Collin Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) for yielding me the time, and I rise again in strong support of this bill. I want to focus a little bit on this issue of the use of certificates, which has been debated here on the floor and was debated in the conference. I come from a part of the country where certificates are not used a whole lot, and I have to admit that I did not have a good understanding of this program until we had considerable debate in the committee. I think the people that are concerned about this whole payment limit question and use of certificates, first of all, should understand that in this bill there is language that will be law that is going to require us to look at this issue. So it is not going to go away, and we have set up a commission that is requiring USDA to come back to us with a study of this to find out who is actually getting this money and, if we made these changes, what would be the impact on farm income, land values and the infrastructure of agriculture. In this area of certificates, I think that folks that do not represent farm country, and this is a complicated area, should understand what the implications are. If we do not have the certificate program, what will happen is that these folks that hit these limitations will forfeit these crops to the CCC. So the elimination of certificates will not change much what is going to happen, other than it will cost the government more money because this will be forfeited, and then we will incur the cost of storage, the cost of disposal of these crops that are forfeited to the CCC. So actually, the use of certificates is a savings to the government, and we debated whether there should be reform in this area but, frankly, could not come to a resolution on what would be a better system. I think people need to understand that limitation in that area is not necessarily going to change a whole lot other than to cost the government more money. Lastly, in this whole area of people should also understand that we put a limitation on adjusted gross income for individuals and net income for corporations. So that anybody that exceeds $2.5 million of net income is going to be limited in getting these payments.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise as well to oppose this amendment. I serve as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture, and I have had the joy, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) put it, to be on that committee I think 2 years longer than he has, which has been an educational process. But I think that we all should recognize that the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) has been an outstanding advocate for family farmers, and especially dairy farmers. There is nobody that has worked harder. A lot of the ideas he has in his amendment are ideas that I support in concept and have worked on with him and in other venues to try to put something together, but we just have never been able to overcome the regional differences. As the chairman said, this may be a start where we can start trying to work through this. I just would like to say to Members, I think one of the reasons we are in this problem is our own fault, because we have written dairy legislation not in the committee; we have written it on the floor. Ever since I have been here, we have been through this fight; and we end up writing these bills on the floor, and I would argue that one of the reasons the program is having so much of a problem is because we have done it this way. We have kind of brought this on ourselves. I understand the pressures that people have in the Northeast and the Southeast. I have been all over this country. I have talked to dairy farmers in every part of the country. I have sat through thousands of hours of hearings and meetings; and if the chairman and I knew a way to work this out, we would have done it a long time ago. The concerns that I have with the present amendment go along the lines of what the chairman said; but in addition to that, I have looked at these floors, whether they be on Class III or Class I or whatever, and I have become convinced that if we do any kind of a floor at this level without very strong mandatory supply management, we are going to get so much milk that we are not going to know what to do with it, and we are going to collapse the prices down to price supports. We have been kind of through that. I think some of the reason that has happened is because of the legislation that we put together on this floor the last couple of times. So the supply management component that is in here, I applaud the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) for recognizing the need for that, but I do not have a lot of confidence that this is going to be enough to be workable. The Secretary along with me working through this and trying to put together a national coalition on supply management, which I have been doing over the last couple of years, has indicated to me that she is not really in favor of supply management; and I have some real questions about whether the Department would implement a program that would actually be workable. The last thing we need to do is pass legislation that is going to make the situation worse, rather than better. I think that that may be the outcome of this legislation if we did not have a very strong supply management component to make sure that we do not overproduce and end up with big surpluses. So I think sitting here today and spending all this time listening to the compact debate, and now we are in another debate here this evening, I think it is time we admit where we are at with this. We cannot get these regions of the country to agree with each other, and I am not sure we ever can. Apparently the different regions of the country are bound and determined to have their own system, so I have talked to the chairman today about the possibility of he and I putting together legislation that would end the dairy program at the Federal level of the United States. The only thing the industry agrees on, the only one thing, is a $9.99 price support. The reason is, after they get done with all of the things they are doing and they want us to bail them out at the end, well, if these States want to do this and if they want to go off and do their own thing, I think that is fine. Then we should get stepped back out of this, get rid of the price support system, get the Federal Government out of this system, and let the States set up their own process as they see fit. I would be more than willing to support legislation to allow them to form the compacts in any way that they want, and then they could set up their own purchase system if they produced too much or supply management or whatever it is. But I have become convinced this is the answer to this problem, because all we are doing with what we are continuing on with here is making things worse every time we pass a new dairy bill. So I am going to ask the chairman that we put a bill together in this fashion, and I would ask him that we have hearings on it and we seriously look at it.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman. In my judgment it is unfortunate we are getting to this situation. But people need to understand that if we put the price of milk at a high level, dairy farmers are very good at producing and they are going to make milk; and they are going to make more milk than we can consume, and we are going to have a problem figuring out what to do with it. That has been the problem over the last number of years. That is why I say that this amendment may be workable if we had a very strong supply management component, but I am skeptical we are going to get one, given the current administration and given the division in the industry. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chance to get that off my chest. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Amendment Offered by Mr. Obey to the Amendment Offered by Mr. Sanders

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time; and I rise, too, in opposition to this amendment. I have mixed emotions that there is probably some reasons why we ought to be trying to get this accomplished; but I, along with the chairman, and as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture, have sat through more meetings and testimony than I want to think about trying to work through this issue. It is a complicated issue. As the gentleman from Idaho just said, there is no prohibition against voluntary labeling, and there is some indication that that works pretty well in certain areas. We are trying to do a lot of things on the floor of the House here that sound good and probably are good ideas, but it is not like we have not tried to work these things through in committee. I know that the chairman agrees with me that we will continue to work on this and look at the issue, but this is not the place to be legislating complicated issues like this on the floor of the House.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take the time that has been allotted to us.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. It is kind of hard for me to understand why we keep having this debate every year, because there is really no reason for it. I represent an area where, along with the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), we produce the most sugar in our region of anyplace in the country. Small farmers, 200, 300 acres in sugar beets. It has been the one crop that is making us a little bit of money, although that is getting thinner and thinner every year. One of the reasons, frankly, is because of all of the free traders that created this problem, because of these trade agreements. If my colleagues think that this world market or this so-called price is a real price, you got another thing to consider. It is a dump price. You need to get out in some other parts of the world and find out what is going on. I had a chance to go to Romania and they are next, of course, to Western Europe. The Europeans have a 50 percent higher price support on beets or on sugar than we do. So what happened? The World Bank went in there, Romania needed money, and they said, we will give you the money if you get rid of your agriculture subsidies. They did. Romania had 12,000 sugar beet farmers. Today they have zero. They had 36 plants; today they have 11. The Europeans own those plants and the Europeans ship every bit of sugar into Romania to be processed in those plants, and nothing is being produced in Romania. That is what is going to happen in the United States if we pass this amendment and we get rid of the sugar program. Do not kid yourselves. This is not a level playing field, this is not a fair deal, and we will turn this industry over to other countries and put our people out of business. It makes zero sense. Defeat this amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I rise to oppose this amendment. As a leader of the Congressional Sportsmen Caucus who spent a number of months working with a task force that we set up to look specifically at the conservation part of the farm bill, and also spending the last couple of years looking at these programs, we have been working with all interested parties to improve Federal programs that promote soil and water conservation, wildlife habitat, water quality and farmland preservation. I oppose this current amendment, not because of its intent, but because the amendment really goes too far in some ways at the wrong time. I recognize the hard work and good intentions of my friend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) and others, and I even support several of the programs and features that they have in this amendment, but it is simply not possible, and this is the conclusion that we came to, to support this entire package with what it costs and do the kinds of things that we need to do for farmers to keep them in business. It is not time to start new programs that have not been through the committee process and have not been subjected to hearings and the work that needs to be done, and it is just not possible to do all of the good things that they want to do, in our opinion, and some of it, frankly, I have some concerns about. Now, Mr. Chairman, the farm bill, as we know, is an act of careful balance and compromise; and we have spent a lot of time trying to come to that. So I ask my colleagues to take a step back and recall the past farm bill debates. My colleagues may remember past disagreements were over how much funding to include for conservation programs. The fights were over whether we are going to keep these important programs from being completely eliminated in some of these bills, and through the years we have struggled to keep and improve the programs that we have. Now, we have been through, I think, the talk about what is in this bill. There are significant increases for conservation. And in the task force that looked at this, we came to the conclusion that the best thing to do with the available money is put it into the existing programs that have big backlogs. These programs have worked well. They have done tremendous things, the CRP, WRP. They have brought back ducks and pheasants and deer to the levels we have never seen in this country. And with the resources, we just did not feel this was a time to go in setting up new programs that may or may not work or may or may not be the right thing to do. One of the other big problems with the current amendment is the dramatic cuts it makes in commodity programs that these farmers need. Now, supporters claim these cuts are on the largest farmers that do not really represent family farms. I would just like for everybody to understand that the USDA says that a large farm is one that has more than $250,000 worth of gross receipts. That is 15 percent of the farmers in this country, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) is talking about 10 percent. Well, those 15 percent of the farmers produce 54 percent of the food, and they only get 47 percent of the Government payments. On the other hand, the smaller farmers, the 85 percent that produce 46 percent of the food, they get 53 percent of the payments. So do not get drug into this big-versus-little issue. This will hurt everybody, and the chairman I think did a good job of pointing out that it is not the right kind of solution given the times we are in. Now, the National Farmers Union, the Farm Bureau, every major commodity group, all reality-based conservation groups oppose the deep cuts this amendment makes. Farmers are on the front lines of conservation. These groups understand that we cannot have successful conservation by eliminating the certainty and the safety net that our farmers need. Supporters of this amendment may have forgotten that the farm bill is still a work in process. The House Committee on Agriculture has worked over 2 years to develop this bill. We act today in a continuum that includes further negotiations, including a conference committee with the Senate; and at no time has the bill language been set in stone. We have been massaging this as we have gone through. In addition to the large increases in conservation funding provided in the committee markup, there have been significant improvements since then that have been made possible with continued negotiations with the committee. I want to commend the chairman for his willingness and openness to work with the Sportsmen's Caucus, Waterfowl Task Force, and groups like Pheasants Forever, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and the Nature Conservancy. I think it is regretful that some wildlife groups and the environmental community resisted compromise and negotiation with the committee by endorsing this amendment only a few days after there was committee action. So I urge my colleagues to join me today and oppose this amendment and support the bill.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this bill. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member and all the members of the Committee on Agriculture for the hard work and the tremendous leadership they have provided in coming up with the final bill here. As has been said before, we have spent 2 years working on this bill, and it is not perfect. If any of us that are from farm country wrote this bill, we would probably write it a little differently; but it is what is possible. The farmers in my district not only support this bill, they need this bill if they are going to survive. We have had a lot of problems up in my country, and this is one of the things that we really need to make it out to the long term. One of the most important things this bill provides is stability. We have been through a period where we have had a lot of problems, and every year we respond; but it is after the crop year, and it causes problems because people at the beginning of the year are not really sure what we are going to do. One of the most important parts of this bill is that they are going to know before they plant their crop what the Government involvement is going to be and what the safety net is going to be. That is a very important feature of this bill. Another thing that this bill includes is a dairy provision, the only dairy provision that all dairy farmers support, and that is, the extension of the $9.90 price-support system for the next 10 years. There has been a lot of discussion already about conservation. I want to talk a little bit about that. There is a big increase in this bill for conservation. Over the last 2 years, the Sportsmen's Caucus, which I have had the privilege to co-chair the last 2 years, has worked with the wildlife groups on these conservation measures. I want to say that the Sportsmen's Caucus and most of the wildlife groups are supporting this bill and the conservation provisions that are in this bill because what we are doing is we are putting money into the programs that are already there, that we know work, and that there is a backlog for. For example, the Conservation Reserve Program, this bill increases the cap there 3 million acres. That means we are going to have another four or five sign-ups of CRP, which has been arguably the most successful conservation and wildlife program in this country's history. We increase the WRP almost 50,000 acres a year, which will allow us to catch up the backlog that is in the pipeline for WRP. We increase the WHEP program, the Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Program, by $385 million, to work on the 3,087 applications that are waiting in that program. We also establish a Grasslands Reserve Program, which is a new program that will allow grasslands that have never been broken to be put into long-term contracts to be preserved, and also to take some of the grasslands that were broken up, put into production, and then put into CRP, really in a way that should not have happened, allow them to get back into the grassland program and restore that land to grasslands. Lastly, we put significant new money into the EQIP program, which has a backlog of 196,000 applications. This bill is a good bill, Mr. Chairman. I ask my colleagues to support it.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 717, the Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance, Research and Education Act. Representative Wicker and I introduced H.R. 717, after being inspired by testimonies from our constituents. I am inspired by an extraordinary 9-year-old boy, Jacob, who has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. For those of you who don't know about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: Duchenne is typically diagnosed in boys between the ages of 3 and 5 years; the disease is characterized by progressive weakness, with a gradual deterioration of muscle capacity, first in the legs, then in the arms, back, lungs, and heart; and children affected by Duchenne typically do not live to see their 20's Currently, Jacob uses a motorized scooter to get around, but soon he will need a ventilator to breathe. There is no treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The life expectancy of a child with Duchenne has not changed since 1859 when it was first identified. It is time for us to focus our efforts and target funds to Muscular Dystrophy research at NIH and CDC. H.R. 717, will fight childhood muscular dystrophy by boosting research funding and raising public awareness. Less than 1/2000 of the NIH budget is focused on research linked to Muscular Dystrophy. Time is running out. I asked Jacob, if he could trade places with anyone in the world who would he be; I expected him to say a famous athlete or movie star, but he simply answered his older brother, so he can play football with his friends. You see his biggest wish is to be a regular boy. Today, lets do what we can to help this little boy grow up to play football with his friends. I hope all of you are as inspired as I am by the courage of Jacob and other children who suffer from this, terrible disease. I urge you to support H.R. 717.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support the Norwood amendment. I first started working on a patient protections bill back in September 1992 when I introduced what I think was the first patient protection legislation in the House, H.R. 6027. Among other things, it tried to make sense out of the way that ERISA impacted health services in this country. I have been working on these issues ever since. It seems to me that we have finally reached the point where both sides in this debate have moved enough towards the middle we might be able to finally resolve these issues. The Fletcher-Peterson bill that I have been involved in has helped move everyone toward the center. When the Senate was doing their bill, the Senate passed amendments that moved their bill toward the Fletcher-Peterson position. During the last few days, the Ganske-Dingell bill has added language to cover some of these same provisions, such as including the dedicated decision- maker language, requiring the full exhaustion of internal and external reviews before going to court, keeping contract disputes in Federal courts and making adjustments to MSAs. The patients' rights issue has come a long way since 1992 when we first started on this. Last night we continued that progress with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) helping to put together a compromise that we could actually pass into law. Last night, to the credit of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and President Bush, each gave a little to get a little, and the product of that compromise is what we have before us today. But are we grateful for this compromise? Are we praising everyone for having reached an agreement that is essentially the majority of the base bill itself? No. Instead, now, we have shifted the argument to other issues, like preemption of State law. As I understand it, the Ganske-Dingell bill develops a State cause of action in that it modifies it with things such as a dedicated decision-maker and other things which are a preemption of State law, as far as I can see. That leaves us with the question of whether or not, if we are doing that, it is constitutional. Can we make Federal conditions on a State cause of action, and is this not preemption of State law? The Norwood amendment has created a Federal cause of action modified in the same ways. I think it is more workable, and I think clearly it will withstand the test of constitutionality. With regard to the liability provisions, as a result of the negotiation with the President, the Norwood amendment increased the caps on damages to $1.5 million from the $500,000 that was advocated in the Fletcher-Peterson bill. The Norwood amendment will protect small businesses and mitigate against possible increases of uninsured, as well as improving, health care delivery. This amendment finally moves H.R. 2563 to a place of agreement, a place where the Patients' Bill of Rights can pass the House; and if the other body is willing to work with us in good faith, we can ultimately get the President's signature and put this legislation into law. Mr. Chairman, I encourage each and every one of my colleagues to support a real solution to the issue of patients' rights. Support the Norwood amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 232 on H.J. Res. 36, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``nay'' when I should have voted ``aye''. Stated against:

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the ``Fatal Grade Crossing Accident Investigations Act'' to require the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate all crashes between a train and a road vehicle that result in a fatality. The NTSB is currently charged with investigating a variety of transportation and pipeline accidents, some of which result in no loss of life or even injury. However, freight trains and cars collide 4,000 times a year resulting in 400 deaths. The NTSB gathers these statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration and feels that its work is done. Meanwhile, the NTSB is the only agency with the authority to fully investigate these fatal crashes, and its failure to do so leaves a vacuum where families have to fight with railroad companies for answers and local law enforcement agencies are powerless to help them. In some cases, the family of a lost loved one must sue the railroad for the train engine's data recorder or results of toxicology tests that railroads conduct on employees involved in a crash. The NTSB has the authority to collect this information--if it chooses to investigate the accident. My bill requires the National Transportation Safety Board to put its resources to work where a loss of life occurs on any railroad crossing. I am offering this bill with support from a group called Citizens Against Railroad Tragedies which brought to my attention the serious gap that exists in car-train accident investigations. I encourage all Members of the House to hear the concerns of their constituents who are associated with this group and to help us eliminate railroad crossing accidents by increasing the safety at intersections and investigating the crashes that tragically still occur everyday across our country.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4965, and I think the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) has done a good job of laying out the situation. This bill is basically technical in nature. Mr. Speaker, I am the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture and I sat through the hearings regarding this Hunts Point situation and it is and was quite a mess, to say the least. What we are trying to accomplish here is merely a technical change to give these folks enough time so they can file these claims, as was indicated by the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert). Under the way the process works, they only had until July 27, some of them did not get notified until June, so this just merely extends it to January 1, 2001, which is appropriate. Basically, this is a technical bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 4788, as amended, which contains the reauthorization of the U.S. Grain Standards Act and an update of the U.S. Warehouse Act that was passed in this House last week, as well as several other new provisions which I will go over. Given today's world market, it is important that our farmers and commodity merchants have the best technical support possible to help them compete in that marketplace. This legislation helps continue the tradition by reauthorizing the inspection and weighing activities of the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration, GIPSA, as well as updating the U.S. Warehouse Act and providing for the use of electronic documentation under that act. H.R. 4788 as amended by the Senate now also contains the following provisions: An amendment to the Perishable Agriculture Commodities Act to extend the time period during which persons may file a complaint, which is, I think, identical to the bill we just passed previously, so we are going to do it twice to make sure that it does not slip by us; A provision authorizing the Agriculture Marketing Service, AMS, to collect fees for contracted mediation and arbitration services provided by the tri-national Dispute Resolution Corporation, which has been formed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. AMS currently provides similar mediation and arbitration services to resolve contract disputes for fruit and vegetable businesses in the U.S. Since these services would be provided on a user-fee basis, the estimated net budgetary effect of this provision would be zero. Several rural development provisions to further enhance the eligibility of rural areas suffering from severe unemployment and outmigration for a rural development program have been added. A provision was added entitled ``International Food Relief Partnership Act,'' which will provide incentives to further test the use of prepackaged, shelf-stable food. In addition, it will also provide limited authority to test the concept of pre-positioning commodities overseas for use in emergencies. It would also extend and update the State mediation grant program, an important tool, given the difficult times facing farmers and ranchers today. H.R. 4788, as amended by the Senate, has been further modified to include the following new provisions on our side: that is, Title I of the H.R. 728, the Small Watershed Rehabilitation Amendments of 2000. This is a bill that passed the House by voice vote in July. A provision for the exchange of private land involving the South Carolina Forestry Commission and the U.S. Forest Service. This exchange will be of equal value, and therefore of no cost to the government; And a provision directing the Secretary to implement the recommendations of the September 21 General Accounting Office study of the enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act. It is hoped these changes will help make USDA more efficient and effective in protecting our Nation's livestock producers from any unfair market activities. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the routine update of these two statutes and other provisions that were included in H.R. 4788. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that this may be the last time that we see the gentleman from Nebraska (Chairman Barrett) in this position on the floor. He has, unfortunately, chosen to leave the House. I just want to say he has been an outstanding Member of the Committee on Agriculture, an outstanding chairman of the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities, Resource Conservation and Credit. I have gotten to know the gentleman from Nebraska quite well. He is one of the nicest people, the most bipartisan chairman that we have. He is going to be very much missed. All I can say is that I know that his family, his grandkids, are going to appreciate having him around a little more. He is maybe going to get a chance to fly his airplane like he used to do before he got so busy. Most importantly, he and I are both musicians. He is going to go back and start playing the upright base again in his band. He is going to have a lot of fun, I know. We are going to miss the gentleman. He has done a great job. I know I speak for all of us in saying the best of luck to him, and have fun on the other side. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, it is a tough day for all of us from Minnesota. Bruce was not only a good friend of ours and a colleague, but he was someone that was, in the tradition of Minnesota, which has sent all kinds of outstanding elected leaders to Washington and St. Paul and throughout our elected offices in Minnesota, without a doubt, Bruce Vento was at the top of that list of great leaders that we have sent to Washington from Minnesota. As many of you know, he spent a good part of his life teaching and then serving the interests of his people there in St. Paul, both in the legislature and in Congress. And he did that with so much compassion, so much dignity. I am sure that his constituents are the ones that are feeling the loss as much as anybody, because he really went to bat for them. No matter who they were, no matter what status in life they came from, Bruce Vento was always there fighting for his constituents. I extend the deepest condolences to his wife Susan and his family, who Bruce thought so much of. Bruce and I worked together on a lot of things. We agreed on a lot of things, and there were things that we did not agree on. But the thing that I really appreciated about Bruce was that, even though we sometimes would be on opposite sides of the issue, we always were good friends and he always treated us with tremendous respect and dignity. I just think that he is, without a doubt, one of the greatest Members of this House. He will be missed a lot by myself and I think all of our colleagues and especially by the people of Minnesota. So I thank the gentleman very much for inviting me to speak.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, our long time ally and close friend, the Republic of China on Taiwan, will be celebrating its 89th anniversary on October 10th. Just like our 4th of July, their National Day marks the beginning of a fantastic story of struggles and triumphs--a story of economic miracles, social and political progress, and cultural leadership unlike any other. The National Day celebrates the past successes and ongoing efforts of a group of people committed to the idea that all citizens should be able to participate in the politics of the country they live in. This October 10th is especially poignant because it marks the first time that newly elected President Chen Shui Bien will lead the celebration. Both President Chen and his Vice President Annette Lu have been working hard to continue to strengthen the bonds between the United States and Taiwan. In my state of Minnesota we know that those bonds go beyond issues of national security and foreign policy minutiae. In my district we see how those ties connect with our agricultural economy. Last year the Republic of China on Taiwan pledged to purchase over $1 Billion dollars worth of grain, much of it out of the Red River Valley of the North in northwestern Minnesota. The previous year they pledged to buy $1.1 Billion over 12 months, and that goal was actually reached in less than 9 months. They have been good customers for the farmers in my district and I look forward to seeing that continue in future years. Taiwan has built its relationship with the government and people of the United States by being a good international citizen. I congratulate the Republic of China on Taiwan and its people on their 89th National Day, and look forward to many years of close ties between our two nations.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Today I rise as chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus that strongly opposes this amendment. On behalf of myself and the other leaders of the caucus who try to speak for the sportsmen of this country, we hope that our colleagues will vote this amendment down. As sportsmen we are concerned with reserving populations of wildlife for future generations, as well as preserving our right to hunt and fish. The hard reality is that this amendment would create unnecessary and increased wildlife losses. Contrary to what my colleagues have been told, Wildlife Services reduces the overall amount of wildlife taken by selectively targeting only those animals that are causing damage. In Kansas where Wildlife Services does not conduct a program, the number of animals killed by others is dramatically higher, not less. But more importantly, this amendment will not only target animals that are bothering ranchers, if part of the budget is eliminated that is being talked about, many areas will be left with no service on protection at all. They will simply eliminate the position because there will not be enough to do. This means that other Wildlife Services functions like airport safety and human protection will not be performed. Also, areas like northern Minnesota will be left unprotected because species such as the timber wolf can only be effectively taken by professional trappers who know what they are doing. Here we have a species that was protected by the Federal Government, whose population has exploded to double what it was and double the original range, has moved out of the timber area into the farming country, and has caused us a huge amount of problems. If this amendment passes, there will be no way to help those farmers with these livestock losses. It is not feasible for them to control these animals themselves because they are very difficult to hunt or trap. Maybe, if we release some of these wolves in Eugene, Oregon, or Minneapolis or Boston or San Francisco or New York City, we would have a different attitude on the part of some Members of this House. This is an irresponsible amendment that will do more harm than good. Please join the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus in opposing this amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to give my colleagues an example of what will happen if we get rid of this program. The truth of the matter is this world market is a dump market. The Europeans are the biggest people that dump into the world market. I had a chance to go to Romania last year where they had a huge sugar beet industry, 12,000 farmers, 36 plants. What happened, they needed some money from the World Bank, so they forced them to give up their tariffs, which they did. The Europeans came in and destroyed their industry by dumping into their market. They now have no sugar beet farmers left in Romania. They only have 11 of the 36 plants that are operating, and they are owned by the West Europeans. If we get rid of this sugar program under the current way that we are operating in the world, we will have the West Europeans owning the United States sugar industry in this country exactly as they have done in Romania, because we are not on a fair playing field. We have got this dump market. We are there subsidizing higher than my colleagues claim that we are, and then they are taking their excess production, using their $10 billion of export subsidies, and dumping it into the world market. This is not a free market. It is not a fair market. My colleagues that are trying to take this apart really do not understand how this works.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise today first of all to compliment the gentleman from New Mexico (Chairman Skeen) and the gentlewoman from Ohio, our ranking member, for all the hard work they do for us in the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, as well as all the members of the committee. They have a tough job and by and large they do a pretty good job. As the gentlewoman said, I represent an area that has had a lot of difficulties the last number of years. This year we had probably the best crop coming that we ever had, and about a week ago we got 7 inches of rain. Now I have one county that is pretty much under water. What I wanted to talk about today a little bit is the situation that we are in. In the 1996 bill, we eliminated the disaster programs with the idea that we were going to fix crop insurance. The foreign markets were going to help us keep the prices up where they needed to be. We finally got a pretty good crop insurance bill through; the problem is that it does not really take effect until next year. So in 1998 and 1999, we passed ad hoc disaster programs that helped out a lot of people. We did not fund them completely, but it made a big difference. We have had the extra AMTA payments which have helped people. But I have an area now that these folks have lost their crop now. This is the seventh year in a row for these people that are under water now. Mr. Chairman, my plea is that for these people, and any others around the country that are having these kinds of problems that are of no fault of their own, that we look at doing another disaster program for the year 2000, because the crop insurance fixes that would have helped some of these people, as I said, are not going to take effect until next year. Frankly, if we are going to keep these people in business, and it is literally one whole county, they need a Federal disaster program to underpin the crop insurance that they are going to get that is not going to cover the cost of production. So I would ask the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee, as we go through this process that they remain open to the possibility of having a disaster program for the year 2000 for some of these folks that have had this problem.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. He and I have been working together on one aspect of this Medicare problem that I have depicted in this chart here, and that is the fact that we have 3,025 counties in this country that are being paid below the average of the normal reimbursement, and 168 counties that are being paid above. I am going to say something that I have heard a lot of my colleagues say, but I do not think very many people are going to dare say on the floor of this House, and, that is, that it is irresponsible for us to be providing a drug benefit without reforming this system. And where I am coming from with this issue is that I think if we add a drug benefit, such as my friends on the Democratic side, on top of the existing system, the chances of us ever getting this fixed are going to be almost zero. What has happened since we started work on this in 1995 in Dade County, which started off at $620 a month reimbursement, they are now up to $809 a month. In my area, we had $239 reimbursements, we raised that floor to $375, and it has stuck there ever since. Since 1997, what has happened, Dade County has gone up 8 percent, we are still at $375; and the problem I have with this whole thing is that we cannot set another benefit where we are going to have the Government pick up 100 percent of these benefits, that nobody else is at risk except the government and think we are going to have the money available to fix this plan. Mr. Speaker, at least on this side, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and others have come forward and tried to address this issue, have funded the blend, have raised the cap and then after we got done with that, then the administration and my friends on this side of the aisle came along and said, well, we will do the same thing on our bill. I have not seen a lot of interest, unfortunately, on my side of the aisle dealing with this problem, but this map shows where in this country they have zero premium plans or drug coverage, the dark areas are those areas, the whole rest of this is the area where they are not getting this kind of coverage. I would argue with the Democratic plan, they will never get it.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise today in support of this, and I appreciate the work of everybody that was involved. I want to especially thank the chairman and ranking member for all of their leadership in bringing this important piece of legislation to my district to the floor. This crop insurance reform has been something we have been working toward for a long time, and it is going to make some significant improvements. It is not as good as our people would like, but it is going to move us a long way in the right direction. We are going to be able to get at some of the problems that my producers have had where we have had losses 6 years out of the last 7; and the current system just, frankly, is too expensive and they cannot get enough coverage. I particularly appreciate the conference committee yesterday including a provision that I have been concerned about that affects a lot of producers around the country where if one has a change in one's identification number, just because maybe one of two brothers were farming together and one of them happened to get out of the business and the one remaining changed that identification number, the remaining farmer is precluded from receiving disaster payments. In the conference report yesterday we adopted an amendment that I proposed that will allow those people access to the disaster program that they were denied. Another provision that is in the bill that is going to be helpful to us allows the people that have had problems with scab disease up in our part of the world are going to be able to improve the APH so that they can get more coverage and be able to better and more adequately insure the risk to their crops. We are very appreciative that that language is in the bill as well. This bill, as I said, does not go as far as I would like, but it is going to significantly improve the situation. I hope that we can continue to work on crop insurance to try to get a workable revenue coverage so that we can get farmers to be able to cover all of their crops. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the assistance part of this. Yesterday in the conference committee, we tried to change a little bit of the assistance package. We are very appreciative that the assistance is in here. But if we were to use the 2000 payment levels, we would have had an additional $366 million that we tried to use to buy up last year's disasters where people were limited to 69 percent of the disaster that they actually had occur and bring that level up to 85 percent which is what we did in 1998. Unfortunately, that was not accepted, and I think this would have been a much better bill. Had we made that change, we would have put more of this money out to people that really needed it that have had multiple-year disasters and are having a very tough time such as up in my part of the world, in the Northeast and Southeast and so forth. Mr. Speaker, on the whole, this is a very good piece of legislation and I want to commend the chairman and ranking member and everybody else for their work; and I encourage the adoption of this conference report.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 701. I have the privilege in the House of serving as the cochair of the Congressional Sportsman Caucus, and one of the things that we do is we watch out for conservation and hunting and fishing legislation in this Congress. This is a bill that is a good bill, and I commend the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and all of the others for the hard work in putting this together. In Minnesota, before I was in the Congress, I had the opportunity of serving on a similar committee in Minnesota. We have a permanent source of funding in Minnesota similar to what we are doing here today. It works, and we are known in the country as one of the places where we have great conservation and hunting and fishing. This is going to do the same thing all over the country. This is the right thing to do. It is not perfect. All of us would like to see other things in it, but it is a great piece of legislation and our kids are going to thank us for it. I ask everyone to support H.R. 701, and I commend everyone for working on the legislation.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise today in support of H.R. 3671. As cochairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, I can tell my colleagues few issues are as important to the caucus as safeguarding the integrity of the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds. So important that this is one of the primary missions of the Sportsmen's Caucus which now includes 280 Members of Congress. I was happy to support the gentleman from Alaska when he introduced this bill, and I am happy to support his effort today to move this needed legislation forward. His bipartisan approach is appreciated in the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. The Chairman's committee has built an excellent case for making the reforms he offers in the House today. For years, there has not been enough oversight over this program and these conservation trust funds. The chairman took a hard look at this issue, and what he found surprised all of us who, for decades, have happily contributed the funds for this valuable program. This oversight found lose language within the law regarding administration and execution of the wildlife and sport fish trust funds. The proposal today tightens it. Where his oversight found waste, this bill eliminates it. The gentleman's bill also directs resources to hunter education and safety, something that the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus cares about deeply. It is important that funding is provided to both educate hunters and to ensure their safety in the field. This will also maintain the vitality of the Pittman-Robertson fund by continuing to bring in new generations of hunters, something that we are all trying to make happen. So, Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill, and I urge my colleagues to adopt it.

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time. I rise today to speak to the agriculture part of the Blue Dog budget. Those of us from farm country, and I think we all ought to listen up and look at what is in this budget for agriculture. As we all know, we have a big problem out in farm country. Farmers are having a tough time. The Blue Dog budget increases the baseline for mandatory agriculture programs by $23.6 billion over the next 5 years, in addition to the $6 billion that is in the Republican budget, as well as ours. The increase in the agriculture baseline will provide funding for crop insurance legislation, initiatives to provide long-term agricultural safety net and income support programs, including dairy. I would point out to my good friend from Wisconsin, this budget has money to extend the price supports for the program for dairy, and the Republican budget does not. We also have money for agriculture research, expanded conservation research programs. So we have the money to do the kinds of things that we need to do in agriculture. The Republican budget does not provide any increase in the agriculture baseline beyond the increase necessary to fund crop insurance reform. I want to repeat that. There is no increase in the Republican budget for the baseline, which is going to be very important to us when we move out into doing something meaningful for agriculture in the future. There are no funds in the Republican budget to improve the agriculture safety net by providing any kind of income support program, which we all know we are going to need. So support the Blue Dog budget, because we provide a greater commitment to agriculture with over $16 billion more than the Republican version over the next 5 years.