[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S726-S728]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I will yield the floor in just a moment. 
Farm bills are very difficult to pass. I can recall other years when we 
have had this same tug of war.
  There was a time when farm bills were bipartisan. I am not certain 
that is the case. There is some bipartisanship now. Many years ago, we 
sat down in the Ag Committee, we worked out a bill, brought it to the 
floor, and the committee never wavered. Now most things are done on a 
party-line basis.
  But I want the record to reflect that the President vetoed a farm 
bill. So, for those on the other side who say ``What is going on?'' 
they want us here next week and next week and next week, we are 
prepared to do anything we can. But if we cannot accomplish anything--
we had a cloture vote today. We could have been on the farm bill right 
now. We could have had a second cloture vote. We had a bipartisan 
agreement led by Senators Lugar and Leahy. We were advised that some of 
the Members on the other side had been peeled off and we probably could 
not get cloture on that vote.
  So, as we normally try to do, we sat down in a bipartisan way. Was 
there any progress made? I do not know. But I would share the views 
expressed by the Senator from Idaho that I think we have gone the extra 
mile in an effort to go to conference.
  The House has not passed a bill. We would like to pass a bill in the 
Senate. But we are not going to be torpedoed by rhetoric on the other 
side. And keep in mind, we could have had a farm bill. The President 
vetoed it. That is why the farmers are concerned. That is why there is 
a lot of disarray in rural America. We could have had another farm bill 
today, but I think only two Democrats joined in a cloture vote. So, if 
we want to get partisan about farm legislation, that is fine. I have 
heard some very partisan statements this afternoon. But the bottom line 
is, we ought to go back where we used to be on farm legislation, sit 
down, work it out on a bipartisan basis.
  Do I think that will happen by Tuesday? I do not know. I will be 
happy to try to help. But I am not very optimistic, as I see some 
partisanship setting in around here. Maybe there is some reason for it. 
But our farmers' winter wheat is planted. Winter wheat had to be 
planted. We could not wait. We planted our wheat. Now we are relying on 
the 1949 act. I assume farmers may conclude maybe that act is not so 
bad when they look at what the prices might be. But that is not how we 
ought to resolve it.

  So we are prepared to accommodate the Democratic leader, who I think 
certainly in good faith will present something in writing, and see what 
happens by next Tuesday. If we cannot agree, then we will have another 
cloture vote. I do not know what will happen with that cloture vote. 
Hopefully, we will have enough support at that point to get enough 
votes to go on to the Leahy-Lugar compromise bill.
  So I hope my colleagues on both sides will keep in mind that farmers 
really do not care about the politics. They do not care who stands up 
and shouts the loudest about who is at fault. All they know is that 
there is no farm bill. They 

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would like to see us sit down and work it out. There are different 
philosophies in agriculture like most everything else, but we are 
prepared to try to accommodate some of the requests of our colleagues 
on both sides, particularly on the Democratic side, in an effort to get 
a bill done as quickly as possible.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I understand the frustration. I am a little 
frustrated, too. I would like to get a farm bill out. But let me make 
an observation or two.
  I do not know, in my 21 years, that we have ever failed to renew a 
farm bill within the year that it expired. Now we are in the year after 
the 1990 farm bill expired. This bill should have been completed last 
September.
  We also hear that the President vetoed a farm bill. Well, that farm 
bill that the President vetoed in reconciliation was a bill that they 
could not pass out of the Agriculture Committee in the House. So they 
take that bill and stick it in reconciliation. That was not passed out 
of the Agriculture Committee. Now, in the Senate, we have not passed an 
agriculture bill out of the Senate Agriculture Committee that I know 
of.
  So here we are arguing over an agriculture bill that really has never 
gone through the process. And we are October, November, December, 
January, and February later. We finally bring it to the floor without 
knowing exactly what is in it and want cloture on it so we cannot 
debate it and so we cannot amend it.
  The Senator from Vermont, when he was chairman of the Agriculture 
Committee in 1990, set a record. He completed the agriculture bill in 7 
days of debate on the floor--7 days of debate on the floor. Now we want 
to bring it up 1 day, vote cloture on it, and get it out. No wonder 
some people are digging their heels in. What might be good for Kentucky 
may not be good for Utah. But it is a regional bill that we have to 
bring together and satisfy generally the farmers in those areas. If I 
were farming, I would be frustrated, too. We have been begging for a 
farm bill; begging for a farm bill. And all of a sudden we get it on 
Thursday, want to complete it on Thursday, and go out for 3 weeks.
  I say to my friends that they can blame whoever they want to, but 
this bill is 5 months late, at least 5 months late.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I will yield for a question without losing 
my right to the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I will note that the distinguished Senator 
from Kentucky is absolutely right. In the 1985 farm bill--I see my good 
friend from North Dakota here, and I think he recalls the numbers--but 
the 1985 farm bill took something like 11 or 12 weeks to complete. 
There were a lot of sessions, as my friend from Kentucky will recall, 
until midnight or later. The 1990 farm bill set a record. And with the 
House, the Senator from Kentucky, the Senator from North Dakota, and 
others, we passed it in 7 days with the distinguished Senator from 
Indiana--in 7 days. That was an all-time record. But that was 7 days, 
as my friends will recall, of very intensive debate on some major 
policy issues involving tens of billions of dollars.
  Today I know is a long day. People may be tired. I know I am. I 
finished work in Vermont about 1:30 this morning and was on a flight 
right after 6 o'clock this morning to come down here for this.
  The distinguished majority leader speaks of partisanship. It really 
has not been. Farm legislation, to my recollection, has always been 
bipartisan. We have worked it today. We had one vote of which everybody 
knew the outcome, the first vote today on cloture. Everybody knew. That 
was no surprise. The Republican leader, the Democratic leader, and all 
knew what that was going to be. We had a second one set up where there 
was a bipartisan coalition seeking it. But then we sought to make it 
better and to make it more bipartisan--I say to the distinguished 
presiding officers and others--by Republicans and Democrats. The 
Republican leader, the Democratic leader, the Republican chairman of 
the committee, the Democratic ranking member of the committee, and 
myself sat down and worked out at least some parameters to get us 
moving forward. I am convinced there is a bipartisan solution here.
  This is very complex legislation. Farmers who have to deal with it 
know it is very complex. I wish it had been done last year. I urged 
that it be done last year. I understand the other body had difficulty 
and could not get a bill out of committee at first. We have not had one 
out of our committee for a number of reasons. It was not done last 
year. We can easily do it this year, but it would take a little bit of 
time to work this out.
  There are distinguished Members on both sides of the aisle who have 
strong views who want to have votes. I have not heard a single one say 
they want to delay it. But at least they want to explain their 
amendments and have a vote on it. I might have some of my own. We ought 
to be able to do that. None is asking to hold it up. It takes a few 
days.
  Somebody raised the novel idea today about working out some kind of 
compromise and maybe we could see it in writing and read it before we 
voted on it. I do not think that is a bad idea. That is an idea that 
might actually catch on around here--that we read a piece of 
legislation and then vote on it. Who knows what the results might be?
  So I tell my friends on the other side of the aisle that this is 
something where Democrats and Republicans can work together. But while 
it should have been done last year, let us not make the problem worse 
by rushing it so much this year that it does not get done right.
  I thank the Senator from Kentucky for yielding.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I yield to the 
Senator from North Dakota for a question, or a statement, without my 
losing the right to the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague from Kentucky.
  Mr. President, the Senator from Kansas indicated that the President 
had vetoed the farm bill. I ask the Senator from Kentucky, is not it a 
more accurate description that the President vetoed what we call 
reconciliation which contained the farm bill and which contained a lot 
more than the farm bill? It had $270 billion of cuts to Medicare, $182 
billion of cuts to Medicaid, and a $245 billion tax reduction aimed 
disproportionately to the wealthiest among us.
  Is it not the case that that bill had lots of things in it other than 
the farm bill?
  Mr. FORD. I say to my friend, the Senator is absolutely correct. When 
you say just pick out one little piece--and the farm bill is a major 
piece to the farmers--that was in the overall reconciliation bill that 
contained the massive funding of Government. There were many things in 
there that even those--it was not bipartisan. We had some on the other 
side who objected to what was in the reconciliation bill, so voted 
here, and the President exercised his right and vetoed the legislation. 
So when you just single out the farm bill, there was much, much more in 
that bill than just the farm bill.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator from Kentucky. Is it not also the 
case that the farm bill part of it was a farm bill that many in farm 
country did not want? It cut farm programs $12 billion; it meant a 
reduction in farm income of about 40 percent. And so I remember being 
at a meeting at the White House with people from across my State urging 
the President to veto the whole reconciliation bill just because of the 
farm bill provision.
  Mr. FORD. The Senator is absolutely correct. And I might say to him, 
the President of the American Farm Bureau at that time wrote us a 
letter saying they were opposed to it also. And I think that is a 
matter of record. The Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Exon] put it into the 
Record. I think he and the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Harkin] had a 
colloquy on the floor and talked about bouncing like the ping-pong 
ball--the American Farm Bureau's position. I think that confused all of 
us who were trying to support our farm community. 

[[Page S728]]

  One thing I found out a long time ago, whatever the American Farm 
Bureau says I do not follow anymore because my farm bureau at home is 
autonomous and they do not support anything of the American Farm Bureau 
until their board approves it or they approve it at their convention. 
So regardless of what the American Farm Bureau might say, I wait until 
my Kentucky Farm Bureau endorses that.
  But just the idea of representing all of the American Farm Bureau, 
the head of that organization writing letters on both sides, bouncing 
back and forth, no wonder we are confused when last year they were 
opposed to it. That helped it not come out of the committee, I am sure, 
over there. And then they were for it. And then they want us to be for 
something they were against at their instructions.
  So I think the time for debate and consideration of this bill is more 
important than I have ever seen it since I have been here. There are 
radical, radical changes in this bill that in the years to come--and 
not too many short years--if the freedom to farm bill is passed, the 
American people will be up in arms when you decouple.
  If you do not understand what decoupling is, that is separating the 
payments, or the income from the commodity from the deficiency payments 
or the payments to the farmer so the farmer will continue to get the 
payments every year for 7 years up to $120,000 a year if you are in 
four different categories, which you can be and you can still raise 
your crop and still get big prices.
  I think when you are doing that--and the farmers have always said 
they were against a welfare program, just absolutely, teetotally 
against a welfare program, and they are absolutely, teetotally for a 
balanced budget amendment, and to do something like that for them and 
for them to come up here and say this is something we want, I am not 
sure the leadership is speaking the grassroots attitude of the farmers, 
particularly of my State.
  Now, you can come up here and say we want the money, we want you to 
pay us, but then decouple that to take away the safety net, take away 
the price stability of the marketplace, it is just something that is 
too radical to do immediately. Phased in, maybe. Phased out, maybe. But 
we need to think through this one. And I think 2 years from now, if we 
are paying farmers big prices and letting them get big prices for their 
product, somewhere the American taxpayer who is sending them the money 
when they are making big money, or making good profit on their crops, 
says that will not last very long. I think we ought to realize that and 
do it now and do it right rather than have to come back and be fussed 
at a year or two from now for doing something that the American 
taxpayers will not accept.
  Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. CONRAD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. I will conclude. I know my colleague, the Senator from 
Iowa, is waiting patiently.

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