[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14770-S14772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I come to the floor to plead with my 
colleagues that we move forward to address the issues of agriculture 
and rural communities and food security for our country in moving 
forward with consideration and passage of the 2007 farm bill. In this 
Chamber, there needs to be more champions of rural America and 
agriculture. Those farmers and ranchers around our Nation who today are 
the ones working to provide food for the tables of all of America, 
those farmers and ranchers, when you meet them--because when you shake 
their hand in communities in my State, places such as Lamar or Craig or 
down in Dove Creek, in my home area of the San Luis Valley, Manassa, it 
is a rough hand. It is a rough hand that is weathered through the 
difficult times of having had to eke out a living from the soil and 
what oftentimes is a very difficult time.
  Rural America, in my opinion, is part of the forgotten America. Rural 
America has been forgotten by Washington, DC for far too long. Rural 
America has been forgotten by this President and this administration 
for far too long. Now we have an opportunity with legislation crafted 
in the spirit of bipartisanship, through the leadership of Senators 
Harkin and Chambliss and a number of other members of the Agriculture 
Committee and the Finance Committee, under the leadership of Senators 
Baucus and Grassley, to make sure that rural America is not forgotten. 
We have an opportunity to open a new chapter of opportunity for rural 
America. We can do this with the 2007 farm bill.
  Rural America is in trouble. When you look at this map of the United 
States, when you look at both the red and yellow zones, they are all 
part of what we consider to be rural America. There are about 1,700 
counties in what is characterized as rural America in this great land 
of ours, the United States. More than half of those counties have been 
declining in population. Across the heartland of the United States, you 
see great swathes of red where we see towns and communities that are 
withering on the vine. This 2007 farm bill will help revitalize rural 
America in a way that has not happened before.
  When we look at the towns and counties across each one of the 50 
States, I am sure any one of us could find many places such as this 
storefront in Brush, CO where half of the main street in many of the 
towns has essentially been closed down. This is the main street of 
Brush. There is a for sale sign on this building. When you go to the 
towns in my native valley, in Conejos County, Costilla County, I can 
tell you that in the town of Antonito, CO, at one point in time, 15 
years ago, there were four or five gas stations on the main street. 
Today there is one gas station. I remember a few years ago there were 
multiple grocery stores. Today there is one small grocery store. I 
haven't done the count when I have gone through the main street of 
Antonito, as I often do back in the San Luis Valley, but I would guess 
that 60 to 70 percent of the entire main street of the town has been 
boarded up and is either not being used or is for sale.
  The town of Antonito, like the town of Brush, like so many towns and 
communities across rural America, is calling out for Congress to do 
something to help revitalize rural America. We, in the 2007 farm bill 
that has been crafted in the best spirit of bipartisanship, are 
attempting to do so. It will be a shame for Washington, DC and for this 
Chamber to allow the politics of obstructionism we see going on here to 
essentially kill the promise of rural America represented in the 2007 
farm bill.
  Over the last several days and over the last month, we have seen many 
efforts to try to move forward to a conclusion. Yet we haven't been 
able to move forward because there is a filibuster in place. I have 
heard the majority leader come to the floor and say: Let's move forward 
and consider the farm bill. We will make an agreement where we will 
allow 10 Republican amendments and 5 Democratic amendments and 2 other 
amendments, a total of 17 amendments. What has happened when he has 
propounded that unanimous consent request? It has been objected to. He 
has said, as Senator Harkin has suggested, let's take 10 amendments on 
either side or 12 amendments on either side. Let's come up with an 
agreement that puts us on the pathway of making the farm bill even 
better through the amendment process but getting the farm bill passed.
  Yet what is happening in our inability to move forward? There are 
objections on the other side because there is a paradigm that has 
become evident in this place. And that is to try to slow walk any kind 
of progress we might be able to make on this legislation, on AMT, on 
the Energy bill, or anything else.
  We hopefully will find the courage in this Chamber to make sure that 
the public purposes for which we were elected will ultimately triumph 
over the politics of division which we see taking place. Doing nothing 
is not an option. Obstructionism essentially is leading to that result 
of doing nothing.

  The farmers and ranchers of America don't see this as a Democratic 
and Republican issue. They want results. They want us to work together 
to try to get results and to pass this 2007 farm bill.
  I urge my colleagues to redouble their efforts to try to find 
agreement so we can move forward, so we can have a farm bill that is 
good for America.
  As we talk about the farm bill, it is also important, as my good 
friend from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, has said, to understand that 
this is much more than just about conservation and energy and rural 
development, the things I care so much about. It is also about another 
thing all of us care a lot about, and that is the nutrition of those 
who are most vulnerable in society. That is why in this farm bill about 
67 percent of all the money that goes into this farm bill actually goes 
into nutrition programs for America. Yes, newspapers across the country 
that sometimes are critical of the commodity parts of the farm bill are 
wrong, because they don't focus on the other parts of the legislation. 
They don't talk about what we do for nutrition in this farm bill. They 
don't talk about what we are trying to do with the fresh fruits and 
vegetables program

[[Page S14771]]

included in this bill at a level which has never been done before.
  For my small State of Colorado, what it basically means is there is 
going to be $45 million available to provide fresh fruits and 
vegetables to those young kids in our schools so they can grow up 
healthy and learn in the schools they currently attend. What we are 
doing is, we are spreading what has been a pilot program for fresh 
fruits and vegetables across the entire 50 States. That is a good 
program. We should remind Americans that when we talk about the farm 
bill, we are talking about nutrition.
  I also want to talk a bit about one aspect of this farm bill and that 
is title 9, the energy part. When I look at what is happening across 
America today, I think that the energy opportunity for America presents 
one of the signature opportunities for this Nation and for this world 
in the 21st century. There is no doubt that we have come to realize, 
progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, that the 
addiction we have to foreign oil is something that must end. It is in 
the fields of rural America that we will find a significant part of the 
answer to get rid of our dependence on foreign oil. That conclusion is 
one that will sustain a clean energy revolution in our country for not 
only years but for decades to come. We will find ways of harnessing the 
power of the Sun, the power of the wind, the power of biofuels, the 
power of geothermal capacities to get us to the point of energy 
independence.
  When I think about the fact that Brazil, a Third World country in 
South America, could become an energy-independent country and we here, 
the most powerful Nation on the globe, have not been able to do that, 
we have gone in reverse, we have had a failed energy policy. When we 
have gone from a point in time in the 1970s when Richard Nixon, then 
President, coined the term ``energy independence'' and President Jimmy 
Carter stood before the Nation and said we had to attack our energy 
addiction with the moral imperative of war, at that point we were 
importing 30 percent of the oil from foreign countries. Today, in March 
of this year, we imported 67 percent of our oil from foreign countries. 
So we need to become energy independent and, yes, this farm bill in 
title 9 invests significant resources in rural America that will help 
us become energy independent.
  This picture is a wind farm in Prowers County, CO. We invest 
significant resources in wind power in my State, not only for these 
larger wind farms which can produce several hundred megawatts of power 
but also for small farms and industrial areas where you see these small 
windmills that can actually produce enough electric generation to meet 
all the needs of a farm or a small business area or to help make sure 
we are providing electricity to places that are remote and far away.
  When we look at this 2007 farm bill, one of the marquis aspects of 
this bill is that it helps create a new opportunity for rural America 
and helps us grow our way to energy independence. On that one ground 
alone, we should all be willing to move forward to come up with an 
agreement that will allow us to move this farm bill forward.
  Two years ago, when I went back to Colorado, shortly after having 
been elected to the Senate, I asked people to try to find a place where 
I could go and visit an ethanol plant. There were none at that time. 
Today we now have four ethanol plants like the one that is located in 
Sterling, CO in this picture. We are just beginning to see the energy 
revolution that is revitalizing that whole red part of the eastern 
plains of the State of Colorado. This farm bill will help us move 
forward in that continuing positive direction.
  Another aspect of this bill which is so important, and we must keep 
reminding people, is conservation. When you think about conservation 
and what this farm bill does, this is the most significant investment 
ever made in conservation in the history of the United States under 
this farm bill. Through these investments we will be able to help make 
sure the water--which is the lifeblood of our rural communities; which 
is the lifeblood of the Nation; which is the lifeblood, certainly, of 
my State, which is the mother of rivers in the western part of the 
United States of America--that we are able to take advantage of using 
the water resources of our country in a positive and constructive way.

  Shown in this picture is an EQIP project which is in northern 
Colorado, where you can actually see an EQIP project which is 
conserving water in the livestock tanks that have been placed out here 
on this ranch.
  But it goes beyond water tanks and water conservation. There are also 
a whole host of other programs that we deal with in conservation. There 
is a Grassland Reserve Program. There is a Conservation Reserve 
Program. There is a CSP. There is a Wetlands Reserve Program.
  This picture is taken of a pond which has been restored in the 
northern part of my State which is part of the Wetlands Reserve Program 
that helps us make sure we have quality wetlands.
  I want to make this quick point about conservation. When you think 
about the people who care about our land and our water, farmers and 
ranchers know about the importance of land and water because they know 
that is their way of life. If they do not take care of their land and 
water, they know the next year's crop is not going to be there because 
their way of living is taken away from them. So farmers and ranchers 
are among the best environmentalists, among the best conservationists 
we know.
  Seventy percent of our lands across this great United States of 
America are owned by farmers and ranchers. So the conservation program 
that we have in the national farm bill, in this 2007 farm bill, is 
absolutely essential for us to be able to protect the lands and waters 
of these United States.
  So I hope all of the conservation organizations that are out there, 
knowing we are working on the farm bill today, and the millions of 
Americans who care about conservation make sure their Senators know we 
should move forward on this farm bill in order to achieve the 
conservation objectives of this farm bill. They should let their 
Senators know this gridlock, this obstructionism we see is allowing 
politics to triumph over the very important public purposes which we 
are trying to achieve in conservation.
  Let me finally say, there are many other aspects of this farm bill 
which are important, including the safety net which takes a small 
portion, about 13 percent or so, of the entire farm bill budget, and 
that is the support system to make sure we are able to keep farmers and 
ranchers on the land.
  As part of what we have done in trying to be innovative and moving 
forward with programs that will help rural America and will help 
farmers and ranchers, we, for the first time, under the leadership of 
Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, have included a fund to be able to 
deal with the disasters that affect rural America so often.
  In this picture behind me, you see what has become the norm in my 
State over the last 6 years, where we have seen some of the record 
droughts in Colorado. In fact, we had the most severe drought in my 
State of Colorado in almost 500 years just a few years ago which 
devastated agriculture across the State from corner to corner.
  Shown in this picture is a cornfield in Washington County. Now, some 
people will see this cornfield, and they will say: It looks like a 
bunch of dead plants. A farmer looks at this cornfield, and a farmer 
sees a dream--a dream that will not be realized.
  In this picture, a farmer will look at it, and the farmer will 
remember the day when he went out and tilled the soil, when he 
fertilized the soil, when he planted the seed. The farmer will look at 
this picture, and he will remember the day when he saw the first green 
come through the soil as these corn seeds became plants.
  In this picture, he also will see the dream he had at that point, 
which was that he would be able to produce enough corn from his farm to 
be able to make a living, to be able to pay off the operating line at 
the bank, to be able to make the mortgage payment for the land. The 
farmer will see a lot in this picture. Yet we have not had a 
responsible disaster program for agriculture in Washington, DC, for the 
longest of times. So every time there is a disaster somewhere, we have 
to come multiple times to the Senate, to the Congress, to try to find 
disaster emergency relief, which takes a lot of time.
  We have been through that effort dozens of times over the last 20 
years. So it is time we fund a permanent disaster fund, which is 
included in this

[[Page S14772]]

legislation, thanks to the leadership of Senator Baucus and Senator 
Grassley and other members of the Finance Committee who have worked on 
this issue so hard.
  Let me, in conclusion, say once again, I have come to the floor to 
speak about the farm bill because it is something we can easily do. We 
have 2\1/2\ weeks before Christmas. This is legislation we have worked 
on for a very long time. Under the leadership of Senator Chambliss, 
several years ago, he held hearings on reforms to the farm bill all 
over this country. Under the leadership of Chairman Harkin, this year, 
the first hearing on the farm bill was held in my State in Brighton, 
CO, in Adams County, one of the largest agricultural counties in my 
State. The effort has yielded a farm bill which is a good farm bill 
which should allow us to move forward to have a final farm bill coming 
out of the Senate.
  Now we have seen, again, Senator Reid come to this floor, and he has 
said to the Republican leadership: We want to move forward on the farm 
bill. Senator Reid has said: We will take 10 Republican amendments to 5 
Democratic amendments. Let's have a debate on those. Let's set up some 
time constraints on that debate, and let's get down to the point where 
we can have a final vote on this very important bill. Yet the answer 
is: We object--on the other side--to anything happening here on this 
farm bill.
  I am hopeful the champions of rural America, the champions of 
agriculture on the Republican side, come over to join us to help us 
move this farm bill forward.
  I hope the people of America put pressure on the Members of the 
Senate to move forward to bring us to a conclusion on this 2007 farm 
bill so at the end of the session we can go home for Christmas and we 
can say we have done something good for the food security of our 
Nation.
  We ought to remember that sign on my desk that says: ``No Farms, No 
Food.'' ``No Farms, No Food.'' Every American eats. This farm bill is 
essential to make sure we maintain the independence and the food 
security we have had with food in America.
  I am very hopeful we are able to move forward with this farm bill.

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