Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to colleagues, I will not require a recorded vote. If we want to go forward with a voice vote, that will be fine with me if it is fine with my colleague.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3210 (Purpose: To prohibit granting security clearances to felons)

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, in the time I have remaining let me say to my colleague from Illinois, I believe my colleague from Illinois, the Senator from California, the Senator from Wisconsin, and others have really brought to our attention the number of citizens, not just children, who are HIV infected, struggling with AIDS. It is a humanitarian crisis of tremendous proportions. I think for too long the world has just turned its gaze away from this and from the whole question of how to get affordable drug treatment to deal with this, prescription drug treatment, to ways in which our country ought to be more engaged, to ways in which we can encourage governments in Africa to deal directly with this. Finally, we are doing so. My colleague is right, it is also true, for the worst of economic reasons or reasons of desperation, that these young people, including young people infected with AIDS, are the recruits. They become the child soldiers--again, colleagues, 300,000 children, many of them abducted, in 30 countries, used as child soldiers. This resolution, I think, is terribly important. Our Department of Defense and State Department have worked hard. A year ago, our Government was not supporting this. I think we now have language that is important language. This simply urges the Senate to condemn this practice and talks about the importance of the President moving forward and building support for this protocol, and it calls upon the Senate to act expeditiously on this matter. I hope there will be 100 votes for this. I thank my colleague Senator Helms, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, for working with me. We have changed some language, and I think we have a good resolution.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I note that Senator Harkin was going to come out on the floor. I will try to be relatively brief. I did not want to precede him. Let me just take a few moments, and then I will reserve the remainder of my time for later on. I know my colleague from Idaho wants to speak as well. Mr. President, I am speaking on my hour right now, though I will not take up all the time, and I will reserve the remainder of my time. At the beginning, Mr. President, before I thank some of my colleagues for their work and then be honest in some of my criticism, I will very briefly, with the indulgence of my colleagues, just point out on the floor of the Senate that yesterday--all of us have to deal with this in our States--Sheila and I received some unexpected news that has devastating consequences for the people of part of Minnesota--an area I love, the Minnesota Iron Range. The steel company LTV announced it is going to close the taconite plant in Hoyt Lakes. They employ 1,400 people, I say to my colleague from Idaho. For Hoyt Lakes, Aurora, and other communities in the Iron Range, this is just devastating news. It just makes me sick to my stomach because these workers are friends and their family members are part of our family. I have always been honest that the Iron Range in Minnesota is a second home for me. It is all so unexpected. Jerry Fallos, who is the president of the steelworkers local, got a call yesterday at 6 a.m. in the morning. The company said: We want to meet with you. He had absolutely no inkling there was any trouble. LTV said: We are closing the Erie plant. I know that the steelworkers are asking for an accounting of the closing. They are pledging to do whatever they can to keep it open. In whatever way I can help as a Senator, I certainly intend to do it. By way of concluding these remarks and getting on to the conference report, I want to say this. Tomorrow, I am going to leave early to go home and meet with county commissioners, workers, union representatives, company people, small businesspeople, and all the rest. I know we will be talking about how to get assistance to people and how to have more economic development and the need to figure out yet other ways to diversify the local economy. But the one thing I want to mention, because the Iron Range is so special, is that sometimes I do not think we focus enough on community. I think this should bring Democrats and Republicans together --a place where people live, where people go to church or synagogue or mosque, or wherever people raise their families, where people know one another, people love one another, and people support one another. I truly do believe sometimes these capital investment decisions in this new global economy, that get made over martinis, halfway across the world, can have devastating consequences for the people in our communities. I think we need to put more of a premium on community, especially on our smaller communities. I hate it when we are put in the position of picking up the pieces as a result of the communities being devastated by policies that are needless and should not be supported in the first place. Again, we have seen a torrent of dumped steel imports coming into our country that has made our industry vulnerable. We now have 1,400 people--much less their families and communities--who are very much at risk. As a Senator, I am going to do everything I can to help these people. In some ways this is like the farm crisis. Mr. President, I ask my colleague from Idaho how long he intends to take?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I did not want to precede Senator Harkin, who is the ranking member on this committee. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Harkin be able to speak, after which Senator Craig would be recognized for 5 minutes, and then I be recognized to follow Senator Craig. Would that be all right? I would be pleased to do that. I ask unanimous consent that that be the order. I say to my friend from Iowa, I did not intend to precede him.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, Senator Roberts is here. He worked so hard on the crop insurance bill, which is a fine piece of legislation. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Roberts be recognized for about 15 minutes, and afterwards I follow him, and then Senator Harkin.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to speak of my profound disappointment regarding the way in which the Senate is conducting its business. I am outraged that these payments have been attached to a conference report without any consideration in the full Senate. Mr. President, without any public debate and with no hearings in the Agriculture Committee some of our colleagues have attached $7.1 billion to this conference report, and have unilaterally decided to continue the failed farm policy of the 1996 farm bill. First of all, I want to be very clear that I am pleased there was some recognition in Congress that the Freedom to Farm bill, or as I call it the Freedom to Fail bill, has not provided an adequate safety net to our nation's family farmers. Furthermore, I am pleased that the Budget Committee recognized that after spending over $16 billion the last 2 years on emergencies, family farmers were in need of an economic safety net. But I believe this emergency assistance package only relieves the apparent symptoms of the economic crisis in agriculture. This assistance will help some farmers to continue their operations for the immediate future, but this direct cash infusion cannot sustain farmers for the long term. I am deeply concerned about simply attaching this money to a conference report without any debate or possibility of amendments. And as a Senator from Minnesota, with thousands of family farmers in my state who are suffering economic convulsion, I am completely opposed to continuing this disastrous farm policy passed 4 years ago. Mr. President, this is very much an extension of the debate we began last week--it's a debate about our right to be legislators. It is about being able to offer amendments to improve legislation--that is what the people of Minnesota elected me to do. The people of Minnesota and the thousands of Minnesota family farmers certainly didn't elect me to be silent, and accept the status quo in Washington, DC. At times Senate procedure can seem a bit arcane to many people--let me explain what has happened with this legislation. We are now considering the crop insurance conference report--this is great. The legislation passed 95-5, and I voted for the bill. The crop insurance bill passed by the Senate will, in fact, make crop insurance much more affordable for thousands of family farmers who have experienced years of crop losses--like the Red River Valley in Minnesota. I will do everything in my power to pass this important piece of legislation--I have no objection there. However, what has been done behind closed doors in a conference committee, with absolutely no public scrutiny, is completely different. What the conferees have done is to attach $7.1 billion in emergency farmer relief payments to the crop insurance bill. They have not asked the full Senate. They have not consulted with the House of Representatives. And conference reports are privileged which means that Senators cannot offer any amendment. Nor can Senators engage in extended debate. In essence, we as Senators have been left with no options to alter the conference report in any way. Mr. President, as a Senator from Minnesota this is one of the most egregious maneuvers I have witnessed in the Senate. And the one thing that greatly concerns me about this road we seem to be heading down is that back home in Minnesota I meet with people, and they really believe that I will make a difference in their lives--that I can in fact help them. However if, as a Senator, I cannot at least offer amendments, to what is probably the most important agriculture bill, I am shut out. In fact all Senators are shut out. I don't claim to agree with everyone, and I welcome having debates about what is the best way to spend $7 billion, but the Senate must have those debates. And for Minnesota farmers time is not neutral. That was evident when nearly 4,000 family farmers from Minnesota, and all across the country, came to Washington, DC, to demand a change in the failed Freedom to Farm Act. People really believe when we meet with them that we can do something right now about the abysmally low prices, whether it is the livestock producers, or whether it is the corn growers, or dairy producers. With what is going on in farm country with crops, people are in such pain. They still come out to meetings because they still believe in us as their Senators, and by meeting with us and talking about what is happening to them, somehow since we are their Senators we can do something to help. But I am left with very few options. The majority has insisted on attaching a vital piece of legislation to a conference report without any public debate, or amendments. And that is to say nothing about the substance of the legislation they are attempting to ram through the Senate. However, I am glad that Minnesota will benefit from the emergency package. And, although I have significant reservations that AMTA is not the best mechanism to provide income assistance to producers, it will at least keep farmers going for another year. I preferred and pushed for a mechanism that targets and ties assistance to actual production. Mr. President for the first time since 1996 the majority has recognized that the Freedom to Fail does not provide an adequate safety net for our family farmers. Through including $7.1 billion in the FY 2001 budget resolution for farm relief the Budget Committee has conceded that the Freedom to Farm Act has failed to provide an economic safety net for our nation's family farmers. We were presented with a tremendous opportunity to reverse the disastrous farm policy enacted in 1996, by targeting this money to our nation's small and medium sized producers who are truly in an economic crisis. But rather than examining serious policy alternatives that could reverse the current economic crisis in rural America, we have been presented with legislation that continues the Freedom to Fail bill. First of all, and I think this simply prudent public policy--and I say this is with greatest respect for the chairman of the Agriculture Committee--I do believe the Agriculture Committee had a responsibility to our nation's family farmers to hold hearings on mechanisms to target the financial assistance to those small and medium farmers most in need. I firmly believe it is a grave mistake not to base these payments both on prices and production. Basically what the majority has done is to double these disastrous AMTA payments. And they have refused to deal with any of the problems of distribution equity. As we have seen over the last 2 years, emergency assistance packages only relieve the apparent symptoms of the economic crisis in agriculture. Assistance will help some farmers to continue their operations for the immediate future, but direct cash infusion cannot sustain farmers for the long term. There are a couple of problems with these AMTA payments. First of all, these payments are based on the old farm program's historic yields. Farmers such as traditional soybean farmers, who never had a program base in the old program, don't get any of these AMTA payments. That is one huge problem. In addition, it is possible for some people who might not even have planted a crop to receive them because the Freedom to Farm--or what I call the ``Freedom to Fail''--payments are completely unconnected to production or price. Furthermore, I predict, largely this money will be used to pay back banks and lenders from whom farmers needed to borrow money earlier this year just to get in their crops. Let's be clear--it is now evident that the majority of AMTA payments have not been distributed to family farmers, rather they have gone to the largest farmers and corporate agribusiness. Recently a comprehensive study was conducted on the federal farm payments from 1996 through 1998 which shows that the 1996 Freedom to Farm bill (and subsequent legislation) has provided minimal financial assistance for the large majority of family farmers. The study found that the largest farming operations were generously compensated by Freedom to Farm, and many of the top payment recipients were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over the 3-year period studied. Large operators received these enormous payments, even as operators of smaller farms (with average annual sales of $50,000 or less) actually lost money. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these smaller farms realized an average net loss of $3,400 in income from their farming operations in 1996 alone. From 1996 through 1998 nearly 61 percent of all federal Freedom to Farm money approximately $13.8 billion in total went to the 144,000 individuals, corporations and farm partnerships among the top 10 percent of recipients. A recipient among the top 10 percent was paid an average of $95,875 over the 3 years (`96-`98). These payments were on top of any profits earned from the sale of agricultural commodities, and do not include payments made under conservation, disaster or crop insurance programs. In contrast to the largest farmers, the vast majority of AMTA recipients have seen very little benefit from Freedom to Farm. Half of all farmers received less than $3,600 in total from 1996 through 1998, or an average of about $1,200 per year. Large corporate agribusiness already enjoy significant competitive advantages over smaller farming operations in availability of capital. According to USDA's Economic Research Service, farm operator households for farms with sales of $500,000 or more averaged $153,847 in farm income in 1996, while operators of farms with between $250,000 and $500,000 in sales averaged $53,265 in household farm income in the same year. And operators of farms with less than $50,000 in sales realized a net loss of income from their farm operations. The central question we need to ask ourselves is that if the largest U.S. agribusiness are inherently more efficient, as corporate America assures us they are, why do these efficient farms need Federal Government assistance, and why do they collect the majority of the assistance that is provided? Hundreds of thousands of small- and medium-sized operations receive meaningless amounts of AMTA assistance under Freedom to Farm programs. I believe, it is a great mistake not to target this money to producers based on actual production. That is the key issue. That is the key difference. In dealing with this price crisis, we ought to make sure that the payments are connected to production and price. So what the Republicans have is the wrong mechanism for addressing the price crisis. We must target the assistance to family farmers and tie direct assistance to production. Thousands of family farmers across the country could go out of business due to conditions that are beyond their control. In Minnesota, up to 30 percent of our family farmers are threatened--that's thousands of farm families. Whatever you do by way of dealing with low prices, you have to make sure that payments are connected to production and price. Too many of the transition payments go to landowners, and not necessarily producers. I don't think that makes a lot of sense. Some, like soybean growers, won't be helped at all. We can do better, we must do better. We could at minimum target the assistance to those farmers who are in the most need. We have an opportunity to make at the very least incremental changes to current farm policy. The policy objective of the ad-hoc aid is clouded by the apparent inability of Congress to pass aid packages targeting assistance to farmers most at risk. Some of the largest and most profitable farms in the country will benefit from this assistance if it is distributed in double AMTA payments and meanwhile there are no funds devoted to other needs in rural America. Mr. President I also want to talk about the whole problem of concentration of power. This is an unbelievable situation. What we have is a situation where our producers, such as our livestock and grain producers, when negotiating to sell, only have three or four processors. They have the ADM's, the Smithfield's, the ConAgra's, the IPB's, the Hormel's and the Cargill's. The point is, you have two, three, or four firms that control over 40 percent, over 50 percent, sometimes 70-80 percent of the market. Let me just run through some statistics that illustrate this point. In the past decade and a half, the top four pork packers have increased their market share from 36 percent to 57 percent. The top four beef packers have expanded their market share from 32 percent to 80 percent. The top four flour millers have increased their market share from 40 percent to 62 percent, while the market share of the top four soybean crushers has jumped from 54 percent to 80 percent. The top four sheep, poultry, wet corn, and dry corn processors now control 73 percent, 55 percent, 74 percent, and 57 percent of the market, respectively. By conventional measures, none of these markets is really competitive. Thousands of our livestock and grain producers are facing extinction, and the packers are in hog heaven. The mergers continue, and we have all of these acquisitions. We need to put free enterprise back into the food industry. I have had a chance to review the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act and the work of Estes Kefauver and others. We had two major public hearings in Minnesota and in Iowa last year with Joel Klein, who leads the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, and Mike Dunn, head of the Packers and Stockyards Administration within the Department of Agriculture. And earlier this year we had thousands of family farmers in Washington to rally at the Capitol. In all the meetings I have been at over the last two years, producers are asking the same question: Why, with these laws on the books, isn't there some protection for us? We have all sorts of examples of monopoly. We want to know where is the protection for producers. It is critical to pass some stronger antitrust legislation. I know Senator Leahy and Senator Daschle have done a great job with their legislation. I am pleased to join with them in cosponsoring the Fair Competition Act of 2000. Mr. President, there is a frightening difference when the major agribusiness firms can raise billions on Wall Street while making record profits at the same time farmers and ranchers are faced with take-it-or-leave-it low prices. Even, the American Farm Bureau Federation, who I don't always agree with, testified on February 1, 2000, that ``consolidation, and the subsequent concentration within the U.S. agricultural sector is having adverse economic impacts on U.S. family farmers.'' The administration recently testified that: High concentration, forward sales agreements, production contracts, and vertical integration have raised major concerns about competition and trade practices in livestock and procurement by meat packers and poultry processors. . . . The four leading packers' share of steer and heifer slaughter increased from 36 percent in 1980 to 81 percent in 1998. This concentration of power in the hands of a few increases the likelihood that farmers or ranchers will be the victim of unfair or deceptive practices. The Fair Competition Act will give USDA the authority to help address those practices. Firms and corporations, no matter how large, which engage in unfair, deceptive, or unjustly discriminatory practices, or which give undue preferences, or make false statements regarding transactions, will be stopped by this bill. The bill also focuses on mergers of agribusinesses and on agribusiness acquisitions. Over the last quarter century there have been a major increase in the horizontal, vertical and sectoral concentration of agribusinesses and in industries serving agriculture. At some breaking point, the concentration of agribusinesses in any region will mean that farmers or ranchers are adversely affected by an imbalance of negotiating power and a lack of viable market alternatives. The bill gives the Secretary the authority to identify circumstances where a proposed merger will result in unfair or deceptive practices that adversely affect farmers or ranchers and to take a strong action against such a merger. In addition, under the bill the Secretary shall make findings about whether a proposed merger or acquisition could ``be detrimental to the present or future viability of family farms or ranches or rural communities in the areas affected by the merger or acquisition.'' If the Secretary determines that such adverse effects are likely, the Secretary would propose remedies, such as divestiture of asserts or other corrective action, designed to protect family farms and ranches, and the affected local communities. Failure to comply with those remedies could result in significant civil money penalties. This authority is similar to that conferred by Congress on the Surface Transportation Board which takes into account the ``public interest'' with respect to proposed mergers of railroads. That Board examines the potential effects on the public, on employees and on competition and ``the impact of any transaction on the quality of the human environment and the conservation of energy resources.'' (49 CFR 1180.1) To carry out its duties, ``the Board has broad authority to impose conditions on consolidations * * *'' Similarly, the Federal Communications Commission exercises a major role over the telecommunications or broadcasting industry mergers when it examines whether transferring licenses to the merged entity is ``in the public interest.'' This bill thus aims at preventing the detrimental effects of such increased concentration on farmers and ranchers, and rural communities, just as the Surface Transportation Board has imposed a moratorium on railroad mergers to ensure that railroad mergers are in the ``public interest.'' We need to pass this legislation now, and I think there is going to be a considerable amount of support for this. The reason I think there is going to be a lot of support is that I think many of my colleagues have been back in their States, and for those of us who come from rural States, from agricultural States, you can't meet with people and not know we have to take some kind of action. This ought to be a bipartisan issue. I think this is one issue on which all the farm organizations agree. We must have some antitrust action. We must have some bargaining power for the producers. We must put free enterprise back into the food industry. But this conference report moves us further away from making any real change in farm policy. I would like to remind my colleagues that $7.1 billion for assistance for producers was allocated, but a significant portion of the funds in this bill have been dedicated to programs and projects, as worthy as they may be, that; 1. Do not provide assistance to family farmers or ranchers in the near term. 2. Are more appropriate issues for the appropriations committee to handle. 3. Distribute money to universities and agribusiness. I would simply like to identify for my colleagues where some of this $7.1 billion, allocated for assistance for producers, will actually be going. $20 million for the Market Access Program--a program that assists business trade associations and cooperatives for marketing development. How does that help the average family farmer deal with paying for health care for his family? $3 million will be directed to Georgetown University and North Carolina State University for research regarding the extraction and purification of proteins from genetically altered tobacco. I ask my colleagues, could not have $3 million be better spent on direct income assistance to the thousands of small family farms who are in danger of losing their farms this year? $30 million for training and technical assistance relating to the management of water and waste disposal in Alaska. As a Senator from Minnesota, I am quite sure that small dairy producers, or soybean producers in my state who are facing the biggest agricultural depression in more than a generation, would appreciate the assistance $30 million could provide--it would allow many families to at least stay in farming this year. Mr. President, the plain fact is that this short term assistance is simply a band-aid. I understand the majority does not want to have any public discussion on the farm bill they enacted. That is clearly evident by the way in which they have moved this legislation to the Senate floor, with no debate or examination. The point is that farmers in this country want to know, they deserve to know, whether they have a future beyond 1 year. They can't cash flow on these prices, whether it be for wheat, for corn, for cotton, for rice, or whether it be for livestock producers. They simply cannot cash flow--they cannot make it. They can work for 20 hours per day and be the best managers in the world, and they still wouldn't make it. But rather than open and make changes to the farm bill and avoid these lump assistance infusions, the majority defends the status quo in farm policy. Yet, how much longer can we mask reality of failing agricultural policy? Short-term fixes are more expensive than carefully planned long-term programs. For the past 3 consecutive years, Congress has passed supplemental appropriations bill. Direct farm payments for 1999 were approximately $16 billion, making last year the highest record for direct farm payments in U.S. history. We need to stop using ad-hoc assistance as a substitute for farm policy. We need to reopen and rewrite a farm bill with a strong sustainable policy. Namely, we need a farm policy that empowers farmers not only to merely survive, but to prosper. And that was what the Rally for Rural America was all about. We had, from all over the country, around 4,000 people--most of them family farmers. From the State of Minnesota, we had close to 500 people here, most of them family farmers. I point out to my colleagues, this was an unusual gathering. They came to our Nation's Capital to try to have a conversation with America, to make sure people in the country know about the economic convulsion that is happening in rural America. And Congress appropriately responded with a commitment to reform rural policies to: alleviate the agricultural price crisis; ensure competitive markets; invest in rural education and health care; protect our Nation's resources for future generations; and ensure a safe and secure food supply. I ask my colleagues, what became of that commitment to the thousands of family farmers who came to Washington, DC--I ask where is the followup? Is the followup passing $7 billion in AMTA payments that has never even been discussed in the Agriculture Committee? Is it in providing huge payments to corporate farms and agribusinesses, while leaving little for the ordinary family farmer? Or is it in ignoring the root problems in the 1996 Freedom to Fail Act. I don't think so. For 2000, net farm income is forecast to decline for the 4th straight year, by 17 percent. Low prices scale across the board for almost all major crops. USDA projects that 2000 crop corn prices will be the lowest since the mid 1980's. That's 26 percent below the average of 1993-1997. Soybeans are projected to be at their lowest levels since 1986. Yet, I do not need to list all the statistics. I have been on the Senate floor, and Senators know, economists and specialists know and most importantly those who farm the land do not need to hear statistics to know times are tough. Whatever our explanation for the very low commodity prices on the global market, federal farm policy needs to be there to offer some safety net to help people stay in business when this happens. We need a farm bill that establishes an equitable safety net. We need a farm bill that provides a level of financial security during periods of market disruption and commodity price instability. A safety net should include a counter cyclical price and income assistance directed to producers. One simple idea of providing a safety net is lifting caps on the loan rates. In addition, long-term policy must be developed to enhance competitiveness and transparency throughout agriculture domestically and globally. We know these figures well. I and others have recited these numbers time and time again on the Senate floor. We know concentration in the agriculture economy has been accelerating at a rapid pace. In the past decade and a half, the top four pork packers have increased their market share from 36 to 57 percent, the top four beef packers have expanded their market share from 32 to 80 percent, and the top four flour millers have increased their market share from 40 to 62 percent. We must halt this trend of consolidation. Congress must pass the Fair Competition Act to restore competitive markets in agriculture and give farmers more equal bargaining power against corporate business. It is greatly disturbing that a handful of firms dominate the processing of every major commodity. Many of them are vertically integrated. This growing trend in concentration, low prices and anticompetitive practices are driving family-based farmers out of business. Farmers are going bankrupt or giving up, and few are taking their places. More and more farm families are having to rely on other jobs to stay afloat. In fact, reports indicate that off-farm income now constitutes as much as 90 percent of all household income received by the average farm operator. There is a gross disparity of economic power that has shifted a growing share of farm income to agribusiness. We need to reverse that trend and focus on equalizing the bargaining power between farmers and the global agribusinesses. According to economic literature, markets are no longer competitive if the top four firms control over 40 percent of the market. Yet, Excel and IBP control 60 percent of the beef packing industry and Kellogs and General Mills have 63 percent of the market share for cereal. Policy makers wrote the 1996 farm bill and we can rewrite it. The corporate culture's powerful influence has penetrated to humankind's greatest common denominator, food. We cannot allow our lives to become beholden to corporate America. We must provide an agricultural policy that preserves the family farm and protects the food industry from an oligopoly of corporate agribusinesses. We must fight for these critical policy changes. We have some differences here in the Senate. They are honestly held differences. All of us care about agriculture. All of us know what the economic and personal pain is out there in the countryside. But with no opportunity to consider and debate a fair and equitable distribution plan, and a bill that short changes the American family farmer by diverting money away from equitable income assistance, the majority in Congress has failed America's family farmers. Mr. President, I say to Senator Roberts and Senator Kerrey: Good work. Thank you for your commitment and the work on the crop insurance conference report. This report is extremely important. To farmers, this is going to make a big difference. I also thank Senator Lugar. Senator Conrad spoke of his graciousness, and I think he is always that way. Because of the crop insurance reform, I will vote for this conference report. My dissent has to do with, again, the way we are conducting our business. The crop insurance reform is very important. But this is a crop insurance conference report. When the Budget Committee said, look, we are going to have $7 billion to deal with the farm crisis, what the Budget Committee was saying and what the Senate was saying is, rather than just doing emergency appropriations, let's have some deliberation and some policy evaluation and figure out how to get that money to people in the most equitable manner. My dissent, I say to my colleagues out of respect, is that I believe we should have had debate about this. I believe that the Senate Agriculture Authorization Committee should have had hearings. I don't think it is appropriate that the $7 billion in AMTA payments-- essentially doubling the AMTA payments--was put into this conference report. I don't think it was appropriate. I heard my colleague--two Senators spoke. Senator Conrad said there are legitimate concerns, but I think this is the quickest way to get assistance out to people. Senator Roberts said the same thing, roughly speaking. The point is that we did have some time when we could have had some hearings and when we could have had some debate on this. I do not believe we should have just automatically taken the $7 billion and said it is going to be AMTA payments, that's it. We put it into a conference report, which doesn't enable any of us to come out here and have much debate about it, and it certainly doesn't enable us to testify, doesn't enable us to have amendments and to act the way I think we should act in the Senate on such important matters. Mr. President, we had this farm rally here maybe 2 months ago. Several thousand farmers came. It was pouring rain and it was cold. They came a long way. Many came by bus because, for them, they are trying to survive. I have no illusions. We are not going to write a new farm bill. The Freedom to Farm bill is really the ``freedom to fail'' bill. I have said that many times over. But it does seem to me that if we are not going to write a new farm bill--at least not until after the election--we ought to do the very best we can in getting the payments to people in such a way that people who need the assistance the most are the ones who get the lion's share of the benefits. Right now, with these AMTA payments, we have a subsidy in inverse relationship to need. What we have here--with no opportunity for real debate, with no opportunity for amendments--is $7 billion put into a conference report on crop insurance in the form of more AMTA payments providing subsidy to farmers in inverse relationship to need, with the vast majority of the benefits going to the very largest agricultural operations. This is a disastrous distribution formula. I think it violates the very principle of equity and fairness. Problem: First of all, the AMTA payments are based upon the old farm programs' historic yields. We don't have an opportunity to have an amendment on this? We don't have an opportunity to say that this is unfair to farmers, such as soybean farmers who never had a program base in the program and don't receive any AMTA payments? There is no benefit for them? We don't have an opportunity to discuss this, to have an amendment to try to improve this? Second, since this was connected to the ``freedom to fail'' bill-- what I call the ``freedom to fail'' bill--the payments aren't connected to production. Many of these payments go to these large landowners who aren't necessarily even producers. I want the assistance to go to the producers. I want it to have some relationship to price and to farm income. Let me simply quote some of the findings from the Environmental Working Group. The largest farm operations in the country are generously compensated with these payments. They are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 3-year period of AMTA payments going to large farm operations, and the midsized farm operations and the smaller farm operations are not getting the benefits they need to survive. Environmental Working Group: From 1996 to 1998, 61 percent of all Freedom to Farm money AMTA payments--approximately $13.8 billion--went to 144,000 individuals, corporations, and farm partnerships among the top 10 percent. The top 10 percent, the large farm operations, and the least in need of assistance, get over 60 percent of the AMTA payments. It doesn't make any sense. Recipients in the top 10 percent, those large farm operations, are doing well. They get an average of $95,000 over this period of time. Half the farmers in the country get less than $3,600, and many of the farmers in my State get less than that. While you have these large farm operations, that do not even need the assistance, getting well over the majority of all the money--the top 10 percent--the struggling, midsized family farmers in the State of Minnesota are lucky if they get $3,000 a year. These are the farms that are going to go under. The USDA says we are going to see a 17-percent drop in farm income this year. Why in the world, when you have these transition payments--AMTA payments--going to the largest landowners who aren't even necessarily producers, based upon a program base going back years, providing the majority of the benefits to the large operators, not helping those farmers who are most in need and who may not survive--why do we have $7 billion put into this conference report which doesn't have anything to do with crop insurance reform, which means we don't really get to debate it? That is why we are doing it. I don't think that is Senator Lugar's style. He is probably one of the fairest Senators, I believe, in the Senate. But I have to keep saying this. It pains me to say this on the floor because I think so much of him as an individual. But this shouldn't be in this conference report. We should have had hearings. We should have had an opportunity to come out here with amendments. I would love to have had an amendment saying it is going to go to producers, and not just landowners. I would love to have had an amendment that said we need to target more to the midsized producers. I would love to have had an amendment that said it shouldn't be based upon the old program base--no opportunity. I would like to have had an amendment that called for equity payments that said raise the loan rate--we could have done it for fiscal year 2001--to the same level it is for soybeans, in which case corn would be $2.11 and wheat would be $3.10. That would make a huge difference. We could have done that. We could have had, and we should have had, an opportunity to have not only a 1-hour speech or 2-hour speech in reaction to a conference report, but we should have had hearings. We should have had deliberation. We should have been able to do some serious policy evaluation. And we should have had the opportunity to come out here on the floor and/or in committee with amendments that would have made sure that until we write a new farm bill and get rid of this miserable failure--this ``freedom to fail'' bill--we would have been allocating the $7 billion of assistance with most of it going to those farmers most in need--not to the top 10 percent, the largest farm operations, those that are doing the very best right now in farm income, getting over 60 percent of the benefits. The crop insurance reform package that Senators Roberts and Kerry worked on is superb. I am all for it. I am going to vote for this because of that. But I think it is just reprehensible that we continue now along this line of taking really important policy questions and burying them in conference reports. I don't know what the $7 billion of assistance is doing in this report. I just want to conclude--because I promised my colleagues I would be brief, and then I will reserve the remainder of my time--by making one other point, which is, I hope we have the opportunity on the floor of the Senate to have debate about farm policy. I hope we can have a debate and a vote on the Fair Competition Act. It is breathtaking, the extent to which these large conglomerates have muscled their way to the dinner table, exercising their raw economic and political power over producers, over consumers, and, I would argue, over taxpayers. What we need is some competition in the food industry. What we need is to put some free enterprise back into the free enterprise system. What we need is some antitrust action. I am going to try to do everything I can as a Senator--and I know other Senators will be supportive--to get this Fair Competition Act passed, which gives USDA, if they are willing to use it, some real authority, which really gets tough in terms of dealing with some of this horizontal integration that is taking place, which goes after anticompetitive practices, which really creates a level playing field for our producers, and which doesn't exist right now. It is just absolutely unbelievable to me that while the family farmers in my State struggle to survive, a lot of these huge packers are making record profits. While family farmers in my State are struggling to survive, a lot of these big exporters and huge grain companies are doing just fine. While the family farmers in my State struggle to survive, the farm/retail spread grows wider and wider--the difference between what farmers get by way of price and what consumers pay at the grocery store, the supermarket. I have two objections to what is going on on the floor of the Senate right now. Objection No. 1: This is a great crop insurance conference report, but this $7 billion of payments should not have been put into this report. We should be allocating this assistance and getting it to the farmers most in need. We should have had the opportunity for debate and the opportunity for amendment. I think it is a terrible way for us to continue to conduct our business. I hope we don't continue this pattern of more and more important public policy questions that crucially define the quality, or lack of quality, of the lives of the people we represent--in this particular case, family farmers, being put into an unrelated conference report. That is wrong. The second point I make is: It is time for us to really get serious about the policy change in this area, and in particular I focus on dealing directly with the price crisis, and also the call for strong antitrust action. I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am pleased to yield time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield back my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will just take about 2 minutes in support of the Mikulski amendment to say how proud I am to be an original cosponsor. I have probably given 15 or 20 speeches about this, so I do not want to take any time except to emphasize two points. First of all, I thank the Senator for mentioning Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson. It has really been almost 2 years ago that we lost those two fine officers. I do think the best way we honor them is by supporting the police. I think what happened on the House side was really unconscionable because whereas we really need to do even better by way of making sure we get two police officers at each post, making sure we have the security for them, much less the security for the public and ourselves, instead, what we saw was actually a slashing of the budgets, which means hundreds of officers losing their jobs and not really having police officers working under the right conditions for themselves, their families, for the public, and for us. We really have done well on the Senate side. I thank Senators Bennett, Feinstein, Mikulski, and others for their commitment. I hope every single Senator will support this amendment. Like other Senators, I am not always wild about sense-of-the-Senate amendments--I offer a fair number of them myself--but sometimes they are really important. Sometimes they are, while symbolic, really powerful and really important. I do think we need to convey the message, in light of what happened on the House side, in light of how demoralized and how angry and indignant some police officers are, that we fully support them. This amendment is a very important one. I hope it will have the full support of the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Tom Lederer, a congressional fellow serving in Senator Conrad's office, be granted floor privileges during the consideration of the crop insurance conference report.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, could I ask my colleague for 5 seconds?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I forgot to also thank Jim Ziglar, the Sergeant at Arms on the Senate side, who has done great work on this question. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank both Senator Bennett and Senator Feinstein for their important work. I just want to echo the comments of my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, in support of providing adequate funding to pay all the people who help us do our work in the Senate. I too support a wage increase for the many people who work here, who don't make near the money we make, don't have near the salary we have. I promise the Chair that if it were the House Democrats who had made these cuts, my condemnation would be just as strong. The action the House took, cutting funding for salaries was a mistake, and it wasn't fair. I think that on the Senate side, in a bipartisan way, we have done a good job. I thank Senator Mikulski and all the other Senators here, including Senators Daschle, Murray, Reid, Sarbanes, and Kennedy, for their support for full funding for the Capitol Police Department. I just want to read the last part of the Mikulski amendment, that I am proud to be an original cosponsor of: It is the sense of the Senate that the United States Capitol Police and all legislative employees are to be commended for their commitment, professionalism, and great patriotism; and the conferees on the legislative branch appropriations legislation should maintain the Senate position on funding for the United States Capitol Police and all legislative branch employees. My hope is that all 100 Senators will come out here on the floor and speak in support of this amendment and in support of all the work that Capitol Police do to keep the Capitol safe. In a way, it is almost shocking that the Senator from Maryland feels the need to introduce this sense-of-the-Senate amendment. I think we ought to really think deeply as to why it is necessary to come out with an amendment that basically says that we value the Capitol Police and all the Senate employees. I just want to make this appeal to all my colleagues that they come down to the floor and express their support for all the people who work in the Senate. I hope Republican Senators will come out here as well and speak. Maybe all of us can take 15 or 20 minutes. I think that sends a much more powerful message. What I regret is that the House Republicans chose to cut the Capitol Police budget by 11 percent; that is a $10 million cut. Here is the problem. Forget the money. Anybody who watches us on the floor might say: What are they talking about, a sense-of-the-Senate amendment, an 11-percent cut, a $10 million cut; what does it mean? This is what it means. First of all, we will never forget that we lost two officers, Officer Chestnut and Agent Gibson, in 1998. Many of us were at their service. It was so moving and so powerful. We made a commitment we would do everything possible to make sure that the police officers here--Capitol Police officers--would be working under the best of conditions, that they would be safe, that they could do their job and not be put in peril. Their job is to protect all the people who visit the Capitol. I have given enough speeches to deafen the gods about this. I have probably spoken 15 times on the floor of the Senate in support of the Capitol police. Today, I get to come out here as an original cosponsor of this amendment and say I really believe it is critically important that the Capitol police be recognized for the worth of their work, the importance of their work, and also that we make sure we do everything humanly possible, as legislators, so that they work under the best conditions, which translates into making sure we do everything we know how to do to make sure we never again lose any police officers. What the House Republicans did in their proposal would mean the elimination of some 400 police officers. That is no way to say thank you to the Capitol police--to have an 11-percent cut in their budget, to have a cut of hundreds of police officers, to have even less backup for officers; that is no way to say thank you to the Capitol Hill Police. It is certainly no way to honor Officer Chestnut, Officer Gibson, and their families--no way. So I want to make crystal clear on the floor of the Senate that I believe that it is important that we all speak--not just Democrats, but Republicans as well--in support of this amendment to send a message as Senators to the Capitol Hill police and their families that we have a tremendous amount of appreciation for the work they do, we value the work they do, we value them as friends, and we just simply want to say thank you and we intend to continue to support the Capitol Police. In addition, I believe that the work that Senator Bennett and Senator Feinstein have done matters more than any words I can utter here on the floor of the Senate. The last point that this amendment is important, and the reason I hope Senators will speak on it, is to show our united support and respect for the men and women of the Capitol Police force, who protect us each and every day. In the days following the House actions to cut funding for the force, many of the police officers were just demoralized. How many people have said--as a matter of fact, we are losing Capitol Hill police members to the D.C. Police Force because they do feel they have the respect and support of the people they are here to protect. But part of it is, I say to Senator Reid, who was a Capitol Hill policeman--the only Member of the Senate who served on that police force--that part of the question of whether or not people continue to work here and feel good about their work is whether or not people think they are respected. You know, in light of what we have gone through for the past several years, when you then cut the budget and you potentially put some of these police officers in harm's way, you certainly are not communicating a message to these police that we value their work. You are communicating the opposite message. I think what the House Republican ``leadership'' did on this issue was one of the worst things that has been done here, at least since I have served starting in 1991. I feel really good about what we have done on the Senate side. I feel really good that we have done it in a bipartisan way, and I feel good that I get a chance to support the Mikulski amendment. I want to, one more time, make the appeal to Republican Senators: Look, the truth of the matter is--and I don't want to get people angry at me--it is not as if we are doing a lot right now and we don't have time for people to come out and speak. I think we ought to get as many Senators as possible to speak on this resolution because it is important that we communicate a message of strong support for these police officers. I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 10 minutes in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today because--and I speak with some sense of timing--I come from an agricultural State. In the next several days we could very well have a crop insurance reform conference report out here on the floor. There is at least some discussion, some thought, and maybe some probability that included in that conference report will be about $7 billion of economic assistance for family farmers, which essentially will be more AMTA payments. When the Budget Committee allowed for up to $7 billion to go to assistance for family farmers in the country, whether it be Minnesota, whether it be Montana, or any other State, I think all of us believed and hoped that this would be far superior to emergency appropriations, and that we would have the agriculture authorization committee do some fairly important investigation and analysis of the best way to get this financial assistance out to family farmers. In my rush to come down to the floor, I did not bring with me the exact statistics, but basically the reports that we now see on what are called AMTA payments suggest that entirely too much of this money goes to those in least need. In other words, it is a subsidy program. Last year, it was to the tune of about $16 billion in inverse relationship to need. The top 10 percent of the producers--some of the big corporations--received over 60 percent of the benefits, and then the farmers received the rest, so that a family farm in Minnesota would be lucky to get maybe $2,000 worth of assistance; whereas, those huge operations were raking in $100,000 worth of assistance. If we just take the $7 billion and put it into this conference report without any committee hearings and without taking at least several weeks after we get back to do some evaluation and some important analysis about how to get this assistance out to the people who need it the most, then I think we have not lived up to our responsibility as Senators. I say to my colleagues that I think we could at the very minimum, for example, make sure that this money goes to producers. Those who own the land but aren't involved in the production receive too much of the benefits. The benefits ought to go to the producers. I would also say to my colleagues that there is no reason in the world that for fiscal year 2001 we can't focus on equity and get the loan rate up at least to the rate for soybeans, in which case corn would be $2.11 and wheat would be $3.10. Let me tell you that is the direction we need to go for a State such as mine. I sent a letter yesterday to Chairman Lugar, my colleague, a Senator for whom I happen to have a tremendous amount of respect. I will certainly get a chance to talk with him today. I believe that we are making a big mistake if we simply put this money into a conference report, which means there will not be any real discussion and no real debate. We will not have paid any attention whatsoever as to how we can allocate this financial assistance out there in the countryside so that the lion's share of the benefit goes to the farmers who are in greatest need. Why in the world do we want to use the same AMTA formula which gets subsidies out to farmers in inverse relationship to need? Why not some careful consideration and some careful discussion? Isn't that what we are about as legislators? Too many times now in the Senate we see the same pattern of important decisions not being made by virtue of taking, in this particular case, what I think is an important question and just putting it into a conference report with no opportunity for amendments and no opportunity for discussion. I think that would be a big mistake. Instead, we can surely decide on a better formula for getting the money out there to the people. At the very minimum, it ought to go to the producers. It ought not go to landowners who are not even involved in production. Again, we have an opportunity for fiscal year 2001 to literally talk about equity and at least get the loan rate up for other farmers and other grain farmers that are equal to what we do for soybeans. As a Senator from Minnesota, as a Senator from an agricultural State, I come to the floor today to take issue with the direction in which we are going and to urge my colleagues not to put this financial assistance money into the crop insurance bill. But instead let's do the kind of work that we ought to do as legislators. Let's do the kind of evaluation we ought to do as legislators so we can get the help out there to people who need it. Farm income is going to go down 17 percent again this year. There are a lot of farmers in my State. Many are going to be driven off the land. If we are not going to write a new farm bill as an alternative to this ``freedom to fail'' bill, which is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed by the Congress or ever signed by a President, then I don't think we are going to write a new farm bill until after the election. At the very minimum, we ought to do our best to get the assistance to the people who need it the most. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. How much time remains on the Democratic side?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes to speak in morning business.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, sometimes we use morning business to have a chance to speak about legislation we introduce. Sometimes we use morning business to make a plea to colleagues. Sometimes we use morning business to convey a message. I want to convey a message to some Senators about conference reports and the way we have been conducting our business. Right now with the conference reports--and I am specifically talking about the bankruptcy bill--we don't have a conference committee. We have a shadow committee because Democratic Senators are not involved at all in the deliberations. There are some rumors going around in the Senate that Republicans will basically reach an agreement on the conference report on bankruptcy. Democrats will not be involved in this deliberation at all. So we have not had a conference committee meeting. We will know what is in that conference report when it is on our desk. That conference report dealing with bankruptcy, believe it or not, American public, could be put into an unrelated conference report such as a conference report dealing with crop insurance. There is no longer any scope of conference rule so it can be completely unrelated. Again, that is a new way of doing business in the Senate. My argument is that is no way to do business in the Senate. I believe the minority should be involved in the conference. That is a real conference. I do not believe the way to do business is for Democrats to find out what is in the bill when it is put on our desk. I certainly don't think this bankruptcy bill --which is so harsh and so egregious in its effect on the most vulnerable citizens in the country, while basically calling for no accountability or responsibility on the part of the big credit card companies--should be put into an unrelated conference report such as one dealing with crop insurance. I use my time as a Senator today to say to Senators that if that happens, and I hope it won't, if that should happen tomorrow, for example, when we are supposed to go on recess, I think that would be outrageous. I will oppose it. I will speak out against it and do everything I can to block it. We would be here for days. I think there are other colleagues who will be also outraged, especially at this effort to put a shadow conference report on bankruptcy, with Democrats not even being involved--and all the reports are that the bill is getting harsher and harsher, not better--into an unrelated conference report with a day to go before we are supposed to go into recess. If that happens, I want to be clear, I don't intend to be jammed. I do not intend to roll over on it. I intend to speak out against it. I intend to point out to the American people all the ways in which this is egregious legislation and the impact it will have on them and their families. That will take time. I think other Senators will join me. I hope we do not conduct our business that way in the Senate. I hope I do not have to do that. I hope, instead, we will do what we need to do with the legislative branch and with judicial nominations, with the nomination of Brad Smith, have those votes, get onto other work, but not have last minute efforts to sort of jam legislation into unrelated legislation and attempt to ram it through here without the deliberation and without the discussion. I do not think that is the Senate at its best. I certainly, as a Senator from Minnesota, cannot represent people in my State and people in the country that way, and I will not. I will challenge it. So I hope it does not come to that. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time be counted against the time allocated to the opposition.