[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 50 (Friday, March 17, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4145-S4146]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SAM DONALDSON, GIVE THE MONEY BACK

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I read a rather interesting article--a 
rather shocking article--in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about 
affluent urban farmers getting crop subsidies.
  Lo and behold, I was absolutely shocked, as I think most Americans 
will be when they learn, and those that did learn, about Sam. Now I am 
talking about Sam Donaldson. Let me say right now, Sam, wherever you 
are, come out of hiding. Sam, come out of hiding and give the money 
back.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this Wall Street Journal 
article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Mar. 16, 1995]

 As Congress Considers Slashing Crop Subsidies, Affluent Urban Farmers 
                          Come Under Scrutiny

                          (By Bruce Ingersoll)

       Winnetka, IL.--The neighbors on Woodley Road know next to 
     nil about Helen Pinnell, but they assume she is loaded. How 
     else could she afford a multimillion-dollar home here in one 
     of suburban Chicago's most exclusive enclaves?
       Her neighbor next door, Marlo Brown, is stunned to hear 
     that an heir to the fabled King Ranch in Texas left his $10-
     million share of the vast cattle-and-oil empire to Mrs. 
     Pinnell more than 20 years ago. ``Isn't that wonderful 
     luck,'' exclaims the elderly Mrs. Brown.
       Mrs. Pinnell, it turns out, is doubly lucky. As if oil 
     royalties and agricultural revenues from her 87,000-acre 
     spread on the Texas Gulf Coast weren't enough, she collects 
     farm subsidy payments each year from the Agriculture 
     Department. Since 1985, the total payout to her and three 
     Pinnell family trusts comes to nearly $1.5 million, according 
     to USDA payment data.
       Throughout the country, there are thousands of other 
     absentee landlords in Mrs. Pinnell's city-slicker shoes, 
     including ranch-owner Sam Donaldson of ABC-TV fame, a New 
     York merchant banker, two scions of an antebellum cotton 
     planter, even an unidentified $400,000-subsidy recipient with 
     a distinctly nonrural zip code--90210--in Beverly Hills, 
     Calif.


                          antisubsidy backlash

       How long they can count on government checks coming in the 
     mail depends on how much money Congress whacks out of the 
     crop-subsidy programs this year. With the 1995 farm bill 
     debate in full cry, lawmakers already are trying to rescind 
     funds from this fiscal year's Agriculture Department budget. 
     Whipping up an anti-subsidy backlash are environmentalists 
     and conservative Republicans, who contend that the 
     Depression-era farm programs are badly out of date and out of 
     control. While continuing to provide a safety net for 
     struggling farmers, the critics say, the subsidy programs 
     increasingly pad the cushion under already comfortable off-
     the-farm farmers. For the first time, the Environmental 
     Working Group has documented the extent to which suburban and 
     city dwellers benefit from farm subsidies.
       ``We have no beef with people investing in farms, but why 
     are taxpayers covering the risks of an absentee North Dakota 
     farm owner living in Manhattan?'' wonders Kenneth Cook, 
     president of the Washington-based watchdog group.
       Using computerized USDA data, the group has traced the flow 
     of hundreds of millions of tax dollars to off-the-farm 
     farmers--including corporations and partnerships--in the 50 
     largest U.S. cities since 1985. Chicago's farm owners, for 
     example, collected $24 million over the last decade. But if 
     you add in Mrs. Pinnell's hometown, Winnetka, and other 
     [[Page S4146]] Chicago suburbs, the total swells to $55 
     million.
       Mrs. Pinnell was once secretary for a plumbing company. She 
     owes her wealth to a grandson of 19th century cattle baron 
     Richard King, Edwin Atwood, whom she befriended in his old 
     age. In the early 1970s, she took over Mr. Atwood's King 
     Ranch holdings and bought out another heir and a Chicago 
     policeman who had been bequeathed part of the ranch by yet a 
     third heir.
       In Texas, Mrs. Pinnell has her own cattle brand, a big 
     ranch house, plenty of cattle, a small field of oil wells 
     pumping away and about 30,000 acres rented to cotton and 
     sorghum farmers. Her land is bordered by the late Nelson 
     Rockefeller's 6,000-acre spread, now owned by his two sons.


                        ``Take-Charge'' Landlord

       ``She hardly shows up down here,'' says ranch manager Jerry 
     Taylor. But when she does, she takes charge. Says Max Dreyer, 
     a retired farmer in nearby San Perlita, Texas: ``When they're 
     rounding up cattle, she won't even let the helicopter pilots 
     fly over the house.''
       Here in Winnetka, Mrs. Pinnell and her husband, Curtis, a 
     retired railroad freight agent, stay behind the double doors 
     and two-story Doric columns of their immense brick house. 
     Members of the Women's Garden Club of Woodley Road see them 
     only in passing on the road. In her red Mercedes, Mrs. 
     Pinnell scoots over to an office she keeps in the nearby 
     suburb of Northbrook, sometimes to confer with her attorney, 
     Richard Williams. While his client won't comment, Mr. 
     Williams plays down the amount of the subsidies she gets, 
     which include disaster assistance and conservation payments. 
     ``There are lots of people with smaller farm operations that 
     get more subsidies,'' he says.
       In New Mexico, Sam Donaldson passes for a big-time rancher, 
     absentee or not. He is the third-largest recipient of wool 
     and mohair payments in Lincoln County, where he runs flocks 
     of sheep and Angora goats on his sprawling spread near Hondo, 
     N.M., according to Allen (Bill) Trammell, the county 
     executive director for the Combined Farm Services Agency. 
     Over the last two years, $97,000 in subsidy checks have gone 
     to Mr. Donaldson's address in the Virginia suburbs of 
     Washington. What's more, under an agricultural conservation 
     cost-sharing program, Mr. Donaldson got $3,500 earlier to 
     defray the cost of watering facilities for his livestock.
       An assistant to Mr. Donaldson says he isn't available for 
     comment.
                          fifth avenue farmer

       New Yorker Roslyn Ziff, a retired actress and opera singer, 
     adores her 67-year-old friend Henry Warren. ``He's the only 
     man I know who farms on Fifth Avenue,'' she says. For years, 
     Mr. Warren has seen his psychotherapy patients, lived on the 
     seventh floor of 27-story building at 1 Fifth Avenue and 
     managed a Nebraska farm from afar. Told he was the biggest 
     recipient of farm subsidies on Manhattan--$558,000 since 
     1985--his reply was: ``Good for me!'' But he adds that ``it's 
     good for consumers'' because farm programs help ensure a 
     stable food supply at relatively low prices.
       This year, the retired Mr. Warren is leasing his land in 
     Holt County for cash, which means he will no longer get 
     subsidy payments. But that doesn't mean he will have to go 
     cold turkey. The Agriculture Department, because of a big 
     corn surplus, is paying farmers to hold their corn off the 
     market. Mr. Warren figures to collect about $6,000 in storage 
     fees this year, just as he got $81,000 in the late 1980s.
       ``That's outrageous,'' Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney says 
     of her New York constituent's diet of subsidies. ``It points 
     to the hypocrisy of cutting Food Stamps and nutrition 
     programs.''
       Another Nebraska farm-owning New Yorker is Daniel 
     Lamprecht, an agribusiness deal-maker for ING Capital 
     Holdings Corp.'s merchant banking arm. Living in midtown 
     Manhattan, he has collected $158,000 in payments over the 
     last decade, mostly for keeping his hilly--and highly 
     erodible--cropland in the Conservation Reserve Program. All 
     along, he admits, he has dreaded being found out.
       ``I'm the fourth generation to own this property,'' he 
     says. ``I'm loath to give it up. It isn't a hobby. It's an 
     economic enterprise.'' It would be unfair, he argues, for 
     Congress to deprive his 1,060-acre farm of subsidies, either 
     because of his off-farm income or his upscale New York 
     address.
       Far to the south, Jack Northington Shwab and his sister 
     Clara Jane Lovell own 4,000 acres of farm land in Egypt, 
     Texas, where their ancestor, Captain W.J.E. Heard, settled in 
     the late 1840s and built a great plantation. Today, busloads 
     of tourists and history buffs tour the old place and the 
     museum in the rear. Meanwhile, three farmers till the land 
     and share with the landlords rice and corn receipts as well 
     as the subsidy payments. Over the last 10 years, Mr. Shwab 
     and Mrs. Lovell have each collected $344,000, he on Hilton 
     Head Island, S.C., and she on Nantucket Island off 
     Massachusetts, according to USDA payment data.
       While calling himself ``a retired investor,'' Mr. Shwab 
     still looks after a portfolio of stocks and bonds as well as 
     his Texas land holdings and natural gas wells. He, for one, 
     is becoming alarmed about the antisubsidy rumblings on 
     Capitol Hill. ``I do intend to write my congressman,'' he 
     says. But first he must figure out which one--his 
     representative from South Carolina or his representative from 
     Texas.

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I was shocked to learn that Sam 
Donaldson, who happens to be one of the most highly paid journalists in 
the United States, earning millions of dollars, is collecting welfare--
$100,000 in welfare payments--from the U.S. Government. That is right. 
It is called the Wool and Mohair Subsidy Program. It is supposed to 
help farmers.
  Sam Donaldson has received almost $100,000 for a ranch in New Mexico 
while he lives right outside the Capitol here in suburban Washington, 
in Virginia. I think it is an outrage. It is wrong. It is wrong and it 
must be stopped.
  Does anyone really believe that Sam Donaldson is a real sheep farmer? 
Really? I see him on TV all the time.
  Sam, do the right thing. You know what that is. Give the money back.
  Now, there are plenty of other examples of absentee landlords 
receiving these farm subsidies, but it is particularly glaring that 
millionaire Sam Donaldson is getting this taxpayers' money.
  Sam Donaldson, give that money back.
  It is my understanding that Mr. Donaldson is the third largest 
recipient of wool and mohair payments in Lincoln County, NM--not 
Virginia, or New Mexico. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. 
Donaldson received $97,000 in subsidy checks over the last 2 years. And 
under another Government agricultural program--this time for 
conservation sharing--Mr. Donaldson got $3,500 to defray the costs of 
watering facilities for his livestock.
  And here we have Sam Donaldson, the self-appointed conscience of 
America, who was said to be unavailable for comment. Can you imagine, 
Mr. President, if you were unavailable for comment?
  I can imagine why.
  Sam Donaldson, come out of hiding and give back to the American 
people--the taxpayers--that $97,000.
  There is one other question I would like to pose. This program is 
going to be phased out over the next 2 years. I want to know whether 
Mr. Donaldson is going to continue to receive those subsidies, or is he 
going to stop it? Americans have a right to know.
  I hope, Sam, you give that money back.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as if in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I might first announce that we believe 
there is just one additional speaker. Senator Heflin will be coming to 
the floor to speak. I will go forward here, as if in morning business, 
until he arrives, and then I will be happy to turn the floor over to 
him. Then it is my understanding the Senate will stand in recess for 
the weekend.

                          ____________________