[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 186 (Thursday, December 6, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14826-S14827]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
talk about why it is so important that we pass the 2007 farm bill. When 
a lot of people think of my home State of Washington, they think about 
Seattle and Boeing and Microsoft, and all those important things, but 
farming is an incredibly important part of Washington State's economy. 
We happen to be the eleventh largest farm State in the Nation and we 
are the third largest producer of fruits and vegetables, which are also 
known around here as specialty crops. This farm bill is very important 
to my home State because it will keep our State healthy and strong.
  In fact, farming has been an important part of my own personal life. 
My grandfather moved to the Tri-Cities in central Washington to take a 
job with Welch's Grape Juice factory a long time ago, in the early 
1900s, and my own dad grew up picking asparagus in central Washington. 
My hometown of Bothell, WA, where I grew up--a small town of about 
1,000 people, now backyard to Microsoft--when I was growing up there, 
we were surrounded by berry farms. We grew up with a very clear 
understanding of how important family farms are to Washington State's 
economy. So I know personally that passing the farm legislation before 
us is absolutely critical for our farmers, who grow apples or cherries, 
peaches or grapes, asparagus, potatoes, and many of the other important 
products to Washington State.
  I know this is not a perfect bill, this farm bill, but it is the best 
farm bill in years for my home State farmers, largely because of what 
it does for those specialty crops I talked about. My home State and our 
Nation cannot be strong unless our farmers are doing well, and this 
farm bill helps them stay strong by investing in programs that help 
them find markets for their crops both here in the United States and 
abroad. Importantly, this bill will help fund research to ensure that 
our farmers have a healthy and safe crop in the future.
  The Senate now has an opportunity to move forward a very good farm 
bill. Unfortunately, as we all are aware now, we have become bogged 
down because the Republicans are now insisting on unrelated amendments 
that threaten to kill the help our farmers need and deserve today. So I 
want to be clear about what is happening here. Republicans have been 
complaining for the last several days about the need to move forward 
legislation of any kind, but here they are blocking this bill.
  I hope we can eventually make progress, but I want to talk this 
afternoon about what this farm bill can do and what we are losing if we 
don't move it forward. The biggest victory in this farm bill for 
Washington State is the $2.2 billion that will help our specialty crop 
farmers. This is the very first time in this Nation we have addressed 
these specialty crops in a comprehensive and meaningful way. The money 
in this bill will help carry out programs I have been pushing very hard 
for in the last several years.
  In this bill, we have $270 million in block grants. Those block 
grants will help our local growers increase the competitiveness of 
their crops. We have $15 million in badly needed aid for our asparagus 
farmers, who have been struggling to compete in this global marketplace 
they are required to be in, because we have been seeing a flood of 
cheap asparagus coming in from Peru.
  This bill also helps our farmers compete in what we all know is an 
increasingly global marketplace and to find new markets abroad for 
their crops. We know South America and China and other countries are 
aggressively pursuing selling their crops in many of these very 
important nations overseas. We have to remain competitive and we have 
to give our farmers the ability to get out there and let other people 
know what we have so we can be competitive in that market.
  This farm bill, importantly, increases funding for technical 
assistance for the specialty crop programs that will help our farmers 
overcome some of the barriers that threaten their ability to export 
their crops today. This is so important to my home State. I actually 
was out in our State last week, as many of us were after the 
Thanksgiving holiday. I was in Yakima, WA, where I had a listening 
session with some of our farmers, and there were some cherry farmers 
there who are working very hard to develop a new program in Japan. They 
were talking about how this technical assistance will help them help 
the Japanese understand how important this is so we can open an entire 
new market that will help my farmers locally but certainly help our 
Nation be competitive in this global marketplace.
  Another thing this bill will do will be to help ensure that nurseries 
can continue to have access to safe and virus-free plant materials. 
This is extremely important. Apples, peaches, and grapes are very 
vulnerable to viruses. A single plant or a single grapevine can infect 
and wipe out an entire established orchard or vineyard. Washington 
State University at Prosser is doing some national research on this 
topic and they are going to be an incredibly important part of this 
national clean plant network.

  I also wish to talk about a part of this bill that gets neglected way 
too often as we talk about it, and that is the nutritional programs. I 
think very few people realize that over half of the farm bill goes to 
these important nutritional programs. Those are the programs that will 
help our kids in our schools get access to fresh fruits and vegetables 
in their school lunches. We hear all these reports about obesity. I 
read this morning that the life expectancy of the younger generation is 
going to be, for the first time, less than our generation because of 
obesity. We have to make sure our kids, at the very youngest ages, are 
getting access to the best nutrition possible. This farm bill helps to 
do that, to make sure fruits and vegetables are part of a nutritious 
lunch and are accessible at an early age when they are beginning to 
understand, to learn, and to eat the right things so we don't have 
obesity which, as we all know, leads to a lot of the health care 
problems in this Nation today.
  The farm bill also is helpful in terms of the nutritional programs 
for people who get food stamps and other assistance, so they also get 
access to fresh, nutritious food. The bill will help end the benefit 
erosion we have seen in the food stamp program over the years, and that 
is especially important today for our low-income families. Our low-
income families are struggling today with gas prices rising, health 
care access, and all the other things that impact them, just as much if 
not more than most of the rest of our families. Making sure they have 
access to a food stamp program that makes sure they have adequate 
nutrition is especially keen and especially important right now. To use 
an old cliche, I see this as a win-win. These nutritional programs help 
our children and adults fight obesity and, at the same time, it helps 
our specialty crop growers.
  Finally, I wish we had been able to include important improvements to 
the safety net that is so critical to the wheat farmers in my State. I 
have been working for a number of years now with the wheat farmers in 
Washington State to help improve the countercyclical payment program so 
it will actually work for them. Unfortunately, we could not make 
significant changes in this bill, but I am happy the bill holds them 
harmless, and that was important.
  None of us get everything we want in this bill. I am not out here on 
the floor

[[Page S14827]]

to hold up this bill because I didn't get one thing I wanted. I am 
working to move this bill forward because, in the large part, it is 
best for our Nation's farmers, and I hope we all step back and 
recognize that. In a democratic body, we have to fight for what we 
believe in, but at the end of the day it is our responsibility to make 
sure the larger bill moves forward. I find it very troubling that 
because some people didn't get something they wanted, they are now 
stopping this farm bill in the aggregate from moving forward.
  We have a lot of opportunity now to do good for our farmers, so it is 
very troubling that we see the Republicans coming to the floor now and 
objecting to this bill. We have to ask: Why are they objecting? So we 
go and look at the record, and they are saying they are not allowed to 
get, I think it is over 200 amendments now that are listed here up for 
consideration on this bill. I was reading through them a few minutes 
ago, on what they want us to vote on in order to move this farm bill 
forward. There are over 200 amendments. That is not going to happen in 
the last 2 weeks we have in this session.
  At the expense of asking for extraneous amendments that have nothing 
to do with the farm bill, they are holding up these critically 
important nutritional programs, programs that our farmers need in order 
to keep their livelihoods going, and sending out all across the Nation 
a huge question mark about whether they are going to have what they 
need as they move into the next growing cycles. I looked at this list 
of amendments. There are amendments they want us to consider on a farm 
bill for fire sprinklers and tort reform and estate tax repeal. They 
may all be critical issues, but a farm bill is not where we consider 
these issues.
  This bill is far too important for our Nation's health and our 
economy to use it now as a vehicle for some kind of political game. 
Only once in our modern history has a nonrelevant amendment been added 
to the farm bill. Each and every time we have considered the farm bill, 
the majority and the minority have worked out a reasonable agreement 
that helps clear the path forward for this important bill. What we see 
today, unfortunately, is a Republican minority that has decided to 
throw out the history books and continue to set a record-setting pace 
of obstruction and kill the help our farmers need and deserve.
  Today our families are all struggling--gas prices, energy prices, 
mortgage crisis, health care costs. We have to get beyond the politics 
and make sure our farmers and our kids benefit from the very critical 
investments in this farm bill. These aren't just numbers in a bill. As 
you well know, Madam President, coming from a State that depends on 
agriculture, these programs can make or break people's livelihoods.
  We have got to come together, and I urge our Republicans to get their 
ship in order, come to the table with a reasonable plan to move 
forward, and let us get this bill passed.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

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