[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 118 (Thursday, August 5, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6836-S6837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PIGFORD SETTLEMENT
Mrs. HAGAN. Madam President, I rise to associate myself with the
remarks of the chair of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Lincoln, as
well as Senators Grassley and Landrieu, concerning the importance of
providing funding to pay the still pending claims of the Black farmers
who were discriminated against by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This case has North Carolina roots. Timothy Pigford, a Black farmer,
was the focal point for this class action lawsuit. He grew up in
Columbus County and had a farm in Bladen County, NC. He was first
denied a Federal loan to buy a farm in 1976.
Mr. Pigford and others filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Pigford v. Glickman, alleging that the USDA maintained a pattern and
practice of discrimination against Black farmers.
In 1999, the government settled the Pigford v. Glickman case, finding
that thousands of African-American farmers were in fact discriminated
against when applying for benefits that would help their farms.
Under the terms of the settlement, eligible farmers initially were
required to submit completed claims packages by October 12, 1999. This
deadline was subsequently extended by the court to September 15, 2000.
Approximately 61,000 petitions were filed after the original October
1999 deadline but before the September 2000 late filing deadline. Of
these 61,000 petitions, only around 2,500 were permitted to proceed to
a determination on the merits. Over 25,000 additional petitions were
filed after the September 2000 late filing deadline and before the May
2008 enactment of the 2008 farm bill.
It is quite clear that inadequate notice was provided to those who
had viable claims of discrimination against the USDA. Because of this
inadequate notice, many farmers were denied participation in the
Pigford claims resolution process as late filers.
The 2008 farm bill provided $100 million to pay the outstanding
claims of the so-called late filers. However, the amount of money that
was set aside in the farm bill for the settlement is totally inadequate
to satisfy the damages that more than 4,000 African-American farmers in
North Carolina, and a total of 75,000 nationwide, could be eligible to
receive.
Last February, Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack reached a
settlement agreement with the farmers who filed claims after the
deadline set by the court who were originally denied a determination of
their Pigford claims. This settlement agreement provides, once and for
all, sufficient awards for farmers who were the victims of
discrimination at the hands of their own government, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
The Federal Government has failed to live up to its obligations to
our Black farmers, including more than 4,000 in my State of North
Carolina.
Today the Senate has the opportunity to live up to its obligations
and right this wrong. I believe it is imperative that we address this
inequity for Black farmers across the country, including those in North
Carolina, and I hope we are able to reach an agreement to resolve this
issue today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. BURRIS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BURRIS. Madam President, even though he has left the floor, I
would like to thank the distinguished Senator from Wyoming for
permitting me to proceed. I want to comment on what the distinguished
Senator from North Carolina spoke on because that is my topic as well.
We hope to be able to bring up this issue on the Senate floor and get
some justice for the Black farmers.
I come to the floor today to speak about justice and the Department
of Agriculture. Let me go back a few years.
Though civil rights legislation in the 1960s was supposed to have
outlawed racial discrimination, at least on the Federal level, a 1982
report issued by the Civil Rights Commission stated that the USDA was
``a catalyst in the decline of the black farmer.''
That year, African-American farmers received only 1 percent of all
farm ownership loans, only 2.5 percent of all farm-operating loans, and
only 1 percent of all soil and water conservation loans. That year,
too, the Reagan administration closed the USDA's Civil Rights Office--
the very arm that investigated discrimination complaints.
Adding insult to injury, when African-American and other minority
farmers filed complaints, the USDA did little to address them. In 1983,
President Reagan pushed through budget cuts that eliminated the USDA
Office of Civil Rights--and officials admitted they ``simply threw
discrimination complaints in the trash without ever responding to or
investigating them'' until 1996, when President Clinton ordered the
office re-opened.
Even when there were legal findings of discrimination at USDA, they
often went unpaid--and those that did get paid, the money often came
too late, since the farm had already been foreclosed.
In 1984 and 1985, the USDA lent $1.3 billion to farmers nationwide to
buy land. Of the almost 16,000 farmers who received those funds, only
209 were Black. By 1992, in North Carolina, the number of Black farms
had fallen to 2,498, a 64 percent drop since 1978.
In Illinois, there are many similar stories. As a child growing up on
the family farm in west central Illinois, Lloyd Johnson remembers
cropland extending for miles around, all of it owned by African-
Americans like himself. ``For a stretch of four miles, it was black-
owned land,'' the 66-year-old farmer recalls. ``Now there's mighty
few.''
Today, Johnson's farm in Alton, IL, is one of just 59 run by African
Americans across the State, down from 123 in 1997, according to revised
figures from a 2002 census. As farming has become a big business, it
has become one of the least diverse businesses around.
It was not always. In 1920, Illinois had 892 Black farmers, and
African Americans owned 14 percent of the Nation's farmland. Now they
hold less than 1 percent. The same pressure to consolidate that has
reduced the ranks of farmers for the past century is making any
turnaround unlikely, demographers say. The number of Black farmers in
Illinois, currently less than one in 1,000, appears destined to
eventually hit zero. Probably there will be none very shortly.
In 1990, The Minority Farmers Rights Act, created to address the
injustices noted at USDA, and passed in this body by former Senator
Wyche Fowler of Georgia, who sat on the Agriculture Committee,
authorized $10 million a year in technical assistance to minority
farmers.
The new program was only able to garner $2 to $3 million a year under
President Reagan, and was in danger of being de-funded altogether. As
working capital and technical assistance was systematically denied to
Black farmers across America, most rural African-American farmers did
not have access to essential legal assistance and fell prey to land
speculators and unscrupulous lawyers.
In 1994, the Land Loss Prevention Project filed a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit on behalf of Black farmers, turning key
information over to Congress to investigate discriminatory practices by
the USDA. Again, USDA released a report analyzing data from 1990 to
1995, and found that ``minorities received less than their fair share
of USDA money for crop payments, disaster payments, and loans.''
In 1997, a USDA Civil Rights Team found the agency's system for
handling civil rights complaints was still in shambles: the agency
disorganized, the process for handling complaints about program
benefits ``a failure,'' and the process for handling employment
discrimination claims was ``untimely and unresponsive.''
A follow-up report by the GAO in 1999 found that 44 percent of
program discrimination cases, and 64 percent of employment
discrimination cases, had been backlogged for over a year.
It was against this backdrop in 1997, that a group of Black farmers
led by Tim Pigford of North Carolina filed a class action lawsuit
against the USDA. In all, 22,000 farmers were granted access to the
lawsuit, and in 1999, the government admitted wrongdoing and agreed to
a $2.3 billion settlement--the largest civil rights settlement in
history.
[[Page S6837]]
However, African-American farmers had misgivings with the process of
the Pigford settlement. Many farmers who joined the lawsuit were also
denied payment. By one estimate, 9 out of 10 farmers who sought
restitution under Pigford were denied. The Bush Department of Justice
spent 56,000 office hours and 12 million contesting farmers' claims;
and many farmers feel their cases were dismissed on technicalities.
I would like to remember what Congresswoman Eva Clayton, an African-
American Democrat from North Carolina, said at a March 1999 Black
farmers rally at the Federal Courthouse in Washington, DC: ``There is
reason to despair . . . There are several reasons why the number of
black farmers is declining so rapidly. But the one that has been
documented time and time again, is the discriminatory environment
present in the Department of Agriculture . . . the very agency
established to accommodate the special needs of farmers . . . Once land
is lost, it is very difficult to recover . . . We stand here today in
despair over this history. Yet, we also stand here today in hope that
justice will prevail, and that the record will be set right for those
farmers who have been wronged . . . ''
Shortly after coming into office, President Obama's Secretary of
Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, signaled a change in direction at USDA. The
Secretary has declared ``A New Civil Rights Era at USDA,'' and stepped-
up handling of civil rights claims in the agency.
This year, Secretary Vilsack responded to concerns over handling of
the original Pigford case, agreeing to a historic second payment in
April, known as Pigford II, that would expand the settlement to farmers
who were excluded from the first case.
We are here today to help put an end to this long-standing injustice.
Pigford II is before us and will help make right this history of
discrimination by one of our own government agencies.
I want to thank Leader Reid for his unceasing efforts in bringing the
Pigford II and Cobell settlements before us, and I thank others who
came before me and those of us here today, on both sides of the aisle,
who have advanced the force of justice on this issue.
I urge my colleagues to consider carefully this important question
today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
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