[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 191 (Thursday, December 13, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15380-S15385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FARM, NUTRITION, AND BIOENERGY ACT OF 2007
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 2419, which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 2419) to provide for the continuation of
agricultural programs for fiscal year 2012, and for other
purposes.
Pending:
Harkin amendment No. 3500, in the nature of a substitute.
Harkin (for Dorgan/Grassley) modified amendment No. 3695
(to amendment No. 3500), to strengthen payment limitations
and direct the savings to increase funding for certain
programs.
Brown amendment No. 3819 (to Amendment No. 3500), to
increase funding for critical farm bill programs and improve
crop insurance.
Klobuchar amendment No. 3810 (to amendment No. 3500), to
improve the adjusted gross income limitation and use the
savings to provide additional funding for certain programs
and reduce the Federal deficit.
Chambliss (for Cornyn) amendment No. 3687 (to amendment No.
3500), to prevent duplicative payments for agricultural
disaster assistance already covered by the Agricultural
Disaster Relief Trust Fund.
Chambliss (for Coburn) modified amendment No. 3807 (to
amendment No. 3500), to ensure the priority of the farm bill
remains farmers by eliminating wasteful Department of
Agriculture spending on golf courses, junkets, cheese
centers, and aging barns.
Chambliss (for Coburn) amendment No. 3530 (to amendment No.
3500), to limit the distribution to deceased individuals, and
estates of those individuals, of certain agricultural
payments.
Salazar amendment No. 3616 (to amendment No. 3500), to
amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives
for the production of all cellulosic biofuels.
Thune (for McConnell) amendment No. 3821 (to amendment No.
3500), to promote the nutritional health of school children,
with an offset.
Craig amendment No. 3640 (to amendment No. 3500), to
prohibit the involuntary acquisition of farmland and grazing
land by Federal, State, and local governments for parks, open
space, or similar purposes.
Thune (for Roberts/Brownback) amendment No. 3549 (to
amendment No. 3500), to modify a provision relating to
regulations.
Domenici amendment No. 3614 (to amendment No. 3500), to
reduce our Nation's dependency on foreign oil by investing in
clean, renewable, and alternative energy resources.
Thune (for Gregg) amendment No. 3674 (to amendment No.
3500), to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exclude
charges of indebtedness on principal residences from gross
income.
Thune (for Gregg) amendment No. 3822 (to amendment No.
3500), to provide nearly $1,000,000,000 in critical home
heating assistance to low-income families and senior citizens
for the 2007-2008 winter season, and reduce the Federal
deficit by eliminating wasteful farm subsidies.
Thune (for Grassley/Kohl) amendment No. 3823 (to amendment
No. 3500), to provide for the review of agricultural mergers
and acquisitions by the Department of Justice.
Thune (for Stevens) amendment No. 3569 (to amendment No.
3500), to make commercial fishermen eligible for certain
operating loans.
Thune (for Bond) amendment No. 3771 (to amendment No.
3500), to amend title 7, United States Code, to include
provisions relating to rulemaking.
Tester amendment No. 3666 (to amendment No. 3500), to
modify the provision relating to unlawful practices under the
Packers and Stockyards Act.
Schumer amendment No. 3720 (to amendment No. 3500), to
improve crop insurance and use resulting savings to increase
funding for certain conservation programs.
Sanders amendment No. 3826 (to amendment No. 3822), to
provide for payments under subsections (a) through (e) of
section 2604 of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Act of
1981, and restore supplemental agricultural disaster
assistance from the Agricultural Disaster Relief Trust Fund.
Wyden amendment No. 3736 (to amendment No. 3500), to modify
a provision relating to bioenergy crop transition assistance.
Harkin/Kennedy amendment 3830 (to amendment No. 3500),
relative to public safety officers.
Harkin/Murkowski amendment No. 3639 (to amendment No.
3500), to improve nutrition standards for foods and beverages
sold in schools.
Harkin amendment No. 3844 (to amendment No. 3830), relative
to public safety officers.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time
until 9:15 a.m. shall be equally divided between the leaders or their
designees and shall be for debate only.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I designate 5 minutes to Senator Bingaman
and 5 minutes to Senator Cantwell, two Senators who have been
instrumental in bringing this bill to where we are today on energy.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for yielding
me 5 minutes to discuss this bill we are going to vote on, the cloture
vote we are going to have in relation to the energy legislation a
little later this morning.
One of the objections that has been raised to this legislation is
that it still contains a so-called energy tax package. It is very
different from what the House passed.
Senator Baucus has worked with Senator Grassley to take out
provisions that were objectionable to Members, particularly on the
Republican side, but it is still a tax package.
Now, what does it do? What it does is extends the tax incentives and
credits we put into law in 2005. Those are the tax incentives, the tax
credit for the production of electricity from wind, biomass from our
clean energy sources. It provides the extension of the solar energy
investment tax credit. It provides an extension of residential solar
credits to encourage people to use solar heating and energy generation
in their own residences. It provides an extension of existing credits
for biodiesel.
It creates a new credit for producing ethanol made from nonfood
cellulosic material. It tries to extend into the future and expand upon
the incentives we put into law in 2005 to encourage the
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transition to more of a clean energy technology.
At the beginning of the week, I had the view or the understanding
that the disagreement about the tax package centered around the
question of which offsets should be used to pay for it. I thought there
was general consensus that we ought to have an extension of these tax
provisions but that there was disagreement about how we went about
paying for them.
It is clear to me that at least for the administration, it is not a
question of which offsets should be used to pay for it, the real issue,
from their perspective, is they do not consider these tax incentives
very important, and they do not believe they are important enough to be
paid for.
They believe if they are going to be extended, they should be
extended without any increase in revenue anywhere else in the Tax Code
to offset that. This is a very unfortunate view on the part of the
administration as I see it because it sets up a circumstance where, if
we are not able to get the votes to pass this tax package as part of
the overall energy package this morning, then we are in a circumstance
where the administration says: We will not support--the administration
will not support--a tax package that is paid for, and the Congress,
under our pay-go rules, most likely will not be able to muster the
votes to pass a tax package that is not paid for.
So we have a checkmate situation that is particularly bad for the
country and cuts short the effort we tried to begin in 2005 to
encourage more development of energy from renewable sources and more
energy efficiency through these tax provisions.
There are some in the Congress, in the Senate, who are going to say,
well, they support doing something on taxes but not here, not now. We
should not do it as part of this bill. We ought to do what we can. It
is nearly Christmas, and then we will come back next year and deal with
taxes.
The problem is, it does not get any easier next year to deal with
this situation. We have already made dramatic changes in this tax
package to accommodate concerns of the administration, concerns of
Republican Members. But the truth is, we need to go ahead and extend
these tax provisions as part of this bill. We need to do so in a way
that is paid for. Clearly we need to comply with our pay-go rules and
not just add this to the deficit and say it is up to the next
generation to worry about finding the revenue to pay for the tax
provisions.
I believe it is essential that we pass this, that we go ahead and
invoke cloture on the energy package. This energy package that Senator
Reid is now bringing before the Senate does not have a renewable
electricity standard in it. He dropped that again because of opposition
from Republican members, opposition from the administration.
But it does have CAFE improvements, it does have renewable fuels
standards, it does have energy efficiency standards, it is does have
this tax package. I urge my colleagues to support it.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I too rise in support of the cloture
motion this morning and ask my colleagues if we are going to pass the
Energy bill before the end of this year. I know the American consumer
has gotten a wake-up call because they are paying higher gas prices at
the pump. But the question is whether Congress and the White House have
gotten the same wake-up call.
Fortunately, thanks to the hard work of Members on both sides of the
aisle and many staff members we are within grasp of a very important
solution. I am not even going to spend my time this morning talking
about the important details of this bill because many of my colleagues,
including the chairman of the Energy Committee, has extolled its
virtues. Perhaps, if I have a minute at the end, I might elaborate on
some of these. But it is time to get to the heart of the matter. And
that is, the American people need serious relief from a future of high
oil prices by making a transition this legislation would provide. That
is we need to make sure we have an energy package that starts investing
more aggressively in renewable energy and will actually get us
competition at the gas pump and on our electricity grid.
I know some are saying the tax title in this bill must go. And some
have even been bold enough to say that it's an increase in taxes. That
is an interesting position because these are really tax subsidies for
the oil industry. They are not a tax increase on consumers. When we
passed similar tax provisions in the 2005 energy bill no one on the
other side called that a tax increase.
In fact, when the President put broader subsidies in his budget this
year, reducing some of the same subsidies, it was called a
modification. So do not tell us now that cancelling a subsidy for the
oil industry is somehow raising taxes on consumers. What we are really
doing is continuing to make consumers pay more at the gas pump because
we are not giving them true competition. At the heart of the matter is
the fact that of the energy subsidies and investments that our country
makes--that is, using American tax dollars to invest in energy
strategies that will help our country--right now 75 percent of them is
going to the fossil fuel industry. Only about 15 percent is going to
clean energy.
Now, I ask my colleagues, when the United States only has 3 percent
of the world's oil reserves, is it smart to continue to have the 75
percent investment in fossil fuels? I would say that we should pass
this legislation and make more investments in renewable and energy
efficiency.
If someone says that somehow this is going to impact the oil
industry, I would like to refer them to a quote from Lee Raymond, the
former ExxonMobil CEO who said on ``Fox News'' when asked whether Exxon
was taking advantage of the new legislation that became law to speed up
the development of refineries and capacity here in the U.S., he said
``it will not have a major impact.''
So I do not know why we are so concerned about keeping these
subsidies when the industry itself, the big five oil companies are
saying it has had a negligible impact. What it has had an impact on is
consumers. And even the Joint Economic Committee has pointed out that
the removal of these tax breaks are going to have very little impact on
consumers. In fact, another third party observer, the Joint Tax
Committee, basically said this $300 million in subsidies from the big
five oil companies in 2008 that would be taken away would be less than
1 percent. In fact, it would have only a one-quarter of 1 percent
impact on their profits.
That is right. They made $120.8 billion in profit in 2006, so taking
this subsidy away from them it will have a negligible impact. So what
are we holding this up for? Why are we going to hold up the Energy bill
because someone does not want to take more subsidies away from the oil
industry and put them toward clean energy?
Even President Bush recognized that the oil industry does not need
more subsidies. President Bush, in April of 2005, said:
I will tell you with $55 oil we don't need incentives to
oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of
incentives.
I couldn't agree with the President more. He said that at $55 a
barrel. Now that we are at $90, we need to move faster in changing
these incentive programs. We all know that fossil fuels will continue
to be a big part of the energy mix for decades and that there is a
great deal of economic benefit from the incentives in oil and gas
today. But what we have to realize is we cannot continue in this same
direction. We have to change course. We have to level the playing field
and take away subsidies from very mature, very profitable industries
and make investments in renewables instead.
I know the President also agrees with that because when he signed the
2005 bill, he said:
The bill offers new incentives to promote clean, renewable
geothermal energy . . . When you hear us talking about less
dependence on foreign sources of energy, and one of the ways
to become less dependent is to enhance the use of renewable
sources of energy.
Again, I couldn't agree with the President more. But this is about
getting a package that will help us give consumers the confidence that
they are going to have true competition over the price at the pump.
The Energy and Finance Committees had hearing after hearing talking
to the experts. I know some people on the other side of the aisle would
say that
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some of these tax incentives don't expire until the end of 2008. But
this is about giving predictability to energy investment strategies. We
heard in the Finance Committee testimony after testimony from experts
saying: If you want to get more investment in renewable energy, you
need to have more predictable energy tax credits. That is why we can
see from our failed policies in the past that countries such as Denmark
have made more headway, because they made more investment in
renewables. Countries such as Japan have made more headway in solar
energy because they made the investments. If we want to get beyond
petroleum, we have to stop subsidizing it.
The impact of this morning's vote is that our colleagues are going to
say we should take out the Finance package and that somehow will be a
completion of an energy strategy. I tell my colleagues, nothing could
be more important than getting the long-term fundamentals right for
investment so that America can get off our dependence on foreign oil.
This legislation does represent nearly a 20-percent reduction in our
current CO2 output and a 35-percent reduction in our foreign
oil dependence. But to get those savings, we not only have to pass
CAFE, we also have to pass incentives for renewable energy and do it
for more than just 1 year so that we have predictable investment in
these energy strategies and reap the economic benefits in jobs for
America.
I thank the staff and all Members who have worked so hard on this
legislation.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues not to
vote for this bill and to insist that we have an energy bill that will
create more energy for our country.
The Energy bill before us today for a cloture vote will not increase
the supply of energy. There are some good parts of this bill. The House
and Senate could pass a bill that would do major things for renewable
energy sources, for clean energy sources, and for an increase in the
supply of energy sources, but the bill that is being brought up today--
and I hope it will not get cloture--is a bill that will not increase
supply.
We have two problems we need to address in an energy policy. One is
the cost of energy. We need to provide more supply in order to bring
the cost down. The second is, we are 60 percent dependent on foreign
sources for our energy needs, which is an economic and security risk
for America.
I cannot imagine the Congress trying to continue to pass a bill that
will decrease supply and increase our dependence on foreign sources for
our energy needs. We are the greatest nation on Earth. We should be
addressing this aggressively to increase supply.
The good part of this bill is the CAFE standards which have been
agreed to in a bipartisan way. That will go a long way toward
conservation and beginning to make our automobiles more efficient and
environmentally friendly. But the $20 billion in taxes on oil supply
takes away the increase in supply that is so important to bring down
prices.
We are a country that ought to be the model for the world in
stability in oil and tax policy. Instead, our country has the
reputation for not being stable in tax policy, for changing tax policy
every 2 years or every 4 years, so businesses sometimes would rather do
their exploration, their production, their refining, their
manufacturing overseas because they know they can count on stability in
tax policy and regulatory policy. That is absolutely the opposite of
what people should be saying about America. America should be the one
that our businesses say they can rely on for stable policy. Yet the
bill before us will change the incentives we gave for refineries to
increase just 2 years after we gave them.
It was beginning to work. Big oil companies that had not invested in
refinery capacity for 20 years, because of the regulatory hurdles, were
willing to go in and have already announced expansions. I know a big
expansion would be going on in Mississippi, a big one in Texas that
would add to our refinery capacity so that we would have more supply
more cheaply. We would have more dependence on ourselves for our energy
needs, and we would bring prices down. This takes away those incentives
for refinery capacity to increase. It also will drive overseas the
production of oil because we are penalizing our oil companies with this
$20 billion in taxes.
What this will do is decrease supply and increase price. I cannot
think of a worse message to send and a worse tax policy that would say
to the world and to any business that wants to do business in our
country that you can count on tax policy for a year or two, but you
cannot make long-term plans in America because we may change policy if
we change Congress.
We have changed Congress, all right. What we are seeing is a tax-and-
spend Congress that we haven't seen in 15 years. Once again, we are
going to increase spending and we are going to increase taxes. That is
not what we should be doing in an environment in which our economy is
fragile. Raising taxes in this economy is going to increase the price
of energy, which has a ripple effect throughout our economy. It means
every farmer is going to have to pay more for fuel. It means every
businessperson, especially small businesspeople, is going to have to
pay more for fuel.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on this piece of legislation that the
President has said he will veto. Let's stop the games in Congress.
Let's do something that will help our energy supply, that will bring
prices down. Let's take the good parts of this bill, such as the CAFE
standards and the incentives for renewable energy and clean energy. All
of those things are very good.
I want clean energy. I want solar power. I want wind power. I want
biofuels. I want cellulosic ethanol and corn-based ethanol. But to take
one segment of our energy, which happens to be the biggest source
today, and increase the price on that, decrease the incentives for the
refinery capacity which we must have--these companies do not have to
invest and go through all of the regulatory procedures and millions of
dollars off their bottom line to go into refinery expansions. They
don't have to do it. They had tax incentives to do it 2 years ago.
Taking that away pulls the rug out from under those who have already
made those investments. It is counterproductive for the economy.
I hope we will provide adult leadership in the Congress. Let's not
pass cloture on this bill. Let's do an energy bill that the President
will sign, that will have bipartisan support, that will make CAFE
standards much more environmentally friendly, and that will increase
our supply of renewable and environmentally friendly energy needs.
Let's keep the bread-and-butter energy supply we have by increasing
refinery capacity so that we bring the cost down to consumers and keep
our economy on a more even keel.
I hope my colleagues will vote no today so we can pass an energy bill
that will have the support of a bipartisan majority in Congress and get
the President's signature. That should be the goal, not political game-
playing, which we are seeing this week at the very last minute in
Congress. It is not going to do what is right for the country.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time remains?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 11 minutes 45
seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. Are there any other commitments to speak on this?
Mrs. HUTCHISON. No, Mr. President.
Mr. DOMENICI. I don't need the entire time, but I will speak a while
and see what happens.
I am here because there is a misunderstanding somewhere about the
CAFE bill that is coming before us. We all acknowledge the CAFE
standards bill that is before us is long overdue. We all understand
that it is very good legislation. We all understand that the cellulosic
provisions--the postcorn ethanol--are very important. It is here,
although it has some problems. The President finds some problems with
it. So do many on our side find problems with it. But it is in here.
But the issue is not whether that is a good package. The issue is
what is going to happen if we decide we are going to pass this bill
with the taxes that are in it as it sits before us at the
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desk, $21 billion worth of taxes. What is going to happen to the bill
if we pass it with those taxes in? It is very simple: It is going to
get vetoed. We have heard it. The President has said it. The only thing
we could do would be to get a tape recorder and ask him to say it and
bring that down here and make it legal and let him tell us. He has said
he doesn't want those taxes on this bill.
We still have people voting for this, as I talked to them, because
they want this bill. They say it is great; it is a wonderful bill. I
ask you, how are you going to get a bill if you leave the taxes on and
send it to the President when he has already told you in advance he was
going to veto it? What we should do is, if you want the bill, produce a
bill the President will sign.
We have already taken one giant step. We took out the mandatory wind
for electricity production. A percentage was mandated, and we took that
out. Now, today, the issue is, Are we going to take out the taxes? That
is the vote when we come to a vote on the Energy bill.
Some people think that is a nice vote; I like the taxes; I am going
to vote for them. But the point is, you are not going to get the taxes
and you are going to lose with it the energy portion of the bill
because the President is going to veto it. I can't answer any more than
to repeat what he has said. I am not his spokesman on the floor; I am
merely repeating what has come up Pennsylvania Avenue from down there
where he lives and up here where we work. He has said: If the taxes are
in, the bill is gone. So it looks to me as if those who want a winner
ought to vote to take the taxes.
Those who want a loser ought to vote to leave the taxes in and they
will get their wish. But they will not only lose the taxes--which some
say: They are pretty good; I like them--they will lose the entire
Energy bill on CAFE and cellulosic, which follows right after ethanol
and is desperately needed to buttress the ethanol market, as my friend
who spoke eloquently for her side of this bill knows.
We need the bill on cellulosic. I call it ethanol 2 for simplicity.
We need it because we need to get that ethanol market stabilized a
little better and come in with a second kind of product instead of just
corn. But we are not going to get that, so the wishers are not going to
get their wishes, if they vote for the taxes, even if they say: I have
looked at them, and I love them. Lots of people love taxes. Some have
looked at this $21 billion or $20-plus billion and said: We love them.
They are great. They are incentives. They are the right thing.
But, look, the point is, this is not the bill you are going to get
them on. You are not going to get the taxes on a bill that is
essentially an energy bill. Send the President an energy bill. Send the
President an energy bill and look around for another time when we could
send him the tax bill.
I still talk to Senators--some yesterday--and they say: Well, I think
the taxes belong in. And I ask them: How do you think we are going to
get the CAFE standards, which you certainly would acknowledge is one of
the most important energy measures we could do? ``Well, we will just
vote for it.'' No, we won't. The President is going to veto it if the
taxes that you like so much are in it.
So why don't we take the taxes off and send the President a clean
bill with CAFE, cellulosic, and a couple other things? It would then be
an energy bill which he would want and he would sign, and instead of a
veto, we would have a victory party. That would be good, it seems to
me.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Webb). Who yields time?
The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican side has 5\1/2\ minutes and the
majority has 6 minutes 52 seconds.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately
prior to the cloture vote, each leader be permitted to use leader time,
with the majority leader speaking last.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, if I could respond to a couple of things
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said because this is an
important debate. If there are people who want to continue to debate
the farm proposal we are going to be voting on this morning, I will be
happy to yield the floor. But not seeing that, I am happy to continue
the discussion on the Energy bill.
Both Senators from New Mexico have played an incredible leadership
role in energy, and the 2005 Energy bill was a bipartisan effort. I
certainly know what it is like to take half a loaf. That was not the
bill I would have written myself, but I voted for that legislation. I
think it started us on a course of making investments in renewable
energy technology that was beneficial.
In particular I happen to disagree that the 2005 tax provisions, as
they related to more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, have been
a big benefit for us. We even had an executive of an oil company say
they did not think they were going to have much impact. So now
consumers in my State are paying over $3 at the pump, and home heating
oil prices are up 35 percent. So I do not think those subsidies to the
oil industry have had any kind of magnificent impact that my colleague
from Texas was saying.
What we do know is the investment we started in the 2005 bill in
renewable energy is having an incredible impact. The question is
whether we are going to give predictability to that industry. I would
hate to think this is a vote--whether it is on this bill or any future
bill; and this Senator would certainly take these provisions and put
them on lots of different vehicles. It does not have to always be in
this precise fashion--but the fact is, this bill and these tax
incentives will generate over 50,000 megawatts of new, clean energy
supply and efficiencies. That is right, it does create new generation.
Mr. President, 50,000 megawatts, in case anybody wants to know, is
the same amount of electricity that is used in 26 States today. So the
question is whether we are going to have a 1-year extension--that is,
until 2008--for renewable energy, or whether we are going to give them
2, 3, 4 years of predictability so we can get that generation, as I
said, that will produce enough electricity for 26 States out of
renewable and efficiency generation, instead of continuing to use those
tax subsidies for the oil industry that, even by their own account,
they say are not having a significant impact.
So I would say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I
have heard what the President has said. We have heard all along that he
thinks these particular provisions are raising revenues on one
industry. The President included in his own budget a broader reduction
in the subsidies that we had previously passed, and nowhere did he call
that raising revenue. So by his own account, it is hypocrisy to now
start claiming these are somehow different.
What we need is to pass this Energy bill. I look forward to working
with my colleagues in a bipartisan fashion on many of the provisions
that are in this legislation that will diversify us off of fossil fuel
and get us into renewables and biofuels, so we can lower the price at
the pump for consumers.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in morning business at this time?
Amendment No. 3695, as Modified
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is debating the Dorgan-Grassley
amendment.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains before the vote?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents have 2 minutes 25 seconds, and
the opponents have 5 minutes 29 seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, would you like a
couple minutes?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me understand, we are debating my
amendment, and I have 2 minutes left on my amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, somebody spoke off
your amendment.
Mr. DORGAN. I understand. About energy?
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Mr. DOMENICI. About energy.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take the time that remains on our
side, at least.
We have a 9:15 vote, and the vote is a vote on determining whether we
are going to continue to do business the way we have always done
business on these issues or whether we are going to vote for some
change here and some reform.
This amendment is very simple. It provides some payment limitations
with respect to the farm bill. It says those people who have never
farmed and are never going to farm, living on land that has not
produced a crop for 20 years, should not be getting farm program
payments. But they are today, and they will under the bill that is here
on the floor of the Senate.
I support the bill on the floor of the Senate, but I want to improve
it by amending it with these payment limitations. My colleague, Senator
Grassley, joins me. My colleague, Senator Nelson from Nebraska, joins
me, and others.
This issue is some payment limitations. We are supposed to provide a
farm program that helps family farmers during tough periods. This farm
program has become a set of golden arches for some of the biggest
corporate farms in this country. Millions of dollars are being sucked
out of this farm program in large payments for large corporate
agrifactories. That is No. 1.
No. 2, as I have indicated, we have farm program payments going to
people who have never farmed and never will farm. Mr. President, in the
last 5 years, $1.3 billion went from this country's Treasury in farm
program payments to people who are not farming. Think of that: $1.3
billion.
Do you think there might have been a better use for that? Do you
think maybe if we recovered that $1.3 billion we could provide a better
safety net for family farmers when they run into a tough patch or a
tough spell? In my judgment, the answer is yes, we could do much
better.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me ask my colleague from New Mexico if
he is intending to use the remaining time.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, how much time does the Senator have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico has 5 minutes 21
seconds.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I was, I say to the Senator, but I will
be glad to give you a couple minutes. Go ahead and take a few minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I virtually said what I intended to say.
If my colleague from New Mexico wishes to speak about the Energy bill,
there has been a lot of work on an energy bill which is very important.
There has not been much debate or discussion about it. I do not object
to continuing that discussion.
But I do want to say this 9:15 vote is very important. It is about
change and reform. It is about doing the right thing for family
farmers. I hope the Dorgan-Grassley-Nelson amendment will be supported
and that we will finally say to the American people: Yes, we are about
change. We are about reform. We are about doing things right.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I yield myself the remainder of the time
I have.
I want to start over again to make sure everybody understands what I
have to say. Sometimes the most simple thing is the most difficult to
explain.
This is a very simple proposition. We have put in a bill--the Energy
bill--the work of two or three committees. It is not all an Energy
Committee bill. The lead pony in the bill is an important provision
with reference to the mileage on automobiles, and we have, for the
first time in more than two decades, changed that in this bill.
We have an ethanol 2, which is cellulosic, which follows on right
behind ethanol to make sure ethanol is stabilized and we get a huge
product in years to come to take the place of oil-based petroleum.
Those were in a bill, and they were working their way through, and
the decision was made: Well, we will put on that some taxes. They put
on $21 billion in taxes and another item that was long passed--we will
leave it alone--and all of a sudden the President of the United States
said: Well, don't send me that bill. I will veto it.
Now, I am one who happens to believe him. Since I believe him, I
think what we ought to do is see what we can do to make it most
probable we will get these two energy provisions that we need--the ones
I have just alluded to for the third time today.
It would appear to me what we ought to do to get those energy
provisions, to most probably get them--you never know until the
President signs; and this still has to go one time to the House--but it
appears to me rather simple. The way to do that is to take out the
taxes the President does not want.
They may be good incentives. They may be good taxes on bad people--
whatever it is Senators have to say--but they are bad taxes for those
who want this Energy bill. They are bad taxes for anyone who wants
these two new provisions of the Energy bill, bad because the President
will veto them and we will get nothing.
So I urge that you vote today against cloture so we will have this
bill before us, and we know, then, the majority leader will do
something to see that we get a bill. He will have some time to work on
what kind of language he wants to send to the House. It is very limited
with amendments because this is not a very ordinary way the House sent
us this bill. They sent us this as a message on one of their bills, and
that is very unique.
Nonetheless, let's not get into that.
It is simple today: Do you want an energy bill? If you want an energy
bill, then don't vote for cloture so taxes can be taken out of this
bill, and then all you have to do is send it to the House after you fix
it up, if you would like to, if the majority leader wants to repair it,
because it needs some repair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. DOMENICI. So there we go. I thank the Senate for listening. I
think it is a pretty simple proposition and I hope everybody
understands. If they want this bill, they ought to know how to vote.
Thank you.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise in support of Dorgan-Grassley
amendment No. 3695, of which I am a cosponsor, to enact commonsense,
meaningful farm program payment limitations. My bipartisan colleagues
from North Dakota and Iowa and I have offered a straightforward and
fiscally responsible proposal that would target our farm program
payments and safety net.
The current farm program payment structure has, quite simply, failed
rural America. Approximately 71 percent of our farm benefits are
absorbed by only 10 percent of the farming community. Our omnibus farm
bill is intended to promote programs that function as a safety net for
farmers, in contrast to the cash cow they've become for a few
producers. I do not favor eliminating our farm program benefits, but
rather prefer that they are targeted to small- and medium-sized
producers instead of large agribusiness.
According to farming data from the 2002 census, farms in South Dakota
that received program payments collected $16,518 on average. The
average producer in my State, then, received under $17,000 in benefits,
which pales in comparison to the $360,000 current supposed ``limit''
and does not touch the proposed $250,000 hard payment cap.
The Dorgan-Grassley amendment includes several specific limits. Under
this amendment, direct payments could not exceed $20,000 per producer;
countercyclical payments are capped at $30,000; marketing loan gains
are limited to $75,000; and total payments are restricted to $125,000.
The amendment would allow for doubling by a spouse, and also require
direct attribution. The amendment closes the triple entity loophole
that has opened up an avenue of opportunity for excessive payments.
In 2002, the Senate saw a strong vote in favor of payment limitations
with 66 Senators voting in favor of a $275,000 cap for farm program
payments. We need 60 votes this morning to pass the Dorgan-Grassley
amendment, because of the filibustering that has been threatened by the
minority party, and
[[Page S15385]]
we are working to achieve that goal. That being said, in a time of
budgetary constraints, I find it unconscionable that a Member of
Congress would not vote to restrict such egregious spending and vote to
promote our rural communities. I urge my colleagues to support this
amendment.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, first I want to thank the chairman of the
committee, the distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin and the
distinguished ranking member, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss,
for their leadership during the debate of this farm bill.
I commend them for their response to the needs and interests of our
Nation's farmers and ranchers. In my State, most of our farmers are
deeply concerned about the amendment offered by Senator Grassley and
Senator Dorgan. If it is approved it will adversely affect family farms
in many States by eliminating the ability to receive financing and
making it harder for farmers from efficiently marketing their crop.
Since the passage of the 2002 farm bill there has been a good bit of
controversy surrounding the issue of payment limits. Much of this has
been based on misinformation and is a result of misunderstanding of
modern agricultural practices. While I am pleased that the legislation
passed by the committee contains significant reforms to address the
concerns raised over the past 6 years, these reforms are not easy for
producers in my State of Mississippi to accept and will result in many
farms having to significantly alter their farming operation.
I believe it is important for us to understand just how significant
the reforms in the committee passed bill are. This legislation applies
direct attribution to the individual farmer, thus making all farm
payments transparent. The committee passed legislation would limit the
direct payment a single producer can receive to $40,000. The
legislation reduces the amount of a countercyclical payment to $60,000.
In addition, the Senate language reduces the adjusted gross income
means test for producers from $2.5 million to $750,000. While this may
still sound like a lot of money, when you consider production costs
such as a four-hundred thousand dollar cotton picker, fuel prices,
fertilizer costs, and technology fees for seed, these support levels
are quite low.
Many crops of the Midwest are enjoying record prices right now due
mostly to the use of corn in the current ethanol boom. The most
prevalent crops in the South, cotton and rice, are not seeing the
record prices created by renewable fuel incentives and tax credit
subsidies; and it is important to point out that none of these
subsidies are subject to an arbitrary limit.
Mr. President, this amendment would have a very negative impact on
the livelihood of thousands of farmers. It would undo what many farmers
today and generations before them have established through hard work,
surviving natural disasters, and the Great Depression. This amendment
is an attempt to make farmers in my State to conform to the way others
operate in very different regions of the country. Mr. President, not
every farmer should be made to fit in the same mold. I urge the Senate
to reject the Grassley-Dorgan amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
The question is on agreeing to the amendment No. 3695, the Dorgan-
Grassley payment limit amendment.
The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is my understanding that there is a
unanimous consent order in the Senate that prior to the next vote,
Senator McConnell and I would be recognized; is that true?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The leader is correct.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to
be.
The yeas and nays are ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant journal clerk called the roll.
Mr. LOTT. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced --- yeas 56, nays 43, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 424 Leg.]
YEAS--56
Akaka
Allard
Barrasso
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown
Brownback
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Clinton
Collins
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Lautenberg
Levin
Lugar
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Reed
Reid
Sanders
Schumer
Smith
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Tester
Thune
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--43
Alexander
Baucus
Bennett
Bond
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Conrad
Corker
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Dole
Domenici
Graham
Gregg
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Martinez
McCaskill
McConnell
Pryor
Roberts
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Stabenow
Vitter
Voinovich
NOT VOTING--1
McCain
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes
for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is withdrawn.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. REID. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
____________________