Debbie Stabenow

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes equally divided between the votes scheduled for 10 a.m. and that all after the first vote be 10-minute votes.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, as we come to our vote now on cloture on the bill--what we have dubbed the farm bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act--I first wish to thank my ranking member, the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, for a wonderful working relationship as we have moved to this point. He and his staff have been working diligently, as has my staff. We are proud of all of our staffs, who I think are terrific and have done a wonderful job to get us to this point. I wish to remind my colleagues that the vote we are about to take affects 16 million jobs. I have said that so many times, but it is important to say again. I do not think there will be a single bill on this floor that affects more jobs for Americans than the one on which we are about to vote--16 million jobs in America. That is how many people depend on agriculture and the food industry for their jobs. They are watching us today. They are hoping that once again this body on a bipartisan basis will do what is right and provide the leadership to move this bill forward. This particular bill includes 38 amendments that were passed on the floor during our debate last year, as we considered 73 amendments just a few months ago, and another 14 amendments that we added to the bill this year. So I appreciate the input colleagues have had to make this a strong farm bill with major reforms and real deficit reduction. This is an opportunity to cut spending by more than $24 billion. We in Agriculture have done more than any other part of the Federal budget to not only meet what are the across-the-board sequester numbers but provide deficit reduction that is four times more than that while streamlining and providing effective policy for agriculture, conservation, nutrition, and the other parts of this bill. So we are not only standing with 16 million people whose jobs depend on agriculture, we are doing it in a responsible way that cuts the deficit. We are eliminating direct payments, moving toward a market- based risk management system for our farmers. We are strengthening conservation to protect our soil and water resources for generations to come, with a streamlined conservation title and a new historic agreement between conservation and farm groups. We are focusing on beginning farmers to get more people into farming. We all have a stake in making sure that happens. We are helping our veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to get started in agriculture as well. I am very proud of this portion of the bill which will reach out to those coming home, most from small communities around our country, to help them be able to get started in farming and keep us with the most affordable, most abundant, and safest food supply in the world. Agriculture is truly one of the brightest spots of our economy. It is one of the few areas in which we actually have a trade surplus. The policies in this legislation are a big part of that. That is why more than 100 groups representing agriculture, conservation, nutrition, and every part of the economy represented by this bill have called on the Senate this morning to vote yes on cloture. I would ask unanimous consent that the full text of the letter we received be printed in the Record.

Ms. STABENOW. I would ask colleagues once again to come together and vote yes on the 16 million jobs that agriculture and the food industry support. I would ask colleagues to vote yes on major reforms. We have eliminated over 100 authorizations and programs that were duplicative, did not work anymore, and were not the right thing to do from a taxpayer standpoint. We have consolidated in a way that has not been done, I would argue, for decades in this area of policy. We have reduced the deficit by more than the last bill--$24 billion. I would ask colleagues to come together to keep this bill moving and to keep agriculture growing our economy and creating jobs.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 6, 2013, at 10 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``Labor Issues in Bangladesh.''

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 6, 2013, at 11 a.m.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 6, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``Gulf Restoration: A Progress Report 3 years After the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.''

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 6, 2013, at 9:15 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 6, 2013, at 11 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 4, 2013, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``State of Wireless Communications.''

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 4, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I see my distinguished ranking member on the floor. We are proceeding in our work on the farm bill this morning. As we are moving through, we have a lot of discussions going on, working to get agreement on both sides to be able to offer a number of amendments for votes. We certainly are going to do everything we can, working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. It is critical that we complete our work, ideally, this week. I appreciate our Senate majority leader understanding what I say over and over, which is this is a jobs bill. Sixteen million people work in this country because of agriculture and the food industry. This is their economic development jobs policy, and it is very important that we complete our work as we have done this last year. Let me remind colleagues again that 1 year ago--and most of us were here at that time--one year ago we worked very hard. In fact, other than the Budget resolution, I think we may have a record for the most amendments that were voted on, on a piece of legislation. I don't know for sure, but I think it ranks right up there. We voted on 73 different amendments last year. Every one of the substantive amendments that was passed by the Senate is included in the bill that is in front of us, so we start from a bill that was worked on by the entire Senate last year. We are back again working through additional ideas, additional amendments that people are interested in. It is very important that we complete our work so that, hopefully, when the House brings the bill to the floor--and we are encouraged. We are hearing that within a couple of weeks it will come to the floor of the House--that when they complete their work, we can actually go to conference and get a final bill on the President's desk before September 30, which is what people around the country are counting on us to do. Farmers and ranchers have to do the job in the morning, whether they feel like it or not, because the job is in front of them. They have to work hard and get it done, and we have to work hard and get our job done. This is the time to complete a 5-year policy, and we intend to do that and get it done in time so the right kinds of decisions can be made. Let me stress again that this bill is the one bill that has come before the Senate and passed last year that has real deficit reduction in it. We have looked at every page of what is called the farm bill. We have called ours the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs bill because it is just that. It is about reform--reforming policies, cutting waste, fraud and abuse and creating more accountability. It is about food policies for our country, nutrition policies for our country, and it is about jobs. We have scoured every page and actually in our process ended up cutting over 100 different programs and authorizations by either combining them, cutting down on the duplication and paperwork or eliminating them if they didn't make sense. If it doesn't work anymore, if it doesn't work from the taxpayers' standpoint, if it doesn't work from the standpoint of agricultural policy, we eliminated it. We took what are currently 11 different definitions of what is ``rural''--we had local mayors, local township officials telling us they appreciate and count on rural development as their economic development arm for grants and loans for small businesses, for water and sewer projects, road projects. Whatever is done in small towns and rural communities across the country, USDA rural development is there supporting those local efforts. But they said could you give us 1 definition of ``rural'' instead of 11, so we can figure out the paperwork and know how to interact with the USDA. It sounded simple. It wasn't simple. But we have actually gotten it down to one definition, dramatically cut the paperwork and reformed and streamlined the process for local units of government. We have $24 billion in bipartisan deficit reduction. We have, in fact, put together something that is four times more than required of the across-the-board cuts in what has been dubbed sequestration. So rather than just doing what we are required to do under the law that established sequestration, we have gone four times more and created policies supported by farmers, ranchers, those involved in conservation, and those involved across our country in every part of the farm bill. We have 12 different titles--and each one could actually be a separate bill if we wanted to--that deal with a wide variety of topics, from our traditional commodities where there is certainly a lot of debate as we have eliminated subsidies called direct payments and moved to crop insurance where it is based on risk. Farmers share in the cost of the insurance. There is no subsidy given. They get help if they have a disaster. If something happens with the weather or there is some other kind of disaster, then, similar to any other kind of insurance, it helps cover the risk, and that is what we are moving to. Conservation and bringing together 23 different programs; we cut it down to 13, consolidated, streamlined, did a better job with more flexibility for communities and have created a conservation title supported by more than 650 different conservation and environmental organizations across the country. As to specialty crops, half of the cash receipts of the country roughly are something called fruits and vegetables and other specialty crops. We strengthen those efforts, which are very important--local food systems, farmers markets, areas that are very important in growing and certainly address the health of our country. I mentioned rural development; an energy title that we have not only focused on in terms of energy efficiency for our farmers on the farm, bioenergy, biofuels, but also a new area of reducing our reliance on petroleum by using agricultural products and byproducts in manufacturing called biobased manufacturing. That is an exciting new area for jobs for us. We are seeing a lot of different possibilities in the area of soybeans. We are seeing soybean oil used to replace petroleum oil in things such as foams. If you buy a number of different vehicles today and certainly in every Ford vehicle I know that is being produced, the new Chevy Volt, and many other automobiles today, you are actually sitting on soybean foam instead of petroleum foam. It is biodegradable. There are a lot of jokes about sitting on soybeans, but the reality is this is something that is creating a market for growers. It is biodegradable, gets us off foreign oil, and is creating jobs. There are a lot of possibilities in this bill for new jobs. We focus on foreign trade. The one area where we actually have a trade surplus in our country is in agriculture. We are, in fact, feeding the world and working with those around the globe to develop their own food systems. I am very proud of the role American farmers play in addressing hunger around the world as well as international food assistance. We could go on. The bottom line is that this is a bill with tremendous impact--16 million people in the country directly impacted in terms of their jobs. Every American, if you had breakfast this morning, thank a farmer. If you have lunch today, thank a farmer. If you have dinner today, thank a farmer. We have the safest, most affordable food supply in the world because of a group of people who go out and take the risk against the weather, which is getting tougher and tougher as the climate is changing. They are willing to go out there and continue to be in this business. Our bill supports them with tools to help them manage their risk through insurance, to help them manage their risks on the farm in terms of keeping the soil on the ground as well as protecting our water and protecting our air. Those kinds of tools are critically important as well. This is a bill we have worked on now twice in the last year--last year, this year--and we are looking forward to having the opportunity to bring this to completion, to work with our House colleagues in a bipartisan way to provide legislation that is good for those directly involved in agriculture and that is good for consumers, that is good for taxpayers as we look at ways to reform our government, to work more efficiently and effectively on fewer dollars. We look forward to continuing throughout the day working with colleagues. We are hopeful we will have amendments to bring forward, but we do understand we have to move forward and get this done. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. STABENOW

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my friend. Before the Senator proceeds with his unanimous consent request, I would ask the Senator if he would agree that when we brought the farm bill to the floor the last time, we had 73 votes and it was done in a large agreement, but we worked through every one of them. I agree. My preference is--as I know our distinguished ranking member's preference is--to be able to work through amendments and to have votes and so on. Would the Senator agree that process worked last time--and I know my friend did not end up voting for the final bill, but we did work through a process of 73 votes; it was a very long day or 2 days, I think, actually--and that would be a good way to proceed on this bill?

Ms. STABENOW. Yes, there is a question. If I might say to my friend I am hearing that he is desiring to work with us in order to get together a list. Is that correct?

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I certainly yield back to my friend, but I just want to indicate that is what we have been working on doing, and we do, in fact, have objections from various Members for various reasons. But we have been spending our time hoping to come up with-- even postcloture it would be our desire to come up with a finite list of amendments that we could then move forward and get an agreement to vote on because I am very happy to have additional votes on the bill.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for actually a question and a clarification?

Ms. STABENOW. I have good news for the Senator. On page 309 of the bill, based on the fact that we took the amendments from last time, his language is in the bill. It was part of the 73 amendments that were offered. As I indicated earlier, we included everything that was, in fact, passed by the Senate on the floor last time so that people would know that their amendments were included in the bill. There was one exception to that, which was the Coburn-Durbin amendment, which was, in fact, revoted on and is now a part of the bill. But I refer the Senator to page 309, section 2610, ``Adjusted Gross Income Limitation For Conservation Programs.'' So the Senator is correct. It was passed last time. And the good news is that it is in the bill.

Ms. STABENOW. I realize the Senator from Oklahoma has the floor and he wishes to continue with his amendments. I wish to speak to all the Members who are on the floor as well as those who are in their offices, because, as everyone knows--again, to hearken back to the last time around we did this--we had 73 amendments. Not all of them took a recorded vote, but we did come up with a finite list. It was 73. It was a big list, but we came up with a list. That is what we are trying to do now. We have been working with colleagues. We want that list. No one wants that more than I and Senator Cochran--to come up with a group of amendments, so everyone knows what we will be voting on so we can begin to move through that. I indicated we had included in the bill the amendments we had voted on the floor the last time. I did make one error that my staff reminded me of. There was one we did vote on that is not in here, which was the amendment of Senator McCain on catfish. That was not included, in deference to those who had objected. But everything else that was of substance, as I understand, is in the underlying bill. I also do want to note the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma did have a significant amendment that came very early in this process. In fact, it was one I did not support, but he won his amendment. We could have blocked it. I could have objected, because I don't support the policy, but I did not do that. So the Senator's amendment did pass, even though I voted no and do not support it. So from my perspective, as the chair of the committee, I am happy to have debate. I am happier when I win than when I lose, but I am happy to have debate. We want to put together a universe of amendments. Right now we don't, at this point, have time to go through 150 amendments. So we have to find out what is a priority for everyone, put together a finite list, and we are going to continue to work on that. If the majority leader files cloture, we can still continue to do that. We can put together a finite list, vitiate the cloture vote, and move to a vote on a group of amendments. That would be my preference. I know it would be the preference of Senator Cochran as well. So we are going to continue to work on that, whether cloture is filed or not--see if we can't come together with a group of amendments and, hopefully, we will be able to get that done. That is my preference on how to do a bill. We will continue to attempt to make that happen. I appreciate the time allotted, with the Senator from Oklahoma yielding to me, and we will continue to work with him as well as all Members to move to a place where we can have an opportunity for amendments to be offered in a timely manner to get the bill done.

Ms. STABENOW. On behalf of Senator Landrieu, I object.

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, if I might, I say to the Senator, we will work with you and look at the intent, and it is the intent. I would also just in passing indicate that hopefully we will have an opportunity, as we come to a universe of amendments, as we did last year, to have the Senator's previous amendment that he talked about, which is also one that I support. So as we work through this, again, what we need to do is what we did last time: to come up with a universe--it can be large or small--and in the interest of time make sure a variety of Senators have the opportunity to offer different amendments as well--not just one or two Senators but that a number of Senators have the opportunity to--and hopefully Members will be willing to come together and put together a list that includes Senator Landrieu's flood insurance amendment, which is absolutely critical. We have other amendments. Senator Grassley has an amendment we have been working on to pair with Senator Landrieu's that we would like very much to put together. I would be very interested in including Senator Coburn's amendment No. 1003, which he talked about previously, because I think it makes sense. So right now we are at a point where we just have to get people positively working together on a list that we can move through together. But the good news is, I say to Senator Coburn, the one you are speaking about, I believe, is as you had offered it last time. But we will be happy to work with the Senator.

Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object, I will object, Mr. President, but I would like to ask my friend, given all the amendments, if we were able to accept all of his amendments would he be supporting the bill?

Ms. STABENOW. Reserving the right to object, that is, unfortunately, an unrealistic motion from my perspective. We have to work with Members. Many Members, including the Senator who is speaking, have multiple amendments and we need to get a list of priorities from people so we have a smaller list we can work with to get this done in a timely manner. So I object at this point. I would like very much to see us get together a list but to do this in a way where some Members have many amendments and others have very few----

Ms. STABENOW. No. I wish I did.