[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 30, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11162-S11165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FARM CRISIS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we talk about the farm crisis and whether 
Congress will address a farm crisis that is urgent. I just want to make 
this point. I watched this week, as did all Americans, this hurricane 
that came roaring out of the Caribbean and threatened a fair part of 
the southern part of this country. My heart goes out to those people, 
worrying about their State, their lives, their property, and everything 
that they have saved and built. Then a wind comes along at 100, 125, 
and 150 miles an hour, and wipes it away.
  There is an emergency declaration, as we always do. Whether it is 
floods, fires, or earthquakes, or hurricanes, Congress responds with an 
emergency declaration. We say: You are a victim and the rest of the 
country wants to help.
  A week ago, the President sent down an emergency request to this 
Congress dealing with the farm crisis. It wasn't a wind, it wasn't a 
fire, it wasn't a flood, it wasn't a hurricane or an earthquake. Family 
farmers in this country have been literally devastated by the abject 
collapse of farm prices. Grain prices have just collapsed. In my State, 
in 1 year net farm income collapsed 98 percent.
  Ask yourself: Could anybody on your home street or block or in your 
county or your city survive if their net income dropped 98 percent? The 
remaining income is 2 percent. These are people who milk the cows, plow 
and put seed into the ground, and harvest in the fall. These are people 
in this country who raise America's food. They take enormous risks. 
They turn their yard light on and with their family have hopes and 
dreams to make a living.
  There has been a 98 percent collapse of the net farm income in North 
Dakota for family farmers. Prices have collapsed. We have the worst 
crop disease in this century. This President is right when he says we 
have an urgent farm crisis and he sends down an emergency proposal to 
deal with this.
  Two nights ago, I drove home after a conference committee on the 
Appropriations Committee. In that conference meeting, on a party-line 
vote, the President was told: We don't care about your emergency 
request. We don't think it is quite that important. We are going to 
offer up a 4-foot rope to somebody drowning in 10 feet of water, and we 
will suggest somehow that we have helped.
  I was sorely disappointed. More than that I was angry when I drove 
home that night. We meed to understand that these folks who farm 
America's land out there, the family farmers, don't ask for very much. 
All they ask is for an opportunity to make a living. When farm prices 
collapse and when they are hit with crop disease, it is as much a 
crisis for them as wind, flood, fire, or tornado. This Congress has a 
responsibility to help.
  There is a week and a half left in this Congress. If this Congress 
doesn't help, thousands and thousands and thousands of farmers and 
their families living on the land will lose their livelihood.
  I know the Senator from Nebraska has some information about exactly 
what the President has proposed and what the stakes are here, State by 
State, and what we are trying to do. I yield for a moment to the 
Senator from Nebraska for a question and some comments.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from North 
Dakota, one of the things we had hoped to do with this legislation is 
to get consideration similar to the disaster request which we all know 
will occur as a result of this hurricane.
  We have experienced this before. The Nation comes together as a 
country; suddenly we are Americans. A U.S. Senator asked to help the 
people in Mississippi, the distinguished majority leader's State. In 
Alabama, probably Florida as well, and Louisiana, clearly there are 
damages. Here comes a natural disaster. Here comes Hurricane Georges. 
Nobody could have prepared for that hurricane. It has destroyed 
people's lives, cost them hope. What will happen is, a disaster 
declaration will be made, a request will come to the Congress to put 
the law of the country on their side, to give them opportunity and hope 
again. That is what the law can do at its best; it can give people 
hope.
  I know this very well, I say to my friend from North Dakota. About a 
year and a half in a business, in 1975, a tornado hit Omaha, NE, and I 
thought we were pretty much out of business as a result of the tornado 
having blown us away. However, I come to find out, 2 days later, that 
Mayor Zorinsky, the mayor of Omaha at the time and the man who preceded 
me in the U.S. Senate, requested from the President of the United 
States, Republican President Gerald Ford, a disaster declaration, and 
the law was put on our side. It gave us a chance to build our business 
back, gave us a chance to pursue our dream. That is what the law tends 
to do. That is what the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts was 
talking about earlier. I get hundreds of calls a year, and, more than 
any other issue, people say, ``Senator, I don't have any power when I 
am dealing with an HMO; can you change the law and give me some power? 
Can you help me in dealing with this entity?'' We are trying to change 
the law not to create a bureaucracy but to give people some hope.
  My expectation will be, when the disaster declaration occurs for 
these southern States, it won't be a partisan issue, it won't be 
Republicans and Democrats, it will be U.S. Senators and U.S. Members of 
the House of Representatives rallying to try to make certain that 
people in the southern part of the country that have been damaged by 
this disaster are given some hope or given some opportunity.
  I say to my friend from North Dakota, I was surprised, as you were, 
late Monday night when the House conference on appropriations for 
agriculture rejected the President's request for disaster assistance 
for the Middle West that has been destroyed and damaged by a natural 
disaster, a decline in demand that has produced losses across the board 
in agriculture. Still the most important part of our economy, creating 
more jobs than any other sector of our economy, and farmers throughout 
the bread belt of the United States, the bread basket of the United 
States, have lost hope. I was very surprised that it would occur on a 
straight party line vote that Members--who will likely say yes if the 
President puts down a disaster declaration request for the hurricane--
voted no.
  I say to my friend from North Dakota, they say, ``We are reopening 
Freedom to Farm; that is the reason I'm to vote no.''
  I ask my friend from North Dakota if he is aware of the kind of 
income contribution that this disaster declaration will make to our 
States. There are many times when I come down here and deal with a 
piece of legislation and I ask myself, Will this have an impact on 
Nebraska? Will they feel it?--especially when I am talking to Nebraskan 
farmers out harvesting right now and who might not have seen what 
happened Monday night. Are you sure this will help? In Nebraska, the 
difference between what the President asked for and what the House 
conference, on a straight party line vote, voted for is $257 million.
  Rest assured, if this was a transportation grant, our entire 
delegation would be united. There is no Republican or Democrat 
differential when we

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are trying to get a $250 million grant for Nebraska. Yet there is a 
decision here as a consequence of this Freedom to Farm argument--$257 
million worth of income to Nebraska.
  I have written the Midwestern Governors' Association and the 
Governors in those associations urging them to call their delegation as 
a consequence of not just what their State will lose but what their 
farmers are going to lose. Two hundred and fifty-seven million dollars' 
worth of income on Main Street America, in Main Street Nebraska, will 
make a lot of difference not just to farmers but to whether or not the 
businesses on Main Street will survive.
  In Iowa, the amount of money is $365 million. I have written Governor 
Branstad and urged in an immediate letter: ``Governor, weigh in on 
this, because you are about to lose $365 million''; to the Governor of 
Illinois: ``You are about to lose $341 million''; in Indiana, $182 
million; in Kansas, $195 million; in Minnesota, $256 million; in North 
Dakota, $115 million; in Ohio, $133 million; in South Dakota, $149 
million; in Wisconsin, $80 million.

  There are Senators from these Midwestern States who voted no for 
ideological reasons, because they don't want to reopen the Freedom to 
Farm. I don't understand that. This would make a tremendous difference 
in our being able to get through this recession.
  The President asked for a disaster declaration. As I said, I have 
written all of the Governors in these States putting out an appeal. It 
will occur when each one of these Governors are going to come to us and 
ask for considerably less, and the beauty of this is that it doesn't go 
to the Government, it goes to individual family farmers; it increases 
their income and makes it likely to get their operating loans extended 
for another year.
  I ask my friend if he is aware of the tremendous change in income 
pictures that will occur as a consequence of what the President has 
asked for and what the conferees turned down. Again, I ask a second 
question of my friend from North Dakota. He has had plenty of town hall 
meetings, just as I have. I am asked, ``How do we persuade those 
easterners to go along with us?'' The problem doesn't appear to be 
easterners, or people on the west coast either. Both Senators from 
California, both Senators from Connecticut, both Senators from 
Maryland, both Senators from Massachusetts, both Senators from Nevada, 
both Senators from New Jersey--even though they are not going to 
benefit--did precisely what the Senator from North Dakota said earlier. 
It is not just important for us to come here and defend our region, our 
Nation is in trouble. Our Nation is suffering as a consequence of the 
crisis and the disaster occurring in the Midwest right now.
  We are going to respond. We are going to vote aye because we know 
that we need to pull together as a country. I am sure that it is likely 
to be 100-0 when it comes time to decide whether or not we are going to 
respond to a disaster in the southern States that has occurred as a 
consequence of this hurricane. I come to the floor, Mr. President, to 
ask the Senator from North Dakota if he is aware of the tremendous 
amount of assistance that each one of these States is going to get, and 
if he, as well, hears from his farmers when he goes home, ``How do we 
persuade the folks on the east and west coasts that we have a problem 
out there that needs to be addressed?''
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska asks an 
important question. I want to emphasize again that the President has 
sent down an emergency request. He sent down an emergency request and 
said what is needed in order to address the farm crisis is $7.9 
billion. Now, I will say to my friend, as I indicated when I started 
this, when the emergency request comes--and it will--to deal with this 
hurricane that just hit, I am going to vote for it. Perhaps other 
hurricanes will hit during this season. I have voted for aid for 
earthquakes, floods, fires, and hurricanes; and I always will because 
this country has a responsibility to do that. I won't think twice about 
it. We don't have hurricanes in North Dakota, but when a hurricane hits 
in this country, count me as someone voting for the emergency request.
  FEMA and others will evaluate what is necessary, and the President 
will send us a supplemental emergency request. I have always voted for 
them and I will again. It wasn't, as I said, a fire, flood, earthquake, 
tornado, or hurricane that caused the crisis that required the 
President to send up this emergency request. It was the collapsed 
prices and crop disease. It was the worst crop disease of a century 
combined with a total collapse of prices.
  Now, why do we have some people who ought to be voting in support of 
this emergency request reluctant to do so? As the Senator said, it is 
ideology. This Congress, a couple years ago, passed something called 
the Freedom to Farm bill. I didn't vote for it. I didn't think it was 
appropriate. I don't think you will have family farmers in this country 
when prices drop off the cliff and you don't have an adequate safety 
net for them. If you don't have a price support for them to get across 
the price valley, farmers can't make it. The big corporate farms will 
get across the valley because they have the financial strength to do 
it.
  Some may decide that they don't care about family farmers or whether 
they exist. They may worship at the altar of a ``free market'' that 
doesn't exist in agriculture. They decided that we were going to cut 
farmers loose. Even if prices collapse after we pass this Freedom to 
Farm bill, they are going to refuse to budge because they have so much 
pride in the work they did a couple years ago that they don't want to 
admit it was wrong. I am not asking anybody to admit that.
  I am just saying that farm prices have collapsed. Wheat prices have 
dropped 57 percent since passage of the farm law. North Dakota farmers 
lost 98 percent of their net income in one year. The same is true 
through much of the Midwest in the farm belt. At this point, shouldn't 
Congress stop, look, and listen and say this is a crisis? Does this 
country want family farmers with yard lights that light up the hopes 
and dreams on the family farm out there in the country? Do they want 
family farmers in the future? They should for a lot of social and 
economic reasons. Then Congress has to come forward now and address 
this issue that the President has recommended with an emergency 
request.
  The Senator from Nebraska has gone through and talked about what it 
means to these States. I want to describe it in slightly different 
terms. There is not a Republican or a Democratic way to go broke. 
Family farmers don't care about party labels, tickets, or politics. 
They care about whether they are going to be able to make it through 
the winter?
  I talked about a young man named Wyatt the other day. He is a 
sophomore in school right now in Stanley, ND. He wrote a letter to me 
that brought tears to my eyes. He said, ``My dad is a family farmer.'' 
After he described what the family was going through, he said, ``My dad 
can feed 180 people and he can't feed his own family.'' That describes 
better than almost any description we can offer how productive our 
family farmers are. Yet, they are being wrung dry by prices that have 
collapsed, and they are told that even though they are all-star 
producers, somehow they don't matter.
  It seems to me that we must, as a Congress, address this issue, and 
the point is this: There are those who say let's address this issue by 
doing what is called increasing the AMTA payment by some 19 cents a 
bushel for a bushel of wheat. That is like walking up to somebody 
bleeding to death and holding out a Band-Aid and saying, ``Aren't I 
wonderful? Here is a Band-Aid.''
  The people proposing it know better. They have told me in private 
that it will not address this problem. It won't get those farm families 
into the field next spring. Tens of thousands of them will be broke and 
forced out of business before they can get into the field next spring 
because this is a half-baked solution. It is, as I said, like offering 
a 4-foot rope to somebody drowning in 10 feet of water. Let's not have 
half-baked solutions. Let's not pole-vault to get over the election.
  Let's pass the emergency request of the President to solve this 
problem. We need to help these farmers have the hope that they can get 
in the field next year, plant a crop, harvest it in the fall, and have 
some hope that perhaps prices will rebound and they will be

[[Page S11164]]

able to continue farming in this country in the future. Either we are 
going to decide to solve this problem or we are not. That is what this 
is about.
  First of all, I respect the fact that I come from a political party 
that lost. I understand that. I understand winning and losing. I belong 
to a political party that doesn't control this Chamber. I understand 
that. I am perfectly willing to lose from time to time. We do. In fact, 
it is getting habit-forming. But I am not willing to lose quietly on 
this issue.
  Up until the last 2 minutes of this legislative session, I intend to 
be on the floor demanding that this country respond to the urgency of 
this matter, just as we would if it were a natural disaster. I will be 
demanding that we respond to the hopes and dreams of family farmers 
that are going to lose their family farms if we don't act. They will 
lose it in the next week, the next month, or the next 4 months, and 
they will lose it as sure as I stand here, if we come up with half-
baked solutions.
  I know the Senator from Nebraska wants to add to that. Let me just 
say again, it is the old silk-purse-out-of-a-sow's-ear thing. We have 
people here resistant to doing what they know in their heart is the 
right thing to do because they are worried because it would look like a 
180-degree turn on Freedom to Farm. Don't worry about that. Let's 
figure out what we can do together, all of us together. Let us do what 
we know in our hearts will help the farmers get into the fields next 
spring and have some hope that maybe they can make a decent living. If 
we do that, we will have done something to strengthen this country and 
invest in this country's future.
  Then we can then go home with pride and say to those that Thomas 
Jefferson described as the ``best Americans,'' those producing our 
foodstuffs on the family farms, that we have done something to assure 
their future and give them an opportunity.
  Our economy is doing better. Inflation is down, unemployment is down, 
and the deficit is almost gone. All of those numbers are good and the 
country feels better about the economy. We should be able to say to 
family farmers that we will not, in these good times, turn a blind eye 
to their economic plight. They matter to this country.
  I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Nebraska once again.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, just briefly, I appreciate very much the 
answer the Senator from North Dakota has provided. I want to make it 
clear again that I put out an SOS to the Governors of the Midwestern 
region, pointing out to them what they are about to lose.
  To the Governor of Illinois, $341 million of additional income to the 
State of Illinois. Is that going to make every farmer in Illinois 
prosperous? No. For all of the free market, plenty of people are still 
going to go broke in Illinois even at that. But $341 million, I say to 
the Governor. It is the same way in Indiana--$182 million; Iowa, $365 
million; Kansas, $195 million; Michigan, $60 million; Minnesota, $250 
million; Missouri, $120 million; Nebraska, $250 million; North Dakota, 
$115 million; Ohio, $133 million; South Dakota, $150 million; 
Wisconsin, $80 million.
  I have been a part of the Midwestern Governors Association. During 
the agriculture crisis, there was the appeal that we made to Congress. 
Our income is declining; our tax revenues are going down; we are not 
able to support our schools--many of the things that happen as a 
consequence of things beyond our control. We found a positive response 
in the Republican Congress in the 1980s. We came and made the appeal. 
The Congress responded with the new farm bill which helped us 
enormously.
  Mr. President, I hope this little presentation or request of the 
Governors, as well as our correspondence to the Governors, will produce 
a response. I hope and I pray that sometime in the next 10 days we can, 
as we most assuredly will--when the majority leader comes to the floor 
on behalf of Mississippians, and many other people in the South who 
have been damaged by Hurricane Georges, we are not going to walk down 
here with a partisan hat and say, ``That is the majority leader, he is 
a Republican, and for ideological reasons I am going to say no.'' We 
will say yes.
  I hope in the next 10 days that we can find a way on this Agriculture 
appropriations bill to send this bill back to conference and instruct 
the conferees to do the right thing, which is to grant the President's 
request for the disaster assistance, which will brighten the days of 
not just American farmers but also Americans who understand that our 
livelihood depends upon their success and their prosperity. I hope we 
are able to take our partisan hats off and deal with this thing as U.S. 
Senators and not as Republicans or Democrat Senators.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me finish with just 1 minute. I know 
our colleagues are on the floor. They look like they want to do some 
serious business.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might just say, the business we are 
doing is very serious. While I will not take a position one way or 
another on the issue, I would be remiss, and all others would be 
remiss, if we did not recollect last year how Senator Dorgan stood the 
floor on behalf of his constituents and others with regard to the 
devastating floods, and when he spoke just now about his support about 
other areas of the country, and I think in the depths of his heart 
about those harrowing experiences in which he so ably represented the 
citizens of his State.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Warner. Let me just 
continue for 1 additional minute, and then turn the floor over to the 
Senator.
  I don't like having to come here and ratchet away on this issue day 
after day. I know some get tired of that, but this literally is about 
whether people will survive out on the family farm. I have used some 
letters to try to describe their plight. I used a letter the other day 
of a woman who described the two jobs she has, the two jobs her husband 
has, in addition to raising kids and running the farm, and all the 
part-time jobs her kids have. She wrote how they are just flat broke, 
out of money and with no capability of making it. The price of hogs is 
down. The price of cattle is down. The price of grain has collapsed. 
She said to her daughter, ``Let us try to buy you one pair of new jeans 
for school.'' And her daughter said, ``No. Mom, I understand we can't 
afford that.'' They are just out of money and about to give up hope.
  This Congress needs to intervene to do something. We need to say to 
our farmers, ``You matter to this country.'' I am not saying we should 
prop up some artificial economy for farms. I am saying that these 
farmers face monopolies in every direction they turn. They face 
monopolies with the grain trade. They face monopolies with the way they 
do business with the railroad. They face them with the cattle 
slaughter. They face them with the hog and sheep slaughter, and they 
face them with the flour millers.
  I had charts. I will not put them up again. In every area, the top 
three or four companies control 60, 70, and in some cases 80 percent of 
all of the activity. And these farmers are told, ``You compete in the 
free market.'' Then they have to compete with other countries that 
deeply subsidize their products. It is not a free market. It has never 
been free. We are the only ones who will come up with these goofy 
stories and tell the farmers to go to the grain markets which are 
stacked against them. Then when prices collapse, we tell our farmers we 
are not going to be there to help. This is the only country that does 
that.
  This country ought to decide now that it made a mistake putting the 
future of family farmers on a free market that doesn't exist, and we 
ought to correct it. This President says that we have an emergency 
need, and he asked for a supplemental appropriations to meet that 
emergency need totaling about $8 billion.
  I drove home the other night after the conference committee between 
the House and the Senate. That conference, on a party-line vote, said 
no; we are not willing to do that. I hope we are going to change that 
result in the next week and a half, Mr. President.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I have a question for the Senator.
  One is, there has been a great deal said by the Senator from North 
Dakota about changing the farm bill and reopening the farm bill 
relative to taking the caps off the marketing loan rates. It is my 
understanding that the existing farm bill has marketing loan provisions 
in it; that the real discussion and

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the recommendation from the President has simply been that we raise the 
caps of an existing program within the existing farm bill; that, in 
fact, the initiative would not involve any significant change in the 
farm bill, certainly no more so than accelerating or increasing half 
the payments. Will the Senator share a view on that?
  Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from South Dakota is absolutely correct. The 
farm bill that Congress passed said we would provide a support price 
equal to 85 percent of the five-year Olympic average of the average 
price of this grain. Then they put an artificial budget restraint on it 
even though they promised that formula. Once again, the big print 
giveth and the little print taketh away. Despite the promise, they put 
an artificial cap on it. That means our support prices don't work. The 
promise doesn't offer real help and it doesn't offer protection.
  What we have proposed--and the President and others have proposed--is 
to get rid of the artificial cap and to give them what the big print 
said they would give them and stop this taking away with the little 
print. That is all this proposal is about.
  Mr. JOHNSON. If I may follow up on that, the Senator from North 
Dakota has been one of this body's leaders relative to budget 
responsibility, fiscal responsibility, and the overall effort that we 
have gone about in bringing the annual Federal budget deficit from $292 
billion only 6 years ago to at least a unified budget surplus this 
year. I think the Senator from North Dakota was deeply involved in the 
crafting of the legislation that set up the framework that allowed us 
to bring this country to the current point of much greater fiscal 
responsibility.
  But it is my understanding, in the context of that debate and setting 
up the pay-as-you-go budget mechanisms that were established in the 
early 1990s, which have been so successful, that one of the underlying 
premises and understanding of that legislation was that there would be 
from time to time emergency needs that would be met with the request 
from the President with the concurrence of the Congress, and that it is 
not inconsistent with the underlying legislation and the progress that 
we have made towards reducing the deficit. So long as we use care to 
denominate emergencies as only things which are truly emergencies and 
are reasonably not foreseeable by either the White House or by the 
Congress, the funding of these emergency needs is not inconsistent with 
the effort we have made to reduce the deficit and to maintain the 
discipline of the 1990 and 1993 budget agreements.
  Is that the Senator's recollection relative to the context of this 
emergency budget request?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes. The Senator from South Dakota is, of course, 
correct. Emergency needs have always been anticipated and expected in 
the budget process. When emergency needs are requested, I am someone 
who will always vote to fund those emergency needs. It is not outside 
of the scope of what we decided to do when we decided to try to get 
this country's fiscal house in order. The Senator is correct about 
that.
  I don't understand why some continue to insist that the funding 
doesn't exist for this emergency need. Of course, it does. Of course, 
it is a need.
  Let me say to the Senator from Virginia, when I said he is here for 
serious business, that the implication was not that this isn't. This is 
the most serious business for me in this Congress. I know the Senator 
from Virginia is involved in defense and a range of other issues that 
are also very serious for this country. I very much appreciate his 
service and the service of the Senator from Arizona.
  The Senator from South Dakota, Senator Johnson, of course, is from a 
farm State, just like mine, that is suffering the same kinds of 
problems. It is devastating. This crisis is really devastating to not 
just the economy of the State but to the families who tonight will go 
to bed not knowing whether they are going to be able to hang on to 
their family farm. That is the dilemma here, and it is something we 
have to face.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Record will reflect that when the 
Senator made his comment, this Senator said no, I respect him, it is 
serious business, and then reflected on how ably the Senator has 
represented his constituents during this crisis.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for such 
time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair.

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