[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1889-S1900]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   AGRICULTURE MARKET TRANSITION ACT

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 338, H.R. 2584; further, 
that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1541, 
as passed the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof, the bill be read the 
third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table; 
further, the Senate insist on its amendments, request a conference with 
the House and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees, provided 
that the total number of Democratic conferees signing the conference 
report does not exceed five.

[[Page S1890]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, for the information of the Senate and my 
colleagues who are in the Chamber, I wish to say that I intend to 
discuss with appropriate remarks my concerns about the agriculture bill 
and very likely at the end of those comments I will withdraw my 
objection for the reasons I will state during the remarks I intend to 
make about the farm bill. If the Chair will recognize me for that 
purpose, I will make my remarks as brief as I can but not as brief as 
the Senator from Nebraska usually is.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, my strong objections to the so-called 
freedom-to-farm act, or son of freedom to farm act, or whatever it is 
called now, both the version passed by the Senate and the one that 
passed the House of Representatives, and the technical amendments and 
the appointment of the conferees that has just been suggested by the 
acting majority leader give me pause for great concern.
  I wish to state once again, in trying to wrap up, if I might, the 
strong objections this Senator has along with many other Senators from 
the farm belt with regard to the basic thrust of this law, what it does 
do and what it does not do, the reasons I think it is very bad 
legislation; and if I withdraw my objection to the unanimous-consent 
request it would only be with the hope, a wing and a prayer, if you 
will, that the conference committee itself, when it discusses the farm 
bill in conference and reports back the conference report for approval 
of both the House and the Senate, that significant changes will be made 
so that I will be able to accept the conference report.
  However, I say that with a great deal of optimism and a great deal of 
concern that that in the end might not happen. Therefore, I think it is 
time once again as we contemplate taking the action that has just been 
suggested by the acting majority leader to understand what we are 
doing, which I think is not in the long-term interests of a sound food 
policy or in the long-range interests of the safety net that basically 
from its very beginning the freedom-to-farm act was designed to end in 
7 years, notwithstanding the protestations, notwithstanding some of the 
efforts which have tried to be explained as providing a safety net for 
agriculture after 7 years.
  Mr. President, I take a back seat to no one in the support of 
agriculture and family-size farmers and rural America. During my 8 
years as Governor of Nebraska before I came to this body, until now, my 
18th year in the U.S. Senate, I have fought hard for agriculture. I 
have joined with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
try to tell the majority of the Members of this body that the safety 
net that we have had for a long, long time with regard to farm 
legislation has not been perfect, but it has led to a solid, firm food 
supply for America. The genius of production of our farmers feeds not 
only the United States but many parts of the world.
  Last but not least, the farm programs that have been often criticized 
because of the safety net feature and the expenditures have still 
provided the United States with an abundance of food, more abundance 
than any place in the whole world. At the same time, it has provided 
prices for food at very competitive rates. The facts of the matter are 
that the cost of food in the United States of America is the cheapest 
of any of the industrialized nations in the world. So, certainly the 
farm programs that have been often abused and cursed over the last 
several years since the Great Depression of the 1930's, have served 
America and agriculture overall very well.
  But where are we going from here? Where are we going to be if the 
freedom to farm act encompassed in the Senate version, and likewise the 
freedom to farm act as encompassed in the version passed by the House 
of Representatives, basically is designed in the form of transition 
payments to lead to nowhere at the end of 7 years? Mr. President, 7 
years of handsome, expensive payouts to agriculture, that, in my view, 
is essentially a welfare system, going ahead with massive--billions of 
dollars in expenditures, welfare to farmers, at a time when we are 
trying to reduce the budget and at a time when we are trying to curtail 
welfare, defies reason.
  I say that once again, Mr. President, as a strong supporter of 
family-size farms in rural Nebraska and rural America. I simply point 
out, first with regard to the estimates of the costs of the program, we 
all know, and it has been well established, that the so-called freedom 
to farm act came out of the budget discussions and agreements and 
disagreements. The freedom to farm act and the transition payments have 
been fostered early on as a great budget saver, to help us balance the 
budget by the year 2002.
  I would simply point out that the facts, as the way this bill has 
come out of the House and the Senate, are just the opposite. The most 
recent CBO estimates show that the Senate farm bill will cost $1.13 
billion more than the current law over the next 7 years. Some had 
claimed that was too expensive. In the first 2 years alone, the Senate 
farm bill will cost almost $4.6 billion more--and I emphasize more--
than current law. Turning to the House bill, to cite the figures 
therein, the House bill saves only $1.8 billion over 7 years, a far cry 
from the savings touted earlier in the year. And what do farmers get 
for this? A healthy payoff but no long-term farm policy or safety net.

  The CBO figures have just come out. I would like to cite those at 
this time. For the 1996 crop, the one that we hope will be planted or 
is being planted now, a corn farmer will get paid 37 cents per bushel 
up to the limit of $40,000 that he can receive each and every year. The 
corn farmer will get that 37 cents per bushel regardless of what the 
market price is and what the farmers receive from the market price for 
the products that I will identify, starting out with corn.
  In other words, if corn, which is now at a price of about $3.40 a 
bushel at the marketplace, if that would be maintained--and the 
Department of Agriculture predicts that those prices will very likely 
be maintained for 1996 and 1997--that would mean that the farmer 
getting $3.40 a bushel would get 37 cents per bushel on top of that, 
roughly over $3.75 a bushel. Wheat farmers will get paid 98 cents per 
bushel over and above, as a gift from the taxpayers of America. Sorghum 
farmers will be paid 44 cents per bushel. And so on, and so on, and so 
on.
  Mr. President, I point this out because I think the Republican farm 
bill has strayed way off course. It is not good for agriculture in the 
long term and it is certainly not good for balancing the budget. I 
simply say that, at $3.40 a bushel, we should not be paying any money 
out to corn farmers, unless there are some circumstances where his crop 
would be wiped out. I point this out because this is just one of the 
things wrong with this farm bill. This cost estimate brings the fact 
home loud and clear, that S. 1541 is a sham. It is a sham to the 
taxpayers, and it is a sham to the farmers over the long term.
  How so? For taxpayers, it is a sham because it does not make good on 
deficit reduction. For months, taxpayers have been told that Congress 
was going to crack the whip and enact deficit reduction. Now we learn 
that the farm program's revisions, which were advertised as saving 
money, are actually going to cost more than if we would simply continue 
with the farm program and its costs that we have today. In fact, for 
1996 and 1997, they will cost about $4.5 billion more than the current 
law.
  For farmers, this sham is a little different. They have been led to 
believe that the freedom to farm contracts will protect them from 
fiscal unpleasantness that will surely follow. I am sad to say that 
these contracts that are widely heralded have been grossly oversold. 
Farmers have been led to believe that, once they sign up, their 
payments from the Federal Government will be locked in and no one can 
do anything about it.

  A few moments ago, we were talking about the rules of the U.S. 
Senate. One of the rules that we all know very well is that one 
Congress cannot bind the succeeding Congress. Farmers should bear this 
in mind. The reality is that future Congresses will almost certainly 
take a butcher knife to the Freedom to Farm Act, and I believe that we 
all should recognize and realize that.

[[Page S1891]]

 These farm payments that will be received under the Freedom to Farm 
Act have no relationship to farm production or to the commodity prices 
that the farmers receive.
  I agree that we should be cutting out all or most of the red tape 
that the farmers have to wrestle with each and every year. We should 
provide a piece of farm legislation that provides much more 
flexibility, if not total flexibility, as to what the farmers plant and 
how much they plant of a given product. But what kind of protection 
will the freedom to farm contracts provide? Not enough. The National 
Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information was asked to make 
a careful review of the freedom to farm bill. They concluded that, ``* 
* * the annual payments are not guaranteed for the life of the Freedom 
to Farm legislation.''
  The facts, Mr. President, could not be clearer. This is a sad 
commentary on the way the farm bill has been handled, and I simply want 
to set the record straight, make it very clear on several very 
important points.
  Mr. President, let me start out by quoting from several publications 
with regard to the costs that very likely will skyrocket and make it 
even that much more difficult to balance a budget.
  I quote first from an article from the Omaha World Herald of February 
27, 1996. The headline is: ``Glickman Says New Farm Plan's Costs are 
Higher.'' We all know that Dan Glickman is Secretary of Agriculture and 
a farm expert who previously served on the Agriculture Committee of the 
House of Representatives with great distinction.
  This article is by David Beeder of the Omaha World Herald:

       Washington--Legislation guaranteeing farmers more than $40 
     billion over seven years would cost the Federal Government 
     $20 billion more than it could cost to extend a farm law that 
     expired December 31, Agricultural Secretary Dan Glickman said 
     on Monday.
       ``For the first 2 or 3 years, we know we are going to be 
     spending much more on this farm bill,'' Glickman said in a 
     speech to the National Association of State Departments of 
     Agriculture.

  To save time and to stay away from being redundant, I ask unanimous 
consent that all of the articles I quote be printed in the Record at 
the conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I wish to carry on the discussion of the 
skyrocketing costs under the new farm bill. I wish to also quote from 
an article from the Omaha World Herald of February 25, 1996. The 
headline is: ``USDA: Dairy, Cereal Prices Expected to Rise.''
  This story goes on to say that:

       Food prices in the United States are likely to increase 
     less than the rate of inflation this year, with meat prices 
     expected to decline, Government economists say.
       However, the price of milk should rise by 4 percent to 5 
     percent over last year because of the lowest surpluses of 
     dairy products since the mid-1970's, the Agriculture 
     Department said.

  This goes on to explain what is happening and what the freedom to 
farm policy, if you want to call it that, will do for both the 
consumers of America and the producers as well.

  Mr. President, I will further comment on an article from the Lincoln 
Journal Star of February 25, 1996, and this one is headlined: ``Bill 
Raises Farm Costs, Officials Say,'' by Robert Greene of the Associated 
Press.

       Washington.--A farm-program overhaul that the Senate passed 
     this month will raise spending rather than save billions of 
     dollars as Senate budget writers had planned, the Senate 
     Budget Committee says.
       ``We've lost all our savings,'' said Bill Hoagland, the 
     committee's staff director.
       The original farm-program changes in the budget-balancing 
     legislation vetoed by President Clinton last year would have 
     cut spending for agriculture programs by $4.6 billion. The 
     Senate-passed farm bill instead costs $200 million to $380 
     million more over the next seven years than if the farm bill 
     had been left alone, Hoagland said.

  Mr. President, I simply say that this farm bill, indeed, is backed by 
some farm organizations. I happen to think that they are taking a very 
shortsighted approach to the whole proposition.
  This farm bill leaves beginning farmers out in the cold. It provides 
a rather handsome payment for the next 7 years. To those who have 
participated in farm programs in the past, I have cited earlier in 
speeches on the floor in this regard that if you take, for example, a 
500-acre corn farm--and those of us who know and understand agriculture 
know that that is not a big farm--but 500 acres of corn, and if the 
farmer would sell that for $3.10 a bushel, which is under the $3.30 to 
$3.40 price today, he would receive, in addition to that good price for 
corn, a check free from the Federal Government, free from the 
taxpayers, of $16,000 on top of the $186,000 that that corn farmer 
would receive, assuming a return of about 110 bushel per acre, which is 
reasonable.
  Many farmers and many farm organizations that I will cite in my 
remarks realize and recognize that if you are a 57-year-old farmer 
today, and I must say that that is about the average age of our farmers 
in Nebraska and very likely near the average age of our farmers in the 
United States as a whole, if you are going to farm 7 more years, and 
then when you are 65 and retire, this is a pretty good bill, because it 
gives you handsome payments from the taxpayers that cannot be 
justified.
  In the end, it leads to nowhere, 7 years of transition payments. What 
does transition payments mean? Transition payments were intended and I 
predict eventually will be a payoff to farmers in rather handsome 
numbers through welfare, and they will receive this check from the 
Federal Government whether they even plant or not, whether they even go 
to the field. They get this check from the taxpayers.

  But many farm groups are protesting this, and rightly so.
  Mr. President, I cite an article that I have in my hand from the 
Omaha World Herald, again, on February 23, 1996, and this headline 
says: ``Hundreds Expected to Protest Farm Bill,'' by Ann Toner of the 
Omaha World Herald.

       By bus, car and van, farmers from as far away as North 
     Dakota are expected to gather in Wichita, KS, today to voice 
     their opposition to the latest farm program proposals to gain 
     House and Senate approval.
       Loosely dubbed the Freedom to Farm Act, the proposed law--
     officially, the Agricultural Marketing Transition Act in the 
     Senate--is in its final stages in Washington.

  This goes on to identify the farm organizations and some of the 
farmers who made that trip to Wichita.
  The next article that I will reference is, again, from the Lincoln 
Journal Star. This is Sunday, February 25, 1996.
  The headline is, ``Only people who eat need to worry about our food 
policy.'' And the first paragraph of this article by Sally Herrin says:

       The United States Senate put the family farm up for sale 
     when it voted 64-32 to send Bob Dole's Agricultural Marketing 
     Transition Act, S. 1541, to the House of Representatives 
     tomorrow morning, Feb. 26. This is a modified version of Bill 
     Barrett's and Newt Gingrich's Freedom to Farm proposal which 
     is the ``final solution'' to farm programs.
       But farm programs are just for farmers rights? Think again.

  And Sally Herrin goes on to explain in great detail how bad this 
freedom to farm bill actually is.
  Likewise, I will include in the Record an editorial from the Lincoln 
Journal Star of February 18, 1996. This editorial is entitled ``Freedom 
To Farm: An excuse To Abandon Agriculture.''
  I will read the first two or three paragraphs of this editorial 
because, in summation in a few words, this does about as good a job as 
I could imagine in saying what is wrong with this measure.

       Blow a little dust off your memories of the 1988 Senate 
     race in Nebraska. David Karnes is at the podium at State Fair 
     Park in Lincoln. Row after row of Republican cheerleaders 
     lean forward, gathering themselves for their next explosion. 
     But coming out of Karnes' mouth are these fateful words: ``We 
     need fewer farmers at this point in time.''
       Groans. Gasps. Even boos. Cheerleaders slump in their 
     seats. Bob Kerrey seizes on what Karnes later describes as a 
     slip of the tongue and delivers a stern lecture. A few weeks 
     later, voters elect Kerrey and cast Karnes into the basement 
     of political esteem.
       But guess what? Eight years after a promising conservative 
     showed his poor grasp of acceptable rhetoric, the 
     underpinnings of the once unutterable are being uttered 
     daily. As Congress and President Clinton stumble toward 
     passage of a new farm policy, the words ``freedom to farm'' 
     are much in vogue. They are represented, not as the first 
     step [the real steps] towards abandonment of agriculture, but 
     as breath-taking reform.

  Likewise, Mr. President, I will quote very briefly from another 
editorial, this time of February 29, 1996, again from the Lincoln 
Journal Star. This

[[Page S1892]]

headline is ``Freedom To Farm: Freedom To Plunder Treasury.'' And I 
quote:

       Farming experts will tell you that a farmer who can't make 
     money raising corn at $3 a bushel should sell the tractor and 
     move to town. Fortunately, most Nebraska farmers are much 
     too smart to miss out on the $3 corn and the profits that 
     appear well within reach as the 1996 growing season 
     approaches.
       But misfortune is in this picture, too--misfortune for 
     taxpayers. Congress is hammering out a farm bill that 
     proposes to give these same savvy farmers as much as $40,000 
     each in extra income, in precious tax money, this year. Why? 
     Because that's how Freedom To Farm, the new approach that is 
     supposed to get the government off the farmer's back is 
     supposed to work. It puts more government, more cost, on the 
     taxpayer's back instead.

  Mr. President, next I will quote from a news release from the 
National Farmers Union, which is one of the leading farm organizations 
whom I have worked closely with all of my 26 years in Government 
service. This news release from the Farmers Union is headlined:

       Senate Farm Bill A ``Sell out'' Of Farm families, Says [the 
     National Farmers Union] President.
       Washington, DC--The farm bill passed by the U.S. Senate 
     Wednesday was termed a ``sell out of American farm families 
     and their values to the special interests of agri-business 
     and a license for a few corporations to further dominate the 
     marketing, processing and trading of agricultural 
     commodities'' by National Farmers Union President Leland 
     Swenson. Representing 250,000 farm, ranch and other rural 
     families across the nation, Swenson expressed concern that 
     the Agricultural Transition Act would escalate the move of 
     U.S. agriculture away from its system of independently owned 
     and operated family farms to that of contract production.

  Mr. President, in addition to that, which will be printed in the 
Record, there is a bulletin of about 9 or 10 items entitled: ``What's 
wrong with the Farm Bill approved by the Senate?''
  Clearly, in the opinion of the reliable National Farmers Union it is 
a disaster.
  What are other knowledgeable people who have had great experience in 
agriculture saying? This time from the Republican side of the fence.
  I refer to an article in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader of February 25, 
1996, by George Anthan. George is with the Georgia Net News Service and 
is a columnist.
  The headline of his column is: ``Iowans wary about Freedom to Farm 
bill.''
  It goes on to say:

       Two of Iowa's most respected voices on 
     national agricultural policy--both of them Republicans and 
     farmers--expressed strong misgivings over the GOP's 
     Freedom to Farm bill, which would guarantee subsidies to 
     farmers regardless of market price. Cooper Evans of Grundy 
     Center, a former Congressman and former agriculture 
     advisor to President Bush's White House, said the policy 
     advanced under the Freedom to Farm bill ``would be a 
     disaster.''

  Mr. President, the article goes on and says:

       Thurman Gaskill of Corwith--long active in national farm 
     policy affairs and a high-ranking political operative for 
     Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush--said: ``I don't understand 
     the thinking behind this. In the short term, it's a hell of a 
     deal. But I don't think it's good for the long-term farm 
     policy of this country.''
       Evans, an influential member of the House Agriculture 
     Committee during his congressional service, said: ``To me, 
     the important point is that now is not the time for a program 
     that can be viewed as strictly a gift in the sense that it's 
     not at all tied to need, not all tied to current prices, not 
     at all tied to supplies.
       ``It's just a gift, which seems to me to be totally 
     incompatible with the fundamental interest of both parties to 
     whip the budget deficit.''
       Evans continued: ``We're making all kinds of claims on 
     programs that have a much larger constituency, and I think it 
     makes those who support [the] (Freedom to Farm) [Act] 
     extremely vulnerable to the criticism that you're cutting 
     Medicare, [yes,] you're cutting Medicaid . . . and yet you're 
     giving this money to farmers regardless of what they do, 
     regardless of what they plant, regardless of what the prices 
     are.''

  I continue to quote:

       ``It would be most inappropriate to do this.''

  Mr. President, who are some of the supporters of the freedom to farm 
act, other than the Republican majorities in both the House and the 
Senate?
  I reference at this point an article, again from the Lincoln Journal, 
of February 19, 1996. This headline says, ``Big Agribusiness Enjoyed 
Benefits in Senate Farm Bill.''

       Washington, Associated Press. With a mix of luck, work and 
     unusual organization, the lobby for big grain companies, 
     railroads, meat companies, millers and shippers scored a big 
     win in the Senate-passed overhaul of the farm bill.
       The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill, as it's called, stops the 
     government from forcing growers to idle land in order to keep 
     their Federal payments. It says farmers can grow the crop 
     that they most likely will sell without losing government 
     payments usually tied to a particular crop. For 7 years, at 
     least, the government would fix the price of corn, wheat and 
     other row crops.

  Further down in the article is an interesting quote from our 
distinguished friend and colleague, the Senator from Minnesota:

       ``In the long run it says you're on your own with Cargill. 
     You're on your own with the Chicago Board of Trade,'' said 
     Sen. Paul Wellstone, Democrat from Minnesota, taking on the 
     Minnesota-based food giant.
       Cargill Inc. and the Chicago Board of Trade did work 
     Congress. So did such giants as General Mills Inc., Tysons 
     Foods, Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific Railroad, 
     Rabobank Netherlands, the Fertilizer Institute and others who 
     build a business from agriculture.
       Unlike before, the food companies and the trade groups 
     banded together. In the fall of 1994, more than 120 formed 
     the Coalition for Competitive Food and Agricultural Systems.
       ``It was probably the first time in history that a broad-
     based group in the food industry had gotten together with 
     market-oriented reforms in mind,'' said spokesman Stu Hardy, 
     a former staffer on the Senate Agriculture Committee, now 
     with the United States Chamber of Commerce.

  It is really interesting, Mr. President. Any farmer or any farm 
organization that really believes that business interests such as I 
have just mentioned, who for years have lived off of cheap product 
prices, were very much instrumental in writing the freedom to farm 
bill. I think that fact alone, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tysons 
foods, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Procter and Gamble, Union Pacific, 
the Fertilizer Institute--if those people helped write this farm bill, 
there is no way that it can be both good for them and good for the 
producers.
  Mr. President, there was another article that drives home this point. 
This is from the Omaha World Herald of February 25, 1996. This headline 
reads: ``Businesses Put Muscle Behind Farm Bill Push,'' by David 
Beeder, Washington, DC:

       Major changes in U.S. farm policy--passed by the Senate and 
     pending in the House--will get a big push all the way to the 
     White House from a powerful coalition of more than 120 grain 
     traders, processors, shippers, retailers and producer 
     organizations.
       ``We wanted to retain a farm income safety net but also 
     eliminate acreage reduction programs (ARP),'' said Mary 
     Waters of ConAgra Inc. of Omaha. ``Both of these bills will 
     do that.''

  Now, Mr. President, ConAgra is located in my State. It is a very fine 
organization. They are processors of food. I can see why they would be 
involved in writing a farm bill, because, basically speaking, the 
cheaper the cost of the raw products that they produce into edible 
food, the more money they make. I do not criticize ConAgra for being 
concerned about agriculture prices, but I do not think they represent 
the family-size farmer:

       Stu Hardy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the 
     legislation could have been strengthened if it had reduced 
     the amount of acreage in the $36 million Conservation Reserve 
     Program in which farmers are paid to idle land. If there is 
     one part of the previous farm bill and if there is one part 
     of the new farm bill that is generally supported by all farm 
     organizations--as far as I know, all or most farmers--it is 
     the Conservation Reserve Program, which has been very 
     popular. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we would 
     have been a whole lot better off if we cut down the 
     Conservation Reserve Program.

  Mr. President, there is a lot of misinformation out there today about 
what this program does. I have referenced several times this evening in 
my remarks the fact that the freedom to farm act from its very 
beginning and inception was to provide transition payments originally 
to help reduce the costs--that has gone by the board now--but primarily 
to have a transition from the present payments we have historically had 
as part of the program, when prices were low but not when they were 
high as they are now, but we have been pounding this home.
  Now, even some of the introducers of the legislation have come around 
to say we should have something in there very cleverly in the Senate 
bill incorporated as permanent law. The 1949 act

[[Page S1893]]

has been permanent law for a long, long time as a fall-back position. 
That is soft soap to agriculture because when the people understand 
what is going on, and after the ``60 Minutes'' type program exposes 
this for what it is, it will be tough to get any kind of responsible 
farm program through the Congress.
  For years I have fought, along with many of my colleagues, on the 
basic concept of selling to the 535 Members of the House and Senate the 
need for a farm bill, a safety net farm bill, that did not pay the 
farmers anything when prices were high but gave them a stipend that 
would get them somewhere near the cost of production when the corn 
price--as it has historically--not stayed at $3.10 to $3.50 a bushel, 
but when it drops to $2.10 to $2.50 a bushel below the cost of 
production. That is when we should have farm programs. That is when 
they should kick in. They should not kick in in a rich man type fashion 
of selling and buying off farmers with this healthy hefty payment for 
the next 7 years.

  I make reference, Mr. President, to the Congressional Record of 
February 28, 1996, page 1429, to bring home how there is so much 
misunderstanding with regard to whether the safety net is going to be 
eliminated. There is included on that page a letter from the Farm 
Bureau to a Member of Congress. It says here by the writer of the 
letter, who is an official of the Farm Bureau:

       In my view, concerns about the ``freedom to farm" approach 
     have centered on two points: First, opponents are concerned 
     that the contract payments will be viewed as welfare 
     payments.

  I do not know what else they are, but I think it rancors them a great 
deal when we call them welfare payments.

       Secondly, some are concerned that there will not be any 
     farm program after the seventh year of the bill. These issues 
     were also the same as some members' of the Farm Bureau. The 
     following points were used, in part, to make our policy 
     determination.

  Then it goes on to another paragraph. I would like to quote from the 
same letter from the Farm Bureau:

       In regard to the future farm policy after 7 years, it is 
     important to keep in mind that there are no provisions in the 
     bill that require farm programs to be eliminated after 7 
     years. In fact, it is our view that public policymakers 
     should actively debate what farm policy should be after the 
     year 2002, while considering such issues as supply and demand 
     factors, international trade barriers, financial conditions 
     of agriculture, monetary policy, trade policy, and other 
     issues important to our farmers and ranchers.

  Soft sell. Soft soap, because the very thrust of the farm bill, known 
as the freedom to farm act, was to use the transition payments to 
eliminate farm programs in the year 2002. Why else would you pay the 
handsome payments from the taxpayers to the farmer regardless of what 
the farmer is receiving for his commodity? Certainly, that is the 
attitude of the New York Times. I think it is rather interesting, Mr. 
President, that in addition to big business writing the farm bill, we 
have those great defenders of the American family-size farmer, the New 
York Times and the Washington Post, approving of this farm bill. They 
have never approved of any farm bill in the history of the United 
States of America, but this one. Why is that? Because they know what 
the intent is. They know they are buying off the farmer, and it will 
all come to an end at the end of 7 years.

  Mr. President, I quote from a New York Times editorial of March 6, 
1996. The headline is: ``Big Changes Down on the Farm.''
  It says:

       The Senate and House-passed bills would phase out wheat, 
     corn, rice and cotton subsidies over a 7-year period. The 
     Senate-House conferees need to make it clear, as the House 
     bill attempts to do, that after 2002, farm welfare 
     supplicants cannot count on reverting to the old discredited 
     law.

  Further, it says:

       The House bill would make it harder for lobbyists to extend 
     the dole after 7 years and is thus preferable to the Senate 
     version.

  Mr. President, also, I think it is interesting to note this on the 
front page of the New York Times of Friday, March 1, 1996. I reference 
that at this point. Big farm paper, the New York Times. It says:

       House approves biggest change in farm policy since the New 
     Deal.

  Well, that is an honest statement. Below that, it says:

       Legislation phases out subsidies over 7 years.

  You cannot have it both ways. Yet, that is being sold today.
  I simply say that the whole article will appear in the Record. It, 
once again, shows that the New York Times, an opponent of agriculture 
as long as I can remember, has a right, and they are getting what they 
want, along with the chamber of commerce, along with the big-money 
interests that live off the products of the American farmer. If I were 
a farmer, I would not want those organizations saluted and backed by 
the New York Times, and to write a farm bill, because down the road, in 
the future, this is going to come home to haunt the safety net that we 
have relied on for so long.
  Then there is another newspaper that is well known as a big booster 
of agriculture. This time it is the Wall Street Journal of Friday March 
1, 1996. It is interesting to note that that is the same date of the 
article that I just quoted from the New York Times. But the farmer 
friendly Wall Street gurus, who speak frequently through the Wall 
Street Journal, had this story. The headline is: ``House Approves 
Ending Costliest Farm Programs.''
  How ridiculous. I have just cited the facts of the matter. Yet, the 
Wall Street Journal, who understands the stock market but has not a 
clue about agriculture, says, ``House Approves Ending Costliest Farm 
Programs.'' The Sub-headline is, ``Plan to Be Phased in Over 7 Years, 
Would Stop Restrictions On Crop.''
  The story:

       The House measure would spend $46.6 billion through fiscal 
     year 2002, including $35.6 billion for transition payment.

  What we have here is total allocations, if subsequent Congresses 
approve it--at least this is the plan--to provide $46.6 billion through 
fiscal year 2002, including all but $10 billion, or $35.6 billion for 
transition payments:

       It will have to be reconciled with a similar Senate bill in 
     a House-Senate conference before going to the White House for 
     the President's consideration.

  Just some more, Mr. President, of what is going on today with regard 
to the people who wrote the farm bill that some farmers and some farm 
organizations think is just hunky-dory.
  Mr. President, I may be wrong. Maybe this bill will be the greatest 
thing for agriculture that we have ever seen. If so, on down the road I 
will salute the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York 
Times, the Union Pacific Railroad, Kraft Foods, and the many farmers in 
my State, and many of my friends and colleagues here in the U.S. Senate 
who support this. I will salute all of you.
  I will salute all of you. I might be wrong. But as one who has 
wrestled with farm programs in fairness to rural America for a long, 
long time, and who consults regularly with farmers and farm 
organizations--in fact, just this afternoon in Nebraska wheat growers 
were in to see me. And since this is my last year in the U.S. Senate 
they presented me with a plaque that I treasure saluting me for the 
help I have given to--and have been part of in--protecting the 
interests of family-sized farmers and the food production in America. 
Each and every one of them--there were seven there--were firmly opposed 
to the so-called freedom-to-farm act. Yes. There are lots of farmers 
out there that have bought on to this very expensive and unfair program 
that I am very fearful will be the death knell for farm safety nets and 
make it almost impossible for young farmers who do not share in this 
program. The money only goes to farmers who have been in the program 
previously. It is a bad piece of legislation.
  I am about to withdraw my objection only with the hope that maybe 
some miracle will occur and we will be able to get some changes in a 
whole series of areas made in the conference with the House, and that a 
conference report which is eventually forwarded back to the House and 
the Senate will have a much improved farm bill.
  In the meantime, I have consulted with the Secretary of Agriculture 
about this on several occasions. I have discussed this with the 
President of the United States. Some people are speculating right now 
that the President will sign the bill, or that he will not sign the 
bill. I know that the President of the United States has not made up 
his mind. The Secretary of Agriculture has not made up his mind. They 
are waiting the outcome of the conference.

[[Page S1894]]

 I hope we can have a bill that makes some sense.
  With that I withdraw my objection that I raised earlier, and I will 
work constructively with all concerned to make changes in this bill in 
conference that I think are absolutely essential.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

              [From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 27, 1996]

             Glickman Says New Farm Plan's Costs Are Higher

                          (By David C. Beeder)

       Washington.--Legislation guaranteeing farmers more than $40 
     billion over seven years would cost the federal government 
     $20 billion more than it could cost to extend a farm law that 
     expired Dec. 31, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said 
     Monday.
       ``For the first two or three years, we know we are going to 
     be spending much more on this farm bill,'' Glickman said in a 
     speech to the National Association of State Departments of 
     Agriculture.
       Farmers would receive little or no subsidy payments if the 
     five-year 1990 farm law still were in effect, Glickman said.
       ``Why? Because prices are higher now,'' he said.
       Subsidies, under 60-year-old U.S. farm policy, have been 
     based on the difference between the market price of crops and 
     the so-called target price set by Congress, which is usually 
     higher.
       Glickman said economists at the U.S. Agriculture Department 
     expect the market price of corn and wheat to match or exceed 
     target prices for two or three years.
       He said giving farmers a guaranteed annual payment in a 
     period when they are being paid high market prices ``could 
     create potential political problems'' for farm legislation in 
     the future.
       ``We need a well-rounded farm bill, one that people in 
     nonrural areas can support,'' he said. ``That's what we are 
     working on, and we think the Senate bill moved a few steps in 
     that direction.''
       Glickman's speech before state agricultural directors was 
     followed a few hours later by Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., 
     chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, who defended the 
     plan to guarantee annual payments to farmers.
       He disputed Glickman's estimate that the legislation would 
     cost $20 billion more than would extending the farm law that 
     expired Dec. 31.
       Roberts said the Freedom to Farm Act, which he has co-
     sponsored with Rep. Bill Barrett, R-Neb., would reduce the 
     average annual cost of commodity subsidies from $10 billion a 
     year to $5 billion.
       ``The Freedom to Farm Act will save $5.2 billion over seven 
     years, and that's what I intend to say on the House floor 
     Thursday when we debate this legislation.'' Roberts said.
       ``What this debate is all about is who makes the 
     decision,'' he said. ``We feel very strongly that under 
     Freedom to Farm, the farmers make the decision. They have the 
     freedom to plant whatever they want to plant.''
       Roberts said the high prices being paid for crops this year 
     have had little effect in the Great Plains, where poor 
     growing conditions left many farmers with little or nothing 
     to sell.
       Under the 1990 farm law, many of these farmers received 
     subsidy payments in advance, he said.
       Those subsidies must now be repaid even though a farmer may 
     have lost the crop, Roberts said.
       ``It is true that if you have the current (1990) farm bill 
     the farmer gets no payment this year or next year, but he has 
     to pay back advanced deficiency payments and there is no 
     requirement for conservation compliance,'' Roberts said.
                                                                    ____


              [From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 27, 1996]

                    State Ag Leaders Won't Back Plan

       Washington.--State agriculture leaders from Nebraska and 
     Iowa said Monday they could not support farm legislation that 
     guarantees a fixed government payment to farmers regardless 
     what they are paid for their crops.
       Larry Sitzman, Nebraska director of agriculture, said the 
     plan would be politically vulnerable in a period like today 
     when farmers are receiving high crop prices.
       ``I am concerned that a seven-year program with guaranteed 
     benefits would be difficult to sell with the mood of Congress 
     and the mood of taxpayers in this country,'' Sitzman said.
       He said the plan, if adopted, could lead to elimination of 
     a long-standing policy of subsidizing farmers during periods 
     of low crop prices.
       ``The safety net probably would be gone in two years,'' 
     said Sitzman, who operates a 2,000-acre farm near Culbertson, 
     Neb.
       Dale Cochran, Iowa secretary of agriculture said he expects 
     Congress to pass a farm bill that includes guaranteed 
     payments while continuing to provide subsidies when crop 
     prices fall.
       Cochran, of Eagle Grove, Iowa, said it would be difficult 
     to convince taxpayers that farmers should receive a payment 
     when crop prices are high.
       Cochran, a Democrat who served more than 22 years in the 
     Iowa House of Representatives, is in his third term a 
     secretary of agriculture, an elective office in Iowa.
       Sitzman, a Democrat, was appointed director of the Nebraska 
     Agriculture Department by Gov. Nelson in 1991.
                                                                    ____


              [From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 25, 1996]

              USDA: Dairy, Cereal Prices Expected to Rise

       Washington.--Food prices in the United States are likely to 
     increase less than the rate of inflation this year, with meat 
     prices expected to decline, government economists say.
       However, the price of milk should rise by 4 percent to 5 
     percent over last year because of the lowest surpluses of 
     dairy products since the mid-1970s, the Agriculture 
     Department predicted.
       The Consumer Price Index for food rose 2.8 percent last 
     year--the overall CPI was up 2.5 percent--and higher prices 
     for fruits and vegetables were the prime reason, USDA Chief 
     Economist Keith Collins noted in a report to the annual 
     Agricultural Outlook Forum.
       ``In 1996 the highlight for the American consumer will be 
     food-price increases below the overall inflation rate, as the 
     strong increase in meat production lowers meat prices 
     slightly,'' Collins said. Red meat and poultry account for 24 
     percent of the at-home food CPI.
       With average weather, Collins added, this year's fruit and 
     vegetable price increases should be less than last year's. 
     Although the price of cereal and baked goods should go up 
     because of rising grain costs, the increase is likely to be 
     no more than about 5 percent because farm-level grain prices 
     represent only about one-tenth of the retail prices of the 
     finished products.
       The USDA forecast relies in large part on the expectation 
     that 1996 beef production will increase by 2 percent to 3 
     percent despite higher feed costs. This envisions feed corn 
     prices peaking at about $3.70 per bushel.
       However, Collins said, ``If 1996-crop corn prices were to 
     move into the $4-per-bushel range due to reduced yield 
     prospects, hog and poultry producers would reduce animal 
     numbers first with cow-calf operators making their big 
     reductions in the fall.
       ``The result would be higher meat prices in late 1996 and 
     into 1997, and, for beef, into 1998 and beyond.''
       USDA foresees record-high season-average farm prices for 
     wheat in this harvest year and near-record prices for corn. 
     Carryover stocks of wheat on June 1 are forecast at 346 
     million bushels, which, as a percent of total use, would be 
     the lowest since 1947-1948. Corn carryover was put at 457 
     million bushels, lowest as a percent of use since 1937-1938.
       Such low stocks make it very difficult to forecast prices, 
     Collins acknowledged. ``The low stocks have put feeders, 
     processors, traders and consumers at much greater risk if 
     1996 harvests are subpar.''
       With higher corn prices, better planting weather and no 
     reduction in acreage, USDA said corn planted this year may 
     increase nearly 15 percent, to more than 80 million acres. 
     Winter wheat acreage was up 7 percent, and total wheat 
     acreage this year could rise about 6 percent, to 73 million 
     acres. That would support a wheat price near the $4-a-bushel 
     level.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Lincoln Journal Star, Feb. 25, 1996]

                 Bill Raises Farm Costs, Officials Say

                           (By Robert Greene)

       Washington.--A farm-program overhaul that the Senate passed 
     this month will raise spending rather than save billions of 
     dollars as Senate budget writers had planned, the Senate 
     Budget Committee says.
       ``We've lost all our savings,'' said Bill Hoagland, the 
     committee's staff director.
       The original farm-program changes in the budget-balancing 
     legislation vetoed by President Clinton last year would have 
     cut spending for agricultural programs by $4.6 billion. The 
     Senate-passed farm bill instead costs $200 million to $380 
     million more over seven years than if farm law had been left 
     alone. Hoagland said.
       The new estimates create problems for the farm bill as the 
     House prepares to take it up this week. Many added costs were 
     the result of amendments needed to ensure its 64-32 passage 
     Feb. 7. Those amendments included guaranteed spending for new 
     conservation, rural development and farmland preservation 
     programs.
       Stripping down the bill could lose votes, many from 
     Democrats, when a final version is crafted. Or law-makers 
     could be forced to tinker with the core ``Freedom to Farm'' 
     proposal, which substitutes fixed-but-declining payments for 
     unpredictable, price-based crop subsidies.
       Democrats remain opposed to ``Freedom to Farm'' because it 
     continues to pay farmers even when crop prices are high. New 
     projections released last week by the U.S. Department of 
     Agriculture suggest that farmers will cash in big if Congress 
     removes the link between farmer payments and movements in 
     crop prices.
       Prices for major crops are expected to be high for several 
     years because of heavy world demand and extreme shortages 
     going into the wheat and corn harvests this year.
       As a result, crop subsidies could wind up costing a little 
     more than $12 billion over seven years, the figures show, if 
     farm law is unchanged.
       The Senate bill and the version headed for the House calls 
     for giving farmers $35.5 billion over seven years--nearly 
     three times what the Agricultural Department forecasts.

[[Page S1895]]

       The department estimates are based on more optimistic 
     forecasts for crop prices than those used by the 
     Congressional Budget Office, which Congress uses for 
     estimating program costs, and other forecasters.
       The wide gap points to the larger debate over the massive 
     overhaul, including who should get the money.
       The Republican bill guarantees the payments against future 
     budget cuts and leaves the way open for farm programs to end 
     after seven years. The high payments in 1996 will offset the 
     $2 billion in advance subsidies that farmers will have to 
     refund from 1995 because prices shot up.
       The Democrats, including Agriculture Secretary Dan 
     Glickman, say farmers still need a safety net in case crop 
     prices unexpectedly plunge--despite the department's rosy 
     predictions.
       Advocates for conservation and more help to small farmers 
     say that locking in payments to farmers, including the large 
     ones, means danger, especially if the House version passes 
     without any of the Senate amendments.
       ``The likely result will be that future agriculture budget 
     cuts will be in beginning farmer, rural development, research 
     and conservation programs,''said Chuck Hassebrook, an analyst 
     with the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, Neb.
       Andy Fisher, spokesman for the Senate Agriculture 
     Committee, hinted that the Freedom to Farm payments may have 
     to be cut. He also said the committee was awaiting final cost 
     estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
       He noted that the 1990 farm bill cost $57 billion over five 
     years--$15 billion more than forecast. The new bill would 
     allow no such overruns.
       Hoagland, at the Budget Committee, said that even though 
     the farm bill had been separated from the budget-balancing 
     bill: ``Most of our discussions had always assumed that we 
     would still get some savings, even in any final negotiated 
     agreement, in the $3 billion to $4 billion range. But we have 
     no savings at all. We have a cost.''
                                                                    ____


              [From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 23, 1996]

                 Hundreds Expected To Protest Farm Bill

                             (By Ann Toner)

       By bus, car and van, farmers from as far away as North 
     Dakota are expected to gather in Wichita, Kan., today to 
     voice their opposition to the latest farm program proposals 
     to gain House and Senate approval.
       Loosely dubbed the Freedom to Farm Act, the proposed law--
     officially, the Agricultural Marketing Transition Act in the 
     Senate--is in its final stages in Washington.
       While some other farm groups favor the proposal, the 
     opponents believe that unless substantial changes are made, 
     President Clinton should veto the bill.
       ``Doing nothing is a far better option than committing 
     economic suicide just to end the suspense of waiting,'' said 
     John Hansen of Tilden, president of the Nebraska Farmers 
     Union.
       Proponents ``listened to the grain trade and shut out the 
     interests of production agriculture,'' he said. ``It's a 
     hostile takeover of ag policy by the grain trade that will 
     flood the market with lots of cheap product at the expense of 
     family farmers.''
       John Whitaker, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said he 
     hopes to convince Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman that 
     unless substantial changes are made in the bill, Clinton 
     should veto it.
       ``Real farmers don't want welfare,'' Whitaker said. ``We 
     want to veto it and unless it can be improved, revert to 1949 
     law.
       ``Under the Senate bill, you don't even have to farm for 
     seven years to get a payment. Farm programs are supposed to 
     be a safety net. In years when they don't need it, like this 
     year, they shouldn't get a payment.''
       The final bill isn't finished--House and Senate versions 
     are due to be reconciled before being forwarded to Clinton--
     but opponents said they are meeting now to send their message 
     to Washington.
       But the proposal has strong defenders, said Rep. Bill 
     Barrett, R-Neb.
       ``This bill echoes the sentiment of the majority of those 
     in agriculture,'' Barrett said. ``This bill provides planting 
     flexibility, promises full production, and allows farmers to 
     manage their own businesses based on economic factors without 
     government intervention.''
       Rob Robertson, vice president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau 
     Federation, said provisions of the law would ``benefit 
     farmers by providing income stability over seven years and 
     allowing U.S. agriculture to compete in the world 
     marketplace.''
       Opponents include Sen. J.J. Exon, D-Neb.
       ``If we buy into the Freedom to Farm Act now, by the year 
     2002 there would be no farm programs at all, no safety net, 
     not anything,'' Exon said. ``For the next seven years, it 
     turns farm programs into welfare programs.''
       Today's rally is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. in the 
     parking lot of the Cotillion Ballroom in Wichita. Between 
     1,500 and 2,000 farmers are expected to participate, 
     representing several farm groups that oppose all or parts of 
     the proposal.
       Some of the groups represent mostly small farmers, but 
     others have many large-farm members as well.
       After the rally and a 6 p.m. barbecue, a 7 p.m. question-
     and-answer session with Glickman is planned inside the 
     ballroom.
       Glickman, a former Kansas congressman, opposes many aspects 
     of both versions.
       But sponsors of the Glickman dinner--Kansas Farmers Union 
     and KFDI, a Kansas radio station--said Glickman is not coming 
     to Wichita either to take part in the rally or to be rallied 
     against.
       In fact, Glickman isn't even scheduled to arrive until the 
     rally is over.
       The sponsors said Glickman is coming to Wichita for the 
     sole purpose of breaking bread with the farmers, speaking and 
     answering questions from farmers after dinner.
       National Farmers Union President Leland Swenson and Farmers 
     Union leaders from about 15 states are expected to be in 
     attendance.
       ``After two years under this program, production would 
     increase significantly, driving down prices,'' Swenson said. 
     That would leave farmers no chance to sell their crops at a 
     profit, he said.
       Gene Paul of Delavan, Minn., president of the National 
     Farmers Organization, also opposes the bill.
       ``Freedom to Farm will do nothing to improve the image of 
     agriculture, nor will it deal with the solution of America's 
     farm problem: sustained, profitable commodity prices,'' he 
     said.
       Wheat grower Tom Giesel of Larned, Kan., one of the 
     organizers of the rally, said farmers, not farm leaders, will 
     speak.
       ``We've invited speakers who can speak from the heart about 
     how this farm bill will affect their farms and rural 
     communities,'' Giesel said. ``Their message, that this bill 
     will devastate the rural economy, is very important for 
     people to understand.''
       More than a busload of Nebraskans are expected to attend 
     the Wichita event, said Hansen, the Nebraska Farmers Union 
     president.
       Other Nebraskans will represent the American Corn Growers 
     Association, the Nebraska State Grange, the NFO, the Nebraska 
     Wheat Growers Association and the League of Rural Voters.
       Hansen said he and many of the attending Nebraskans believe 
     the House and Senate bills would make their farms too 
     vulnerable to the marketplace and the whims of grain trading 
     giants.
       ``It's a political and economic bonanza to the grain 
     trade,'' he said. ``They got what they've wanted for a long 
     time.''
       Hansen said the promise of payments to farmers during the 
     transition without program restrictions would be so offensive 
     to taxpayer groups and members of Congress that it will ``set 
     us up for the political kill'' later on.
       Roy Frederick, a public policy specialist for the 
     University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said calling it an 
     Agricultural Market Transition Program is appropriate.
       ``It seems highly unlikely that flat payments without 
     regard for market conditions could last beyond 2002,'' 
     Frederick said.
       John Dittrich of Meadow Grove, Neb., who will speak at the 
     rally, said ending price supports would be ``extremely 
     destabilizing to farmers and destabilizing to consumers.''
       The increased risk of farming without a safety net would 
     discourage young farmers from entering the business and 
     jeopardize older farmers, Dittrich said.
       He said the proposals are influenced by businesses and 
     ``legislative theoreticians'' who don't understand the risks 
     and instabilities of farming.
       ``They've never had to look nature in the eye the way 
     farmers have had to do,'' he said.


               key provisions of ``freedom to farm'' act

                               Subsidies

       Eliminate crop subsidies and reduce payments annually to 
     farmers, ending them altogether in seven years.

                                Planting

       Eliminate crop acreage restrictions. Farmers would be 
     allowed to plant as much or little of any crop as they 
     choose.

                            Maximum payments

       Lower the maximum payment to farmers under the programs 
     from $50,000 to $40,000 but enlarge provisions that could 
     increase payments to large farmers who create several 
     subentities.

                              Conservation

       Senate version: Reauthorize the Conservation Reserve 
     Program through 2002 for up to 36.4 million acres, provide 
     incentives for farmers leaving the program to protect the 
     most environmentally sensitive land and fund a program to 
     reduce pollution from farm and livestock runoff.
       House version: Reduce the Conservation Reserve Program and 
     allow land to be withdrawn from the program at any time.

                                 Future

       Senate version: Require Congress to pass additional farm 
     legislation when the current bill expires.
       House version: Instead of requiring a new bill, name a 
     Commission on 21st Century Production Agriculture to make 
     future policy recommendations.
                                                                    ____


           Lugar To Keep Campaigning, Hold Ag Panel Position

       Washington.--Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., said Thursday that he 
     would not consider stepping down as chairman of the Senate 
     Agriculture Committee while he continues campaigning for the 
     Republican presidential nomination.
       Lugar also said that Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., should remain 
     as Senate majority leader while campaigning for the 
     nomination.

[[Page S1896]]

       ``I think Bob Dole is doing a great job as our majority 
     leader.'' Lugar said at a press conference. ``I hope I have 
     done a good job getting a farm bill through the Senate.''
       Lugar, who received less than 6 percent of the vote in the 
     Iowa party caucuses and the New Hampshire primary election, 
     said he plans to continue campaigning ``as long as there is 
     money and some momentum.''
                                                                    ____


             [From the Lincoln Journal Star, Feb. 25, 1996]

        Only People Who Eat Need To Worry About Our Food Policy

                           (By Sally Herrin)

       The United States Senate put the family farm up for sale 
     when it voted 64-32 to send Bob Dole's Agriculture Marketing 
     Transition Act. S1541, to the House of Representatives 
     tomorrow morning, Feb. 26. This is a modified version of Bill 
     Barrett's and Newt Gingrich's Freedom to Farm proposal, which 
     is the ``final solution'' to farm programs.
       But farm programs are just for farmers, rights? Think 
     again.
       Concerned about the environment? No wilderness protection 
     initiative has anything like the impact on soil and water 
     quality that a national farm policy has, because farmers and 
     ranchers own more than three-fourths of the non-public land 
     in the country. And while S1541 retains authorization for the 
     Conservation Reserve (the butt of many a late night's comic 
     joke, this poorly understood program builds the nation's 
     environmental capital), the stone truth is the carrot-and-
     stick good faith partnership between ag producers and the 
     nation is broken. Added long-term conservation goals will be 
     sacrificed for short-term economic survival.
       Is food security national security? Europeans old enough to 
     have survived World War II would say so. Yet, the proposed 
     farm bill excludes farmers who haven't participated in farm 
     programs in at least one of the last five years, cutting off 
     farm kids at the knees.
       The average farmer in Nebraska is 57. Seven years of 
     declining severance pay takes most of them right up to 
     retirement. Who will farm then?
       Nebraska lost 33.9 percent of its rural population between 
     1980 and 1990. Just as agriculture is the prime economic base 
     for the state as a whole, farm families are the economic base 
     for the main street businesses which serve them. When the 
     families leave and fail, the towns dry up and stand rattling 
     like pin oaks in the wind.
       Earl Butz--former secretary of agriculture, forced to 
     resign for telling off-color, racist jokes and later 
     convicted of income tax fraud, mentor to Clayton Yeutter and 
     economic godfather to Freedom to Farm--Earl Butz described 
     rural depopulation resulting from low commodity prices this 
     way: ``This trend toward fewer farms isn't bad. Rather, it's 
     good because it frees a larger percentage of the population 
     to become productive members of society.''
       While Butz and Yeutter laid the groundwork for the 
     industrialization of our food supply, it has taken Dole and 
     Gingrich to bring big business to its perilous new heights of 
     corporate economic advantage, which is what Freedom to Farm 
     is all about.
       The only people who should care about farm policy are the 
     people who eat. As for so much else in modern life, we are in 
     denial about how food comes to our table. But no Martha 
     Stewart recipe will take away the stink of corporate hog 
     farming and the environmental and economic devastation that 
     it means to communities just across the Missouri River in 
     Iowa.
       National food security is a matter of reasonable production 
     goals that also give something back to the land, and it's a 
     matter of a strategic food reserve. Freedom to Farm creates 
     planting chaos and a world of boom-and-bust cycles with huge 
     surpluses and terrible shortages. The last time the 
     agricultural market was this ``free,'' they called it the 
     Great Depression. It not only can happen here, it has.
       Freedom to Farm means seven years of decoupled welfare 
     payments to farmers, politically indefensible in times when 
     welfare to poor women and children being gutted, and lending 
     new meaning to ``planned obsolescence.''
       In a letter to the editor (LJS, Feb. 21), Bill Barrett 
     claimed his proposal was designed to let farmers get their 
     income from the market. But his bill strips farmers of their 
     traditional marketing tools, including the Farmer-Owned 
     Reserve and the Emergency Livestock Fee Program, and caps the 
     loan rate for corn at $1.89. Since loan caps in practice 
     generally become price ceilings, this means farmers selling 
     corn at or below the cost of production.
       The food sector, the most profitable in the national 
     economy bar none, is shared by four corporations: Cargill, 
     ConAgra, ADM and IBP. Mexican farmers call them the Coyotes, 
     and I'm hoping the tag will catch on.
       There is no free market. The food sector has become a 
     system of shared monopolies, and by letting men like Dole and 
     Barrett shape our national policy who consistently favor big 
     corporations at the expense of the public good, we permit it 
     to happen.
       While you may want government off your back as the shadow 
     of tax time creeps near, you'd do well to remember that 
     government is all you've got to mitigate, much less control, 
     big business.
       Bob Dole has been one of Archer Daniels Midland's best 
     long-term political investments. Bill Barrett, ConAgra's 
     largest single PAC recipient for the years 1980-92, is 
     repaying his contributor with the Freedom to Farm the Farmer 
     is Spades.
       The farm hits the auction block tomorrow morning when the 
     House takes up debate. The land is the only thing the Coyotes 
     don't own. Yet. But unless our president and representatives 
     get a lot of calls and wires tonight, we've just sold the 
     family farm.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Lincoln Journal Star, Feb. 18, 1996]

           Freedom To Farm: An Excuse To Abandon Agriculture

       Blow a little dust off your memories of the 1988 Senate 
     race in Nebraska. David Karnes is at the podium at State Fair 
     Park in Lincoln. Row after row of Republican cheerleaders 
     lean forward, gathering themselves for their next explosion. 
     But coming out of Karnes' mouth are these fateful words: ``We 
     need fewer farmers at this point in time.''
       Groans. Gasps. Even boos. Cheerleaders slump in their 
     seats. Bob Kerrey seizes on what Karnes later describes as a 
     slip of the tongue and delivers a stern lecture. A few weeks 
     later, voters elect Kerrey and cast Karnes into the basement 
     of political esteem.
       But guess what? Eight years after a promising conservative 
     showed his poor grasp for acceptable rhetoric, the 
     underpinnings of the once unutterable are being uttered 
     daily. As Congress and President Clinton stumble toward 
     passage of new farm policy, the words ``freedom to farm'' are 
     much in vogue. They are represented, not as the first step 
     toward abandonment of agriculture, but as breath-taking 
     reform.
       When Karnes charged into Lincoln with a solid shot at 
     beating Kerrey, the underpinnings for sweeping change were 
     called ``decoupling.'' It was a simply slogan meant to break 
     the link between public payments to financially challenged 
     farmers and public attempts to manage grain supplies and 
     natural resources.
       Eight years later, ``freedom to farm'' is a softer sell of 
     essentially the same thing. If conservatives have their way 
     with the next farm bill, farmers will still get money from 
     the government over the next seven years, but there will no 
     longer be any requirement of idle acres.
       The trouble with this policy is that it neglects farmers' 
     protection against mountainous and ruinous grain surpluses. 
     It neglects consumers' protection against shortage. It edges 
     farmers away from earning their way by conserving and under-
     utilizing their land assets. The new policy has the 
     government doling out compassion and dollars in diminishing 
     increments over the next seven years.
       Momentum is still building to send this very message to 
     farmers by mid March, before the last-ditch deadline for 
     enrollment in the payment-compliance system and the start of 
     planting season. The freedom to farm crowd continues to 
     describe it as the one true path toward self-reliance and 
     cutting into the federal debt.
       It is not. It's not even close. Reformers could save tons 
     of money if they just targeted farm payments toward the 
     smaller and often younger farmers who need them and cut off 
     the big farmers who have plenty of equity and cash. In what 
     may be the only country in the world that has never known 
     food shortages, rational policy makers could keep a proven 
     food security system in place, cut costs and still offer 
     farmers familiar incentives for controlling erosion and 
     ground-water contamination.
       According to the most recent portrayals of its leadership, 
     the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest alliance of 
     grain producers nationally and in Nebraska, is among those 
     sold on much rasher behavior. Its legions are ready to roll 
     up their sleeves, renounce reliance on tax dollars, and 
     exercise this new freedom to farm.
       According to recent portrayals by Sen. Jim Exon, the Farm 
     Bureau is mentally ill. It must be schizophrenia. Exon said, 
     that has its spokesmen calling for more of the same in the 
     federal-farmer partnership one moment and much less of the 
     same the next.
       Those eager to demolish farm programs suggest the average 
     farmer is a millionaire, because he has a million dollars' 
     worth of paper assets. They smugly suggest that the 
     government could have bought all the farmland in 41 states 
     with the money it spent on the farm program in the last 10 
     years.
       Much of this is the rhetoric of insanity. But regardless of 
     what farm groups and farmers really want, consumers should 
     embrace sanity and a system that can continue to serve their 
     food needs at a more acceptable budget price.
       Reform is a wonderful thing. Adjusting farm policy so that 
     farmers are cast in the role of welfare recipients is not 
     reform. It is a calculated abandonment of government's 
     crucial role in ensuring a good supply and reasonable food 
     prices.
                                                                    ____


                   Term Limits Can't Go on '96 Ballot

       Any attempt to put another question dealing with term 
     limits on the November ballot could run afoul of the Nebraska 
     Constitution, said Secretary of State Scott Moore.
       Article III, Section 2 of the constitution says: ``The same 
     measure, either in form or in essential substance, shall not 
     be submitted to the people by initiative petition, either 
     affirmatively or negatively, more often than once in three 
     years.''
       The Nebraska Supreme Court last week threw out term limits 
     that were placed on the ballot in 1994.

[[Page S1897]]

       Moore said his warning did not apply to a petition already 
     filed that would seek to force legislators to support term 
     limits. Rather than putting term limits in the State 
     constitution, that measure seeks to label on the ballot those 
     candidates who do not support the idea.
                                                                    ____


              Freedom to Farm: Freedom to Plunder Treasury

       Farming experts will tell you that a farmer who can't make 
     money raising corn at $3 a bushel should sell the tractor and 
     move to town. Fortunately, most Nebraska farmers are much too 
     smart to miss out on the $3 corn and the profits that appear 
     will within reach as the 1996 growing season approaches.
       But misfortune is in this picture, too--misfortune for 
     taxpayers. Congress is hammering out a farm bill that 
     proposes to give these same savvy farmers as much as $40,000 
     each in extra income, in precious tax money, this year. Why? 
     Because that how Freedom To Farm, the new approach that is 
     supposed to get the government off the farmer's back, is 
     supposed to work. It put more government, more cost, on the 
     taxpayer's back instead.
       It does this by severing the long-standing connection 
     between grain supplies, market conditions and levels of price 
     support payments to producers.
       Conservatives have opened the door to one of the biggest 
     boondoggles in farm program history. In the first year of 
     this ill-named ``reform,'' farmers can get almost $4 a bushel 
     for any corn they have in the bin right now. The have every 
     night to expect that they can lock in prices of $3 per bushel 
     or better on their 1996 production--and they will still 
     qualify for thousands of dollars in government support!
       Freedom to Farm sets aside several billions dollars for the 
     first of seven years of annually declining financial support 
     to farmers. Allocators of that amount are completely 
     oblivious to need and profit influences. Right in front of us 
     here, in fact, is a year when farmers are unlikely to need 
     any help at all.
       A typical Nebraska farmers could easily make $200 an 
     irrigated acre in profit in 1996--$200 after expenses. If he 
     has 1,000 acres of corn, that's profit in six figures. That's 
     not the sort of financial statement that ought to be 
     supported by another $40,000 from taxpayers.
       Much less likely, but not impossible is this market 
     scenario: A bad export forecast or the kind of weather that 
     causes bin-busting surpluses intrudes in the next few weeks, 
     prices plummet, and this financial safety net is suddenly 
     woefully inadequate.
       The point in either case is that this twisted vision of 
     farm policy helps farmers when they don't need help and could 
     well help them too little when they need lots of help. That's 
     what Freedom to Farm would do if it passes in present form.
       As it exists in the House, scene of the debate this week, 
     it is even worse. Freedom to Farm on the House side is also 
     woefully deficient in protection of soil and water resources 
     and in support for rural development of things that should 
     matter to farmers, to consumers, and anybody who understands 
     that farm policy is also food policy and environmental 
     policy.
       In all of those areas, Congress has edged dangerously close 
     to handing us bad policy.

  Senate Farm Bill a ``Sell Out'' of Farm Families, Says NFU President

       Washington, DC.--The farm bill passed by the U.S. Senate 
     Wednesday was termed a ``sell out of American farm families 
     and their values to the special interests of agi-business and 
     a licence for a few corporations to further dominate the 
     marketing, processing and trading of agricultural 
     commodities'' by National Farmers Union President Leland 
     Swenson. Representing 250,000 farm, ranch and other rural 
     families across the nation, Swenson expressed concern that 
     the Agricultural Transition Act would escalate the move of 
     U.S. agriculture away from its system of independently owned 
     and operated family farms to that of contract production.
       ``How ironic it is for this reform-mined Congress to 
     establish a brand new bureaucracy instead of enacting real 
     farm policy reforms. The Agricultural Transition Act 
     guarantees payments regardless of commodity prices and 
     regardless of whether or not a crop is even planted,'' Said 
     Swenson. ``This bill would provide producers with a short-
     term gain, but it will inevitably lead to long-term economic 
     pain for independent family farmers and for other rural 
     communities,'' said Swenson.
       The Senate is irresponsible in this proposal to enact 
     policies which maximize production, lower commodity prices at 
     the farm gate and make set payment,'' said Swenson. He also 
     notes that under this bill farmers would be asked to sign 
     seven-year compliance contracts without even knowing what 
     their transition payments will be.
       The Agricultural Transition Act caps marketing loan rates 
     for seven years. The maximum loan rates under this bill would 
     be: corn--$1.89 per bushel; wheat--$2.58 per bushel; 
     soybeans--$5.26 per bushel; cotton--52 cents per pound; and 
     rice--$6.50 cwt.
       ``Loan rates are capped at artifically low levels, 
     stripping away any opportunity producers might have to market 
     their commodities in a manner that positively affects farm 
     income,'' said Swenson. ``After two years under this program, 
     production would increase significantly, driving down 
     prices.''
       Farmers Union supports the U.S. Senate's retention of 
     permanent farm law and the reauthorization of nutrition, 
     conservation and rural development programs, as well as 
     increased planting flexibility.
       ``The bottom line is that the Agricultural Transition Act 
     will drive down commodity prices, lower farm income and make 
     it difficult for young farmers to enter production 
     agriculture,'' said Swenson. ``We will urge President Clinton 
     to veto the proposal if it reaches his desk.''
       ``Beyond the devastating economic impact this proposal 
     would have on rural communities, we need to question the 
     long-term consequences of a food supply controlled by a 
     handful of multi-national corporations. We also need to ask 
     ourselves if such a system of food production is worth the 
     environmental degradation and the loss of rural businesses 
     and infrastructrue,'' said Swenson.
                                                                    ____


        What's Wrong With the Farm Bill Approved by the Senate?

       S. 1541, the Agriculture Market Transition Act, is still 
     ``Freedom to Farm.'' This is the grain trade bill, designed 
     as a watershed legislation to end farm programs.
       This bill decouples production from payments. Farmers don't 
     want decoupled welfare payment, they want a fair price for 
     what they produce. In a political climate where welfare 
     payments to the poorest children are under attack, given the 
     already massive national negative press characterizations of 
     farmers as rich welfare cheats, given the declining 
     population and political base of farmers, given the fact that 
     farmers will collect decoupled welfare type payments during 
     periods of relatively high commodity prices, Congress will 
     most likely eliminate the Farm Bill before its scheduled 7 
     years. This amounts to an invitation to our own hanging.
       How can anyone be expected to sign a seven-year contract 
     for declining payments without knowing what is being offered? 
     There is nothing in S. 1541 to even allow producers to 
     calculate what their transition payment would be. All we know 
     is that payment is limited to 85 percent of contract acres, 
     and based on historical yields, frozen since 1985. There is 
     no price factor in this formula. USDA just divides the 
     available pool of money between contracting farmers.
       S. 1541 provides what amounts to as ``severance payment'' 
     to older farmers looking to get out of farming, but what 
     about young farmers trying to get in? Young farmers are 
     locked out.
       This bill actually reduces marketing flexibility. It 
     eliminates traditional marketing tools used by farmers to 
     store farm commodities during periods of low commodity 
     prices: The Farmer Owned Reserve is dead. So is the Emergency 
     Feed Program and the Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance 
     Program.
       This lowers the non-recourse marketing assistance loans 
     down to: corn--$1.89, wheat--$2.58, rice--$6.50/cwt, and 
     soybeans based on 85% of recent average prices, using the 
     same formula used for wheat and feed grains or between $4.92 
     to $5.25/bu. In addition, it gives the Secretary of 
     Agriculture the authority to make downward adjustments to 
     wheat and feed grain loan rates based on stocks-to-use-
     formulas, but no authority to raise loan rates.
       Contracts must be signed by April 15. The House has yet to 
     act on the Farm Bill, and will not likely do so until the end 
     of February. The House and Senate versions will then need to 
     go to Conference Committee, and then reported to the 
     President. Will that be enough time to develop new rules and 
     program regs by then? No.
       This Farm Bill will cause a tremendous amount of 
     uncertainty in crop production as farmers chase whatever crop 
     they think will work best this year. Boom and Bust. Huge 
     surpluses, and major crop shortages. National Food Safety is 
     clearly at risk. Land values and other assets will decrease 
     as crop prices wildly gyrate and auger their way to the 
     bottom of the unprotected world market price, which tends to 
     be the ``dump price.''
       So what is so bad about the 1949 Permanent Farm Bill? Not 
     much. Is it better than the current law or the proposed Farm 
     Bills in either the Senate or House? Yes, much better.
       What do we want the President to do? VETO the Farm Bill.

           [From the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Feb. 25, 1996]

                 Iowans Wary About Freedom to Farm Bill

                           (By George Anthan)

       Washington.--Two of Iowa's most respected voices on 
     national agricultural policy--both of them Republicans and 
     farmers--express strong misgivings over the GOP's Freedom to 
     Farm bill, which would guarantee subsidies to farmers 
     regardless of market prices.
       Cooper Evans of Grundy Center, a former congressman and 
     former agriculture adviser to President Bush's White House, 
     said the policy advanced under the Freedom To Farm bill 
     ``would be a disaster.''
       Thurman Gaskill of Corwith--long active in national farm 
     policy affairs and a high-ranking political operative for 
     Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush--said: ``I don't understand 
     the thinking behind this. In the short term, it's a hell of a 
     deal. But I don't think it's good for the long-term farm 
     policy of this country.''
       Evans, an influential member of the House Agriculture 
     Committee during his congressional service, said: ``To me, 
     the important point is that now is not the time for a program 
     that can be viewed as strictly a gift in

[[Page S1898]]

     the sense that it's not at all tied to need, not at all tied 
     to current prices, not at all tied to supplies.
       ``It's just a gift, which seems to me to be totally 
     incompatible with the fundamental interest of both parties to 
     whip the budget deficit.''
       Evans continued: ``We're making all kinds of claims on 
     programs that have a much larger constituency, and I think it 
     makes those who support (Freedom To Farm) extremely 
     vulnerable to the criticism that you're cutting Medicare, 
     you're cutting Medicaid . . . and yet you're giving this 
     money to farmers regardless of what they do, regardless of 
     what they plant, regardless of what the prices are.
       ``It would be most inappropriate to do this.''
       Conversely, Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, who strongly supports 
     Freedom To Farm, said it ``eases our farm economy into a 
     market-oriented economy though guaranteed market transition 
     payments.''
       But Freedom To Farm, approved recently by the Senate, isn't 
     law, yet. The House returns this week to take it up amid 
     signs of rebellion among conservatives, environmentalists, 
     consumer advocates and even farm-state legislators.
       House conservatives are upset because the Senate, to avoid 
     a filibuster, added $4 billion to the bill's cost and 
     reauthorized food stamps and other nutrition programs they 
     wanted to cut back as part of welfare reform.
       Also, the Senate avoided dealing with the complex dairy 
     issue. But a House proposal is being attacked by consumer and 
     food manufacturing interests as a measure that would force 
     higher milk prices.
                                                                    ____


               Economist: Farm Bill Will Drop Crop Prices

       The Freedom to Farm bill, as written, would mean lower crop 
     prices, more production and could ultimately affect property 
     tax revenues, an agricultural economist said.
       The bill, passed by the U.S. Senate, would phase out crop 
     subsidies to producers over a seven-year period.
       Because farmers will no longer be told what to plant and 
     how much to plant, production will increase, said Gene Murra, 
     an economist at South Dakota State University.
       ``I think it would be very easy, in many cases, for 
     producers to say, `Well heck, I might just as well plant as 
     much as I can,' and given the fact that we have a relatively 
     high price this year, that's going to encourage even more of 
     that kind of thing. So we could have very large production in 
     any given year if the weather is just right,'' Murra said.
       Lower crop prices could lower values of agricultural 
     property lending to lower property tax collections, he said.
                                                                    ____


        NFO Opposes ``Freedom to Farm Act'' as Passed by Senate

       Ames, IA.--The National Farmers Organization (NFO) opposes 
     the Freedom to Farm Act as passed by the U.S. Senate.
       ``The statement that Iowa U.S. Senator Charles Grassley is 
     circulating that all farm organizations support the Freedom 
     to Farm Act is erroneous,'' says NFO president Gene Paul. 
     ``The NFO cannot support the act because in the long run it 
     will not benefit NFO members, nor rural communities.''
       ``The one thing that farmers and ranchers in this country 
     need is more economic stability and sustained profitability 
     based on fair farm commodity prices. Otherwise, they are 
     unable to make sound farm management and marketing decisions. 
     Freedom to Farm does just the opposite. It transitions 
     farmers into a world market that is anything but free, and is 
     most notable for price instability,'' Paul explains.''
       ``Furthermore, while no one wants deep government intrusion 
     into day-to-day farming decisions, the federal government has 
     a legitimate role in agriculture,'' Paul notes. ``It needs to 
     insure fair competition, both domestic and foreign. It needs 
     to keep accurate records of the agricultural industry. And it 
     needs to provide some form of an income safety net to food 
     and fiber producers who are the victims of circumstances 
     beyond their control, such as severe weather, political 
     shenanigans, and market manipulations.''
       Another NFO concern about Freedom to Farm, according to 
     Paul, is the image it will convey to consumers and taxpayers 
     that farmers are benefitting from an unnecessary government 
     subsidy or handout.
       ``The American public already has a false conception that 
     family farmers are doing well economically, when in fact 
     thousands of them continue to go out of business each year,'' 
     Paul concludes. ``Freedom to Farm will do nothing to improve 
     the image of agriculture, nor will it deal with the solution 
     to America's farm problem, which is sustained, profitable 
     commodity prices.''
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, Mar. 1, 1996]

      House Approves Biggest Change in Farm Policy Since New Deal


             legislation phases out subsidies over 7 years

                           (By Eric Schmitt)

       Washington.--The House today approved a major overhaul of 
     American farm programs, voting to end 1930's policies that 
     pay farmers not to plant certain crops and to replace many 
     subsidies with fixed payments that would end after seven 
     years.
       The $46 billion legislation, the most far-reaching 
     agricultural bill since the New Deal, ends most Government 
     controls over planting decisions for America's 1.5 million 
     farmers. The vote was 270 to 155, with 54 Democrats voting 
     for the bill and 19 Republicans voting against.
       ``We've now changed the farm-program world,'' said 
     Representative Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the 
     House Agriculture Committee.
       The Senate approved a similar, but slightly more costly 
     bill earlier this month. Lawmakers from both chambers will 
     likely meet next week to hammer out a compromise version. 
     Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said the House bill ``fell 
     short'' in maintaining financing for research, rural 
     development and food for the poor. He said he would not 
     recommend the bill to Mr. Clinton unless the conference 
     committee altered these and other provisions.
       The Administration and Congress both want to pass a farm 
     bill soon and farmers are clamoring for a resolution because 
     planting season has begun or will begin soon in many areas.
       Mr. Glickman also complained that elimination of the 
     market-based subsidy payments would deprive farmers of a 
     vital safety net. But with crop prices at 10-year highs, 
     consumer groups say the fixed payments the bill calls for 
     would actually cost more in the next few years than the 
     current subsidies, which fall when prices are high.

                 From the New York Times, Mar. 6, 1996]

                      Big Changes Down on the Farm

       Reforming the nation's bloated farm subsidy programs is no 
     overnight task. It has taken 60 years for an emergency relief 
     program to mutate into what now amounts to a welfare system 
     for the rural middle class. Nevertheless, Congress has moved 
     an amazing distance toward ending support programs for wheat, 
     corn, rice and cotton. It even took aim, although it missed, 
     at peanuts, sugar and dairy support systems that milk 
     consumers.
       The Senate and House have passed bills that would phase out 
     wheat, corn, rice and cotton subsidies over a seven-year 
     period. The House came within a few votes of ending peanut 
     and sugar programs and beat back an audacious attempt by some 
     dairy interests to make milk marketing even more costly to 
     consumers. Senate-House conferees need to make clear, as the 
     House bill attempts to do, that after 2002 the farm welfare 
     supplicants cannot count on reverting to old, discredited 
     law.
       The seven-year weaning process, a schedule of declining 
     annual payments to farmers regardless of their planting 
     decisions, is itself a form of welfare designed to appease 
     long-pampered farm lobbyists. The House bill would make it 
     harder for lobbyists to extend the dole after seven years and 
     is thus preferable to the Senate version.
       Peanuts and sugar have narrowly survived but they are 
     rapidly becoming endangered species at a time of budget 
     constraints and growing impatience with wasteful government 
     spending. It is now planting season, time for the Senate and 
     House to adopt the better elements of both bills.
                                                                    ____


             [From the Lincoln Journal-Star, Feb. 19, 1996]

         Big Agribusiness Enjoyed Benefits in Senate Farm Bill

       Washington.--With a mix of luck, work and unusual 
     organization, the lobby for big grain companies, railroads, 
     meat companies, millers and shippers scored a big win in the 
     Senate-passed overhaul of farm programs.
       The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill, as it's called, stops the 
     government from forcing growers to idle land in order to keep 
     getting federal payments. It says farmers can grow the crop 
     that's most likely to sell without losing government payments 
     usually tied to a particular crop. For seven years, at least, 
     the government won't fix the price of corn, wheat and other 
     row crops.
       Those things please the people who depend on a steady 
     stream of raw farm goods. The stress on volume over price has 
     made farmers suspicious of being exploited. Still, farmers 
     wanted some of the same things, too, which is one reason the 
     Senate could pass the bill 64-32 on Feb. 7.
       Not that the antagonisms, dating to the last century, will 
     end. Democratic advocates for small farmers from states like 
     North Dakota and Minnesota futilely hammered the bill for 
     helping corporate America while leaving the yeoman farmer out 
     in the cold when price-based subsidies end.
       ``In the long run it says you're on your own with Cargill. 
     You're on your own with the Chicago Board of Trade,'' said 
     Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., taking on the Minnesota-based 
     food giant during the Senate debate.
       Cargill Inc., and the Chicago Board of Trade did work 
     Congress. So did such giants as General Mills Inc., Tyson 
     Foods, Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific 
     Railroad, Rabobank Nederland, The Fertilizer Institute and 
     others who build a business from agriculture.
       Unlike before, the food companies and trade groups banded 
     together. In the fall of 1994, more than 120 formed the 
     Coalition for a Competitive Food & Agricultural System.
       ``It was probably the first time in history that a broad-
     based group in the food industry had gotten together with 
     market-oriented reforms in mind,'' said spokesman Stu Hardy, 
     a former staffer on the Senate Agriculture Committee, now 
     with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

[[Page S1899]]

       Individual members had tried to shape earlier farm bills, 
     he said, but congressional committees answered mainly to 
     grower groups and general farm organizations like the 
     American Farm Bureau Federation. Others were ``pesky 
     intruders,'' he said.
       This time the coalition planned and carried out a lobbying 
     campaign to show urban and suburban lawmakers what their 
     stake was in farm law. Farmers who depend on crop subsidies 
     number in the hundreds of thousands. The mills, railroads, 
     ports and food companies and rest of the business provide 19 
     million jobs, often a long distance from the fields.
       The group and its members met with every member of Congress 
     or their staffs, putting together information on each 
     district. It held farm bill seminars for congressional staff 
     and the media.
       The job turned out to be a lot easier than first thought. 
     The Republican takeover of Congress, the move to overhaul 
     government and the push to balance the budget were not sure 
     things.
       Wanting to keep the safety net but have more freedom to 
     switch crops, farmers were ready for some change, then more. 
     The Agriculture Department made corn growers idle 8 percent 
     of their land in 1995. The way the market went, growers could 
     have planted those acres and sold the crop at a good price. 
     Western Kansas wheat growers suffered a crop disaster, but 
     had to repay advance subsidies when prices soared.
       Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the House Agriculture 
     Committee, came up with the Freedom to Farm bill, which 
     guaranteed a payment for farmers that falls over seven years 
     and is not linked to crop prices.
       The coalition didn't get everything. It couldn't cut the 
     Conservation Reserve Program, which keeps 36 million acres of 
     land out of production, including some good farm land. The 
     Senate bill keeps ``permanent'' farm law in the attic, 
     meaning the old system of crop-based subsidies could return.

              [From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 25, 1996]

              Businesses Put Muscle Behind Farm Bill Push

                          (By David C. Beeder)

       Washington.--Major changes in U.S. farm policy--passed by 
     the Senate and pending in the House--will get a big push all 
     the way to the White House from a powerful coalition of more 
     than 100 grain traders, processors, shippers, retailers and 
     producer organizations.
       ``We wanted to retain a farm income safety net but also 
     eliminate acreage reduction programs (ARPs),'' said Mary 
     Waters of ConAgra Inc. of Omaha. ``Both of these bills do 
     that.''
       Stu Hardy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the 
     legislation could have been strengthened if it had reduced 
     the amount of acreage in the 36 million acre Conservation 
     Reserve Program, in which farmers are paid to idle land.
       ``This program goes on and on without adequate 
     opportunities for an early out,'' Hardy said.
       He said the Coalition for a Competitive Food & Agricultural 
     System also was concerned about the Senate's retention of 
     government programs restricting an open market for peanuts, 
     sugar and dairy products.
       ``But we are pleased with the planting flexibility, the 
     elimination of ARPs and the decoupling of income support and 
     crop prices on a per-bushel or per-pound basis,'' Hardy said.
       The seven-year Senate bill, which passed 64-32 Feb. 7, 
     would end government subsidies for corn, wheat, cotton and 
     rice on farms where those crops were planted on government-
     authorized acreage year after year.
       Under the Senate bill, farmers would be allowed to plant 
     any crop--or no crop at all--while continuing to receive 
     government payments based on a declining percentage of 
     subsidies paid in the past.
       ``It's a buyout. That's what it is,'' said Hardy. ``But the 
     costs are fixed, and they are capped.''
       In the past, he said, Congress would pass a five-year farm 
     bill with a cost estimate that generally fell far short of 
     the eventual expenditure.
       Opponents of the Senate-passed bill include Sens. Tom 
     Harkin, D-Iowa, J.J. Exon, D-Neb., and Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., 
     who contend it will destroy a system intended to protect 
     consumers and America's food supply in years when commodity 
     prices fall below the cost of production.
       Bob Petersen of the National Grain Trade Council said the 
     coalition would not have endorsed a bill without income 
     protections for farmers.
       ``But we felt the time for a 1930s-style farm bill had come 
     and gone,'' said Petersen, a native of Burwell, Neb. ``We 
     wanted an income safety net that would not distort markets.''
       Petersen, whose organization represents grain markets 
     including the Chicago Board of Trade and the Lincoln, Neb., 
     grain exchange, said U.S. farmers should have the opportunity 
     to capture a greater share of global markets at a time when 
     prices are strong.
       He said the coalition of organizations supporting major 
     change came together gradually over a period of a year.
       ``Some of the farm groups were pretty suspicious of us at 
     first,'' Petersen said. ``As the year has gone on we've all 
     gravitated toward the same position.''
       Petersen said the bill passed by the House could be 
     considerably different than the Senate bill.
       ``However, I think it will get done,'' he said. ``Farmers 
     and farm groups have been quite vocal in telling Congress 
     they want a bill.''
       Stephanie Patrick of Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis, like 
     ConAgra a large grain buyer and meat packer, said she 
     couldn't predict the fate of the farm bill in the House or 
     whether it might be vetoed by President Clinton.
       However, she said, the coalition has been a major factor in 
     moving the legislation to a point of decision.
       ``The most gratifying thing about this bill is that we all 
     were going for the same goal,'' she said.
       Floyd Gaibler of the 1,200-member, 8,000-outlet 
     Agricultural Retailers Association, said his organization 
     joined the coalition because it supported the goal of ending 
     supply-management policies in agriculture.
       ``I think everybody agrees they don't work in today's 
     global market,'' said Gaibler, a native of Farnam, Neb., who 
     was an assistant to former Secretary of Agriculture Richard 
     Lyng.
       Drew Collier of Union Pacific Railroad, a coalition member, 
     said the Senate-passed bill would move the country toward a 
     market-oriented farm policy that would result in more grain 
     being transported by rail to export markets.
       ``The market place ultimately is the best arbiter of these 
     issues,'' Collier said. ``Supply-side management has not 
     proved to be the solution.''
       At the Chicago Board of Trade, where farm policy is 
     translated into prices and price protections, Celesta 
     Jurkovich said the need for more U.S. production has been 
     apparent for some time.
       ``You can see it in what's happening to prices,'' she said. 
     ``They've been going through the roof. The demand out there 
     far exceeds the supply.''
       Ms. Jurkovich, a senior vice president at the Chicago Board 
     of Trade, said global trends in population and rising living 
     standards indicate demand will remain strong into the next 
     century.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Montana renew his 
unanimous-consent request?
  Mr. BURNS. I propound that same unanimous-consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  So the bill (H.R. 2584), as amended, was passed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown) appointed Senators Lugar, Dole, 
Helms, Cochran, McConnell, Craig, Leahy, Pryor, Heflin, Harkin, and 
Conrad conferees on the part of the Senate.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I inquire of my friend from Nebraska who 
probably knows more about football than the average Senator. I once 
heard Darrell Royal, who was head football coach at the University of 
Texas. They always asked him why he never passed the ball very much. He 
had a great running team, and had a couple of national championships. 
He said, ``You know, when you pass the football, three things happen. 
And two of them are bad.''
  That is kind of like the way we are running the farm program now. 
When you are in the grain business because the grain companies can buy 
the grain cheap, if you take out a market loan on your grain you can 
forfeit the grain, if it is not market price. And that goes into the 
pockets of the taxpayer. Then the grain companies buy that after that 
happens probably at a lower price. Or they can go ahead and buy 
the grain, and the taxpayers pick up the difference between the grain 
and the target price. Three things happen. Two of them are bad for the 
taxpayer, and I think for agriculture.

  The reason we have high prices right now is because we had a crop 
failure. How can you pay a deficiency payment when you do not have any 
wheat?
  We had a great crop in Montana. We had a big crop and got a big 
price, and everybody is wealthy without the luxury of the deficiency 
payments.
  So I think what we are doing is so that a majority of agriculture 
would like to get their dollars at the marketplace, and I hope that 
this will work. If it does not then I will be the first Senator on the 
door of the Senator from Nebraska after he has retired in Lincoln, NE, 
and we might enjoy a football game and watch Big Red roll. And then we 
will talk about all the mistakes that we made together.
  Mr. EXON. If the Senator will yield, I thank him very much for his 
comments.
  There is one thing that I want to correct, because no one knows it 
better than my friend and colleague from Montana. Certainly each and 
every cattle farmer is not doing well today. And no one knows that 
better than my

[[Page S1900]]

friend from Montana because at one time he was a very prominent cattle 
person in Montana, and he knows better than anybody else the sad 
condition that our cattle industry is in today. I just wanted to 
correct the record. I know that he agrees with that. So everybody in 
Montana is not doing well. If there are any corn people up there, and 
the wheat people are probably doing pretty good and will the next 7 
years, I do not know about the cattle business.
  Mr. BURNS. We will hope for better times in the cattle business. The 
Senator from Nebraska knows that we have been through these times 
before, and we will go through this one.
  I will be honest with you. I have a hard time, I say to the Senator 
from Nebraska, of going down the aisle in the grocery store. And these 
people are setting up here tonight. They buy a box of Wheaties. 
Wheaties is $3.46 cents a pound. It is not $3.46 cents a box, but a 
pound. Until this year we had a hard time getting $3.50 cents a bushel 
for a bushel of wheat, and there are 60 pounds in that bushel. I have a 
hard time dealing with that.
  So I appreciate the comments of my friend from Nebraska.

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