[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 91 (Thursday, June 24, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7566-S7569]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       AGRICULTURE APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I yield myself as much of the 25 minutes 
as may be necessary to make my point.
  I rise today with substantial concern and significant frustration. 
The pending business before the Senate is the agriculture 
appropriations bill. But for the second day in a row, it appears that 
we will not work on this important legislation. Those on the other side 
of the aisle have said they will not let any legislative work get done 
until they are able to have, apparently, an unlimited debate on a so-
called Bill of Rights for health care patients.

  Those on the other side claim that they must have a debate on their 
bill, but that is not the point. What they are really doing is 
thwarting this body, the Senate, in its constitutional duty to pass 
appropriations bills so that we can make sure that important components 
of our Government remain viable and continue to do their job.
  The agriculture appropriation bill is a very important measure, not 
just in one State in America but in every State in America. Let me 
remind all Senators that our responsibility to pass appropriations 
bills is defined by the U.S. Constitution, which requires 
``appropriations made by law''--that means we have to pass them--
``prior to the expenditure of any money from the Federal Treasury.'' 
That is article I, section 9.
  I see nothing in my reading of the Constitution that says the Senate 
must have unlimited debate on some other issue of interest or that the 
Senate even has the authority to speak on all the issues between a 
patient and a doctor.
  Granted, we have until October 1 to conclude the appropriations 
process. That seems like a long way off, summer having just started. 
But I am not sure exactly why we would be dragging our feet now, 
because I am sure I do not have to remind anybody of what happened last 
October when we did not do our work early. Congress did not complete 
its job on time, and the American people are the ones who ended up 
paying for our irresponsibility with a $20 billion-some so-called 
emergency appropriation that came when, instead of constitutionally 
addressing our responsibility on appropriations, the President and a 
few Members of this body combined to invade the Social Security trust 
fund for about $22 billion in emergency spending.
  Members on both sides of the aisle complained bitterly for months 
about the process and the outcome. Members from both sides pledged to 
work together to make sure that history did not repeat itself this 
year.
  I commend the leadership and the Appropriations Committee for the 
wonderful start that has been made on the appropriations bills. It is 
June 24, and the Senate has passed four appropriations bills and has 
five more ready for the floor. If those on the other side ever allow us 
to return to our duties, we can do the job and do it well.
  Let me caution all of us that summer will pass quickly. We should not 
put off our responsibilities. We are sent here by our constituents to 
do our jobs for

[[Page S7567]]

them, not to sit in endless quorum calls and have days of morning 
business because some group wants a special interest measure to be 
addressed and demands unlimited debate without any end in sight.
  In addition, I am concerned that certain Senators are holding this 
agriculture appropriations bill hostage at a time when many in our farm 
communities are undergoing great hardship. America may be in the midst 
of great prosperity, but it is not a prosperity that has reached the 
farms. Many of our farmers are working harder and harder, and times are 
tougher and tougher, not better and better.
  Just a few months ago, we passed an emergency supplemental 
appropriations bill that dealt, in part, with the crisis in the 
agriculture sector. Members on both sides of the aisle agree that farm 
families are not enjoying the prosperity that other Americans have 
recently been enjoying. So this is not the time for the Senate to deal 
another blow to those who are already hurting. It is not the time for 
the Senate to kick agriculture while it is down. We need to stand up 
for our farmers, and we need to stand up for our ranchers, not to try 
to make political hay out of an issue unrelated to agriculture on the 
agriculture appropriations bill.

  Since we are not on the agriculture appropriations bill, and I am not 
sure when we will return to it, I want to spend a few minutes talking 
about an amendment I plan to offer to the agriculture appropriations 
bill. It is an amendment that will help farmers by opening, and keeping 
open, foreign markets to their goods.
  I want to discuss a commitment the Congress made to America's farmers 
and ranchers when we passed the Freedom to Farm bill 3 years ago. Then, 
we promised that as the Government reduced farmer price support 
programs, we would ensure that farmers had ascending opportunities to 
be competitive in international markets. As we withdrew the Government 
involvement in farming, we would expand the opportunities for farmers 
in markets overseas. This was a promise to open new markets. However, 
in order to do so, we had to not only remove foreign barriers to U.S. 
farmers and ranchers, we needed to remove our own barriers to U.S. 
exports of farm goods. Removing U.S. barriers means agricultural 
sanctions reform, which is important to America's farmers and ranchers, 
and especially important to me as a Member who represents a farm State.
  For more than 200 years, farmers and ranchers have been vital to the 
growth and the economic prosperity of the United States. We were an 
export country, agriculturally, from the beginning. We always responded 
to challenges in our competitive free market system. I believe the 
United States has the best farmers in the world--first class in 
production, processing, marketing, both abroad and at home. However, we 
are now seeing the effects of depressed farm prices across the Nation. 
No doubt, we need to face the crisis head on, but while we are passing 
multiple spending bills this year, there are some basic questions we 
should answer:
  Have we done everything we can to allow farmers to be independent, to 
allow farmers to have the freedom to compete, to give them 
opportunities and not just send them money, to consider the long-term 
well-being of family farms? In the absence of us fulfilling our promise 
to open markets, is our spending merely keeping farms solvent this year 
only to be lost in the future?
  We have had 3 years to answer these questions, and the answer to all 
of them is still a resounding no.
  The administration and the Congress have many words about open 
markets and more export opportunities, but our actions have been to bog 
ourselves down with turf battles and procedural maneuvering. How can we 
explain this to the agricultural community across America? How can we 
tell our family farmers in the Midwest, in Missouri, in the Far West, 
or in the East and the South, that we really want to give them 
increasing opportunity in world markets, and then thwart our own goal 
with institutional barricades, and tell them we want to sell abroad but 
forbid them to sell abroad by having embargoes of our own products, 
sanctions against countries that are unnecessary and counterproductive, 
so it makes it impossible for them to have the same markets they would 
otherwise enjoy?

  I believe we must enact reforms that give farmers and ranchers the 
opportunity both to be productive and to be competitive. Such reforms 
will strengthen farm families. I believe these policies are ones rooted 
in the American tradition of increasing opportunity.
  One-hundred-plus years ago, my grandfather, John M. ``Cap''--they 
called him Cap--Larsen left northern Norway as a 13-year-old to sail 
the high seas. He changed his name and, with all his earthly endowment 
contained in a duffel bag, he switched ships and boarded one destined 
for the United States as a crew member. He could not speak the 
language, but he knew that America was a place of ascending 
opportunity, and he came here.
  We have a responsibility to America to keep our opportunity growing. 
We can't keep our opportunity growing if we are closing the markets in 
which American farmers can sell their produce. So, clearly, our 
opportunity is to say to American farmers--and I would like to say to 
Missouri farmers--we want you to have an opportunity to sell your goods 
in as many places as is possible.
  The agricultural industry is the backbone of my State's economy, 
accounting for more than $4 billion annually.
  While the United States can produce more food than any other country, 
we account for only 5 percent of the world's consuming population. That 
leaves 95 percent of the world's consumers outside of our borders. This 
is an astounding statistic when we put it in terms of creating 
opportunities. Exports account for 30 percent of the gross cash 
receipts for America's farmers, and nearly 40 percent of all U.S. 
agricultural production is exported. However, with the consuming 
capacity of the world largely outside our borders, our farmers and 
ranchers need increasing access to foreign demand.
  Farmers and ranchers tell me repeatedly that they want more of our 
help abroad and less of our interference on their farms. They need us 
to open foreign markets, and they need us to keep those markets open.
  Our first task--opening foreign markets--looms before us like a brick 
barricade. With the same will and authority of President Reagan before 
the Berlin Wall--when he said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall''--
we must face head-on the barricades before our farmers and ranchers. It 
is not an easy task, but then again neither was dismantling the Evil 
Empire.
  The Europeans are standing on their massive wall of protectionism 
built across the trail of free trade and simply rejecting U.S. beef. 
For example, May 13 was the last date for them, according to the orders 
from the World Trade Organization, in which they had exhausted every 
appeal. That was the last day for them to finally say they will accept 
U.S. beef. They refused to do so.
  We have to blaze a trail. The Europeans cannot be allowed to make a 
mockery of our competitive spirit, especially that of our cattle 
ranchers.

  Our second task--keeping markets open--is why my colleagues and I are 
here on the floor today. The picture of ascending opportunity for 
farmers is incomplete without a view of foreign markets unimpaired by 
U.S. embargoes.
  We have gone from the idea of trade barriers on the part of the 
Europeans to embargoes on the part of the United States. We keep a 
number of our farm products from being sold around the world, and 
unnecessarily.
  I might add that using food and medicine as weapons creates a 
cumbersome trail, an environment of descending opportunities. 
Agricultural embargoes amount to a denial of much-needed food and 
medicine for the innocent people of foreign lands with whom we have no 
quarrel and to a unilateral disarmament of the farmers in a competitive 
world market. We have simply pulled our farmers out of competition in a 
number of areas where we need not. We must not use our farmers or 
innocent people as pawns of diplomacy or allow our embargoes merely to 
add bricks to the walls of protectionism that other countries have 
erected.
  Our farmers have jumped through all the hoops of foreign trade 
barriers and redtape to establish trusted relationships with foreign 
buyers. That has

[[Page S7568]]

happened. And the U.S. Government should be extremely cautious about 
interrupting their sales by imposing trade sanctions.
  Many farmers' livelihoods depend on sales overseas. For instance, in 
the mid-1990s, more than one-fourth of Missouri's farm sales were made 
to overseas consumers. But because the U.S. Government has sanctioned 
agricultural trade, there has been an estimated $1.2 billion annual 
decline in the U.S. economy during these years.
  In other words, our whole country suffered to the tune of an annual 
decline of $1.2 billion as a result of agricultural embargoes. This 
translates into 7,600 fewer U.S. jobs. Even one-third of those 7,600 
jobs lost translates into the loss of a family farm. So we have lost 
about 2,500 family farmers in each of the last several years because of 
agricultural embargoes.
  Sometimes I think we need to ask ourselves: Who are we hurting? We 
think we are hurting other countries that go into the world market and 
buy from other suppliers. I don't think we are hurting them badly--
perhaps not nearly as badly as we hurt America when we lose 2,500 
family farms a year. That is 50 family farms a week. That is a 
tradition that they no longer pass on--a tradition of resourcefulness, 
a tradition of independence, a tradition of providing food and fiber to 
a hungry world.
  Additionally, this debate on agricultural sanctions reform is broader 
than the effect sanctions have on America's farmers. In addition to 
hurting our sales and damaging our farmers' credibility as suppliers, 
embargoes deny food and medicine to those who need it most--citizens 
who have to live under the rule of some of those who are most 
oppressed.
  Also, the United States, by imposing unilateral agricultural 
embargoes, can actually end up benefiting instead of punishing foreign 
tyrants. For instance, one of the little-known aspects of the Soviet 
grain embargo concerns how much money the Soviets saved as a direct 
result of the United States ``punishing'' them with an embargo. There 
may be a number of people who do not remember the U.S. grain embargo 
with the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, I believe it was. We 
thought, well, they are not doing things the way we want them to, so we 
will make it tough on the Soviets. We will embargo exports from the 
United States to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, when we said we 
would no longer trade with them, was able to cancel 17 million tons of 
relatively high-priced purchases from the United States. So they 
wouldn't buy these quality well-produced items from American 
agriculture. They replaced those purchases they were going to get from 
American agriculture with purchases from other countries. What do you 
know? They even bought from other countries at lower prices.

  The U.S. embargo unilaterally canceled private contracts and drove 
the world market prices down by sending our grain into the world 
market, and at the same time it was estimated that the embargo saved 
the Soviets about $250 million. In an effort to hurt the Soviets, we 
saved them $250 million, and we cost the American agricultural 
community 17 million tons of agricultural sales to a market for which 
the contracts had already been signed.
  That is not exactly the intended result. But all too frequently when 
we keep our farmers from selling to countries overseas as a result of 
these sanctions and embargoes, we end up hurting ourselves, and not the 
other country. We end up destroying family farms in America--not 
something in the other jurisdiction. We end up making it tough on 
American farmers.
  I agree that in some instances the United States needs to use trade 
sanctions. They can be a foundation for the protection of our national 
security interests and to the promotion of our foreign policy goals. 
However, because I believe agriculture and medicine should rarely be 
used as a unilateral weapon--they aren't things that really are going 
to win wars for us generally, especially if the agriculture production 
that we cut off is really replaced just by production brought on line 
in other cultures--I think we should be very serious about any effort 
to use agriculture or medicine as a weapon.
  I think both the Congress and the administration need to consider it 
very carefully, and that they ought to combine their authority to lift 
most of the remaining restrictions on American farmers and ranchers. We 
ought to give them a chance to sell to a hungry world.
  That is why a number of Senators and I--Senator Hagel, Senator Boxer, 
Senator Kerrey, Senator Roberts, and Senator Dodd--are working on this 
amendment which I would otherwise be offering if we weren't in morning 
business. I hope many other Senators will join.
  We want to be involved in discussing what is good for America--yes--
what is good for our farm communities, and our home States, and discuss 
why sanctions, which really hurt us more than they hurt the other 
fellow, are really counterproductive to American farmers. If there are 
costs to be borne in our culture as a result of our antagonism with 
others, those costs should not be focused solely on the agricultural 
communities in a way that makes our farmers less competitive, because 
we narrow in a significant way the markets that they would otherwise 
have in the world marketplace.
  The theme of the amendment I would have proposed is that sanctions 
should rarely, if ever, be imposed against food or medicine, and, if 
they need to be imposed, both Congress and the President should be 
involved. Our farms should not be sanctioned without serious 
deliberation about the effects. If food and medicine for the world is 
important--and the Food and Medicine for the World Act should be 
passed--it is this: That in order to use agriculture or medicine as a 
part of a sanctions regime, there would have to be an agreement between 
the administration and Congress.
  Let me make this clear. We don't want to tie the hands of the 
President. We merely want to require the President and Congress to 
shake hands in agreement, if we are going to ever use food and medicine 
as a part of a sanctions or an embargo regime.
  That is the thrust of the amendment, which I am proposing; and here 
is how it would happen. Under the amendment, agriculture is carved out 
of a sanctions package when any new sanctions are imposed. The 
President would still be able to use his broad sanctions authority, but 
agriculture and medicine would be treated a little differently.

  When any new unilateral sanction is announced by the President, the 
sanctions he imposes may go into effect, except they would not affect 
agriculture or medicine unless the President submits a report to the 
Congress asking the sanctions include agriculture, and Congress 
approves, by joint resolution on expedited review, his request to 
sanction agriculture and/or medicine.
  Additionally, sanctions on agriculture and medicine that are put in 
place by the new procedure would sunset after 2 years unless the 
President made a new request for sanctions and the Congress extended 
that particular item.
  There are certain instances in which the President would not have to 
get approval from Congress to include agriculture and medicine in a 
sanctions regime. First of all, we want to make sure we are not aiding 
terrorists in any way. It is one thing for terrorists to use their 
money to buy our food. At least they aren't using their money to buy 
bombs and weapons. However, we need to make sure we don't somehow 
subsidize our sales to terrorists. That is why we have included an 
exception in the bill for terrorist governments. In no instance would 
we extend credit or credit guarantees to governments of state-sponsored 
terrorism. This is an important point to me: We are not going to be 
giving tax dollars of the American people to terrorist governments so 
they can buy our food and, having gotten credit from us, then buy 
munitions to carry out their terrorism. That is not possible under this 
act.
  Second, we will not give terrorists any dual-use items. This 
sanctions amendment specifically carves out items on the commerce 
control list, items on the munitions list, and any item that would be 
used to manufacture chemical or biological weapons. This is the 
strongest belt-and-suspenders approach possible. We honor the commerce 
control list, the munitions list, and we would make sure there were no 
credit extensions to terrorist regimes.
  Finally, if Congress has declared war, the President would be able to 
include

[[Page S7569]]

agriculture and medicine in a sanctions regime against the country of 
which we are at war. If we have declared war, obviously we are not 
going to be aiding or trading with the enemy in any way. Congress would 
not have to again provide ratification of the President's sanctions in 
that setting.
  My colleagues and I are genuinely of the belief that this bill is in 
the best interests of American agriculture. It is the best approach to 
agricultural sanctions reform. We do not have to balance national 
security interests versus farm exports because we do not limit the 
ability of the United States to protect its national security 
interests. When the national interests are clearly at stake, the 
Congress and the President should be able to agree.
  For the most part, I do not think we should use items such as wheat 
and soybeans as weapons for foreign policy. However, if the need ever 
arises to embargo agriculture, Congress and the administration can 
impose sanctions that would affect the flow of our agricultural goods 
to nations abroad; we just need to have a deliberative process set in 
place, and we need to ensure that both the President and the Congress 
are in agreement.
  The food and medicine for the world amendment is fair and it is 
constitutional. The food and medicine for the world amendment, which is 
the amendment I would propose today if we were actually on the bill, 
sends a message to overseas customers that U.S. farmers and ranchers 
will be reliable, that people can depend on our produce and our 
production, and we will honor our contracts.

  The food and medicine for the world amendment also sends a message to 
U.S. farmers and ranchers. It says we will not tamper with their 
capacity to have good, open markets around the world without due 
deliberation. Also, it begins to fulfill a definite promise made to our 
farmers and ranchers a little over 3 years ago.
  Not only would we be assuring U.S. farmers and ranchers, I think we 
would be sending a signal to poor citizens around the world who need 
the food, the produce, the fiber that we produce, the medicines that we 
have, that we have a heart in America that respects their heart, that 
they are not subscribing to tyranny because they have to live under it, 
and that we are not unwilling to provide needs to individuals as long 
as our provision of needs doesn't sustain the oppression of 
individuals.
  It is time to enact a policy that supports our farmers' efforts to 
reach their competitive potential internationally, a policy that makes 
food and medicine available around the world. We must create 
``ascending'' opportunity for our farm families. This measure would 
provide for that. It also understands that there are times when we need 
to curtail the flow of our goods overseas, but it requires both the 
administration and the Congress to come to an agreement in order for 
that to happen.
  I believe the food and medicine amendment which I would be proposing, 
were those on the other side of the aisle not thwarting our capacity to 
move forward in addressing the pressing needs of agriculture today, is 
essential to the well-being of the farmers and ranchers in America, 
also essential to our well-being and our reputation as a reliable 
producer and provider of food, fiber, and medicine around the world.
  I ask unanimous consent two pertinent letters be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                    June 23, 1999.
     Hon. John D. Ashcroft,
     U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Ashcroft: We are pleased that you and other 
     supporters of sanctions reform are preparing to offer an 
     amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill today.
       The amendment, ``Food and Medicine for the World,'' would 
     exempt agricultural and medical products from unilateral 
     sanctions unless the President submits a report to Congress 
     asking that the sanctions include agriculture and Congress 
     approves his request by joint resolution. If a sanction is 
     imposed on agricultural exports following joint resolution 
     approval, it would sunset in two years unless the process is 
     repeated at that time.
       We strongly support this amendment and believe it would 
     result in true sanctions reform for U.S. farmers and 
     ranchers. As you know, unilateral sanctions inflicted the 
     most damage on U.S. producers. They often result in no change 
     in the target country as these nations simply source their 
     agricultural purchases from our competitors. The end result 
     is that our producers are branded unreliable suppliers and 
     lose access to important markets for decades to come. This 
     amendment would begin to restore the U.S. reputation as a 
     reliable supplier of agricultural products.
       Access to export markets is more important than ever given 
     the decline in projected exports for 1999 and depressed 
     commodity prices worldwide. We endorse your efforts to keep 
     our export markets open.

         American Cotton Shippers Association; American Farm 
           Bureau Federation; American Soybean Association; 
           American Vintners Association; Animal Health Institute; 
           Archer Daniels Midland Company; Biotechnology Industry 
           Organization; Cargill; Central Soya Company, Inc.; 
           Cerestar USA; ConAgra, Inc.; Continental Grain Company; 
           Corn Refiners Association; Farmland Industries, Inc.; 
           Florida Phosphate Council; Independent Community 
           Bankers of America.
         National Association of Animal Breeders; National 
           Association of Wheat Growers; National Barley Growers 
           Association; National Cattlemen's Beef Association; 
           National Chicken Council; National Corn Growers 
           Association; National Council of Farmer Cooperatives; 
           National Food Processors Association; National Grain 
           Sorghum Producers; National Grange; National Oilseed 
           Processors Association; National Pork Producers 
           Council; National Renderers Association; North American 
           Millers' Association; Philip Morris Companies Inc.; 
           Sunkist; USA Rice Federation; United Egg Association; 
           United Egg Producers; U.S. Wheat Associates, Inc.
                                  ____



                              Missouri Farm Bureau Federation,

                                Jefferson City, MO, June 17, 1999.
     Hon. John Ashcroft,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Ashcroft: Missouri Farm Bureau, the state's 
     largest general farm organization, strongly supports the 
     Ashcroft-Hagel-Baucus-Kerrey amendment that provides U.S. 
     agricultural producers with much-needed protection from 
     unilateral trade sanctions. Furthermore, I commend the 
     sponsors of the amendment for recognizing the damage 
     inflicted upon our nation's farmers when food is used as a 
     weapon.
       This amendment is especially important given the current 
     weakness of the U.S. farm economy. Ill-conceived trade policy 
     that prevents U.S. agricultural exports not only has 
     financial ramifications for our farmers but also provides new 
     market opportunities for our competitors.
       This amendment exempts agriculture from unilateral trade 
     sanctions, yet recognizes there may be instances where such 
     drastic action is warranted. When a situation arises where 
     the President feels it is necessary to include agriculture, 
     the amendment provides a procedure to obtain this authority.
       Unilateral trade sanctions have proven to be a tool best to 
     avoid. I commend your efforts and urge other Senators to 
     support this important amendment.
           Sincerely,
                                                 Charles E. Kruse,
                                                        President.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. 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. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 
minutes as in morning business, and I also ask unanimous consent that 
Senator Dorgan be allowed to follow me when I have finished.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________