[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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