[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 107 (Friday, August 5, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE REFORM ACT OF 1994

  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 507 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 507

       Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 1(b) of rule 
     XXIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 4217) to reform the Federal crop insurance 
     program, and for other purposes. The first reading of the 
     bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be 
     confined to the bill and the amendments made in order by this 
     resolution and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and 
     controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on Agriculture. After general debate the bill shall 
     be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. It 
     shall be in order to consider as an original bill for the 
     purpose of amendment under the five-minute rule the amendment 
     in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on 
     Agriculture now printed in the bill modified by the 
     amendments printed in part 1 of the report of the Committee 
     on Rules accompanying this resolution. The committee 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute, as modified, shall 
     be considered as read. All points of order against the 
     committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as 
     modified, are waived. Before consideration of any other 
     amendment it shall be in order to consider the amendments 
     printed in part 2 of the report of the Committee on Rules. 
     Each amendment printed in part 2 of the report may be offered 
     only by a Member designated in the report, shall be 
     considered only by a Member designated in the report, shall 
     be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time 
     specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the 
     proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to a 
     demand for division of the question in the House or in the 
     Committee of the Whole. All points of order against the 
     amendments printed in part 2 of the report are waived. At the 
     conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the 
     Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with 
     such amendments as may have been adopted. Any Member may 
     demand a separate vote in the House on any amendment adopted 
     in the Committee of the Whole to the bill or to the committee 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute, as modified. The 
     previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill 
     and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening 
     motion except one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Moakley] is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. 
Quillen], pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, during consideration of this resolution, all time 
yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
  (Mr. MOAKLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 507 is an open rule 
providing for the consideration of H.R. 4217, the Federal Crop 
Insurance Reform Act of 1994. The resolution waives all points of order 
against consideration of the bill, and provides for 1 hour of general 
debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking 
minority member of the Committee on Agriculture.
  The amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the 
Committee on Agriculture, now printed in the bill, as modified by the 
amendments printed in part one of House Report 103-666, will be 
considered as an original bill for the purpose of amendment under the 
5-minute rule. All points of order against the committee substitute, as 
modified, are waived.
  Before consideration of any additional amendments, it will be in 
order to consider the two amendments printed in part two of House 
Report 103-666: First, an amendment offered by Representative Penny or 
Representative Gunderson or a designee, and second, an amendment 
offered by Representative de la Garza or a designee as a substitute for 
the Penny-Gunderson amendment.
  Each amendment may be offered only by a Member specified in the 
report, will be considered as read, and will be debatable for 30 
minutes, equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an 
opponent thereto. Although both amendments will be open to further 
amendment under the rule, neither amendment will be subject to a demand 
for a division of the question in the House or the Committee of the 
Whole. All points of order against the two amendments are waived, and 
finally, the resolution provides for one motion to recommit with or 
without instructions.
  Mr. Speaker, the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994 would make 
significant changes in the 1980 Federal Crop Insurance Act and related 
statutes. These changes are designed to improve the crop insurance 
program to protect farmers from crop losses caused by natural 
disasters, and to eliminate the need for ad hoc disaster assistance 
legislation.
  The 1980 Federal Crop Insurance Act attempted to broaden crop 
insurance coverage and increase farmer participation, spreading the 
risk of crop losses over a much broader base. However, the level of 
participation in the program has not reached the level expected when 
Congress passed the 1980 Act. As a result, the Federal Crop Insurance 
Corporation has experienced substantial losses since 1981.
  The legislation made in order by this rule is designed to improve 
participation and reduce future losses. It would require the 
Corporation to establish a new catastrophic risk protection plan for 
the 50 crops currently insured against loss through drought, flood, or 
other disasters. The bill would allow producers to purchase additional 
coverage for these crops currently insured. The bill would crate a 
permanent disaster assistance program for those crops not currently 
insurable under the program.
  The legislation makes other improvements to the 1980 Act, and it will 
amend the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, 
better known as Gramm-Rudman, to prevent the designation of 
appropriations for crop disaster assistance as emergency spending that 
does not count against discretionary spending limits.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote for this open rule, which will 
allow for expeditions consideration of the bill.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. QUILLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. QUILLEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. QUILLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Moakley] the distinguished chairman of the committee on rules, for 
yielding time to me, and I join him in supporting this open rule. When 
the Federal crop insurance reform act came before the Rules Committee, 
it had two major problems which will be resolved by this rule. First, 
there were provisions in the bill which constituted appropriations in a 
legislative bill, and second, there was a provision within the 
jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee. The rule self-executes 
amendments which eliminate these problems.
  Normally, I would oppose self executing amendments, but in this case 
the amendments become part of the base text and are open to further 
amendment. Therefore, I do not object.
  Over the last year, my home State of Tennessee has experienced 
devastating drought, followed closely by immense flooding in rural 
areas that forced many farmers to rely on Federal assistance for 
survival. Other areas of the country fell victim to similar situations, 
and Congress often must pass emergency disaster assistance bills to pay 
for crop losses and other damage. The Federal crop insurance program 
was designed with the best of intentions, but it is not working, and we 
must make some reforms so that the taxpayers do not have to pay for 
emergency appropriations each time disaster strikes our Nation.
  The change made in this bill will improve the delivery and coverage 
of Federal crop insurance programs by offering crop producers premium-
free catastrophic insurance coverage for crops. One of the main reasons 
the current program is inadequate is because of lack of participation. 
This bill provides strong incentives to encourage crop producers to 
purchase additional coverage from private insurers.
  There are some conflicting views over the potential budget impact of 
this bill, and two differing amendments are expected to be offered 
which address this issue. The rule provides for these amendments to be 
considered first, but they would each be subject to further amendment 
under this open rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following information.

                                  OPEN VERSUS RESTRICTIVE RULES 95TH-103D CONG.                                 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                              Open rules       Restrictive rules
                      Congress (years)                       Total rules ---------------------------------------
                                                              granted\1\  Number  Percent\2\  Number  Percent\3\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
95th (1977-78).............................................          211     179         85       32         15 
96th (1979-80).............................................          214     161         75       53         25 
97th (1981-82).............................................          120      90         75       30         25 
98th (1983-84).............................................          155     105         68       50         32 
99th (1985-86).............................................          115      65         57       50         43 
100th (1987-88)............................................          123      66         54       57         46 
101st (1989-90)............................................          104      47         45       57         55 
102d (1991-92).............................................          109      37         34       72         66 
103d (1993-94).............................................           85      24         28       61         72 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\Total rules counted are all order of business resolutions reported from the Rules Committee which provide for
  the initial consideration of legislation, except rules on appropriations bills which only waive points of     
  order. Original jurisdiction measures reported as privileged are also not counted.                            
\2\Open rules are those which permit any Member to offer any germane amendment to a measure so long as it is    
  otherwise in compliance with the rules of the House. The parenthetical percentages are open rules as a percent
  of total rules granted.                                                                                       
\3\Restrictive rules are those which limit the number of amendments which can be offered, and include so-called 
  modified open and modified closed rules, as well as completely closed rule, and rules providing for           
  consideration in the House as opposed to the Committee of the Whole. The parenthetical percentages are        
  restrictive rules as a percent of total rules granted.                                                        
                                                                                                                
Sources: ``Rules Committee Calendars & Surveys of Activities,'' 95th-102d Cong.; ``Notices of Action Taken,''   
  Committee on Rules, 103d Cong., through August 4, 1994.                                                       


                                                        OPEN VERSUS RESTRICTIVE RULES: 103D CONG.                                                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  Rule                                      Amendments                                                                  
   Rule number date reported      type       Bill number and subject         submitted         Amendments allowed         Disposition of rule and date  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H. Res. 58, Feb. 2, 1993......  MC        H.R. 1: Family and medical     30 (D-5; R-25)..  3 (D-0; R-3)..............  PQ: 246-176. A: 259-164. (Feb. 3,
                                           leave.                                                                       1993).                          
H. Res. 59, Feb. 3, 1993......  MC        H.R. 2: National Voter         19 (D-1; R-18)..  1 (D-0; R-1)..............  PQ: 248-171. A: 249-170. (Feb. 4,
                                           Registration Act.                                                            1993).                          
H. Res. 103, Feb. 23, 1993....  C         H.R. 920: Unemployment         7 (D-2; R-5)....  0 (D-0; R-0)..............  PQ: 243-172. A: 237-178. (Feb.   
                                           compensation.                                                                24, 1993).                      
H. Res. 106, Mar. 2, 1993.....  MC        H.R. 20: Hatch Act amendments  9 (D-1; R-8)....  3 (D-0; R-3)..............  PQ: 248-166. A: 249-163. (Mar. 3,
                                                                                                                        1993).                          
H. Res. 119, Mar. 9, 1993.....  MC        H.R. 4: NIH Revitalization     13 (d-4; R-9)...  8 (D-3; R-5)..............  PQ: 247-170. A: 248-170. (Mar.   
                                           Act of 1993.                                                                 10, 1993).                      
H. Res. 132, Mar. 17, 1993....  MC        H.R. 1335: Emergency           37 (D-8; R-29)..  1(not submitted) (D-1; R-   A: 240-185. (Mar. 18, 1993).     
                                           supplemental Appropriations.                     0).                                                         
H. Res. 133, Mar. 17, 1993....  MC        H. Con. Res. 64: Budget        14 (D-2; R-12)..  4 (1-D not submitted) (D-   PQ: 250-172. A: 251-172. (Mar.   
                                           resolution.                                      2; R-2).                    18, 1993).                      
H. Res. 138, Mar. 23, 1993....  MC        H.R. 670: Family planning      20 (D-8; R-12)..  9 (D-4; R-5)..............  PQ: 252-164. A: 247-169. (Mar.   
                                           amendments.                                                                  24, 1993).                      
H. Res. 147, Mar. 31, 1993....  C         H.R. 1430: Increase Public     6 (D-1; R-5)....  0 (D-0; R-0)..............  PQ: 244-168. A: 242-170. (Apr. 1,
                                           debt limit.                                                                  1993).                          
H. Res. 149 Apr. 1, 1993......  MC        H.R. 1578: Expedited           8 (D-1; R-7)....  3 (D-1; R-2)..............  A: 212-208. (Apr. 28, 1993).     
                                           Rescission Act of 1993.                                                                                      
H. Res. 164, May 4, 1993......  O         H.R. 820: Nate                 NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (May 5, 1993).    
                                           Competitiveness Act.                                                                                         
H. Res. 171, May 18, 1993.....  O         H.R. 873: Gallatin Range Act   NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (May 20, 1993).   
                                           of 1993.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 172, May 18, 1993.....  O         H.R. 1159: Passenger Vessel    NA..............  NA........................  A: 308-0 (May 24, 1993).         
                                           Safety Act.                                                                                                  
H. Res. 173 May 18, 1993......  MC        S.J. Res. 45: United States    6 (D-1; R-5)....  6 (D-1; R-5)..............  A: Voice Vote (May 20, 1993)     
                                           forces in Somalia.                                                                                           
H. Res. 183, May 25, 1993.....  O         H.R. 2244: 2d supplemental     NA..............  NA........................  A: 251-174. (May 26, 1993).      
                                           appropriations.                                                                                              
H. Res. 186, May 27, 1993.....  MC        H.R. 2264: Omnibus budget      51 (D-19; R-32).  8 (D-7; R-1)..............  PQ: 252-178. A: 236-194 (May 27, 
                                           reconciliation.                                                              1993).                          
H. Res. 192, June 9, 1993.....  MC        H.R. 2348: Legislative branch  50 (D-6; R-44)..  6 (D-3; R-3)..............  PQ: 240-177. A: 226-185. (June   
                                           appropriations.                                                              10, 1993).                      
H. Res. 193, June 10, 1993....  O         H.R. 2200: NASA authorization  NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (June 14, 1993).  
H. Res. 195, June 14, 1993....  MC        H.R. 5: Striker replacement..  7 (D-4; R-3)....  2 (D-1; R-1)..............  A: 244-176.. (June 15, 1993).    
H. Res. 197, June 15, 1993....  MO        H.R. 2333: State Department.   53 (D-20; R-33).  27 (D-12; R-15)...........  A: 294-129. (June 16, 1993).     
                                           H.R. 2404: Foreign aid.                                                                                      
H. Res. 199, June 16, 1993....  C         H.R. 1876: Ext. of ``Fast      NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (June 22, 1993).  
                                           Track''.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 200, June 16, 1993....  MC        H.R. 2295: Foreign operations  33 (D-11; R-22).  5 (D-1; R-4)..............  A: 263-160. (June 17, 1993).     
                                           appropriations.                                                                                              
H. Res. 201, June 17, 1993....  O         H.R. 2403: Treasury-postal     NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (June 17, 1993).  
                                           appropriations.                                                                                              
H. Res. 203, June 22, 1993....  MO        H.R. 2445: Energy and Water    NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (June 23, 1993).  
                                           appropriations.                                                                                              
H. Res. 206, June 23, 1993....  O         H.R. 2150: Coast Guard         NA..............  NA........................  A: 401-0. (July 30, 1993).       
                                           authorization.                                                                                               
H. Res. 217, July 14, 1993....  MO        H.R. 2010: National Service    NA..............  NA........................  A: 261-164. (July 21, 1993).     
                                           Trust Act.                                                                                                   
H. Res. 220, July 21, 1993....  MC        H.R. 2667: Disaster            14 (D-8; R-6)...  2 (D-2; R-0)..............  PQ: 245-178. F: 205-216. (July   
                                           assistance supplemental.                                                     22, 1993).                      
H. Res. 226, July 23, 1993....  MC        H.R. 2667: Disaster            15 (D-8; R-7)...  2 (D-2; R-0)..............  A: 224-205. (July 27, 1993).     
                                           assistance supplemental.                                                                                     
H. Res. 229, July 28, 1993....  MO        H.R. 2330: Intelligence        NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (Aug. 3, 1993).   
                                           Authority Act, fiscal year                                                                                   
                                           1994.                                                                                                        
H. Res. 230, July 28, 1993....  O         H.R. 1964: Maritime            NA..............  NA........................  A: Voice Vote. (July 29, 1993).  
                                           Administration authority.                                                                                    
H. Res. 246, Aug. 6, 1993.....  MO        H.R. 2401: National Defense    149 (D-109; R-    ..........................  A: 246-172. (Sept. 8, 1993).     
                                           authority.                     40).                                                                          
H. Res. 248, Sept. 9, 1993....  MO        H.R. 2401: National defense    ................  ..........................  PQ: 237-169. A: 234-169. (Sept.  
                                           authorization.                                                               13, 1993).                      
H. Res. 250, Sept. 13, 1993...  MC        H.R. 1340: RTC Completion Act  12 (D-3; R-9)...  1 (D-1; R-0)..............  A: 213-191-1. (Sept. 14, 1993).  
H. Res. 254, Sept. 22, 1993...  MO        H.R. 2401: National Defense    ................  91 (D-67; R-24)...........  A: 241-182. (Sept. 28, 1993).    
                                           authorization.                                                                                               
H. Res. 262, Sept. 28, 1993...  O         H.R. 1845: National            NA..............  NA........................  A: 238-188 (10/06/93).           
                                           Biological Survey Act.                                                                                       
H. Res. 264, Sept. 28, 1993...  MC        H.R. 2351: Arts, humanities,   7 (D-0; R-7)....  3 (D-0; R-3)..............  PQ: 240-185. A: 225-195. (Oct.   
                                           museums.                                                                     14, 1993).                      
H. Res. 265, Sept. 29, 1993...  MC        H.R. 3167: Unemployment        3 (D-1; R-2)....  2 (D-1; R-1)..............  A: 239-150. (Oct. 15, 1993).     
                                           compensation amendments.                                                                                     
H. Res. 269, Oct. 6, 1993.....  MO        H.R. 2739: Aviation            N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote. (Oct. 7, 1993).   
                                           infrastructure investment.                                                                                   
H. Res. 273, Oct. 12, 1993....  MC        H.R. 3167: Unemployment        3 (D-1; R-2)....  2 (D-1; R-1)..............  PQ: 235-187. F: 149-254. (Oct.   
                                           compensation amendments.                                                     14, 1993).                      
H. Res. 274, Oct. 12, 1993....  MC        H.R. 1804: Goals 2000 Educate  15 (D-7; R-7; I-  10 (D-7; R-3).............  A: Voice Vote. (Oct. 13, 1993).  
                                           America Act.                   1).                                                                           
H. Res. 282, Oct. 20, 1993....  C         H.J. Res. 281: Continuing      N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote. (Oct. 21, 1993).  
                                           appropriations through Oct.                                                                                  
                                           28, 1993.                                                                                                    
H. Res. 286, Oct. 27, 1993....  O         H.R. 334: Lumbee Recognition   N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote. (Oct. 28, 1993).  
                                           Act.                                                                                                         
H. Res. 287, Oct. 27, 1993....  C         H.J. Res. 283: Continuing      1 (D-0; R-0)....  0.........................  A: 252-170. (Oct. 28, 1993).     
                                           appropriations resolution.                                                                                   
H. Res. 289, Oct. 28, 1993....  O         H.R. 2151: Maritime Security   N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote. (Nov. 3, 1993).   
                                           Act of 1993.                                                                                                 
H. Res. 293, Nov. 4, 1993.....  MC        H. Con. Res. 170: Troop        N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: 390-8. (Nov. 8, 1993).        
                                           withdrawal Somalia.                                                                                          
H. Res. 299, Nov. 8, 1993.....  MO        H.R. 1036: Employee            2 (D-1; R-1)....  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote. (Nov. 9, 1993).   
                                           Retirement Act-1993.                                                                                         
H. Res. 302, Nov. 9, 1993.....  MC        H.R. 1025: Brady handgun bill  17 (D-6; R-11)..  4 (D-1; R-3)..............  A: 238-182. (Nov. 10, 1993).     
H. Res. 303, Nov. 9, 1993.....  O         H.R. 322: Mineral exploration  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote. (Nov. 16, 1993).  
H. Res. 304, Nov. 9, 1993.....  C         H.J. Res. 288: Further CR, FY  N/A.............  N/A.......................  .................................
                                           1994.                                                                                                        
H. Res. 312, Nov. 17, 1993....  MC        H.R. 3425: EPA Cabinet Status  27 (D-8; R-19)..  9 (D-1; R-8)..............  F: 191-227. (Feb. 2, 1994).      
H. Res. 313, Nov. 17, 1993....  MC        H.R. 796: Freedom Access to    15 (D-9; R-6)...  4 (D-1; R-3)..............  A: 233-192. (Nov. 18, 1993).     
                                           Clinics.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 314, Nov. 17, 1993....  MC        H.R. 3351: Alt Methods Young   21 (D-7; R-14)..  6 (D-3; R-3)..............  A: 238-179. (Nov. 19, 1993).     
                                           Offenders.                                                                                                   
H. Res. 316, Nov. 19, 1993....  C         H.R. 51: D.C. statehood bill.  1 (D-1; R-0)....  N/A.......................  A: 252-172. (Nov. 20, 1993).     
H. Res. 319, Nov. 20, 1993....  MC        H.R. 3: Campaign Finance       35 (D-6; R-29)..  1 (D-0; R-1)..............  A: 220-207. (Nov. 21, 1993).     
                                           Reform.                                                                                                      
H. Res. 320, Nov. 20, 1993....  MC        H.R. 3400: Reinventing         34 (D-15; R-19).  3 (D-3; R-0)..............  A: 247-183. (Nov. 22, 1993).     
                                           Government.                                                                                                  
H. Res. 336, Feb. 2, 1994.....  MC        H.R. 3759: Emergency           14 (D-8; R-5; I-  5 (D-3; R-2)..............  PQ: 244-168. A: 342-65. (Feb. 3, 
                                           Supplemental Appropriations.   1).                                           1994).                          
H. Res. 352, Feb. 8, 1994.....  MC        H.R. 811: Independent Counsel  27 (D-8; R-19)..  10 (D-4; R-6).............  PQ: 249-174. A: 242-174. (Feb. 9,
                                           Act.                                                                         1994).                          
H. Res. 357, Feb. 9, 1994.....  MC        H.R. 3345: Federal Workforce   3 (D-2; R-1)....  2 (D-2; R-0)..............  A: VV (Feb. 10, 1994).           
                                           Restructuring.                                                                                               
H. Res. 366, Feb. 23, 1994....  MO        H.R. 6: Improving America's    NA..............  NA........................  A: VV (Feb. 24, 1994).           
                                           Schools.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 384, Mar. 9, 1994.....  MC        H. Con. Res. 218: Budget       14 (D-5; R-9)...  5 (D-3; R-2)..............  A: 245-171 (Mar. 10, 1994).      
                                           Resolution FY 1995-99.                                                                                       
H. Res. 401, Apr. 12, 1994....  MO        H.R. 4092: Violent Crime       180 (D-98; R-82)  68 (D-47; R-21)...........  A: 244-176 (Apr. 13, 1994).      
                                           Control.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 410, Apr. 21, 1994....  MO        H.R. 3221: Iraqi Claims Act..  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (Apr. 28, 1994).   
H. Res. 414, Apr. 28, 1994....  O         H.R. 3254: NSF Auth. Act.....  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (May 3, 1994).     
H. Res. 416, May 4, 1994......  C         H.R. 4296: Assault Weapons     7 (D-5; R-2)....  0 (D-0; R-0)..............  A: 220-209 (May 5, 1994).        
                                           Ban Act.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 420, May 5, 1994......  O         H.R. 2442: EDA                 N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (May 10, 1994).    
                                           Reauthorization.                                                                                             
H. Res. 422, May 11, 1994.....  MO        H.R. 518: California Desert    N/A.............  N/A.......................  PQ: 245-172 A: 248-165 (May 17,  
                                           Protection.                                                                  1994).                          
H. Res. 423, May 11, 1994.....  O         H.R. 2473: Montana Wilderness  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (May 12, 1994).    
                                           Act.                                                                                                         
H. Res. 428, May 17, 1994.....  MO        H.R. 2108: Black Lung          4 (D-1; R-3)....  N/A.......................  A: VV (May 19, 1994).            
                                           Benefits Act.                                                                                                
H. Res. 429, May 17, 1994.....  MO        H.R. 4301: Defense Auth., FY   173 (D-115; R-    ..........................  A: 369-49 (May 18, 1994).        
                                           1995.                          58).                                                                          
H. Res. 431, May 20, 1994.....  MO        H.R. 4301: Defense Auth., FY   ................  100 (D-80; R-20)..........  A: Voice Vote (May 23, 1994).    
                                           1995.                                                                                                        
H. Res. 440, May 24, 1994.....  MC        H.R. 4385: Natl Hiway System   16 (D-10; R-6)..  5 (D-5; R-0)..............  A: Voice Vote (May 25, 1994).    
                                           Designation.                                                                                                 
H. Res. 443, May 25, 1994.....  MC        H.R. 4426: For. Ops. Approps,  39 (D-11; R-28).  8 (D-3; R-5)..............  PQ: 233-191 A: 244-181 (May 25,  
                                           FY 1995.                                                                     1994).                          
H. Res. 444, May 25, 1994.....  MC        H.R. 4454: Leg Branch Approp,  43 (D-10; R-33).  12 (D-8; R-4).............  A: 249-177 (May 26, 1994).       
                                           FY 1995.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 447, June 8, 1994.....  O         H.R. 4539: Treasury/Postal     N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: 236-177 (June 9, 1994).       
                                           Approps 1995.                                                                                                
H. Res. 467, June 28, 1994....  MC        H.R. 4600: Expedited           N/A.............  N/A.......................  PQ: 240-185 A:Voice Vote (July   
                                           Rescissions Act.                                                             14, 1994).                      
H. Res. 468, June 28, 1994....  MO        H.R. 4299: Intelligence        N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 19, 1994).   
                                           Auth., FY 1995.                                                                                              
H. Res. 474, July 12, 1994....  MO        H.R. 3937: Export Admin. Act   N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 14, 1994).   
                                           of 1994.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 475, July 12, 1994....  O         H.R. 1188: Anti. Redlining in  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 20, 1994).   
                                           Ins.                                                                                                         
H. Res. 482, July 20, 1994....  O         H.R. 3838: Housing & Comm.     N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 21, 1994).   
                                           Dev. Act.                                                                                                    
H. Res. 483, July 20, 1994....  O         H.R. 3870: Environ. Tech. Act  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 26, 1994).   
                                           of 1994.                                                                                                     
H. Res. 484, July 20, 1994....  MC        H.R. 4604: Budget Control Act  3 (D-2; R-1)....  3 (D-2; R-1)..............  PQ: 245-180 A: Voice Vote (July  
                                           of 1994.                                                                     21, 1994).                      
H. Res. 491, July 27, 1994....  O         H.R. 2448: Radon Disclosure    N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 28, 1994).   
                                           Act.                                                                                                         
H. Res. 492, July 27, 1994....  O         S. 208: NPS Concession Policy  N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (July 28, 1994).   
H. Res. 494, July 28, 1994....  MC        H.R. 4801: SBA Reauth &        10 (D-5; R-5)...  6 (D-4; R-2)..............  PQ: 215-169 A: 221-161 (July 29, 
                                           Amdmts. Act.                                                                 1994).                          
H. Res. 500, Aug. 1, 1994.....  MO        H.R. 4003: Maritime Admin.     N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: 336-77 (August 2, 1994).      
                                           Reauth..                                                                                                     
H. Res. 501, Aug. 1, 1994.....  O         S. 1357: Little Traverse Bay   N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (August 3, 1994).  
                                           Bands.                                                                                                       
H. Res. 502, Aug. 1, 1994.....  O         H.R. 1066: Pokagon Band of     N/A.............  N/A.......................  A: Voice Vote (August 3, 1994).  
                                           Potawatomi.                                                                                                  
H. Res. 507, Aug. 4, 1994.....  O         H.R. 4217: Federal Crop        N/A.............  N/A.......................  .................................
                                           Insurance.                                                                                                   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Code: C-Closed; MC-Modified closed; MO-Modified open; O-Open; D-Democrat; R-Republican; PQ: Previous question; A-Adopted; F-Failed.              

  Mr. QUILLEN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, I 
yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on 
the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Montgomery). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 507 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for 
consideration of the bill, H.R. 4217.
  The Chair designates the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cardin] as 
Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and requests the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. Dicks] to assume the chair temporarily.

                              {time}  1104


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 
4217) to reform the Federal crop insurance program, and for other 
purposes, with Mr. Dicks, Chairman pro tempore, in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is 
considered as having been read the first time.
  Under the rule, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] will be 
recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] 
will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza].
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I find myself in a very awkward and uneasy situation in 
that we have a simply bill that hopefully will correct the crop 
insurance program, take away the perennial ad hoc disaster that has 
cost $2.3 billion, $3. some billion, if we correct properly the crop 
insurance for farmers which benefits farmer, consumer, and allows for 
the continuation of producing food and fiber, indeed, for our very 
national security.
  This is a situation that, hopefully, we are trying to correct. The 
government/private sector partnership in providing low-cost insurance 
to the producers.
  Why low-cost insurance? For a very simple reason: If it were a viable 
money-making endeavor, the private sector would be doing it on their 
own. They cannot. So we have to intervene for our very national 
security to provide for the food and fiber.
  We are the best fed nation in the world, in the history of the world, 
with the least amount of disposable income per family of the major 
industrialized countries in the world. That does not change. That is 
the reason that we have this safety net.
  But because of budgetary constraints and trying to help, indeed, our 
friends and colleagues from the Committee on Appropriations, we put on 
budget ad hoc disaster and say that farmers have to buy the insurance, 
pay up front and then a comprehensive. So that our friends on the 
Committee on Appropriations will not have to work or worry about ad hoc 
disasters in the billions of dollars.
  And we are here because the President recommended a fix to the crop 
insurance program. His budget allowed for a billion dollars to do that. 
We did not get the billion dollars. We were some 200 plus million 
short.
  This is what the argument will be about, that how do we take care of 
that?
  We propose, and I will offer an amendment that pays for 3 years. 
Allows us time for a GAO study to find out where we are, to find out 
what we need to do in order to make it a viable program. It never has 
been a pay-go situation.
  If anyone, if anyone at any time points a finger at this committee, 
they do so unjustly, because we have been at the forefront. We have 
saved $60 billion in the past 12 years.
  If every committee in this House had done that, we would not have a 
deficit. We have been responsible. We have taken the blows from 
agriculture. We never have asked anyone to share the burden with us. We 
have taken the blow. I am very concerned, disappointed and frustrated 
that somehow the issue has come around that it is us versus WIC or 
feeding programs.

                              {time}  1110

  This is erroneous. Some of the ``Dear Colleague'' letters are 
completely erroneous in that respect. We meet the pay-go. It was this 
committee that established the Mickey Leland legislation. We have been 
in the forefront. For anyone to say or even insinuate that we are out 
to get WIC or endanger WIC, it is not accurate. It is not correct.
  We have been in the forefront. I, me personally, my colleague from 
Texas died working to help hungry people. I would be the last one 
personally to in any way smear his name or endanger the programs that 
he worked so hard for.
  On the contrary, some of those that are now accusing us have at one 
time or another sought reductions in some of those programs, Public Law 
480, food stamps. Somehow the stripes on some of those individuals have 
changed, and they put us in this very awkward, frustrating situation.
  I challenge anyone to say that our committee has not been in the 
forefront. On the contrary, when the Select Committee on Hunger in the 
wisdom of this House was abolished, we established a Subcommittee on 
Hunger, so it would not die, so that Mickey Leland's name would not die 
with him.
  Odd as it may seem, even though we had reduced the number of 
subcommittees, I asked that we add another subcommittee, that we add 
hunger to that subcommittee, and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Penny] was made chairman of that subcommittee.
  That is our history. That is what we have done. I am so frustrated 
that because of misinformation, that there are those that are now 
pointing the finger at us: If you fund crop insurance, WIC will die.
  Under my amendment and under this bill, WIC is funded for 3 years. We 
are arguing about 2 years that should not be. I hope that the Members 
would listen to the facts, would not get carried away with emotion, but 
most of all, that my colleagues would look to the background of this 
committee, of this gentleman from Texas, of the members of our 
committee who have worked diligently, hand in hand with the 
appropriators.
  We do not want a problem with the appropriators. They have a hard 
enough problem without us intervening or interfering, but we have a 
difference of opinion. Unfortunately, some personalities have come into 
the picture.
  I want to disassociate myself from all that. The question, Mr. 
Chairman, is very simple, actually, very truthfully. One program, they 
think they pay for everything in 5 years. They think they do. They now 
accuse us, that if we do it our way, somehow we will endanger WIC and 
the feeding programs and Public Law 480. We do not do that. That is not 
our intention. That has not been our background. That has not been what 
we have done.
  I come before my colleagues, actually putting my name and my person 
on the line, the activity of our committee on the line, and saying, 
``Look at what we have done, and pay no heed of what we are being 
accused unjustly, unmerited, unwarranted, and totally without fact.''
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. COMBEST asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, today the House considers legislation that 
has been in the making since 1990 and is long past due in becoming law. 
The goal of H.R. 4217, the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994, 
is to stop ad hoc agricultural disaster assistance, that has become an 
annual event, it seems, and to provide a slightly better crop insurance 
product than farmers can buy today. This two-part goal is worthy of 
adoption by the House.
  H.R. 4217 is designed to save us from ourselves. Whether or not it 
will, frankly, remains to be seen. When acts of God strike, the 
Congress understandably wants to assist those who have been harmed. 
Last year's Midwest floods are estimated to cost $3.3 billion in 
assistance to agriculture. It is costly, and this cost is the reason 
for bringing H.R. 4217 to the floor.
  Let me take 1 minute to provide some perspective. During the last 5 
years, the Federal Government has spent on average $1.5 billion on 
agricultural disaster assistance. That is in addition to the more than 
$750 million that has been spent in the multiperil crop insurance 
program.
  A General Accounting Office report published in January 1992, 
provides the numbers between 1980 and 1990 that show why we need to 
reform agricultural disaster assistance. Indeed, why we can no longer 
afford such assistance. I should note that some of these expenditures 
overlap from one calendar year to the next. But in 1989 alone, 
generally as a result of the devastating 1988 drought, the Federal 
Government dispersed a little more than $7 billion in crop insurance 
indemnities, disaster payments, and Farmers Home Administration 
emergency loans. In every year between 1980 and 1990, crop disaster 
payments or loans were made to producers, and those payments totaled 
more than $25 billion, according to the GAO.
  Using his experience while a member of the Agriculture Committee and 
responding to the Midwest floods, Secretary Mike Espy earlier this year 
proposed legislation that I found to be on the right track. It tracked 
a legislative proposal that the House Agriculture Committee had been 
pursuing since the drought years of 1988 and 1989, and most 
importantly, it recognized more funds were needed to make the proposal 
work.
  The bill is reform. It prohibits spending under the budget act by 
excluding agricultural disasters from those emergencies the President 
may declare as off budget. It also provides a catastrophic insurance 
policy to all farmers who produce crops currently reinsured by the 
Federal Crop Insurance Corporation [FCIC]. It provides assistance 
comparable to what producers have received under past disaster 
legislation.
  It also gives producers the option of buying higher insurance 
coverage for both yield and price selection, and it does this at a 
slightly lower cost than under the current program.
  For a $50 administrative fee per crop per county that is capped at 
$100 per farmer per county, producers receive this protection. If they 
participate in any price support or production adjustment program at 
USDA or benefit from any Farmers Home Administration farm lending 
program, they are required to obtain the catastrophic insurance 
coverage. The committee believes that offering producers an insurance 
policy they can plan for and depend on makes good risk management 
sense. Because most of our farmers depend on annual loans for crop 
production, lenders also agree that this is a positive initiative that 
will help the entire agribusiness community.
  For those who produce crops not currently insured by FCIC, a standing 
disaster assistance program will be available until FCIC can offer 
reinsurance for those crops. This permanent disaster assistance is 
available generally to producers of speciality crops such as 
floracultural, ornamental nursery, Christmas tree or turfgrass crops as 
well as other food and fiber crops not currently insurable.
  While the bill beefs up multiperil crop insurance and gives all farm 
program participants and others a backstop against catastrophic perils, 
it also makes several significant administrative changes to cut abuses 
and the evergrowing paperwork burdens of the delivery system. It does 
this by tracking agents who may be abusing the system and by moving 
sales closing dates forward in the planting year to restrict possible 
producer abuse. Additionally, it requires the FCIC to determine the per 
policy costs of administering this program and to take affirmative 
action to cut costs where appropriate.
  Finally, and unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, a fair breeze has not 
propelled this legislation through the committee and here to the floor. 
To be blunt, our colleagues on the appropriations committee spent money 
in the fiscal year 1995 spending bill that has traditionally been used 
for administrative and operating expenses of insurance companies and 
agents. I am not going to get into the details of this matter; all of 
our committees have had to make tough decisions about where limited 
funds are to be spent. The appropriations committee is no exception.
  Today, however, the Agriculture Committee will offer an amendment 
that will contribute $489 million in budget authority and $226 million 
in outlays during 1995 through 1999. It hits producers and the 
insurance industry to make these program reductions. Mr. Chairman, this 
effectively pays for the House Appropriations Committee's 
responsibility for crop insurance for the next 3 years. It is a fair 
compromise.
  I would urge my colleagues to support it, and to oppose the Penny 
amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to also talk a moment about what I think 
is some misinformation that in fact is circulating. The Committee on 
Agriculture has been accused of punting the ball, passing the ball, 
passing the buck, not living up to its responsibility, not living up to 
the pay-go provisions of the budget rules.
  Mr. Chairman, that is simply not correct, in that the House Committee 
on Agriculture had substantially less to work with than was initially 
anticipated and recommended by the administration. The committee made 
the cuts that were required in order to legitimatize this bill with 
pay-go provisions.
  All that the committee asked was that we would have an opportunity in 
a major crop insurance reform to determine whether or not that reform 
was going to work. If in fact the Penny-Gunderson amendment is 
accepted, it will be a self-fulfilling prophesy, and the crop insurance 
program will not work, and we will be right back where we started 
before this bill was ever introduced.
  We have asked for the opportunity to see if, as anticipated, this 
program is going to work the way we would like to see it work. The 
Committee on Agriculture is not going to pass the buck to the 
appropriators, it is not going to shirk the responsibility to someone 
else. The chairman of the committee has rightly stated that ``I do not 
believe that there is a committee in the House that has been more 
responsible, when given the task of making cuts, to make those cuts 
ourselves.''

                              {time}  1120

  All we are asking is give this bill that we pay for for 3 years the 
opportunity to see if it is going to work, and then let us make those 
budgetary decisions based upon that information.
  In the meetings with the chairman of the House Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, in meetings with the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Penny], who is a member of the committee, in meetings 
with the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Gunderson], who is a member of 
the Agriculture Committee, we have indicated that we have no intentions 
at all to pass this responsibility to someone else. We are going to 
take this responsibility, we are going to do it as painful as it may 
be, and we are going to try to do it in the least negative fashion that 
we possibly can.
  But, Mr. Chairman, the concerns and the expressions of the fact that 
we are not doing our job, and that we are going to leave this job to 
someone else, and that we are not paying for this bill are simply, 
absolutely not true.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Johnson], chairman of the subcommittee 
that has jurisdiction over this matter.
  (Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. Chairman I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me the time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4217, the Federal Crop 
Insurance Reform Act of 1994. I applaud my colleagues on the 
Agriculture Committee for passing a bipartisan bill that makes 
fundamental changes to the way our farmers will manage financial risk 
due to crop shortfalls. I particularly want to commend the gentleman 
from Texas [Mr. Combest], ranking member of the committee, for his 
constructive work on this very difficult legislation.
  As the chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee with jurisdiction 
over this bill, I held four hearings on H.R. 4217. At each hearing 
there was unanimous consent that the present crop insurance program was 
not working. Two problems with the current program were immediately 
evident: First, participation was too limited to be a successful risk 
management tool for our Nation's farmers; and second, coverage was 
often inadequate when crops losses did occur.
  It was realized that broadening participation and increasing benefits 
would increase the cost of the Federal crop insurance program. The 
administration requested that the average annual expenditures for ad 
hoc disaster payments for farmers of $1 billion be added to the budget 
baseline. I want to thank my colleagues on the Budget Committee for 
honoring this request.
  I also want to emphasize to my colleagues that this is a fiscally 
responsible bill. You may hear debate today about the funding mechanism 
and who pays for the reform package, whether the money is charged to 
the authorizing committee or the appropriating committee, whether the 
funding should be discretionary or mandatory. But, this is inside-the-
beltway talk. The money added to the baseline will not increase the 
deficit. It merely redirects how the money will be spent--instead of 
enacting annual emergency ad hoc disaster payments that are not subject 
to pay-go rules, the money will be used to fund the reform of the crop 
insurance program. In fact, the bill saves money over the next 5 years.
  Let me tell you about the improved benefits of the bill. It provides 
two levels of protection. For the 50 crops that are insured, 
catastrophic coverage is free, except for a $50 processing fee. Crops 
not covered by crop insurance are available for free noninsured 
disaster assistance payments. Payments are made to a farmer when they 
lose more than half their crop. For greater protection, higher levels 
of crop insurance coverage can be purchased with Government subsidies 
averaging about 40 percent of the premium, in effect reducing a 
farmer's out-of-pocket costs by 8 to 17 percent from present levels. 
With increased levels of protection being offered and lower costs, 
farmer participation is expected to increase from present levels of 
about 30 percent to about 80 percent of all insurable land.
  But the bill does more than just help our farmers. Unlike, ad hoc 
disaster payments, funding for crop insurance is guaranteed to be in 
place every year. This means that farmers can take crop insurance to 
the bank, and use the insurance as collateral for farm loans. With 
secure financing and income protection from crop losses due to natural 
disasters, consumers can be assured of a plentiful supply of food at 
reasonable prices. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support 
H.R. 4217.
  Mr. QUILLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield whatever time he might consume to 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade], ranking member of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  (Mr. McDADE asked and was given permission to speak out of order and 
to revise and extend his remarks.)


          administration must give us total picture in rwanda

  Mr. McDADE. Mr. Chairman, I express my deep appreciation to the 
gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time. I rise not to speak on 
this particular bill. I rise to bring before the committee a matter 
that I consider to be of grave importance.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to pay full attention to the 
reports from Rwanda being brought to us by our news organizations and 
their outstanding correspondents. I commend the media--especially the 
Washington Post and the New York Times--for providing us with in-depth 
coverage of the troubles in Rwanda.
  Unfortunately, the information on this crisis provided to Congress by 
the administration--as far as I have learned, as the ranking member of 
the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee--has not kept pace with the 
reporting done by news organizations. I regret drawing a parallel, but 
I fear that we may be seeing similarities between the current Rwandan 
situation and our involvement in Vietnam nearly 30 years ago.
  I do not mean to say that we will be confronted by a formidable armed 
adversary with the same capabilities as the North Vietnamese. But now, 
as then, I believe that the American people do not know the stakes 
involved in a Rwandan commitment. Also, what I have heard from the 
administration is not in line with what I have learned from the news 
reports. And like 30 years ago, I believe that the administration's 
funding requests for this mission have been vastly understated.
  In 1965 and 1966, the Johnson administration minimized the extent of 
our involvement in Vietnam by not fully requesting of Congress the 
funding required to carry out our deepening involvement there. And in 
this situation in Rwanda, the administration has only asked Congress 
for those funds needed to carry out the humanitarian mission through 
the end of September. It should be apparent to everyone that a 
sustained humanitarian effort will take more than 8 weeks.
  As we move into a new fiscal year in October, it is important to note 
that the administration estimates that the Rwanda effort will cost the 
Department of Defense at least $45 million per month. Over the course 
of an entire year, this would be $540 million which neither has been 
budgeted nor requested.
  I was delighted to see the Secretary of Defense publicly articulate 
yesterday, four guidelines to govern the use of our military in Rwanda 
and other humanitarian and peacekeeping missions ensuring the safety of 
our troops; preventing mission creep, or going in with good intentions 
but being caught in an unforeseen and expanded mission; assessing the 
effects on our total military readiness; and evaluating whether it is a 
proper mission for the U.S. military.
  But without total candor regarding future defense budget requirements 
and the complexities of the situation on the ground in Rwanda, we 
cannot properly evaluate our role in Rwanda or the impact on our 
national defense. It is my hope that the current administration will 
avoid the mistakes of the past, and give the American people the 
fullest possible picture of our military's mission in Rwanda.
  To paraphrase the philosopher George Santayana, ``Those who do not 
know the past are condemned to repeat it.''

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm].
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Chairman, today I rise in support of this 
comprehensive reform of our Nation's crop insurance system. This 
legislation will fundamentally change the way the Federal Government 
responds to natural disasters in rural America.
  Recent evidence has shown us that the Federal crop insurance program 
is in dire need of change due to chronic losses, limited participation, 
and claims of inadequate coverage.
  Despite the program's $900 million annual price tag, Congress and the 
administration have provided ad hoc disaster payments in the last 8 
years at an average cost of $1 billion per year.
  This bill will combine the present crop insurance program and the ad 
hoc disaster programs into a single new catastrophic insurance program.
  In doing so, current legal authorities for ad hoc disaster are 
repealed. In the future, this new program will replace these disaster 
bills as the Federal response to emergencies involving widespread crop 
loss.
  By replacing crop loss disaster aid with expanded more accessible 
crop insurance, it brings reality to the budget process and provides 
security for farmers against uncontrollable weather and natural 
disaster.
  The American taxpayer must be assured that their tax dollars are 
being used in a cost-effective and efficient manner, while the American 
farmer must have access to a risk management tool that will allow him 
to manage the high cost associated with agriculture today.
  I believe this bill is a step in the right direction, therefore, I 
urge my colleagues to support this legislation that will provide our 
farmers with an affordable and predictable risk management program and 
end the constant need for emergency disaster declarations.
  Mr. Chairman, I also hope that other committees will follow the 
leadership of the Committee on Agriculture and have similar legislation 
on the floor in the very near future.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts], the ranking member of the 
committee.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the crop insurance reform package 
as reported by the House Committee on Agriculture.
  When our committee started action on crop insurance reform, we were 
very confident this legislation would establish a viable and reformed 
crop insurance program that provided our farmers and ranchers an array 
of risk-management tools. We also thought it would forcefully meet the 
challenge of preventing the future consideration of costly ad hoc 
disaster assistance programs.
  If we do that, it is going to save taxpayers about $400 million a 
year based on the annual average of the disaster assistance that we 
have had in the past. With this bill, we thought it would address the 
immediate concerns in regard to the shortfall in discretionary funding 
relative to the current program. However, subsequent to the committee 
action, we were made aware of additional concerns relative to the 
budget-scoring process as well as concerns of other committees.
  Consequently, the chairman and I worked, hopefully in bipartisan 
fashion, to fashion an amendment to insure that this crop insurance 
reform would be fully funded, be fully funded, and within the budget 
rules of the House, and the chairman's amendment does that, that it 
would make additional cuts in the program where reasonable and 
appropriate, and in such a manner so as not to destroy the viability of 
the reform package to meet its goals of preventing future cost outlays 
for disaster programs.
  Most important, and something that has not been mentioned very often 
here, is that it would provide our farmers and ranchers with the proper 
risk-management tools so they could stay in business during very 
difficult times.
  I want to reiterate to all of my colleagues that the de la Garza 
amendment to be considered on down the road here as we debate this 
addresses the concerns of the Committee on the Budget, and in doing so, 
made the tough choices that provide our colleagues on the Committee on 
Appropriations some solutions relative to the anticipated discretionary 
spending shortfalls.
  I think simply, to sum up, we have a choice. We can go ahead with 
crop insurance reform that will work, or we can take another course 
where farmers and ranchers will be hit with the costs of a crop 
insurance program that will be less desirable, and this Congress will 
be subject to the pressures again of disaster bills. That is exactly 
what Secretary Espy has said in a letter to all of us, and I encourage 
my colleagues to read the letter from the Secretary in reference to 
what this administration wants.
  Let me say, as a Republican Member of the Committee on Agriculture, 
as the ranking member, that I respect the administration's decision 
finally to step up to crop insurance reform and to provide the needed 
funds so that we can get the job done. It is a paradox of enormous 
irony that we have people in this House that, for some reason, and I 
will not go into all of those, and I hoped that that would not be part 
of the debate here, in terms of strong differences of opinion, that 
would take away from this funding and make crop insurance reform not 
possible and our farmers and ranchers pay for it.
  So I would urge my colleagues to consider this carefully, and when 
the amendment offered by the chairman, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de 
la Garza], is offered, the committee amendment, to support it.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr.Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to our distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, this is a topic of great interest to me.
  The bill involves a program, Federal crop insurance, that has been 
extremely important to the farmers I represent in North Dakota. North 
Dakota has one of the highest rates of participation in Federal crop 
insurance year after year after year.
  In addition, my background as a State insurance regulator has had me 
working very closely to make sure the crop insurance reforms embodied 
in this bill are put together in a manner that will work.
  At the heart of this legislation is a historic tradeoff, a tradeoff 
of the prospect of future disaster relief in exchange for an improved 
Federal crop insurance program. Now, without the ag disaster programs 
that have been funded by Congress, thousands of North Dakota farmers 
would have been wiped out in the 1988 drought, the 1993 flood, and 
countless other times where it has been critical, and the relief has 
been critical. So to trade off the prospect of future ag disaster 
relief is a frightening prospect when you represent North Dakota.
  I am prepared to do it, because I think an improved Federal crop 
insurance program gives the farmers a better deal. It gives them 
certainty. It gives them a risk-management tool they know will be 
there, not a disaster program that depends upon the whim and the will 
of Congress on an ad hoc basis. So the tradeoff, while it is a 
frightening one, is a good one provided, and only provided, that the 
Federal crop insurance program actually works, that we give them an 
improved product at the end of the day.
  This is where the difference in the amendments to be brought to be 
considered this afternoon are so critical. The amendment offered by my 
friend and colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny], in my 
opinion, breaks the public-private partnership required to make this 
program work. I believe it takes private-sector reimbursement levels to 
an area where we will not have the participation from the private 
sector required to make the program work. This is where the chairman's 
amendment has involved so much effort, so many discussions with all of 
the participants, to actually fashion a level of funding that will 
retain private-sector participation.

                              {time}  1140

  When you have a public/private partnership, the private partner must 
be treated fairly. The private partner must be compensated at a level 
essential to keep them in the business if they are going to rely on 
that private partner to make the program work.
  That is exactly what is at stake here. It is a historic tradeoff. It 
will be a huge step for improving budget discipline of this country. It 
involves some risk to production agriculture and, therefore, the 
program has to work.
  Go with the deal cut by the chairman and support the de la Garza 
amendments before you this afternoon and support the bill.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oregon [Mr. Smith], a member of the committee.
  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
this time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, crop insurance has been a second cousin to disaster 
relief since I have been in Congress, and we played one off against the 
other, costing billions of dollars in additional money, I believe, to 
the American public.
  If we pass this bill, H.R. 4217, I think we will clear up one of the 
major problems we have had between these two programs. For the first 
time, if you grow a program crop you must have crop insurance and, 
therefore, you cannot come to the Congress and ask for disaster relief.
  However, there is a very difficult problem here. For many, many years 
I have followed the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Penny's lead in 
trying to trim Government, reduce the cost of Government, and yet he 
has gone beyond good judgment in this case with his amendment, very 
frankly, because he costs farmers more money than is necessary and he 
costs insurers to the point that we do not know whether they will even 
offer insurance.
  Therefore, we think Mr. Penny goes too far.
  The gentleman from Texas' [Mr. de la Garza] amendment addresses the 
policy question of funding crop insurance and it is much more prudent 
to do that.
  Mr. Penny's position lost heavily in committee. It is opposed by the 
administration. It is opposed by every leader in the Agriculture 
Committee that you have heard and will hear, and we believe the de la 
Garza amendment is a responsible way to address this issue.
  The only thing assured here about this whole discussion is simply 
that the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] and I will not be here 
next year to answer the consequences of what we do because we are both 
going to retire.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as I may consume to 
myself.
  Mr. Chairman, again I continue with the same degree of frustration, 
exasperation as to the events that have brought us here. One of them is 
a ``Dear Colleague'' letter that has been distributed by Mr. Penny and 
Mr. McMillan that is actually an insult to our committee and to those 
of us who have worked so diligently, saving $60 billion of taxpayers' 
money in the past 12 years. It shows two cows at a table saying, 
``Please pass the buck.'' This is below the level of debate in our 
committee, and has been all along.
  But my concern, though, is that that ``Dear Colleague'' says only 
one-half of the funding responsibility for the package is paid for 
honestly. This statement is not correct.
  Another: While this approach technically adheres to pay-go 
restriction, it does not conform to the spirit of fiscal 
responsibility. Mr. Chairman, is not $60 billion worth of cuts fiscal 
responsibility? I ask my colleagues.
  While passing the buck, leaving their fingerprints on difficult 
decision, without spending cuts required to pay for the program.

  I come back, $60 billion, and our fingerprints are on it, our name is 
on it, the name of our committee is on it, and we tell the world.
  Mr. Chairman, it is not fair, it is not accurate, it is an abuse of 
the privilege of debate which we should always honor and adhere to 
under the norm, which this committee has always worked toward. With the 
respect and admiration that we have for all the members, we have never, 
you have never seen a ``Dear Colleague'' like this from the Agriculture 
Committee.
  I keep repeating, I hope that we get it: The issue is very simple, as 
a matter of fact, I could stand here--and I will; Mr. Combest almost 
said it--we tell the chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations 
that deals with this matter that we, if we are here 3 years from now, 
we will see that this responsibility does not fall on your committee. 
We never have done that, and we are not going to start now.
  I stand here and pledge my sacred name and honor that we are not 
going to in any way impose on the Agriculture Committee because we have 
never done it. We are being accused of things that never were, that 
might not be, and I hope that my colleagues would understand that, that 
our pledge is that we are trying to fix a program that is broken, that 
does not work. Mr. Chairman, the best minds in our committee rejected 
the Penny amendment. I cannot do anything about that.
  The members voted ``no.''
  Mr. PENNY insisted that he be given an opportunity. So I went to the 
Committee on Rules and in his presence said allow the Penny amendment 
so that he can have an opportunity to present it to the House.
  That did not merit this type of ``Dear Colleague'' letter when we 
honestly, directly, and I personally and the ranking member said, 
``Allow Mr. Penny his day in court.''
  We are here to do that. We are here to do that.
  I am proud of the fact that this is how we operate, openly, 
aboveboard.
  I know there is an attack on agriculture, per se, for many reasons, 
most of it mass media, I guess. But the fact is that we have been 
responsible. Our contract with the Budget Committee, we sat down with 
Chairman Sabo and we did what he said we should do. We will do more in 
the amendment. But our commitment with the Budget Committee has always 
been and will continue to be that you give us a number, allow us to do 
the cuts, and we will give you that amount.
  We have done it every time since we have had a budget, and we will 
continue to do that.
  But I still feel frustrated that putting us against WIC, that is not 
the case. That has never been the case. We have been at the forefront 
of feeding the needy, feeding the poor. All of those commodities you 
see going to Rwanda, those are U.S. commodities that go on the Surplus 
Commodities Program to the schools, that comes from things that we do.
  So I assure the Members, and I hope and implore that you do what in 
your heart you feel is the right thing to do, but that you do it with 
the honest interpretation of the facts, which have been misrepresented 
by many of the ``Dear Colleague'' letters.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  I want to make just a follow-up comment on what the chairman, the 
gentleman from Texas, just said. The chairman is not making a promise 
to be upheld in the future with no history of background; this 
committee, as I had indicated earlier, has always taken the number the 
Budget Committee has given us and we have made the hard, difficult 
choices ourselves and we have not passed those to anyone else.
  I would also like to mention that in the Penny-McMillan ``Dear 
Colleague'' letter they say ``this approach,'' the chairman's approach, 
the committee's approach, ``technically adheres to pay-go. It does not 
conform to the spirit.''
  Mr. Chairman, what are the rules? The rules are that if you adhere to 
the rules of the House, you adhere to them.

                              {time}  1150

  Are we going to start making a judgment on:
  ``Well, gee, you adhere to the rule, but you didn't go far enough 
beyond that?''
  We are within the budget. The Committee on the Budget has agreed to 
that. We have addressed the concerns and the rules of the House. Let us 
make the decision based upon the fact of, if the rules were met in this 
case, we meet the rules.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. 
Barrett].
  Mr. BARRETT of Nebraska. Mr. Chairman, the intent of this legislation 
is to put in place an alternative to what has become annual, off-
budget, ad hoc disaster relief bills, and still provide agricultural 
producers with risk management protection for their crops. This is 
something that needs to be done, but if not structured correctly, this 
bill will create financial problems for farmers at a time when they 
most need assistance.
  While I will support the bill, I still have reservations about the 
long-term financing mechanism upon which it relies. Unfortunately, the 
administration's luke-warm attempt to secure the appropriate funds to 
pay for its bill--and this is the administration's bill--causes me 
serious concern.
  Having said that, I want to thank the chairmen and ranking members of 
both the subcommittee and full committee, for working with me during 
the process, to help construct a program that encourages private sector 
participation, in order to better serve farmers, and lower the overall 
Government cost per insurance policy.
  Specifically, my amendment, which is incorporated in the bill before 
us, directs the Federal crop insurance corporation to reduce the 
paperwork burden to private insurance providers and agents, and lower 
the cost of each policy held by farmers. Further, the corporation after 
reporting to Congress, must adopt new procedures to reduce the cost of 
each crop insurance policy by a targeted percentage.
  Not only will these provisions allow the private sector to more 
efficiently deliver crop insurance, but the excessive administrative 
costs of the Federal crop insurance corporation will be reduced.
  With reference to the so-called dual delivery system included in H.R. 
4217, many current USDA employees--those people now administering the 
commodity programs--have told me that they want no part of becoming 
insurance salespersons. And in checking with the department, I have 
found there is nothing budgeted to help train and cover the expenses 
for these local offices to adequately sell crop insurance.
  The simple fact is that the USDA will not be able to pull off crop 
insurance sales, and the department knows this. USDA will need--and I 
think fully expects--the private sector to help deliver crop insurance.
  What I found frustrating is that knowing this, the administration 
fought my efforts to include stronger language for private delivery 
throughout consideration of this bill in subcommittee and full 
committee.
  Although this bill is not all I had wanted in the name of crop 
insurance reform, Mr. Chairman, it is a step in the right direction, 
and it should help our producers.
  I support the bill, and I urge the House to pass it.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Gunderson].
  (Mr. GUNDERSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. GUNDERSON. Mr. Chairman and Members, this is the first time in my 
14 years as a Member of the House Committee on Agriculture that I have 
come to the floor and had a disagreement with the leadership of my 
committee, and I say that because I think it is important to understand 
what the problem is today. The problem, very frankly, is that this 
administration, to their credit, allocated $1.1 billion over the next 5 
years to make crop insurance an available program, and the problem is 
that the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration, and related agencies spent the money elsewhere, and so 
we are in a dilemma here this morning of what are we going to do.
  Mr. Chairman, we have a couple of choices. The first premise is that 
we are going to pass crop insurance in lieu of disaster insurance. Now 
there are 18 States, including Wisconsin, that have less than 10 
percent of our eligible acreage in crop insurance, and yet we are not 
going to make that the basic of all commodity security in this country. 
That would be find, if we had the public/private partnership that our 
colleague from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy] said that crop insurance is, 
but the problem is it is not a public/private partnership anymore. That 
money, through no fault of the chairman of the Committee on 
Agriculture, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza], through no 
fault of the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts], through no fault of 
anybody on the House Committee on Agriculture, was spent elsewhere.
  So, Mr. Chairman, now we have this dilemma in front of us, and it is 
very simple.
  It all boils down to money--who is going to pay and how much. Now, I 
am not going to stand here and justify the Appropriations Committee's 
act of underfunding the current Federal Crop Insurance Program by $213 
million in the upcoming fiscal year. Plain and simple, that action was 
wrong and it is the root cause of the fiscal problems we are addressing 
right now as we try to pass crop insurance reform legislation.
  At the same time, that battle is over and we lost. So adopting the 
budgetary assumption that this lack of funding continues over the next 
5 fiscal years, the current issue is ``where are we going to make up 
the difference?'' Rest assured, we have to cut the baseline somewhere. 
And, if we do not make those cuts in the crop insurance program itself, 
we will have to find the money elsewhere--research, extension, FmHA, 
WIC, commodity programs, or the like.
  The chairman of our committee is quite correct when he talks about 
the $60 billion of cuts which the Agriculture Committee has made in 
recent years. Indeed, if every other committee was as frugal as we have 
been, the budget mess facing this Congress would have been solved in 
large part. I agree with him that it is fundamentally unfair to balance 
the Federal budget on the backs of the American farmer.
  Actually, that is exactly what the Penny-Gunderson amendment seeks to 
prevent, Mr. Chairman. All we are saying is that fair is fair whether 
we are trying to balance the entire Federal budget, or just a single 
program, on the backs of farmers.

  The bottom line of the Penny-Gunderson amendment is that, if we have 
a shortfall in crop insurance funds, we need to make up that difference 
within that program. Here's why. In my own congressional district, only 
10 percent of eligible acres are enrolled in crop insurance. That's 
because either the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation doesn't have a 
policy for the crops they grow or the rate structure doesn't justify 
participation. Why should the rest of my producers have to take cuts in 
their commodity, loan, or conservation programs in order to fund higher 
policy subsidies for the small percentage of farmers which participate 
in the program or to fund higher reimbursement rates for the 
participant's agents?
  This situation is not unique to the State of Wisconsin, Mr. Chairman. 
According to the most recent statistics available from the Federal Crop 
Insurance Corporation, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, 
Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New 
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, 
and Vermont all have 10 percent or less of insurable acres actually 
enrolled in Federal crop insurance. Why should those producers have to 
take cuts in their commodity, loan, or conservation programs to fund 
the participation of producers in other States?
  The answer is simple--they shouldn't. All the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment does is find sufficient cuts within the Federal Crop 
Insurance Program itself to meet the budget parameters within which 
that program has to operate over the next 5 fiscal years. With four 
exceptions, it is identical to the chairman's amendment which will be 
offered as a substitute. Here are the differences: First, it reduces 
the agent reimbursement to 30 percent for new policies and 28 percent 
for renewals immediately, rather than waiting 2 years to make that 
reduction; second, it charges a $50 fee for all policies issued whether 
a farmer sticks with the basic policy or buys supplementary coverage; 
third, it reduces the catastrophic coverage provided by the basic 
policy from 50/60 to 50/56; and fourth, it requires a filing fee for 
producers to make a disaster claim for crops for which no policy is 
offered.
  These changes are hardly draconian. If we're reducing the agent 
reimbursement rate in the out years, why not immediately? The proposed 
28-29-30 percent reimbursement rate for crop insurance far exceeds the 
10-11-12 percent reimbursement rate on automobile insurance. Now, I 
recognize that thee is a volume difference between the two; however, 
dropping the reimbursement rate 2 percent 2 years early is not going to 
drive anyone out of business, particularly if we can get some paperwork 
reduction to those agents.
  Similarly, the reduction in catastrophic coverage from 50/60 to 50/56 
will result in a maximum reduction of 2 percent in the maximum loss 
payment received by any farmer under the basic policy. Again, every 
little bit hurts, but it is a small price in terms of the big picture.
  The ultimate question, Mr. Chairman, is if we are unwilling to make 
the cuts necessary in the program itself, are we better off with 
permanent disaster assistance authority in lieu of any crop insurance 
program? The simple facts are that, even with a Federal Crop Insurance 
Program, we have had to make billions of dollars of crop emergency 
assistance available in each of the last 8 years--sometimes as much as 
$3.5 billion. That's why CBO has consistently scored hundreds of 
millions of dollars in savings annually from eliminating the crop 
insurance program in favor of permanent disaster assistance authority.
  So, Mr. Chairman, fundamental fairness requires the adoption of the 
Penny-Gunderson amendment so that other important agricultural and 
feeding programs do not suffer from the shortfall in funding for crop 
insurance. If we're unwilling to do that, then I suggest we consider 
dropping the whole crop insurance program in favor of permanent 
disaster authority. In the long run, producers and taxpayers would be 
better off.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Mexico [Mr. Skeen].
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I noticed that the previous gentleman did 
not offer any no fault to the appropriators, so we are here under no 
fault conditions.
  I want to say at the outset that we are dealing with an issue in 
these two committees that there are no ready answers to. We have 
already initiated a crop insurance program in these United States under 
the auspices of both committees, and it did not work. It broke, as the 
chairman of the Committee on Agriculture has said. We have got a broken 
system because we pushed no crop insurance, or crop insurance, to the 
point that it could not sustain itself. It did not work because we did 
not give it a chance to work. We tried to make it do all the things for 
all people in agriculture to get us out of the disaster payment mode 
nationwide.
  Mr. Chairman, we on the Committee on Appropriations did the very best 
job with the work that we had to do with the elements we had to deal 
with and the systems we dealt with. We offer no apologies to anybody, 
but we do need some help to come up with a compromise that is going to 
make this thing work. In my view, Mr. Chairman, I think we have arrived 
at that position because I think the chairman of the House Committee on 
Agriculture, and the ranking member and those members who are 
supporting it have an amendment that will work because it gives it time 
with a finite set of conditions and funding for at least 3 years. I am 
not going to score the other alternatives because once again I think we 
have to look at function first, and we are assured of function, at 
least in this particular program; we are not in others because once 
again we rely on going back to the private sector and saying, ``We'll 
just dump the funding load back on you for the 5-year term.''
  Mr. Chairman, I cannot agree to that, so we are here today talking a 
compromise. I think we have it at hand, one we are going to have to 
deal with. I say to my colleagues, ``If you're going to be real about 
this thing, and ask the private sector to engage in that kind of 
insurance, and get us out of this disaster quagmire, we have got the 
system to do it and the mechanism to do it, and we ought to make the 
right choice, and I think the right choice is Chairman de la Garza's 
and Mr. Roberts' amendment, and I support it.''
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sarpalius].
  Mr. SARPALIUS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4217 and 
in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de 
la Garza]. and I oppose the Penny-Gunderson amendment.
  One important part of this insurance program is that we will now have 
every farmer in this country who participates in a Federal program to 
sign up for this program which gives some protection to the Federal 
Government in the case of those farmers who lose their crops. It also 
will give protection to banks who loan money to those producers who 
loan money to buy the seed, or whatever it takes, to produce those 
crops. So, it is truly an insurance program that every producer in this 
country who participates in Federal farm programs will participate in, 
and we do create incentives to encourage farmers to buy up, to have 
additional coverage, which, by buying additional coverage, helps 
protect themselves, as well as the Government and as well as those 
banks and loan programs.
  I encourage my colleagues to vote for H.R. 4217.

                              {time}  1200

  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] has 4\1/2\ 
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] has 4 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Boehner].
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, we are here today because the Federal crop 
insurance program in America does not work.
  I want to congratulate the chairman of the committee, the ranking 
member, and all the members of the committee who have worked hard to 
try to find a way to make the system work better for all farmers in 
America. Most of my farmers in Ohio do not sign up because it is not 
economically feasible. It makes no sense because the system is weighted 
to help somebody else.
  The bill that we have before us helps to fix the current system, and 
the current system does need fixing.
  One of the reasons we have this problem with crop insurance is that 
we undercut it every even-numbered year with some disaster payments 
that Congress wants to come along and provide and look like Santa Claus 
in all those even-numbered years, and so we undercut the ability of the 
program to work.
  The bill that we have before us takes some of that disaster money 
that gets spent and puts it into a crop insurance program that will 
work for every farmer in America. It makes a great deal of sense, so 
let us pass it.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oklahoma [Mr. Lucas].
  (Mr. LUCAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Chairman, year in and year out the folks in this country who have 
chosen the noble profession of farming are faced with an uncertainty 
that very few occupations in our Nation must endure. Drought, hail, 
flood, tornado, hurricane, and other natural disasters threaten the 
livelihood of every agriculture professional who provides our great 
Nation with the food that our citizens eat, enjoy, and expect.
  Most agree that the Federal budget cannot continue to support both an 
on-budget subsidized crop insurance program and off-budget emergency ad 
hoc disaster payments. The question of the day is, ``How do we best 
deal with the unknowns that face our nation's farmers?'' How can we 
effectively minimize their risk in an equitable and workable fashion?
  I believe that H.R. 4217 as reported out of the Agriculture Committee 
and as hopefully altered by my chairman's amendment is the right answer 
to this question. This is the vehicle that will eliminate the need for 
future off-budget disaster supplemental appropriations bills. By 
getting significantly more producers insured, we will have provided 
them the assurance that their risk management and disaster relief needs 
are met.
  Historically 1 out of every 12 acres planted by farmers is not 
harvested because of adverse weather conditions or other natural 
disasters. We are at a proverbial fork in the road of agricultural risk 
management. We must decided today whether we want a workable crop 
insurance program that provides adequate coverage at a cost that is 
affordable to the farmer and all other taxpayers. Or do we want to 
continue and play ad hoc disaster roulette by passing legislation that 
will undermine any attempt to adequately expand our current crop 
insurance program and leave our response to natural disasters that 
damage crops largely in the hands of Mother Nature.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to encourage my fellow Members to vote in 
favor of the de la Garza amendment and for final passage of H.R. 4217. 
It is a fiscally responsible and workable measure that will protect 
American farmers from financial ruin and the Federal deficit from being 
increased by future ad hoc disaster bills.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to 
our distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Barcia].
  Mr. BARCIA of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the 
committee very much for his gracious cooperation in working to address 
the problems that Michigan farmers have faced and the problems that 
farmers across the country have faced, especially in light of the 
recent disastrous torrential rainfalls that have occurred throughout 
the Midwest and around the country.
  Mr. Chairman, I compliment the committee and its chairman for having 
moved forward with important improvements in the crop insurance 
program. I am concerned, though, that this bill does not go far enough 
in providing insurance for all commodities.
  Mr. Chairman, while insurance is available in Michigan for 17 
commodities, it is not for 74 others. I believe that if we move toward 
a cost-of-production insurance program, we can expand the range of 
crops that are covered and eligible for crop insurance. The Senate bill 
contains a pilot cost-of-production insurance program very similar to 
the program I had proposed in H.R. 3623. Such a pilot program would 
work extremely well in Michigan.
  Can the chairman of the committee assure me that this provision in 
the Senate bill will receive full consideration in the conference?
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, let me 
say that the gentleman has my assurances that this provision will be 
given every consideration by our committee.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, before I was elected to Congress I sold 
insurance, and I, in fact, am the only chartered casualty property 
underwriter in this body, so I have been out there on the streets and 
know what is real and know what is just congressional talk. So I want 
to speak in behalf of the bill and speak against the Penny amendment.
  This bill will work. It is not perfect, but this body has never 
worried about perfection. It is better than what we have now. One of 
the key components of it is this concept of spreading the risk, getting 
more farmers to participate. One of the things you have to have in 
order to do that is a distribution system of the private sector. 
Insurance agents can sell this product. Right now they are not doing it 
because there is no money in crop insurance for the insurance agent, 
and they do not want to do it.
  The only reason an insurance agent would do it is to pick up a guy's 
homeowner's insurance or the insurance on his tractor or his truck. 
They do not go out and make a living selling crop insurance. That is 
why there is not much market penetration right now.
  The Penny amendment would reduce that even further and thus pull out 
one of the strong legs of this whole program.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill and against 
the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] has 1\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield that minute and a half to the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ewing].
  (Mr. EWING asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. EWING. Mr. Chairman, let me say that this is an important debate. 
I am probably one of the few Members that actually introduced 
legislation to revise our Federal crop insurance program, and that was 
a result of my first campaign for Congress, which was a special 
election in the middle of the drought in 1991. So I saw it firsthand. I 
saw the importance of a good Federal crop insurance program, and we did 
not have one.
  The Clinton administration has given us an opportunity to have an 
excellent Federal crop insurance program. We need to seize on that. We 
need to pass this bill.
  Members might ask, what is the problem? Well, of course the problem 
is the dispute between the appropriators and the authorizing committee, 
and they really did not cut all that much money, but enough was cut to 
cripple the program.
  I believe that the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture has 
presented us with a reasonable, well thought out solution to that 
problem, and we ought to get behind it. We need to pass this bill and 
move on. It is good for American agriculture, it is good for the 
American taxpayers, it is wise public policy by the Clinton 
administration, and I urge a yes vote for the bill and support for 
Chairman de la Garza's amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] has 2\1/2\ 
minutes remaining in general debate.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to our distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge].
  Mr. MINGE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to address the body this morning with 
respect to the crop insurance reform proposal.
  All of us have heard a number of arguments as to the importance of 
this legislation. The one thing that needs to be emphasized now is that 
we must encourage broad participation in Federal crop insurance 
throughout the Nation.
  One of the difficulties that we have suffered from is adverse 
selection. the so-called moral hazard, where people purchase crop 
insurance when they find that crop insurance is going to benefit them 
and then their neighbors who are somewhat unhappy about the existence 
of benefits do not make the purchase. The result is that in certain 
sections of the country we have very low participation and at the same 
time very high losses.
  The Federal crop insurance reform legislation which is before us 
today will end that type of practice. It will also make a number of 
reforms in the way Federal crop insurance is financed, and in the end, 
I think, it will make this program a model of Federal insurance that we 
can then use to try to make sure that our agricultural programs and 
disaster programs generally benefit this country.

                              {time}  1210

  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, the scenario as we see it, it could change, but there 
will be an amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Penny] and there will be a substitute offered.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Bishop].
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to rise in support of H.R. 
4217, the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994, as reported by the 
committee. Because thousands of acres of farmland in my district were 
flooded during the recent flood in Georgia, I am especially sensitive 
to the need for an adequate crop insurance program.
  This legislation presents a historic opportunity to provide improved 
risk protection for our Nation's farmers, including my own farmers in 
Georgia. For several years, we have experienced good participation in 
the Federal Crop Insurance Program by producers of high-value crops, 
such as peanuts and tobacco. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for 
crops like corn and soybeans.
  Under the bill adopted by the Committee on Agriculture, of which I am 
a member, thousands of additional farmers in Georgia and throughout the 
Nation will be strongly encouraged to take catastrophic crop insurance 
for a minimum and reasonable fee, per farmer, per county.
  In return, a farmer will receive a catastrophic insurance policy. 
While this policy will provide only a minimum coverage of 50 percent of 
a farmer's yield, at 60 percent of the market price, it will be 
consistent with what farmers have traditionally received from disaster 
bailouts--when they were lucky enough to receive Federal assistance.
  More importantly, the Crop Insurance Reform Program is structured to 
strongly encourage farmers to buy additional federally subsidized crop 
insurance from private insurance agents. The farmer is encouraged to 
purchase a level of protection that he needs to stay in business in 
case of a crop failure. If disaster does strike, this approach is far 
more preferable to the traditional combination of insurance policies 
and disaster bailouts.
  Normally, farmers do not receive additional assistance from the 
Federal Government unless the drought, flood, or other natural disaster 
is wide spread enough to warrant congressional passage of a special 
legislative disaster bill.
  Unfortunately, there are different parts of my congressional district 
that are hit by a different disaster or crop failure every year. Many 
times there will be a drought that will cause crop failure in one part 
of a county and yet, there are other parts of the county that will 
produce bumper crops. Therefore, the only sound way to true risk 
management and disaster protection is a program that encourages every 
farmer to buy the level of protection, with Government assistance, that 
they need. H.R. 4217 meets that test.
  At the same time, I support the committee bill, and I strongly urge 
my colleagues to vote against an amendment offered by Congressman Penny 
and Congressman Gunderson to cut over $600 million from this program.
  If this magnitude of cut is made in the committee bill, the program 
will no longer be attractive to many of the farmers in my district. 
Moreover, drastic cuts in reimbursement for the private delivery system 
will make it uneconomical to deliver crop insurance to many of the 
small family farmers in my district.
  Therefore, I hope that my colleagues will not be tempted to vote for 
the Penny-Gunderson amendment in an effort to achieve savings that are 
not necessary to comply with the Budget Act.
  As reported by the committee, and amended by the chairman, H.R. 4217 
is in full compliance with budget rules and would in fact save 
taxpayers money.
  Again, let us not jeopardize this long, and hard-fought effort to 
bring a true and sound risk assessment to agriculture, offering to our 
farmers in the United States--this great breadbasket to the world--the 
tools they need to successfully till the soil, feed our livestock, and 
nurture our children.
  Ms. LAMBERT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 
4217, the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act. I believe that this 
legislation moves us toward a positive and responsible effort to 
provide stability to farm income while at the same time making wise use 
of taxpayer resources.
  This bill would provide premium-free catastrophic risk protection for 
a minimal $50 processing fee with the option of buying more 
comprehensive coverage from a private insurer. Our current program has 
been dramatically inept at providing the risk management that America's 
producers need to remain competitive. Because the program has been so 
unattractive--providing too few benefits at too great of a cost--
whenever disaster has struck, our producers have relied on the 
Government to provide ad hoc disaster assistance, and we have done so--
year after year after year. The result has been a massive cost to the 
American taxpayer and an unreliable system of reimbursement to often-
devastated farm families.
  This legislation delivers a reformed program that provides basic 
protection with the flexibility to insure at higher levels, thereby 
giving the farmer, the taxpayer, and the Government a reliable, 
fiscally sound insurance program.
  I would like to commend the administration for their diligence in 
pursuing this issue as well as subcommittee chairman Johnson for his 
hard work on a technically challenging bill. I also commend my 
colleague, Mr. Penny, for his commitment to fiscal responsibility as 
well as Chairman de la Garza for his leadership and hard work.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
  Pursuant to the rule, the committee amendment in the nature of a 
substitute now printed in the bill, modified by the amendments printed 
in part 1 of House Report 103-666, is considered as an original bill 
for the purpose of amendment and is considered as read.
  The text of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as 
modified, is as follows:

                               H.R. 4217

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE, TABLE OF CONTENTS, AND DEFINITIONS.

       (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Federal 
     Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994''.
       (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents of this Act 
     is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title, table of contents, and definitions.
Sec. 2. Members of Board of Directors of Federal Crop Insurance 
              Corporation.
Sec. 3. General powers of Corporation.
Sec. 4. Personnel.
Sec. 5. General authority to offer crop insurance.
Sec. 6. Catastrophic risk protection, buy-up levels, premiums, and 
              yield determinations.
Sec. 7. Preparation of policies, claims, and reinsurance.
Sec. 8. Authorization of appropriations and crop insurance fund.
Sec. 9. Advisory Committee.
Sec. 10. Noninsured crop disaster assistance.
Sec. 11. Crop insurance requirements under price support programs.
Sec. 12. Elimination of gender references.
Sec. 13. Prevented planting.
Sec. 14. Effective date.

       (c) Definitions.--Section 502 of the Federal Crop Insurance 
     Act (7 U.S.C. 1502) is amended--
       (1) by striking the section heading and ``Sec. 502.'' and 
     inserting the following:

     ``SEC. 502. PURPOSE AND DEFINITIONS.

       ``(a) Purpose.--''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
       ``(b) Definitions.--For purposes of this title:
       ``(1) Secretary.--The term `Secretary' means the Secretary 
     of Agriculture.
       ``(2) Corporation.--The term `Corporation' means the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Corporation established under section 
     503.
       ``(3) Board.--The term `Board' means the Board of Directors 
     of the Corporation established under section 505(a).
       ``(4) Loss ratio.--The term `loss ratio' means the ratio of 
     all sums paid by the Corporation as indemnities under all 
     crop insurance policies to that of the premiums designated 
     for anticipated losses and a reasonable reserve, not 
     including the portion of the premiums designated for 
     operating and administrative expenses.
       ``(5) Transitional yield.--The term `transitional yield' 
     means the maximum average production per acre or equivalent 
     measure that is assigned to acreage for a crop year by the 
     Corporation in accordance with its regulations whenever the 
     producer fails--
       ``(A) to certify that acceptable documentation of 
     production and acreage for that crop year is in the 
     producer's possession; or
       ``(B) to present such acceptable documentation upon the 
     demand of the Corporation or an insurance company reinsured 
     by the Corporation.''.
       (d) Conforming Amendments.--The Federal Crop Insurance Act 
     (7 U.S.C. 1501 et seq.) is amended--
       (1) in section 503 (7 U.S.C. 1503), by striking ``(herein 
     called the Corporation)''; and
       (2) in section 505(a) (7 U.S.C. 1505(a)), by striking 
     ``(hereinafter called the `Board')''.

     SEC. 2. MEMBERS OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF FEDERAL CROP 
                   INSURANCE CORPORATION.

       Section 505(a) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1505(a)) is amended in the second sentence--
       (1) by striking ``or Assistant Secretary'' the first place 
     it appears; and
       (2) by striking ``the Under Secretary or Assistant 
     Secretary of Agriculture responsible for the farm credit 
     programs of the Department of Agriculture'' and inserting 
     ``one additional Under Secretary of Agriculture (as 
     designated by the Secretary of Agriculture)''.

     SEC. 3. GENERAL POWERS OF CORPORATION.

       (a) Claims Settlement.--Section 506 of the Federal Crop 
     Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1506) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsections (j), (k), (l), (m), and 
     (n) as subsections (k), (l), (m), (n), and (o), respectively; 
     and
       (2) by inserting after subsection (i) the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(j) Claims Settlement.--The Corporation shall have the 
     authority to make final and conclusive settlement and 
     adjustment of any claims made by or against the Corporation 
     or the accounts of its fiscal officers.''.
       (b) Regulations; Preemption.--Subsection (e) of such 
     section is amended--
       (1) by striking ``governing'' and inserting ``to carry out 
     this title and to govern''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following new sentence: 
     ``State and local laws or rules shall not apply to rules and 
     regulations adopted by the Corporation to the extent that 
     such rules and regulations so provide or to the extent that 
     State and local laws or rules are inconsistent with such 
     rules and regulations.''.
       (c) Definition of Substantial Beneficial Interest.--
     Subsection (m) of such section (as redesignated by subsection 
     (a)(1)) is amended in paragraph (4) by striking ``5 percent'' 
     and inserting ``10 percent''.
       (d) Penalty for False Information.--Subsection (n) of such 
     section (as redesignated by subsection (a)(1)) is amended in 
     paragraph (1) by striking subparagraph (B) and inserting the 
     following new subparagraph:
       ``(B) disqualify the person--
       ``(i) from purchasing catastrophic risk protection under 
     section 508(b) or participating in the noninsured assistance 
     program under section 519 for a period not to exceed 2 years; 
     and
       ``(ii) from receiving any other benefit under this title 
     for a period not to exceed 10 years.''.
       (e) Actuarial Soundness.--Subsection (o) of such section 
     (as redesignated by subsection (a)(1)) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (1), by striking ``beginning farmers from 
     obtaining adequate Federal crop insurance, as determined by 
     the Corporation'' and inserting ``beginning farmers, as 
     determined by the Secretary, from obtaining Federal crop 
     insurance'';
       (2) in paragraph (3), by striking ``and'' at the end of the 
     paragraph;
       (3) by redesignating paragraph (4) as paragraph (5); and
       (4) by inserting after paragraph (3) the following new 
     paragraph:
       ``(4) establishing a database that contains social security 
     numbers or employee identification numbers of insurance 
     agents and adjusters and using the numbers to identify agents 
     and adjusters who are high risk for actuarial purposes, and 
     for other purposes permitted by law; and''.
       (f) Regulatory and Paperwork Reduction.--Such section is 
     further amended by adding at the end the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(p) Regulatory and Paperwork Reduction.--
       ``(1) Catastrophic risk protection.--In developing and 
     carrying out the policies and procedures for catastrophic 
     risk protection under section 508(b), the Corporation shall 
     minimize, to the maximum extent practicable, the paperwork 
     required and the complexity and costs of procedures governing 
     the application for, and the processing and servicing of, 
     catastrophic risk protection.
       ``(2) Other plans.--To the extent that the policies and 
     procedures developed under paragraph (1) may be applied to 
     other plans of insurance offered under this title without 
     jeopardizing the actuarial soundness or integrity of the crop 
     insurance program under this title, the Corporation shall 
     apply the policies and procedures to the other plans of 
     insurance within a reasonable period of time (as determined 
     by the Corporation) after the effective date of this 
     paragraph.
       ``(3) Solicitation of cost information and cost-reduction 
     proposals.--
       ``(A) Cost information.--The Corporation shall solicit from 
     private insurance providers and agents information 
     regarding--
       ``(i) their average cost per policy of complying with 
     requirements, regulations, procedures, and processes under 
     this title; and
       ``(ii) the data upon which such costs are determined.
       ``(B) Cost-reduction proposals.--The Corporation shall also 
     solicit from private insurance providers and agents proposals 
     for modifying or altering the requirements, regulations, 
     procedures, and processes under this title to reduce their 
     total average cost per policy.
       ``(C) Report.--By June 1, 1995, the Corporation shall 
     submit a report to Congress containing the information 
     received under subparagraph (A) and an evaluation of the 
     cost-reduction proposals received under subparagraph (B).
       ``(4) Cost reduction plan.--
       ``(A) Plan required.--Subject to the condition that the 
     Corporation maintain the integrity of the crop insurance 
     program under this title, the Corporation shall include in 
     the report required under paragraph (3) a plan to reduce the 
     average cost per policy incurred by private insurance 
     providers and agents to comply with requirements, 
     regulations, procedures, and processes under this title. To 
     the extent practicable, the Corporation shall set a target 
     percentage by which such costs should be reduced.
       ``(B) Implementation of plan.--Not later than 60 days after 
     submitting the report required under paragraph (3), and in 
     accordance with the plan contained in the report, the 
     Corporation shall adopt such measures consistent with 
     maintaining the integrity of the crop insurance program under 
     this title as the Corporation determines are appropriate--
       ``(i) to improve Corporation liaison with policyholders and 
     private insurance providers; and
       ``(ii) to reduce the average cost per policy to meet the 
     target percentage set by the Corporation.''.
       (g) Improved Program Compliance.--Such section is further 
     amended by inserting after subsection (p) (as added by 
     subsection (f)) the following new subsection:
       ``(q) Program Compliance.--
       ``(1) Timeliness.--The Corporation shall work actively with 
     private insurance providers to address program compliance and 
     integrity issues as such issues develop.
       ``(2) Notification of compliance problems.--The Corporation 
     shall notify in writing any private insurance provider with 
     whom the Corporation has an agreement under this title of any 
     error, omission, or failure to follow Corporation regulations 
     or procedures for which the private insurance provider may be 
     responsible and which may result in a debt owed the 
     Corporation. Such notice shall be given within 3 years of the 
     end of the insurance period during which the error, omission, 
     or failure is alleged to have occurred, except that such time 
     limit shall not apply with respect to errors, omissions, or 
     procedural violations that are willful or intentional. The 
     failure to timely provide the notice required under this 
     subsection shall relieve the private insurance provider from 
     the debt owed the Corporation.''.

     SEC. 4. PERSONNEL.

       Section 507 of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1507) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a), by striking ``, and county crop 
     insurance committeemen'';
       (2) in subsection (c), by striking ``, in which case the 
     agent or broker'' in the first sentence and all that follows 
     through the period at the end of the second sentence and 
     inserting a period;
       (3) in subsection (d), by striking ``, except that'' and 
     all that follows through the period at the end of the 
     subsection and inserting a period; and
       (4) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
       ``(g) Specialty Crops Coordinator.--The Corporation shall 
     establish a senior-level position to be known as the 
     Specialty Crops Coordinator. The Specialty Crops Coordinator 
     shall have primary responsibility for addressing the needs of 
     specialty crop producers and for providing information and 
     advice in connection with the Corporation's activities to 
     improve and expand the insurance program for specialty crops. 
     In carrying out such responsibility, the Specialty Crops 
     Coordinator shall act as the Corporation's liaison with 
     representatives of specialty crop producers and provide the 
     Corporation with the producers' knowledge, expertise, and 
     familiarity with risk management and production issues 
     pertaining to specialty crops. The Specialty Crops 
     Coordinator shall also use information collected from 
     Corporation field office directors in States in which 
     specialty crops have a significant economic effect and from 
     other sources, including the extension service and colleges 
     and universities.''.

     SEC. 5. GENERAL AUTHORITY TO OFFER CROP INSURANCE.

       (a) General Authority to Offer Insurance.--Subsection (a) 
     of section 508 of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1508) is amended to read as follows:
       ``(a) Authority To Offer Insurance.--
       ``(1) General authority and losses covered.--If sufficient 
     actuarial data are available, as determined by the Board, the 
     Corporation may insure (or provide reinsurance for insurers 
     of) producers of agricultural commodities grown in the United 
     States under any plan or plans of insurance determined by the 
     Board to be adapted to the agricultural commodity involved. 
     To qualify for coverage under these plans of insurance, the 
     losses of the insured commodity shall be due to drought, 
     flood, or other natural disaster, as determined by the 
     Secretary.
       ``(2) Period of coverage.--Except in the case of tobacco, 
     insurance shall not extend beyond the period the insured 
     commodity is in the field. For the purpose of the foregoing 
     sentence, in the case of aquacultural species, the term 
     `field' means the environment in which the commodity is 
     produced.
       ``(3) Exclusions.--Insurance provided under this section 
     shall not cover losses--
       ``(A) due to the neglect or malfeasance of the producer;
       ``(B) due to the failure of the producer to reseed to the 
     same crop in those areas and under such circumstances where 
     it is customary to reseed; or
       ``(C) due to the failure of the producer to follow good 
     farming practices, as determined by the Corporation.
       ``(4) Expansion to other areas or single producers.--
       ``(A) Area expansion.--The Corporation may offer plans of 
     insurance or reinsurance for production of agricultural 
     commodities in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin 
     Islands of the United States, Guam, American Samoa, the 
     Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Trust 
     Territory of the Pacific Islands in the same manner as 
     provided in this section for production of agricultural 
     commodities in the United States.
       ``(B) Producer expansion.--In areas in the United States or 
     specified in subparagraph (A) where crop insurance is not 
     available for a particular agricultural commodity, the 
     Corporation may offer to enter into a written agreement with 
     an individual producer operating in that area for insurance 
     coverage under this title if the producer has actuarially 
     sound data relating to the producer's production of that 
     commodity and such data is acceptable to the Corporation.
       ``(5) Dissemination of crop insurance information.--The 
     Corporation shall make available to producers through local 
     offices of the Department of Agriculture--
       ``(A) current and complete information on all aspects of 
     Federal crop insurance; and
       ``(B) a listing of insurance agents and companies offering 
     to sell crop insurance in their area.
       ``(6) Addition of new and specialty crops.--
       ``(A) Data collection.--Not later than 6 months after the 
     date of the enactment of this paragraph, the Secretary shall 
     issue guidelines for publication in the Federal Register for 
     data collection to assist the Corporation in formulating crop 
     insurance policies for new and specialty crops.
       ``(B) Addition of new crops.--Not later than 1 year after 
     the date of the enactment of this paragraph, and annually 
     thereafter, the Corporation shall report to Congress on the 
     progress and expected timetable for expanding crop insurance 
     coverage under this title to new and specialty crops.
       ``(C) Addition of direct sale perishable crops.--Not later 
     than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this 
     paragraph, the Corporation shall report to Congress on the 
     feasibility of offering a crop insurance program designed to 
     meet the needs of specialized producers of vegetables and 
     other perishable crops who market through direct marketing 
     channels.''.
       (b) Report on Improving Dissemination of Crop Insurance 
     Information.--Not later than 6 months after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation 
     shall submit a report to Congress containing a plan to 
     implement a sound program for producer education regarding 
     the crop insurance program and for the dissemination of crop 
     insurance information to producers, as required by section 
     508(a)(5) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act. Subsequent 
     reports on the progress of the implementation of the program 
     shall be submitted to Congress in 1996 and 1997.

     SEC. 6. CATASTROPHIC RISK PROTECTION, BUY-UP COVERAGE, 
                   PREMIUMS, AND YIELD DETERMINATIONS.

       (a) In General.--Section 508 of the Federal Crop Insurance 
     Act (7 U.S.C. 1508) is amended--
       (1) by striking subsections (c), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), 
     (l), (m), and (n);
       (2) by redesignating subsections (b) and (d) as subsections 
     (h) and (i), respectively; and
       (3) by inserting after subsection (a) the following new 
     subsections:
       ``(b) Catastrophic Risk Protection.--
       ``(1) Catastrophic risk protection required.--The 
     Corporation shall offer to producers of agricultural 
     commodities grown in the United States a catastrophic risk 
     protection plan to indemnify a producer for crop losses due 
     to loss of yield or prevented planting resulting from 
     drought, flood, or other natural disaster, as determined by 
     the Secretary, if the producer is unable to plant other crops 
     for harvest on that acreage for that crop year.
       ``(2) Amount of coverage.--
       ``(A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (B), under 
     catastrophic risk protection, the Corporation shall offer 
     producers--
       ``(i) coverage equal to 50 percent loss in yield 
     (determined on an area or individual yield basis as described 
     in subsection (g)) indemnified at 60 percent of the expected 
     market price of the commodity (as determined by the 
     Corporation); or
       ``(ii) other coverage established by the Corporation that 
     is comparable to the coverage described in clause (i).
       ``(B) Reduction in actual payment.--The amount paid to a 
     producer on a claim under catastrophic risk protection may 
     reflect a reduction that is proportional to the out-of-pocket 
     expenses that are not incurred by the producer as a result of 
     not planting, growing, or harvesting the crop for which the 
     claim is made, as determined by the Corporation.
       ``(3) Yield and loss basis.--Producers shall have the 
     option of purchasing catastrophic risk protection based on 
     either an individual yield and loss basis or on an area yield 
     and loss basis, as described in subsection (g), when both 
     options are offered by the Corporation.
       ``(4) Sale of catastrophic risk protection.--
       ``(A) Application.--Except as provided in subparagraph (B), 
     producers shall submit an application at the local office of 
     the Department of Agriculture or to a private insurance 
     provider approved by the Corporation to participate in 
     catastrophic risk protection. To the extent sales of 
     catastrophic risk protection are made through local offices 
     of the Department of Agriculture, the Secretary may require 
     the local office to contract with private insurance providers 
     to service the insurance contracts.
       ``(B) Restriction of sales to private insurance 
     providers.--If the Secretary determines that the number or 
     capacity of private insurance providers in a county is 
     sufficient to adequately provide catastrophic risk protection 
     to producers in that county for a particular crop year, the 
     Secretary may discontinue the sale for that crop year of 
     catastrophic risk protection at local offices of the 
     Department of Agriculture serving that county. A 
     determination of the Secretary under this subparagraph to 
     discontinue the sale of catastrophic risk protection at local 
     offices of the Department of Agriculture, and the process by 
     which the determination is made, shall not be subject to 
     judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act or any 
     other provision of law.
       ``(C) Considerations.--In making a determination under 
     subparagraph (B) with respect to discontinuing the sale of 
     catastrophic risk protection at local offices of the 
     Department of Agriculture, the Secretary shall consider 
     equally the following factors:
       ``(i) Whether the use of Department personnel and offices 
     to provide catastrophic risk protection is the most efficient 
     and cost-effective use of Department resources.
       ``(ii) The availability and training of Department 
     personnel to handle applications for catastrophic risk 
     protection.
       ``(iii) The needs of, and fairness to, local producers.
       ``(D) Comparison of private and public delivery systems.--
     To evaluate the appropriateness of determinations under 
     subparagraph (B), the Secretary shall require each local 
     office of the Department of Agriculture at which producers 
     apply for catastrophic risk protection to annually provide to 
     the Secretary information regarding the number of 
     catastrophic risk protection policies sold, the training and 
     personnel costs incurred to provide and service the policies, 
     the average cost per policy to provide and service the 
     policies directly, and (if applicable) the cost of 
     contracting with private insurance providers to service the 
     policies. For comparison purposes, the Secretary may also 
     request comparable information from private insurance 
     providers selling catastrophic risk protection.
       ``(E) Report.--Not later than 18 months after the date of 
     the enactment of the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 
     1994 (and annually thereafter), the Secretary shall submit to 
     Congress a report--
       ``(i) listing the counties at which producers were 
     permitted to apply for catastrophic risk protection during 
     the period covered by the report; and
       ``(ii) containing and evaluating the information collected 
     under subparagraph (D) for that period.
       ``(5) Administrative fee.--
       ``(A) Fee required.--Producers shall pay an administrative 
     fee for catastrophic risk protection. The administrative fee 
     for each producer shall be $50 per crop per county, but not 
     to exceed $100 per producer per county. The administrative 
     fee shall be paid by the producer at the time the producer 
     applies for catastrophic risk protection.
       ``(B) Waiver of fee.--The Corporation shall waive the 
     administrative fee for limited resource farmers, as defined 
     by the Corporation.
       ``(C) Use of fees.--There are authorized to be appropriated 
     from fees required under subparagraph (A) such sums as may be 
     necessary for operating and administrative expenses incurred 
     for the delivery of catastrophic risk protection.
       ``(6) Coverage of all crops.--To be eligible for benefits 
     under any commodity price support, production adjustment, or 
     conservation program administered by the Department of 
     Agriculture, or for the farmer loan programs of the Farmers 
     Home Administration or any successor of that agency, a 
     producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk protection 
     for each crop of economic significance produced on each farm 
     in any county in which the producer has an interest, if 
     insurance is available in the county for those crops. For 
     purposes of this paragraph, the term `crop of economic 
     significance' means a crop that has contributed, or is 
     expected to contribute, 10 percent or more of the total 
     expected value of all crops grown by the producer.
       ``(7) Coverage under one policy.--If a producer applies for 
     catastrophic risk protection for a crop produced by the 
     producer in a county, the producer shall be required to 
     secure such protection under a single policy.
       ``(8) Authority to limit catastrophic risk protection.--The 
     Board may limit the availability of catastrophic risk 
     protection in any county or area, or on any farm, on the 
     basis of the insurance risk involved.
       ``(9) Transitional coverage for 1995 crops.--Effective only 
     for the 1995 crops and for which the sales period for crop 
     insurance expires before the date of the enactment of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994, the Corporation 
     shall allow producers of such crops until at least the end of 
     the 6-month period beginning on such date to obtain 
     catastrophic risk protection for such crops. Upon the 
     enactment of such Act, producers who made timely purchases of 
     a crop insurance policy before the date of the enactment of 
     such Act, under the provisions then in effect, shall be 
     eligible for the same benefits to which a producer would be 
     entitled under comparable buy-up coverage under subsection 
     (c).
       ``(c) Coverage Levels Greater Than Catastrophic Risk 
     Protection.--
       ``(1) Buy-up coverage generally.--The Corporation shall 
     offer to producers of agricultural commodities grown in the 
     United States plans of crop insurance providing levels of 
     coverage greater than that available under catastrophic risk 
     protection under subsection (b). Plans of insurance under 
     this subsection shall be known as `buy-up coverage'. 
     Producers shall apply to private insurance providers approved 
     by the Corporation for purchase of buy-up coverage if such 
     coverage is available from private insurance providers. If 
     buy-up coverage is unavailable privately, the Corporation may 
     offer buy-up coverage plans of insurance directly to 
     producers. If a producer applies for catastrophic risk 
     protection at an office of the Department of Agriculture but 
     then elects to purchase buy-up coverage under this 
     subsection, the insurance file for that producer shall be 
     transferred to the approved private insurance provider 
     servicing the buy-up coverage policy.
       ``(2) Administrative fee.--
       ``(A) Fee required.--If a producer elects to purchase buy-
     up coverage for a crop at a level less than 65 percent of the 
     recorded or appraised average yield indemnified at 100 
     percent of the expected market price, or an equivalent 
     coverage, the producer shall pay an administrative fee for 
     such buy-up coverage. Subsection (b)(5) shall apply in 
     determining the amount and use of the administrative fee or 
     in determining whether to waive the administrative fee.
       ``(B) Exception.--If a producer elects to purchase buy-up 
     coverage for a crop equal to 65 percent or more of the 
     recorded or appraised average yield indemnified at 100 
     percent of the expected market price, or an equivalent 
     coverage, the producer shall not be subject to the 
     administrative fee required by this paragraph or subsection 
     (b)(5). If the producer has already paid the administrative 
     fee for a lower level of coverage for that crop, the 
     administrative fee shall be refunded to the producer unless 
     the refund would reduce to less than $100 the total amount of 
     the administrative fee paid by the producer for more than 2 
     crops in the same county for which a lower level of coverage 
     is obtained.
       ``(3) Yield and loss basis.--Producers shall have the 
     option of purchasing buy-up coverage based on either an 
     individual yield and loss basis or on an area yield and loss 
     basis, as described in subsection (g), when both options are 
     offered by the Corporation.
       ``(4) Yield elections.--Yield coverage shall be made 
     available to the producer on the basis of any yield election 
     that equals or is less than 85 percent of the individual 
     yield or 95 percent of the area yield, as determined by the 
     Corporation.
       ``(5) Price levels.--
       ``(A) In general.--The Corporation shall establish a price 
     level for each commodity on which buy-up coverage is offered 
     that--
       ``(i) shall not be less than the expected market price for 
     the commodity, as determined by the Corporation; or
       ``(ii) at the discretion of the Corporation, may be based 
     on the actual market price at the time of harvest, as 
     determined by the Corporation.
       ``(B) Special rule for malting barley.--For malting barley 
     covered by a contract between a producer and a processor, the 
     Corporation may offer a plan of insurance that allows the 
     producer to select the contract price as the price election 
     if--
       ``(i) the contract is definite as to the quantity and the 
     price;
       ``(ii) the producer submits a copy of the contract with the 
     application for insurance prior to the sales closing date for 
     the crop;
       ``(iii) coverage does not exceed the quantity contained in 
     the contract;
       ``(iv) the contracted quantity does not exceed the 
     production guarantee;
       ``(v) the contract is usual and customary in form and 
     content for the area;
       ``(vi) the processor is completely independent from the 
     producer; and
       ``(vii) the processor does not have an insurable interest 
     in the crop.
       ``(6) Price elections.--Subject to paragraph (10), 
     insurance coverage shall be made available to the producer on 
     the basis of any price election that equals or is less than 
     that established by the Board.
       ``(7) Level of coverage.--Not later than the beginning of 
     the 1996 crop year, the level of coverage shall be quoted in 
     terms of dollars per acre.
       ``(8) Reduction in actual payment.--The amount paid to a 
     producer on a claim under buy-up coverage may reflect a 
     reduction that is proportional to the out-of-pocket expenses 
     that are not incurred by the producer as a result of not 
     planting, growing, or harvesting the crop for which the claim 
     is made, as determined by the Corporation.
       ``(9) Fire and hail coverage.--For levels of buy-up 
     coverage equal to 65 percent or more of the recorded or 
     appraised average yield indemnified at 100 percent of the 
     expected market price, or an equivalent coverage, the 
     producer may elect to delete from the buy-up coverage any 
     coverage against damage caused by fire and hail if the 
     producer obtains an equivalent or greater dollar amount of 
     coverage for damage caused by fire and hail from a private 
     insurance provider. Upon written notice of such election to 
     the company issuing the policy providing buy-up coverage and 
     submission of evidence of substitute coverage on the 
     commodity insured, the producer's premium shall be reduced by 
     an amount determined by the Corporation to be actuarially 
     appropriate, taking into account the actuarial value of the 
     remaining coverage provided by the Corporation. In no event 
     shall the producer be given credit for an amount of premium 
     determined to be greater than the actuarial value of the 
     protection against losses caused by fire and hail that is 
     included in the buy-up coverage for the crop.
       ``(10) Limitations on buy-up coverage.--The Board may limit 
     the availability of buy-up coverage under this subsection in 
     any county or area, or on any farm, on the basis of the 
     insurance risk involved. The Board shall not offer buy-up 
     coverage equal to less than 50 percent of the recorded or 
     appraised average yield indemnified at 100 percent of the 
     expected market price, or an equivalent coverage.
       ``(d) Premiums.--
       ``(1) Premiums required.--The Corporation shall fix 
     adequate premiums for all its plans of insurance at such 
     rates as the Board deems actuarially sufficient to attain an 
     expected loss ratio of not greater than 1.1.
       ``(2) Premium amounts.--The premium amounts for 
     catastrophic risk protection under subsection (b) and buy-up 
     coverage under subsection (c) shall be fixed as follows:
       ``(A) In the case of catastrophic risk protection, the 
     amount of the premium shall be sufficient to cover 
     anticipated losses and a reasonable reserve.
       ``(B) In the case of buy-up coverage below 65 percent of 
     the recorded or appraised average yield indemnified at 100 
     percent of the expected market price, or an equivalent 
     coverage, but greater than 50 percent of the recorded or 
     appraised average yield indemnified at 100 percent of the 
     expected market price, or an equivalent coverage, the amount 
     of the premium shall--
       ``(i) be sufficient to cover anticipated losses and a 
     reasonable reserve; and
       ``(ii) include an amount for operating and administrative 
     expenses, as determined by the Corporation, that is less than 
     the amount established for coverage at 65 percent of the 
     recorded or appraised average yield indemnified at 100 
     percent of the expected market price, or an equivalent 
     coverage.
       ``(C) In the case of buy-up coverage equal to or greater 
     than 65 percent of the recorded or appraised average yield 
     indemnified at 100 percent of the expected market price, or 
     an equivalent coverage, the amount of the premium shall--
       ``(i) be sufficient to cover anticipated losses and a 
     reasonable reserve; and
       ``(ii) include an amount for operating and administrative 
     expenses, as determined by the Corporation, on an industry-
     wide basis as a percent of the amount of the premium used to 
     define loss ratio under section 502.
       ``(3) Premium reduction.--If a private insurance provider 
     determines that it may provide insurance more efficiently 
     than the expense reimbursement amount established by the 
     Corporation, the private insurance provider may reduce, 
     subject to the approval of the Corporation, the premium 
     charged the insured by an amount corresponding to such 
     efficiency. The private insurance provider shall apply to the 
     Corporation for authority to reduce the premium before making 
     such a reduction, and the reduction shall be subject to the 
     rules, limitations, and procedures established by the 
     Corporation.
       ``(e) Payment of Portion of Premium by Corporation.--
       ``(1) In general.--For the purpose of encouraging the 
     broadest possible participation of producers in the 
     catastrophic risk protection provided under subsection (b) 
     and the buy-up coverage provided under subsection (c), the 
     Corporation shall pay a part of the premium in the amounts 
     provided in this subsection.
       ``(2) Amount of payment.--The amount of the premium to be 
     paid by the Corporation shall be as follows:
       ``(A) In the case of catastrophic risk protection, the 
     amount shall be equivalent to the premium established for 
     catastrophic risk protection under subsection (d)(2)(A).
       ``(B) In the case of coverage below 65 percent of the 
     recorded or appraised average yield indemnified at 100 
     percent of the expected market price, or an equivalent 
     coverage, but greater than 50 percent of the recorded or 
     appraised average yield indemnified at 100 percent of the 
     expected market price, or an equivalent coverage, the amount 
     shall be equivalent to the amount of premium established for 
     catastrophic risk protection coverage and the amount of 
     operating and administrative expenses established under 
     subsection (d)(2)(B).
       ``(C) In the case of coverage equal to or greater than 65 
     percent of the recorded or appraised average yield 
     indemnified at 100 percent of the expected market price, or 
     an equivalent coverage, on an individual or area basis, the 
     amount shall be equivalent to an amount equal to the premium 
     established for 50 percent loss in yield indemnified at 75 
     percent of the expected market price and the amount of 
     operating and administrative expenses established under 
     subsection (d)(2)(C).
       ``(3) State subsidy authorized.--The Board may enter into 
     agreements with any State or agency of a State under which 
     the State or agency may pay to the approved insurance 
     provider an additional premium subsidy to further reduce the 
     portion of the premium paid by producers in the State.
       ``(f) Eligibility Requirements.--
       ``(1) Persons eligible.--Except as otherwise provided in 
     this title, no producer may be denied insurance under this 
     section if the producer meets the definition of person, as 
     defined by the Secretary. In the case of plans of insurance 
     under this title other than catastrophic risk protection, the 
     definition of person shall include a producer who is over 18 
     years of age or older and has a bona fide insurable interest 
     in a crop as an owner, owner-operator, landlord, tenant, or 
     sharecropper.
       ``(2) Sales closing date.--A producer who desires to obtain 
     catastrophic risk protection under subsection (b) or buy-up 
     coverage under subsection (c) for a crop shall submit an 
     application by the sales closing date for the crop. The 
     Corporation shall establish sales closing dates to maximize 
     convenience to producers in obtaining benefits under 
     commodity price support and production adjustment programs of 
     the Department whenever feasible; except that, in 
     establishing such dates, the Corporation shall ensure that 
     the goal of actuarial soundness for the crop insurance 
     program under this title is met.
       ``(3) Records and reporting.--To obtain catastrophic risk 
     protection under subsection (b) or buy-up coverage under 
     subsection (c), a producer shall--
       ``(A) provide, to the extent required by the Corporation, 
     records acceptable to the Corporation of historical acreage 
     and production of the crops for which the insurance is sought 
     or accept a yield determined by the Corporation; and
       ``(B) report acreage planted and prevented from planting by 
     the designated acreage reporting date for that crop and 
     location as established by the Corporation.
       ``(4) Limitation on multiple benefits for same loss.--If a 
     producer who is eligible to receive benefits under 
     catastrophic risk protection under subsection (b) or 
     noninsured crop disaster assistance under section 519 is also 
     eligible to receive assistance for the same loss under any 
     other program administered by the Secretary, the producer 
     shall be required to elect whether to receive benefits under 
     this title or under such other program, but not both. A 
     producer who purchases buy-up coverage under subsection (c) 
     may also receive assistance for the same loss under other 
     programs administered by the Secretary, except that the 
     amount received for the loss under the buy-up coverage 
     together with the amount received under such other programs 
     may not exceed the amount of the producer's actual loss.
       ``(g) Yield Coverage Determinations.--
       ``(1) In general.--The Corporation shall implement crop 
     insurance underwriting rules that ensure that yield coverage, 
     as specified in this subsection, is provided to eligible 
     producers obtaining catastrophic risk protection under 
     subsection (b) or buy-up coverage under subsection (c).
       ``(2) Individual yield basis.--
       ``(A) Actual production history.--The Corporation shall 
     determine yield coverage using the producer's actual 
     production history over a period of not less than the 4 
     previous consecutive crop years and not more than 10 
     consecutive crop years. Subject to subparagraph (B), the 
     yield for insurance purposes for the year for which insurance 
     is sought shall be equal to the average of the producer's 
     actual production history during the period considered.
       ``(B) Assignment of yield.--Except as provided in 
     subparagraphs (C) and (D), if a producer does not submit 
     adequate documentation of production history to determine 
     crop yield under subparagraph (A), the Corporation shall 
     assign to the producer a yield equal to not less than 65 
     percent of the transitional yield of the producer (adjusted 
     to reflect actual production reflected in the records 
     acceptable to the Corporation for continuous years), as 
     specified in regulations issued by the Corporation based on 
     production history requirements.
       ``(C) Pilot program of assigned yields for new producers.--
       ``(i) Program required.--For each of the 1995 and 1996 crop 
     years, the Corporation shall carry out a pilot program to 
     assign to eligible new producers higher assigned yields than 
     would otherwise be assigned to such producers under 
     subparagraph (B). The Corporation shall include in the pilot 
     program 30 counties that are determined by the Corporation to 
     be adequate to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the 
     feasibility, effectiveness, and demand among new producers 
     for increased assigned yields.
       ``(ii) Increased assigned yields.--In the case of an 
     eligible new producer participating in the pilot program, the 
     Corporation shall assign to the new producer a yield equal to 
     not less than 110 percent of the transitional yield otherwise 
     established by the Corporation.
       ``(iii) Eligible new producer.--The Secretary shall 
     establish a definition of new producer for purposes of 
     determining eligibility to participate in the pilot program.
       ``(D) Alternative assigned yields for producers of feed or 
     forage.--
       ``(i) Feed or forage yields.--For the first crop year for 
     which an eligible producer described in clause (ii) obtains 
     catastrophic risk protection under subsection (b) or buy-up 
     coverage under subsection (c) for a feed or forage crop, the 
     Corporation shall assign to the producer a yield equal to not 
     less than 80 percent of the transitional yield established by 
     the Corporation (adjusted to reflect the actual production 
     history of the producer) if the producer does not provide 
     satisfactory evidence of the yield under subparagraph (A). 
     For not more than three additional years, the Corporation 
     shall provide the producer with a yield based on the greater 
     of--

       ``(I) the producer's actual production history for the 
     preceding year (or years if available); and
       ``(II) the assigned yield determined under this clause.

       ``(ii) Eligible producers.--An eligible producer referred 
     to in clause (i) is a producer that, as determined by the 
     Secretary--

       ``(I) grows the insured feed or forage crop primarily for 
     on-farm use in a livestock, dairy, or poultry operation; and
       ``(II) derives over 50 percent of the producer's gross farm 
     income from the livestock, dairy, or poultry operation.

       ``(iii) Termination of authority.--The authority provided 
     by this subparagraph shall apply only during the 1995 through 
     1998 crop years.
       ``(3) Area yield basis.--The Corporation may offer a crop 
     insurance plan based on an area yield that allows an insured 
     producer to qualify for an indemnity if a loss occurs in an 
     area, as specified by the Corporation, in which the farm of 
     the producer is located. Under an area yield plan, an insured 
     producer shall be allowed to select the level of area 
     production at which an indemnity will be paid consistent with 
     the terms and conditions established by the Corporation.
       ``(4) Commodity-by-commodity basis.--A producer may choose 
     between either individual yield or area yield coverage, where 
     available, on a commodity-by-commodity basis.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Repeal of existing crop insurance yield coverage.--
     Section 508A of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1508A) is repealed.
       (2) Preemption.--Section 511 of such Act (7 U.S.C. 1511) is 
     amended by adding the following sentence: ``The Corporation's 
     contracts of insurance and the contracts of insurance 
     reinsured by the Corporation shall be exempt from taxation 
     imposed any State, municipality, or local taxing 
     authority.''.
       (3) Persons Under 21 Years of Age.--Section 520 of such Act 
     (7 U.S.C. 1520) is repealed.

     SEC. 7. PREPARATION OF POLICIES, CLAIMS, AND REINSURANCE.

       (a) Submission of Policies.--Subsection (h) of section 508 
     of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1508), as 
     redesignated by section 6(a)(2), is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (1), by striking ``subsection (a)'' and 
     inserting ``subsection (c)''; and
       (2) by striking paragraphs (2), (3), and (4) and inserting 
     the following new paragraphs:
       ``(2) Submission of policies.--A policy or other material 
     submitted to the Board under this subsection may be prepared 
     without regard to the limitations contained in this title, 
     including the requirements concerning the levels of coverage 
     and rates and the requirement that a price level for each 
     commodity insured must equal the expected market price for 
     the commodity as established by the Board. In the case of 
     such a policy, the payment by the Corporation of a portion of 
     the premium of the policy may not exceed the amount that 
     would otherwise be authorized under subsection (e).
       ``(3) Review and approval by the board.--A policy or other 
     material submitted to the Board under this subsection shall 
     be reviewed by the Board and, if the Board finds that the 
     interests of producers are adequately protected and that any 
     premiums charged to such producers are actuarially 
     appropriate, shall be approved by the Board for reinsurance 
     and for sale to producers as an additional choice at 
     actuarially appropriate rates and under appropriate terms and 
     conditions. The Corporation may enter into more than one 
     reinsurance agreement with the private insurance provider 
     simultaneously to facilitate the offering of such new 
     policies.
       ``(4) Guidelines for submission and review.--The 
     Corporation shall issue regulations to establish guidelines 
     for the submission and Board review of policies or other 
     material submitted to the Board under this subsection. At a 
     minimum, the guidelines shall ensure the following:
       ``(A) Proposals submitted to the Board under this 
     subsection shall be considered as confidential commercial or 
     financial information for purposes of section 552(b)(4) of 
     title 5, United States Code, until approved by the Board. 
     Proposals disapproved by the Board shall remain confidential 
     commercial or financial information.
       ``(B) The Board shall provide an applicant with the 
     opportunity to present the proposal to the Board in person if 
     the applicant so desires.
       ``(C) The Board shall provide an applicant with 
     notification of intent to disapprove a proposal not later 
     than 30 days prior to taking such action. An applicant that 
     receives such notification may modify such application, and 
     such modification shall be considered an original application 
     for purposes of this paragraph.
       ``(D) Specific guidelines shall deal with the timing of 
     submission of proposals under this subsection and timely 
     consideration by the Board so that any approved proposal may 
     be made available to all persons reinsured by the Corporation 
     in a manner permitting them to participate, if they so 
     desire, in offering such a proposal in the first crop year in 
     which it is approved by the Board for reinsurance, premium 
     subsidy, or other support offered by this title.
       ``(5) Required publication.--Any policies, provisions of 
     policies, and rates approved under this subsection shall be 
     published as a notice in the Federal Register and made 
     available to all persons contracting with or reinsured by the 
     Corporation under the same terms and conditions as between 
     the Corporation and the person originally submitting the 
     policy or other material.''.
       (b) Claims for Losses and Reinsurance.--Section 508 of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1508) is further 
     amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsections (j) and (k) as subsections 
     (l) and (m), respectively; and
       (2) inserting after subsection (i), as redesignated by 
     section 6(a)(2), the following new subsections:
       ``(j) Claims for Losses.--
       ``(1) In general.--Under rules prescribed by the 
     Corporation, the Corporation may provide for adjustment and 
     payment of claims for losses. The rules prescribed by the 
     Corporation shall establish standards to ensure that all 
     claims for losses are adjusted, to the extent practicable, in 
     a uniform and timely manner.
       ``(2) Denial of claims.--
       ``(A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (B), if a claim 
     for indemnity is denied by the Corporation or by the private 
     insurance provider, an action on the claim may be brought 
     against the Corporation or Secretary or the insurance 
     provider only in the United States district court for the 
     district in which the insured farm is located.
       ``(B) Statute of limitations.--A suit on the claim may be 
     brought not later than 1 year after the date on which written 
     notice of denial of the claim is provided to the claimant.
       ``(3) Indemnification.--The Corporation shall provide 
     private insurance providers with indemnification, including 
     costs and reasonable attorney fees incurred by the private 
     insurance provider, due to errors or omissions on the part of 
     the Corporation.
       ``(k) Reinsurance.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     this title, the Corporation shall, to the maximum extent 
     practicable, provide reinsurance to insurers approved by the 
     Corporation that insure producers of any agricultural 
     commodity under a plan or plans acceptable to the 
     Corporation. Such reinsurance shall be provided upon such 
     terms and conditions as the Board may determine to be 
     consistent with subsections (b) and (c) and sound reinsurance 
     principles. The Corporation's reinsurance agreements with the 
     reinsured companies shall require the reinsured companies to 
     bear a sufficient share of any potential loss under such 
     agreement so as to ensure that the reinsured company will 
     sell and service policies of insurance in a sound and prudent 
     manner, taking into consideration the financial condition of 
     the reinsured companies and the availability of private 
     reinsurance.''.
       (c) Cross References.--
       (1) Claims for losses.--Section 506(d) of the Federal Crop 
     Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1506(d)) is amended in the first 
     sentence by striking ``section 508(f)'' and inserting 
     ``section 508(j)''.
       (2) Submission of materials to board.--Section 507(c) of 
     such Act (7 U.S.C. 1507(c)) is amended in the last sentence 
     by striking ``section 508(b)'' and inserting ``section 
     508(h)''.
       (3) Definition of agricultural commodity.--Section 518 of 
     such Act (7 U.S.C. 1518) is amended by striking ``or (k)'' 
     and inserting ``or (m)''.

     SEC. 8. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS AND CROP INSURANCE 
                   FUND.

       Section 516 of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1516) is amended to read as follows:

     ``SEC. 516. FUNDING.

       ``(a) Authorization of Appropriations for Corporation 
     Salaries and Agent Commissions.--There are hereby authorized 
     to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to cover the 
     salaries and administrative expenses of the Corporation and 
     the administrative and operating expenses of the Corporation 
     for the sales commissions of agents.
       ``(b) Crop Insurance Fund.--
       ``(1) Establishment.--There is hereby established an 
     insurance fund for deposit of premiums collected under 
     section 508(d), income from reinsurance operations, and 
     appropriations made available under paragraph (2).
       ``(2) Authorization of appropriations.--There are hereby 
     authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary 
     to carry out the purposes of the insurance fund.
       ``(c) Purposes of Insurance Fund.--In such aggregate amount 
     as is provided in advance in appropriations Acts, the 
     Corporation may use amounts in the insurance fund to pay the 
     following:
       ``(1) Beginning with the 1996 crop year, the administrative 
     and operating expenses of approved insurance providers, other 
     than expenses for which funds are authorized to be 
     appropriated under subsection (a).
       ``(2) All other expenses of the Corporation (other than 
     expenses for which funds are authorized to be appropriated 
     under subsection (a)), including all premium subsidies and 
     indemnities.
       ``(3) For the 1995 crop year, all administrative and 
     expense reimbursements due under a reinsurance agreement with 
     an approved private insurance provider.
       ``(4) Expenses incurred by the Corporation to carry out 
     research and development.
       ``(5) For the 1996 crop year, the administrative and 
     operating expenses of the Corporation for the sales 
     commissions of agents, but not to exceed an amount equal to 
     10.5 percent of the total amount of premiums paid by 
     producers for insurance policies for the 1996 crop year.''.

     SEC. 9. ADVISORY COMMITTEE.

       The Federal Crop Insurance Act is amended by inserting 
     after section 514 (7 U.S.C. 1514) the following new section:

     ``SEC. 515. ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE.

       ``(a) Establishment and Termination.--The Secretary may 
     establish within the Department of Agriculture an advisory 
     committee to be known as the Advisory Committee for Federal 
     Crop Insurance. If established, the Advisory Committee shall 
     remain in existence until September 30, 1998.
       ``(b) Primary Responsibility.--The primary responsibility 
     of the Advisory Committee shall be to advise the Secretary on 
     the implementation of this title and on other issues related 
     to crop insurance, as determined by the Manager.
       ``(c) Membership.--The Advisory Committee shall be composed 
     of the Manager of the Corporation, the Secretary (or a 
     designee of the Secretary), and not less than 12 members 
     representing organizations and agencies involved in the 
     provision of crop insurance under this title. Not less than 3 
     of the members of the Advisory Committee shall be 
     representatives of the specialty crops industry. The 
     organizations or agencies represented by members on the 
     Advisory Committee may include insurance companies, insurance 
     agents, farm producer organizations, experts on agronomic 
     practices, and banking and lending institutions.
       ``(d) Administrative Provisions.--
       ``(1) Terms.--Members of the Advisory Committee shall be 
     appointed by the Secretary for a term of up to 2 years from 
     nominations made by the organizations and agencies specified 
     in subsection (c). The terms of the members shall be 
     staggered.
       ``(2) Chairperson.--The Advisory Committee shall be chaired 
     by the Manager of the Corporation.
       ``(3) Meetings.--The Advisory Committee shall meet at least 
     annually. The meetings of the Advisory Committee shall be 
     publicly announced in advance and shall be open to the 
     public. Appropriate records of the activities of the Advisory 
     Committee shall be kept and made available to the public on 
     request.
       ``(e) Reports.--Not later than June 30 of each year, the 
     Advisory Committee shall submit to the Secretary a report 
     specifying its conclusions and recommendations regarding--
       ``(1) the progress toward implementation of the provisions 
     of this title;
       ``(2) the actuarial soundness of the Federal crop insurance 
     program;
       ``(3) the rate of producer participation in both 
     catastrophic risk protection under section 508(b) and buy-up 
     coverage under section 508(c); and
       ``(4) the progress toward improved crop insurance coverage 
     for new and specialty crops.''.

     SEC. 10. NONINSURED CROP DISASTER ASSISTANCE.

       (a) In General.--Section 519 of the Federal Crop Insurance 
     Act (7 U.S.C. 1519) is amended to read as follows:

     ``SEC. 519. NONINSURED CROP DISASTER ASSISTANCE PROGRAM.

       ``(a) Establishment of Program.--
       ``(1) Establishment.--In the case of an eligible crop 
     described in paragraph (2), the Corporation shall establish a 
     noninsured crop disaster assistance program to provide 
     coverage equivalent to the catastrophic risk protection 
     otherwise available under section 508(b).
       ``(2) Eligible crops.--
       ``(A) In general.--For purposes of this section, the term 
     `eligible crop' means each commercial crop or other 
     agricultural commodity (except livestock)--
       ``(i) for which catastrophic risk protection under section 
     508(b) is not available; and
       ``(ii) which is produced for food, fiber, or as an 
     industrial crop (as defined by the Corporation).
       ``(B) Crops specifically included.--The term `eligible 
     crop' shall include floricultural, ornamental nursery, and 
     Christmas tree crops and turfgrass sod.
       ``(3) Cause of loss.--To qualify for assistance under this 
     section, the losses of the noninsured commodity shall be due 
     to drought, flood, or other natural disaster, as determined 
     by the Secretary.
       ``(b) Application for Noninsured Crop Disaster 
     Assistance.--
       ``(1) Timely application.--To be eligible for assistance 
     under this section, producers shall submit an application for 
     noninsured crop disaster assistance at a local office of the 
     Department of Agriculture. The application shall be in such 
     form, contain such information, and be submitted at such time 
     as the Corporation may require.
       ``(2) Records and reports.--To obtain noninsured crop 
     disaster assistance, a producer shall--
       ``(A) provide records acceptable to the Corporation of 
     historical acreage and production of the eligible crops for 
     which assistance is sought or accept a yield determined by 
     the Corporation; and
       ``(B) report acreage planted and prevented from planting by 
     the designated acreage reporting date for that crop and 
     location as established by the Corporation.
       ``(3) Exclusions.--Noninsured crop disaster assistance 
     under this section shall not cover losses due to--
       ``(A) the neglect or malfeasance of the producer;
       ``(B) the failure of the producer to reseed to the same 
     crop in those areas and under such circumstances where it is 
     customary to reseed; or
       ``(C) the failure of the producer to follow good farming 
     practices, as determined by the Corporation.
       ``(4) Revenue limitation.--A person who has qualifying 
     gross revenues in excess of $2,000,000 annually, as 
     determined by the Secretary, shall not be eligible to receive 
     any noninsured crop disaster assistance payments. For 
     purposes of this section, the term `qualifying gross 
     revenues' means--
       ``(A) if a majority of the person's gross revenue is 
     received from farming, ranching, and forestry operations, the 
     gross revenue from the person's farming, ranching, and 
     forestry operations; and
       ``(B) if less than a majority of the person's gross revenue 
     is received from farming, ranching, and forestry operations, 
     the person's gross revenue from all sources.
       ``(c) Loss Requirements.--
       ``(1) Required area loss.--A producer of an eligible crop 
     shall not receive noninsured crop disaster assistance unless 
     the average yield for that crop, or an equivalent measure in 
     the event yield data are not available, in an area falls 
     below 65 percent of the expected area yield, as established 
     by the Corporation.
       ``(2) Prevented planting.--Subject to paragraph (1), the 
     Corporation shall make a prevented planting noninsured crop 
     disaster assistance payment if the producer is prevented from 
     planting more than 35 percent of the acreage intended for the 
     eligible crop because of drought, flood, or other natural 
     disaster, as determined by the Secretary.
       ``(3) Reduced yields.--Subject to paragraph (1), the 
     Corporation shall make a reduced yield noninsured crop 
     disaster assistance payment if the total quantity of the 
     eligible crop that a producer is able to harvest on any farm 
     is, because of drought, flood, or other natural disaster as 
     determined by the Secretary, less than 50 percent of the 
     expected individual yield for the crop, as determined by the 
     Corporation, factored for the producer's interest for the 
     crop.
       ``(d) Payments.--
       ``(1) Reduced yields.--If the producer is eligible for 
     reduced yield noninsured crop disaster assistance, payments 
     shall be made for farm losses in excess of 50 percent of the 
     established farm yield for the eligible crop indemnified at 
     60 percent of the average market price for that crop, or a 
     comparable coverage as determined by the Corporation. Any 
     eligible crop that is produced with significant and variable, 
     post-planting expenses, the payment shall be reduced to 
     reflect reduced production costs and harvesting costs if the 
     crop is not harvested.
       ``(2) Prevented planting.--If the producer is eligible for 
     a prevented planting payment under this section, the amount 
     paid to the producer on a claim under this section may 
     reflect a reduction that is proportional to the out-of-pocket 
     expenses that are not incurred by the producer as a result of 
     not planting, growing, or harvesting the crop for which the 
     claim is made, as determined by the Corporation.
       ``(e) Yield Determinations.--
       ``(1) Establishment.--The Corporation shall establish farm 
     yields for purposes of providing noninsured crop disaster 
     assistance under this section.
       ``(2) Actual production history.--The Corporation shall 
     determine yield coverage using the producer's actual 
     production history over a period of not less than the 4 
     previous consecutive crop years and not more than 10 
     consecutive crop years. Subject to paragraph (3), the yield 
     for the year in which noninsured crop disaster assistance is 
     sought shall be equal to the average of the producer's actual 
     production history during the period considered.
       ``(3) Assignment of yield.--If a producer does not submit 
     adequate documentation of production history to determine a 
     crop yield under paragraph (2), the Corporation shall assign 
     to the producer a yield equal to not less than 65 percent of 
     the transitional yield of the producer (adjusted to reflect 
     actual production reflected in the records acceptable to the 
     Corporation for continuous years), as specified in 
     regulations issued by the Corporation based on production 
     history requirements.
       ``(f) Payment of Losses.--Payments for noninsured crop 
     disaster assistance losses under this section shall be made 
     from the insurance fund established under section 516. Such 
     losses shall not be included in calculating the premiums 
     charged to producers for insurance under section 508.
       ``(g) Payment Limitations.--The total amount of payments 
     that a person shall be entitled to receive annually under 
     this section may not exceed $100,000. For purposes of 
     applying this limitation, the Secretary shall issue 
     regulations defining the term `person' that shall conform, to 
     the extent practicable, to the regulations defining `person' 
     issued under section 1001 of the Food Security Act of 1985 (7 
     U.S.C. 1308).''.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Existing emergency crop loss assistance program.--
     Effective July 1, 1995, chapter 3 of subtitle B of title XXII 
     of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 
     (7 U.S.C. 1421 note) is amended by striking subchapter A.
       (2) Emergency appropriations.--Effective July 1, 1995, the 
     Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is 
     amended--
       (A) in section 251(b)(2)(D)(i) (2 U.S.C. 901(b)(2)(D)(i)), 
     by adding at the end the following new sentence: ``The 
     preceding sentence shall not apply to appropriations to cover 
     agricultural crop disaster assistance.''; and
       (B) in section 252(e) (2 U.S.C. 902(e)), by adding at the 
     end the following new sentence: ``The preceding sentence 
     shall not apply to direct spending provisions to cover 
     agricultural crop disaster assistance.''.

     SEC. 11. CROP INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS UNDER PRICE SUPPORT 
                   PROGRAMS.

       (a) Rice.--Section 101B(c) of the Agricultural Act of 1949 
     (7 U.S.C. 1441-2(c)) is amended--
       (1) by striking paragraph (1)(F); and
       (2) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     the following:
       ``(2) Crop insurance requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (b) Extra Long Staple Cotton.--Section 103(h) of the 
     Agricultural Act of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1444(h)) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating paragraph (16) as paragraph (17) and 
     moving the margin 2 ems to the left; and
       (2) by inserting after paragraph (15) the following new 
     paragraph:
       ``(16) Crop Insurance Requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (c) Upland Cotton.--Section 103B(c) of the Agricultural Act 
     of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1444-2(c)) is amended--
       (1) by striking paragraph (1)(F); and
       (2) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     the following:
       ``(2) Crop insurance requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (d) Feed Grains.--Section 105B(c) of the Agricultural Act 
     of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1444f(c)) is amended--
       (1) by striking paragraph (1)(G); and
       (2) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     the following:
       ``(2) Crop insurance requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (e) Tobacco.--Section 106 of the Agricultural Act of 1949 
     (7 U.S.C. 1445) is amended by striking subsection (e) and 
     inserting in lieu thereof the following:
       ``(e) Crop Insurance Requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (f) Wheat.--Section 107B(c) of the Agricultural Act of 1949 
     (7 U.S.C. 1444b-3a(c)) is amended--
       (1) by striking paragraph (1)(G); and
       (2) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting in lieu thereof 
     the following:
       ``(2) Crop insurance requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (g) Peanuts.--Section 108B of the Agricultural Act of 1949 
     (7 U.S.C. 1445c-3) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsection (h) as subsection (i); and
       (2) by inserting after subsection (g) the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(h) Crop Insurance Requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (h) Oilseeds.--Section 205 of the Agricultural Act of 1949 
     (7 U.S.C. 1446f) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsection (n) as subsection (o); and
       (2) by inserting after subsection (m) the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(n) Crop Insurance Requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (i) Sugar.--Section 206 of the Agricultural Act of 1949 (7 
     U.S.C. 1446g) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsection (j) as subsection (k); and
       (2) by inserting after subsection (i) the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(j) Crop Insurance Requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (j) Honey.--Section 207 of the Agricultural Act of 1949 (7 
     U.S.C. 1446h) is amended--
       (1) by redesignating subsection (j) as subsection (k); and
       (2) by inserting after subsection (i) the following new 
     subsection:
       ``(j) Crop Insurance Requirement.--As a condition of 
     receiving any benefit (including payments) under this 
     section, a producer must obtain at least catastrophic risk 
     protection insurance coverage under section 508(b) of the 
     Federal Crop Insurance Act for the crop and crop year in 
     which the benefit is sought, if such coverage is offered by 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.''.
       (k) Disaster Payments.--Section 208 of the Agricultural Act 
     of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1446i) is repealed.

     SEC. 12. ELIMINATION OF GENDER REFERENCES.

       (a) Management of Corporation.--Section 505 of the Federal 
     Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1505) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a), by striking the third sentence and 
     inserting ``The Board shall be appointed by, and hold office 
     at the pleasure of, the Secretary. The Secretary shall not be 
     a member of the Board.''; and
       (2) in subsection (d)--
       (A) by striking ``upon him''; and
       (B) by striking ``He shall be appointed by,'' and inserting 
     ``The manager shall be appointed by,''.
       (b) Personnel.--Section 507 of such Act (7 U.S.C. 1507) is 
     amended--
       (1) in subsection (a), by striking ``as he may determine: 
     Provided, That'' and inserting ``as the Secretary may 
     determine appropriate. However,''; and
       (2) in subsection (d), by striking ``as he may request'' 
     and inserting ``that the Secretary requests''.
       (c) Indemnities Exempt From Levy.--Section 509 of such Act 
     (7 U.S.C. 1509) is amended by striking ``or his estate'' and 
     inserting ``or the estate of the insured''.

     SEC. 13. PREVENTED PLANTING.

       (a) In General.--Effective for the 1994 crop year, a 
     producer described in subsection (b) shall receive 
     compensation under the prevented planting coverage policy 
     provision described in subsection (b)(1) by--
       (1) obtaining from the Secretary of Agriculture the 
     applicable amount that is payable under the conservation use 
     program described in subsection (b)(4); and
       (2) obtaining from the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation 
     the amount that is equal to the difference between--
       (A) the amount that is payable under the conservation use 
     program; and
       (B) the amount that is payable under the prevented planting 
     coverage policy.
       (b) Eligible Producers.--Subsection (a) shall apply to a 
     producer who--
       (1) purchased a prevented planting policy for the 1994 crop 
     year from the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation prior to the 
     spring sales closing date for the 1994 crop year;
       (2) is unable to plant a crop due to major, widespread 
     flooding in the Midwest, or excessive ground moisture, that 
     occurred prior to the spring sales closing date for the 1994 
     crop year;
       (3) had a reasonable expectation of planting a crop on the 
     prevented planting acreage for the 1994 crop year; and
       (4) participates in a conservation use program established 
     for the 1994 crop of wheat, feed grains, upland cotton, or 
     rice established under section 107B(c)(1)(E), 105B(c)(1)(E), 
     103B(c)(1)(D), or 101B(c)(1)(D), respectively, of the 
     Agricultural Act of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1445b-3a(c)(1)(E), 
     1444f(c)(1)(E), 1444-2(c)(1)(D), or 1441-2(c)(1)(D)).
       (c) Oilseed Prevented Planting Payments.--
       (1) In general.--Effective for the 1994 crop year, a 
     producer of a crop of oilseeds (as defined in section 205(a) 
     of the Agricultural Act of 1949 (7 U.S.C. 1446f(a))) shall 
     receive a prevented planting payment for the crop if the 
     requirements of paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of subsection 
     (b) are satisfied.
       (2) Source of payment.--The total amount of payments 
     required under this subsection shall be made by the Federal 
     Crop Insurance Corporation.
       (d) Payment.--A payment under this section may not be made 
     before October 1, 1994.

     SEC. 14. EFFECTIVE DATE.

       Except as provided in section 10(b) and section 13, this 
     Act and the amendments made by this Act shall take effect on 
     the date of the enactment of this Act and shall apply to the 
     provision of crop insurance under the Federal Crop Insurance 
     Act (7 U.S.C. 1501 et seq.) beginning with the 1995 crop 
     year. With respect to the 1994 crop year, the Federal Crop 
     Insurance Act (as in effect on the day before the date of the 
     enactment of this Act) shall continue to apply.

  The CHAIRMAN. Before consideration of any other amendment, it shall 
be in order to consider the amendments printed in part 2 of the report. 
Each amendment may be offered only by a Member designated in the 
report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable under the terms 
specified in the report, and shall not be subject to a demand for 
division of the question.
  It is now in order to consider amendment No. 1 printed in part 2 of 
House Report 103-666. For what purpose does the gentleman from 
Minnesota rise?


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I have a technical, or I should not call it 
technical, a modifying amendment to our amendment. In what fashion 
could that be considered so as not to complicate the debate time on the 
subsequent amendments?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman should offer his amendment first and then 
ask for the modification.


                     amendment offered by mr. penny

  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Penny: Page 46, line 4, insert 
     after ``operations,'' the following: ``all other amounts 
     collected by or on behalf of the Corporation,''
       Page 46, strike lines 10 through 12 and insert the 
     following:
       ``(c) Expenditures From Insurance Fund.--In such aggregate 
     amount as provided in advance in appropriation Acts, the 
     Corporation may use amounts in the insurance fund to pay the 
     following:
       Page 11, strike lines 8 through 11 and insert the following 
     new paragraph:
       (2) in subsection (c), by striking ``, in which case the 
     agent or broker'' in the first sentence and all that follows 
     through the period at the end of the second sentence and 
     inserting the following: ``, except that the reimbursement 
     rate established by the Board for such agents and brokers may 
     not exceed 30 percent of the premium for each new sale and 
     may not exceed 28 percent of the premium for the renewal of 
     an insurance policy for a successive term.'';
       Page 17, line 12, strike ``indemnified at 60 percent'' and 
     insert ``indemnified at 56 percent''.
       Page 18, strike line 7 and all that follows through line 7 
     on page 21, and insert the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Application.--To participate in catastrophic risk 
     protection, producers shall submit an application at the 
     local office of the Department of Agriculture or to a private 
     insurance provider approved by the Corporation.
       Page 21, line 13, strike ``$100 per producer per county.'' 
     and insert ``$200 per producer per county up to a maximum of 
     $600 per producer for all counties in which a producer has 
     insured crops.''.
       Page 21, strike lines 20 through 25 and insert the 
     following new subparagraph:
       ``(C) Deposit of fees.--Administrative fees collected by an 
     office of the Department of Agriculture or by a private 
     insurance provider shall be deposited in the crop insurance 
     fund established under section 516(b), to be available to the 
     Corporation in such amounts as provided in advance in 
     appropriation Acts.
       Page 24, strike line 11 and all that follows through line 
     11 on page 25 and insert the following new paragraph:
       ``(2) Administrative fee required.--If a producer elects to 
     purchase buy-up coverage for a crop, the producer shall pay 
     an administrative fee for such buy-up coverage. Subsection 
     (b)(5) shall apply in determining the amount and use of the 
     administrative fee or in determining whether to waive the 
     administrative fee. If the producer has already paid the 
     administrative fee for catastrophic risk protection for the 
     same crop, the producer shall not be required to pay an 
     additional administrative fee for buy-up coverage for that 
     crop.
       Page 31, after line 4, add the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Individual and area crop insurance coverage.--The 
     Corporation shall allow approved insurance providers to offer 
     to producers a plan of insurance that combines both 
     individual yield coverage and area yield coverage at a 
     premium rate determined by the provider, subject to the 
     following conditions:
       ``(A) The individual yield coverage shall be equal to or 
     greater than catastrophic risk protection, as described in 
     subsection (b).
       ``(B) The combined policy shall include area yield coverage 
     that is offered by the Corporation or similar area coverage, 
     as determined by the Corporation.
       ``(C) The Corporation shall provide reinsurance on the area 
     yield portion of the combined policy at the request of the 
     provider, except that the provider shall agree to pay to the 
     producer any portion of the area yield and loss indemnity 
     payment received from the Corporation or a commercial 
     reinsurer that exceeds the individual indemnity payment made 
     by the provider to the producer.
       ``(D) The Corporation shall pay a part of the premium 
     equivalent to--
       ``(i) the amount authorized under subsection (e)(2) (except 
     provisions regarding operating and administrative expenses); 
     and
       ``(ii) the amount of operating and administrative expenses 
     authorized by the Corporation for the area yield coverage 
     portion of the combined policy.
       ``(E) The provider shall provide all underwriting services 
     for the combined policy, including the determination of 
     individual yield coverage premium rates, the terms and 
     conditions of the policy, and the acceptance and 
     classification of applicants into risk categories, subject to 
     subparagraph (F).
       ``(F) The Corporation shall approve the combined policy 
     unless the Corporation determines that the policy is not 
     actuarially sound or that the interests of producers are not 
     adequately protected.''
       Page 33, line 22, add after the period the following: 
     ``Beginning with the 1995 crop year, the Corporation shall 
     establish for each insurable crop a sales closing date that 
     is 30 days earlier than the corresponding sales closing date 
     that was established for the 1994 crop year.''.
       Page 53, after line 17, insert the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Effect of contract payments.--A producer who receives 
     a guaranteed payment for production, as opposed to delivery, 
     of a crop pursuant to a contract shall have the production of 
     the producer adjusted upward by an amount equal to the 
     difference between--
       ``(A) the amount of the production corresponding to the 
     contract payment received; and
       ``(B) the amount of the production actually delivered by 
     the producer under the contract.
       Page 55, after line 12, insert the following new 
     paragraphs:
       ``(4) Prohibition on assigned yields in certain counties.--
     If the acreage of a crop in a county has increased by more 
     than 100 percent since the 1987 crop year, a producer who 
     produces that crop on a farm located in that county may not 
     obtain an assigned yield under paragraph (3). Instead, the 
     producer must provide detailed documentation of production 
     costs, acres planted, and yield (as required by the 
     Corporation) to become eligible for a noninsured assistance 
     payment.
       ``(5) Limitation on receipt of subsequent assigned yield.--
     A producer who receives an assigned yield for the current 
     year of a natural disaster because required production 
     records were not submitted to the local office of the 
     Department shall not be eligible for an assigned yield for 
     the year of the next natural disaster unless the required 
     production records of the previous 1 or more years (as 
     applicable) are provided to the local office.
       ``(6) Yield variations due to different farming 
     practices.--The Corporation shall ensure that noninsured crop 
     disaster assistance accurately reflects significant yield 
     variations due to different farming practices, such as 
     between irrigated and nonirrigated acreage.
       Page 55, line 18, add after the period the following: ``A 
     producer who makes a claim for payment under this section 
     shall be responsible for an administrative fee of $50, which 
     shall be deducted from the payment made to the producer.''
       Page 63, strike line 6 and all that follows through line 5 
     on page 65.


             modification to amendment offered by mr. penny

  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I offer a modification to the amendment just 
offered, and I ask unanimous consent for its acceptance.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the modification.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Modification to amendment offered by Mr. Penny: The 
     amendment is modified by adding at the end the following:
       Page 6, line 13, insert the following new paragraph (and 
     redesignate subsequent paragraphs accordingly):
       (1) in the matter preceding the paragraphs, by inserting 
     after ``1.1,'' the following: ``and on and after October 1, 
     1998, an overall projected loss ratio of not greater than 
     1.0,'';
       Page 29, line 3, insert after ``1.1'' the following: ``, on 
     and after October 1, 1995, and not greater than 1.0, on and 
     after October 1, 1998''.

  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Minnesota?
  There was no objection.

       [Note: The foregoing modification only adds language at the 
     end of the original amendment, as printed hereinbefore, and 
     the complete amendment, as modified, is, therefore, not 
     reprinted at this point.]

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Penny], will be recognized for 15 minutes, and a Member in opposition 
will be recognized for 15 minutes.


amendment offered by mr. de la garza as a substitute for the amendment 
                   offered by mr. penny, as modified

  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as a substitute 
for the amendment, as modified.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the substitute amendment.
  The text of the amendment offered as a substitute for the amendment, 
as modified, is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. de la Garza as a substitute for 
     the amendment offered by Mr. Penny as modified: Page 31, 
     after line 4, add the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Individual and area crop insurance coverage.--The 
     Corporation shall allow approved insurance providers to offer 
     to producers a plan of insurance that combines both 
     individual yield coverage and area yield coverage at a 
     premium rate determined by the provider, subject to the 
     following conditions:
       ``(A) The individual yield coverage shall be equal to or 
     greater than catastrophic risk protection, as described in 
     subsection (b).
       ``(B) The combined policy shall include area yield coverage 
     that is offered by Corporation or similar area coverage, as 
     determined by the Corporation.
       ``(C) The Corporation shall provide reinsurance on the area 
     yield portion of the combined policy at the request of the 
     provider, except that the provider shall agree to pay to the 
     producer any portion of the area yield and loss indemnity 
     payment received from the Corporation or a commercial 
     reinsurer that exceeds the individual indemnity payment 
     made by the provider to the producer.
       ``(D) The Corporation shall pay a part of the premium 
     equivalent to--
       ``(i) the amount authorized under subsection (e)(2) (except 
     provisions regarding operating and administrative expenses); 
     and
       ``(ii) the amount of operating and administrative expenses 
     authorized by the Corporation for the area yield coverage 
     portion of the combined policy.
       ``(E) The provider shall provide all underwriting services 
     for the combined policy, including the determination of 
     individual yield coverage premium rates, the terms and 
     conditions of the policy, and the acceptance and 
     classification of applicants into risk categories, subject to 
     subparagraph (F).
       ``(F) The Corporation shall approve the combined policy 
     unless the Corporation determines that the policy is not 
     actuarially sound or that the interests of producers are not 
     adequately protected.''.
       Page 33, line 22, add after the period the following: 
     ``Beginning with the 1995 crop year, the Corporation shall 
     establish for each insurable crop a sales closing date that 
     is 30 days earlier than the corresponding sales closing date 
     that was established for the 1994 crop year.''.
       Page 55, after line 12, insert the following new 
     paragraphs:
       ``(4) Prohibition on assigned yields in certain counties.--
     If the acreage of a crop in a county has increased by more 
     than 100 percent since the 1987 crop year, a producer who 
     produces that crop on a farm located in that county may not 
     obtain an assigned yield under paragraph (3). Instead, the 
     producer must provide detailed documentation of production 
     costs, acres planted, and yield (as required by the 
     Corporation) to become eligible for a noninsured assistance 
     payment.
       ``(5) Limitation on receipt of subsequent assigned yield.--
     A producer who receives an assigned yield for the current 
     year of a natural disaster because required production 
     records were not submitted to the local office of the 
     Department shall not be eligible for an assigned yield for 
     the year of the next natural disaster unless the required 
     production records of the previous 1 or more years (as 
     applicable) are provided to the local office.
       ``(6) Yield variations due to different farming 
     practices.--The Corporation shall ensure that noninsured crop 
     disaster assistance accurately reflects significant yield 
     variations due to different farming practices, such as 
     between irrigated and nonirrigated acreage.
       Page 63, strike line 6 and all that follows through line 5 
     on page 65.
       Page 50, strike lines 9 through 11 and insert the following 
     new clause:
       ``(ii) which is produced for food or fiber.
       Page 18, strike line 7 and all that follows through line 7 
     on page 21, and insert the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) Application.--To participate in catastrophic risk 
     protection, producers shall submit an application at the 
     local office of the Department of Agriculture or to a private 
     insurance provider approved by the Corporation.
       Page 11, strike lines 8 through 11 and insert the following 
     new paragraph:
       (2) in subsection (c), by striking ``, in which case the 
     agent or broker'' in the first sentence and all that follows 
     through the period at the end of the second sentence and 
     inserting the following: ``, except that the rate established 
     by the Board of reimburse approved insurance providers and 
     agents for their administrative and operating costs shall not 
     exceed, for the 1997 crop year, 29 percent of the premium 
     used to define loss ratio under section 502, and for the 1998 
     and 1999 crops, such reimbursement rate shall not exceed 28 
     percent of the premium used to define loss ratio under 
     section 502. Consistent with the provisions of section 
     506(p), the Board shall provide regulatory relief to such 
     approved insurance providers and agents in an amount 
     proportional to the reduction in the reimbursement rate 
     established by the Board for the 1997, 1998, and 1999 crop 
     years. No action shall be taken which would jeopardize 
     program integrity, enhance opportunities for fraud or abuse, 
     hinder program expansion or diminish quality of service to 
     customers.''.
       Page 21, line 13, strike ``$100 per producer per county.'' 
     and insert ``$200 per producer per county up to a maximum of 
     $600 per producer for all counties in which a producer has 
     insured crops.''.
       Page 25, strike lines 8 through 11 and insert the 
     following: ``would reduce to less than $200 the total amount 
     of the administrative fees paid by the producer for 2 or more 
     crops in the same county for which a lower level of coverage 
     is obtained.''.
       On page 65, strike line 6 and insert the following:

     SEC. 14. GAO CROP INSURANCE PROVIDER STUDY.

       The General Accounting Office shall, within 2 years of 
     enactment, investigate the contractual relationship between 
     the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and approved insurance 
     providers to determine the quality, costs and efficiency of 
     the provision of multiperil crop insurance to producers of 
     agricultural commodities covered in this Act. The study shall 
     be completed in two parts. The first, to be completed within 
     one year of enactment, shall examine the currently available 
     data to make the determinations required by this section. The 
     second part shall examine the changes that occur because of 
     expansion of the program as participation increases.
       This study shall include, but not be limited to, an 
     investigation of providers' actual cost of delivery of 
     multiperil crop insurance for which providers receive 
     reimbursement from the Corporation, cost differences for 
     different provider firm sizes, and changes in cost resulting 
     from expansion of the program. The study shall also compare 
     delivery costs of multiperil crop insurance to other 
     insurance coverage that the provider may sell and identify 
     any corss-subsidization from federally reimbursed delivery to 
     delivery costs of other insurance coverage.
       The study shall assess, to the extent practicable, 
     alternative methods of reimbursing delivery costs to 
     providers. In addition, the study shall identify unnecessary 
     expenditure, if any, required by the Corporation for 
     compliance and program integrity.
       In addition, the study shall include, but not be limited 
     to, the provisions of the standard reinsurance agreement 
     between the Corporation and approved providers including the 
     risk transferred to Corporation under the terms of the 
     agreement, the return on providers' capital, a determination 
     of the return on capital relative to differences in provider 
     firm size, and a determination of the return on providers' 
     capital in multiperil crop insurance relative to other 
     insurance coverage.
       The study shall assess, to the extent practicable, the 
     potential for provider firm concentration in the multiperil 
     crop insurance industry and any economic distortions that 
     might occur from such concentration.
       In conducting this study, the General Accounting Office 
     shall maintain the privacy of provider proprietary 
     information.
       The General Accounting Office shall have full powers to 
     subpoena any required information from any provider firm.

     SEC. 15. EFFECTIVE DATE.

  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de 
la Garza] will be recognized for 15 minutes, and a Member in opposition 
will be recognized for 15 minutes. Is the gentleman from Minnesota in 
opposition to the de la Garza substitute?
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I am in opposition to the de la Garza 
substitute.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair will treat the time as fungible. The 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza], will be recognized for 30 
minutes, and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] will be 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 minutes of the time 
allocated to me to the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Combest], and ask unanimous consent that the gentleman be allowed to 
control that time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Texas?
  There was no objection.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, if there were an amendment to the 
substitute, would that have to be presented at this point, or could 
that be presented later in the debate?
  The CHAIRMAN. It can be presented at any time that the substitute is 
pending.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, first I want to stipulate there are many positive 
features in this legislation. It would require as a prerequisite for 
participation in farm programs that all farmers buy crop insurance 
coverage. It would eliminate the need for annual disaster bills and in 
fact places any future disaster legislation on budget, which is to say 
there would be points of order against the consideration of these 
emergency spending measures.
  The goal obviously is to increase participation in the crop insurance 
program and make it a successful program. It is estimated that the 
provisions of this bill might in fact double the rates of participation 
in our crop insurance program. These are salutary objectives and 
deserve the support of this body.
  It certainly moves us in the right direction. The basic thrust of 
this bill is abolsutely on target and long overdue.
  Mr. Chairman, it is unpleasant to be in a position of disagreement 
with so many of my committee colleagues. It is seldom that I appear on 
the floor to oppose the legislation of our committee, because I think 
generally we have been a responsible committee, contributing, as the 
chairman has indicated, over $60 billion toward deficit reduction in 
this past decade.
  I like my colleagues on this committee and it is not easy to strain 
that relationship by opposing the chairman and other leaders on this 
particular issue.
  What I do not like is our Congressional budget procedures under which 
we operate in a nonsensical fashion. These procedures allow us to 
technically approve legislation requiring appropriations of funds when 
in fact we know full well that those funds will not be available. The 
dollars that we are calling to be spent on subsidies for this program 
are not available in the appropriations process. Those dollars are 
gone, and yet our budget rules allow us to pretend that somehow they 
are there.
  The fundamental issue at stake on the amendments under debate at this 
moment is accountability. The issue is accountability. We can pay now 
by cuts within the crop insurance program, or we will certainly pay 
later as the Committee on Appropriations pits crop insurance against 
other priority items.
  Again, the goals are all in agreement. We need crop insurance reform, 
we need to eliminate these emergency disaster bills. The Clinton 
administration has allowed within the budget $1 billion for us to 
implement crop reform. That is a generous amount. Nonetheless, as 
reported, the Committee on Agriculture bill presents a $600 million 
problem. These uncovered costs would be passed along to the Committee 
on Appropriations and, quite frankly, again, in an era of ever tighter 
budgets, the Committee on Appropriations will be hard pressed to find 
the money for this program without cutting other vital programs.
  The Penny-Gunderson amendment simply calls for a slight reduction in 
the subsidy to insurance agents and a slight reduction in the disaster 
payments made to farmers. It is as simply as that. Capitol Hill allows 
us to proceed with a nonsensical debate in which we can say that it is 
not our committee that is responsible for these cuts, it is some other 
committee's problem, and that it is not this year we ought to make 
these cuts, but we should make them 2 and 3 years down the road.
  The central issue here today is accountability. We can either pay now 
up front, or we will certainly pay later.

                              {time}  1220

  The responsible thing for us to do is to pay now. We can do that by 
supporting the Penny-Gunderson amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I rise in opposition to the amendment and, again, reiterate the fact, 
we are not intending to shift the burden on any other committee. We 
have never done this. We do not intend to begin now. This is just a 
matter that we have a different way to get to the point that all of us 
want to get to.
  But the fact of life is that we need a viable, workable crop 
insurance program, because now, out there, the reality is that when a 
farmer goes to the bank, they ask him two questions: ``Are you in a 
Federal program or do you have crop insurance?'' If not, they will not 
speak to him. That is the need for the reform of the crop insurance, to 
make it viable and workable.
  And the misrepresentation that somehow we are trying to evade our 
responsibility, we are not. We never have. That is not in the history 
of this committee in the past 12 years. We never have shifted the 
responsibility.
  Now, if my distinguished colleague and friend from Minnesota has a 
problem with the budget process, we cannot do that for him. Goodness 
knows, he has had enough opportunities on the floor, combined with 
other Members. We cannot reform the budget process. We go by the rules 
as they are. We satisfy the rules as they are. That is what we have 
done and intend to do.
  Again, I really hate going back to my original frustration that we 
are pictured as ogres trying to evade the budget, trying to impose the 
burden on another committee, trying to cut the WIC, trying to let 
hungry children go hungry. Just look around, just look at the record of 
this committee. We have never done that, and we are not going to start 
now.
  I hope the Members vote against the Penny amendment, against his 
amendment, whichever face it takes, and support the committee version.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. 
Volkmer].
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me. I wish to commend the gentleman and the gentleman from South Dakota 
[Mr. Johnson], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest], and the rest of 
the Committee on Agriculture for this legislation.
  I, for one, recognize that in this bill we are doing away with 
disaster relief for my producers and all over the United States. And we 
are doing it with the assumption that in this bill our producers will 
not only participate in the catastrophic coverage but the buy-up 
coverage.
  With that understanding, I look at the amendments that we have from 
the gentleman from Minnesota and the gentleman from Texas. Under the 
amendment of the gentleman from Minnesota, which I strongly oppose, my 
participation rate of my farmers is not going to go up; it is probably 
going to go down, which means that they will not have any disaster 
relief. They will not have any crop insurance. And when they do have a 
drought or a flood or the rains come and do not end and they cannot 
plant, they get nothing. And what it means is, we do not have a program 
at all for our farmers under the Penny amendment.
  Therefore, I request the Members of the House to do like the USDA, 
the Department of Agriculture, which opposes the Penny amendment, 
strongly supports the amendment of the gentleman from Texas, my 
chairman, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza].
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Gunderson].
  (Mr. GUNDERSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. GUNDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment, obviously, and in opposition to the chairman's amendment.
  The reason I do that is because, folks, we are at a point where we 
have to decide. The reality is that both of these amendments pay for 
crop insurance in the first 3 years. The reality also is that in years 
4 and 5, there is about a $250 million gap.
  The chairman is right, under pay-go we meet the first 3-year 
requirement. But the question we face is exactly the question the 
chairman brought up. Are we going to take money out of WIC? Are we 
going to take money out of CRP? Are we going to take money out of 
conservation? Are we going to take money out of commodities support 
programs?
  I do not want to send a signal to America and to America's farmers 
that disaster assistance is gone, crop insurance is here, without 
making that tough decision.
  Now, if we are going to have crop insurance and if the money is not 
available from someplace else, and Lord knows, it is not, then we ought 
to face the music today. We ought to say, if 28-percent reimbursement 
means that we are not going to have any agent sell insurance, then let 
us face that music today. Let us not put this off for 3 years and say, 
``now we have got a problem because the agents will not continue to 
carry and issue the policies.''
  If there is a problem in terms of the filing fees, than let us deal 
with that issue today. If there is a problem, as the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] said, in what is going to be the catastrophic 
coverage, then let us deal with this up front, because there will not 
be any money tree that grows out of nowhere between now and 3 years 
from now that is going to make that decision any easier to make.
  We ought to face the music. We ought to face the facts and say, if 
crop insurance is going to work, it will have to work on its own, 
because the hard, cold reality is, there isn't any other money that is 
going to come along and bail this program out.
  I do not enjoy saying that, Lord knows. But if it is reality, then 
let us deal with it openly and honestly today.
  I ask my colleagues, support the Penny-Gunderson amendment. It is the 
only way we are going to say to this program, from day one and through 
the 5 years it is going to be in existence, that it is a program that 
is going to be paid for. Either it is going to work or we will have to 
deal with reality that it does not work and come up with a different 
solution.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts], a member of the committee.
  (Mr. ROBERTS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  The gentleman from Minnesota says pay now and pay later, either pay 
now or pay later. It is time to assess some responsibility.
  We have already paid. We have already paid. This administration, 
after 16 years of trying to reform crop insurance, provided $1.1 
billion to do the job. Now, some of that money has been taken and is 
now spent on other programs. The chairman of the full committee has 
indicated exactly what other programs. We are not into a fight with 
that.
  If we are going to fund that, fund that. But we already took the crop 
insurance money, and it went for somebody else. That is the 
responsibility.
  Now, how do we pay for the difference? Do we take it out of the crop 
insurance program? Do we take it out of farmers and ranchers? Or do we 
go back to the 16-year record of the appropriations subcommittee and at 
least pay for the delivery of the service? That is what has been done. 
Now we are in a new world order.
  Now we have on the subcommittee on appropriations a different scheme. 
We are going to take it out of farm programs on down the road.
  What happens if we take it out of crop insurance? What happens?

                              {time}  1230

  Mr. Chairman, I will tell the Members what will happen. I am quoting 
from Secretary Espy. The Penny-Gunderson amendment would make farmers 
pay for less insurance. The amendment proposes to increase the fee a 
farmer would pay for the basic catastrophic coverage, while at the same 
time decreasing the extent to which the policy would protect a farmer 
in times of disaster.
  I will not go into the rest of it. However, the bottom line, in 
short, Secretary Espy says, ``When the effect of these provisions is 
combined, it could undermine the ability of the crop insurance reform 
program to serve as an adequate substitute for disaster assistance.'' 
Secretary Espy says this will not work. It will cost us more money down 
the road.
  What happens, Mr. Chairman? The farmer pays more for less insurance, 
and he will not sign up. We hear a lot of talk in this well and in this 
Congress about something called unfunded mandates. The secret to this 
is, every farmer that wants to participate in the farm program, and 
every Southern producer of nonprogram crops, once they sign on to this, 
this is a mandate and we are not funding it. It is an unfunded mandate.
  I have an amendment already prepared that, if we are not going to 
fund this, I may introduce the amendment and say, ``Let us not mandate 
it on our farmers.'' In some respects, this is an unfunded mandate.
  Let us talk about something called blackmail, or milkmail, or 
wheatmail, or cottonmail. The reason the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Gunderson] wants the Penny-Gunderson amendment is that he does not want 
the Committee on Appropriations to take the money out of the dairy 
program next time when we consider the farm bill. The reason others and 
many farm commodity groups are hiding in the bushes on this is that 
they live in mortal fear of what the Committee on Appropriations is 
going to do down the road.
  The farmer walks by and he says, ``Come by the Committee on 
Appropriations park. We will give you crop insurance reform.'' and we 
mug him, and we say, ``You have to pay more for less.'' He says, ``I do 
not think that is a pretty good deal.'' We say, ``You had better sign 
up, or you will not get the farm program. When you walk through the 
park again, we are going to mug you again, because if you do not pay 
for it on crop insurance, you are going to pay for it down the road in 
regard to farm programs.''
  Mr. Chairman, this is not going to work. This is not going to work. I 
would ask the Members to please support the amendment of the chairman 
of the Committee on Agriculture. We can fix crop insurance. We can get 
out of the disaster business. We can treat the farmer and rancher 
fairly, and yes--yes, on down the road we can work with our good 
friends and our colleagues on the Committee on Appropriations on a new 
definition of ``fair share.''
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I would inquire as to how much time we have 
remaining.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Penny, has 23 minutes 
remaining, and each of the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Combest and Mr. de 
la Garza, has 11 minutes remaining.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes, in order to 
clarify.
  Mr. Chairman, I have the highest regard for the gentleman from Kansas 
[Mr. Roberts] and the arguments he has made about the viability of this 
program are well-taken. We do not want a crop insurance program that 
will discourage enrollment. We need the highest level of participation 
in order to make crop insurance a substitute for annual emergency 
disaster bills.
  It is estimated, Mr. Chairman, that the provisions of this 
legislation would double the participation rates in our crop insurance 
program. It has been suggested, however, by the gentleman from Kansas 
[Mr. Roberts] and others that if we adopt the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment, we will devastate the program and discourage enrollment in 
the program.
  Mr. Chairman, I find that remarkable. We have to look at some basic 
facts here. Right now insurance agents are reimbursed at 31 percent of 
the price of the premium. That is a very generous reimbursement rate. 
We only marginally reduce that with the Penny-Gunderson amendment. They 
would still be reimbursed at 30 percent of new policies and 28 percent 
of premium on renewal policies.
  Mr. Chairman, when we compare that to property and casualty, most 
insurance agents across America receive a 10 percent or 12 percent 
commission on premium, so this is a tremendously generous insurance 
subsidy. It will not discourage insurance agents from selling these 
policies if we adopt the Penny-Gunderson amendment.
  Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, we only marginally reduce the benefits to 
farmers by slightly reducing the percentage of price that would be paid 
on disastrous losses, and by charging each farmer a nonrefundable $50 
for that disaster coverage.
  Mr. Chairman, my farmers in southern Minnesota do not want something 
for nothing. A $50 fee is not a burdensome fee for them to pay for very 
generous disaster coverage. I just wanted to take this time to refute 
the arguments of the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Roberts], because I 
believe the program will be a success with the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
South Dakota [Mr. Johnson], the distinguished chairman of the 
Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities of the Committee on 
Agriculture.
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to respond 
briefly to the remarks of the gentleman from Minnesota about how 
reimbursement to insurance agents is somehow extravagant. I would have 
to say that, with all due regard and respect for the gentleman from 
Minnesota, I do not believe that he is particularly expert in the 
insurance industry.
  However, Mr. Chairman, I would say that the leadership of the Federal 
Crop Insurance Corporation, which is expert, the leadership of the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, the Office of Management and Budget, and the 
White House have all said in writing that if the Penny amendment is 
adopted, it will in fact unravel the crop insurance scheme, and this 
thing will simply not work.
  Those who are professional, who are expert in that area, have 
opinions which differ very sharply from those of the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Penny].
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. I yield to the gentleman form Minnesota.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman acknowledge in the 
substitute amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la 
Garza]. the chairman of the full committee, that the reduced payments 
to insurance agents is part of that amendment and would go into effect 
in the out years?
  Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. It goes in the out years after the level 
of crop insurance purchased has vastly expanded.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Kansas [Mr. Roberts].
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, on this subject, let us get to the real 
world. One of the reasons we finally got this out of committee was that 
the crop insurance agents were writing farmers and saying. ``We are not 
going to renew your insurance.'' What we have here is a proposal to 
reduce the Government subsidy, if you will, or payment on the 
reimbursement part to pay for the delivery of the service.
  Mr. Chairman, I will tell the Members what the insurance folks are 
now telling us. They are saying that if the Federal Crop Insurance 
Corporation cannot reduce the paperwork, they are getting out of the 
business. That is the real world. We just heard the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston]. He was in the business. People do not sell crop 
insurance to make a profit. People sell crop insurance because it is 
obligatory. It is the thing to do to sell other insurance.
  What is going to happen when the amendment offered by the gentleman 
from Minnesota [Mr. Penny], which sounds very good in this budget world 
here, is that the crop insurers are not going to sell the product 
unless we get regulatory reform. Mr. Ken Ackerman has cardiac arrest, 
and he is in charge of FCIC, every time he tries to do that. That is an 
impossible goal. It will unravel crop insurance reform.


 Amendment Offered by Mr. Durbin to the Amendment Offered by Mr. de la 
   Garza as a Substitute for the Amendment Offered by Mr. Penny, As 
                                Modified

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment 
offered by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garaza] as a substitute 
for the amendment, as modified.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Durbin to the amendment offered by 
     Mr. de la Garza as a substitute for the amendment, offered by 
     Mr. Penny, as modified: amend the de la Garza substitute 
     amendment by striking section 15.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Chairman, if we understand insurance to mean people 
at risk paying sufficient premiums for insurance to cover their losses, 
Federal crop insurance is not even close. Our crop insurance program is 
not an insurance program. In fact, it is a program that is heavily 
subsidized by the taxpayers of this country.
  Having said that, Mr. Chairman, it is still a very important and 
valuable program which should be maintained and modernized. I salute 
the Committee on Agriculture. They have taken on this challenge and 
have made meaningful changes in the crop insurance program to reduce 
the disaster payments paid each year, to bring each farmer into the 
program buying insurance, and thereby reduce, in the long haul, the 
obligations of America's taxpayers. In that regard, they have done a 
good job.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, they are two-steps away from having done 
a great job. That is a 5-year change. For the first 3 years, the 
proposal by the Committee on Agriculture in fact will pay for the 
reform. It is a pay-as-you-go plan. They say to farmers, ``As you make 
this change, you pay for it in 3 years.'' I salute them for that. I 
think that is admirable.
  Where I take exception, Mr. Chairman, and why I join the gentleman 
from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] in his effort, is because at the end of 3 
years they drop the ball. At the end of 3 years they end up 
constructing a program, a reform program, which will cost taxpayers 
almost $300 million, $300 million over the massive subsidies which we 
will continue to put in this crop insurance program.
  What happens to the $300 million? It is my responsibility as chairman 
of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration, and related agencies of the Committee on Appropriations 
to come up with that money.

                              {time}  1240

  That is why I am here today. I think we should truly have a pay-as-
you-go crop insurance reform, and so does the gentleman from Minnesota 
[Mr. Penny]. He has made proposals to achieve that. If he fails in his 
effort, then in those 2 years I will have to cut another $300 million 
in spending on programs funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 
programs like conservation, soil and water conservation, programs like 
wetlands reserve, programs like agricultural research and yes, programs 
like the supplemental feeding program for women, infants and children, 
a program which today serves 40 percent of the mothers and infants in 
America to make sure that they get prenatal counseling and good 
nutritious food so kids grow up healthy. I will have to cut money from 
those programs, 300 million dollars' worth to make up for the shortfall 
in the proposal by the House Agriculture Committee.
  I do not think that is fair. In fact, let me tell Members how 
frustrating it is. Many Members today are standing up and saying forget 
the $300 million. We will worry about it later. If you have to make 
cuts, we'll do it on another day. Come on. It is down the line. That is 
a future Congress. Many of these same Members just weeks ago refused to 
vote for my appropriations bill on agriculture saying ``It cuts too 
much from agriculture programs.'' Yet today we create a situation where 
in the future years I will have to cut more, and they will come up with 
the same lame excuses why they cannot go along with the cuts. That is 
what this is all about.
  I am in favor of crop insurance. I am in favor of crop insurance 
reform. But it is only fair for the farmers and producers who are part 
of this program to shoulder the burden and carry it forward in reform. 
Do not push this burden off to future appropriation bills. Do not push 
it off on the WIC Program. Do not push it off on agriculture research. 
Make this program stand on its own two feet. A GAO study is not going 
to do it. The Penny amendment will do it.
  I have listened to this debate this afternoon. I am amazed at the 
Members who have stood up and said they oppose the Penny amendment. 
They ought to look, as they can in virtually every agriculture 
district, and see what we as taxpayers lose on every policy of crop 
insurance that is written. A farmer pays a certain premium, the Federal 
Government steps in and pays 30 percent of every dollar he owes to 
start with, and then covers his loses. Like I said, it is not real 
insurance, so that when the losses come due, the premiums are never 
enough to pay. So we continue to lose, year after year after year, 
hundreds of millions of dollars on this program.

  What the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture is doing today is a 
step in the right direction. It is a good change, but two steps away 
from being a great change.
  I urge all of my colleagues from agriculture districts and across the 
United States to support the Penny amendment. It is the responsible way 
to deal with crop insurance reform.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words and I rise to speak against the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the concern of my distinguished colleague 
from the Appropriations Committee. I share his concern. We are aiming 
in the same direction. But we have to deal with facts, and those who 
know the facts say that if the Penny amendment is agreed to it will 
have the possibility of dismantling the program. Secretary Espy says 
that.
  This amendment would frustrate the fundamental goals of crop 
insurance reform, and will make it more likely that Congress will once 
again be asked to provide ad hoc disaster assistance. This is what we 
are trying to protect the appropriations subcommittee from, that we do 
not have those ad hoc disaster payments that now will come on budget. 
We do not want him to be making those decisions. We are arguing over 
something we should not be arguing about.
  I am honestly telling Members we do not have all of the facts. We are 
hoping that in 3 years the GAO will have sufficient information to 
allow us to proceed in an orderly manner and see where and how the 
program has worked.
  OMB has agreed with us. They say that Congress will again be asked to 
provide ad hoc disaster assistance if we adopt the Penny amendment and 
dismantle what we are trying to correct in the crop insurance.
  So it is not pay now or pay later. We know, we admit that is what we 
are aiming for. But we need more facts.
  Mr. GLICKMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. de la GARZA. I yield to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman 
from Kansas.
  Mr. GLICKMAN. I thank my colleague for yielding.
  First of all, I think the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] 
deserves a lot of credit for bringing the issue up in terms of how to 
pay for crop insurance. I think that the de la Garza amendment is an 
appropriate response, but it would not have happened without the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] bringing this issue up in the 
first place.
  Why are we doing this? We are doing this reconstruction of crop 
insurance so that we can eliminate these ad hoc annual disaster 
payments that people do not like and cost too much money. So we have to 
have a crop insurance program that works and people will want to 
participate in, because if we do not, everybody will be out of it, and 
they will all come back up here wanting disaster assistance every 
single year, which costs a lot of money.
  So my concern is that the Penny amendment and all of its kind of 
nuances will so discourage participation in the crop insurance program 
that what will happen is we will end up with nothing in it, we will 
then push people back into the disaster program, annual yearly disaster 
program.
  The de la Garza amendment provides for the first 3 years of reduction 
in crop insurance spending, and the last 2 years comes out of the 
appropriated account. So spending is reduced all 5 years. It is just 
done in a different way.
  The second thing is this: The issues we are talking about here 
directly relates to what we are going to do in next year's farm bill, 
the reauthorization of all farm programs. A well constructed crop 
insurance program will reduce farm bill spending. So next year when we 
come back here we will look at deficiency payments, and target prices, 
and other spending and we will have to have a crop insurance program 
that works well in order to get that spending down. A poorly 
constructed crop insurance program will have us coming back next year 
as part of the farm bill with increased spending in order to deal with 
the disaster payments or other problems of farmers.
  Which is the best approach? My judgment is the best approach to give 
farmers some stability that the crop insurance program will work, in my 
judgment the de la Garza amendment is better than the Penny amendment 
and will make sure that people come into the program. Then next year 
when we rewrite the 1990 farm bill we will look at some of the other 
issues that relate to crop insurance, risk management, and the 
deficiency payment problems.
  So while I compliment the gentleman from Minnesota [Tim Penny] for 
what he has done here, as usual he has brought intellectually the 
debate to a high level where we talk seriously about a reduced Federal 
spending generally and in agriculture, I honestly believe the best 
interests of farmers and ranchers in this country, and best interests 
of agriculture are best served by the adoption of the de la Garza 
amendment.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, are we operating under the 5-minute rule 
on the Durbin amendment?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my 
amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Illinois?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] has 21 minutes 
remaining, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] has 10 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] has 10 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Smith].
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding the time.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out one disadvantage that I see 
in the Penny amendment. I object philosophically to a program that 
mandates that every farmer that participates in farm programs in this 
country be required to buy into catastrophic insurance.
  The Penny amendment will increase the cost to these farmers and 
decrease insurance benefits in the event of a disaster. Having mandated 
insurance programs that require more paper work, increased regulations, 
and result in increased numbers of bureaucrats that are going to walk 
on your farm for more inspections is bad enough. I am philosophically 
opposed to it. Farmers should have the option of whether or not to buy 
this insurance in the first place. I see the Penny amendment having the 
advantage of reducing cost to the taxpayer and the disadvantage of 
increasing the cost to farmers for crop insurance that this bill 
requires they sign up for.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Miller].
  (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)

                              {time}  1250

  Mr. MILLER of California. I rise in support of the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment. I do so out of the concerns of recognizing that this account 
can only handle so many draws on it, and if we have a crop insurance 
program that continues to be underfunded, that obviously is going to 
come out of the hide of other programs, and one of those programs that 
I am deeply concerned about and have spent my entire time in Congress 
working on is the Women, Infants, and Children nutritional program that 
has tremendous bipartisan support because we recognize how much this 
contributes to the health of low-income pregnant women and to newborn 
infants, newborn babies, and during their first year of life.
  It is well documented that without this program we would be spending 
far more money in excess of what we are spending on the program to take 
care of low-birthweight babies that are born that cost us somewhere 
between $60,000 to $100,000, spend many more days in the hospital than 
a normal birthweight baby. This program, the Women, Infants, and 
Children Program, has a direct impact on the health of those 
pregnancies and those mothers including all of the other attendant 
benefits we get out of health screening and counseling and discussions 
with these women about cessation of smoking, about alcohol use, drug 
use, all of those benefits, and that is why over and over again every 
independent audit has strongly supported the program on the basis we 
benefit far in excess of what we spend on that program.
  It is very clear, unfortunately, because of our inability to raise 
sufficient revenues to fund this Government, that all of these accounts 
are in trouble. We have the same problem in the natural resources area. 
We are going back to the users of those programs. We are imposing fees 
on those individuals, where once we could afford to fund them as a 
Federal Government, but we cannot.
  But when you have this kind of a program where it has the wherewithal 
to fund it, and you pit it against something like WIC where there is 
not the ability of those households to fund it, we have got to be 
concerned about what a continued deficit in the crop insurance program 
is going to mean to those other programs that come out of the 
agricultural appropriations.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to our distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson].
  Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend yourself 
and the subcommittee for bringing this bill up and commend the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] for raising this issue.
  I think we need to step back and look at this a little bit and just 
look at what we are talking about.
  You know, really what we are talking about is who you believe when we 
are looking at where we are going to be 2 years from now in terms of 
the money that is going to be needed for this program.
  I guess I would err on the side of making sure this program is going 
to work, and I am persuaded, as the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. 
Johnson] pointed out, all of the people that are experts in this say 
they think this Penny amendment is going to potentially damage this 
program and make it not work as well.
  Really what we are talking about is do we know how much money this is 
going to cost us in the fourth and fifth year of this program. I would 
argue we do not. We are looking at projections from actuaries, from 
budget analysts. I do not think any of them can predict what we are 
going to be spending in the fourth and fifth year of this program, 
because we have got a farm bill coming up. We do not know what is going 
to happen with disasters and so forth.
  So I would encourage all of my colleagues to err on the side of 
making this program work.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state this parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, who would have the right to close debate? 
Would it be the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza]?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] would have 
the right to close debate.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Armey].
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the funding provisions 
offered my good friend, the gentleman from Minnesota.
  I believe in fiscal responsibility, and I believe in individual 
responsibility. Mr. Chairman, I see here an example of the heartburn 
you get into when you go into weaning time. It is always tough when it 
is time to wean, and I can tell you that when you are being weaned from 
the milk of sacred cows, you are bound to get heartburn in no uncertain 
terms. That is what we see today.
  The fact of the matter is when people are told you will no longer get 
as whole a subsidy or as complete a subsidy for what you enjoy from the 
Federal Government, they tend to believe they cannot get along without 
it, because they have been too dependent upon it for too long.
  But in order to put this dilemma in context, the arguments are 
difficult on both sides, let us return for a moment, if we will, to 
first principles. The American taxpayer is not obliged to pay the 
farmers for their crop failures. The American taxpayer is not obliged 
to pay for crop insurance for those farmers. It is a choice that we 
make, because we do not think that a hurricane or a tornado or a flood 
or a drought or a hailstorm should ruin a farmer. But it is the choice 
we make.
  We can make a choice to give farmers 10 cents on the dollar for their 
losses. For that matter, we can make a choice to give farmers 90 cents 
on the dollar for their losses. We can provide a straightforward 
handout, or we can encourage individual responsibility by asking the 
beneficiaries of a generous program to contribute to that program.
  Mr. Chairman, I am alarmed that we are presently considering a 
proposal to fund a very generous program for farmers without asking 
them to contribute their fair share. Mr. Chairman, I was shocked to see 
statistics about how heavily we have subsidized crop insurance 
policies. Did you know that over the past 8 years in one congressional 
district on a per acre basis, the Government subsidized 40 percent of 
the cost of the insurance premium? Did you know that over the past 8 
years in that same district on a per acre basis the taxpayers paid more 
than $16 in claims, that is $16 per acre, at the taxpayers' expense? 
did you know that the estimated cost per acre that the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment would impose on a farmer in that district is 50 cents? Penny-
Gunderson costs him only half of $1 per acre.
  Mr. Chairman, I see absolutely no reason why we should not make a 
choice to ask farmers to shoulder some of the costs of this program. I 
see absolutely no reason why they should be given something for next to 
nothing.
  The de la Garza substitute is something for next to nothing.
  I oppose the de la Garza substitute, and I support the Penny-
Gunderson amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ARMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I thank my distinguished colleague for 
yielding. I appreciate it.
  I just wanted to mention that somehow the impression is that this 
committee has not done its fair share, and we have reduced expenditures 
by $60 billion in the past 12 years. We are still the best-fed people 
in the world for the least amount of disposable income per family, so 
if there is a subsidy, it is the American consumer that is being 
subsidized on the back of the American farmer. That is where the 
subsidy is.
  Mr. ARMEY. If I might just quickly say I appreciate how hard the 
Committee on Agriculture has worked to live up to the constraints 
imposed by the budget process, but my reference to fair share was in 
paying your fair share of an insurance premium.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Boehner].
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman and my colleagues, I come to the floor 
today as someone who is as concerned about the Federal deficit as any 
Member in this Chamber, and have a record of cutting spending as good 
as any Member of this Chamber.
  But there are some things that we do around her that are penny wise 
and pound foolish.
  When we look at the crop insurance program that has been brought to 
this floor by the committee, we are, as the gentleman from Texas just 
pointed out, beginning to wean ourselves and our farmers from spending 
money, and that is the area of disaster payments. The reason for this 
crop insurance reform bill down here is very simple: to eliminate 
disaster payments for farmers.
  But if we pass the Penny amendment, here is what is going to happen: 
We are going to discourage farmers from signing up for crop insurance. 
That is the problem we have today. We are going to eliminate the 
effectiveness that has been put into this bill by the committee.
  So if farmers do not sign up, guess what is going to happen. They are 
going to want disaster payments as soon as we have the next flood, the 
next hurricane, the next freeze; they are going to be pounding on every 
Member in this Chamber for more disaster money. That is what we are 
trying to avoid.
  So if you want to vote for the Penny amendment, just understand that 
you are gutting the effectiveness of this bill. You are making sure 
that crop insurance is not going to be fixed. You are making sure we 
are going to have a system that we are going to have to come back and 
fix sooner or later, and you are guaranteeing you are going to have to 
come here to the floor once again and provide disaster money for people 
in America when disasters occur.

                              {time}  1300

  So I want to say to all of my friends this is penny wise and pound 
foolish. Let us defeat the Penny amendment and support the chairman and 
the ranking member with the committee amendment which will soon follow.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, I simply want to take this time to admit my 
astonishment at the number of legislators who have suggested that these 
modest changes in the crop insurance program would somehow devastate 
the workability of the program.
  Most of the people who have opposed the Penny-Gunderson amendment are 
fierce advocates not only of deficit reduction--and I have worked with 
many of them and admire their work in that regard--but of the private 
sector, the free enterprise system. I am simply suggesting that when we 
have a heavily subsidized insurance program, maybe the Government can 
trim the subsidy just a little bit. When you compare the insurance 
subsidy paid to these crop insurance agents, compared to the commission 
they would receive on any other type of insurance that they might 
offer, it is generous. It is a third larger, 100 percent larger in some 
cases, 300 percent larger in other cases. And to say that somehow 
paying a smaller subsidy to these insurance agents is going to drive 
them out of the program is, I think, nonsense on the face of it.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I would yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, I have joined with the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Penny] on many of these budget reduction efforts. But to hear him talk 
about what the committee has done, one would think that we were beyond 
the realm of reason. We have met the rules of pay-go, Mr. Chairman. The 
committee letter from the Secretary of Agriculture said the Federal 
crop insurance reform the House will consider replaces ad hoc disaster 
assistance that has been costing us billions of dollars a year. The 
reform proposed by the Agriculture Committee is budget-responsible, it 
pays for itself, satisfies pay-go, produces savings for taxpayers. 
Simply put, the Federal crop insurance program reform makes good farm 
sense and makes good budget sense.
  Additionally, the gentleman from Minnesota talks about the minor 
changes, the minor differences. Well, we have stretched this proposal 
as far as we can stretch it and still feel like it can work. The 
Department of Agriculture agrees with that. It says the Penny-Gunderson 
amendment believes that the magnitude of the cuts would compromise the 
effectiveness and the operation of the reform crop insurance program 
and consequently opposes it.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to our distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm].
  (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Chairman, I voted for the budget this year that 
called for cuts that we are talking about today, and I also supported 
the Agriculture Appropriations Committee when they had to do the tough 
work that they had to do to conform to the budget. And it was not easy. 
I supported the Penny amendment in the full committee because I agree 
that we have to squeeze every dollar where we can squeeze every dollar, 
internally or externally, from agriculture or from everywhere else.
  Since that vote, though, there has been a question mark raised in my 
own mind as to whether or not these additional cuts will in fact 
jeopardize the program which we all agree needs to be done today.
  This is a legitimate question. I do not come saying it is going to 
devastate, but I am here to say to my colleagues that it might. And if 
it might, then might we not have another second thought about what we 
should do today?
  Now, I find it very interesting, my colleague from Texas a moment ago 
making his usual speech about weaning agriculture. I found that very, 
very interesting for two reasons, one of which is: If you analyze what 
has happened to agriculture in entitlement spending, which is what we 
sometimes do not want to talk about right around here, but from 1985 to 
1991, of the 12 top entitlement programs agriculture ranks 12th and it 
was the only entitlement program that has been cut, weaned, if you 
please. And we have done it, as Chairman de la Garza has said, over and 
over.
  We have done it in the Agriculture Committee meeting the budget 
requirements that this body put on upon us every single time. In fact, 
from 1991 to 1997, we will reduce by another 1.4 percent the 
entitlement nature of the agriculture programs.
  Now I find it interesting because when we are talking in terms today 
of $300 million difference, we come out of the woodwork to make 
speeches about cutting. But about a week ago we had an amendment on the 
floor that would have provided capping entitlement spending, all 
entitlements, including agriculture, which has been cut, and we 
provided that it would be capped at the full cost-of-living adjustment 
for every single program, plus 1 percent, plus demographics. And only 
37 Members of this body voted for that $83.4 billion cut over the next 
5 years.
  Now it is time for a little bit of honesty, folks. Come and make the 
speeches, do all of the wonderful things that get the headline, but 
when it comes time to vote the real cuts, then stand up and be counted 
too.
  My colleague from Texas was not there a week ago.
  Read the vote.
  Now I want to meet the appropriators halfway because I fully 
appreciate what the gentleman from Illinois, Chairman Durbin, and his 
committee are having to do. The chairman's amendment comes closer to 
meeting us halfway and putting us in the proper perspective of what we 
should do, to give crop insurance a chance to work.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in favor of the bill and against the 
Penny amendment. There is somewhat of a little antifarmer, 
antiagriculture hint here in this body; certainly not by the authors of 
this particular amendment, but often there is. And what we have is a 
situation that the farm crop insurance is the only subsidized program.
  Well, there is a wind storm insurance pool, there is a national flood 
pool, there is a crime program for high-risk crime areas, assigned-risk 
automobile programs. All of these are taxpayer-subsidized for areas 
that the private insurance sector will not go into. I think that is 
something maybe we should address at some point. But when we are 
talking about weaning, let us not say the farmers are the only one that 
are getting some sort of a subsidized program.
  Now, to diminish this subsidy, the bill at hand gives us this 
opportunity to say we are going to cut the fee to the delivery system 
in the private sector is just going to say we are going to put the 
subsidy on their back and tax them.
  But to say that we are going to charge the independent agents who are 
selling this is ridiculous. Crop insurance is already a loss loser, 
most agents do not sell it now. The only reason why you do it is try to 
pick up the other lines: Automobile, house so forth, and other farmers.
  Finally, one of the things the Penny amendment requires us to do is a 
$50 charge for filing the claim.
  When I was selling fire insurance, I could not dream of going to a 
homeowner's house that had just burned down and say, ``Well, we are 
going to pay you what this insurance is intended to do, but you have to 
pay $50 for us to file the claim.'' That is an insult and that is not 
the way the insurance works in any sector.
  So, Mr. Chairman, I recommend strongly to my colleagues, vote against 
the amendment and vote for the bill.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to our distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, you know, often the debate gets so hung up 
in ideological positions that we kind of lose sight of what is at hand. 
We just heard from the right about wasteful subsidies, we have heard 
from the left about women, infants and children's funding. None of it 
involves really what is at hand, which is: Is this crop insurance 
program going to work under the Penny amendment? We have not had any 
hearings on it. So I suppose the best way to figure that one out is 
look at the agency that runs that program. They say, ``no,'' they say 
the Penny amendment will not. That is why we ought to vote it down this 
afternoon. We ought to vote in favor, instead, of the chairman's 
amendment.
  A public/private partnership has to work and the private component of 
crop insurance involves the delivery of policies, adjustment of losses 
and a portion of the reinsurance. If they do not participate, we have 
just unleashed a disaster. That is why I ask for support of the 
chairman's amendment. It is a workable approach. I ask rejection of the 
Penny amendment.

                              {time}  1310

  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Durbin].
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Chairman, as my colleagues know, we have heard a lot 
of talk here from people who profess to have worked in the insurance 
business, and I have not. I have just bought a few policies over the 
years.
  It is important to understand what the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Penny] is suggesting in his amendment. What he is suggesting is:

       If you happen to be a farmer with 3,000 acres of land, the 
     Federal Government will say to you, ``If you lose more than 
     half of your crop on that farm, we, as taxpayers, will insure 
     it, up to 56 percent of it, for $100 a year. Three thousand 
     acres, losses over 50 percent, covered up to 56 percent, for 
     $100 a year.''

  Mr. Chairman, I do not think that is bashing farmers. I think that is 
very realistic, and very honest and very reasonable.
  And the second thing the Penny amendment does, Mr. Chairman, is it 
says to the private insurance industry, which we allow to sell these 
policies and make a profit:

       We're going to reduce your level of profit on each one of 
     these policies by 1 or 2 percent in an effort to move toward 
     reducing our budget deficit.

  A private insurance industry, making money through selling policies 
subsidized by the taxpayers, is being asked to tighten its belt by 1 or 
2 percent. That does not sound unreasonable either.
  But if my colleagues listened to the debate, they would think the end 
of the world would be caused by the Penny amendment. It will not. But 
what may be the end of the world for a lot of important programs 3 
years down the line is when we have to pay the bill for this crop 
insurance reform that is not being taken care of in this bill. We will 
have to cut $300 million more from programs like ag research, soil and 
water conservation and the WIC program.
  Let us be reasonable here. Crop insurance is important. We should 
maintain it. But, it should face the same sort of regimen we are asking 
of every program in the Federal Government.
  I say to my colleagues,

       You have to be a little more reasonable. A hundred dollar 
     policy; does that sound unreasonable for thousands of acres 
     being covered? A couple percent off the amount of profit you 
     would make at the Federal Government's expense for selling 
     the policy; is that unreasonable?

  Stick with the Penny amendment. It is a sensible way to deal with a 
serious problem.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I had advised the Members and my 
colleagues that we would try to conclude this by 1:30, and I am still 
willing to do that. I have only like about 1 or 2 minutes left, which I 
will take to conclude debate.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] reserves the 
balance of his time.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I, too, reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, we have one remaining speaker, and I yield 
the balance of my time to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Nussle] who has 
been a leader on the efforts to pay for disasters.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, this is not a matter today of weaning 
ourselves from a sacred cow. I will tell my colleagues what it is. It 
is weaning ourselves from a disaster system, a disaster system that 
puts our farmers and our victims at the mercy of CNN.
  Mr. Chairman, if a victim is able to get on CNN, if the disaster is 
big enough to get on CNN, if they can rush the cameras out there, then 
Congress reacts. But heaven help us and heaven help the victims if CNN 
does not arrive on the scene and if Congress only has one or two 
districts, or one or two Members, that have a problem that they try and 
come here to deal with the Congress of the United States. We are at the 
mercy of politics, of politicians that love to hand out money to 
victims, who walk around flooded fields, walk around disaster areas 
with wrinkled brows and telling people how concerned we are and how 
much we want to act.
  Let me tell my colleagues what this is. This is not a handout. This 
is personal responsibility at its best.
  My farmers tell me; they say,

       We want to be accountable, we want to be responsible, we 
     want the opportunity to show you that we can deal with 
     disasters, if you give us a program that we can work with, 
     not one that's underfunded, not one that doesn't quite hit 
     the mark, but one that is responsible.

  There is no secret here today that the Congress of the United States 
and the Federal Government has determined that food security is a 
priority. Sure, we make subsidies. That is not a surprise. The 
difference here today, however, is that we want to be accountable, we 
want to plan ahead for disasters, we want to provide the assistance to 
victims, and we want to pay for it. This system will do it.
  However, Mr. Chairman, the Penny amendment allows us to fall very 
short of that mark, and I would say to my very good friend, the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny], that I do not remember a time I 
have ever disagreed with him on any issue. In fact, it was last year 
that Mr. Penny and I took the floor under a lot of heat together with 
the majority of Members from flooded districts and said, ``We have got 
to change the program.''
  What did we hear?

       Wait until next year.
       Wait until it's dry.
       Let's plan.
       Let's have a system.
       Let's pay for it.
       Let's talk about crop insurance.

  We do not want to do disasters either, so let us try to fix the 
system. It has been 1 year.
  Have we fixed the system? We set up a nice little task force. I serve 
on this task force to repair disasters, but we have not fixed the 
system. This allows us to fix the system so that we can be responsible, 
so that the farmers can participate, so that we can be accountable to 
the taxpayers and so that we have a system that can survive without the 
pressures and the cross-pressures of social welfare programs in this 
country. It is not our responsibility here today to shift 
responsibility.
  But let me point out to my colleagues that it was the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration, and Related Agencies that fought the hardest last year 
to make sure that the disaster took care of itself for the flood 
victims, and he promised us all then that we can deal with this when 
the weather is calmer, when the fields are drier, when we do not have 
the disaster facing us.
  We do not have a disaster facing us today, my colleagues. It is time 
to fix the system. The Penny amendment misses the mark. The de la Garza 
amendment gets us to the middle ground we need between the Committee on 
Appropriations and the authorizing committee.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge strenuously my colleagues who join me on many 
occasions for fiscal responsibility to join me today to be fiscally 
responsible in making sure we do not have year, after year, after year 
of disaster programs which are political, which do not plan ahead, 
which do not adequately provide assistance to victims and which do not 
pay for the assistance that it provides.
  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, the issue is simply over a full payment for all the 
costs attributable to this bill or a partial payment.
  The gentleman just preceding me made eloquent points about the need 
to reform crop insurance so that we no longer have to resort to annual 
emergency disaster legislation. We are in full agreement on that. This 
crop insurance reform is the answer to that annual problem, and the 
farmers across America, and, I believe, the insurance agents that sell 
these policies, are also willing to participate in honestly financing a 
solution to this annual disaster in which we have to deficit spend in 
order to take care of losses due to natural disasters.
  The main difference between the Penny-Gunderson amendment and the 
amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] is in 
how much to pay now. Penny-Gunderson pays for the entire cost now. The 
de la Garza amendment only goes half way, leaving us a $300 billion gap 
which will have to be made up later.

                              {time}  1320

  We can make the tough choices now, or we can put it off for another 
day. Let us not back away from our responsibilities once again. Let us 
step up to the plate. Let us do the right thing. Vote against the de la 
Garza amendment; vote for Penny-Gunderson.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to thank all of the participants for the level 
of debate and the tone that has been set. I am still frustrated with 
inaccuracies that were floated out, but I will accept that there is 
part of people's interest personally on one topic, one subject matter.
  I, as chairman of the committee, have to deal with the spectrum, as 
my colleague, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations, does. 
And to all who have heard pay now or pay later, you have heard my 
pledge to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations that we 
will not let this happen, that we have shared our responsibility, we 
have met our responsibility, we will continue to meet our 
responsibility, and no one can point the finger at us.
  Also I would like to say, this has nothing to do with WIC or with any 
of the other programs. They have to make those decisions, but it comes 
all out of one pot.
  This bill, with my amendment, will cut $226 million in 5 years. But 
what I want Members to see is this. The red is ad hoc disaster, $2.3 
billion, 1994; $3.4 billion, 1951.
  OMB, USDA Secretary Espy, Mr. Ackerman of Crop Insurance, all of them 
say the Penny amendment will have a tendency to harm the program. If 
you harm the program, you are back to ad hoc disasters.
  Mr. Chairman, it was mentioned by one of my colleagues, the policy is 
if it rains for one straight day in any one of our 50 States, in the 
morning the Governor is calling the White House wanting an emergency 
disaster declaration. And look what they cost, in the billions of 
dollars.
  Here in the green is the crop insurance. We share. And all we are 
saying is the experts tell us we need time. So we fund for 3 years. We 
pledge ourselves to fulfill the rest of the requirement, if it be 
needed, but in the interim have a GAO report, a GAO study, so we can 
have the accuracy that we need to legislate.
  Why do we need accuracy? I could just as well go along and say pay 
now, to heck with it. What happens to our food supply? What happens to 
our exports?
  Agriculture is the only one bringing money back from abroad at this 
time. Everything nonagriculture collectively is in a deficit. And you 
heard the amount of the deficit. Agriculture is the only one bringing 
money back from abroad. We are feeding all our people and half of the 
world, and you might risk this by willy-nilly saying, well, we are just 
going to cut. Pay now or pay later.

  It sounds good. It sounds very good. But I do not want to have the 
responsibility of saying, ``Hey, we are out of food, because we cut out 
the safety net which we called crop insurance.''
  A vote yes on the de la Garza amendment is a vote for the American 
people, it is a vote for the consumer, it is a vote for fiscal 
responsibility. It is an A-1, all-American vote, and I urge you to vote 
aye.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I come before you today in support of the 
Penny-Gunderson amendment to H.R. 4217, the Federal Crop Insurance 
Reform Act of 1994. When the committee marked this bill up on Tuesday, 
no one mentioned there was a wrinkle included.
  All programs that are included in the pool of agriculture programs 
will have to contribute funds to pay for H.R. 4217.
  Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that the funding shortfall in H.R. 4217 
will contribute to further pressure on the WIC Program, Public Law 480, 
and TEFAP.
  These programs were set up to assist the poor and hungry, not the 
rich and famous.
  Currently, because of lack of funding, WIC reaches only two-thirds of 
those eligible to participate in the program as it is. Surely we can't 
afford another cut to a program that's never been fully funded. 
Approximately 2.5 million more people could benefit from the program if 
all of the funds were there.
  In this climate of purse tightening, we must be aware if we exceed 
our budget we have to suffer the consequences of damaging other 
programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I support the Penny-Gunderson amendment, I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Ms. MARGOLIES-MEZVINSKY. Mr. Chairman, I am here today to bring up a 
concern of many of us in Congress who work to protect programs that 
assist the poor and hungry. We are concerned that the funding shortfall 
in H.R. 4217 will contribute to further budget pressure on these vital 
programs in the future. I'm speaking specifically about the WIC 
program, Public Law 480 and TEFAP. All programs that are included in 
the pool of agriculture programs which will have to contribute funds to 
pay for H.R. 4217.
  WIC currently reaches only about two-thirds of those eligible to 
participate in the program. Approximately 2.5 million people who could 
benefit from the program do not, because it is not yet fully funded. 
This year, the Appropriations Committee struggled to find an additional 
$260 million for WIC, falling $80 million short of the level requested 
by the administration. A $600 million shortfall in the Federal Crop 
Insurance Program will make it even more difficult to ensure full 
funding for the WIC Program in the future.
  The administration opposes this amendment, but it has not identified 
which programs should be cut to pay for the funding shortfall. I want 
to know now. I don't want to find out later. I don't want to find out 
next year or the year after or the year after that, that WIC has been 
cut to pay for crop insurance.
  In this climate of fiscal belt tightening, every time we go over 
budget, we must be aware of the repercussions to other programs. In 
another time there would not be a connection between Federal crop 
insurance reform legislation and the WIC Program or TEFAP or Public Law 
480. But today there is. These times require us to make decisions about 
priorities. These times require us to live within our means. If we 
don't, other programs we hold dear can be affected through unintended 
consequences.
  I support the Penny-Gunderson amendment. I support fiscal 
responsibility. I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza] as a substitute for the 
amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny], as 
modified.
  The question was taken; and the chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the provisions of clause 2(c) of rule 
XXIII, the Chair announces that he may reduce to 5 minutes the time 
within which an electronic vote will be taken on the Penny amendment, 
without any intervening debate.
  This will be a 15-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 253, 
noes 156, not voting 30, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 377]

                               AYES--253

     Abercrombie
     Allard
     Bachus (AL)
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Barcia
     Barlow
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bateman
     Becerra
     Bentley
     Bereuter
     Bevill
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blackwell
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Borski
     Brewster
     Brooks
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chapman
     Clayton
     Clinger
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Danner
     de la Garza
     DeLay
     Derrick
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Dunn
     Edwards (TX)
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Faleomavaega (AS)
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Fields (TX)
     Filner
     Fish
     Ford (MI)
     Fowler
     Franks (NJ)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gingrich
     Glickman
     Gonzalez
     Goodlatte
     Grams
     Grandy
     Hall (TX)
     Hamburg
     Hamilton
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoagland
     Hobson
     Hochbrueckner
     Hoke
     Holden
     Houghton
     Huffington
     Hughes
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hutto
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Inhofe
     Istook
     Jefferson
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Kanjorski
     Kasich
     Kennedy
     Kennelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klink
     Kopetski
     LaFalce
     Lambert
     Lancaster
     LaRocco
     Laughlin
     Leach
     Lehman
     Levin
     Levy
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (FL)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Livingston
     Lloyd
     Long
     Lucas
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     Matsui
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McCurdy
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meek
     Menendez
     Meyers
     Michel
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Murtha
     Neal (MA)
     Neal (NC)
     Nussle
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Oxley
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Peterson (MN)
     Pickett
     Pickle
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Quillen
     Rahall
     Ravenel
     Richardson
     Ridge
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rose
     Rowland
     Santorum
     Sarpalius
     Saxton
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slattery
     Smith (IA)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Snowe
     Solomon
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Swett
     Swift
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Tejeda
     Thomas (WY)
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torkildsen
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Underwood (GU)
     Volkmer
     Vucanovich
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wheat
     Whitten
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff

                               NOES--156

     Ackerman
     Andrews (ME)
     Andrews (NJ)
     Applegate
     Archer
     Armey
     Barca
     Barrett (WI)
     Beilenson
     Bilbray
     Byrne
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carr
     Clay
     Coble
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Condit
     Coppersmith
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Crane
     Cunningham
     Deal
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dixon
     Duncan
     Durbin
     Edwards (CA)
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fawell
     Fingerhut
     Flake
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (CT)
     Gallo
     Gejdenson
     Goss
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hancock
     Harman
     Hefley
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnston
     Kaptur
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klein
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kreidler
     Kyl
     Lantos
     Lazio
     Lewis (GA)
     Lowey
     Maloney
     Mann
     Margolies-Mezvinsky
     Markey
     Mazzoli
     McCandless
     McCloskey
     McDermott
     McInnis
     McKinney
     McMillan
     Meehan
     Mfume
     Mica
     Miller (CA)
     Miller (FL)
     Mineta
     Moorhead
     Moran
     Morella
     Myers
     Nadler
     Norton (DC)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Orton
     Owens
     Packard
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Penny
     Peterson (FL)
     Petri
     Porter
     Poshard
     Quinn
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Reed
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Rohrabacher
     Rostenkowski
     Roth
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sangmeister
     Sawyer
     Schenk
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sharp
     Shays
     Shepherd
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stump
     Thomas (CA)
     Torres
     Unsoeld
     Upton
     Valentine
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weldon
     Wyden
     Yates
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--30

     Andrews (TX)
     Bacchus (FL)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Berman
     Bonior
     Boucher
     Calvert
     Clement
     Darden
     de Lugo (VI)
     DeFazio
     Diaz-Balart
     Foglietta
     Ford (TN)
     Gallegly
     Gephardt
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Green
     Hayes
     Lipinski
     Machtley
     Murphy
     Romero-Barcelo (PR)
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Shaw
     Sundquist
     Synar
     Washington

                              {time}  1346

  The Clerk announced the following pairs:
  On this vote.

       Mr. Darden for, with Mr. Diaz-Balart against.
       Mr. Green for, with Mr. Synar against.

  Ms. PELOSI, Mrs. SCHROEDER, Mrs. LOWEY, Ms. VELAZQUEZ, and Messrs. 
THOMAS of California, MINETA, PAYNE of New Jersey, LANTOS, CRANE, 
ROYCE, MORAN, FLAKE, and CUNNINGHAM changed their vote from ``aye'' to 
``no.''
  Messrs. LANCASTER, BACHUS of Alabama, MATSUI, and HINCHEY changed 
their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment offered as a substitute for the amendment, as 
modified, was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

                              {time}  1350

  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny], as amended.
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. PENNY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. This is a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 401, 
noes 1, not voting 37, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 378]

                               AYES--401

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allard
     Andrews (ME)
     Andrews (NJ)
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus (AL)
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Barca
     Barcia
     Barlow
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bateman
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bentley
     Bereuter
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blackwell
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Borski
     Brewster
     Brooks
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burton
     Buyer
     Byrne
     Callahan
     Camp
     Canady
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carr
     Castle
     Chapman
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clinger
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coleman
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Coppersmith
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cunningham
     Danner
     de la Garza
     Deal
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Dellums
     Derrick
     Deutsch
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Durbin
     Edwards (CA)
     Edwards (TX)
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Faleomavaega (AS)
     Farr
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Fields (TX)
     Filner
     Fingerhut
     Fish
     Flake
     Ford (MI)
     Fowler
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gallo
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Geren
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gingrich
     Glickman
     Gonzalez
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Grams
     Grandy
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamburg
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoagland
     Hobson
     Hochbrueckner
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Holden
     Horn
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Huffington
     Hughes
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hutto
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Inhofe
     Inslee
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kennedy
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klein
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kopetski
     Kreidler
     Kyl
     LaFalce
     Lambert
     Lancaster
     Lantos
     LaRocco
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lehman
     Levin
     Levy
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (FL)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Livingston
     Long
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Maloney
     Mann
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Margolies-Mezvinsky
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     Mazzoli
     McCandless
     McCloskey
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McCurdy
     McDade
     McDermott
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     McKinney
     McMillan
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Meyers
     Mfume
     Mica
     Michel
     Miller (FL)
     Mineta
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Moran
     Morella
     Murtha
     Myers
     Nadler
     Neal (MA)
     Neal (NC)
     Norton (DC)
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Pastor
     Paxon
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Penny
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pickle
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Ravenel
     Reed
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Ridge
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Rose
     Rostenkowski
     Roth
     Roukema
     Rowland
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sangmeister
     Santorum
     Sarpalius
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Schaefer
     Schenk
     Schiff
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sharp
     Shays
     Shepherd
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slattery
     Slaughter
     Smith (IA)
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Snowe
     Spence
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Studds
     Stump
     Stupak
     Swett
     Swift
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Tejeda
     Thomas (CA)
     Thomas (WY)
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Underwood (GU)
     Unsoeld
     Upton
     Valentine
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Vucanovich
     Walker
     Walsh
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weldon
     Whitten
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                                NOES--1

       
     Applegate
       

                             NOT VOTING--37

     Andrews (TX)
     Bacchus (FL)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Berman
     Bonior
     Boucher
     Calvert
     Clement
     Darden
     de Lugo (VI)
     DeFazio
     Diaz-Balart
     Foglietta
     Ford (TN)
     Gallegly
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Green
     Hayes
     Lipinski
     Lloyd
     Machtley
     McNulty
     Miller (CA)
     Murphy
     Quillen
     Romero-Barcelo (PR)
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Shaw
     Solomon
     Spratt
     Sundquist
     Synar
     Torkildsen
     Washington
     Wheat

                              {time}  1357

  So the amendment, as amended, was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to advise the Members that we have pending 
three minor conforming amendments that the committee will accept. Then 
we will go to final passage. It is not the intention of the committee 
to call for a recorded vote on final passage.
  I thank the Members for their patience and kindness and their vote.

                              {time}  1400


                    amendment offered by mr. volkmer

  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Volkmer: Page 43, lines 19 and 20, 
     strike ``or by the private insurance provider''; and
       Page 43, lines 21 and 22, strike ``or the insurance 
     provider''.

  Mr. VOLKMER (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Missouri?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, this is a technical amendment.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We 
have considered his amendment and we have no objection to accepting it.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, we have looked at the amendment and have 
no objection to it. We accept the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer].
  The amendment was agreed to.


               amendment offered by mr. smith of michigan

  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Smith of Michigan: Page 32, line 
     12, strike ``an amount'' and insert ``the amount, subject to 
     the provisions of pargraph 3,''
       Page 32, after line 17, insert the following new 
     subparagraph:
       ``(D) Payment of buy-up coverage proportional to level of 
     risk.
       ``(i) General.--In the case of policyholders under 
     subparagraph (C), the Corporation shall ensure to the extent 
     practicable the producer cost of buy-up coverage shall be 
     directly and proportionally related to the level of risk and 
     that the dollar amount of the premium payment made by the 
     Corporation under subparagraph (C) on behalf of policyholders 
     with an average national average insurance risk does not 
     exceed 200 percent of the dollar amount of the premium 
     payment made for the same level of coverage for a crop and 
     farming practice obtained by policyholders with a national 
     average insurance risk. In order to make this comparison of 
     those policyholders with an above national average insurance 
     risk with those policyholders with a national average 
     insurance risk, the Corporation shall determine the dollar 
     amount of its national average insurance risk premium 
     payments utilizing county, crop, and farming practice 
     data.''.
       ``(ii) Reallocation of Cost Savings.--The cost savings in 
     premiums realized by the Corporation under clause (i) shall 
     be reallocated on an equitable basis to policyholders.''.

  Mr. SMITH of Michigan (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask 
unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed 
in the Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, because we are a compassionate 
society, we have helped many of our fellow Americans who have failed to 
purchase insurance and have suffered losses from natural disasters. 
Unfortunately, this has sent the message to farmers and others that 
they can live, build, and farm in high-risk areas without insurance 
because the Government with bail them out. This distorts economic 
decisionmaking by encouraging people to undertake activities where the 
risk outweighs the benefits, thus using resources inefficiently.
  Currently, the Government pays a percentage of a farmer's crop 
insurance premium. The Government gives higher premium subsidies to 
high-risk, higher loss policyholders. Those policyholders with lower 
risk and hence, lower insurance premium rates, receive a smaller 
subsidy. Together with past Government disaster bailouts, this creates 
an incentive to farm in high-risk areas. In the insurance literature, 
this is known as moral hazard.
  I believe we should restructure Government premium subsidies to 
improve farmers' incentives to manage risk and reduce taxpayers' costs 
for a Federal crop insurance program. This amendment would limit the 
taxpayer premium subsidy for buy-up coverage, that is coverage equal to 
or greater than 65 percent of the recorded or appraised average yield 
indemnified at 100 percent of the expected market price, or an 
equivalent coverage to 200 percent of the dollar amount of the subsidy 
given to policyholders for the same level of coverage for a crop and 
farming practice based on a national average risk premium rate.
  In other words, if we make higher risk farmers pay closer to their 
fair share for crop insurance by limiting the subsidy for that crop 
insurance premium to not more than 200 percent of the national average 
subsidy, lower risk farmers will be more likely to buy crop insurance 
because their premiums will be reduced by $48 million.
  In conclusion, I would hope the conference committee will reevaluate 
the disparity in subsidized premiums between high- and low-risk 
farmers.
  Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The amendment is withdrawn.


                   amendment offered by mr. traficant

  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Traficant: Page 47, line 8, strike 
     the close quotation marks and period at the end and insert 
     the following new subsection:
       ``(d) Purchase of American-Made Equipment and Products.--
       ``(1) Sense of congress.--It is the sense of the Congress 
     that, to the greatest extent practicable, all equipment and 
     products purchased by the Corporation using funds made 
     available to the Corporation should be American-made.
       ``(2) Notice requirement.--In providing financial 
     assistance to, or entering into my contract with, any entity 
     for the purchase of equipment and products to carry out this 
     title, the Corporation, to the greatest extent practicable, 
     shall provide to such entity a notice describing the 
     statement made in paragraph (1) by the Congress.''.

  Mr. TRAFICANT (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
de la Garza].
  Mr. de la Garza. Mr. Chairman, after having examined the amendment 
sponsored by my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Ohio, we 
accept it on our side.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TRAFICANT. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Chairman, being very familiar with the amendment 
offered by the gentleman from Ohio, we accept it.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, if we buy some American-made equipment 
and products, maybe we will have some American jobs.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant].
  The amendment was agreed to.


                  Amendment Offered by Mr. de la Garza

  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. de la Garza: On page 46, line 13, 
     strike ``1996 crop year'' and insert ``1998 crop year''.
       On page 46, line 22, strike ``1995 crop year'' and insert 
     ``1995, 1996, and 1997 crop years''.
       On page 47, strike lines 3 through 8, and insert closing 
     quotation marks and second period after ``development.'' on 
     line 2.

  Mr. de la GARZA (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, this is a technical amendment, 
conforming in nature, and I ask for its adoption.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza].
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to the bill?
  If not, the question is on the committee amendment in the nature of a 
substitute, as modified, as amended.
  The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as modified, 
as amended, was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
  According the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Richardson) having assumed the chair, Mr. Cardin, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4217) to 
reform the Federal Crop Insurance Program, and for other purposes, 
pursuant to House Resolution 507, he reported the bill back to the 
House with an amendment adopted by the Committee of the Whole.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is 
ordered.
  Is a separate vote demanded on any amendment to the committee 
amendment in the nature of a substitute adopted by the Committee of the 
Whole? If not, the question is on the amendment
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, was read 
the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the 
table.

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