[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 42 (Monday, March 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S2797]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FARM BILL CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, as farmers in Minnesota and across the 
Nation enter this year's planting season, I rise today in support of 
the farm bill conference report Congress will consider later this week.

  In the coming days, the Senate and the House, and ultimately the 
President, will have to make a choice: we will either revolutionize 
Federal agriculture policies as outlined in this conference report, or 
we will continue the failed, Washington-knows-best policies of the past 
60 years. But that choice should be very clear, Mr. President.
  After considerable delay, this much-needed legislation will give our 
agriculture communities a reasonable and responsible policy roadmap for 
the future.
  In the short term, decisions about planting, equipment purchases, 
fertilizer and seed sales, and credit will no longer hang in the 
balance. In the long term, farmers will have less Government 
interference from Washington, giving them the flexibility to plant for 
what the marketplace demands--not what traditional Government crop 
payments have dictated.
  I am also proud to note that this legislation is comprehensive and 
balanced when it comes to protecting our environmentally sensitive 
lands.
  Foremost among these environmental provisions is the Conservation 
Reserve Program, more commonly known as the CRP. I have heard from many 
of my Minnesota constituents, including farmers and sportsmen and 
women, who are pleased to see that the CRP and Wetlands Reserve Program 
were recognized, maintained, and strengthened because of their high 
success rates. In Minnesota, these programs will further protect our 
highly erodible lands while expanding hunting and fishing 
opportunities.
  Mr. President, overall this bill offers tremendous benefits to 
Minnesota's agriculture community, which already ranks among the 
Nation's most productive in many of the traditional raw and processed 
commodities.
  For individual Minnesota farmers, this legislation will help meet the 
needs of the growing number of value-added cooperatives and their 
customers who benefit from products such as ethanol. This in turn will 
help Minnesota's rural communities, which depend on high-output 
agriculture and value-added products for a large portion of income and 
jobs.
  Farmers and others dedicated to protecting the environment will not 
be the only individuals helped by this legislation. The American 
taxpayers will also benefit from the $2 billion in total budget savings 
that will go toward balancing the Federal budget.
  No longer will this portion of the agricultural budget serve as a 
potential runaway entitlement, as we saw happen after the 1985 farm 
bill. Instead, taxpayers and farmers will now know well in advance the 
specific amount of Federal dollars involved in food production.
  But while I enthusiastically support much of this bill because it 
works on behalf of both Minnesota's farm community and the American 
taxpayers, I must raise my strong concerns about its potential harm to 
Minnesota's dairy industry.
  For years, dairy producers and processors in the Upper Midwest have 
struggled against the harmful impact of the archaic Federal milk 
marketing order scheme. This complex set of regulations has played a 
key role in the loss of over 10,000 dairy farms in Minnesota over the 
last decade--an average of nearly three farms every day.
  I am pleased to see that this legislation pays some attention to 
reform of those archaic Federal dairy policies, specifically with the 
proposed consolidation of milk marketing orders and the elimination of 
costly budget assessments on producers. However, I must state for the 
record that continuation of milk marketing orders makes little sense, 
particularly when most other commodities in the bill are subject to 
declining Federal payments over a 7-year period.
  Continuing the milk marketing orders is disappointing, but the bill's 
inclusion of the Northeast Dairy Compact provokes even greater concern 
among the members of Minnesota's dairy industry.
  It should trouble my colleagues and their respective dairy industries 
when Congress authorizes more regulatory burdens and interstate trade 
barriers.
  Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened during conference 
negotiations on the farm bill with the mysterious resurrection of the 
Northeast Dairy Compact.
  Mr. President, many of my colleagues rightly thought the compact idea 
to be effectively defeated after we voted 50 to 46 to strike it out of 
the Senate's farm bill.
  However, despite the clear message sent by the Senate, the compact 
has reappeared in the conference report.
  Many of the compact's supporters will say that this is a compromise. 
After all, the Secretary of Agriculture will now have to decide whether 
to allow the New England States to create a compact.
  If authorized by the Secretary, the compact would only exist until 
the implementation of milk marketing orders takes place, which is 3 
years from now.
  Perhaps they are right. But we are still creating a bad precedent by 
making it easier for any region to set up its own monopoly. The Senate 
previously voted against the compact because it would ultimately result 
in a proliferation of antitrade barriers between the States and 
regions. At a time when we are trying to open up global markets for our 
Nation's farmers, it makes no sense to encourage protectionism within 
our own borders. Yet, that is exactly what the dairy compact would do.
  In response to the compact, other regions will work to get similar 
regional monopolies enacted. For far too long, regional politics have 
made many farm programs the way they are today--archaic, unfair, 
unwise, and unworkable.
  The purpose of this farm bill is to remove Government interference in 
the agricultural decisionmaking process and reduce the regional 
conflicts that have plagued our farm policy for years.
  Creation of the Northeast Dairy Compact would accomplish just the 
opposite--it would expand the role of government across America at the 
expense of free-trade opportunities.
  I will not stand for that and neither should any other Senator who 
voted against the compact last month. I urge my colleagues to join me 
in standing up for small dairy farmers across the country by 
cosponsoring a bill which I am introducing today to repeal the 
Northeast Dairy Compact.
  Instead of compromising on free-market principles and retreating into 
the past, my bill will move America's dairy industry forward.
  Mr. President, let me conclude by saying that the farm bill before us 
is obviously not a perfect piece of legislation. It does indeed have 
weaknesses, but I believe those weaknesses are outweighed by those 
provisions which move us in a more market-oriented direction.
  For this reason, I urge my colleagues to support the conference 
report on behalf of rural America, and on behalf of the taxpayers.

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