[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7898-S7911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1998

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 962

          (Purpose: To make technical corrections to the bill)

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Cochran], for himself and 
     Mr. Bumpers, proposes an amendment numbered 962.

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 55, line 20, strike ``1997'' and insert ``1998''.
       On page 55, line 21, strike ``1997'' and insert ``1998''.

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this is a technical amendment offered for 
myself and in behalf of the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Bumpers]. It has 
been cleared on both sides of the aisle.
  I ask that it be approved by the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment?
  If not, the question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator 
from Mississippi.
  The amendment (No. 962) was agreed to.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                           Amendment No. 963

   (Purpose: To make an amendment relating to rural housing programs)

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf 
of Senators D'Amato and Sarbanes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Cochran], for Mr. 
     D'Amato, for himself and Mr. Sarbanes, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 963.

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following:

     SEC.   . RURAL HOUSING PROGRAMS.

       (a) Housing in Underserved Areas Program.--The first 
     sentence of section 509(f)(4)(A) of the Housing Act of 1949 
     (42 U.S.C. 1479(f)(4)(A)) is amended by striking ``fiscal 
     year 1997'' and inserting ``fiscal year 1998''.
       (b) Housing and Related Facilities for Elderly Persons and 
     Families and Other Low-Income Persons and Families.--
       (1) Authority to make loans.--Section 515(b)(4) of the 
     Housing Act of 1949 (42 U.S.C. 1485(b)(4)) is amended by 
     striking ``September 30, 1997'' and inserting ``September 30, 
     1998''.
       (2) Set-aside for nonprofit entities.--The first sentence 
     of section 515(w)(1) of the Housing Act of 1949 (42 U.S.C. 
     1485(w)(1)) is amended by striking ``fiscal year 1997'' and 
     inserting ``fiscal year 1998''.
       (3) Loan term.--Section 515 of the Housing Act of 1949 (42 
     U.S.C. 1485) is amended--
       (A) in subsection (a)(2), by striking ``up to fifty'' and 
     inserting ``up to 30''; and
       (B) in subsection (b)--
       (i) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the following:
       ``(2) such a loan may be made for a period of up to 30 
     years from the making of the loan, but the Secretary may 
     provide for periodic payments based on an amortization 
     schedule of 50 years with a final payment of the balance due 
     at the end of the term of the loan;'';
       (ii) in paragraph (5), by striking ``and'' at the end;
       (iii) in paragraph (6), by striking the period at the end 
     and inserting ``; and ''; and
       (iv) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(7) the Secretary may make a new loan to the current 
     borrower to finance the final payment of the original loan 
     for an additional period not to exceed twenty years, if--
       ``(A) the Secretary determines--
       ``(i) it is more cost-effective and serves the tenant base 
     more effectively to maintain current property than to build a 
     new property in the same location; or
       ``(ii) the property has been maintained to such an extent 
     that it warrants retention in the current portfolio because 
     it can be expected to continue providing decent, safe, and 
     affordable rental units for the balance of the loan; and
       ``(B) the Secretary determines--
       ``(i) current market studies show that a need for low-
     income rural rental housing still exists for that area; and
       ``(ii) any other criteria established by the Secretary has 
     been met.''.
       (c) Loan Guarantees for Multifamily Rental Housing in Rural 
     Areas.--Section 538 of the Housing Act of 1949 (42 U.S.C. 
     1490p-2) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (q), by striking paragraph (2) and 
     inserting the following:
       ``(2) Annual limitation on amount of loan guarantee.--In 
     each fiscal year, the Secretary may enter into commitments to 
     guarantee loans under this section only to the extent that 
     the costs of the guarantees entered into in such fiscal year 
     do not exceed such amounts as may be provided in 
     appropriation Acts for such fiscal year.'';
       (2) by striking subsection (t) and inserting the following:
       ``(t) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are 
     authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 1998 for costs 
     (as such term is defined in section 502 of the Congressional 
     Budget Act of 1974) of loan guarantees made under this 
     section such sums as may be necessary for such fiscal 
     year.''; and

  Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment relating 
to Department of Agriculture rural housing programs. I would like to 
express my appreciation to Chairman Cochran and Ranking Minority Member 
Bumpers for their consideration of this amendment and their continued 
commitment to providing affordable housing for our Nation's rural 
Americans.
  The Department of Agriculture has a number of successful housing 
programs under the auspices of its Rural Housing Service [RHS]. 
Although operated by the Department of Agriculture, rural housing 
programs are under the jurisdiction of the Banking Committee. As 
chairman of the Banking Committee, I respectfully request the 
consideration of this much needed amendment.
  This amendment contains provisions which will permit important 
housing programs to continue in an uninterrupted and cost-efficient 
fashion. It includes 1-year extensions of housing programs which have 
expired or will expire in the near future. Specifically, the RHS 
Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Program, the RHS Section 538 Rural 
Rental Housing Loan Guarantee Program, and the RHS Underserved Areas 
Program would be extended until September 30, 1998.
  Due to the uncertainty of final passage of housing reauthorization 
legislation this year, these short-term extensions are essential. In 
addition, the amendment would alter the section 515 loan term and 
amortization schedule. This provision would change the loan term from 
50 to 30 years, but allow the borrower to have the loan amortized for a 
period not to exceed 50 years. This statutory change incurs no cost to 
the American taxpayer, and is necessary to ensure that budget authority 
provided will support the administration's proposed fiscal year 1998 
section 515 program level.
  The need for affordable housing in rural areas is severe. According 
to the 1990 census, over 2.7 million rural Americans live in 
substandard housing. In my home State of New York, 76 percent of 
renters are paying 30 percent or more of their income for housing. 
Approximately 60 percent of New York renters pay over 50 percent of 
their income for rent.
  The section 515 and section 538 programs are some of the few 
resources available to respond to this serious unmet housing need. 
Since its inception in 1962, the section 515 rental loan program has 
financed the development of over 450,000 units of affordable units in 
over 18,000 apartment projects. The program assists elderly, disabled, 
and low-income rural families with an average income of $7,200. The 
alteration of the section 515 loan term and amortization schedule will 
provide over 500 additional units. The section 538 program is a 
relatively young loan guarantee program which has already proven to 
have widespread national appeal. With a proposed subsidy rate of 
approximately 3 cents per $1, it is an example of cost-effective 
leveraging of public resources.
  I thank the Appropriations Committee for its recognition of the great 
need for these important rural housing programs and its steadfast 
commitment to

[[Page S7899]]

ensuring that every Federal dollar appropriated serves the greatest 
number of our low-income rural Americans. I support immediate passage 
of this amendment. Thank you.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise today in support of an amendment 
concerning rural housing reauthorizations for the Rural Housing Service 
of the Department of Agriculture. I want to commend Chairman Cochran 
and Ranking Member Bumpers for their tireless efforts and cooperation 
in bringing the Agriculture Appropriations Act of 1998 to the floor for 
Senate consideration.
  Given the uncertainty of housing reauthorization legislation this 
year, I have joined with Banking Committee Chairman D'Amato to request 
the inclusion of an amendment that would reauthorize several rural 
housing programs in the 1998 Agriculture appropriations bill. This 
amendment will allow the section 515 and section 538 rural rental 
housing programs to continue providing multifamily housing developers 
with direct loans and loan guarantees to build or rehabilitate 
affordable rental housing.
  In addition, this amendment reauthorizes for 1 year the nonprofit 
set-aside which reserves 10 percent of section 515 funds for nonprofit 
applicants, as well as the Underserved Areas Program which targets 
funds to the 100 most underserved rural communities. This amendment 
also changes the section 515 loan term from 50 to 30 years, while 
allowing the loan to be amortized over a 50-year period. This change 
permits the administration's proposed program level in the budget of 
$150 million to be supported by almost 15 percent less in budget 
authority.
  Without these housing programs targeted to very-low and low-income 
rural residents, there exists few resources in rural America to help 
alleviate the shortage of affordable rental housing. Rural areas still 
lack adequate access to commercial credit to finance affordable 
multifamily housing. The direct benefits to rural communities from the 
section 515 and section 538 programs includes increased jobs and local 
taxes in addition to attracting and maintaining businesses. This is a 
direct and vital link to the overall health and stability for rural 
communities.
  While the Rural Housing Service has done much to bring decent, safe, 
and affordable housing to rural America, many rural families are still 
in need of assistance. Rural renters experience housing problems such 
as overcrowding, cost overburdens, and substandard facilities. There 
are 1.6 million rural households that live in housing without adequate 
plumbing, heating, or kitchen facilities. Nearly 2.5 million are paying 
more than 50 percent of their incomes for housing costs, and another 3 
million pay between 30 and 50 percent. As we encourage families to move 
from welfare to work, it is even more essential that we build on the 
vital housing programs that provide the safety net which will give the 
working poor an opportunity to live in affordable, decent housing.
  Again, I would like to thank Chairman Cochran, Ranking Member 
Bumpers, and the rest of my colleagues for their swift action to ensure 
that essential rural rental housing programs receive authorization to 
continue serving low-income families for another year. I urge the 
adoption of this amendment.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I know of no objection to this amendment. 
It has been cleared. We recommend that it be approved.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment? If 
not, the question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from 
New York.
  The amendment (No. 963) was agreed to.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Amendment No. 961

 (Purpose: To withhold $4,000,000 of appropriated funds from the Risk 
  Management Agency until the administrator of the agency issues and 
begins to implement a plan to reduce administrative and operating costs 
                    of approved insurance providers)

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I have an amendment numbered 961 and I 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Roberts] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 961.

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The amendment is as follows:

       On page 28, line 19, before the period at the end of the 
     sentence, insert the following: ``: Provided further, That, 
     of the amount made available under this sentence, $4,000,000 
     shall be available for obligation only after the 
     Administrator of the Risk Management Agency issues and begins 
     to implement the plan to reduce administrative and operating 
     costs of approved insurance providers required under section 
     408(k)(7) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1508(k)(7))''.

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, prior to discussing the amendment, I want 
to take this opportunity to associate myself with the most pertinent 
remarks stated by the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, the 
chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, and the 
distinguished ranking member, the Senator from Arkansas. Chairman 
Cochran and the ranking member, Senator Bumpers, have demonstrated 
continued leadership and tireless efforts to make it possible for the 
American farmer and rancher to continue to feed this country and a 
troubled and hungry world.
  Senator Cochran said in his earlier remarks that all have 
contributed. I would also like to extend my congratulations to the 
staff, both of Mr. Cochran and to Mr. Bumpers, and I would point out to 
the American consumer, all taxpayers as well as our farmers and 
ranchers about what is at stake here. It is just not the eighth or 
ninth appropriations bill we are considering in this Chamber, albeit 
that is important. We are talking about the fact that the American 
consumer today spends only 10 cents of the disposable income dollar for 
that so-called market basket of food.
  Every housewife in America should pay attention to the fact that that 
frees up 90 cents for hard-pressed families today to spend on education 
or housing or the other essentials. And so we want to say thank you to 
Senator Cochran and Senator Bumpers for providing the funds to continue 
this vital responsibility of feeding America.
  Senator Bumpers mentioned food safety. Now, we have heard a great 
outcry in regard to E. coli, salmonella, and other challenges we face, 
but as Senator Bumpers pointed out we have, hopefully, adequate funds 
to address that problem. So this bill deals with food safety. And I 
might point out that since we have the best quality of food at the 
lowest price, the American consumer today apparently cares more about 
convenience and the safety of their food supply rather than price. That 
is unequaled in regard to any country. And so this bill does address 
that.
  I could go on about the trade aspects of the bill and our balance of 
payments and jobs. I could point out we all live longer as a result of 
the efforts of agriculture and farmers and ranchers and the investment 
we are making in this bill. Simply put, we do have the best quality 
food at the lowest price in the history of the world, and I think a lot 
of people do take agriculture for granted. The first obligation of any 
government is to provide its country an adequate food supply. Who is 
responsible for this? Many are, but two particular individuals, one the 
chairman of the committee and the other the ranking member. And I again 
wish to thank them.
  As a matter of fact, I can recall several months ago that the 
chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Cochran, and I were privileged to 
join Senator Stevens on a trip to the Russian Far East and to South 
Korea and to North Korea. We were the first congressional delegation 
allowed into North Korea. And in North Korea, the former leader of that 
country, if I can refer to that person as a leader, Kim Il-song, called

[[Page S7900]]

the ``Magnificent Leader,'' by the way, has written a veritable tome of 
books about that kind of government. It is a very repressive and 
totalitarian government. But the first book--and I read it the evening 
we were there--starts out with agriculture and says the first 
obligation of any country is to be able to feed its people.
  So while we were there we were working on the four-party peace talks, 
and we were trying to be a positive influence, and Senator Cochran has 
a great deal of expertise in regard to disarmament. He had this other 
idea; he insisted in regard to Senator Stevens, myself and others, we 
visit this collective farm. And the Senator made a good point. We went 
out and we visited it outside the capital city of Pyongyang, and we 
found a farm that had farming practices back in the 1930's, largely 
responsible, I might add, for the famine in that country.
  I really think, if you stop to take a look at it, we ought to count 
our blessings in the fact we have outstanding individuals in the Senate 
such as Senator Bumpers and Senator Cochran responsible for the 
investment in American agriculture to allow us to do the things we do. 
I have been through what, five or six farm bills, having had the 
privilege of serving in the other body. Those are the authorizing 
committees. I also wish to thank Senator Cochran in particular for the 
way that he has handled the obligations and responsibilities of the 
appropriators. It is a difficult task to try to fit together our 
spending priorities with the policy objectives of the authorizers, and 
I must say in all candor, unlike the other body, Senator Cochran has 
closely cooperated with the authorizing committee, has done so with 
fairness, with tolerance and with respect and comity and also 
understanding and effective leadership. I think we have quite a team on 
the appropriations subcommittee involving agriculture appropriations, 
and I again wish to thank them. I thank Senator Bumpers and Senator 
Cochran on behalf of every farmer, every rancher, and every consumer in 
America. I think they have done an outstanding job.
  Mr. President, I regret that I must offer this amendment. Quite 
honestly, it pains me to have to even suggest this course of action, 
but my responsibility to the farmers of America certainly compels me to 
do so. The purpose of this amendment is twofold. First, it allows this 
body to recognize that the Risk Management Agency--that is the outfit 
that administers the USDA's Federal Crop Insurance program--has failed 
to comply with the Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1994. That is 3 years 
ago.

  Second, as a result of the Risk Management Agency's unwillingness to 
submit and implement a plan to reduce administrative and operating 
costs of approved insurance providers as required under the 1994 act, 
this amendment would withhold--I am not trying to cut, just withhold--
funding of $4 million of funding from the RMA appropriation unless the 
plan is implemented by September 30, 1998.
  Mr. President, farmers have always needed crop insurance in order to 
make ends meet, in order to work, but for too many years it was always 
either too expensive or provided too little coverage depending on what 
region you came from and what commodity. But we passed the 1994 Crop 
Insurance Act and privately developed crop insurance products surfaced 
as a replacement, very long needed replacement, to the old USDA-
sponsored insurance programs. Now, while crop revenue coverage, or what 
we call CRC, is widely regarded as a revolutionary new risk management 
tool in farm country, we are providing farmers the capability, the 
tools, if you will, to manage their downside risk when prices fall. It 
is not like the old insurance products. The CRC protects both against 
price and yield risk. It is expensive, that is true, but it is worth 
the price for farmers who want adequate protection for their farm and 
their family. But, unfortunately, too often the USDA has taken an 
adversarial position to the development of these private crop insurance 
programs.
  Too often the department has tried to compete with the private sector 
in the development and marketing of these products.
  A few weeks ago, a crop insurance agent from Luray, KS, population 
about 500, came into my office and said: ``Senator Roberts, I really 
want to continue selling crop insurance because I know the farmers in 
our community need it, that our town depends on the farm economy for 
its survival. But, Senator, all the paperwork and redtape involved has 
forced me to hire additional people just to push the paper around. 
Unless the regulatory burden subsides, I am afraid I will have to stop 
selling crop insurance entirely.''
  This amendment is all about that crop insurance agent and small town 
America. This amendment is all about the farmer, who tries to feed this 
very troubled and hungry world, who will invariably face higher crop 
insurance premiums as a result of USDA's intransigence. We cannot let 
this unfortunate situation threaten the viability of our crop insurance 
program and our farmers, the exciting new tools for the farmers to 
manage their downside risk.
  I urge support for this amendment. I simply ask the risk management 
agency to do what the Congress and the President required of them back 
in 1994. We made that arrangement. We lowered the payments that went to 
the crop insurance companies in exchange for regulatory reform.
  I don't know how many times I have asked the RMA folks, officials 
down there, where is the report? In 1994, no report; 1995, no report; 
1996 no report; 1997--it's time. This is going to give them clear up to 
September 30, 1998. But this ought to at least open some eyes down at 
USDA that we need regulatory reform. That's what we asked for, that's 
what we required in the 1994 act. I ask consideration of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, we have looked at the amendment proposed 
by the distinguished Senator from Kansas. I must say, it is targeted to 
a very narrow issue, and it seeks to withhold only $4 million of a $64 
million account which is appropriated or recommended for appropriation 
in this bill for the administration of the Risk Management Agency that 
has a responsibility for administering the crop insurance program.
  I am not going to oppose this amendment. I sympathize with the goal. 
I sympathize with the effort to get the attention of the administration 
to do something that was required of them in the 1994 act of Congress. 
I am hopeful the Senate will approve the amendment and that this will 
help achieve the goal of the distinguished Senator from Kansas.
  Let me also say, too, I am very grateful for his generous comments 
about the work of our subcommittee and the efforts we have made to 
present a bill that reflects the needs of our country in connection 
with agriculture and agricultural production and all of those other 
activities that are funded in the legislation. He is very kind to point 
out that we have worked hard. He has been a big help, too, in certainly 
helping us understand the provisions that were contained in the last 
passed farm bill, which he had a great deal to do with writing as 
chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. We are lucky to have him 
in the Senate, and we appreciate his continued advice and counsel and 
assistance in these matters.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, let me echo the comments of the 
distinguished Senator from Mississippi, Chairman Cochran. I subscribe 
to everything he said. I also want to especially thank the 
distinguished Senator from Kansas for his very, very kind, laudatory 
comments.
  Having said that, let me just say I am not going to object to the 
amendment either. I think, in a way, it is a little bit of a 
sledgehammer approach. But, by the same token, the Senator is entitled 
to the report he requested a very long time ago. It is a legitimate 
request, and the Department should have responded to it much sooner.
  The Department objects to the amendment, but I am going to, on behalf 
of this side of the aisle, say I will accept the amendment and I 
strongly encourage the Department to respond, so, possibly by the time 
we get to conference, we can deal with this amendment. But let the 
Department know in advance that unless there is a very firm commitment 
made, the Senator's

[[Page S7901]]

request will be honored and the amendment will wind up in the 
conference committee report.
  So, I am going to clear this amendment for this side of the aisle.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no further debate, the question is 
on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 961) was agreed to.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I understand that Senators are 
considering offering amendments. Let me say this is a good time to come 
to the floor and do that. We expect amendments to be offered. We hope 
to wind up consideration of all amendments so we can stack votes and 
have those votes at 4 o'clock this afternoon, and then final passage of 
the bill. To do that, we need the cooperation and participation of 
Senators. We invite that at this time.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that I may 
proceed as in morning business for no more than 2 minutes for the 
purpose of introducing a bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BURNS. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Burns pertaining to the introduction of S. 1056 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I yield back any time remaining. I thank 
the chairman of the ag appropriations bill for his courtesy.
  Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.


                           Amendment No. 964

    (Purpose: To modify the conditions for issuance of cotton user 
                        marketing certificates)

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk which has 
been cleared.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Cochran], for himself and 
     Mr. Bumpers, proposes an amendment numbered 964.

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the bill, add the following new provision:
       Sec.   . Effective on October 1, 1998 section 136(a) of the 
     Agricultural Market Transition Act (7 U.S.C. 7236(a)) is 
     amended--
       (a) in paragraph (1)
       (1) by striking ``Subject to paragraph (4), during'' and 
     inserting ``During''; and
       (2) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``130'' and inserting 
     ``134'';
       (b) by striking paragraph (4); and
       (c) by redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (4).

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to offer this amendment on 
behalf of myself and Senator Bumpers. This amendment contains two 
technical changes to the competitiveness provisions of the domestic 
cotton program. This amendment has been scored by the Congressional 
Budget Office as having no cost. I am informed that the chairman of the 
Senate Agriculture Committee has no objection to the amendment.
  The original provisions in the law were designed to ensure that U.S. 
cotton is competitive in both domestic and overseas markets. The 
program has worked well, but changes made to the program in 1991 and 
1996 have had unintended consequences.
  The amendment I am offering would address those problems by doing two 
things. First, it makes it possible for the various components of the 
program to work simultaneously to ensure that we do not rely too much 
on cotton import quotas to make domestic cotton competitive. Second, it 
slightly increases a ceiling that unduly restricts the availability of 
the step 2 certificate program. By capping loan rates in the 1996 FAIR 
Act, Congress unintentionally restricted the operation of the cotton 
competitiveness program. The amendment eases the restriction slightly, 
but would not affect loan rates.
  Mr. President, this is an amendment that has been cleared on both 
sides of the aisle. I know of no objections to it. I know of no 
Senators who want to speak on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate? If not, the question 
is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The amendment (No. 964) was agreed to.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which 
the amendment was agreed to, and I move to lay that motion on the 
table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.


                    arkansas communications project

  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I would like to engage the senior Senator 
from Mississippi in a colloquy.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I would be pleased to join the senior Senator from 
Arkansas in a colloquy.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, this bill includes the Rural Community 
Advancement Program which provides flexibility to tailor financial 
assistance to applicant needs. Through this program rural business 
enterprise grants are made available.
  As you are very well aware, I have pursued funding for the Arkansas 
communications project since March 1992. This project will provide a 
statewide communications and education network that will eventually 
include all Arkansas publicly funded 2- and 4-year institutions of 
higher learning, research and extension centers, cooperative extension 
county offices, many rural hospitals, and State and Federal Government 
office buildings. The network will include compressed video, TV/video 
production, and data networking. When completed, the project will serve 
the large rural population of Arkansas as well as provide linkages and 
educational support to our more urban areas.
  This committee first voiced its support for the project in the fiscal 
year 1993, and the committee has continued to note its support every 
year since. Unfortunately, the University of Arkansas Divisions of 
Agriculture, which is sponsoring this project, has endured mixed 
results in getting the Department of Agriculture to honor the wishes of 
this committee. Promises were made and broken until the project came to 
the attention of Under Secretary Thompson and her staff in Rural 
Development. She and they have offered invaluable assistance, and I am 
pleased to note that the division received funding for the first phase 
of the project earlier this year and is actively seeking funding for 
the second and third phases. I should also note that the division has 
already committed sizeable non-federal resources to the project while 
reducing the total cost by nearly one-third. Am I correct in noting 
that the committee still strongly supports completion of this project?
  Mr. COCHRAN, The ranking member is correct.
  Mr. BUMPERS. And am I correct in noting that the committee will 
continue to actively monitor the progress of the Department toward 
fully funding the Arkansas communications project in a timely manner?
  Mr. COCHRAN. The ranking member is again correct. The committee notes 
its strong approval of the Department for actively working to fund this 
important project from existing resources. The committee reserves the 
right to revisit this project next year should the Department fail to 
continue its laudable efforts.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chairman. Let me also note that the 
Department of Agriculture offered to assist the division in seeking 
communication funds from other Departments as well. The division 
recently submitted a grant request to the Department of Commerce and it 
is my expectation that the Department of Agriculture will follow 
through with their offer of assistance and support.
  In addition to the Arkansas communications project, the Arkansas 
Enterprise Group has been trying to provide assistance for rural 
communities and smaller companies in Arkansas so that

[[Page S7902]]

they can join the increasingly global and international environment. 
However, the small companies which the Arkansas Enterprise Group is 
trying to help grow do not meet the criteria required to move unaided 
into the export market. They also fall between the cracks for other 
programs that aid companies to export products. Am I correct in noting 
that the committee supports the Arkansas Enterprise Group in their 
business international exporting loan fund?
  Mr. COCHRAN. The ranking member is correct.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Is it also the Senator from Mississippi's understanding 
that if State allocations are not sufficient to meet any States needs 
that a national reserve is available.
  Mr. COCHRAN. The ranking member is correct.
  Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Chairman.
  Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.


                           Amendment No. 965

 (Purpose: To prohibit the use of appropriated funds to provide or pay 
the salaries of personnel who provide crop insurance or noninsured crop 
   disaster assistance for tobacco for the 1998 or later crop years)

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Durbin], for himself, Mr. 
     Gregg, and Mr. Wyden, proposes an amendment numbered 965.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:
       On page 66, between lines 12 and 13, insert the following:
       Sec. 728. None of the funds made available in this Act may 
     be used to provide or pay the salaries of personnel who 
     provide crop insurance or noninsured crop disaster assistance 
     for tobacco for the 1998 or later crop years.

  Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, one of the most common questions asked of Members of 
the House and Senate at town meetings or in casual conversations across 
America is the following: ``Senator, if the Federal Government tells us 
that tobacco is so dangerous for Americans, why does the Federal 
Government continue to subsidize tobacco in America?
  A variety of answers are given to that question. These answers 
reflect, in some ways, our wishes and, in some ways, misinformation, 
but the honest answer is, there is no answer. It is almost impossible 
to explain to America's taxpayers why we are subsidizing the growth of 
a product which we tell every American is dangerous when consumed.
  How did we get in this predicament where we are subsidizing the 
growth and cultivation of tobacco in America? I would like to give a 
little history.
  In the midst of the Great Depression in 1933, Congress responded to 
the plight of farmers facing declining prices by passing the 
Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. This was part of the New Deal 
legislation. When that legislation did not help halt the devastation 
spreading throughout the vast rural areas of our Nation, Congress in 
1938 passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, and in that act, 
tobacco price support programs were born. The legislation also created 
farm programs for a wide variety of other crops.
  Over the years since then, we have changed and, in effect, totally 
overturned those supply control programs for almost every crop. Only a 
few crops continue to enjoy a program that looks like the 1938 bill. 
One of those select crops is tobacco.
  The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 also created the Federal Crop 
Insurance Corp. By 1945, tobacco and a number of other program crops 
enjoyed Federal crop insurance to protect farmers from unexpected crop 
losses. The Crop Insurance Program has gone through many changes over 
the years. The modern version of the program began in 1981, with a 
major reorganization, which I was part of, in 1994.
  This year, for a farmer who has a typical crop insurance policy 
covering up to 65 percent of the crop's anticipated revenue, the 
Federal Government, the taxpayers, will pay 41.7 percent of the total 
premium. That is the direct subsidy to the Crop Insurance Program. In 
addition, the administration of the program is subsidized.
  Finally, if losses exceed what is anticipated, the Federal Government 
is, in fact, the insurance company of last resort, paying, for most 
crops, the difference. This subsidy may make sense for many crops. It 
helps bring some stability to the production of food and fiber that 
Americans rely on. But this is the most important element.
  Tobacco is not like any other crop in America. Tobacco is neither 
food nor fiber. Tobacco is the only crop grown in America with a body 
count. It is time we consider the health effects of tobacco in deciding 
whether our Federal Government should continue to subsidize insurance 
for this crop.
  How different is tobacco? The tobacco crops that receive Federal 
assistance are processed into cigarettes and smokeless spit tobacco 
products that kill more than 400,000 Americans every year of cancer, 
heart disease, and a variety of other illnesses. These products also 
disable hundreds of thousands of other Americans with emphysema and 
other respiratory illnesses.
  Many of my colleagues will argue, ``Why do you single out tobacco? 
For goodness sakes, these farmers are growing crops just like other 
farmers.'' These are not crops like other crops. Tobacco is different. 
Every day, 3,000 children in America become regular smokers for the 
first time. During their lifetime, around 30 of these 3,000 kids will 
be murdered, around 60 will die in a car crash, and around 1,000 of 
these kids, one in three, will die of smoking-related diseases.
  Supporters of the tobacco program will argue that cutting off Federal 
crop insurance isn't going to stop kids from smoking. Well, that is 
true, but the issue really goes beyond children and smoking. We have a 
product here that has no benefit to human health. None. Not even if 
used in moderation. Every other crop insured by the taxpayers of this 
Nation and subsidized by this Government offers benefits, nutrition, 
protein, calories, fiber, every other crop except tobacco.
  We are talking here about a product that the owner of one of our 
Nation's cigarette companies finally admitted this week under oath is 
addictive. Bennett LeBow, owner of the Liggett Group, admitted--finally 
admitted--that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and 
smoking is addictive.
  This is not a news flash for most Americans, but we all remember, 
with a sense of shame, the seven tobacco company executives testifying 
before the U.S. House of Representatives, standing under oath saying 
that their product was not addictive.
  Well, we have come a long way. Because tobacco and the nicotine in 
tobacco is addictive, many tobacco users find it almost impossible to 
quit. They are then set on a path for life that often ends in death.
  So the issue before us today is: Should the Federal Government be 
subsidizing this crop? Should we, with our tax dollars, subsidize 
tobacco?

  Last year, the Government spent $97 million on a variety of taxpayer-
supported tobacco subsidies. This chart illustrates the Federal tobacco 
subsidies. When my colleagues argue there is no Federal subsidy, they 
should consider the real evidence before us.
  In 1993, Federal taxpayers gave $65 million of Federal tax money to 
the growers and cultivators of tobacco.
  In 1994, the figure was $60 million.
  In 1995, $51 million.
  In 1996, $97 million.
  And it is estimated this year that we will spend $67 million to 
subsidize tobacco. At a time when we are gripped in a national debate 
about the devastation this product causes, we continue, through our 
Federal Treasury, to send millions of dollars to the tobacco growers. 
At a time when we are cutting back on basic education and health 
programs in the name of balancing the budget, for some reason, we can 
find the wherewithal and the political strength to divert $67 million 
to the cultivation and growth of tobacco.
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the tobacco-related 
expenditures for the current fiscal year will be about $67 million. 
What does this consist of? Thirty-nine million dollars is for crop 
insurance losses; $9 million for crop insurance administration. That is 
a $48 million crop insurance subsidy for tobacco.

[[Page S7903]]

  So that you understand, the tobacco growers pay premiums for crop 
insurance, and then when they have a bad year and they file their 
claims saying, ``Our crops didn't come in as we expected,'' the 
premiums they pay are insufficient to cover their losses. Any other 
insurance company would go out of business at that point. Not the 
Federal Government. We step in and say, ``Let's open the Treasury; 
let's make up the difference.''
  This chart tries to demonstrate specifically, when it comes to crop 
insurance subsidies, what we have been paying, what the net crop 
insurance losses have been each year, and you will see that these 
losses are substantial.
  The administration of the program is also expensive ranging from 
about $5.5 million a year to over $11 million a year, money paid by 
taxpayers to subsidize crop insurance for tobacco.

  The Congressional Budget Office has produced an official estimate 
that ending access to the crop insurance program and the noninsured 
crop disaster assistance program for tobacco would save us at least--at 
least--$34 million for the next year, and beyond that perhaps even 
more.
  I am offering this amendment today with my colleague, Republican 
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Tobacco issues have always been 
bipartisan issues, as they should be. Our amendment will prohibit the 
Federal Government from providing crop insurance for tobacco.
  For consistency, the amendment also prohibits payments for tobacco 
under the noninsured disaster assistance program, a new, surrogate risk 
management program created in the 1996 farm bill.
  Federal taxpayers paid around $80 million in net tobacco crop 
insurance costs in 1996, including premium subsidies and overhead 
administrative costs. These costs have exceeded $29 million in every 
year since fiscal year 1993.
  There are all the speeches given by all of the Members of Congress of 
both political parties protesting what the tobacco companies are doing 
and how tobacco is devastating the American population, notwithstanding 
each year we fork over millions and millions of dollars to promote the 
product that causes all this death and disease.
  Now, who supports our effort with this amendment? It has been 
endorsed by a wide variety of health groups and spending watchdog 
groups, including the Action on Smoking and Health, the American Cancer 
Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, 
Friends of the Earth, the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, Public 
Citizen, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the U.S. Public Interest 
Research Group.
  The most common response from the tobacco side is, ``You got it all 
wrong, Senator. You just don't understand. Tobacco pays its own way.'' 
The so-called no-net-cost program was for many years tobacco's defense 
whenever we would raise these issues. This program, the so-called no-
net-cost tobacco price support program, is in fact the no-net-cost 
program by and large.
  Our amendment does not touch the program, so this program will 
continue. Those farmers who can and want to participate in it will be 
allowed to do so, at their own expense, not at the taxpayers' expense.
  In each of the last several years, the Department of Agriculture 
spending on tobacco-related programs has cost about $50 million.
  We want to make certain that, as we get into this program, the facts 
are clear. There are some who will say, ``Why are you picking on 
tobacco? We insure a lot of crops in the United States.'' You know, 
that is a fact. Here is a list, a partial list--we think there may be 
some more--of about 67 crops that are covered by Federal crop 
insurance. They run the gamut from almonds to wheat. Corn, of course, 
is in there, and soybeans, and so many other products which are used by 
Americans nationwide. We have decided, as a nation, that for these 67 
crops, we will provide crop insurance.
  The defenders of tobacco crop insurance will say, ``Well, wait a 
minute. If you're going to provide crop insurance for all these crops, 
why don't you provide it for tobacco?'' I have tried to make the public 
health case here that tobacco is different. But just to put in 
perspective the fact that there are many things grown, cultivated and 
raised in America in the name of agriculture and aquaculture which are 
not insured, I would like to offer the following charts of crops not 
covered by Federal crop insurance.
  Forgive me if I do not read them because, honestly, we do not have 
the time. But as you can see in chart after chart--I am going to run 
out of space here if I am not careful--chart after chart, we have lists 
of crops grown by farmers across the United States for which there is 
no crop insurance.
  In fact, these farmers are on their own. If they should happen to be 
growing seeds, as we have in this one chart here, or shrubs, for that 
matter, and they have a bad year, there is a drought or a flood, it is 
their own luck, maybe their own bad luck.
  The final chart here wraps it up. Trust me. There are about 1,600 
different crops ranging all the way from watermelons to sod and shrubs 
and so many other things that are not insured by the Federal 
Government. Among the more than 1,000 commodities not eligible are 
honey, broccoli, watermelon, cantaloupes, squash, cherries, cucumbers, 
snow peas, even livestock for that matter.
  Our crop insurance restriction does not single out tobacco for unique 
treatment. It says that tobacco will not be in that special category of 
67 insured crops but will be in the other category of about 1,600 crops 
and other things raised by America's farmers and ranchers which are not 
protected, and I think for good reason.
  There is also a complaint that I am hurting small tobacco farmers 
with this amendment. Not a single farmer will lose a job because of 
this bill. This legislation does not affect crop insurance policies for 
the current crop year. The legislation does not affect the tobacco 
price support program or Federal extension services. Farmers will still 
be eligible to participate in the program at their own expense and sell 
tobacco to their customers.

  Tobacco farming--and we will hear a lot about small tobacco farmers 
eking out a living--is one of the most lucrative forms of agriculture 
in America. Gross receipts for tobacco are around $4,000 per acre. We 
will be told about little mom and pop operations scraping by for 
grocery money raising tobacco. I am sure that can be the case, but keep 
in mind that people who are growing tobacco are netting per acre 
substantially more than any other legal crop grown in America.
  For an acre of corn, you are lucky to bring out gross receipts of 
$300 to $400; for tobacco, $4,000. For an acre of wheat, gross receipts 
of $200 or less; for tobacco, $4,000 per acre. Data from the USDA 
indicates that net receipts from an acre of tobacco averaged between 
$450 and $1,100 per acre. According to one of my colleagues, farmers 
can get $1,844 in net profit from a net acre of tobacco compared to 
$100 for soybeans.
  The value of the Federal crop insurance subsidy to tobacco farmers 
averages less than $100 per acre. So the question is, if a farmer is 
going to get $1,800 in profit off tobacco per acre, will he go out of 
business with a new additional cost of $100? I think not.
  Can farmers replace this insurance? There is the private insurance 
market that they can turn to. It is not offered now because the Federal 
Government subsidizes crop insurance for tobacco. But insurance 
companies have never shied away from potentially lucrative new markets. 
We do expect, though, that farmers will have to pay their own way. 
Tobacco farmers will have to pay premiums which will match their 
losses. But this amendment, in ending the Federal subsidy for tobacco 
crop insurance, does not end the opportunity to buy insurance.
  There has been an argument made that this will hurt minority farmers 
who will not be able to get loans to grow tobacco if they do not have 
crop insurance. This amendment will merely put these tobacco farmers in 
the same position as all of the farmers who currently grow crops not 
covered by crop insurance. The private insurance market will be 
expected to step in and provide this insurance.
  Furthermore, in May 1997, the USDA published a study of ``limited-
resource farmers,'' which includes many minority farmers. According to 
this report:

       Results of the research indicate that socially 
     disadvantaged, small, and limited-opportunity operators tend 
     not to purchase

[[Page S7904]]

     crop insurance nor to participate in insurance-type programs 
     operated by the USDA.

  Some will argue we should not be doing this today because there is a 
tobacco settlement that is being debated. This settlement, I hope, is 
going to be enacted this year. But it may not be this year, it may be 
next year, it may be even longer.
  As currently written, the proposed settlement does not address the 
crop insurance issue or any other issues related to tobacco subsidies. 
The farmers were not at the table--and I am sure this will be pointed 
out by one of my colleagues--during this negotiation for the tobacco 
settlement.
  This amendment is outside the scope of the proposed settlement, and 
we can address this issue separately without getting into the complex 
issues raised by the proposed settlement.
  Another argument is this will open the floodgates for foreign tobacco 
if we do not continue to provide this Federal subsidy, that the 
domestic tobacco market will suffer and foreigners will come in to take 
their place.
  This amendment will not put domestic tobacco farmers out of business. 
It will not significantly raise the price of tobacco, which makes only 
a small part of the cost of a pack of cigarettes. The value of tobacco 
in a pack of cigarettes is estimated to be 10 cents. You know what 
people pay for those things? Two, three dollars and more per pack. So 
there is no reason to expect tobacco companies to change in any way the 
amount of tobacco they purchase from U.S. farmers.
  Furthermore, we currently have a tariff rate quota in place for 
tobacco which restricts the amount of tobacco that can be imported. 
Previous Congresses have already prohibited USDA funding for tobacco-
related research and export assistance.
  This legislation takes another important step to make our 
agricultural policies more consistent with our health policies 
regarding tobacco. I called this amendment for a vote last year in the 
House of Representatives, and it came within two votes of passage. It 
is my understanding it will be offered again this year. In 1992, 
however, the House voted 331-82 to add an amendment to the ag 
appropriations bill to prohibit the use of Market Promotion Program 
export assistance for tobacco. This amendment was accepted by the 
Senate and became law.
  In 1993, the ag appropriations bill extended this policy to all 
export assistance programs. In 1994, the same bill extended the 
prohibition on tobacco assistance to USDA's research program.
  This legislation adds crop insurance and noninsured crop disaster 
assistance to the list of programs for which tobacco assistance is 
excluded.
  Mr. President, I know that this amendment is controversial. Every 
tobacco issue that I have raised in the House and the Senate has been 
controversial. But I believe this is the right thing to do. If we make 
this decision today, we will be able to go back to our States and 
districts and in good conscience say to the voters that we got the 
message, that we have on the one hand said that tobacco is dangerous 
for Americans and we have on the other hand said our subsidy will be 
ended.
  Putting an end to this Federal subsidy for tobacco reflects the 
reality of the national debate today. I believe that this amendment 
which Senator Gregg and I have offered is a step in the right direction 
to make our tax policy and our subsidy policy consistent with our 
public health policy.
  At this point I will yield for a question to my cosponsor of the 
amendment, Mr. Gregg, or if he would like to seek time on his own, I 
will yield back the floor.
  Mr. GREGG. I appreciate the Senator from Illinois yielding and 
congratulate him on this amendment, on which I join him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois yield the 
floor?
  Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, it is a pleasure to be joining with my 
colleague from Illinois today in this amendment to correct what is an 
obvious inconsistency, to put it in conservative terms, in American 
public policy.
  I think there is a general consensus now in this Nation that the use 
of tobacco is unfortunate, that we wish to discourage its use, 
especially amongst young people, and that as a government we are trying 
desperately to inform people of the harm of tobacco to their health and 
the addictive nature of tobacco and the fact that there is very little 
positive that comes from smoking tobacco.
  We have had innumerable Surgeon Generals, including the great Surgeon 
General Dr. Koop, point out this problem as a matter of Federal public 
policy. We now have a commitment by this administration, and I believe 
by this Congress, to try to change the manner in which tobacco is 
marketed in this country, especially to the young people, so that we 
can lessen the impact of this harmful addiction on America and 
especially on our young.
  Yet at the same time that we are doing this, at the same time that as 
a matter of Federal policy, as presented by the Surgeon General, as 
presented by the Congress, as presented by the administration, at the 
same time that we are pointing out as a matter of Federal policy that 
the use of tobacco is harmful and bad and it has a deleterious effect 
on health and a very dramatically negative impact on the financial 
situation of this Nation because of its costs in the area of health 
costs, at that same time we are subsidizing the capacity of the product 
to be grown. It makes no sense at all.
  This amendment will save $34 million, but it is hardly the money that 
is important here. It is the statement of public policy that is 
important. The fact is that, if this Government is going to subsidize 
the growing of tobacco at the same time it is claiming tobacco is a 
scourge on the health of this country, we are sending two messages 
which are totally inconsistent and inappropriate.
  Now, the insurance program, as it is presently structured, is a 
program which basically puts the grower of tobacco in a unique 
position, the position where essentially there is a no-loss situation 
where the Federal Government comes in and assures that the grower, 
whether tobacco grows or not, whether tobacco is brought to market or 
not, is able to recover the value of the tobacco.
  This type of a fail-safe situation makes little sense for any 
commodity, but it certainly does not make any sense for a commodity 
which has already been declared a detriment to the health of America 
and especially to the health of children. More importantly, it is not 
needed. It is not even needed.

  Tobacco is a very lucrative crop. In fact, compared to other crops, 
tobacco is dramatically more profitable than other crops. I have a 
chart which reflects that fact, which I will not subject you to because 
this floor gets enough charts, but essentially tobacco crops as a cash 
crop per acre generate approximately $3,700, whereas wheat, for 
example, on a per acre basis generates about $134 and corn on a per 
acre basis represents about $322. So tobacco is generating 10 times the 
value of corn and many times the value of wheat.
  It hardly seems a crop which is so lucrative would need to have a 
Federal insurance program to guarantee it, but we do have that program, 
and that program costs about $34 million a year. Thus, this amendment, 
which will put an end to that type of an insurance program, which is, 
first, not needed because the crop itself is viable on its own, 
regrettably, but it is viable on its own at such high value that it 
should not be protected by this type of insurance program; but, second, 
an insurance program which flies in the face of the public policy of 
the Government generally, especially public policy as stated by the 
Surgeon General, the President, and this administration, that that type 
of program should be ended.
  So this amendment ends it. It is about time we did that. It is 
certainly consistent with the direction which this Congress is moving 
and this Government is moving and the American people are moving 
relative to the use of tobacco and the harm that it is causing in the 
area of health in this country.
  I congratulate the Senator from Illinois for bringing forward this 
amendment. I am happy to join him in it, and I hope that the Members of 
the Senate will support it.

[[Page S7905]]

  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, there is no time agreement on this 
amendment, as I understand it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). That is correct.
  Mr. FORD. And there will not be for a while.
  Mr. President, there is a lot of tobacco bashing going on and I 
understand that better than anybody in this Chamber. An agreement that 
has been negotiated--and my good friend from Illinois, even though we 
disagree on this, we are friends, understands--that negotiation is 
continuing and we will be called upon to make the ultimate decision as 
to whether that negotiated package will fly, will be passed, worked 
out, whatever.
  Many parts of that negotiated agreement take care of everything that 
has been said by my two colleagues, except the farmer. The farmer was 
never at the table. You say you will hear a lot about protecting 
farmers, the little farm. You are darn right; you will hear a lot about 
it. They were not at the table, they were not considered, and so 
therefore, here we come, bashing the farmer again.
  You say it is a lucrative crop. Well, let's look at something here. 
Kentucky's average farm size is 159 acres. The average farm size of 
Illinois is 370--that is the difference. Kentucky's average gross 
income per farm is $42,000 and the net to that farm is $11,000. The 
Illinois average gross income per farm is $128,000, three times what 
Kentucky's average farm income is, and their gross profit is more than 
double, $25,000 net profit. That is an Illinois farm compared to a 
Kentucky farm.
  We talk about the gross net profit from one crop which is about an 
acre, 1 acre, you get $1,800. But the farmer has to be considered. The 
package has not. I am trying to figure out a way that I can be flat so 
when the steamroller comes, it won't hurt. But it is another attack on 
the tobacco farmer, even though there is no tobacco subsidy--no tobacco 
subsidy, and I underscore that.
  Tobacco farmers participate--and my friend from Illinois said it--
participate in a price support system that is completely paid for. In 
fact, tobacco farmers are unique in that they actually contribute 
millions of dollars each year toward deficit reduction--$31 million 
last year. There is not another crop or another farmer that is assessed 
to pay money into the general fund for deficit reduction.
  Last year, the tobacco farmer alone paid over $31 million. I hear 
your loss is only 34--maybe it is only 3, because the farmer is paying 
almost all of that in an assessment for every pound he sells, and that 
is deducted from his check before he gets it, before he goes to the 
bank to pay his loan. Crop insurance is not a subsidy. It is not a 
subsidy. It is not unique to tobacco. The Durbin amendment does not hit 
the tobacco companies.
  We hear all about the health. This amendment will not stop one person 
from smoking. What it will do is ensure that tobacco farmers will 
slowly but surely go out of business. That is what they want. Tobacco 
is a culture and it will take a while.
  Before we became a nation, if you want to read history, it said that 
Mr. Jones came for his spring planting, his seed for his spring 
planting, and he paid for it with some of the finest tobacco I have 
ever seen. Tobacco was money. Referring to the Mother State, Virginia, 
the pages of Virginia history are splattered with tobacco juice. So 
tobacco has been here for a long, long time.

  Over 60 percent, Mr. President, of every acre farmed in the United 
States is covered by crop insurance, and the number is higher for 
individual crops. Corn: 85 percent of every acre is covered by crop 
insurance. Sugar beets: 89 percent of every acre grown is covered. 
Wheat: 90 percent of every acre grown is covered by crop insurance. 
Cotton: 94 percent is covered by crop insurance.
  Farmers will tell you what tobacco farmers know--all of these farmers 
will. Without crop insurance, there is no farm. That is because without 
crop insurance, banks will not make loans to growers for their farming 
operations. Farmers in my State do not just borrow money to grow 
tobacco, they borrow money to grow other crops. Their average income is 
$25,000, and their net profit is $11,000. But they would not have that 
if they could not get the crop insurance to lay down to the banker to 
support the loan.
  No legitimate lender--and I say that, legitimate lender--will take 
the risk of lending to an uninsured operation. You cannot even borrow 
money on a house without an insurance policy, and there will not be a 
private-sector substitute for crop insurance, either. Talk about 
private sector. One of the reasons the USDA extends crop insurance to a 
particular crop is because a private-sector alternative does not exist. 
You say, ``Go out and get insurance.'' Well, you can't go out and get 
it; it doesn't exist. You can get hail insurance on tobacco at 7 
percent of the loss. That is all you get from private carriers. I used 
to do it, I understand it.
  This is what the American Association of Crop Insurers say:

       Privately, underwriting multiple peril insurance has been 
     tried in the past and it has failed miserably. This is true 
     for tobacco, as well. Hail, the only peril wholly privately 
     underwritten, accounts for less than 7 percent of crop losses 
     in tobacco-growing States. The private sector would be 
     incapable of insuring the remaining 93 percent risk of loss 
     on a multiple peril universal base without some form of 
     catastrophic reinsurance from the Government, but while there 
     is no farm without crop insurance, discriminating against 
     tobacco farmers won't do anything to reduce tobacco use.

  Won't do anything to reduce tobacco use.
  Crop insurance doesn't promote increased use of tobacco any more than 
automobile insurance promotes an increase in car sales. The bottom line 
of the Durbin amendment is this: American farmers go out of business 
and whole communities in the South die. The big tobacco companies 
continue to make and sell cigarettes. While communities die, the 
manufacturers continue to make and sell cigarettes. If we are going to 
talk about making changes to the crop insurance system, it should not 
target the family farmer.
  Before we get through, I will have a second-degree amendment to the 
amendment of the Senator from Illinois. My second-degree amendment 
would reform the crop insurance to make sure it supports family farms, 
not corporate farms. Let me repeat that. My second-degree amendment 
would reform the crop insurance to make sure it supports family 
farmers, not corporate farms. I'm prepared to fight this battle. If we 
are going to be changing crop insurance, I am prepared to offer second-
degree after second-degree to make sure the changes are comprehensive 
and don't single out a commodity or a single type of farmer, because 
that is what the Durbin amendment does: It singles out one commodity 
grown in one part of the country by one type of farmer, a small family 
farmer.
  Now, Mr. President, we just heard my friend from Illinois talk about 
the loss from tobacco insurance. Well, stand back. Here are all the 
losses from other crops. Wheat, since 1984, $288.7 million lost to the 
Federal Government--a subsidy to wheat farmers. I don't believe you 
would vote today to do away with crop insurance for the wheat farmer, 
because you say it is health. Well, everything Kentucky farmers or 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, or Tennessee farmers grow--
even Wisconsin farmers grow tobacco--they get insurance. But they 
borrow money and insure other crops. Think about almonds. That was the 
very first one the Senator said--almonds. Almost $50 million in loss to 
the Federal Government. That is a lot more than tobacco. We could go 
down the list. Grain sorghum. I don't know where grain sorghum comes 
from--maybe from Illinois, maybe Wyoming, I don't know. But they lost 
$36.1 million. So we can get into even sunflowers lost, which is $22 
million.

  These are losses to other crops, and my friend would not vote to 
reduce the loss on wheat or almonds or barley or grain sorghum or these 
others, but he would on tobacco because he says tobacco is dangerous.
  I am trying to help. I am trying to work out a package. I am trying 
to help negotiate. I have listened in every meeting. I have been to 
every meeting and we even had one group yesterday that the only thing 
they want in the negotiated agreement is some way to eliminate the 
addiction. That is fine. The biggest argument in the tobacco negotiated 
package will be what percentage of that package the trial lawyers are 
going to get. That will be most

[[Page S7906]]

contentious. It is not in there. That is to be negotiated yet.
  The result of this elimination of the ability to secure crop 
insurance will be devastating to the farmers in my area. Yet, this is 
not the biggest loss to agriculture crop insurance. Mr. President, I 
have a letter from the Department of Agriculture addressed to Senator 
Thad Cochran, chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural 
Development, and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, 
and I read just a couple of items. There were 89,000 tobacco growers--
89,000 tobacco growers--with crop insurance policies in 1996. Tobacco 
growers in three States--North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia--
received $77.8 million in indemnities for losses due to back-to-back 
hurricanes that hit the east coast last year. These funds helped 
communities recover from disaster and were paid for in part by the 
producers themselves.
  The significance of a program that encourages producers to assess 
their individual risk management needs and allows them to pay part of a 
cost for coverage must not be lost at a time when fewer dollars--fewer 
dollars--are available for other types of assistance. Elimination of 
tobacco crop insurance would place a greater burden on other sources of 
relief. So when you take it away from one place, you place the burden 
on other sources in case of a hurricane or tornado or flood.
  But if you have insurance, that lifts the burden from these other 
areas that hasn't been offset in your figure here yet. The $77 million 
paid last year in three States hasn't been offset from the $34 million. 
So it makes a little bit of difference, I think, when you look at it in 
the true light. This idea of me crying crocodile tears for the small 
farmer, if that's what it takes, I will give you 30 minutes to draw a 
crowd to stop this amendment. This amendment is absolutely no different 
and the speech is no different than it was in 1992 or 1993 or 1994, or 
whenever it was.
  So, Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will understand that, yes, we 
grow tobacco in Kentucky, yes, we grow a little corn, a little 
soybeans, a little wheat. We do the things that other small farmers do. 
I want you to remember that the farms in Illinois are almost three 
times as large as my average farm, and the net income to the farmer in 
the State of Illinois is more than twice what my farmers' net income 
would be. Yet, they do grow tobacco.
  So, Mr. President, I am going to yield the floor soon so my colleague 
from Kentucky can have some time. But I want to make one final point. 
The distinguished Senator from Illinois said that all these other crops 
are not covered. I think about 1,600, something like that. First, they 
haven't petitioned the Federal Government for it. They haven't asked to 
participate. A lot of them have private insurance. So you have to be in 
a position of requesting it before the Government will consider it. I 
don't believe they have petitioned. So it's a little bit unusual.
  We don't get anything in tobacco as it relates to the farm bill--not 
a dime. Corn gets crop insurance, and we have lost over $288 million. 
Yet, they get a check every year as a subsidy. They don't even have to 
grow it. That is what we call back in Kentucky a mailbox job. Just go 
out to the mailbox and get your check. Everybody lost that. So for 
every acre that they have and they signed up, they get a check every 
year for so much per acre, whether they grow it or not. The tobacco 
farmer doesn't get that.
  So there is a bit of fairness here, I think, that ought to be given. 
As we work through the problems of the tobacco industry, we need to be 
sure that we understand that those who grow tobacco are just as human, 
just as religious, just as American, just as needy, just as hard 
working as the farmers that grow wheat or corn or granola or whatever. 
They are good Americans. I can take you anywhere in my State, in any 
town where we have a circle with a courthouse. Usually, on that 
courthouse is a monument of some kind to those tobacco farmers who gave 
their lives for this country in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and 
the Persian Gulf.

  So, let's try to work through this and understand that the people I 
represent have no control, basically, over what we are doing here. We 
are after the manufacturers, but we are getting at the farmer. Somehow, 
some way, we ought not make a farmer in my State who will net $1,800 
off of an acre, which is labor intensive, to $4,000, and about half of 
that is expense. There is not as much work in corn, soybeans, or 
others. The weather works on all of them. But my people are just as 
hard working, just as sincere and, I think, need to be helped and 
looked after just as anybody else.
  This amendment, according to the Secretary of Agriculture, would have 
a particular detrimental effect on thousands of small farmers in 
tobacco-producing States, not to mention the toll it would take on the 
economic stability of many rural communities. Just let me read that one 
sentence again. This amendment would have a particularly detrimental 
effect on thousands of small farmers in tobacco-producing States, not 
to mention the toll it would take on the economic stability of many 
rural communities.
  An overwhelming majority of crop insurance policies in this area are 
sold to small farmers. It seems to me, rather than to cut the cord of 
economic stability on the farmer to get after something else, we ought 
to be sure that that farmer has an opportunity, and we will get around 
to others.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I congratulate my friend and colleague 
from Kentucky, Senator Ford, for his statement on behalf of the tobacco 
growers of our State.
  Mr. President, the Durbin amendment is not directed at the tobacco 
companies; it's directed at the tobacco farmer. We don't have many big 
farmers in my State. We have about 60,000 tobacco growers in 119 of our 
120 counties. They are everywhere. And the average base in Kentucky, 
Mr. President, is about an acre.
  The profile of a typical tobacco farm family in Kentucky:
  The husband probably works in the factory, the wife probably works in 
a cut-and-sew plant. They tend to their 1 acre of burley tobacco, and 
they sell it in the November and December auction, which provides for 
Christmas money and, for a lot of families, a lot more than Christmas 
money--Christmas plus a lot of other things they need for their 
families during the course of the year.
  Now, the Durbin amendment seeks to drive these tobacco farmers out of 
business, as if somehow, if you drove the tobacco farmers out of 
business, there would not be any more tobacco grown. Of course, it 
would be grown. It would just be grown by others. It would be grown in 
big corporate farms of hundreds of thousands of acres under contract 
with the companies.
  So bear in mind, my colleagues, you do nothing to terminate the 
growth of tobacco by driving the little tobacco grower out of business. 
It serves no useful purpose. Tobacco is going to be grown. It is going 
to be grown in this country, overseas, and already is grown in 
virtually a great many countries in the world. It is going to be grown, 
and nobody is proposing to make it illegal. The only issue before us, 
Mr. President, is who grows it? Who grows it? The tobacco program, 
which the tobacco growers themselves and the companies pay for at no 
net cost to the Government, guarantees that the production is in a 
whole lot of hands. In the case of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, it is 
in over 60,000 hands.
  Senator Durbin's amendment prohibits tobacco farmers from obtaining 
Federal crop insurance, as well as disaster payments. That is clearly 
directed at the farmer, the grower, not at the companies. The companies 
are going to get their tobacco, Mr. President. They are either going to 
get it from large corporate farmers under contract, or they will get it 
overseas. But they will get their tobacco, even if the 1-acre burley 
grower in Kentucky that Senator Ford and I represent is out of business 
and a whole lot poorer.
  Currently, 1,500 crops are eligible for disaster payments under the 
noninsured assistance program. These are crops that are already 
eligible for traditional crop insurance. Therefore, if Senator Durbin's 
amendment passed, in a natural disaster most small tobacco farmers 
would simply not be able

[[Page S7907]]

to recover their losses, putting them out of business. That is why I 
say--and as Senator Ford has said--this is an amendment directed at the 
farmer and not at the companies.
  We have been plagued in Kentucky this year by natural disasters, as 
many other areas have as well, and with every other unpredictable 
element that farmers have to deal with--disease, labor, incredibly high 
expenses. Imagine that we would take away their only meager defense 
against Mother Nature just because they farm a legal commodity. It is 
simply unfair.
  The amendment of the Senator from Illinois prevents many small- and 
medium-sized farmers from receiving protection against what could be 
catastrophic risks. Farmers may invest up to $2,800 per acre growing 
tobacco. Many of them do. A natural disaster--a loss of this 
magnitude--simply could not be overcome. So we are talking here about 
farmers who depend on their income from this crop.
  Additionally, it is important to note that banks and lending 
institutions will find it difficult to approve loans for farmers who 
cannot obtain crop insurance. So we come down to the real issue here.
  Senator Durbin's amendment unfairly singles out tobacco farmers and 
tobacco-farming communities who grow a legal crop simply to try to get 
at the tobacco companies. Eliminating crop insurance for tobacco 
farmers does nothing to stop growing of tobacco or punish cigarette 
companies. The only individuals injured are those who can least afford 
it, those closest to the poverty level, and those most likely to be 
unable to find or afford alternative private insurance.
  There is a lot of discussion about alternative private insurance. I 
don't think my typical grower with a 2,500-pound base is going to be 
able to afford to do that and still purchase that, and still grow the 
crop profitably. This amendment is not going to stop people from 
smoking. It will only hurt U.S. tobacco growers for whom tobacco pays 
the bills--not the big companies.
  Tobacco farming, as we all know, is the starting point of over $15 
billion that goes to Federal, State, and local governments in tax 
revenue, and contributes an additional $6 billion to the U.S. balance 
of trade. That is a $6 billion positive balance of trade.
  By ignoring the need for disaster relief for the tobacco farmers, the 
precedent is being set for the elimination of crop insurance for other 
major commodities.
  In 1994, we passed a law to end ad hoc disaster programs and have 
crop insurance be the primary risk management tool for farmers.
  By ignoring the need for disaster relief for just one set of 
farmers--tobacco farmers who suffer natural disasters in the same 
manner that corn, wheat, soybean, and other farmers do--a precedent is 
being set to eliminate crop insurance for other commodities.
  Mr. President, as Senator Ford has pointed out, Secretary Glickman is 
opposed to this amendment. The Farm Credit Council is opposed to this 
amendment. And the American Association of Crop Insurers is opposed as 
well.
  Crop insurance is to protect families. That is what crop insurance is 
about: Helping to minimize the financial interruptions to their plans 
and lifestyles due to crop losses.
  These are families who usually work two jobs, as I suggested earlier. 
In my State, these are not rich farmers. We are talking about people 
who cultivate about an acre of tobacco on the side, in addition to 
their normal sources of income. These farmers aren't in a business 
where they have excess amounts of money in savings. Everything is 
calculated, and income from tobacco is relied upon. By having crop 
insurance, it gives farmers, bankers, and communities peace of mind 
through income stability and minimizing risk.
  Crop insurance also provides farm lenders with collateral that helps 
minimize liens on other assets, obviously avoiding or reducing a 
farmer's needs to rely on credit.
  As I believe my colleague from Kentucky pointed out, Secretary 
Glickman said:

       I am determined that everyone will have access to crop 
     insurance, large farmers and small farmers alike, especially 
     those with limited resources--minorities and producers--in 
     all areas of the country.

  That certainly describes the 60,000 tobacco growers of Kentucky.
  This amendment would have a particularly detrimental effect on 
thousands of small farmers in States like my own. An overwhelming 
majority of crop insurance policies in this area are sold to small 
farmers. Therefore, eliminating crop insurance for tobacco will not 
fulfill the Secretary's promise to poorer farmers. Rather, this 
amendment is squarely in opposition to the Department's stated policy 
of fighting discrimination against minorities and economically 
disadvantaged farmers.
  Let me sum it up again. This amendment is directed at the farmer who 
is growing a legal crop. To the extent that this small farmer finds it 
difficult to acquire crop insurance, the potential for disaster for 
these small farm families is greatly enhanced.
  The Durbin amendment does nothing to fight smoking. It does nothing 
to punish the companies. In fact, it is directed at the heart of the 
farming areas in the southeastern part of the United States.
  I repeat: The average grower in Kentucky has about 2,500 pounds. That 
is about 1 acre. You push that fellow out of business, and tobacco will 
still be grown. It is going to be grown by big corporate farms. They 
are not going to be particularly concerned about this crop insurance 
issue. They do not have any trouble paying for it.
  This amendment serves no useful purpose. If you want to fight 
smoking, this amendment is only directed at low- and medium-income 
farmers in places like the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. Santorum]. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from 
American Association of Crop Insurers, addressed to Chairman Ted 
Stevens and Ranking Member Robert C. Byrd, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                       American Association of

                                                Crop Insurers,

                                    Washington, DC, July 16, 1997.
     Hon. Ted Stevens,
     Chairman, Committee on Appropriations,
     U.S. Senate, The Capitol, Washington, DC.

     Hon. Robert C. Byrd,
     Ranking Member, Committee on Appropriations,
     U.S. Senate, The Capitol, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member: It has come to 
     our attention that an amendment may be offered to the Fiscal 
     Year 1998 Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related 
     Agencies Appropriations Bill that would eliminate crop 
     insurance or any other form of government-supported disaster 
     aid for tobacco. We are writing to express the American 
     Association of Crop Insurers' (AACI's) opposition to such an 
     amendment as well as to dispel a principal myth underlying 
     the amendment.
       AACI's membership consists of private insurance companies 
     who deliver Federally reinsured multiple peril crop insurance 
     to America's farmers as well as several thousand independent 
     agents and adjusters affiliated with those companies. All 
     AACI member companies are also involved in the private crop 
     hail insurance business as well. AACI member companies and 
     their affiliated agents collectively wrote over 80% of the 
     Federal crop insurance sold by private companies in 1996.
       Providing risk management protection to American crop 
     producers is the sole reason that AACI member companies are 
     in the crop insurance business. As long as data are available 
     from which an actuarially sound insurance program can be 
     developed, the insurance industry does not discriminate 
     against crops that are insured nor the producers who grow 
     those crops. If Congress were to discriminate against tobacco 
     producers by denying them any form of Federal assistance 
     related to their risk management needs, we believe that the 
     economy of both the producers and the rural communities in 
     which they live could be placed at severe risk that one 
     disaster could substantially devastate. In addition, the 
     economic health of several of our members who have 
     considerable books of business in tobacco growing states 
     would also be put at risk.
       While it is true that the number of crops covered by 
     Federal crop insurance is limited when compared with the 
     total number of crops grown in the country, most if not all 
     of the crops not currently insurable are covered by the 
     noninsured disaster assistance program or NAP administered by 
     the Farm Service Agency. However, both under existing law and 
     under the proposed amendment, tobacco would be ineligible for 
     such protection. This isolation among crops leaves the crop 
     and its producers totally exposed to the uncontrollable risk 
     of weather.
       Some believe that this exposure could be covered by the 
     private sector without assistance from the Federal 
     Government. That is

[[Page S7908]]

     not true for several reasons. First, the main reason the 
     Federal Government is involved in crop insurance is due to 
     the catastrophic nature of crop disasters and the inability 
     of the private sector to bear that magnitude of loss. 
     Privately underwritten multiple peril insurance has been 
     tried in the past and it failed miserably. The inability of 
     the private sector to bear the risk of loss from multiple 
     perils is true for tobacco as well. Hail, the principal peril 
     wholly privately underwritten, accounts for less than 7% of 
     crop losses in tobacco-growing states. The private sector 
     would be incapable of insuring the remaining 93% risk of loss 
     on a multiple-peril, universal basis without some form of 
     catastrophic reinsurance from the government.
       Second, if tobacco farmers were to bear the full cost of 
     the current policies, that cost would escalate from 
     approximately $54 an acre to over $125 per acre--a more than 
     100% increase--when administrative costs are added, risk-
     based premium subsidies are removed, and some reinsurance 
     costs are included. There would be many producers who could 
     not afford those rates, especially the over 53,000 producers 
     holding catastrophic policies for which they paid a total of 
     $50, not $50 per acre.
       Third, even if a private multiple peril tobacco policy was 
     developed, private companies would be unable to make it 
     universally available. Aside from it not being affordable to 
     a large number of producers, the catastrophic nature of the 
     risk would prevent companies from making it available to all 
     producers. Individual risks would have to be underwritten and 
     some risks would be denied insurance either directly or 
     through cost-prohibitive rates. This is unlike the Federal 
     program where companies must accept all insureds no matter 
     what the risk without any individual adjustment of rates 
     since the government sets the rates.
       Providing risk management products to tobacco producers and 
     producers of other crops in tobacco growing states 
     constitutes a considerable source of income to a number of 
     rural crop insurance agents and crop adjusters in those 
     states. If crop insurance for tobacco were eliminated, that 
     may actually threaten the ability of these agents and 
     adjusters to stay in business thereby affecting insurance 
     availability for producers of other crops as well. This is 
     not to mention the impact on the rural community where the 
     agents, adjusters, and their support staff live and work.
       As long as it is legal to grow a crop in this country and 
     there are actuarially sufficient data to provide insurance, 
     AACI members do not believe that the crop or its producers 
     should be discriminated against. Due to the inability of the 
     private sector to offer an affordable, universally available 
     private multiple peril insurance product on tobacco, there 
     remains a proper role for government involvement. We 
     encourage you to continue that role by rejecting any 
     amendment that may terminate that responsibility.
           Sincerely,
                                                  John E. Sheeley,
                                                          Counsel.

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I would like to put in the Record at this 
point a letter from the Secretary of Agriculture to the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Senator Cochran, and 
ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                        Department of Agriculture,


                                      Office of the Secretary,

                                    Washington, DC, July 23, 1997.
     Hon. Thad Cochran,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, and 
         Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. 
         Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Thad: I am writing concerning an amendment to the 
     fiscal year (FY) 1998 Agriculture Appropriations Act offered 
     by Senator Richard Durbin, which would prohibit the use of 
     funds to pay the salaries of personnel who provide crop 
     insurance or noninsured crop disaster assistance for tobacco 
     for the 1998 and later crop years.
       The Department of Agriculture (USDA) opposes this 
     amendment. Crop insurance and noninsured crop disaster 
     assistance programs comprise the principal remaining ``safety 
     net'' for farmers suffering crop losses from natural 
     disasters, since the elimination of ad hoc disaster aid. The 
     adoption of this amendment will effectively end our ability 
     to provide crop insurance and noninsured assistance payments 
     for tobacco growers.
       Crop insurance is an essential part of the producer 
     ``safety net'' envisioned by the Administration's 
     agricultural policy. There were some 89,000 tobacco growers 
     with crop insurance policies in 1996, of which 69,000 
     actually planted the crop for the year. More than 550,000 
     acres were insured with liability exceeding $1.15 billion. 
     Tobacco producers paid more than $20 million in premiums to 
     insure their crops in recognition of the need to provide for 
     their own risk management at a time when the Government is 
     providing fewer and fewer farm subsidies.
       Tobacco growers in three States (North Carolina, South 
     Carolina, and Virginia) received $77.8 million in indemnities 
     for losses due to back-to-back hurricanes that hit the East 
     Coast last year. These funds helped communities recover from 
     disaster and were paid for in part by the producers 
     themselves. The significance of a program that encourages 
     producers to assess their individual risk management needs 
     and allows them to pay part of the cost for coverage must not 
     be lost at a time when fewer dollars are available for other 
     types of assistance. Elimination of tobacco crop insurance 
     would place a greater burden on other sources of relief when 
     disaster strikes.
       This amendment would have a particularly detrimental effect 
     on thousands of small farmers in tobacco producing States, 
     not to mention the toll it would take on the economic 
     stability of many rural communities. An overwhelming majority 
     of crop insurance policies in this area are sold to small 
     farmers.
       I urge you and your colleagues to vote against this 
     amendment when it is considered by the Senate. Please contact 
     me if you should need further information.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Dan Glickman,
                                                        Secretary.


                 Amendment No. 966 to Amendment No. 965

      (Purpose: To limit Federal crop insurance to family farmers)

  Mr. FORD. I send an amendment in the second degree to the Durbin 
amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Ford] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 966 to amendment numbered 965.

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       Strike all after the first word and insert the following:

     LIMITATION OF CROP INSURANCE TO FAMILY FARMERS.

       Section 508(a) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 
     1508(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(6) Crop insurance limitation.--
       ``(A) In general.--To qualify for coverage under a plan of 
     insurance or reinsurance under this title, a person may not 
     own or operate farms with more than 400 acres of cropland.
       ``(B) Definition of person.--The Corporation shall issue 
     regulations--
       ``(i) defining the term `person' for purposes of 
     subparagraph (A): and
       ``(ii) prescribing such rules as the Corporation determines 
     necessary to ensure a fair and reasonable application of the 
     limitation established under subparagraph (A).''.

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, what I have done here, as I said earlier, is 
to try to make crop insurance more comprehensive. So what this does is, 
it says that any farm with more than 400 acres that can be farmed not 
be eligible for crop insurance. The idea here is to let the corporate 
farmers pay for themselves, and try to protect the small farmer.
  So I think that this amendment will make it fairer. It protects the 
small farmers. The corporate farmers, then, the big farmers, those over 
400 acres of land that can be farmed--by the way, this does nothing out 
West as far as grazing land. It doesn't touch that part of it at all. 
It is land that can be farmed.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this may surprise my colleague from 
Kentucky. I may support his amendment.
  When I was chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Agriculture, I was considered by many to be pretty tough on the Crop 
Insurance Program, even though, as the Senator from Kentucky has noted, 
I come from a corn-growing State, a State with soybeans, a State which 
avails itself very much to a great extent in the Crop Insurance 
Program. I don't disagree with anything that my colleague from Kentucky 
said about the Crop Insurance Program. There are indefensible subsidies 
in this program.
  I think, if he is going to address an overall reform of crop 
insurance, he may be surprised to find me as an ally. I had an 
amendment which I offered 1 year in the appropriations subcommittee. If 
I recall it correctly, it said that if you have sustained losses in 7 
out of the last 10 years on your crop, you would be ineligible for crop 
insurance. I have this basic theory that if you couldn't grow a crop 
for 7 out of 10 years, God was telling you something about your land, 
that crop, or your talent, and that Uncle Sam and the Federal 
Government shouldn't be talking back to God in this instance and saying 
we will continue to insure the crop.

[[Page S7909]]

  There were a lot of people critical of my amendment because they had 
worked out a very sweet deal where they would plant crops that could 
never grow. It wasn't a sufficiently long growing season. But the crop 
was eligible. They would make their application. Lo and behold, the 
crop would fail again, and the Federal taxpayers would be asked to make 
up the difference.
  So, if the Senator from Kentucky is suggesting some basic reform of 
the Crop Insurance Program, I think I might be his ally. And if he is 
talking about limiting crop insurance to smaller farms, I think he 
might be surprised to find that we can work on that as well. But I 
think, in all honesty, that this amendment might never have been 
offered if I had not started an amendment on tobacco crop insurance.
  That is what this is about. It is not about reform of the crop 
insurance. It is about tobacco. And the two Senators from Kentucky, 
whom I respect very much, in defense of their State and its crop, have 
stood up and said, ``Why are you picking on us? Why do you single out 
tobacco?'' As one Senator from Kentucky said, tobacco is perfectly 
legal. That is true. But tobacco is also perfectly lethal. Tobacco is a 
killer. You have to eat an awful lot of corn and soybeans to die. But 
you start smoking, get addicted, the chances are 1 out of 3 that it is 
going to kill you.
  So, to the farmers who are growing it, who, for all intents and 
purposes and all appearances, look like any other farmer, what they are 
harvesting and what they are selling is devastating. For us to turn our 
backs on it and to say it is just another crop is to ignore the 
obvious.
  Tobacco is the No. 1 preventable cause of death in America today--No. 
1. Sure, we are concerned about AIDS. Certainly we are concerned about 
highway fatalities. Of course, we are concerned about violent crime. 
But if you want to save American lives, the first stop is tobacco. Take 
a look at what it does to us.
  For my colleagues to stand up and say, ``It is just another farmer, 
it is just another agricultural product, why do you single us out,'' it 
is because it is the only crop, when used according to the 
manufacturer's directions, will kill you. You can't smoke in 
moderation. You start this addiction, and you will end up generally as 
a statistic.
  So, when I bring this amendment to the floor to talk about crop 
insurance for tobacco, I can understand my colleagues from tobacco-
producing States. I can understand it completely. I have represented a 
congressional district and a State which has its own interests, and I 
have try to defend those interests. I think that is part of my 
responsibility.
  But I say to my colleagues who are viewing this debate and making up 
their own mind: Make no mistake, tobacco is not just another product. 
Crop insurance for tobacco is a blatant contradiction that we would 
piously pronounce through the Surgeon General's office and the 
Department of Health and Human Services that this crop is a killer, 
that these tobacco products are claiming lives--even innocent victims 
like these flight attendants who are now suing down in Florida who 
happened to be exposed to secondhand smoke. Their lives were in 
jeopardy, too. We know this. We concede this. We advertise this. We 
spend millions of dollars to police this industry because we know what 
they are doing. They are addicting our children, and they are killing 
our fellow citizens.

  That is why it is totally inconsistent for us to be in a position 
where year after year we are plowing millions of taxpayer dollars 
collected from people across the United States into the subsidy--
underline the word ``subsidy''--of tobacco growers.
  I just marvel when my colleagues get up. We can argue a lot of this 
on the merits. But it takes my breath away to hear these colleagues 
stand up and say that there is no tobacco subsidy.
  Let me go back to this Federal tobacco subsidy chart.
  There is this tobacco subsidy: $65 million in 1993; $60 million in 
1994; $51 million in 1995. In 1996, when I first took on this issue, 
they estimated our losses would be about the same--$50 million. They 
went to $97 million, and then in 1997 the estimate was $67 million.
  Mr. FORD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. FORD. I am sure he will be able to answer this and make me look 
bad. But this is just on crop insurance.
  Mr. DURBIN. It is on crop insurance and administering the program.
  Mr. FORD. Administration of the program.
  Mr. DURBIN. I think there are two or three other small, related 
areas.
  Mr. FORD. This is just tobacco.
  Mr. DURBIN. That is true.
  Mr. FORD. What about the $77 million that went to the hurricanes in 
North and South Carolina and Virginia that was paid and helped the 
communities or they would have taken the money out of some other fund 
as it relates to disasters?
  Mr. DURBIN. I don't believe that these figures include any national 
disaster assistance of that nature. It is strictly related to crop 
insurance.
  Mr. FORD. Is the money in the premiums in your figures here paid by 
the farmer--deducted, and this is the net?
  Mr. DURBIN. What this represents is the net cost to the Federal 
Treasury.
  Mr. FORD. Just for that. And what about the overall loss from other 
crops?
  Mr. DURBIN. Oh, it is substantial.
  Mr. FORD. Substantial.
  Mr. DURBIN. I can recall, 1 year it was $240 million, all crops 
included.
  Mr. FORD. Here you are damaging the farmer that is beginning to feel 
the pinch anyhow and hoping that we could negotiate some kind of an 
agreement. He is left out. You still want to eliminate this part of his 
everyday life.
  Mr. DURBIN. I want to eliminate crop insurance for tobacco. I will 
concede to my colleague that the overall subsidy for crop insurance, as 
I said at the outset, is an issue well worth addressing. The fact that 
we would spend--perhaps the Senator from Mississippi has more current 
figures--we would spend in the neighborhood of $200 million subsidizing 
crop insurance in America is an issue which I will happily join with my 
colleague from Kentucky and other States to address.
  But lest we forget, this debate started on the issue of tobacco, and 
although many of my colleagues want to raise a variety of other issues, 
we still have to face the reality that when this debate is over, we are 
going to face this question time and again when we go home: Senator, 
what's going on here? I can't pick up a newspaper, a news magazine, 
turn on the radio or television and I am not being told how bad tobacco 
is for America. Why do you keep plowing millions of my tax dollars into 
the subsidy of this tobacco crop? How can you justify it?
  I cannot. That is why I am offering the amendment. And I would say to 
my colleagues from the tobacco producing States, it is time to accept 
reality. And reality will tell you this. The day when the Federal 
Government rushed to the rescue of tobacco is over. I do not know if I 
will succeed with this amendment today, but tobacco's days in the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture are numbered. They know it, the tobacco 
farmers know it, and the tobacco companies know it. They know full 
well, as they have watched the course of events over the last 5 or 6 
years, that each year we have eliminated another Federal program 
relative to tobacco--research, export assistance, market promotion 
program. We have closed those doors, and those doors have remained 
shut.
  The tobacco growers and industry realized long ago that if they 
wanted an allotment program that gives them the advantage of making the 
kind of money we are talking about, they would have to pay for their 
own program. And they did it. And yet now we are in a part of this 
debate where they are saying we want to hang onto this last Federal 
subsidy.
  Make no mistake; this second-degree amendment offered by my 
colleague, the Senator from Kentucky, does not just reform crop 
insurance. It strikes our prohibition before inserting his addition. So 
he is not adding to my amendment. He wants to get me out of the way. He 
wants to talk about crop insurance programs. He does not want to talk 
about tobacco. That is a delicate subject. But it is a delicate subject 
I have been talking about for 10 years.
  And I want to tell you, too, I think the tide of history is on my 
side. I hope I am around to see that tide hit the

[[Page S7910]]

shore. I hope I am still standing when it does. But a little over 10 
years ago, I offered the first amendment in my long and checkered 
career on this issue to ban smoking on airplanes--10 years ago. Every 
leader in the House of Representatives, Democrat and Republican, 
opposed me, every committee chairman, and we went to the floor. They 
said we were meddling with tobacco, and they did not care for it, and 
tobacco lobbied. Folks, I want to tell you, the monsters of the midway 
are not the Chicago Bears. The monsters of the midway are the tobacco 
lobbyists in this town. They came down like a ton of bricks on this 
amendment. But you know what. We won. By 5 votes we won, 198 to 193, 
and I was the most surprised Member of Congress standing in the Chamber 
of the House when it happened.
  What it told me then and tells me now is that we are going to win 
this battle--maybe not today. I hope we do. Maybe not today, but we 
will. And the tobacco growers and tobacco companies have to accept the 
reality that if their product is to remain legal, if it is to remain 
legal, they have to change the way they do business. They have to stop 
asking for this Federal subsidy. They have to stop selling tobacco to 
our kids.
  If they do not agree to those two things, they are going to continue 
to face this kind of opposition year in and year out, and it will 
continue unabated. Those who are here in the Chamber, my colleagues, 
and some who are in the gallery who have taken the time to tour this 
beautiful building--and it is magnificent. I am very proud to be a 
Member of the Senate and to be able to practice my profession in this 
building--they will take a look around at the columns as they walk 
through the corridors and they will find at the top of these columns a 
curious leaf.
  What could it be? Well, you know what. Many of these columns are 
adorned with tobacco leaves. It tells you something about the history 
of the United States of America and the history of this Congress. When 
the President of the United States comes for an address to the Joint 
Session of Congress, State of the Union Address, for example, he stands 
in front of a wooden podium. Carved in the side of that wooden podium 
are tobacco leaves. It is part of America and it is part of our 
history. And there are some people who do not want to give up on that 
piece of history. They want to hang in there one more year for tobacco: 
Oh, we can do it. We can survive. We can offer perfecting amendments. 
We are going to fight for 1 more year.

  But the tide of history is not on their side. It was not that long 
ago, even in my lifetime, when doctors used to advertise the healthiest 
cigarettes to smoke. It has not been that long ago that you could have 
a smoking and nonsmoking section on an airplane and create the fiction 
you were protecting people, knowing full well that you were not.
  Those days are over. And as these tobacco companies come in here 
ready to negotiate, not because of a guilty conscience, because of 
their additional efforts to make money, we can see the tide changing. 
And yet we hang onto this vestige of the old school, this relic of 
history which for 60 years has said that the Federal taxpayers will 
defend and subsidize tobacco. That has to come to an end, and it has to 
come to an end sooner rather than later.
  Let us take the money we save with my amendment and use it for 
valuable, positive things that will help all of rural America. Let us 
use it for programs that are beneficial, health assistance to everyone 
across this Nation. The amendment that has been offered by my colleague 
from Kentucky is an amendment which seeks to win this battle today, put 
it off, at least the overall issue, for another day. But that is not 
good for America. It does us no good as a nation to turn our back on 
this reality.
  I say to my colleague as well, although he may question this, I will 
tell him in all sincerity, I understand his concern for his farmers. I 
give him my word now as I have in previous debates that if he is 
prepared to offer an amendment as part of this tobacco agreement to 
help his farmers, either phaseout of tobacco growth, move in other 
areas, I will be there, I will help him. Tobacco companies owe a great 
deal to the American tobacco growers, and I don't run into too many 
tobacco farmers who defend them, incidentally, because they know full 
well these same tobacco companies haven't treated America's tobacco 
farmers very well. They continue to import cheaper tobacco from 
overseas. They turn their backs on the very farmers whose tractors and 
skirts they have hid behind for decades. It was not fair the tobacco 
growers were not at the table.
  If the Senator from Kentucky or anyone on that side of the debate 
wants to suggest a change in this overall agreement to provide 
assistance to those tobacco growers so that they can phase in to a 
different type of production or phaseout of tobacco growth, I am happy 
to join him in that effort. My war is not with those farmers. My war is 
with what they are growing in their fields, because what they grow in 
those fields is deadly. It is lethal. It is something that can't be 
ignored or swept aside as just another agricultural issue.
  I can recall during past debates on this people have stood up and 
said you can't single out tobacco when it comes to America's export 
policy, and yet we have done it. People have said you cannot single out 
tobacco when it comes to research. Basically, we have done it. People 
have said time and again that you cannot separate tobacco as a crop. 
But I believe the American people know the difference. They know the 
difference between a bushel of corn that may be used for a variety of 
positive things. They know the difference between a bushel of soybeans 
that may be used for a variety of things, positive for American 
families, or a bail of cotton. You cannot say the same thing about 
these tobacco leaves.
  So, Mr. President, I oppose this amendment, not because of its 
underlying wisdom but because it is offered only, exclusively, solely 
for one reason--push the tobacco debate off for another day. I believe, 
and I believe my colleagues will join me in this belief, that you 
cannot wait another day. You have to move forward with this debate and 
address this issue now.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, this has been a very vigorous and 
informative debate, in my judgment. I have no parochial interest in 
that our State does not grow tobacco. We have no program for tobacco, 
for any of the producers of agricultural commodities in our State, but 
I am persuaded by the arguments that have been made by the Senator from 
Kentucky about the economic consequences of this amendment, and that is 
bolstered by the letter the distinguished Senator from Kentucky [Mr. 
Ford], mentioned that had been received by me today from the Secretary 
of Agriculture which points out the detrimental effect that the 
amendment offered by the Senator from Illinois would have on 
agriculture producers in the United States if it were to be passed by 
the Senate.
  So I am constrained to oppose the amendment of the Senator from 
Illinois, but I am also troubled very much by the second-degree 
amendment that has now been offered by my good friend from Kentucky 
which limits the application of the crop insurance program to farmable 
acreage of less than 400 acres. And that is troubling because so many 
of our farmers in my State and elsewhere throughout the country have 
more than 400 acres under cultivation, and this would be discriminatory 
in a different kind of way. So I am troubled by that amendment and I do 
not want to see that passed.
  So I am in a position and I think the best course of action for me as 
manager of the bill is to move to table the underlying amendment. If 
that motion to table passes, then it takes both the underlying 
amendment and the second-degree amendment with it as I understand it.
  So at this point, knowing that debate has been occurring for a little 
over an hour now and with the knowledge that we will set this aside, 
not to vote on it now but at a time to be determined later, I now move 
to table the underlying amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Is there a sufficient second? 
There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote on 
the motion to table be set aside and to

[[Page S7911]]

occur at a time to be established later in the day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.

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