[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 6, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H3102-H3106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT
OF 2007
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. DeGette). The Clerk will report the
motion.
[[Page H3103]]
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Flake 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. 2419 (an Act to
provide for the continuation of agricultural programs through
fiscal year 2012) be instructed not to recede to the
provisions contained in subtitle A of title XII of the Senate
amendment (relating to a permanent agriculture disaster
assistance program).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Flake) and the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy)
will each be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, this motion to instruct conferees is
simple. It would urge the farm bill conferees to not include a new
permanent disaster program contained in the Senate-passed farm bill.
The Senate-passed farm bill included a new and permanent disaster
program which has been estimated to cost an additional $5.1 billion.
First of all, I want to commend the House for not including the
disaster title. It is not needed. We end up paying far more than we
should in the regular subsidy programs; but to add a permanent disaster
title is simply heaping too much on the taxpayers. As I go through some
of this, you will see why.
According to the Congressional Research Service, since 1989 Congress
has passed 35 appropriations authorizations or farm disaster acts that
have added more than $60 billion in supplemental funding to USDA
programs with just under 8 percent of that coming in the last 10 years.
An analysis by the Environmental Working Group showed the Federal
Government provided $26 billion in disaster relief payments between
1985 and 2005. Congress spent more than $8 billion in disaster payments
between 2002 and 2006, with an additional $3.4 billion being made
available for the 2008 omnibus for disaster payments for losses between
2005 and 2007.
So you see, we have regular subsidy programs that are awfully big,
and then we are being asked to add a disaster title on top of that.
When we debated the bill in 2002, the 2002 farm bill, the idea was to
stop the expensive disaster assistance payments. Former Senator Daschle
said at that time: ``We are getting rid of these ad hoc disaster
payments approaches. We are actually bringing down the cost of the
Federal program.''
So in essence we were basically including permanent disaster relief
within the farm program in 2002. Or that is what was said at the time.
And now we are being asked again, let's add another disaster title
because we simply aren't subsidizing enough.
Representative Lucas of Oklahoma said during that debate: ``On the
committee, both Republicans and Democrats worked to find a balanced
bill so we would not have to come back to Congress and ask for ad hoc
disaster bills year after year. We have found that balance in the
manager's amendment.'' Again, that was in 2002.
We were told if we passed the bill in 2002, we wouldn't have to come
back again and again for disaster payments. But guess what, we were
back the next year and the next year and the next year with disaster
payments; and we are being asked again here to include a permanent
disaster title. Now believe me, if we do this, next year we will be
asked to add disaster payments again and the next year again and again.
This is nothing more than an effort to increase the baseline, to
increase more subsidies going out to farmers.
Representative Pomeroy said in 2002: ``There is a better way to go
than to add ad hoc year-to-year disaster bills that leave the farmer
and their lenders and their creditors not knowing where they stand. The
better way is to put it in the farm bill, just like this bill does.''
Let me remind you, that bill was passed. We did exactly what these
Members said we should do in order to avoid ad hoc disaster payments
henceforth. Guess what, we didn't. We have seen those payments again
and again. Now we are being asked to include a permanent disaster
title, only to see these payments again and again. It is simply too
much.
When do we stand up and say enough is enough? The taxpayer is on the
hook for too much.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I respond to the constructive tone of the
proponent of the motion to instruct with just a few words of
explanation.
Essentially there are two risks that farmers cannot control. One of
them is if the prices collapse. And we have seen prices collapse often
in the years I have been in the House below the cost of raising the
crop. In that circumstance, farmers need help.
We also see the risk of production failure where weather and natural
disasters produce a broad crop failure. Well, the 2002 farm bill
referenced by my friend, Mr. Flake, restored protection for farmers
when prices collapse. Prior to that restoration, we had a farm bill
that did not respond when prices collapsed, and during the late 1990s
we sought not one but two, maybe even three disaster bills to respond
to the price collapse. The 2002 farm bill fixed that, and with price
support payments that trigger when prices hit a certain low level, we
have not had to come the disaster route to deal with price collapse
again. The result has been a tremendous savings for taxpayers. We have
a farm bill that only pays out when farmers need it, and billions of
dollars have been reduced from the baseline for agriculture because the
pricing environment has not required the Federal Government to step in
with price support.
Now as a matter of budget principle, I would think that Mr. Flake,
and we all know he is ever-vigilant on budget matters, would very much
like bringing disaster on the budget where it is paid for rather than
rely on ad hoc disaster payments that are not paid for, that are
emergency spending. And so that is what I want to focus on during the
balance of my time.
We know that in our great Nation there will be production
circumstances causing disaster losses, and we know that these are going
to move around.
This is the U.S. drought monitor for midsummer 2006. We see a broad
pattern of drought. The very next year we had other parts of the
country facing a drought threat that really could produce disaster
losses.
{time} 1945
So we know that someplace in the country we're going to have
extraordinary circumstances that will literally threaten the family
farmers in that region.
Well, why don't we just move ahead then and, with this farm bill
opportunity, address that issue, and that's precisely where the
conferees are in terms of completing their work on this farm bill. They
have a disaster component of this bill. It is paid for in the spending
of the farm bill; no off-budget, no emergency spending. It's paid for
in the farm bill. And what's more, it involves important reforms as
well.
I expect my friend, Mr. Flake, and I agree that when you have ad hoc
program, you don't necessarily have the reins around the spending as
you'd like.
This bill is very spelled out. It only pays if the entire farm
suffers a disaster loss as defined in the statute. Earlier ad hoc
programs will pay if just a portion of the farm is hit with disaster-
type losses. This is whole farm loss that's provided for.
And we require the farmer to maintain crop insurance. We don't want
anybody relying on this disaster program as their risk protection.
They've got to provide for their own risk protection with crop
insurance, and this would only cover additional losses in the event of
a disaster situation.
You might ask, why do you need that if you've got crop insurance? And
it's well known that crop insurance leaves a significant percentage of
the farmers' costs exposed.
Now, let me just tell you, as I wrap up, why this is so important. We
have farmers putting in the most expensive crop in the history of U.S.
agriculture. The bankers that I have been visiting with in recent days
have told me that operating loans to our farmers are running 30 percent
above the amounts last year because of the extraordinary costs our
farmers are encountering.
I had a farmer tell me today that putting in his crop near Edgeley,
North Dakota ran $10,000 a day just for the fuel burned by the three
tractors. $10,000 a day. That means, while farmers usually put it all
on the table and take enormous risk at the beginning of
[[Page H3104]]
a planting season, this year, more than ever before, they've got it all
hanging out there. And if we don't have protections, those farmers that
might find themselves in a disaster loss situation would take a hit
that might very well threaten the continuation of that family farm.
So we think the best way to deal with this prospect of disaster
losses is to put it in the farm bill, make sure that it's paid for,
provided in the budget, and that's precisely what we have done.
I would resist the motion to instruct, and urge my colleagues to vote
``no.''
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. FLAKE. The gentleman mentioned that having these permanent
disaster titles built into the budget would be a good thing so we don't
have the ad hoc disaster programs. I agree, it would be. But we've done
that. That's how the last firm bill was sold to us; that yes, it's a
bit bloated; yes, it's bigger than you'd like, but it's going to
include disaster payment so we don't have to do ad hoc stuff anymore.
We're going to build it into the budget.
I read several quotes. There are several more. Let me just read one
more. Representative Combest of Texas said, ``There is a safety net
which is built into the program. I think, to my budget conscious
colleagues, of which I am one, this is more of an honest way to deal
with this problem than ad hoc disaster bill after disaster bill after
disaster bill after disaster bill.''
Now, that sounds just like what we heard. This was in 2002. And we've
had many ad hoc disaster bills pass since that time. I guarantee you,
if we pass this, with this large disaster bill attached to it, we'll
see more disaster bills after this time.
The gentleman mentioned that disaster bills come to fill in the gaps
when there are bad crop years. That's the purpose of it. In fact, we
subsidize crop disaster insurance to the tune of about $3 billion a
year, I believe. We've had many programs, many bills to do that. But it
hasn't seemed to work because we keep funding on top of that.
If you look at this chart, this chart will show 2002 through 2006,
these were not particularly bad years. In the red you will see the
subsidies that were given during this time. In the yellow you'll see
disaster payments added on top of the programs. So you see, in good
years, in bad, it doesn't matter. We seem to have crop disaster
programs and money paid out every time, no matter what.
This next chart is quite telling. Shortly before the 2002
Congressional elections, the Bush administration faced growing pressure
from ranchers and politicians in a handful of western States that were
hit hard by drought. There was pressure to actually do something to
help these ranchers.
The USDA responded with a plan to give ranchers cash payments based
on how much livestock they owned. Now, to qualify, a rancher had to be
in a county that suffered from a drought and declared a disaster by the
Agriculture Secretary in 2001 or 2002. Legislation was approved by
Congress to extend the livestock program into January of 2003 as well.
Let me just give you one example of how this works. I'll go to this
chart later. But all you have to do is to be in a county where some
kind of disaster is declared. The rules were loosened so it didn't even
have to be a weather-related disaster. Something else could trigger it
as well. And all a farmer had to do is say, or a rancher had to do is
say, I am from this county, therefore I deserve payment. Per head
livestock payment. And that was paid out.
And you had counties that had no disaster at all, or parts of
counties, in Arizona we have large counties, only 15 in the State, so
you have parts of counties that perhaps weren't suffering any disaster
at all where people were collecting payments.
But what you also had, and this will demonstrate the absurdity of the
program we have now and the eligibility rules. In Texas here, on
February 1, 2003, we had a very unfortunate incident where the Space
Shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas, upon re-entry. It scattered over
a certain part of the State. The President declared certain counties in
Texas a disaster area in order to have emergency services go and
collect the debris.
Because that was a national or, I'm sorry, a disaster declared in
certain counties, all ranchers had to do in those counties is claim
there's a disaster; I'm going to collect benefits for my livestock. And
you had, literally, millions of dollars paid out to ranchers for their
livestock because of a disaster, a space shuttle exploding over Texas.
Now, that will give you some idea of the eligibility rules that apply
here. This, we make no effort in this legislation, nor have we made any
effort in any others to really seriously tighten up these eligibility
rules. And that is simply wrong to do this.
We are embarking again, let me remind you, in 2002 we were told,
let's include a bigger bill, let's have a bigger bill that will include
disaster relief, and then we won't need to come back anymore. We'll
include it in the base bill. That's better budgeting.
That's exactly what we're hearing today, the same thing, but with no
promise that we'll actually get rid, or that we'll actually cut other
programs, go into the commodity programs, shave money here to pay it
here. No, we're just increasing the baseline substantially.
And I should note, this is not paid for in the bill. The permanent
disaster relief is above the base line. We're having to charge fees
somewhere else to pay for this. So it's not in the bill. It's not paid
for. It's actually above the baseline.
So let me just urge my colleagues, you know, we have a program here
that I think all of us, in our candid moments, realizes is out of
control. We have subsidies going here that are well beyond what is
required and necessary and right and proper. Yet, we continue to do
this simply because it makes for good politics. I would think that
we're better than that.
I would think that we can rise up, at least now, as the House did,
frankly, and say, we shouldn't have a permanent disaster title. Again,
I want to commend the House for doing that. But this is why this motion
is to instruct the conferees to go with the House version and not the
Senate version.
And I would ask my colleague, I would yield for just a minute, if you
would, if we felt that a disaster title was so needed, why wasn't it
included in the House bill, and why did we rely on the Senate to have
it?
I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman.
Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Because I yielded
back my time, anticipating you were rising to close, if you would give
me leave, I'll have about 2 minutes, 3 minutes of answers to that.
Mr. FLAKE. I will gladly yield.
Mr. POMEROY. I thank my friend.
First, there have been mistakes made in the administration of farm
programs. And, for example, the gentleman's illustration about the
Texas ranch issue relative to the space shuttle tragedy, that was not
under an ad hoc disaster bill, but we believe it was very poor
administration of relief under another program called section 32. We
would hope that never happens again. Action is taken here to make
certain that it doesn't.
The disaster bill precludes losses on livestock. Moreover, they can
only go in areas designated by the Secretary as having sustained a
disaster loss; at which time, in the legislation, it's specified that
the whole farm of the applicant has to suffer a qualifying loss. So no
more if you happen to live in an area where somebody else got hit, we
got a check for you. That's done, and tightened up considerably under
this program.
We think that all of those are good government provisions. We also
addressed in the 2002 bill, and expect it to anticipate continuing in
this bill, price support protection in the farm bill. So we have not
had, since 2002, a disaster bill to respond to collapsed prices in the
marketplace. We expect that that would absolutely continue. We've got a
provision in the farm bill to respond to that. No ad hoc disaster
required for price collapse.
And then the gentleman's question to me, I forgot. I yield back for
clarification, and I'll respond directly.
Mr. FLAKE. Well, I'd just like to ask the gentleman. In 2002 didn't
we hear exactly what we're hearing today, that if we include a
permanent disaster title, that there will be no more need for disaster
relief beyond this year?
Mr. POMEROY. Well, I can only speak for the comments the gentleman
[[Page H3105]]
quoted from my own debate. And what I was so happy about the 2002 bill
is we were restoring a safety net for farmers when prices collapsed.
During the earlier farm bill, known as Freedom to Farm, that protection
had been taken away and we had to resort to ad hoc disaster bills when
the prices collapsed. We took care of that in the last firm bill and we
have not had a disaster bill on that since.
This disaster bill relates to production loss. And we're always going
to have disasters in our country that bedevil some of our farmers
relative to disaster dimension losses. We put them in the budget. We
specify in tight reform language how the losses would be compensated.
And we think it's good budgeting.
Mr. FLAKE. Reclaiming my time, we heard some of these same arguments
in 2002, that we had tightened things up, and that we wouldn't have the
ability to game the system. Yet I mentioned the shuttle disaster as one
of the more egregious examples. There are plenty of others.
For example, after the Katrina disaster, part of the programs that we
have allow, if prices drop substantially, that prices can be locked in
at a certain price, and then farmers can go sell on the market
afterwards. The system was gamed at that point; to the loss, to the
tune of a couple of billion dollars. These were imaginary losses. These
were not real losses.
Mr. POMEROY. Will the gentleman yield on that?
Mr. FLAKE. Just 15 seconds, if I could.
Mr. POMEROY. We fixed the Katrina issue. That's another provision,
not a disaster provision. That's a provision that relates to what's
called beneficial interest, and we make adjustments reforms along the
lines sought by the White House on that one.
{time} 2000
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I would simply say in response to that,
this is what we heard in 2002, that we have fixed these loopholes, that
this has tightened up. We won't have to have ad hoc disaster payments.
There are several types. I mentioned the number of bills that have been
passed to provide this type of disaster relief, whether it was for
livestock or crop loss or something else. We just passed a myriad of
bills to do that. And every time we hear, We've tightened it up; if you
just give us a little higher baseline, if you just increase it a little
more, then we promise we won't come back again and again and again. And
here we are. We're back doing the same thing again.
I would submit, Madam Speaker, that we simply can't do this any more.
We simply can't do this.
Let me go to this chart for a minute.
May I inquire as to the time remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 15 minutes remaining.
Mr. FLAKE. I assure my colleagues I won't take my entire 15 minutes,
but let me point out this chart right here.
These are areas that have received disaster payments in 11 of the
past 21 years. When you think disaster payments, you think this is
something that happens once every decade or once every century or
something that is an odd occurrence. It doesn't always occur. Yet here
we see, look at these dots here. One, you can tell they're highly
concentrated. Certain areas keep going back for more again and again
and again. These areas where you see the dots received disaster
payments 11 out of the last 21 years. One dot equals one recipient
here.
Now 11 out of the past 21 years, if you do the math right, that's
better than once every 2 years people are coming back for disaster
payments, catastrophic losses of some type or another. So the notion
that we're taking care of it all, that we won't have any more
catastrophic disasters, I think is blown away by this chart because we
see again and again.
Another thing that's quite notable with this chart is you see there
is a very political disbursement here. I will point out one place,
right here at the top of Arkansas. You will see a smattering of dots
where this represents, believe me, millions and millions and millions
of taxpayer dollars going to disaster relief. But something funny
happens here. Once you cross the State line into Missouri, virtually no
dots at all. Very little was received at all.
Now, unless droughts respect State boundaries right along the State
line, or a tornado is deterred by a barbed wire fence, then this is
political. There is no other way to explain this. You look down here
near the panhandle of Florida into Georgia and whatnot, there are a
lot, and then as soon as you cross over that State line, virtually
nothing.
What this suggests to me, and I'm sure anybody who looks at it in
candor would say, There's probably a very active farm service
organization there that is applying for these grants and going after
that drought relief for whatever it's for.
But you have to concede there is no other way to explain this than to
see that this is extremely political. That's how it happens. That's how
it happened after 2002 when the White House was under much pressure to
provide disaster relief before the election was coming up. It doesn't
just happen under Democrat's administrations; it happens under
Republicans and everyone. We shouldn't allow this to happen.
Let me just close by saying, again, we heard this in 2002, we're
hearing it again. We bought it then. We shouldn't have. Let's not
include this $5.1 billion disaster program. I'm hearing that it's down
to $3.8. That's maybe a good sign.
Mr. POMEROY. If the gentleman would yield, I think it's the
gentleman's motion so he has the right to close.
Mr. FLAKE. I would yield 15 seconds.
Mr. POMEROY. Actually, I'm going to ask unanimous consent to get a
couple of minutes of my time back, 2 minutes of my time back, to
basically put in perspective some of the points the gentleman has
raised; and then you might want to reserve your time so you have the
opportunity to close.
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I will reserve.
Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I ask for 2 minutes of my time back that
I yielded.
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I will yield 2 minutes to the gentleman.
Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, I will speak under Mr. Flake's time, and
thank you for yielding.
The reason I yielded back was because I thought this was about ready
to draw to a close. There are a couple of points that I do want to make
and believe the record needs to make clear.
First, under the last farm bill, we haven't added billions. We've
reduced billions from the baseline for agriculture. Because we stopped
the ad hoc disaster response when prices collapsed, we had a provision
in the farm bill to respond when prices collapsed. Guess what? Prices
did not collapse, and the farm bill did not need to extend itself to
help farmers. The market took care of the farmers. That saved, over the
last farm bill, $18 billion off of the baseline in commodity payments.
Now, what happens as we try to build the farm bill this year? It
means we have $18 billion less to do it. We have come up with a farm
bill that has additional spending, every dollar of it paid for without
raising taxes.
And so this farm bill is a very tightly constructed, paid-for farm
bill in contrast to the last farm bill where $73 billion was added to
the baseline, none of it paid for, under the Republican majority that
previously ruled this Congress.
The final point I would make is that we are going to have disasters.
They will threaten the very continuation of family farms across this
country. It depends who happens to be afflicted with the disaster at a
certain point in time. The option before this Congress is we're either
going to prefund, pay for, and budget a disaster response anticipating
these losses, or we're going to continue to rely on ad hoc, off-the-
budget responses, which we believe is a less responsible way to
proceed.
I thank the gentleman for yielding and allowing me to make these
rebuttal points.
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I would yield 15 seconds. The question I
had asked before of the gentleman is why didn't the House include the
disaster.
Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Essentially, we didn't have the funding in place to support a paid-
for disaster bill. Later, negotiations between House and Senate
negotiators, and I have been right in the middle of it, found ways to
fund the bill, and at that point in time, the disaster title came back
in.
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
[[Page H3106]]
I should note, as I did before, this is not below the baseline. There
is only room because we're going well above the baseline. We're
actually charging fees or doing some other things to free up offset
money to actually pay for the disaster.
Mr. POMEROY. If I just can respond briefly.
Mr. FLAKE. Sure.
Mr. POMEROY. Madam Speaker, the ad hoc disaster programs that we have
passed did not figure into the agriculture baseline so they have not
counted.
Additionally, the baseline that we're operating under for this farm
bill is below the baseline that we operated under for the last farm
bill.
Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman.
I should note that the gentleman mentioned that we've cut billions of
dollars since the last farm bill. We haven't cut anything. The reason
that not as much has been paid out under countercyclical or some of the
other programs is being a product of high prices, and that's as the
program works. But I should note that even though there have been high
prices, we're still having disasters seemingly everywhere with very
loose definitions of what a disaster is, and I would suggest that we
will have those again, whether or not we include a permanent disaster
title. That's what experience tells us. That's what we've learned just
over the past few years. It doesn't matter if you include a permanent
disaster title or you include this under the baseline, you will have
disaster payments go out.
And my plea would be let's stand for the taxpayer here. We don't
often do that in the Congress. Let's say that enough is enough, that we
can't continue to pay out money on top of money that we said we weren't
going to pay out.
Again, I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I know we went a
little longer than we thought.
I would urge support for this motion to instruct.
Let's keep what the House did and reject the disaster title that the
Senate put in.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to instruct.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
offered by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________