159 million in assistance to producers of specialty crops such as fruits and vegetables. Here we do not have lists of who received the money last year, and therefore the provision in the House bill is there would be grants to the States. Now, the States will have to work out who gets the money within their States, but for the purposes of this act the money is dispensed by the Federal Government to the States before September 30. Therefore, technically, it is out of the Treasury before the fiscal year ends and fits within the $5.5 billion in that way. That implies a great deal more activity, understandably, for equity for the specialty crops as it goes to the various States and farmers work with their State governments. Then we have $129 million in market loss assistance for tobacco. This goes to quota holders, who are a well-known group, and payments have been made to these persons in the past. The next provision is $54 million in market loss assistance for peanuts. Likewise, there are quota holders for peanuts, a well-known list for these producers. The money can be paid to them by September 30. The same is true for the next provision, $85 million in market loss assistance for cotton seed; the same for $17 million in market loss assistance for wool and mohair producers; the final provision in the House bill is $10 million in emergency food assistance support. This emergency assistance support will go for commodities for the school lunch programs and other important and nutrition programs. Those moneys will be spent before September 30. These are the provisions of the House legislation. That is the total list of provisions. H.R. 2213 utilizes the full $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2001 provided in this year's budget resolution for farm market loss assistance. It does not touch the $7.35 billion in fiscal year 2002 funds that the budget resolution also provides either for supplemental farm assistance for the 2002 crops or to help the Agriculture Committee write a new multiyear farm bill. That very statement is, of course, the source of some debate. There are Members who say: Why not reach into the $7.35 billion? After all, it is there. The Budget Committee certainly mentioned it. Perhaps the Budget Committee, in mentioning it, implied that the agricultural crisis goes on next year. As a matter of fact, one can suggest the Budget Committee, in talking about over $70 billion payments over 10 years, implies the crisis goes on forever, or at least for 10 years almost at the same level of crisis, maybe with a a few ups and downs, $10 billion payment one year, $5 billion the next, and so forth. If we adopt this thinking, it makes almost no difference when the money is spent because the crisis goes on and people think if you can't pick it up in this bill, you might try the Agriculture appropriations bill and find an emergency there to provide additional funds. Sponsored by Congressmen Stenholm and Boehner, whom I mentioned before, the House bill finally represents a bipartisan compromise. It was not easy to come by. Stenholm-Boehner-Dooley, and others I have cited, had contending parties within the House Agriculture Committee. Many people, as I read the debate, asked, What about us? They mentioned various considerations: if we were sending money to farmers, they wanted their fair share, including the brokering of all of that, with payments that could be made physically by the end of this year. It was not an easy task. Nevertheless, they mastered it in the House. It came out of committee well over a month ago. Their bill passed the House of Representatives by voice vote. Perhaps the House Members, by the time they listened to all of this debate, figured the Agriculture Committee people suffered enough; that they had undergone the agonies and did not want a repetition. It is remarkable that this body takes a very different view. It appears we are going to have an extensive debate that may go on for days. The House people were able to do this by voice vote. One reason they did so is that they heard from farmers, they heard from their constituents, and the farmers said: Get on with it; we don't want an argument; we understand you are doing your very best. The House people understood most of the Members on the floor of the House were not farmers; they were advocates for farmers. They were doing the best for their constituents who were farmers, but at some point the constituents would say; don't overlawyer me; don't over advocate me; try to get on with a result because September 30 is coming quickly. Now, granted, such voices will be heard coming from agricultural America to this body. As I indicated at the outset, and the reason I offer this amendment, this amendment offers, I believe, the opportunity to get a result. The bill before the Senate today, which I have sought to amend, represents a very different approach that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The approach is that $1.976 billion in fiscal year 2002 would be spent in addition to the $5.5 billion in the current fiscal year. A significant portion, therefore, of the fiscal year 2002 budget authority is used to fund this farm bill provision as opposed to the emergency that may arise next year or the farm bill which presumably will come out of our committee and set some charter philosophy for the future. The House already passed such a bill. We may or may not agree with it. In any event, they have a pretty full picture now of their activities. The bill offered by the distinguished chairman of our committee, Senator Harkin, for example, provides $200 million for the wetlands reserve program, WRP; $250 million for the environmental quality incentive programs, EQIP; $40 million for the farmland protection program; $7 million for the wildlife habitat incentive program; $43 million for a variety of agricultural credit and rural development programs; and $3 million for agricultural research. The outlays from some of these programs would be spread over a number of years, well beyond fiscal year 2002. I mention these programs because I support these programs. I have been a major advocate for agricultural research, not only of the formula grants to our great universities but cutting-edge research where anyone can compete to try to go out after the most pervasive hunger problems on Earth, or go after production problems, genetic problems, the whole raft of things that are very important for humanity. I think we ought to be about this in a very serious way. The EQIP program that I cited is extraordinarily important. It is at least a way in which our livestock producers can stay alive while meeting the requirements of the EPA or other environmental considerations that impinge very markedly on their operations. As we consider the farm bill in the Senate as a whole, I would be an advocate of doing a great deal more. I have saluted our chairman, Senator Harkin, for his championship of conservation programs. Both the chairman and I, as we speak, are missing a hearing on conservation programs and we regret that because these are people who are in the field, championing things that we believe in very strongly. There is an argument, which you will hear in due course as the farm bill is presented, between those who advocate a lot more for conservation and maybe less for crop payments and subsidies of that sort and much more for the EQIP program that helps livestock people and maybe less for support of certain crops. Those are the tradeoffs, again, and the difficulties within the whole agricultural family that we finally have to face. But it would be very difficult to argue, in the sense that we are attempting to get emergency money to farmers to pay the county banker and get the money to them by September 30, that these broad-gauged, important programs of research and conservation for America belong in this particular emergency supplemental bill. Our distinguished Senators will offer: ``They certainly do. And why not?'' And: ``If we believe in them, why not do more of them?'' And: ``Why not now?'' Earlier in the debate I pointed out one reason, as a practical matter, is that President Bush has said he will veto the bill if it is more than $5.5 billion. One way, perhaps, for the distinguished Senator from Iowa to remedy that is to downsize everything in his package to about five-sevenths of where he is, get it under $5.5 billion. But that, of course, then gets into an argument between the people who want more AMTA payments, crop payments, as well as those who want to take care of conservation and various other aspects all in this same emergency bill which is not a full-scale farm bill by any means. As a result, we have that dilemma, and I come down on the side of saying we try to do the conservation, the research, the EQIP, and the farm bill as opposed to the suggestion in this day's discussion. Let me just comment further that, with the program improvements we made in the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000--that was the very important debate on crop insurance--participation in crop insurance has risen sharply, as we hoped it would. Without repeating even a portion of that important debate, the point of last year's discussion about this time was that crop insurance can offer a comprehensive safety net. For example, take once again a personal, anecdotal experience with my corn and soybean crops. This year I have about 200 acres each on the Lugar farm in Marion County in Indiana. We have taken advantage of the legislation we talked about last year and we purchased the 85-percent revenue protection. Very simply, this means that our agent takes a look at the last 5 years of records of production and that gives a pretty good baseline of what could be anticipated from those fields and, simply, we are guaranteed about 85 percent of revenue based upon the average crop prices for those 5 years. At the present time, the average for the last 5 years is higher than the current price. It may rise and meet that average. So, as a corn farmer, for example, I know I am going to get 85 percent of a higher price than in fact is the market now, at least on the average production I have had. So I do not have the problems of the bad weather one year, or so forth, affecting that abnormally. The net effect of that is, as a corn farmer, before I even planted the crop this year, I knew that x number of dollars were at the end of the trail--as a matter of fact, a pretty good number of those dollars that I could expect in a reasonably good year. That is a safety net that is very substantial any way you look at it. Many farmers may say: I have never heard of such a program. That is a part of our problem, the educational component, trying to understand what crop insurance and marketing strategies, and so forth, are all about. For instance, once guaranteed this income from that cornfield, I could be alert for spikes in the market that come along and make forward sales of corn when prices were up. I am not beholden to sit there and hope the Lord will provide at the time I ship it in, in the fall. So I can enhance that 85 percent a whole lot. So can any corn farmer in America who hears these words this morning and adopts such a policy. But we in the Senate and the House provided that. The President signed it last year. One of the problems of it is that it costs probably about $3 billion a year. I mention that because that--we are not debating that this morning--flows right along. It is a part of the base as well as these AMTA payments that are made, regardless of what we do, or the loan deficiency payments made at the elevator even as we speak. So the safety net already is very heavy. But I mention with those improvements--and I think they were constructive ones--a part of our problem remains information dissemination, education on marketing insurance strategies in the hope that farmers will take advantage of actions the Congress has already taken. In addition, as to what we do today, we will be hearing soon from the Agriculture Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Typically, that subcommittee takes a look at miscellaneous disasters of all sorts throughout the United States. I cannot remember an Agriculture appropriations bill that did not take into consideration weather disasters. But sometimes there are other disasters. In other words, it provides still an additional safety net for events that seem extraordinary and beyond anything we have considered or that could have been helped with crop insurance or any of our AMTA payments that flow whether or not you even have a crop. Overall, the bill of the distinguished Senator from Iowa, the underlying bill in this debate, provides $6.75 billion in supplemental farm assistance for 2001 crops and $750 million in other spending over 2 fiscal years. It leaves, now, $5.35 billion for the supplemental farm assistance of next year and very likely, in my judgment, will create a funding shortfall for that farm assistance. Senators can argue maybe no assistance will be required so why not try it this year. But that is a value judgment. The President, the White House, and others, have come to the conclusion that this year is this year and we ought to look at next year on its merits because any way you look at it, $2 billion borrowed from next year theoretically could be spent for anything in America; there is no obligation to spend that $2 billion on emergencies. For example, without getting into a debate that is deeper than I want to get today, by next year people could say: In fact we take very seriously the problem of prescription drugs for the elderly under Medicare. We take very seriously Social Security reform. How are you folks going to pay for that? We might say: Well, the $2 billion will never be missed. It was simply a part of a debate we had awhile back. But every $1 billion is going to be missed when we come to those fundamental issues. Agriculture is a part of this general amount of $1 trillion that the President discussed in the State of the Union Address. As he outlined his assurance to the American people that we have to be thoughtful about Medicare, about Social Security, about education, and about health generally, he said there is still this contingency of about $1 trillion from which we make the reforms in Medicare, from which the supplementary legislation for prescription drugs for the elderly come, Social Security reform, and agriculture. There are a number of people in both the House and the Senate committees who say we had better get busy because when this general debate gets going, if we have not pinned down the agriculture money on all four corners for the next 10 years, Katy bar the door. People are likely to take a look at priorities. I understand that. This $2 billion reaching across the line is not an egregious misstep. And clearly one can argue the Budget Committee provided this liberal interpretation. But $2 billion is $2 billion, and it is an expenditure. The Senate must determine priorities; the House has. They have said $5.5 billion, and the President said that is the only figure he is going to sign. We may, once again, get into that kind of argument in behalf of farmers. We are strong advocates for farmers. But farmers, by and large, will say: Pass the bill and cut the checks because we have an appointment with the banker. You can have your argument when you come back. It is a good argument for farmers as well as for other Americans. The President's advisers in advising the President to veto this bill made a number of statements with regard to the need for it at this time. This is an important part of the debate. Members, in fact, yesterday got into this in a big way. The most common way of getting into this is for a Senator to address the Chair and say, I have been to this county seat or that county seat or on my friend's farm. Anybody who does not understand the profound suffering and difficulty has just not been there and doesn't have eyes to see. All over America people are in grave trouble. Each one of us from a farm State, as a matter of fact, could cite hundreds of instances of farmers who are having severe difficulty. There is no doubt about that. I simply state that as a basic premise for the debate. If there were any doubt about it, we would not be debating $5.5 billion of emergency payments on top of over $20 billion of support that Congress has already voted. That is a lot of money, but I understand that a vast majority of Senators are in favor of legislation that would be helpful in this respect. We are not talking about a situation in which the needs have not been perceived, but at the same time in reality sometimes people can overstate this. That is always dangerous to do. I have found in meetings with farmers around my State that, by and large, most people do not want to have a cheerful meeting. There are not a lot of good-news apostles coming forward and pointing out how well they are doing. In fact, that is totally out of the question. I made a mistake at a meeting a while back in pointing out that on my farm we had made money for the last 45 years without exception. You don't do that, I found out. No one wants to hear that because, as a matter of fact, it just isn't true for most people. And they would say that for some it has never been true for the 45 years. They lost money for all of the 45 years, or at least essentially that is the case. I hear that. On the other hand, let me say that essentially there has been some modest improvement in agricultural America. For example, world markets that are extremely important to the growth of the U.S. sector show some promise of increase this year. That is amazing on the face of it. The reason why our export sales fell out of bed 4 years ago was not because we were not competitive in this country. The price of rice and the quality were good, but anybody reading about the Asian economies understands that they had severe banking difficulties. The IMF even to this day has not been able to cure it in some instances. As a result, we lost about 40 percent of our exports to the Asian sector in 1 year's time. That was a big hit. That really meant that 10 percent of our exports overall vanished overnight--not through any misdeed of American agriculture but because of the lack of demand and lack of effective money to buy it. Much of that has not yet been restored. There is always the possibility. We wish that the Indonesian economy would get healthier in a hurry. We are grateful for some good news from Thailand and South Korea. The Japanese are always big customers but not any bigger. This is not an economy that is growing. We all are working with our friends there to try to restore some activity. In the European case, we have been hit--not on the questions of price or income but on biotechnology--with essentially all of our corn being exported and very few soybeans. That is a real problem. Our export sales fell to $49 billion in 1999 but are forecast to increase to $53.5 billion in 2001--an increase of $500 million, as a matter of fact, over the forecast by USDA in February--with livestock products, cotton, and soybeans accounting for much of the gain over the previous year. That is truly good news. Export levels in 2001--the year we are in--are still well below the record highs of 1996. Primarily in response to these problems that I have cited in Asia, and production increases by competing exporters that sometimes are becoming much better at the task, nevertheless, sales appear to be increasing significantly. During the first half of fiscal year 2001, the surplus in U.S. agricultural trade grew to $9.4 billion, almost $2 billion more than the same period last year. Year-to-date exports are $32.4 billion, $1.8 billion higher than they were during the same time period of last year, primarily due to $1.5 billion in more shipments of high-value products. That includes significant gains in livestock and feed, but bulk commodities have also contributed modestly to that. Although the intermediate term outlook for agriculture is clearly uncertain at this point, it is clear that many underlying farm economic conditions are stronger this year than last year. Farm cash receipts could be a record high for 2001, driven primarily by a nearly 7-percent increase in livestock sales while crop sales could increase by as much as 1 percent. That scenario depends on $15.7 billion in direct payments from the Federal Government. Those taking a look at this situation could say that is still not the real market. The sales are up because the Federal Government already has put up $15.7 billion, and we are about to put up at least $5.5 billion more. But, nevertheless, it is up rather than down. As I pointed out earlier, if we had the $5.5 billion in my amendment, we are clearly going to have a net cash income situation that is at least $2.5 billion stronger than last year. The projected increase in sales for 2001 is projected to more than offset the decline in Government payments and will boost gross cash income to $234 billion, up slightly with the bulk of the increase from livestock. Net cash income is forecast to decline $3 billion, as I pointed out earlier. That is why the $5.5 billion in my amendment takes care of that, plus $52.3 billion for the year, albeit through the health of the American taxpayers generally. Therefore, the outlook for 2001 farm income performance includes: Livestock sales, up 6.7 percent; Crop sales up 1 percent; gross cash income up .1 percent; and net cash income down--before we act--5.4 percent. And we remedy that with the $5.5 billion we are about to adopt, I hope. If you take a look at the balance sheet for agriculture, that is somewhat more promising. Overall, the agricultural sector was strong throughout the year 2000, with part of that strength coming from strong balance sheets. Assets in 2000--the year previous--increased 3.6 percent and reached $1.12 trillion. Farm debt increased 4.1 percent to $183.6 billion. But farmers' equity increased 1.4 percent to $941.2 billion. For many observers that is astonishing. This being a year or 2 or 3 or 4, however you count it, of an agricultural crisis, the net worth of farmers as a whole has increased every year. It increases this year as compared to last year. Total farm debt has still stayed well under constraints at a very modest percentage of that overall equity. During the mid-1990s, farm debt rose steadily at $5 to $6 billion annually. That clearly is not the case as farmers were much more prudent during this particular period. The value of livestock and poultry, machinery, purchased inputs, and financial assets are all expected to increase this year, but the value of stored crops could decline modestly as a part of that asset situation. Farm operators and lenders learned during the crisis of the 1980s that ill-advised borrowing cannot substitute for adequate cash flow and profits. In addition to gains in farmland values, cautious borrowing has kept the sector sound. The farm sector equity growth continues. During the 2001 forecast, we see a moderate increase in debt, suggesting modest levels of new capital investments financed by debt, and a very low incidence of farms borrowing their way out of cash flow problems. I mention that because of testimony we heard from farmers who need the $5.5 billion in our amendment. But at the same time, they are paying back their loans. They are not in a crisis situation with the country banker. And the country bankers need to make the loans because they do have a relatively sound market situation. Land prices: Cash rents reinforce economic strength and suggest investment is profitable for many farmers. That raises another issue because, in fact, with land prices rising each year--and I cited yesterday sector by sector all over the country land prices have been rising throughout this decade. The young farmer coming into this picture, trying to buy land or to rent land, with rents going up every year, has raised some questions about our farm policies. They have said: You folks in the Senate and the House are busy sending payments to farmers. They are capitalizing that in the value of the land. They are charging more rent. How are young farmers such as ourselves ever going to get in the game? We say: We will try to give you some low-cost loans. And the Presiding Officer, from his background in finance, will immediately recognize that these policies have some contradictions. On the one hand, we are doing our very best to boost income and the net worth, the balance sheets. I pointed, with pride, to the fact that we have some strength here. But it is not strength to everybody. The competing sectors, once again, are fairly obvious once you get to the fissures in our farm policy. Nothing we do today will remedy that problem specifically. We are talking about an emergency. We are plugging in the net income, but it is all a part of this picture of well over $20 billion of Federal payments and who gets them, how are they capitalized, how does that work out in balance sheets, and for which farmers. These are important issues. The chairman of our committee has had to try to resolve that within the committee. I salute him. As chairman for the 6 previous years, I had that responsibility. It is not easy, as you take a look around the table just in the Ag Committee, quite apart from the Senate as a whole. Therefore, I have had modest arguments in favor of the amendment I offer today. It is clearly not meant with the wisdom of Solomon. It is a pragmatic approach to how we might get action on the Agriculture bill as opposed to having a monumental argument for many hours and perhaps a veto at the end of the trail. Let me just simply say that clearly the bill the Senator from Iowa has offered is different from the House bill--significantly different-- and no less a group than the White House people have pointed out the difference and indicated the action they would take if that difference was not resolved. So my hope is that essentially Members will gather as much of this together as they wish and try to distill at least the picture of agriculture in America that I have suggested and come to a conclusion that the amendment I have offered in a way--hopefully, with as much equity as possible on both sides of the aisle, and for farmers all over America--resolves our problem. It would be unseemly to try to point out all the other scenarios that could happen if my amendment is not adopted. But let me just describe very clearly a part of the task ahead of us if we do not adopt the House language. Whatever we adopt has to have a conference. I have cited that the bill the Senate Agriculture Committee passed the other day, maybe inadvertently, appears to touch at least three different House committees that have jurisdiction over some of this material. Maybe all of them will be happily cooperative in these final days, but I am not certain that is the case. As I take a look at the chairmanships, the ranking members, and the general views of some of these committees--and they are not all Ag Committee people--they have other views. Maybe the distinguished Senator will excise various items and try to get these folks out of the picture. That would be helpful. I have suggested he might downsize all of his items by five-sevenths and get it under $5.5 billion. Maybe that is a pragmatic solution to that. As he does so, of course, he will run into the same problem I have. He will run into people who want a bigger AMTA payment, and say: By golly, I am not going to vote for that bill unless the AMTA payment is at least as it was last year and the year before. I can't go home and see my cotton farmers and my corn farmers with anything less. Whether we have any money or not, I am going to fight to the very last hour to get that dollar, if I can. Or you run into the so-called specialty crops people. Strawberry farmers have said: We have not been in on this business before. Why not? Apple growers will say: We have a special problem this year. Without some payments, it is curtains for us. It goes down through the line. So the chairman has to face all these people. He has already promised the AMTA people that they get the same as last year. That takes almost all the $5.5 billion. It is no wonder that the bill spills beyond $5.5 billion. It is--without any disrespect--a collection of the wish lists of members of the Ag Committee thrown together, listed ad seriatim. When you add up the total, it happens to come to $7.4 billion-plus. You can say: Why not? But I am suggesting the ``why not.'' I think it is fairly clear it does not come close to our friends in the House. It does not come close to the requirements of the President to sign the bill. Although it may satisfy Members who say we have to go home and say we did the very best we could, that will not satisfy American farmers who, in the end result, do not get the money. Let me just add, if there is anybody in this body with a perverse belief that we should be doing nothing here--in other words, in his or her heart of hearts who says, why are we having another farm debate; Is there no end of expenditure that is required?--if such a Member exists who perversely says, these folks, out of their own overlawyering and overadvocacy, will kill each other off, the net result at the end of the day will be zero expenditure, and that is a good result because that leaves $5.5 billion for something else in life that is more important--there could be a problem. I suppose my suggestion would be, if there is not a constructive majority on my amendment, those folks will be interspersed with those purporting to be friends of farmers and suggesting more and more. The two extremes will finally get their wish, which is no bill. I am not one of them. In a straightforward way, we have offered a pragmatic solution--not my own bill, not one that I find has extraordinary merit, but one that I believe has enough merit to be the basis for a good conclusion of a lot of difficulty in farmland and a lot of difficulty we have as legislators. It is something to broker all the interests of America into this particular situation. At the appropriate time, I am hopeful Members will vote in favor of the amendment. I have been advised that there may in due course be a motion to table my amendment. Some have suggested that would offer at least a clue of the strength of how we are doing. I hope that will not come too soon, before Members really have considered what our options are, because I predict, in the event my amendment is tabled and no longer really is a viable possibility, almost all of the possibilities that follow are fairly grim. If, for example, other amendments should be adopted that are more than $5.5 billion or the basic underlying bill, which is about 7.4, the odds of that becoming legislation are zero. Members need to know that at the outset. There has never been a more explicit set of messages from the White House before we even start. One could say, well, let's taunt the President; let's sort of see really what he wants to do. That is not a very good exercise, given 3 days of recess and the need for these checks by September 30. In addition, if my amendment fails, this I suppose offers open season for anybody who has an agricultural problem in America. If this is going to be a failing exercise, why not bring up a whole raft of disputes, try them on for size, sort of test the body, and see what sort of support there is out there as a preliminary for the farm bill. This really offers spring training for arguments that might be out there in due course. We might try out a whole raft of dairy amendments, for example, try to resolve that extraordinary problem, all on this bill with both sides predicting filibusters that curl your hair throughout the whole of August, not just the whole of this week, or we could try out other experiments that have been suggested as Members truly believe we ought to discuss the trade problems and work out priorities with Social Security or Medicare and how we do those things. Given the rules of the Senate, you could say, why not? Is anybody going to say it is nongermane? Does anybody really want to bring the thing to a conclusion? I simply do want to bring it to a conclusion. I am hopeful that after both parties, both sides of the aisle, have considered the options, they will adopt my amendment, and we will swiftly join hands with the House and the President and give assurance to American farmers, which, as I understand, was the beginning of our enterprise. I thank the Chair and the Senate for allowing me to make this extensive presentation. I yield the floor.

Mr. LUGAR

Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.