[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 27 (Friday, February 17, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S895-S898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CHILD LABOR IN AGRICULTURE

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this week the Gallup poll came out with a 
survey that said 85 percent of small businesses in this country are not 
hiring. They just are not hiring. When asked why, 50 percent of those 
small businesses responded that it was the health care law and 
complying with Federal regulations that were preventing them from 
hiring. Well, there probably isn't any better example of the overreach, 
overkill, and excess when it comes to regulations than the Department 
of Labor regulation on child labor in agriculture. It was put out and 
public comments were invited on the proposal last September.
  Since that time, numerous Senators and outside interest groups have 
requested a 60-day extension due to the timing of the harvest season, 
but the Department of Labor only extended that comment period for 30 
days. Then 30 Senators--led by the Senator from Kansas who authored the 
letter--sent a letter that many of us signed onto, basically asking the 
Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, to withdraw those proposed regulations 
that limit the ability of farmers and ranchers to hire young people to 
work in agriculture. In February of this year, the Department of Labor 
announced plans to repropose a portion of the regulation on child labor 
in agriculture interpreting the ``parental exception.'' But what is 
interesting about it is there have been multiple efforts made to try to 
get a response to the letter, and the Department of Labor didn't 
respond to a letter from 30 Senators.
  It strikes me that with all of the issues that were raised in that 
letter and the impact this would have on the very heartland of our 
country and the ability of farmers and ranchers and their families to 
sustain themselves and to contribute to feeding the world, it seems 
they would at least have the courtesy of responding to the points that 
were raised in that letter. But we have not yet received a response to 
that letter sent by the Senator from Kansas, Senator Moran, and 29 
other Senators who signed onto that requesting a response to the 
various issues that were raised. We will get into those in a minute. It 
strikes me as certainly odd, and perhaps I would have to say 
demonstrating an arrogance, a power to not respond to 30 Senators who, 
on behalf of their constituents, raised some issues that are very 
important to the economy of the heartland of the Midwest and the people 
I represent, and I know the Senator from Kansas represents.
  When you look at what they are proposing and the prescriptive nature 
of that, the detail they go into in restricting the ability of young 
people to work on family farm and ranch operations, you have to say: 
What were these people thinking and what world do they live in? Because 
there seems to be a parallel universe to think that all of these 
various regulations and restrictions they would impose on young people 
working in agriculture wouldn't undermine the very fabric, the very 
nature, the very foundation of American agriculture.
  Farming and ranching is inherently a family enterprise. Young people 
have contributed for generations in helping that family farm or ranch 
operation survive and prosper. They contribute. They grow up in that 
business, and in many cases they take it over. It is amazing to me, and 
incomprehensible, to think that bureaucrats in Washington, DC, could 
tell family farmers and ranchers how to run their operations with the 
kind of detail and the incredible prescription of these regulations and 
the very activities they would curtail for young people.
  I wanted to engage my colleague from Kansas on this subject. As I 
said, he was the author of the letter that was sent, along with many of 
us--30 Senators in all--asking the Department of Labor to withdraw, in 
raising a number of points about various aspects of these regulations. 
And, as I said, we will touch on those in a minute.
  I would ask my colleague from Kansas if he thinks that 85 pages of 
regulations, which is what this proposal is--do we need 85 pages of 
regulations that tell family farm and ranch operations and young people 
who work on those family farm and ranch operations how to go about 
their business? Is it necessary? Do we have to get this bureaucratic 
and impose these kinds of regulations, these kinds of costs and these 
kinds of burdens upon American agriculture at a time when--as I 
mentioned before--there are so many other costs associated with doing 
business in this country imposed by the government? The ObamaCare, the 
health care law, and as I mentioned earlier, the Gallup poll was 
mentioned by half of the small businesses who said it is one of the 
reasons why they are not hiring. All of these other regulations, many 
of which come from the EPA, but certainly the Department of Labor in 
this particular case is guilty of making it more difficult and more 
expensive to do business in this country and certainly inhibiting the 
very nature and, from an operation standpoint, the very way that a 
family farm or ranch operation conducts itself.
  I ask my colleague from Kansas his thoughts on this and whether he 
thinks

[[Page S896]]

it is necessary to have 85 pages of regulations having to regulate how 
family farm and ranch operations do their business.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I share the genuine concern expressed by 
the Senator from South Dakota. Farmers have so many things to concern 
themselves with in the ability to earn a living. The weather is not 
always their friend. Is this the right crop to grow? What are market 
conditions going to be? How do we predict? How do we have risk 
management? And always concerned about what the Federal Government, 
through its regulatory agencies and departments, is going to do, to 
create one more impediment toward the success of farms and ranches 
across our Nation, to always be worried about the issues related to the 
Environmental Protection Agency. And now comes the Department of Labor 
with a proposed set of rules that will fundamentally alter the nature 
of farming and ranching.
  The Senator from South Dakota said it well when he said that 
inherently agriculture, farming and ranching, is a family operation, 
and that is certainly the way it is across the State of Kansas and 
across the rural portions of America today. I have always been an 
advocate for the success of farmers and ranchers during my time as a 
Member of the House of Representatives and now in the Senate. Certainly 
part of that is the economic viability of that is agriculture 
determines the ability for communities across my State to survive and 
to prosper and to bring another generation of young people back to 
rural communities, back to the rural part of America. But there is also 
something very special about agriculture. It is the way that 
historically in our Nation, in the history of our country, we have been 
able to transmit our character, our values, our integrity from one 
generation to the next. It is one of the few professions left in which 
sons and daughters work side by side with moms and dads, with 
grandparents, and have that opportunity on an ongoing daily basis to 
work, to learn something about what is important in life, about 
personal responsibility, and that you cannot plan your day based upon 
your own preferences; there are cattle to be fed; there are crops to be 
harvested; that there is something more important in life than just 
what you want to do.
  Again, this is the way we live our lives. In the process of living 
this kind of life, we pass on things that are so important to the 
character of the individual, and over the history of our Nation, the 
character of who we are as Americans has been molded by the fact that 
agriculture, farmers and ranchers, have played such an important 
component in the way Americans have lived their lives.
  The Department of Labor announced a few days ago that they are going 
to repropose a portion of the rule and that they are hoping Americans, 
farmers and ranchers, Members of Congress look the other way, that they 
are doing something significant to change the onerous nature of the 
rules that are proposed. While they have agreed to repropose a portion 
of the rule related to the definition of family farms, there remain are 
two significant components important to the way we live our lives--that 
we pass on to the next generation those inherent characteristics that 
we desire so much and that we will lose the opportunity to entice a 
young person to decide agriculture is their means of earning a living 
as they grow older.
  You have to have experience as a child to learn what opportunities 
are available for you. Students who become teachers have been enthused 
about becoming a teacher because of an experience in a classroom. Well, 
it works the same way on a farm in Kansas or South Dakota or in 
Arkansas. It is the experience that child has, that young person has in 
working with their families, with neighboring farmers that causes them 
to think: When I grow up, I want to work on this family farm. I want to 
earn my living in agriculture.
  While a portion of the rule is being reproposed, don't take your eye 
off the consequences of the remainder of the rule, even if we get a 
good definition of a family farm in the reproposed rule. What remains 
is replacing the things that have a time-honored tradition and success 
in rural communities, in agriculture, in educating our kids--FFA, 4 H, 
county extension; those things are being replaced and the Department of 
Labor is going to become the decider of whether a young person has the 
capabilities to work on a family farm.
  The Department says that those things, FFA, 4 H, and county 
extension, are too local and that we have to have a nationally driven 
policy from the Department of Labor to decide how we educate and train 
and make certain we have safety for young people working on farms.
  The other part of the proposed rule that remains, that is not 
involved in any new modification and is working its way through the 
process--and we expect the Department of Labor to announce in a few 
months their final rule--is the definition of farming practices that 
even if the Department of Labor determines that this young person has 
the right safety credentials to work on the farm, these things are 
still prohibited--things such as working 6 feet off the ground. Six 
feet off the ground is where you are when you are on a tractor or when 
you are on a combine. So what the Department of Labor is doing is 
taking away a whole segment of the things that are important to young 
people on the farm. You cannot work with a wheelbarrow and a shovel to 
clean out a stall, you cannot herd cattle.
  In fact, the proposed regulation says you cannot do anything in 
animal husbandry that inflicts pain upon the animal. Those are things 
that are pretty important, such as branding and breeding and dehorning 
and vaccinating. Certainly young people across Kansas and South Dakota 
have the opportunity to do those things today and take them away, and 
it diminishes the opportunities that are important to them in earning a 
living and saving money for their future, but also takes away those 
other invaluable characteristics of working side by side with farmers 
who know the real meaning of life, with moms and dads, grandparents, 
and neighbors.
  I very much appreciate the Senator from South Dakota and the 
sentiments he expressed.
  Just another example to show the overreach of these regulations, one 
of the proposals by the Department of Labor has sought comments on 
whether we should limit the exposure of direct sunlight if the 
temperature reaches a certain limit once you factor in wind velocity 
and humidity. How is a farmer going to make a decision under those 
circumstances--whether or not this young person could work on the farm 
based upon daylight, humidity, temperature? We are going to have to 
hire a meteorologist to make a determination whether that day it is OK 
for a 15-year-old to be working on the farm.

  I have invited the Secretary of Labor to come to Kansas to experience 
farm life. That invitation was not accepted. I don't begrudge the 
Secretary of that. It is not expected necessarily that the Secretary of 
Labor would come to my State and visit with farmers, although we would 
love to tell her the story.
  We had asked for an opportunity to have a conversation with the 
Secretary of Labor here in Washington, DC. I was happy to go to her 
office. That also was denied.
  As the Senator from South Dakota indicates, a letter from 30 Members 
of the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats--it wasn't a partisan 
issue. Senator Nelson of Nebraska was my colleague in asking the 
Department to extend the comment period so that farmers, during fall 
harvest, would have a greater opportunity to comment on this rule. It 
was a bipartisan letter asking for certain information. We learned 
again this week that the Department of Labor says that letter from 30 
Senators--I don't mean this in an arrogant way, but we represent 
constituents who have serious concerns with a regulation that we 
believe will fundamentally alter the way we live our lives in 
agriculture--the answer was, we are going to treat that just like any 
other letter, which means we are going to send a form letter really 
telling, I would guess, not much of anything and certainly not 
answering our questions.
  We have asked folks across the country to take a look at the Web site 
keepfamiliesfarming.com, and we are soliciting comments from folks 
across

[[Page S897]]

the country so we can try to submit these to the Department of Labor 
and make the case known. We would ask the American people, particularly 
those who understand the importance of this issue, to rise and express 
their concern and tell the Secretary of Labor, tell the Department of 
Labor the tremendous consequences of a regulation that changes 
something that is so important to the character of rural America and 
the character of our country nationwide.
  I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with the Senator 
from South Dakota and would be glad to yield to him.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield on that point, 
what the Senator has touched upon I think is something that perhaps 
people who don't come from farm country don't appreciate as much as we 
do, and that is just the very nature of farming. Farming is, as we 
said, very much a family operation. What we are talking about right now 
with these regulations is, at a time when we have young people who want 
and need the opportunity to learn responsibility, who need to learn the 
value of hard work as well as, for that matter, earn a little extra 
spending money, this regulation would restrict their ability to do all 
three. It would be really bad for family farming and ranching in the 
State of South Dakota. I know that.
  It is also a regulation that I would say I don't think has gotten as 
much attention perhaps as some of the other ones that are out there but 
one that would have profound consequences on production agriculture.
  The Senator mentioned a couple of examples of operating farm 
equipment. If a person is on a tractor, that person probably, in most 
cases, would be higher than 6 feet, and this regulation would prevent 
them from doing things at elevations higher than 6 feet. We could also 
argue some other things that would fall into that category. How about 
working on a haystack? A farmer is going to be more than 6 feet above 
the ground.
  Some of the restrictions with regard to working with animals that are 
more than 6 months old--as the Senator mentioned, being able to herd 
cattle on the back of a horse--these are all things under these 
regulations that would be restricted or prevented for many of these 
young people.
  It seems pretty amazing that we would have a Washington bureaucracy 
dictating with this kind of specificity, with this kind of minutiae, 
how farm and ranch operations would be conducted. I would argue that 
the very organizations the Senator from Kansas mentioned--4 H, FFA, 
extension service--know full well and the families who operate farms 
know full well what the risks are. They understand. They want to 
protect their families.
  Instead, we have a Washington bureaucracy that thinks it knows best 
telling family farmers and ranchers how to go about their business in a 
way that will make it not only more difficult for them to make a living 
but also I think more difficult for young people to learn the skills 
and get the experience they will need when hopefully that time comes 
around that they can take over that operation of farming, ranching in 
Kansas, as it is in South Dakota. It is very much an intergenerational 
occupation. And it is more than just an occupation, more than just a 
vocation. It is a way of life. It is something where values are 
transmitted from one generation to another--the values of hard work, 
personal responsibility, integrity, honesty. There are so many 
character qualities that we value and that young people learn on family 
farms and ranches. So notwithstanding the economic impact on family 
farms and ranches, there is certainly a cultural and social impact on 
our family farms and ranches, and the middle of this country is 
tremendously impacted by this regulation.
  I hope the Senator from Kansas will continue to keep the heat on and 
continue to keep the pressure on in trying to get a response not only 
to the letter that he offered and that many of us signed but also to, 
if possible, get the Secretary of Labor to come to a State such as 
Kansas or, for that matter, South Dakota and actually see a family farm 
operation and how it functions because I think they are operating in a 
bubble, in a vacuum out here where there is very little understanding 
of the implications of these types of decisions. This is really an 
example of big government run amok. If we want an example of big 
government that has completely lost touch with reality, this is 
certainly an example of that.
  I encourage the Senator from Kansas, and I will support his effort 
100 percent, to keep the pressure on and trying to get them to 
recognize the impact of what they are doing and the impact it would 
have on rural agriculture and all over the world.
  Mr. MORAN. I appreciate those sentiments. I would say that these 
proposed rules did not come about as a result of Congress passing a 
piece of legislation or of there being congressional hearings finding a 
series of problems in regard to safety with young people on farms. In 
fact, the Department of Labor admits they have no real academic, 
scientific studies that were compelling them to reach this conclusion. 
In fact, there are studies out there that show that young people are 
safer today on farms.

  This is a matter that is so important to so many people. Yes, we are 
probably a significant minority, but we need the help of our colleagues 
from urban and suburban America to help us hold back this intrusion 
that will fundamentally alter American agriculture, farming and 
ranching, and a rural way of life.
  I have a letter from a young girl in Stockton, KS. Stockton is a town 
of probably about 1,500, 1,600 in population. Her point was this: I 
didn't grow up on a farm, but I love agriculture, and I need a job. 
There is only a convenience store and a bank and a grain elevator in my 
town. In the absence of my ability to work on a farm in the 
neighborhood, my ability to have a job as a teenager is greatly 
diminished. I think I might be interested in being a farmer or a 
rancher someday.
  I think it is the dream of every farmer, every farm family to be able 
to say: We are going to pass this farm on to the next generation--to 
our own kids or to young people.
  Farming is this way of life that farmers and ranchers are so proud of 
and believe they serve--and they do--they serve such a noble profession 
in feeding and clothing and providing energy to a hungry and cold and 
difficult world. Agriculture certainly is about economics, but there is 
an understanding of what farmers and ranchers do that is important to 
the world, and we need to make certain there is another generation, 
another set of young people who can step into the shoes of an aging 
population of farmers and ranchers across the country.
  Again, these proposed rules need to be totally withdrawn, and we 
ought not accept the ruse of a portion of them being proposed.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if the Senator from Kansas will yield 
quickly in closing on one point, is the Senator aware of any group that 
was consulted on this? Were there any farm organizations that were 
brought into this or had any input into this? As the Senator mentioned, 
was this solicited by anyone? Was there any rationale based upon data 
collected about safety or that sort of thing that necessitated that 
they use such a heavyhanded, big-government approach to addressing what 
they perceived to be a problem?
  Mr. MORAN. Everything I know about this topic suggests that it is 
otherwise. In fact, the farm organizations and commodity groups of the 
wide array of those who advocate across the country on behalf of 
agricultural producers are aligned with us in opposition to these 
rules. So it can't be that they were involved in the process of 
developing the rules because they--at least every organization I know 
that is involved as a commodity group or a farm organization is 
adamantly opposed to what the Department is suggesting.
  Mr. THUNE. I don't know what the Senator's average age of a farmer in 
Kansas is, but my understanding is, at least nationally, the average 
age of a farmer in this country is nearing 60 years old, which means 
one thing: somebody is going to have to fill those shoes. Somebody is 
going to have to come along and take over that farm or ranch operation. 
This is going to make it increasingly difficult to prepare that next 
generation of farmers and ranchers.

[[Page S898]]

  Again, it occurs to me that this is just something that ought to be 
withdrawn. I hope the Senator in his efforts and those of us who are 
supporting that effort will succeed. This is a perfect example of a 
big-government solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Reed). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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