[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 43 (Wednesday, April 17, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1373-H1379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2646, FARM SECURITY ACT OF 2001
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct
conferees.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Smith of Michigan moves that the managers on the part
of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of
the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2646
(an Act to provide for the continuation of agricultural
programs through fiscal year 2011) be instructed--
(1) to agree to the provisions contained in section 169(a)
of the Senate amendment, relating to payment limitations for
commodity programs; and
(2) to insist upon an increase in funding for--
(A) conservation programs, in effect as of January 1, 2002,
that are extended by title II of the House bill or title II
of the Senate amendment; and
(B) research programs that are amended or established by
title VII of the House bill or title VII of the Senate
amendment.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) will
be recognized for 30 minutes each.
The Chair will also announce that at 2:45 we will conclude
temporarily the business of the House. So if we are not finished, we
will come back to it.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield
[[Page H1374]]
half of my time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) for
purposes of control.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about this afternoon is should we
have payment limitations on farm subsidy programs. We have a situation
in law now that allows a loophole so there are no payment limitations
in terms of price support programs. Just to be somewhat specific, we
have loan deficiency payments, we have marketing loans, and there are
limits on those marketing loans and those LDPs, loan deficiency
payments.
However, once that maximum is reached, there is a loophole. There is
an end run that can be achieved by farmers, and that is through the
nonrecourse loan where they can either forfeit the nonrecourse loan
where they give the government possession of that particular crop and
they keep the money. The money they keep is exactly the same subsidy
benefit as they would have achieved through a marketing loan or a loan
deficiency payment.
So what we have ended up with is many farmers getting millions of
dollars in payments, and let me say why I think this is so important
that we have some limit on these payments. This is doing farmers ill-
will throughout the United States. We have had a lot of publicity on
these millionaire farmers getting all of this money from government
subsidy programs. We have had all of this publicity on landowners
getting subsidy payments, sometimes in the millions of dollars; and not
only does that affect what happens to farm programs here at the Federal
level, but it also affects the reaction of local municipalities when
they are discussing property tax and State laws that might help
farmers. There is a negative image because of the publicity and because
of the fact that a lot of these huge landowners and megafarms are
getting megabucks.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I would strongly suggest that we move ahead
and unanimously support this motion to instruct that says we should go
ahead with the Senate version of payment limitations in their part A of
the bill, and that we should use some of that money for expanding
agricultural research programs and increasing conservation programs.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I particularly appreciate one more opportunity to come
before this House and talk about the fabulous job that the American
farm does every day and has done since the beginning of this great
Nation. I am always amazed and surprised at the people that some way or
other have gotten the idea that the best way to keep the American
farmer down on the farm is to starve him to death.
I hear people come to the floor and talk about millionaire farmers. I
see these stories in the paper that talk about all of the payments that
these farmers get, and I am intimately familiar with some of these
situations. These stories are simply not true. They have payment limits
imposed on them, and they comply with the payment limits. In the end
what happens is under the current system the American farmer is the
most productive, the most incredible production machine that there has
ever been in the history of the world.
At the same time, for good reasons I am sure that the Members that
are proposing that this amendment be accepted and that this instruction
be made, they have good intentions. They mean well. They think that
they are doing the right thing. They just simply do not understand what
it takes to produce the food and fiber for this country, and a good
portion of the rest of the world.
If our farmers are taking advantage of the farm programs as they
exist today and as they have been proposed by the House of
Representatives in the bill that we passed, if they are doing such a
terrible job of taking advantage of the U.S. Government, why are they
going broke every day? Why does every farmer in the First Congressional
District feel like they are just about to lose everything they have?
Why does no one want to get into the business? Why do the children not
want to get into the business? The list of things that indicate that
American agriculture is threatened and our ability to feed this Nation
and to clothe this Nation without importing monstrous amounts of food
and fiber, why is that threatened if things are going so well and these
farmers are being so well taken care of by the government?
Another problem that I have with this motion to instruct, Mr.
Speaker, is that it is an obvious attack on women. It would provide
that a woman could only draw a small fraction of what a payment limit
is, but a man can draw a lot more. Over four times as much. That is
just simply unfair.
I cannot imagine that this House or this Congress would be willing to
promote such an idea and take advantage of the great women that have
worked right along with their husbands to build American agriculture
into what it is today. That is something that I find absolutely
offensive, and I cannot believe that we would disenfranchise one more
time in this country the American woman that has worked so hard on the
family farm.
It creates a situation where a family would be better off if a man
and wife were divorced. It would put people in a position where they
would have to make that decision. All of these things are part of what
is bad about this bill. I urge this House to think about it very
carefully.
Mr. Speaker, we talk a lot today about national security. Over and
over, every day we hear about national security on this House floor, in
the Senate, from the White House. All of the media is full of national
security issues. We all are very aware of the problem we have because
we have to import too much oil from offshore.
We are in danger of creating that same situation if we allow this
motion to instruct to become part of the farm bill. We are creating a
situation where the American farmer simply could not have the safety
net they need to stay in production in times like this when prices are
low, the value of the dollar is so high that they are almost held out
of the export market.
Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on this motion to
instruct.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) for
raising this important issue today. I appreciate his leadership on
this, as well as those who worked very hard on this last fall: the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Dingell), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), and the gentleman
from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest).
The problem with this farm bill is that it would reward the largest
corporate farmers with $120 billion in Federal handouts; yet it will
provide less than a third of that for conservation.
Now, back in 1930, 70 percent of Federal support for agriculture went
to conservation because we realized we were losing our topsoil and our
prime agricultural land. Today's threats are no less real than when
there were dust storms. The threats today of overdevelopment and sprawl
are real. In Michigan, we continue to lose 68 square miles of prime
agricultural land every year. That is the size of two townships in our
State. We are going to lose our agricultural base at this rate. Large
unchecked combine animal feeding operations in the southwestern part of
our State are raising serious environmental health and safety concerns.
Sediment from agriculture is a major source of pathogens and other
contaminants in our drinking water.
All we have to do is remember what happened a few years ago in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where pathogens got into the drinking water; 104
people died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as a result of that. The system
that we live in in the Great Lakes cannot take it; but it is not too
late to turn this around.
We can keep our family farmers in business and protect our water and
our wildlife habitat and our environment. Voting for this motion to
instruct will begin shifting our priorities and getting us moving in
the right direction
[[Page H1375]]
again. Our motion will take some of the funds from commodity payments
and funnel them into conservation programs and research.
If we take this simple step, we could help smaller family farmers
keep their land in farming, and we can protect our environment at the
same time. We need to put more money into farm land preservation
programs. This will help States protect farm lands from
overdevelopment. We need to provide financial incentives to finance
purchasing development rights so that farmers can afford to keep their
lands in agricultural production and not sell off to developers. We
need to put funding into the wetlands reserve program to protect
wildlife habitat, and ensure that wetlands are there to filter bacteria
and pollutants long before they enter our lakes and rivers.
{time} 1415
Mr. Speaker, they are the natural barriers of filtration. They are
the filtration. We cannot build anything better than what nature gives
us. It is in our own economic interest to encourage farmers to set
aside these wetlands.
We need to put funding into the environmental quality incentive
programs that help us protect our water quality from nitrates and
pathogens. In our State, we use 250,000 tons of nitrate a year that run
off our farms, into our waters, and cause algae and seaweeds to grow at
such a rapid rate that it chokes off our canals, our lakes and our
streams. And then we have the problem of pollution and trapping of
sewage in our lakes and streams causing closings of businesses. We know
the cycle there. Pathogens like cryptosporidium pose a human health
risk and even can cause death, as I have mentioned in Milwaukee. So
this is very serious stuff.
Providing farmers incentives to reduce their use of nitrates and use
alternatives to pesticides are commonsense steps that we can take to
protect our water quality and to protect our health. If we do not take
these steps, Mr. Speaker, we are going to pay for them later. We will
not have enough farmland to grow enough food to feed our population. We
will have to increase costs for roads and sewers and police and fire
protection in areas where growth and development occur. Our urban cores
will continue to lose population and the tax base leading to an
inability to fund adequate services.
You can see all of this happening and all of this coming. All you
have got to do is open your eyes and look around and see all the big
box department stores, the strip malls and the golf courses in our part
of the State.
My wife and I did a walk around our district a few years ago. We were
out in the country. I have a lot of agriculture in my district, Mr.
Speaker, as does the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith). We stopped by
a farmer working in the field just to chat with him. He was eating his
lunch. He had an orange in his hand. He took that orange, he had his
hand around it, and he said, ``See where my thumbnail is around this
orange? That's what's left of our prime agricultural land on the planet
today.'' We are losing it an alarming rate. We have got to get back to
the conservation, to deal with the basic levels of conservation in
order to preserve it for tomorrow.
I want to thank my colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith)
for introducing this motion to instruct. It is a very important motion.
The Senate has acted, I think, quite well and honestly in moving in
this direction. The House needs to do the same.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 35 seconds.
Let me react to the agricultural leader from Arkansas, that the
people that are offering this amendment do not understand farm
programs, and I would just suggest, I have been a farmer all my life, a
director of the Michigan Farm Bureau. I understand farm programs. To
respond to your question why are farmers going broke, it is because
Federal agricultural programs encourage more production, and that more
production comes from the largest farmers. This amendment helps the
smaller farmer. It limits the amount of subsidies that can go to those
huge megafarms.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
Ganske).
(Mr. GANSKE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, I speak on behalf of the motion to instruct
conferees on the section of the farm bill dealing with payment
limitations. I commend the objectives of the Grassley amendment in the
Senate and I believe we should encourage Members of the House serving
on the farm bill conference to accept the language as it was adopted in
the Senate version.
The Grassley amendment would place a cap of $275,000 on the amount
that could be received in Federal farm support payments in a year. This
is in contrast to the House bill and the Senate bill as it was
introduced. Both pieces of legislation would have actually increased
the cap from the current level of $460,000.
During the previous House debate on the farm bill, I did not support
an amendment which dealt with only one aspect of the problem and which
would have left the increase in the cap to $550,000 intact. I believe,
however, that the comprehensive approach of the Grassley amendment is a
more balanced and fair way to address the growing problem.
I have on many occasions commended Chairman Combest and Ranking
Member Stenholm for the civil and nonpartisan fashion in which they
have conducted their approach to the House farm bill. That has been in
sharp contrast to the sometimes bitter process in the other body.
However, in this instance, the Grassley amendment was passed with a
bipartisan coalition of 66 Senators. I believe the provision would be a
positive addition to the final farm bill product and in the best
interests of Iowa farmers.
Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
distinguished gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).
Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with the gentleman
from Michigan that there should be some reform of payment limitations.
I do not think anyone disagrees with that. However, I do rise to oppose
the motion.
I would like to point out to the gentleman from Michigan that the
House version of the farm bill does increase conservation payments by
80 percent. EQIP, which addresses primarily clean water, clean air
standards, is increased by 600 percent, from $200 million to $1.2
billion. Also, research is substantially increased, both versions, the
House and the Senate. So I believe that those issues are being
addressed.
What I would like to point out is that the House Committee on
Agriculture went through a 2-year process in formulating this farm
bill. They had 47 hearings all around the country. It was a bipartisan
bill. It was passed by a large majority on the House floor, 291-120.
The other body, I think, has worked hard but primarily has done a bill
within the last couple of months. It has been somewhat of a rushed
process, I think most people would agree, and so therefore I am a
little bit reluctant to accept the other body's version without careful
thought, without making sure we have really understood fully what the
circumstances are and what the repercussions might be.
Currently the conferees are working hard. It is a complex issue. I am
confident they will reform the payment limitation process. I would like
to see them given the opportunity to work through the process. I think
this is very important.
The Environmental Working Group and their Web site that oppose the
payments that farmers have received I think has led to a great deal of
misunderstanding throughout the country. We have seen editorials, we
see public opinion and all of these things that seem to be very much
against commodity payments. However, I would like to point out that the
payments that are posted on those websites do not constitute profit.
People see a $500,000 payment and they assume that the person receives
a $500,000 profit. Many people that I know who are receiving fairly
large payments are still operating in the red. In my area of the
country, almost every farmer will tell you that without farm payments,
they would go under very quickly. Bankers will tell you that. It is not
just farmers. So it is important that this is something that we
understand the nature of it. The Web site has been very
[[Page H1376]]
divisive. We lost 1,000 farmers in the State of Nebraska last year. So
if it was such a windfall, it certainly would not reflect in that type
of a figure, of 1,000 farmers in a relatively small State
populationwise.
I would like to just amplify what the gentleman from Arkansas
mentioned earlier, which I think a lot of people do not think about. In
the European Union, the average payment to farmers is $300 per acre. I
have been to Brazil recently. Many people have who are interested in
agriculture. You can buy very good agricultural land, equivalent to
what we would pay $3,000 an acre for, for $100 to $500 an acre. The
labor cost over there is 50 cents an hour on the average. And so we are
asking our farmers to compete with the European Union where the subsidy
is $300 per acre, we are asking them to compete with Brazil where the
cost of land is very low, they can produce two crops, the topsoil is 50
feet deep and they have no labor cost and no environmental cost. So I
am saying that the $38 an acre that we have been paying our farmers is
not badly spent.
The last thing I would mention was, I think, in some congruence with
what the gentleman from Arkansas was mentioning. That is, that about 15
or 20 years ago, we found that we could buy petroleum from OPEC for $10
a barrel. And so we were glad to oblige them. As a result, we have
shipped our petroleum industry overseas. We quit exploring, we shut
down much of our production, many of our refineries, and so now we find
ourselves all of a sudden almost 60 percent dependent on foreign oil.
We are in a situation where everyone realizes that all we have to do is
light the tinderbox in the Middle East and we have got a real problem.
We can do the same thing to agriculture. We can do it very easily. We
can say we are going to just forget about these commodity payments,
they are evil, they are large, only rich guys get them. Most of the
people that I know are not rich people that are receiving these.
And so I am not arguing that we do not need reform. I agree totally
that we do. I am just saying, let us take this thing and think it
through. Let it go through the process and let us not just
automatically accept the other body's view of what needs to happen
because I have great confidence in the conferees that we have working
at it right now.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome to our
Chamber Senator Grassley. He is the sponsor of the Grassley-Dorgan
amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that his statement be inserted
into the Record at this point in the testimony.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman should not refer
to the presence of a Senator. House rules do not provide for a
Senator's statement to be inserted in the Record except as authorized
by clause 1 of rule XVII.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the
statement be inserted under my name.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, with us is Senator Chuck Grassley
of Iowa, one of the sponsors of the Senate payment limitation
amendment. These are his comments during debate on the Senate bill
amendments for payment limits to the largest farms.
Mr. President, I stand before you today to offer one the
most important amendments for the family farmer we have ever
considered. There have been a number of important amendments
already considered during the farm bill debate, and a couple
have been adopted, but if we are truly sincere about
improving this farm bill for the family farmer we have a
golden opportunity in front of us right now.
The farm bill reported by the Senate Agriculture Committee
fails to adequately target assistance to family farmers and
will disproportionately benefit our nation's largest farms.
In fact, this farm bill unnecessarily increases the payment
limitations established in the Freedom to Farm Act which
allowed an individual to receive nearly a half million
dollars through subsidy payments.
Moreover, the Committee bill fails to address the use of
generic commodity certificates which allow farmers to
circumvent payment limitations. In recent years, we have
heard news reports about large corporate farms receiving
millions of dollars in payments through the use of generic
certificates. Generic certificates do not benefit family
farmers but allow the largest farmers to receive unlimited
payments.
I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senators Dorgan,
Johnson, Hagel, Lugar, Fitzgerald, Ensign, Durbin, and
Wellstone in support of this amendment to establish
reasonable payment limitations. Our amendment would more
effectively target the assistance provided by this
legislation to small and medium-sized family farms.
Senator Dorgan and I have worked together to make this
amendment what it is right now. Without Senator Dorgan's
efforts we would not have the broad, bi-partisan coalition
supporting this amendment we currently enjoy. I know how hard
Senator Dorgan has worked in his own caucus to generate
support for this vital issue and how crucial his input was in
the drafting process and I appreciate his efforts.
With that said, let's talk about the specifics of the
amendment. Our amendment would limit direct and counter-
cyclical payments to $75,000. It would limit gains from
marketing loans and LDPs to $150,000, and generic
certificates would be included in this limit. The amendment
would also establish a combined payment limitation of
$275,000 for a husband and wife.
Americans recognize the importance of the family farmer to
our nation and the need to provide an adequate safety net for
family farmers. In recent years however, assistance to
farmers has come under increasing scrutiny. Critics of farm
payments have argued that large corporate farms reap most of
the benefits of these payments. This amendment will fix that
problem.
In addition, we will apply the savings provided by this
limitation against other significant problems our producers
currently face plus agriculture research, crop insurance,
Beginning Farmer Loans, and food stamps. In fact, we put a
large share of the savings in the Food Stamp Program.
This amendment would increase Food Stamp spending by $810
million over ten years. The amendment would improve the
current proposal to increase and improve the standard
deduction, help provide more assistance to families that pay
large portions of their income on rent and utilities and make
it easier for more people to participate in food stamp
employment and training program by lifting the cap on
transportation reimbursements.
Senator Dorgan and I have chosen to spend a significant
portion of the savings in this amendment on Food Stamp
programs. We feel strongly that these dollars are well spent.
For instance, we are trying to help low-income families by
not making them choose between eating or paying the heat
bill.
I know that this issue is very important for my colleagues
from the Northeast, but this is an issue that all senators
from seasonally cold weather areas should be concerned. Many
low-income families spend large portions of their income on
shelter expenses. As families struggle to pay for their
housing, they will face problems paying for food, which can
have an adverse effect on family members, health and
children's development.
My amendment would eventually eliminate the arbitrary cap
set on the shelter deduction which currently has the effect
of treating some money that a family must spend on housing
costs as available to meet its food needs. There isn't anyone
that can say that we are not doing the right thing by fixing
this problem. Even if the rest of this amendment wasn't as
popular as it is, my colleagues should support it because of
the inclusion of this provision.
We will also extend eligibility for Loan Deficiency
Payments (LDP) to farmers who produce a contract commodity on
a farm not covered by a Production Flexibility Contract
(PFCC). The Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000, which
we passed into law last year, furnished LDPs to farmers who
produced a 2000 crop contract commodity on a farm not covered
by a PFC.
In Iowa there are 6200 farms that do not participate in the
farm program. Non-participating farms are classified as farms
not enrolled in 1996 at the beginning of the program, or
farms that changed hands during the farm bill that were not
properly re-enrolled.
Not all of the 6200 non-participating farms will choose to
use and benefit from an LDP,but for the family farmers in
Iowa who are not in the program, guaranteeing close to $1.78
on corn and $5.26 on soybeans is significant assistance.
With the record low prices Iowa producers have experienced
recently, I think that the federal government should do
everything it can to keep producers on the farm. This by no
means solves all their problems, but it helps and it's
something we should have done for these individuals on a
permanent basis when we provided a one-year opportunity for
participation in the LDP program last year.
In addition, we extend eligibility for LDPs to farmers who
have lost beneficial interest in their commodity. We
previously passed a similar one-year extension in the
Agricultural Risk Protection Act. This is only meant to
extend this opportunity until the 1996 farm bill comes to an
end.
I would like to commend Senate Roberts for his leadership
on this issue. In June, he introduced stand-alone legislation
to address this issue and has clearly been the leading
advocate on this issue in the Congress.
Mr. President, I will conclude my remarks by stating again
that I feel strongly the Agriculture Committee bill fails to
effectively address the issue of payment limitations.
Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment
which will help to restore
[[Page H1377]]
public respectability for federal farm assistance by
targeting this assistance to those who need it the most.
This amendment has been endorsed by 35 groups. That list
includes the California Institute for Rural Studies,
California Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, Center
for Rural Affairs, Church Women United (NYS), Community
Alliance with Family Farmers (CA), Community Food Security
Coalition, Environmental Working Group, Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, Illinois Stewardship Alliance
and the Kansas Rural Center.
Land Stewardship Project (based in Minnesota), Michael
Fields Agricultural Institute (WI), Michigan Agricultural
Stewardship Association, Michigan Integrated Food and Farming
Systems, Minnesota Project, National Family Farm Coalition,
National Farmers Union, National Grange, National Campaign
for Sustainable Agriculture and the National Catholic Rural
Life Conference.
NOFA--NY, North Dakota Council of Churches (Rural Life
Committee), Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society,
Ohio Citizen Action, Ohio Ecological Farm and Food
Association, Rural Advancement Foundation International
(USA), Rural Coalition, Rural Roots (ID), Sustainable
Agriculture Coalition and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
United Methodist Church (General Board of Church and
Society), Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network,
Washington Tilth Producers, Western Sustainable Agriculture
Working Group, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
America's Second Harvest, Food Research and Action Center and
Bread for the World.
This is no time to be making backroom deals or playing
games. This is going to be our one shot at this issue and we
all know it. Look at what we have already accomplished on the
Feingold/Grassley amendment limiting mandatory arbitration
and the Johnson/Grassley amendment banning packer ownership.
Senators Feingold and Johnson knew those were important
issues to family farmers and helped me to offer amendments in
a bipartisan fashion.
It's time to do the right thing again, support payment
limitations and support the family farmer. Help Senator
Dorgan and I restore integrity to the programs, reduce
pressure on rents and land prices, dampen overproduction,
raise farm income, and help maintain family farms and the
culture that surrounds our rural communities. In addition, we
will be funding additional nutrition crop insurance research
and development, and ag.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I also would like to welcome the
distinguished gentleman from Iowa whom I had occasion to serve with in
this body and appreciate all his good works.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in allowing me
to speak on this motion.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to imagine anyplace outside of the Beltway
where having a subsidy of $275,000 limit is starving people to death.
Yes, it is possible that people in this current system are involved
with slowly spiraling down into greater and greater debt.
Overproduction, my colleague from Michigan talked about that, where we
are encouraging people to plant crops, overproduce, driving down the
cost and leaving the problem either for the individual to bear the
burden or for the taxpayer. There is a better way.
There is the opportunity here with this motion to instruct for us to
be able to deal with how we spend the money more wisely. There is no
reason that we cannot help producers around the country do things that
will make a difference to help them stay in business. It is expensive
to be able to comply with water quality, to be able to change some
agricultural practices. There are people that are being driven around
the country into subdividing farms because of market pressures. We can
have money for conservation payments, for purchase of development
rights, to be able to help them stay in business.
The current system, with its lavish spending, is not stopping the
loss of farms. We just heard in Nebraska, a thousand farms went out of
the hands of family farmers. We are having a system now without the
limitation that it drives the incentives toward larger and larger
activities, more and more overproduction for a few commodities, and
then in my State where there are row crops, where there are specialty
crops that do not get the help, there are people that are literally
bulldozing orchards because they cannot afford to maintain it. This is
goofy.
We should go along with this motion to instruct to be able to have
the support for the Senate efforts for conservation. Remember, on this
floor earlier, my colleague from Wisconsin, there was a broad cross-
section, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) and others, had a
strong showing, there is a strong basis of support for increasing
conservation payments, limiting commodity. It narrowly was defeated
here. It was passed in the Senate. That is no justification for the
conferees to dramatically cut back on conservation payments.
What we are going to face here as we continue to have celebrity
farmers from Beverly Hills to Houston to Denver in the last 5 years got
over a half billion dollars, we can crank down on that. We have the
wherewithal to be able to limit payments to families. We do not have to
be discriminating against one sex or the other. We can make sure that
we are going to be able to have the help to the people who need it the
most. But $17.1 billion for conservation programs means that people are
going to be lining up, they are not going to get the money that they
want, we are still going to lose family farms, and the taxpayer will
pay the bill.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. It
is interesting to hear this debate, to hear the other side say, ``Well,
nobody's getting payments over $275,000. That's just a myth. That's
just something we hear out there that's in the press. Nobody really
does that.''
If that is the case, then why oppose this motion? I commend the
gentleman for bringing it forward. In my view, we ought to get back to
the Freedom to Farm Act of 1996. We ought to be moving in the other
direction. That is my position. But this motion makes what I believe is
an obscene farm bill just a little more palatable. I would urge support
of it and encourage the other side, hey, if it is true that nobody is
receiving these payments, that if Scottie Pippen who makes $18 million
a year posting up for the Portland Trail Blazers is not making another
$150,000 digging postholes apparently around his Arkansas farm, if that
is not the case, then, hey, support the motion.
{time} 1430
It is not going to hurt anybody. But if it is the case, then, by
golly, we ought to put a stop to it. With that, I urge support for the
motion.
Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the
gentleman from Arizona.
This particular motion to instruct would actually help the Scottie
Pippens of the world. It would add more money to that program.
I would also add at this particular time, I stand by my statement
that the people that support this motion to instruct do not understand
agriculture and the high-technology business that it is today. It will
be a long time before anybody can positively change my mind on that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).
Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for
yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose this motion to instruct. This
same motion, as a resolution, was voted down by a vote of 238 to 187
simply under a different name. Here we go again.
Our farm families need a new farm bill. I am a member of the
Committee on Agriculture. I come from a district in south Arkansas
where agriculture is a huge part of our economy, and I can tell you
that our farmers need a new farm bill. They do not need it today, they
do not need it tomorrow, they needed it last year. And this body in
this very Chamber approved a good farm bill last year. Now it is stuck
in conference, gutted with amendments that will totally destroy farming
in America and farming in Arkansas as we know it today.
We already have payment limits. And for the gentleman that mentioned
we need to go back to the days of the Freedom to Farm bill, that is
what we are living under now; and we have fewer farm families today
than ever before.
It is pretty obvious to me that the majority of those who passed
Freedom to Farm simply did not get it; they did not understand farming
in rural America. In fact, it should have been renamed, Freedom to
Fail, because that is exactly what has happened. We have lost many good
farm families because
[[Page H1378]]
of that so-called Freedom to Farm bill passed back in 1996. It was so
horrible, that is why we are here 1 year early trying to pass a new
farm bill.
We already have payment limits. Our farm families are also small
business owners, and they make decisions based on land, crops,
equipment, loans, employees, based on the current payment limits, based
on the farm bill. To change those rules for them will require many of
them to file bankruptcy, laying off 10 or 12 employees.
I recently was at the annual Watson Fish Fry in Watson, Arkansas; and
a gentleman came up to me, a grown man, with tears in his eyes, as he
talked to me about how, just that morning, he had filed bankruptcy and
laid off 10 employees, eight of whom had been working for him for over
20 years.
Mr. Speaker, we have a farm crisis in America.
I recently called another farm family to tell them I was sorry to
learn that they were forced to sell; and when I reached the gentleman,
guess where he was? He was at another farm family's auction, and that
was the morning after the Senate amendment was put on the farm bill
reducing payment limits. And guess what? Overnight the price of farm
equipment at auctions dropped 35 percent.
I was not real good at math, and you do not have to be to understand
this: our farm families used to get $8.50 a bushel for rice. Today they
are getting $1.50. Cotton, it costs them 60 cents to grow it. If they
are getting 30 cents today, they are doing good.
Our farmers do not want to be welfare farmers. They do not want to be
insurance farmers. They simply need a basic safety net to help them
survive when market prices are down and when our government does crazy
things like imposing sanctions and embargoes on them.
The sanctions and embargoes against Cuba, that happened the year I
was born, 40 years ago. Cuba is still getting rice. They are just not
getting it from Arkansas farmers; they are not getting it from American
farmers. They are getting it from China. They want to buy our rice.
They can get it in 4 days as opposed to a month.
Our government does have a duty and an obligation and a
responsibility to these farm families to assist them when market prices
are down, when we are using them as a weapon. We have a strong defense
in this country, and we need to make it stronger. We have watched what
the military might of this country can do in Afghanistan and around the
world. When we want to punish someone, let us help them using our
military, but let us stop turning our farm families and their crops
into a weapon.
The issue of payment limits, let me tell you that if you take a look
it and you hear the talk that, well, we need to reduce payment limits
so we will quit overproducing, I cannot believe that anyone would think
that we are overproducing in a world where people go to bed every
single night hungry. People are starving to death.
We need fair trade. We need to remove sanctions and embargoes. We
need to open up these markets. If we do that, we will not be
overproducing; and if we do that, the prices will go back up at the
market, and these farm families will not need our help. But as long as
we stand in their way of doing what they do best, and that is feed
America and feed much of the world, then, yes, they need our help, they
need a new farm bill. They do not need this motion to instruct.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), who has been a great leader on
this issue.
(Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding
me this time and the leadership he has shown on this issue, as well as
my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), for the courage to
bring this motion forward.
I along with Representatives Boehlert, Dingell and Gilchrest, helped
assemble a coalition last fall, Mr. Speaker, a bipartisan coalition, an
urban-suburban-rural coalition, offering to do basically what this
motion to instruct suggests, and that is taking a look at the current
subsidy program, the income support program that exists in this
country, and seeing if there was a way of moving some of the subsidy
payments from the biggest of the big producers in this country, the
upper 2 percent, over 97 percent of the farmers in this country would
not have been affected by the conservation title amendment that many of
us offered last fall, and see if we can move some of these limited,
precious resources into other areas to benefit all family farmers in
all regions of the country.
It did pull up a little bit short. We had 200 votes. Nevertheless, I
think it was a strong showing of the need for this type of new approach
in agriculture policy.
This motion today is about developing a sensible and sustainable farm
policy for all of our family farmers, but also for our communities.
This motion is not about attacking family farmers. This motion is not
about attacking the women in this country. It is about good economic
policy, because right now we are operating under a perverse economic
farm policy, one that pays more money to big producers based on how
many acres they plant and how much they produce in a certain category
of crops.
This distorts the marketplace. This encourages production, not based
on market price and what the market can bear, but, rather, based on the
government paycheck. And we are seeing this across the country
throughout all of our districts.
I still have roughly 10,500 family farms in my congressional district
alone in the State of Wisconsin. We have roughly 60,000 family farms in
Wisconsin. This motion to instruct would affect 14 farms in my State;
and yet, because of the way the farm bills in the past have been
produced, where 90 percent of farm bill funding goes to a few
producers, producing the, quote-unquote, ``right commodity crop,'' it
distorts the marketplace. It encourages overproduction and oversupply,
and then a plummeting of commodity prices as we have seen over the last
few years, and then either farmers having to file bankruptcy and forced
out of business, or for there to be farm relief bills, multi-billion
farm relief bills coming before Congress every year to do something
about it.
I would submit that a farm policy that only provides income support
payment to just 30 percent of the farmers and misses 70 percent of the
rest of the producers we have in this country is no safety net at all.
This motion really gets to the fairness issue of what we can do with
the limited resources we can devote to help our farmers in this
country, but in a fair and equitable manner, so all of our family farms
in all regions of the country can participate.
A great State like California, the largest agriculture-producing
State in the Nation, and if it was a separate country would be one of
the top producing countries in the world in agriculture, gets 3 cents
on the dollar because they are not producing the right crop in
California.
What would this motion to instruct do? It would take the savings
between the 275,000 cap, as we are recommending, from the $550,000 that
passed out of the House, and apply those resources in voluntary and
incentive-based conservation programs so we can not only provide
economic assistance to family farmers who want to participate, but also
encourage better watershed management, quality drinking supplies and
the protection of wildlife and fish habitat.
Anyone who does not think that sound, sustainable conservation
practices should not be a major part of farm policy in the 21st century
has not been looking at the type of issues I have seen in regards to
quality water issues, which is going to be one of the predominant
issues facing this Nation in the next 100 years. There is a way for us
to be able to assist in that great endeavor, in that great challenge
that we all face.
The other part of the motion would devote resources to important
agriculture research programs so we can talk about value added and
creating wealth within the agriculture industry, rather than the
proposed 40 percent cut in agriculture research spending that is
currently being proposed in the conference committee.
So, again, I commend my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Smith);
[[Page H1379]]
my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), for offering this
motion to instruct; and I would recommend to my colleagues to support
this motion and send a message to the conferees that this is the
direction we need to move in in farm policy in our Nation.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The Chair would announce that
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) has 9\1/2\ minutes remaining,
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) has 2 minutes remaining, and
the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining;
and that pursuant to the previous order of the House of today, further
proceedings on this motion are postponed.
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