[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 128 (Tuesday, September 28, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11554-S11560]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE UNILATERAL EMBARGO ON AGRICULTURAL AND MEDICINAL PRODUCTS

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, as I think everyone in this Chamber 
understands, I am advocating that there be sanctions reform with regard 
to the unilateral embargo imposed by this country on agricultural and 
medicinal products as it relates to sales in other settings.
  I say ``unilateral embargo.'' This means that the United States alone 
decides to deprive people in the United States of the right to sell to 
some other country. So it is not when we are involved in multilateral 
embargoes but unilateral embargoes.
  Secondly, the kind of embargo we are talking about is an embargo of 
medicine or agriculture. We are talking about the kind of thing that 
will keep people from starving or keep people who are in need of 
medicine from dying.
  Senators Hagel, Baucus, Dodd, Kerrey, Brownback, and a host of others 
have joined with me in working on a bill that would lift embargoes of 
this kind against U.S. farm products.
  In a sense, the bottom line is this: We offered our embargo proposal 
as an amendment to the agricultural appropriations bill. That is a bill 
that is supposed to serve the interests of farmers. The result? I have 
to say that the result in the Senate was a heartwarming and commendable 
result.
  Senators, understanding that we ought to improve the capacity of our 
farmers to market their products around the world, and to keep farmers 
from being used as pawns in diplomatic disputes through the imposition 
of unilateral agricultural and medicinal embargoes, considered the 
proposal, debated the proposal, and overwhelmingly concluded, in a vote 
of 70-28, that we should stop using our farmers as pawns in the world 
of international diplomacy. Also, the Senate conferees agreed, with a 
vote of 8-3. Furthermore, we had the agreement of House conferees.
  So what went wrong in the conference committee, after the Senate made 
a part of its agricultural appropriations bill a reform in this way, 
where farmers have been deprived of their right to market food and 
medicine--and pharmaceuticals are also marketed--what happened? What 
happened to us?
  The reason I am down here today is to talk about that. If there is 
such overwhelming support in the Congress for such reform, what 
happened to the Democratic process here?
  A few Members of the House and Senate leadership decided that they 
did not agree, and they basically vetoed something that was passed by 
the Senate--expressed by those who represent the people as the will of 
the people.
  Most of the time, in order to veto the Senate, you have to be elected 
President. But apparently sometimes you are going to be able to 
overrule a 70-28 vote in the Senate by just saying that your own 
position is more noteworthy than that of a virtually overwhelming 
majority of the Senate. They vetoed the Senate-passed provision and 
inserted their own policy into the agricultural appropriations bill.
  I am on the floor now to let farmers and ranchers across America know 
exactly what happened.

  First of all, I would like to explain to America's farmers--and 
particularly to those in Missouri and the Midwest--how I fought for 
their interests but was prevented from doing what they wanted because 
of a small minority--from the leadership--who worked against sanctions 
reform.
  Second, I would like to explain what my colleagues were proposing in 
the amendment with me, what was the nature of this reform.
  And then third, I would like to show how it is good public policy to 
have a reform in sanctions not only to help farmers and ranchers but 
also how it is good foreign policy.
  Here are the events of the House-Senate conference committee.
  Let me be perfectly clear. The Senate voted on agricultural 
embargoes. This was not something that was interjected in the 
committee. We agreed, with a 70-28 vote, to end the embargo on farmers. 
After I and the other sponsors of the amendment made additional 
concessions to those opposing sanctions reform, the amendment was 
passed by

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unanimous consent in the Senate. So not only do you have a unanimous 
consent in the Senate, but it was after a serious negotiation, a good-
faith negotiation, that followed a 70-28 vote. So we moved to elevate 
this from something that was just overwhelmingly supported to something 
that was passed with unanimous consent.
  Then the House-Senate conferees began consideration of the 
agricultural appropriations bill. Did they first consider what was 
passed by the Senate? Not really. A select few in the leadership 
unilaterally changed the Senate-passed amendment and imposed their 
personal agenda into the conference committee.
  The House leadership offered some sanctions reform but carved out 
Cuba. At this point, the Senator from North Dakota stood up for our 
farmers and for the will of the Senate and asked that the Senate 
amendment, as passed, be considered.
  Very frankly, I would not think it would be necessary to take a 
unanimous consent passage, that had followed a 70-28 vote prior to the 
final details being worked out to harmonize things--that it would be 
necessary to have an extraordinary event in the conference committee to 
ask that that just be considered in the committee. But, as I indicated, 
the Senator from North Dakota stood up for the farmers in my State and 
across the Midwest and America and stood up for the will of the Senate, 
as expressed in the unanimous consent and the 70-28 vote.
  So, again, the Senate conferees overwhelmingly voted to reinstate the 
amendment we had passed on the floor. The Senate conferees said: Wait a 
second. This is an effort by some leaders to substitute their own 
judgment for the expressed will of the Senate that was overwhelmingly 
passed by a vote of 70-28, and then negotiated further to gain 
unanimous consent, and it at least ought to be in the bill.
  I am grateful to the Senator from North Dakota, and I appreciate his 
effort. At this point, the House conferees were to vote. It was at this 
point that the democratic process broke down. The conference was shut 
down for a week because the Senate and the House conferees decided they 
would stand strong. They made a decision to vote the will of their 
constituents instead of the dictates of a few leaders in the Congress.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Missouri yield for a 
brief question?
  Mr. ASHCROFT. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. I was in the Chamber and I heard the presentation by the 
Senator from Missouri and wanted to make a brief comment and end with a 
question.
  The proposal that was offered in the Senate by Senator Ashcroft and 
Senator Dodd said it is inappropriate to continue to use food as a 
weapon and that food and medicine ought not be part of embargoes that 
we apply against other countries for bad behavior. That proposal was 
passed by the Senate overwhelmingly, as the Senator from Missouri just 
described. The Ashcroft-Dodd provision once and for all would break the 
back of those who continue to want to use food and medicine as a 
weapon. What a wonderful thing it would be to have that happen. I was 
so delighted when it passed the Senate. Unfortunately, the Senator from 
Missouri correctly describes what happened in conference.
  We, in the conference on the Senate side, insisted on the Senate 
provisions--that is, the Ashcroft-Dodd provision that says no more food 
and medicine being used as a weapon or used as part of embargoes or 
sanctions. We said we insist on that position.
  It was clear that had there been a vote of the House conferees, they 
would have voted in favor of the Senate position. That was clear. So 
what happened? They decided to adjourn rather than allow the House 
conferees to vote. That was a week ago. A week later, the conference 
has not met. I have received an e-mail, I say to my colleague from 
Missouri. I will read a sentence or so from it.
  This is e-mail is from a staff person dealing with the appropriations 
conference. It was sent to me as a conferee: As of this morning, the 
Senate Majority Leader signed off on a plan which was offered by the 
Speaker of the House to resolve the stalled agriculture appropriations 
conference.
  It describes what was resolved, one of which was to drop the 
Ashcroft-Dodd provision which, in effect, says, let's discontinue these 
sanctions on food and medicine.
  Then it says: The conference will not reconvene and all items are now 
closed.
  My point is, this is not a way to run this place. We didn't have 
input. We didn't have opportunities, after the first vote in which the 
Senate insisted on the provision by the Senator from Missouri, the 
Ashcroft-Dodd provision. After we insisted on that provision, which 
passed overwhelmingly here, the conference adjourned. And then some 
other people who are unnamed and who are unknown to me met someplace--I 
know not where--and made a decision that we have a different approach. 
They essentially said here is what you are going to have, and all items 
are closed, and you have no opportunity to debate it.
  That way of doing things is not good for family farmers, not good for 
this country. It is not a good way to make public policy.
  I ask the Senator from Missouri, as I close--and I thank him very 
much for allowing me to interrupt his statement--is it not the case 
that when the Senate passed this with 70 votes and then by unanimous 
vote following that, that we felt in the Senate we had finally broken 
the back of this effort to always use food and medicine as weapons? We 
finally said to the country, it is inappropriate; we are going to stop 
it once and for all. Isn't it the case that if we had had a vote in the 
conference, from all that he knows, that that vote would have 
overwhelmingly said we support this position to stop using food and 
medicine as a weapon, and we can make this public law, but, in fact, it 
was short-circuited somewhere, and that short circuit really 
shortchanges our country? That it shortchanges the public policy the 
Senator from Missouri was proposing?

  Mr. ASHCROFT. I am very pleased to respond to those questions. There 
is a very strange anomaly here. What appears to be fundamentally and 
unmistakably clear is that the conference committee was not shut down 
because it couldn't work. The conference committee was shut down 
because it was about to work. The conference committee was discontinued 
and suspended in its operation, not because they couldn't come to an 
agreement but because it was on the verge of an agreement. They were on 
the verge of agreeing how, House and Senate conferees together, this 
important kind of reform related to the embargoes of food and medicine, 
that important kind of reform should be included in what we are doing.
  It was not the breakdown of the democratic process. It was the 
suspension of the democratic process. The real threat was not that 
democracy doesn't work. The threat was that democracy would work. It 
was going to work against the interests of a very few people.
  After all, the vote in the Senate was 70 to 28, before we made the 
harmonizing concessions that brought us to a place of unanimous 
consent. So there were very few people here who sought to displace the 
will of what had appeared to be the conference committee and which was 
clearly the expressed overwhelming will of the Senate. This veto power 
is strange indeed, especially when the democratic process was in the 
process of working itself.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, is it the case, I inquire of the Senator 
from Missouri, that perhaps some were worried the conference was about 
to do the right thing?
  Mr. ASHCROFT. No question in my mind. It was not the threat that the 
conference committee could not function. It was the threat that the 
conference committee was functioning. It was functioning toward an end 
with which some people were unhappy.
  That brings us to today's events. A few in the House and Senate among 
those who oppose this legislation, in the leadership of both the House 
and Senate, got together and made a unilateral decision, as has already 
been described by the Senator from North Dakota, to strip out 
provisions in the bill that had the broad support of Congress and broad 
support among the conferees and in the farm community.
  These were the kinds of things that they wouldn't allow to be voted 
on, at which point I began to wonder, with

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great seriousness, is this a bill that is right for the agriculture 
community, or is this a bill for special interests, is this a bill for 
some individuals who want to determine things on their own rather than 
to have the expressed will of the American people, as reflected in the 
Senate and House, become a policy of America, good farm policy, good 
foreign policy.
  As we all know, the House and Senate leadership are proposing a new 
conference report, a report that hasn't been voted on by any of the 
conferees and a report that is opposed by the farm community. Farmers 
have repeatedly asked simply that the democratic process be allowed to 
work. If we vote and lose, then that is what is fair. The American Farm 
Bureau has already said it will oppose a conference report that was 
forced on the American farmers without their short- and/or long-term 
interests in mind and that it did not address the issue of sanctions 
reform.
  I have a letter signed by Dean Kleckner, President of the American 
Farm Bureau Federation, urging conferees not to sign the proposed 
agricultural appropriations conference report unless, and then listing 
conditions that aren't in the sort of fabricated conference report to 
be imposed by leadership.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter from the 
American Farm Bureau Federation be printed in the Record at this point 
in my remarks.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                              American Farm Bureau Federation,

                               Park Ridge, IL, September 28, 1999.
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Conferee: The American Farm Bureau Federation urges 
     you not to sign the proposed FY 00 agriculture appropriations 
     conference report unless:
       --the amount of emergency weather assistance is increased 
     above $1.2 billion;
       --it contains language that eliminates agricultural 
     sanctions that includes Cuba;
       --the bill mandates dairy option 1A, an extension of the 
     Northeast Dairy Compact and the creation of a Southeast dairy 
     compact;
       --it includes language providing for mandatory price 
     reporting for livestock.
       The proposed $1.2 billion is not enough to provide the 
     amount of emergency weather assistance needed to help farmers 
     and ranchers. Even before Hurricane Floyd, estimates of crop 
     and livestock losses caused by flood and drought exceeded 
     $1.2 billion.
       No one can effectively argue that Congress does not view 
     Option 1A as a better and more equitable dairy marketing 
     proposal. Just last week the House voted 285 to 140 in 
     support of Option 1A.
       Export markets hold the key to future prosperity for 
     farmers and ranchers. Granting farmers and ranchers access to 
     Cuba, a potential market of 11 million people located only 90 
     miles from our shore, is common sense. The Senate is on 
     record, 70 to 28, in support of lifting all unilateral 
     agricultural sanctions.
       Consolidation is a serious threat to our market based 
     agricultural economy. Mandatory livestock price reporting 
     will give farmers and ranchers the information they need to 
     market their cattle at the best price.
       Farm Bureau is convinced that a majority of Representatives 
     and Senators support additional emergency aid for weather 
     disasters, an inclusive agricultural sanctions policy, the 
     implementation of option 1A and dairy compacts, and mandatory 
     livestock price reporting.
       We ask that you not sign the proposed conference report and 
     that you report a bill that includes these provisions so that 
     Congressional action will reflect the majority view.
       Thank you.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Dean Kleckner,
                                                        President.

  Mr. ASHCROFT. The fact remains that leadership does not want the 
democratic process to work because this proposal which they are against 
has very broad support. This isn't just good farm policy; it is good 
foreign policy as well.
  Before I explain what the bill does, though, I simply ask that my 
fellow Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House do what is 
right for farmers. Don't vote for a bill that farmers oppose and then 
claim you are helping the farmers. Our farmers need money, but the only 
thing that is holding that up, and has been holding it up for a week, 
is a few in the leadership who oppose the will of the farmers and the 
Congress. Our farmers also need open markets, and that is what our 
amendment would have done. That was the expressed will of the Senate, 
which first voted 70 to 28 and later voted unanimously, by unanimous 
consent, to be a part of the bill. That opening of the markets would 
have been fair. We don't just get by by having the freedom to plant. We 
need to have the freedom to market for our farmers, if we are going to 
be successful.
  Let me take this opportunity to summarize briefly what the bill was 
designed to do. It was originally entitled ``The Food and Medicine for 
the World Act.'' I would like, then, to show how our approach to ending 
unilateral embargoes on food and medicine is good policy, both foreign 
policy and farm policy.
  The general framework of the bill is what I call a handshake approach 
to sanctions. The bill would not tie the hands of the President, who 
now has the ability just to snap embargoes into place, but it would 
require the President, before he said it was illegal for farmers in 
this country to sell their goods to certain customers around the world, 
to get the consent of Congress.
  So instead of tying the hands of the President, it would really 
require that the President sort of shake hands with the Congress, make 
sure this is a very serious thing, and if there is a need to embargo, 
in that case an embargo could be achieved. But it could not be achieved 
just on the whim of the executive. It would require the President to 
cooperate with Congress.
  This bill would not restrict or alter the President's current ability 
to impose broad sanctions in conjunction with others; nor would it 
preclude sanctions on food and medicines. Rather, it says that the 
President may include food and medicines in a sanctions regime, but he 
must first obtain congressional consent.
  So we really just ask that the President of the United States, before 
shutting off the markets of our farmers, consult with the Congress and 
that he obtain the consent of Congress. Under the bill, Congress would 
review the President's request to sanction agriculture and medicine 
through an expedited procedure--no stalls in the Congress.
  Mr. President, the Senate of the United States, offered with the 
opportunity to stop a program of curtailing markets for our farmers--
that program called sanctions and embargo--voted 70-28 to change the 
rules about that so our farmers have the right to sell food and 
medicine--not things generally but food and medicine--around the world.
  If the President wants to stop the sale of food or medicine, these 
things that are essential to the existence of people, the things that 
make America a friend to other people, the things that bind people 
around the world to America, knowing that we have the right motives in 
our mind--if we are going to stop the sale of those things, the 
President has to confer with the Congress rather than to do it 
unilaterally. In other words, don't let the farmers of America just be 
used as political pawns in diplomatic disputes, having markets shut 
down arbitrarily or unilaterally, markets for medicine.
  The Senate came to the conclusion, by a vote of 70-28, on what was 
called the Food and Medicine for the World Act. It was an amendment 
that I offered to the Agriculture appropriations bill. And then, 
because some people in the 28 were not happy about all details, we 
negotiated with those individuals, so that the next day the Food and 
Medicine for the World Act became a part of the Agriculture 
appropriations bill by unanimous consent in the Senate, and it went to 
conference.
  Little did we know that some of the leaders would decide to displace 
this overwhelmingly endorsed item by members of both parties--a 
majority of Republicans and Democrats, voted with a 70-majority vote, 
and of course everybody agreed to the unanimous consent order. But 
certain leaders decided they would displace that. So when the bill got 
to conference, this wasn't in the bill. And the Senator from North 
Dakota decided to stand up for the farmers of America and stand up for 
the Senate and what it had decided and say, ``I want that in the 
bill.'' He said, let's vote on whether we would put in the bill what 
the Senate voted on.
  You really wonder about things when the conference committee has to 
ask permission and vote to have the content of what the Senate enacted 
appear in the conference bill. But it was voted on and put in the bill, 
and properly done so.
  The House was ready to do the same thing when it became apparent to

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those who wanted to stop this, curtail it, didn't want this reform to 
take place, didn't want to offer to American farmers this set of 
markets, didn't want to say to them you are free to farm and now you 
are free to market, that they wanted to have these strings still 
attached. So just when the conference committee was about to operate to 
express its will, when it was clear how that will would be expressed, 
the conference committee was shut down for a week and has not been 
reassembled.
  Today, we learned that the leadership has said to the conference 
committee: You are not going to reassemble. All the issues are closed, 
and we have decided this is the way the report will be written. You are 
being asked to sign the report.
  So we find ourselves where the will of the Senate is stripped 
arbitrarily from the bill before it goes to conference. It is added 
back in conference, and it is again stripped arbitrarily. The 
conference committee is shut down when the House conferees express a 
signal of their intent to include that in what they had to say. We 
collapsed the democratic process and started the autocratic process, 
and we put a conference report before people, asking them to sign it in 
spite of the fact that it wasn't something that had been voted on or 
discussed; it was something to be imposed by leadership.
  That kind of suspension of the democratic process has been injurious. 
It loses the confidence of very important groups.
  I have submitted for the Record the letter of the American Farm 
Bureau saying that is not the way to run a conference. It is not the 
way to run polic
  There are some very strong policy considerations that recommend a 
modification in our approach. Having the President use farmers as a 
pawn in diplomatic disputes to open and close markets at will 
undermines the reliability of the American farmer as the supplier of 
food and fiber. It is very difficult for people to expect to buy things 
from you if they never know whether you are going to have them 
available for sale. Customers like a constant supply.
  We tried to solve this. We tried to say there wouldn't be this kind 
of arbitrary use of American farmers as pawns. We tried to say that in 
order for the sanctions to be effective and an embargo to be imposed it 
would have to have the consent of Congress.
  We have the special provision in legislation with regard to countries 
already sanctioned so that if there is any need to continue those 
sanctions in effect, the President could come and get those instated 
and up to speed and qualified so we would not have any interruption.
  The bill wasn't to take effect for 180 days after it was passed. So 
if the President wanted to make sure there were sanctions in place and 
imposed, there wouldn't be any exposure to gaps. Both branches of 
government would be given enough time to review current policy and to 
act jointly.
  Of course, there are times when the President should have the 
authority to sanction food and medicine without congressional approval. 
A declaration of war is one of those. The legislation maintains the 
President's authority in wartime to cut off food and medicine sales 
without congressional consideration.
  The bill has a few additional provisions that were not addressed in 
previous agricultural sanctions reform proposals. The first 
specifically excludes all dual-use items. That means products that 
could be used to develop chemical or biological weapons. There are not 
very many agricultural products or medicinal products that have 
military value. But the bill provides safeguards to ensure our national 
security is not harmed.
  Let me make clear that this is genuinely a bill that supports a 
policy of putting products which will eliminate suffering and hunger 
into the hands of those who need these products most. It is not about 
providing dual-use items for tyrants to use for military or acts of 
terrorism.
  Second, we make sure that no taxpayer money would be used to go to 
the wrong people. We specifically exclude any kind of agricultural 
credits or guarantees to governments that have sponsored terrorism. 
However, we allow present guarantees to be extended to people all over 
the world--to private sector institutions, groups, and nongovernmental 
organizations. This is targeted to show support for the very people who 
need to be strengthened in these countries--the people, rather than the 
dictators. And by specifically excluding terrorist governments, we send 
a message that the United States in no way will assist or endorse the 
activities of nations that threaten our interests.
  Now that Senators Hagel, Dodd, and I have explained what we have done 
in this bill, let me explain why it is good foreign policy and why it 
is both good foreign and farm policy.
  First of all, ending unilateral embargoes against sales of U.S. food 
and medicine is a good foreign policy. As the leader of the free world, 
America must maintain adequate tools to advance security and promote 
civil liberty abroad. The last thing I want to do is send a message to 
state sponsors of terrorism that the United States is legitimizing its 
regime. As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, sanctions are 
necessary foreign policy tools against governments which threaten our 
interests.
  Richard Holbrooke, who not long ago was before the Committee on 
Foreign Relations seeking confirmation as the U.S. Representative to 
the United Nations--and we have since confirmed him--explained in his 
book ``To End a War'' how sanctions on Yugoslavia were essential to 
push Slobodan Milosevic toward peace negotiations in Bosnia.
  Regardless of whether we agree with U.S. deployment in the Balkans, 
effective sanctions saved American lives. They helped advance American 
policy without resorting only to the use of military force. So we have 
to have sanctions. But these sanctions must be deployed, very frankly, 
in a realistic and appropriate way.
  This measure is good policy because we don't want to say to 
terrorists: You can blame starving your own people on the United States 
by saying they won't sell us food and medicine. So we will starve you 
and we will not provide you with food and medicine. We will take the 
money we have in our country and buy arms, or explosives, or we will 
destabilize communities in which we live--world communities in one part 
of the world or another.
  I think we should deprive the dictator of the right to say, ``You are 
starving because America won't sell us food,'' because if we ask that 
dictator to spend his hard currency buying food, and we make it 
possible for him to do so, he absolutely cannot spend the same currency 
again buying weapons.
  Frankly, our farmers ought to be able to sell their food so that the 
people in those countries all around the world know that America is not 
in the business of starving people around the world. We are in the 
business of feeding people around the world. That is good foreign 
policy. If we can encourage people to invest their money in food rather 
than in armaments, if they will buy medicinal supplies rather than 
destabilizing various regions of the world, that is good foreign 
policy. But it is also good farm policy.
  The sanctions that have been imposed haven't been effective to hurt 
our enemies. They have been very injurious to farmers. I would simply 
refer you to the so-called Soviet grain embargo of the late 1970s. That 
is perhaps the classic, the biggest, of them all, where the United 
States of America canceled 17 million tons of contracts that the 
Soviets had to buy from American farmers. It hurt American farmers 
immensely by not getting the payments for those farm products. We 
thought we were punishing the Soviet Union. They went into the world 
marketplace and they replaced those purchases and saved $250 million 
for our adversary at a time when we inflicted the loss of markets on 
our own farmers. It didn't make much sense then, and it doesn't make 
much sense now.
  Policy reform in sanctions protocol would make our efforts in this 
respect far more reasonable, and it would require the President to get 
an agreement from Congress. It would not put us in the position where 
we embargo the sale of goods and where our customers start to look 
elsewhere to get their goods supplied. When we stopped the sale of 17 
million tons of grain to the Soviet Union in the 1970s, it

[[Page S11558]]

brought on new suppliers. Rain forests could then be plowed and 
planted. Other countries seeing that the United States was retreating 
from the major segment of the world markets could say: We can supply 
that. Those who were in the world marketplace said: We will start 
looking to reliable suppliers that won't be turning over the supply 
depending on diplomatic considerations that would, as a result, 
interrupt our supply.
  So it is both good farm policy to give our farmers the right to 
market, and it is good foreign policy to give our country the right and 
the opportunity to provide people with food and medicine to signal that 
the United States of America wants their government to spend money for 
food and medicine and not for military hardware.
  So it is in the context of this very substantial reform that would 
help the U.S. farmers. It would also help our foreign policy.

  It is in that context that I express my real disappointment in terms 
of what has happened. The conference committee was shut down, the 
democratic process suspended, and an autocratic process imposed. As a 
result, we are unlikely to have in the agricultural appropriations 
conference report on which we will be asked to vote--the kind of thing 
upon which there was so much agreement--a reform in the sanctions 
policy. The American Farm Bureau is opposed to this agricultural 
appropriations bill conference report unless sanctions reform is 
included.
  I think Members of this body ought to be aware of the fact we need 
sanctions reform. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated there 
has been a $1.2 billion annual decline in the U.S. economy during the 
midnineties as a result of these kinds of sanctions. This is a serious 
loss in jobs as well.
  The Wheat Commission projects if sanctions were lifted this year, our 
wheat farmers could export an additional 4.1 million metric tons of 
wheat, a value of almost half a billion to America's farmers.
  I want to emphasize, we have missed for the time being a great 
opportunity to reform sanctions protocols regarding our farm products. 
We have also interrupted what is a beneficial and therapeutic 
democratic process in the conference committee. I think Members of this 
body should seriously consider whether they want to vote for the 
conference committee report when it is the product not of the kind of 
collaboration that is to be expected in the development of consensus in 
our policy but it is as a result of an effort to impose the will of a 
few instead of to respect the will of the majority.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ashcroft). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I was able to listen to the comments 
that the Senator from Missouri made regarding the efforts, that have 
been now stalled, to lift sanctions against agricultural producers and 
agricultural exports from America. It is very disconcerting that this 
is happening at this point in time in our Nation's history.
  My family farms. My dad is a full-time farmer, my brother is a full-
time farmer, and prices for agricultural products are at rock bottom 
levels. Compound that with bad weather conditions for some places in 
America, and farmers believe they are getting a one-two punch. To stack 
on top of the two punches they are already taking an outdated sanctions 
policy, which was voted down in the Senate, is beyond unfair. We should 
not use food and medicine as a political weapon--now we find that these 
sanctions are not going to be lifted. On top of low prices, on top of 
bad weather, a farmer is going to say: Is everybody against me? Isn't 
my own Government going to help me out?
  We have been telling people for a long period of time, that for 
Freedom to Farm to work, you have to have freedom to market. We were 
moving in that direction. It was aggressively going forward in that 
direction, and all of a sudden out comes a conference report that pulls 
something that was passed, as the Senator from Missouri noted, by a 
large percentage of people in this body. A farmer has to wonder what is 
going on here.
  I ask people who are part of this process, what is going on? Let's 
look at getting this back in. It passed with large and overwhelming 
support in this body. It is clearly something that the people across 
the country want. It is clearly something that the agricultural 
community needs. It is the right thing to do. Let's do it. Let's not 
let it be taken out in some deal that involves a handful of Members.
  Plus, as people have previously noted for some period of time, 
unilateral agricultural trade sanctions are generally ineffective. They 
are effective in punishing our farmers, but they are not effective in 
accomplishing sound foreign policy.
  At a time when we are already suffering low agricultural prices, 
sanctions add to this burden. This is truly adding insult to injury.
  Unilateral sanctions by major agricultural producing countries such 
as the U.S. tend to encourage production in other competitor countries. 
So, on top of hurting our prices here, hurting our markets here, it 
probably, and usually does, have the effect of stimulating production 
in other countries. Often the tyrants, which the U.S. intends to punish 
actually benefit financially from these sorts of embargoes.
  My only point in making these comments in addition to those of my 
colleague from Missouri is simply to say there is ample ground and 
reason for us to lift these agricultural sanctions. There is not a 
moral foundation or basis for us to use food and medicine as a 
political weapon. It is wrong for our farmers. It is wrong, period, to 
do that. Yet we are seeing that continuing to take place. Now, after we 
passed something out of this body, with overwhelming support, we find 
it pulled out. That is very disconcerting to this Member, and it should 
be and is, I am sure, very disconcerting to the agricultural community 
across this Nation.
  Please, please, let's reopen this issue and get that agenda item back 
in so we can offer hope and fulfill our promise to farmers. I am not 
standing here saying it is going to solve our farm crisis or going to 
solve the problems we have marketing all our products around the world, 
but clearly here is a positive step we can take and should take. It is 
a big agenda item in rural America. People in rural America know these 
sanctions exist, they know they are harmful, and they want them lifted. 
Now is the time to do this. I am very disappointed this provision, 
according to my colleague from Missouri, has been taken out. I call on 
all Members of this body, let's look at this and let's get this issue 
back in so we can lift these sanctions from the backs of our farmers.
  I hope a number of my colleagues will become aware of what is taking 
place here. This is a very important issue to many of our States. It is 
certainly an important issue to Kansas. I think we need to revisit 
this, if it has been taken out, so we can get it back in. We must lift 
these agricultural sanctions and we must do it now.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HAGEL. 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. HAGEL. Mr. President, I take the floor of the Senate tonight to 
address the same issue that my colleague from Missouri, Senator 
Ashcroft, has talked about for the last 30 minutes, and the 
distinguished senior Senator from Kansas has addressed; that is, the 
Agriculture appropriations bill. It seems to be rather conflicted. I 
suspect most people in this country believe in the democratic process. 
I suspect most people in this country believe the will of the majority 
and the protection of the minority is rather relevant to our democracy. 
But we have come upon a fascinating example of that not being the case 
in this Agriculture appropriations bill.
  Senator Ashcroft laid it out rather clearly, as did Senator 
Brownback. This is not a particularly complicated situation. What we 
have is the will of

[[Page S11559]]

the majority in the Senate, expressed by a vote of 70 to 28. That is a 
rather significant majority. As a matter of fact, that is a majority 
large enough to override a Presidential veto. The will of 70 Senators 
to support an amendment that obviously 70 Senators thought was 
important enough to come out and debate and register their vote and 
their will on, representing the constituencies of 70 Senators, said it 
rather plainly: We want the Ashcroft-Hagel-Dodd amendment in the 
Agriculture appropriations bill.
  So we went to conference with the House. Guess what. The House 
conferees not only agreed that the Ashcroft-Hagel-Dodd amendment 
lifting sanctions for medicine and food against countries where we have 
unilateral, arbitrary economic sanctions was a good idea, they actually 
strengthened the language. The House conferees actually made the 
Ashcroft-Hagel-Dodd language stronger.
  We progress along up until the leadership enters the picture. I might 
add so there is no mistake about this--and I will try to speak 
clearly--it was the Republican leadership in the Senate and House that 
said: No, a few of us do not care for that. So we are going to do 
something that rarely ever happens, and that is we are going to stop 
that, you see, because technically we have a process, we are the 
leaders, and we can strip that out of the appropriations bill. No 
matter, of course, that 70 U.S. Senators said, ``No, we want that in,'' 
and the House conferees said, ``No, we want that in; we think it is in 
the best interests of the U.S. foreign policy and American 
agriculture.'' Disregard that. That does not count.
  So what we have is an interesting spectacle of the leadership of 
intimidation and the intimidation of leadership--not a pretty sight, 
not a democratic process. We occasionally question why America is 
beyond concern with the process, with the leadership, with politics. We 
wonder why. This is a very vivid, clear example of why.
  We are going through this little mating dance again around here on 
the budget. I call it a charade. It is a charade. I have even called it 
dishonest. Some of my colleagues said: Senator Hagel, we do not use 
that terminology in the Senate. I said: I am sorry, but where I am 
from, some of the stuff that goes on around here that we think is 
policy, or we define or defend as a technical adjustment, it is just 
plain dishonest if you are going to live within the caps. If you are 
going to spend more than what the caps tell you that we agreed to do, 
then let's be honest about it.
  The same thing with this conference committee. There are those among 
us in the media, across this land, who say we should reform our 
political process, we should reform Congress. They have a point. But it 
all starts here. It all starts here. If we cannot be held accountable 
and responsible enough to work the will of the majority to do the right 
thing, to be honest, and be open, and be responsible with our 
governance, with our leadership, with our legislative process, then to 
what can the American people look? What can they trust? What confidence 
can they have in their system?
  This Republic is not going to crumble tomorrow, and it will not 
crumble next year because of the shenanigans we pull around here. But 
we will pay a high price one of these days in one of these generations 
when we continue to define down our expectations and our standards and 
let a few people, a cabal of a few people take advantage of the system.
  I am very proud. It is my understanding at this moment that there 
were two Republican Senators who refused to sign the conference report 
today on the Agriculture appropriations bill. To them I say thank you. 
Not only have you done the right thing, but you have shown America and 
some of us in this body that we, in fact, can do the right thing, and 
that we are not going to be intimidated by the leadership, by a small 
cabal of people in charge who hold responsibility.
  There are consequences to this. There are consequences in our foreign 
policy and in our agricultural policy because they are all connected. 
But the consequences will come more directly in the breakdown of 
confidence and trust in this institution. As that erodes, as that 
continues to erode, and a few select people in this body play it their 
way and refuse to open the process, then there will be reform. And if 
the American people have to keep turning over Congresses to get to 
leadership--and we all have to take responsibility in this Chamber 
because we elect the leadership--and if we have to continue to turn 
over leadership, we will do that to ensure, if nothing else, that we 
can openly, honestly debate the important, relevant issues for this 
country that affect the world and affect everybody in this Nation.
  When those decisions are made and when the will of 70 Senators is 
abrogated, is hijacked, it is time for some major reform in this body, 
and I will be one of the leaders to help do that.
  In conclusion, this should serve as a very clear example of a lot of 
the nonsense that permeates this process. This is not just about the 
American farmer or the American rancher. This is far bigger than 
American agricultural policy and foreign policy and national security 
and all the interconnects. This is about whether we can trust the 
process. More basically, why do we even have authorizing committees in 
this body if the appropriations process is going to make policy because 
they have the money? Then the leadership, even a smaller group, decides 
what they want to take out of those decisions, so they pick and choose, 
and the rest of us, essentially, are superfluous to the process. Why 
don't we just have 10 Senators? Why not take a couple committee 
chairmen, the leadership, and the rest of us go home; they can make the 
decisions.
  We are walking our way through an early Halloween. We are walking our 
way through a charade, and we should call it that. And, yes, it is 
dishonest. I think there are enough of us in this body who are going to 
say it straight and call it the way we see it.
  I hope we will come to our senses before we cross a line from which 
we cannot come back and allow this hijacking of democratic governance, 
this hijacking of democratic justice to set an even lower standard than 
what we have been doing this year with the budgets and the constant 
back and forth of let's not do anything; let's just go home; let's just 
get out; let's just do enough to get to the next day; let's not take on 
the real, relevant issues of America; let's not deal with health care; 
let's not deal with a lot of things.
  The right way to do this is to come out and debate it, whether it is 
campaign finance reform or whatever the issue is, debate it, open it 
up. If you lose, you lose; if you win, you win. That is what America 
wants. That is what they will demand, and that is what ultimately they 
will receive.
  I am sorry I had to take the floor, as did my colleagues tonight, to 
talk about this. This is not a proud moment for me. It is not a proud 
moment for this institution. But if there is anything we have in this 
Nation that must be cherished and nourished and formed and shaped and 
protected and defended at all costs, it is the institution. It is the 
process and the institution that allows this self-governance and the 
freedom to stand on the floor of the Senate, stand anywhere in this 
Nation and express ourselves, the minority knowing they will be 
protected and the majority knowing they can count on a fair shake in 
that process.
  That ultimately, as we define the process down, is the most important 
dynamic of who we are as a people and why this Republic has survived 
for over 200 years. When we discount that, when we discount that 
currency, when we abridge that responsibility, then we turn our backs 
on everyone who has sacrificed for the freedom that allows us to do 
this. We are a better country than that. We are a better people than 
that. We will rise to the occasion to turn this around and hold on to 
the one currency that counts in all of our lives, and that is trust. 
When we debase that trust, we debase the very currency of who we are.
  I will always throw my confidence, the completeness of who I am and 
what I represent, behind the good common sense of the American people, 
and the faith I have in the American people will always dictate the 
outcome of these kinds of exercises, as it was written, as it was 
stated, and as it was the vision of the great men who formed this 
country and wrote this Constitution.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S11560]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection; it is so ordered.

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