[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S882-S883]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I hold up two volumes of legislation 
because when Congress says it does something, the public at large is 
cynical about our doing anything, particularly anything that is very 
complicated, and particularly not just when we finish talking about 
action on a farm bill. I hold up the Balanced Budget Act of 1995, a 
1,800-page document that was put together over a period of about 8 
months by 13 different committees--those committees are listed here--in 
the U.S. Senate to fulfill a promise that the majority party, the 
Republican Party, made to the people in the 1994 election that we would 
balance the budget.

  This document, scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, 
balances the budget--1,800 pages. It includes welfare reform, saving 
$58 billion. It includes the saving of Medicare--the saving of it, the 
strengthening of it, giving people choice for the first time in that 
Government program. It has very good tax programs in here. Just 
balancing this budget will save agriculture 2 percentage points, and 
any loan in the United States about 2 percentage points, on interest.
  This also includes the agriculture bill that would have been a 7-year 
agriculture program. If the President had not vetoed this bill in early 
December last year, we would not be debating farm legislation, and we 
would not only have a farm bill that would be good for agriculture, but 
we would also have a lot of other tax policies and interest policies 
that would be even more beneficial to agriculture--and to the entire 
country, for that matter--than even maybe the farm bill would be 
beneficial to agriculture.
  So here is last year's product to balance the budget--1,800 pages. 
The President vetoed it. He has a constitutional right to veto it. But 
one person stood in the way last year of our having a farm program, and 
that was the 

[[Page S883]]
President who vetoed the Balanced Budget Act of 1995.
  I wanted to hold that up because maybe people do not really believe 
we passed a comprehensive piece of legislation to balance the budget, 
and maybe the farmers do not know that we passed provisions in here for 
the Freedom-To-Farm Act so that we would be able to transition farm 
programs from the Government regulated and dominated environment of the 
last 50 years to the free trade environment and the export environment 
that we are going to have under GATT into the next century.
  My good friend from North Dakota spoke eloquently about his point of 
view on the farm bill, and he and I can speak in a friendly fashion 
about agriculture. We do that all the time. It may not appear on the 
floor of the Senate that we do that, but we can sit down and discuss 
farm legislation.
  I do not take the floor in opposition to what he said but just to 
point out to some people, to the public at large, not just to the 
farmers of America, what sometimes drives legislation in the Congress.
  I wish to read from the Congressional Record a letter that the Senate 
minority leader, Mr. Daschle, put in during his debate last week. This 
letter that he inserted lists a lot of organizations that were against 
the compromise that was worked out.
  By the way, we had a compromise worked out last week with what we 
thought were enough Democrats so we would get enough votes to have 
cloture and move forward. It happens that we did not get enough 
Democrat votes to do that. But anyway, quoting from a paragraph which 
is part of Senator Daschle's speech, he says:

       I am very pleased by a letter that we received just this 
     morning from a large number of very reputable organizations 
     including the National Audubon Society, the Environmental 
     Working Group, Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative 
     Agriculture, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, National 
     Resource Defense Council, the National Rural Housing 
     Coalition, who are saying that even with the Leahy 
     improvements--

  Those were the amendments that we had accepted last week.

     they are strongly in opposition to passing the so-called 
     freedom to farm.

  I would like to read a list of organizations in a letter I did not 
read last week who are in support of what we are doing, because I think 
there is an extreme contrast here. A lot of the organizations that the 
Senator from South Dakota listed are all very reputable organizations. 
There is nothing I wish to say that detracts from the good work they do 
in Washington, DC, for the interests they have. But the question I wish 
to raise as I read a list of organizations supporting what we are 
trying to do today and what we were trying to do last week, is the 
extent to which the groups driving the debate on the other side are not 
solely interested just in agriculture but are having more dominance in 
the debate than farm organizations like this that support what we are 
trying to do: the American Farm Bureau, the Cotton Council, the 
American Cotton Shippers, National Feed and Grain Association, National 
Grain Sorghum Association, United Egg Producers, the National Barley 
Growers, National Cattlemen's, National Corn Growers, the Fertilizer 
Institute, the National Potato Council, the National Pork Producers, 
National Turkey Federation, the National Broilers Council, the North 
American Export Grain Association, and the United Fresh Fruits and 
Vegetables Association. I could name their affiliates in the State of 
Iowa that are supporting this legislation, and I would imagine most of 
the State affiliates are supporting it.

  So it is probably unfair to say that what groups want in this town 
drive what individual Members want. But I think there is a stark 
contrast between the organizations that were listed by Senator Daschle 
and those I just listed. Those listed by Senator Daschle mostly lean 
toward the environmental point of view on agriculture. Although it is 
legitimate to have environmental groups with an interest in what 
agricultural legislation is going to be, we ought to ask whether or not 
these groups ought to have primary consideration in opposition to the 
changes in the farm program. These changes will direct agricultural 
policy toward the next century as opposed to keeping the agriculture 
policy of this century and the last 50 years, which in the new 
environment we are currently in, is obviously outdated. We ought to be 
looking to these organizations I just read that support what we are 
trying to do because they are forward looking, to make sure we are 
producing for the future and the global trade environment of the 
future.
  I hope that we do spend our time in consideration of what we ought to 
have for a farm program that is free of Government regulation to the 
greatest extent possible, even having a safety net, but have that 
safety net be a cooperative effort between the private sector and the 
public sector that can guarantee income as well as production and have 
income support for agriculture.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask unanimous consent to have 5 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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