[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 22, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3712-S3736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AGRICULTURE REFORM, FOOD, AND JOBS ACT of 2013

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of S. 954, which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 954) to reauthorize agricultural programs 
     through 2018.

  Pending:

       Stabenow (for Leahy) amendment No. 998, to establish a 
     pilot program for gigabit Internet projects in rural areas.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.


                           Amendment No. 960

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the 
pending amendment and call up Senate amendment No. 960 and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the 
pending amendment?

[[Page S3713]]

  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe], for himself and Mr. 
     Graham, proposes an amendment numbered 960.

  The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To repeal the nutrition entitlement programs and establish a 
               nutrition assistance block grant program)

       On page 351, between lines 12 and 13, insert the following:

   PART I--REAUTHORIZATION OF THE SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE 
                                PROGRAM

       On page 390, between line 17 and 18, insert the following:

           PART II--NUTRITION ASSISTANCE BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM

     SEC. 4001A. NUTRITION ASSISTANCE BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM.

       (a) In General.--For each of fiscal years 2015 through 
     2022, the Secretary shall establish a nutrition assistance 
     block grant program under which the Secretary shall make 
     annual grants to each participating State that establishes a 
     nutrition assistance program in the State and submits to the 
     Secretary annual reports under subsection (d).
       (b) Requirements.--As a requirement of receiving grants 
     under this section, the Governor of each participating State 
     shall certify that the State nutrition assistance program 
     includes--
       (1) work requirements;
       (2) mandatory drug testing;
       (3) verification of citizenship or proof of lawful 
     permanent residency of the United States; and
       (4) limitations on the eligible uses of benefits that are 
     at least as restrictive as the limitations in place for the 
     supplemental nutrition assistance program established under 
     the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) as 
     of May 31, 2013.
       (c) Amount of Grant.--For each fiscal year, the Secretary 
     shall make a grant to each participating State in an amount 
     equal to the product of--
       (1) the amount made available under section 4002A for the 
     applicable fiscal year; and
       (2) the proportion that--
       (A) the number of legal residents in the State whose income 
     does not exceed 100 percent of the poverty line (as defined 
     in section 673(2) of the Community Services Block Grant Act 
     (42 U.S.C. 9902(2), including any revision required by such 
     section)) applicable to a family of the size involved; bears 
     to
       (B) the number of such individuals in all participating 
     States for the applicable fiscal year, based on data for the 
     most recent fiscal year for which data is available.
       (d) Annual Report Requirements.--
       (1) In general.--Not later than January 1 of each year, 
     each State that receives a grant under this section shall 
     submit to the Secretary a report that shall include, for the 
     year covered by the report--
       (A) a description of the structure and design of the 
     nutrition assistance program of the State, including the 
     manner in which residents of the State qualify for the 
     program;
       (B) the cost the State incurs to administer the program;
       (C) whether the State has established a rainy day fund for 
     the nutrition assistance program of the State; and
       (D) general statistics about participation in the nutrition 
     assistance program.
       (2) Audit.--Each year, the Comptroller General of the 
     United States shall--
       (A) conduct an audit on the effectiveness of the 
     nutritional assistance block grant program and the manner in 
     which each participating State is implementing the program; 
     and
       (B) not later than June 30, submit to the appropriate 
     committees of Congress a report describing--
       (i) the results of the audit; and
       (ii) the manner in which the State will carry out the 
     supplemental nutrition assistance program in the State, 
     including eligibility and fraud prevention requirements.
       (e) Use of Funds.--
       (1) In general.--A State that receives a grant under this 
     section may use the grant in any manner determined to be 
     appropriate by the State to provide nutrition assistance to 
     the legal residents of the State.
       (2) Availability of funds.--Grant funds made available to a 
     State under this section shall--
       (A) remain available to the State for a period of 5 years; 
     and
       (B) after that period, shall--
       (i) revert to the Federal Government to be deposited in the 
     Treasury and used for Federal budget deficit reduction; or
       (ii) if there is no Federal budget deficit, be used to 
     reduce the Federal debt in such manner as the Secretary of 
     the Treasury considers appropriate.

     SEC. 4002A. FUNDING.

       (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated to carry out this part--
       (1) for fiscal year 2015, $45,500,000,000;
       (2) for fiscal year 2016, $46,600,000,000;
       (3) for fiscal year 2017, $47,800,000,000;
       (4) for fiscal year 2018, $49,000,000,000;
       (5) for fiscal year 2019, $50,200,000,000;
       (6) for fiscal year 2020, $51,500,000,000;
       (7) for fiscal year 2021, $52,800,000,000; and
       (8) for fiscal year 2022, $54,100,000,000.
       (b) Adjustments to Discretionary Spending Limits.--
       (1) In general.--Section 251(c) of the Balanced Budget and 
     Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 901(c)) is 
     amended by striking paragraphs (5) through (10) and inserting 
     the following:
       ``(5) with respect to fiscal year 2016, for the 
     discretionary category, $1,131,500,000,000 in new budget 
     authority;
       ``(6) with respect to fiscal year 2017, for the 
     discretionary category, $1,178,800,000,000 in new budget 
     authority;
       ``(7) with respect to fiscal year 2018, for the 
     discretionary category, $1,205,000,000,000 in new budget 
     authority;
       ``(8) with respect to fiscal year 2019, for the 
     discretionary category, $1,232,200,000,000 in new budget 
     authority;
       ``(9) with respect to fiscal year 2020, for the 
     discretionary category, $1,259,500,000,000 in new budget 
     authority; and
       ``(10) with respect to fiscal year 2021, for the 
     discretionary category, $1,286,800,000,000 in new budget 
     authority.''.
       (2) Technical and conforming amendments.--Section 251A of 
     the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 
     (2 U.S.C. 901A) is amended--
       (A) by striking the matter preceding paragraph (1) and 
     inserting the following: ``Discretionary appropriations and 
     direct spending accounts shall be reduced in accordance with 
     this section as follows:'';
       (B) by striking paragraphs (1) and (2);
       (C) by redesignating paragraphs (3) through (11) as 
     paragraphs (1) through (9), respectively;
       (D) in paragraph (2), as redesignated, by striking 
     ``paragraph (3)'' and inserting ``paragraph (1)'';
       (E) in paragraph (3), as redesignated, by striking 
     ``paragraph (4)'' each place it appears and inserting 
     ``paragraph (2)'';
       (F) in paragraph (4), as redesignated, by striking 
     ``paragraph (4)'' each place it appears and inserting 
     ``paragraph (2)'';
       (G) in paragraph (5), as redesignated--
       (i) by striking ``paragraph (5)'' each place it appears and 
     inserting ``paragraph (3)''; and
       (ii) by striking ``paragraph (6)'' each place it appears 
     and inserting ``paragraph (4)'';
       (H) in paragraph (6), as redesignated--
       (i) by striking ``paragraph (4)'' and inserting ``paragraph 
     (2)''; and
       (ii) by striking ``paragraphs (5) and (6)'' and inserting 
     ``paragraphs (3) and (4)'';
       (I) in paragraph (7), as redesignated--
       (i) by striking ``paragraph (8)'' and inserting ``paragraph 
     (6)''; and
       (ii) by striking ``paragraph (6)'' each place it appears 
     and inserting ``paragraph (4)''; and
       (J) in paragraph (9), as redesignated, by striking 
     ``paragraph (4)'' and inserting ``paragraph (2)''.

     SEC. 4003A. REPEALS.

       (a) In General.--Effective September 30, 2014, the Food and 
     Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) is repealed.
       (b) Repeal of Mandatory Funding.--
       (1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of 
     law, effective September 30, 2014, the supplemental nutrition 
     assistance program established under the Food and Nutrition 
     Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) (as in effect prior to 
     that date) shall cease to be a program funded through direct 
     spending (as defined in section 250(c) of the Balanced Budget 
     and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 900(c)) 
     prior to the amendment made by paragraph (2)).
       (2) Direct spending.--Effective September 30, 2014, section 
     250(c)(8) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit 
     Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 900(c)(8)) is amended--
       (A) in subparagraph (A), by adding ``and'' at the end;
       (B) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``; and'' at the end 
     and inserting a period; and
       (C) by striking subparagraph (C).
       (3) Entitlement authority.--Effective September 30, 2014, 
     section 3(9) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment 
     Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 622(9)) is amended--
       (A) by striking ``means--'' and all that follows through 
     ``the authority to make'' and inserting ``means the authority 
     to make'';
       (B) by striking ``; and'' and inserting a period; and
       (C) by striking subparagraph (B).
       (c) Relationship to Other Law.--Any reference in this Act, 
     an amendment made by this Act, or any other Act to the 
     supplemental nutrition assistance program shall be considered 
     to be a reference to the nutrition assistance block grant 
     program under this part.

     SEC. 4004A. BASELINE.

       Notwithstanding section 257 of the Balanced Budget and 
     Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 907), the 
     baseline shall assume that, on and after September 30, 2014, 
     no benefits shall be provided under the supplemental 
     nutrition assistance program established under the Food and 
     Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) (as in effect 
     prior to that date).

  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I say to my distinguished colleague 
from Oklahoma, if I might ask, before he proceeds on his amendment, if 
I could enter a unanimous consent about the vote.
  Mr. INHOFE. I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 12 
noon today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Inhofe 
amendment No.

[[Page S3714]]

960; that the time until noon be equally divided between Senators 
Inhofe and Stabenow or their designees; further, that no second-degree 
amendment be in order to the amendment prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank the gentlelady. We will be prepared to vote on 
the amendment at noon today.
  I find it kind of interesting that when I go back to Oklahoma--I know 
this is offensive to some people--I am back where normal people are. I 
was giving a speech, I say to the gentlelady who is managing this bill. 
Ironically, it was Duncan, OK, where they had the first hydraulic 
fracturing in 1949. I was there talking to them, and this was Democrats 
and Republicans. When they asked about the farm bill, I said: What farm 
bill, because 80 percent of the farm bill is not a farm bill, it is a 
welfare bill. We are talking about the food stamp program.
  This is a shocker to people. They don't understand this. Why would 
they call this a farm bill if 80 percent of it is talking about the 
food stamp program? It is now at $800 billion over 10 years. In the 
first 5 years, enrollment in the food stamp program has grown by 70 
percent. It has gone from 28 million families to 47 million families, 
and that is almost doubling in a period of 4 years. I don't say this 
critically. There are some people who are very liberal and feel 
government should have a greater involvement in our lives, and 
certainly that is what this system is all about. We sort of weigh these 
things and see. I cannot think of anyone who could rationally say that 
this program of food stamps could justify being increased by 100 
percent in a period of 4 years.
  It reminds me of a time many years ago when most of us had gone 
through elementary school. At that time we heard about Alexis De 
Tocquevile, a guy who came to this country. He looked at the wealth of 
America, and in the last paragraph of the last chapter of his book, he 
says: Once the people of this country finally vote themselves money out 
of the public trust, the system will fail. What he talked about there 
is that it gets to the point where 50 percent of the people are on the 
receiving end of government. I know we all remember that, and maybe a 
lot of people think that times have changed, but we have to stop 
somewhere.
  I think this amendment is the most important amendment on the farm 
bill because it actually turns this into a farm bill. I would think 
that people who are as concerned with agriculture as I am--my State of 
Oklahoma is a big agriculture State, and I am very concerned about 
agriculture. I cannot find anyone in my State who says this should be 
part of a program that would be a charity bill and could be voted on on 
its own merits and not thrown in with the farm bill.
  So over the same time period in the last 4 years, this has grown. It 
has increased by 100 percent. The cost has gone from $37 billion to $75 
billion. That is a 100-percent increase in one program.
  Enrollment in the program has even increased as the employment rate 
has declined. In 2010, when the average unemployment rate was 9.6 
percent across the country, enrollment was 40.3 million people or 
families. In 2012, when the unemployment rate was 8 percent, which is 
1.5 percent lower than it was in 2010, enrollment had increased to 46 
million people. Unfortunately, as the farm bill is written, it only 
makes a 4-percent cut in the program over 10 years, which is a cut of 
less than 0.5 percent. I think those who say: Wait a minute, we are 
cutting that program--when it is cut by 0.5 percent, that is not really 
a cut.
  The amendment is very straightforward and very simple. It converts 
the program into a block grant so that the States will have all the 
authority they need to ensure the program prevents the impoverished 
from going hungry. The funding provided is sufficient to provide 
benefits to the same number of participants as were enrolled in the 
mid-2000s. Money would be divided among the States proportionately 
based on the number of individuals who are living below the Federal 
poverty line. It would have to be fair. It is not going to go according 
to population, it is not going to go according to size or wealth, but 
to those who are living below the poverty line.
  The new program would give States the ability to keep the money they 
received for 5 years so they can build flexibility into their programs 
which will allow their programs to shrink and grow as the economy 
changes. After 5 years, any unused money would return to the Treasury 
for deficit reduction.
  While the amendment is careful to give States maximum control over 
the design and implementation of their own programs--which is what we 
want to happen--it does require them to include work requirements, 
mandatory drug testing, and verification of citizenship prior to 
qualifying anyone to participate in the program.
  If we go out in the street in any of the towns of any of the States 
in this country and ask people if it is unreasonable to require people 
to have work requirements--certainly the last time when President 
Clinton was in office, we enacted some major reforms that included work 
requirements, and most of the Democrats were very supportive of that. 
Certainly people should not be concerned about mandatory drug testing 
and verification of citizenship. The citizenship issue is something we 
hear quite often. Further, States would not be allowed to authorize 
users to purchase alcohol, tobacco, dog food, and items like that.
  In total, I expect this amendment to save some $300 billion over 10 
years relative to the current funding baseline.
  I feel very strongly about this. This is one of those issues people 
are talking about all over the country. I know when my wife comes back 
and she talks about how people who are perfectly capable of working are 
buying items such as beer, among other things, with their food stamps--
this is something that offends Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and 
conservatives alike throughout America.
  That amendment is going to come up at noon, 15 minutes from now, and 
I encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment and turn the farm 
bill into a farm bill instead of a charity bill.
  If no one else wants to speak, I would like to make one comment about 
what happened in Oklahoma.
  I came back yesterday from my State of Oklahoma. We have all seen on 
the media the disaster and the heart-wrenching things happening in 
Moore, OK. I remember so well that 14 years ago, in 1999, another 
tornado came through. If we look at it, it was on the same path as this 
tornado which came through 2 days ago, and it was just about the same 
devastation. I stood there and recalled what I saw in 1999. It breaks 
my heart when we see these people. They were trying to match missing 
parents with missing kids. Think about that.
  We had two schools. When we looked at the rubbish, we felt that all 
the kids could have been killed in there. It was hard to imagine that 
anyone could have survived. Yet some did survive.
  The early reports of the deaths were a lot higher, and the deaths are 
very important, but that is not the only thing. There are people in the 
hospitals right now who are trying--one of the hospitals had to 
evacuate every bed in that hospital when they saw it coming, and it is 
a miracle that not one person--not one of the people who was in that 
hospital--was killed. No one can understand how that could have 
happened.
  We watched this going on and we saw parents--I have 20 kids and 
grandkids and I can't imagine what it would be like to go through 
something like that. I have to say the Federal Government, the State 
government, the county government, the city of Oklahoma City, the city 
of Moore, and all the private sector have joined in together. I have 
never seen any effort, including the 1999 effort, that drew people 
together the way this has. We have seen companies represented by people 
who are builders and developers who have heavy equipment and trucks and 
things such as that and they are donating them to this cause to help 
these people.
  I want everyone to pray for these people, for the families, and for 
us to pull together and make this thing survivable. I know Oklahoma is 
in the tornado belt. Everybody reminds me of that all the time, and it 
is true. I remember being closely involved, either at the time of or 
right after, in almost every tornado in the last 25 or 30 years. A 
little town called Picher, OK, had a

[[Page S3715]]

tiny tornado, but it wiped out everything. That is the thing that is 
characteristic about tornadoes: No one survived, with one exception. 
They are now talking about accelerating the number of safe rooms and 
tornado shelters.
  This is a program that started in 1999, and I can't tell my 
colleagues--we are trying to evaluate right now how many more people in 
Oklahoma are alive today because they were taking advantage of that 
program and I am sure many more will as well.
  I know others wish to speak on this bill, but I want to say that we 
in Oklahoma appreciate the love and the help on all government levels 
as well as the private sector levels and ask sincerely for the prayers 
of everyone within earshot.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, before speaking on the amendment, I 
wish to share--and I know everyone in the Senate wishes to share--their 
thoughts and prayers with the people of Oklahoma.
  As the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma knows, I have a strong 
connection with Oklahoma. My mom grew up on a farm picking cotton in 
Oklahoma, and we have talked before about my grandparents, until they 
passed away, being there. It was a wonderful trip for my family to go 
to Ponca City, OK, in later years to my grandparents to visit every 
summer. I will never forget that in the backyard my grandparents had a 
tornado shelter, basically. It was on a little mound of dirt. We opened 
the door and it was just like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, opening the 
door and going down into the cellar. A couple of times in the middle of 
the night we had to get up and go use the cellar, and I know how 
frightening it was for me as a child to experience that.
  I know the storms have gotten more and more intense with more and 
more devastation. We all hope for the very best in the recovery for all 
the families involved.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, if I could quickly respond, I recall the 
Senator from Michigan speaking about her family background in Oklahoma. 
The only thing I disagree with is we have always had these. Statistics 
show they are not any more intense; they are not showing that they are 
getting more intense, and worse, they are just bad. The storm shelters 
the Senator from Michigan is speaking about, you drive through Oklahoma 
in the rural areas, everybody has them. We have dug them, because we 
have been using them for many years.
  The major difference here is in the major cities; they don't have 
them as we do. I would say 95 percent of people in the rural areas have 
them, but in the city, maybe half of 1 percent, so that will be getting 
some attention from us.
  I thank the Senator from Michigan for her thoughts.
  Ms. STABENOW. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma.
  Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I appreciate 
the concerns raised by the Senator, but I rise in strong opposition to 
block granting and cutting the food assistance program called SNAP, the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for our country.
  I have always viewed, as chair of the Agriculture Committee, two 
programs very similarly. The first is crop insurance, which is there 
when there is a disaster for a farmer. The second one is SNAP or the 
Supplemental Food Assistance Program, which is there when there is a 
disaster for a family. They both go up when the disasters go up, and 
they go down when things get better. So when we have droughts, when we 
have what has been happening to our farmers over the last year and 
before, we see costs go up for crop insurance. We don't cap that 
arbitrarily saying, We don't like these droughts, we don't like these 
breezes, we don't like all this stuff, so even though it is real 
important to the farmers, we are going to cap how much we will help 
them. The crop insurance is there.
  The same thing is true for a family. It wasn't that long ago--in 
fact, the beginning of 2009--when we in Michigan had the highest 
unemployment rate in the country. I believe it hit 15.7 percent 
unemployment at that time. We had an awful lot of people at that time--
and many who have continued although things are getting a lot better--
who have paid taxes all of their lives; never thought in their wildest 
dreams they would ever need help putting food on the table for their 
families, but they did. It was temporary. The average length of time 
someone needs help is 10 months. But I consider that to be a point of 
pride for our country, that we have a value system which says we are 
going to make sure when families are hit with hard times through no 
fault of their own, they are not going to starve; they are going to be 
able to put food on the table for their children. I think that is the 
best about us.
  Now that things are getting better and the unemployment rate is 
coming down, the cost of these programs is coming down. Our farm bill 
shows a cut in spending not because we have decided we are only going 
to help some people and not other people--some children, not other 
children--but because people are going back to work. They didn't need 
the help anymore, so we are seeing those lines go down. By the way, as 
crop insurance goes up because disasters and weather events have gone 
up, we are seeing family disasters going down, which is where we want 
it to go.
  Unfortunately, this amendment would cap the amount of help we would 
give on supplemental nutrition. It would cap it for 2014 at just over 
half of the current levels, so we would say we don't care how many 
families have a problem, we don't care what happens; we don't care what 
happens because of weather that wipes out a business and suddenly folks 
who have worked hard all of their lives find they need some help they 
never thought they would need. This would arbitrarily cap at just over 
half the current levels needed to maintain the current help. It would 
mean absolutely devastating results for millions of families who are 
trying to feed their children.

  If we consider the fact that about 47 percent of those who get help 
right now are children--almost half of the food help in this country is 
for children--and then we add to that another 17 percent for senior 
citizens and the disabled, and we put that together, we find this 
amendment would be insufficient to even cover those individuals, let 
alone the other 37 percent of men and women who get help right now. 
Unfortunately, block granting this program would not only--and capping 
it and cutting it--would not only hurt families who are counting on us 
for temporary help but it would create a situation where we couldn't 
respond during an economic recession as we can right now.
  Again, crop insurance means we respond. When there is a disaster, 
costs and spending go up. I support that. But in this area, if we are 
capping and block granting and sending it back to the States, there 
would be no ability to be able to do that.
  The other thing that I think is absolutely true for many of our 
States--and certainly, unfortunately, I regret to say, in my own State 
right now; it is a fact--is that by block granting and not requiring 
that the dollars be used for food assistance for families, there is no 
guarantee it will go to food assistance. None. When we look at the 
pressures on budgets and other areas for critical needs or things 
people feel are important, we have absolutely no guarantee that this 
would go to food for families.
  We have a very efficient program right now. It has one of the best 
error rates of any Federal program right now--maybe the lowest--and we 
are able to efficiently support families and do it in a way that 
guarantees they actually get the nutritious food they need.
  I am deeply concerned about the amendment. I do not support it. I 
think it takes us in exactly the wrong direction as a country. It 
leaves a whole lot of families high and dry in an economic disaster, or 
any kind of disaster that could occur for them. At their most 
vulnerable point, when they are trying to figure out what to do to get 
back on their feet, we create a situation where they don't even have 
enough food for their families to be able to feed them during their 
economic crisis.
  I strongly urge colleagues to vote no on the amendment.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, would the Senator yield for a question?
  Ms. STABENOW. I would be happy to.

[[Page S3716]]

  Mr. INHOFE. In listening to the comments of the Senator from Michigan 
in opposition to this amendment, this occurred to me: Does the Senator 
from Michigan see that there is anything wrong with the fact that this 
program has increased by 100 percent in the last 4 years? And, 
secondly, does the Senator from Michigan see nothing objectionable 
about projecting this for another 4 years to be another 100-percent 
increase in costs?
  Ms. STABENOW. First, to my friend from Oklahoma, I would say the 
budget office has indicated it will not only not go up another 100 
percent, it is going down. So they have projected about an $11.5 
billion reduction which we have put into our farm bill. It is going 
down because the economy is getting better.
  We know that with food assistance, as the unemployment rate goes up, 
one of the lagging indicators, the things that aren't affected as 
quickly in coming down, is food assistance for families. So it is now 
coming down. In my judgment, it is coming down the way it should come 
down, which is the fact that people are going back to work; that is why 
it is coming down.
  Again, to arbitrarily cap something as basic as food going on the 
table for a family is something that I, with all due respect, can't 
support.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, if I may ask my colleague one last 
question. The Senator from Michigan believes it is going to be going 
down, but it did not go down when the unemployment rate went down 
between the 2 years of 2010 and 2011. What would be different about 
this time?
  Ms. STABENOW. Here is what we are finding--and it is not my belief, 
it is the CBO scoring. The Congressional Budget Office, which we rely 
on, provides objective scoring--not my judgment--and it is telling us 
it is going down. The Senator is correct that it is slow to go down. As 
unemployment goes down, it takes a little longer before food help goes 
down, because we provide some help to people as they are getting back 
to work even if they are not at full speed back to work. So it does go 
down more slowly, but they have adjusted it over the next 10 years 
showing that, in fact, the spending on food assistance is going down 
because the economy is getting better. That comes from the CBO and is 
built into the dollars we have in the bill.
  Mr. INHOFE. One last question. Even though I disagree with the answer 
of the Senator from Michigan for the second question, the first 
question is whether the Senator from Michigan finds it objectionable 
that it increased by 100 percent over the past 4 years from 2010?
  Ms. STABENOW. What I find objectionable is so many people lost their 
jobs. The reason it went up is because people were out of work. So I 
find that objectionable because a lot of those folks were in my State.
  I have worked very hard to do everything I can to support the private 
sector, and the good news is that manufacturing is coming back and 
agriculture is strong and moving forward. So in my judgment, yes, I 
find it very concerning that more people needed help putting food on 
their table. The good news is that less of them are going to in the 
next decade, and that is because people are going to be getting back to 
work.
  I believe our time has expired. I don't know if we have others who 
wish to speak at this point.
  Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. 
Lautenberg), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the Senator 
from Washington (Mrs. Murray), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Rockefeller) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 36, nays 60, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 132 Leg.]

                                YEAS--36

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Inhofe
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kirk
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Risch
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                                NAYS--60

     Baldwin
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cowan
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Isakson
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Nelson
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Lautenberg
     Menendez
     Murray
     Rockefeller
  The amendment (No. 960) was rejected.
  Mr. REID. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the 
table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Amendments Nos. 992 and 1056

  Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments 
be considered and agreed to: Franken amendment No. 992 and Vitter 
amendment No. 1056.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendments were agreed to, as follows:


                           Amendment No. 992

 (Purpose: To provide access to grocery delivery for homebound seniors 
 and individuals with disabilities eligible for supplemental nutrition 
                          assistance benefits)

       On page 351, between lines 12 and 13, insert the following:

     SEC. 4001. ACCESS TO GROCERY DELIVERY FOR HOMEBOUND SENIORS 
                   AND INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES ELIGIBLE FOR 
                   SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE BENEFITS.

       (a) In General.--Section 3(p) of the Food and Nutrition Act 
     of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2012(p)) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (3), by striking ``and'' at the end;
       (2) in paragraph (4), by striking the period at the end and 
     inserting ``; and''; and
       (3) by inserting after paragraph (4) the following:
       ``(5) a public or private nonprofit food purchasing and 
     delivery service that--
       ``(A) purchases food for, and delivers the food to, 
     individuals who are--
       ``(i) unable to shop for food; and
       ``(ii)(I) not less than 60 years of age; or
       ``(II) individuals with disabilities;
       ``(B) clearly notifies the participating household at the 
     time the household places a food order--
       ``(i) of any delivery fee associated with the food purchase 
     and delivery provided to the household by the service; and
       ``(ii) that a delivery fee cannot be paid with benefits 
     provided under the supplemental nutrition assistance program; 
     and
       ``(C) sells food purchased for the household at the price 
     paid by the service for the food without any additional cost 
     markup.''.
       (b) Issuance of Regulations.--Not later than 1 year after 
     the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue 
     regulations that--
       (1) establish criteria to identify a food purchasing and 
     delivery service described in section 3(p)(5) of the Food and 
     Nutrition Act of 2008 (as added by subsection (a)(3)); and
       (2) establish procedures to ensure that the service--
       (A) does not charge more for a food item than the price 
     paid by the service for the food item;
       (B) offers food delivery service at no or low cost to 
     households under that Act;
       (C) ensures that benefits provided under the supplemental 
     nutrition assistance program are used only to purchase food, 
     as defined in section 3 of that Act (7 U.S.C. 2012);
       (D) limits the purchase of food, and the delivery of the 
     food, to households eligible to receive services described in 
     section 3(p)(5) of that Act (as added by subsection (a)(3));
       (E) has established adequate safeguards against fraudulent 
     activities, including unauthorized use of electronic benefit 
     cards issued under that Act; and
       (F) such other requirements as the Secretary considers 
     appropriate.

[[Page S3717]]

       (c) Limitation.--Before the issuance of regulations under 
     subsection (b), the Secretary may not approve more than 20 
     food purchasing and delivery services described in section 
     3(p)(5) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (as added by 
     subsection (a)(3)) to participate as retail food stores under 
     the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
       (d) Effective Date.--This section and the amendments made 
     by this section take effect on the date that is 30 days after 
     the date of the enactment of this Act.


                           Amendment No. 1056

(Purpose: To end food stamp eligibility for convicted violent rapists, 
                       pedophiles, and murderers)

       At the end of subtitle A of title IV, insert the following:

     SEC. 4019. ELIGIBILITY DISQUALIFICATIONS FOR CERTAIN 
                   CONVICTED FELONS.

       Section 6 of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 
     2015) (as amended by section 4004) is amended by adding at 
     the end the following:
       ``(s) Disqualification for Certain Convicted Felons.--
       ``(1) In general.--An individual shall not be eligible for 
     benefits under this Act if the individual is convicted of--
       ``(A) aggravated sexual abuse under section 2241 of title 
     18, United States Code;
       ``(B) murder under section 1111 of title 18, United States 
     Code;
       ``(C) an offense under chapter 110 of title 18, United 
     States Code;
       ``(D) a Federal or State offense involving sexual assault, 
     as defined in 40002(a) of the Violence Against Women Act of 
     1994 (42 U.S.C. 13925(a)); or
       ``(E) an offense under State law determined by the Attorney 
     General to be substantially similar to an offense described 
     in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C).
       ``(2) Effects on assistance and benefits for others.--The 
     amount of benefits otherwise required to be provided to an 
     eligible household under this Act shall be determined by 
     considering the individual to whom paragraph (1) applies not 
     to be a member of such household, except that the income and 
     resources of the individual shall be considered to be income 
     and resources of the household.
       ``(3) Enforcement.--Each State shall require each 
     individual applying for benefits under this Act, during the 
     application process, to state, in writing, whether the 
     individual, or any member of the household of the individual, 
     has been convicted of a crime described in paragraph (1).''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.


               UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H. CON. RES. 25

  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to speak briefly about the Senate 
budget. At the close of my comments, I will make yet another motion to 
put the Senate budget into conference with the House.
  As we all know, we were here until 5 a.m. on March 23 to pass the 
first Senate budget through regular budgetary order in 4 years. It was 
a full, open process both in committee, with numerous amendments, and 
then on the Senate floor, with over 100 amendments voted on and over 70 
passed.
  It is now past time, many days past time, for us to begin a budget 
conference process. This will enable the Senate to return to normal 
budgetary order, and it is what our voters, both Democratic and 
Republican, in all of our States expect us to do to have a meaningful 
conference about this budget with the House.
  Good news. We are seeing some recent examples of normal compromise in 
this body that I think is worthy of some attention: the appropriations 
bill we passed through a regular order process for the remainder of 
2013 in March; the marketplace fairness bill we passed, the problem 
that had been searching for a solution for 15 to 20 years; the WRDA 
bill we passed last week; and the debates we are having about the farm 
bill today. All have involved significant open processes in a 
committee, significant open processes on the Senate floor. The Senate 
action then moves in a regular order action into discussion with the 
House.
  I think it is up to this body to show the public we don't just 
embrace regular order and normal processes on these important issues, 
but that we also embrace them on something as critically important as 
the Federal budget.
  For that reason, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 33, H. Con. Res. 25; that 
the amendment which is at the desk, the text of S. Con. Res. 8, the 
budget resolution passed by the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof; 
that H. Con. Res. 25, as amended, be agreed to, the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that the Senate 
insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House on the 
disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and that the Chair be authorized 
to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate; that following the 
authorization, two motions to instruct conferees be in order: motion to 
instruct relative to the debt limit and motion to instruct relative to 
taxes/revenue; that there be 2 hours of debate equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees prior to votes in relation to those 
motions; further, that no amendments be in order to either of the 
motions prior to the votes; and all of the above occurring with no 
intervening action or debate.
  I make that motion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection by the Senator from 
Florida?
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I would 
ask the Senator from Virginia if he would consider adding--I would ask 
consent that the Senator modify his request that it not be in order for 
the Senate to consider a conference report that includes reconciliation 
instructions to raise the debt limit.
  The reason I make that is as follows: First of all, I do respect 
regular order tremendously. In fact, I want to take this brief 
opportunity to congratulate the Judiciary Committee on the lengthy 
process with regard to the immigration bill, which I think will help us 
in the process of having a better product.
  Obviously, also, although we disagree with the outcome because of the 
way it was constructed, I also disagree with the way this budget is 
constructed. This issue of the debt limit is an extraordinary measure. 
That is why I would ask the Senator from Virginia to modify his 
request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator still modify his request?
  Mr. KAINE. I do not agree to the modification because I think that 
would be modifying the budget that was passed by this body on March 23.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I rise again in regret. The normal 
regular order of this body after both sides of the Capitol have agreed 
on a budget is to meet and that we have a proper process to instruct 
conferees to have a budget. A motion to appoint conferees to be bound 
by a requirement, no matter how worthy it is, is not the way the 
regular order functions in this body, and that is a fact.
  For 4 years I sat here and beat up on the majority leader for his 
failure to bring a budget to the floor of this Senate. We brought a 
budget to the floor. We spent many hours on all kinds of amendments, 
and now we can't go to conference unless we agree not to raise the debt 
limit.
  Does my colleague from Florida believe the House of Representatives, 
dominated by Republicans, is going to raise the debt limit? Does my 
colleague from Florida believe any conferees who are appointed, where 
we have to place certain restrictions on those conferees, that would 
apply to the other body as well? I don't think so.
  I don't think that is the way this body is supposed to function. We 
are in a gridlock. Here we are, 4 years without a budget. We finally 
get a budget, we stay up all night, and because somebody doesn't want 
to raise the debt limit we are not going to go to conference. That is 
not how this body should function.
  The American people deserve better. They deserve a budget. Every 
family in America has to live on a budget. Here we are objecting 
because there is a concern about raising the debt limit.
  All I can say to my friend from Florida is that the American people 
don't like it, and I don't like it. Most of his colleagues and the 
Republicans in this Senate don't like it that we are blocking budget 
conferees from going forward and doing what conferees are supposed to 
do. I would imagine the majority leader will continue to raise this 
motion to move forward.
  By the way, it is the regular order to have motions to instruct the 
conferees. A motion to instruct the conferees on the debt limit should 
be in order. A motion to instruct relative to taxes and revenue should 
be in order. That is

[[Page S3718]]

the regular order to do it. It is not the regular order to demand 
certain conditions on the conferees. We instruct the conferees.
  The conferees are appointed by both the majority and Republican 
leader, and we place our confidence in those conferees to reflect the 
will of the majority.

  I have to say I am disappointed in the Senator from Florida, in his 
objection and his demand that we do something that is not in the 
regular order.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, thank you. To the Senator from Arizona, 
for whom I have great respect, I would point out two things: The first 
is in his argument when stating the issue of the debt limit is a 
nonissue. Hence, I don't understand the objection to having language in 
this motion that says there will not be a raising of the debt limit. 
There should be a discussion of the debt limit in the context of the 
broader issues this country is facing. As a result, I don't understand 
why we can't just put it in that we are not going to raise the debt 
limit.
  I would also further say that I do respect this institution 
tremendously, and I do believe in regular order to the extent that we 
are talking about procedure. The problem is that the regular order of 
Washington has given us a $17 trillion debt. In fact, that is one of 
the reasons I ran for the Senate. I would submit to you, with all due 
respect to all of my colleagues who serve here, I don't think we can 
run up a $17 trillion debt without some bipartisan cooperation.
  To some extent what I am concerned about is the regular order of 
doing things in this city, where the debt limit has been raised 
consistently without any conversation about the fact that this 
government borrows 40 cents out of every dollar it spends. Never in the 
history of this country and of this Republic has a generation of 
leadership robbed a future generation like this generation of 
leadership has done.
  That is my concern. My concern is that I do not have trust in 
Washington, DC. I do not have trust--I don't care who is in charge--
that we will not recklessly, once again, raise the debt limit of the 
greatest country on Earth without any consideration for limiting the 
way we spend money in the future so that we do not bankrupt this 
extraordinary Nation, and the implications that could have on our 
children.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. I will yield to the Senator from Tennessee in just 1 
second.
  The Senator from Florida is saying, if he has an issue he feels 
strongly about, then that has to be included in any conference that is 
convened over any bill that is passed by the Senate, the House, and 
goes to conference. That is not a precedent I believe should be 
established in the Senate.
  I think I share the concern of the Senator from Florida about the 
debt and the deficit. I will match my record against anybody's as far 
as trying to eliminate the debt and the deficit, including that of the 
Senator from Florida.
  We are about to establish a precedent that if any conferees are 
appointed on bills that are passed by the House and the Senate, that we 
are free then to put certain restrictions on those conferees. If the 
Senator from Florida believes that is the right way this body should 
function, then I would suggest to him that most people would disagree 
with this kind of violation of the regular order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I am reluctant to break up this 
conversation among my fellow Republican Senators because they seem to 
be at odds, but I do want to remind all of the Senators--and I think 
the Senator from Arizona has alluded to this--we were slapped around 
unmercifully for not passing a Senate budget resolution.
  Mr. McCAIN. And deservedly so.
  Mr. DURBIN. I expected that. I would say to the Senator from Arizona 
there were answers, and I thought good answers, but not good enough. We 
passed a budget resolution. The Senator was here. It passed by one 
vote. We stayed until early in the morning hours to get it done.
  Senator Patty Murray did a masterful job in putting this together. Of 
course, our passing the resolution is only half of the story. The way 
this is supposed to work is the so-called regular order, if it differs 
between the Senate and the House, is we come together in a conference 
to work out the differences. How long have we been trying--how many 
weeks have we been trying?

  Mr. REID. Sixty-one days.
  Mr. DURBIN. Sixty-one days we have been begging the Republicans--we 
have been begging the Republicans, not all of them, to give us an 
opportunity to go to conference and work out our differences, if we 
can.
  That is the regular order. And each time we have asked, as Senator 
Kaine of Virginia did this morning, there has been a condition to it: 
No, you can't sit down to try to work out your differences unless you 
agree ahead of time to take certain things off the table. That is not 
reasonable. It is not reasonable if you are serious about the deficit, 
if you are serious about the debt of the United States.
  I could dream up a half dozen things. All right, I won't allow us to 
go to conference if it in any way is going to touch Social Security 
benefits. All right? I think I would need a lot of support for that, 
and we wouldn't go to conference. But at the end of the day, if we are 
serious about the deficit, we are supposed to sit down and work out our 
differences, House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans. When Senator 
Kaine makes this unanimous consent request to go to a conference 
committee, he is asking for the regular order of business around here.
  Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCAIN. May I ask my friend from Illinois, isn't that what the 
regular order is, that makes it perfectly applicable, if we instruct 
the conferees, which is what we are asking for in this unanimous 
consent agreement?
  Mr. DURBIN. Yes. The Senate majority leader is on the floor, and he 
has said if there is to be a motion to instruct conferees on the debt 
ceiling, for example, then we can have a vote on the floor of the 
Senate. That is the regular order.
  Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. But to condition the granting of the unanimous consent 
request to go to conference on the concern du jour of whichever Senator 
comes to the floor is unproductive.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I haven't yielded the floor as yet, and 
I think the Senator from Texas had a question for me.
  Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Illinois, and I would ask him, if 
the position he is championing is the regular order, then why is it the 
Democrats are asking unanimous consent to set aside the regular order 
to go to conference?
  The only reason unanimous consent is needed is because you are 
endeavoring to circumvent the regular order, and by doing so opening 
the door for a procedural trick to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes 
rather than 60.
  Mr. DURBIN. I just checked with the majority leader to make sure my 
memory is correct. The Senator from Texas will learn that when we go to 
a conference committee, we are subjected to a possibility of a 
filibuster. Does that ring a note of familiarity on your side of the 
aisle? If we are going to face a filibuster and 60 votes, it is not 
going to happen.
  What we are trying to do is to establish ahead of time we are going 
to a conference. So if we go through the so-called regular order to go 
to conference, we will reach the same impasse with the Republicans 
objecting and the Republicans potentially raising the issue of a 
filibuster. That is why we are trying for this unanimous consent, which 
I would think, from the Republican side, we would have bipartisan 
agreement that we move to a conference committee.
  Mr. CRUZ. Would the Senator yield for another question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am sorry, I am mistaken, and, thankfully, have been 
corrected. It is not a filibuster. It would call for using the House 
resolution of 50 hours of debate and another vote-arama to go through 
the regular order of things. It is not a filibuster. I stand corrected 
on that.
  But the net result of it is to drag out as long, if not longer, than 
the earlier

[[Page S3719]]

debate on the Senate budget resolution. That is why the unanimous 
consent request has been made.
  Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for an additional question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. CRUZ. So if I understand correctly, we are agreed now this is not 
the regular order. The Senate is not following the regular order that 
would have been taking up the House budget resolution and voting on 
that. That is not what is being pursued here, which is why the majority 
is seeking unanimous consent to set aside the rules.
  But let me ask the question, if I might----
  Mr. DURBIN. I yielded for a question, and I will respond. Then you 
may ask another, if you wish.
  It is the regular order of things to ask for unanimous consent, and 
it is the usual and customary way the Senate works so that we don't 
have to repeat all over again the debate on the budget resolution to 
take up the House version. So it is not unusual. It is the regular 
order.
  Mr. CRUZ. I would suggest that unanimous consent is used to 
circumvent the regular order----
  Mr. DURBIN. No.
  Mr. CRUZ. And in particular the debt ceiling was not contained in the 
budget, it was not debated in the budget, it is not part of the budget, 
and the only question here--we could have gone to conference 60 days 
ago if the Democrats had simply agreed not to use reconciliation as a 
backdoor trick to raise the debt ceiling, which has happened three 
times in the past. So this is not a hypothetical risk. This is, I 
believe, the intention of the majority, and it is why we are objecting 
to raising the debt ceiling--to issuing an unlimited credit card--and 
digging the hole deeper without actually fixing the problem.
  Mr. DURBIN. To respond to the Senator from Texas, we have been 
through this before. In the House of Representatives they threatened 
not to extend the debt ceiling of the United States and caused severe 
damage to our economy. Business leaders, labor leaders, families across 
America asked: How could the Congress do something so irresponsible as 
to not extend the debt ceiling of the United States? The President said 
he is not going to get into a political bargain over the debt ceiling 
of the United States. He is right. This ought to be something both 
parties take very seriously, as to whether we would jeopardize the full 
faith and credit of the United States of America, whether we----

  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a further question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I will in one moment, as soon as I finish replying to the 
Senator from Texas.
  So the notion this debt ceiling is something we can casually say 
whether it is approved and extended makes no difference--it makes a big 
difference. And whether it is included in this, in terms of the budget 
resolution, remains to be seen. But we could have a motion to instruct 
the conferees relative to the debt ceiling. I think that has already 
been discussed.
  What I am saying is: Why in the world aren't we sitting at a table 
this day, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, trying to work 
out our differences? I think most American people would ask: Isn't that 
why we sent you to Washington? Yet we run into these objections to 
unanimous consent requests.
  I yield to the Senator from Arizona for a question.
  Mr. McCAIN. Isn't it a little bizarre, this whole exercise we are 
going through, when some of us are asking to go to conference with a 
body that is dominated by the Members of our own party? We don't have, 
apparently, enough confidence the majority of the conference appointed 
by the other side of the Capitol will be a majority of Republicans and 
not Democrats? Isn't that a little bizarre?
  And really, what we are talking about here, I will be very honest 
with my colleague from Illinois, is a minority within a minority. 
Because the majority of my colleagues in the Senate on this side of the 
aisle, with motions to instruct the conferees, want to move forward and 
appoint these conferees and do what every American family has to do in 
America and that is to have a budget.
  Mr. DURBIN. I will yield the floor, because others wish to speak, but 
I will say that at this point in time we have passed a Senate budget 
resolution. We were challenged by the Republicans to do it, and we did 
it. It wasn't easy. It was a close vote, but we did it. Now we want to 
move to the next logical step and sit down with the House, resolve our 
differences and move on so we can reduce the debt of this United States 
in a responsible and orderly way.
  The objection on the other side of the aisle for 61 days should come 
to an end. I salute my friend from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would ask my friend again, basically what we are saying 
here on this side of the aisle is that we don't trust our colleagues on 
the other side of the Capitol who are, in the majority, Republicans. I 
guess that is the lesson that can be learned here.
  But far more importantly than that--far more importantly than that--
in a recent poll I saw, 16 percent of the American people approve of 
Congress. When I go home and have townhall meetings and I say: You know 
what, my friends, we don't even have a budget. We can't even agree, 
Republicans and Democrats--Republicans and Republicans in this case--to 
have a budget, the same as every American family does. Does that 
contribute to the approval and the respect the people of this country 
have for us? The answer is obviously no.
  So I urge my colleagues again, let's put some confidence in, if not 
the conferees appointed here, the conferees who will be appointed on 
the other side of the Capitol who are from our party, who are fiscal 
conservatives just as we are, instead of this blocking by what I assure 
my colleagues--all three of them here--is a minority of the minority of 
Republicans in the Senate who do not want to move forward with a budget 
that we spent so many hours and so much effort in achieving. Do not 
block it from going forward.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I salute the Senator from Arizona for 
his intuitive, wise analysis of this situation. I am sorry we still 
have an objection from the Republican side of the aisle to go to a 
conference committee with Republican House Members dominating that 
conference on their side. Apparently, they do not have confidence those 
House Members can speak for them, but I think it is important we do 
move to this conference committee as soon as possible.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to associate myself briefly with 
the comments of both Senators McCain and Durbin. This is not primarily 
about the budget. This is not primarily about Senate rules. This is 
about compromise. In Congress, a bicameral body, the Framers 
established compromise was necessary to take action. Will we allow 
processes to go forward so we can listen to each other, dialog, and 
find compromise, or will we use procedural mechanisms to block 
processes of dialog and compromise even from starting?
  The Senate budget is a very different budget than the House budget. 
We are all free to have our preferred option. But the way we get to a 
final budget is to have Senate and House conferees sit down together, 
in what no doubt will be a difficult discussion, and to compare budgets 
and debate and dialog and find compromise.
  The Senate acted on the 23rd of March by a majority vote in accord 
with the rules of this body to pass a Senate budget after 4 years. The 
effort to object to the beginning of a conference, make no mistake 
about it, is fundamentally an effort to block processes of compromise. 
In the living organism of government that was established by our 
Framers, compromise is the blood that keeps the organism alive. Efforts 
to block compromise are fundamentally efforts that are destructive of 
this institution.
  So I stand by the motion I have made. I ask my colleagues to allow 
processes of compromise to go forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, the senior Senator from Arizona urged this 
body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear: I don't trust the 
Republicans and I don't trust the Democrats. I think a whole lot of 
Americans likewise don't trust Republicans and the Democrats because it 
is leadership in

[[Page S3720]]

both parties that has gotten us in this mess.
  My wife and I have two little girls at home. They are 5 and 2. When 
Caroline was born, our national debt was $10 trillion. Today it is 
nearly $17 trillion. In her short 5 years of life, the national debt 
has grown by over 60 percent. What we are doing to our kids and 
grandkids is immoral.
  I commend the Democrats in this body for their candor. The Democrats 
and President Obama have been very explicit. It is their intention to 
raise the debt ceiling, and to do so with no conditions whatsoever--to 
keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing money without any structural 
reforms to fix the problems. That is an intellectually consistent 
position. I think it is a dangerous position but it is at least candid. 
That is the reason why every day, for 60 days, the Democrats have 
opposed taking the debt ceiling off the table in this discussion.
  Unfortunately, one of the reasons we got into this mess is because a 
lot of Republicans were complicit in this spending spree. That is why 
so many Americans are disgusted with both sides of this body, because 
we need leaders on both sides to do as my friend from Virginia said, to 
roll up our sleeves, to compromise and to work together and fix the 
problem--fix the enormous fiscal and economic problems and stop 
bankrupting our country.
  What this issue is all about is very simple: Will we allow the debt 
ceiling to be raised in an unlimited amount with a 50-vote threshold? 
And if the answer to that is yes, we have, in effect, just voted to 
raise the debt ceiling because the Democrats hold a majority of this 
body--55 seats--and the Democrats are explicit that they want to raise 
the debt ceiling. If we go to conference without the debt ceiling being 
taken off the plate, it is a 100-percent certainty the debt ceiling 
will be raised. It has been done three times in recent history. Every 
Republican who stands against holding the line here is saying: Let's 
give the Democrats a blank check to borrow any money they want, with no 
reforms, no leadership to fix the problem. I don't think that is 
consistent with any of our responsibilities.
  A final point. Much has been said about the budget was debated, the 
budget was considered, and that is surely true. But the budget contains 
nothing about the debt ceiling. The budget did not consider the debt 
ceiling. When all of us were here all night debating the budget, we 
didn't debate the debt ceiling. The question here is whether the 
majority of the Senate will be able to bootstrap the debt ceiling--a 
totally different issue--onto the budget. And the reason for doing it 
is to use a political trick. It would allow the majority to pass a debt 
ceiling increase on just 50 votes.
  I think it would be profoundly irresponsible for this body to raise 
the debt ceiling without fixing the problem--without getting the 
economy going, without getting jobs back, and without stopping the path 
we are on of bankrupting this country. That is what this fight is 
about.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I want to follow up on some of the comments 
made by my friend and colleague, the junior Senator from Virginia. I 
agree wholeheartedly that we need to have this debate. We need a 
budget. The American people want it, they deserve it, they have been 
without it for 4 years.
  It is because we want this debate and it is because we want this 
issue debated in public that we have this concern. In other words, as 
the Senator from Texas pointed out a moment ago, there are a lot of 
issues that were discussed and debated and voted on when we were 
addressing the budget resolution a couple of months ago. We were here 
until 5 in the morning making sure we could get through all the 
amendments.
  At no point during that very lengthy discussion in connection with 
the budget resolution did we discuss or address or have a vote on or in 
any way make a decision regarding the debt ceiling. That is a separate 
debate, one that did not come up in connection with the budget 
resolution. It is a debate that needs to happen. Just as the discussion 
of the budget resolution needs to move forward, we do need to have a 
public debate and ultimately a vote with regard to the debt ceiling. 
The American people expect us to have this debate. They expect us to 
have it in the light of day and not under cover of darkness behind 
closed doors, resulting in one of those infamous backroom deals that 
have given Washington its often much-deserved bad name.
  The debt ceiling was not in the bill. It was not in the budget 
resolution. We have not debated it. All we are asking for is that the 
other side agree that they will not use budget reconciliation as a 
mechanism for working a backroom deal to raise the debt limit. The 
American people expect us to debate this, not in secret but in public. 
That is what we are trying to do.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, since I raised the objection today, I 
wanted to close my comments by accurately describing to the people at 
home or in the gallery or elsewhere what is happening here. Maybe some 
folks are wondering what this is all about. It is pretty 
straightforward. In fact, for over 1,000 days the Senate did not pass a 
budget under the leadership of the current majority, and we did 
complain about that because that was problematic. Ultimately, this 
year, they finally passed a budget--one which, quite frankly, doesn't 
deal with our debt and doesn't help grow our economy, but they passed a 
budget.
  The House has passed its budget. The Senate has passed a budget. The 
way it works is that now both sides are supposed to sit down and 
negotiate. What is happening is that a motion is being made to start 
these negotiations. Nobody here is objecting to these negotiations. 
That can begin today. This process they want can happen right this very 
moment. The only thing we are asking is that it be clear that as part 
of that negotiation--an increase in the debt limit not be part of it. 
Here is why it is so important that it not be part of it: because we 
have not discussed it. As the Senator from Texas pointed out, when we 
debated the budget we did not debate the debt limit.
  Let me tell you what the debt limit is. It is the credit line of the 
United States. It is how much money the government is allowed to 
borrow. This is not a trivial matter. I heard people stand here today, 
my fellow Senators, and say: You can raise any objection to any issue 
you want to stop the whole process. This is not a trivial objection. I 
am not asking that key lime pie be made the official pie of the United 
States or some ridiculous thing. This is the debt limit, something that 
has been called the single greatest national security problem facing 
the United States of America by a national security official.
  All we are saying is that you cannot come back from that conference 
with an increase in the debt limit because if that happens, it will be 
a 51-vote majority here to do it as a matter of routine.
  Frankly, the problem is that the debt limit increases have become a 
matter of routine, and that is how we get from $10 trillion to $16.5 
trillion in such a short period of time.
  Ultimately, you are right. We should not treat the debt limit 
casually. That means we should not just casually and cavalierly say we 
will never raise it no matter what, no matter you do, but we also 
should not just casually raise it as a matter of routine, and that is 
the fundamental problem. The impact this is having on our economy is 
serious.
  I deeply respect this institution. One of the reasons I ran for the 
Senate is I thought I could make a difference because in this Senate 
even a minority within the minority can make a difference.
  Let me tell you, one day in the future I will not serve here anymore, 
and someday in the future my children, who today are very young, will 
have to deal with the consequences of the decisions we make or fail to 
make in my time in the Senate. If what they inherit is an economy 
crippled by the horrifying decisions that have been made here now and 
in the past, I am going to have to answer for that. I am going to have 
to explain to them.
  What did you do or what did you not do when you were in the Senate? 
How could you have allowed this debt to go forward? What did you do to 
do something about this debt issue?

[[Page S3721]]

  My answer to them cannot be, well, I followed the regular order. I 
played along to get along. I went ahead and acquiesced to what my 
colleagues wanted.
  That cannot be my answer. That will not be my answer.
  The bottom line is that we can move to conference right now, we can 
begin negotiating with the House this very day. All we are asking--all 
we are asking is that as part of that negotiation, they cannot come 
back here with a debt limit as part of it. The debt limit is an 
important issue. It should be discussed on its own as it relates to the 
entire economy, not simply the 1-year budget of the United States of 
America. That is the basis of our objection.
  If the majority would reconsider their position and come to the floor 
and offer the same motion but with language that clearly says it cannot 
include reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit, we will be 
in conference with the House this very day. But if they fail to do 
that, we cannot move forward because what we cannot do is continue to 
routinely raise the debt limit of this country without any serious 
conversation about how we are going to begin to put our fiscal House in 
order because the impact it is having on our economy is disastrous.
  Our economy is not growing. There are people in America right now who 
are unemployed or underemployed because the debt is scaring people away 
from investing in our economy and in our future. If we do nothing about 
that, then, my colleagues, we will be the first generation of Americans 
to leave the next generation worse off. That has never happened in our 
history.
  I hope we can come together to prevent that from happening because I 
think that if we do some simple but important things for our country, 
including bringing our debt under control, I believe that if we do 
that, this new century, this 21st century, can also be an American 
century.
  My hope is that at some point today or tomorrow or the next few days 
we come to this floor and make a motion to go to conference with very 
simple and straightforward language that says the conference report 
cannot include reconciliation instructions to raise the debt limit.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. I would like to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Tragedy in Oklahoma

  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk about the tragedy this 
week in Oklahoma. This is the 2-year anniversary of the Joplin tornado 
we had 90 miles from my home, a district that I represented for a long 
time before I came to the Senate and still get to represent now as part 
of our State. But I want to be sure we take time yet again today to let 
people in Oklahoma know that our thoughts are with them, our prayers 
are with them.
  First responders are continuing to search and rescue. Their recovery 
efforts are happening. Words clearly cannot describe the loss these 
communities and the community particularly of Moore, OK, have had in 
the last few days. I know the Nation is praying for them. I am too--for 
the people who lost children at the local elementary schools. The 
thought of sending somebody to school in the morning and them not 
coming home that day is a tragedy that will affect people's lives 
forever. The friends who are lost, the family members who are lost will 
always be part of the ongoing impact that they have on that family and 
that community.
  In Joplin, MO, 2 years ago we had 161 people die. The community has 
come back in incredible ways, but you never want to minimize in any way 
the loss of those 161 lives. Every one of them had a story to tell, 
just as every one of the people lost in Moore, OK, and in other places 
in Oklahoma in recent days has a story to tell.
  It was a big storm. It affected people. Pretty quickly you figure out 
that while you regret the property you lost, the property you lost is 
not really all that important, but the lives that were lost are. In 
addition to the 161 people killed in Joplin, MO, on May 22, 2011, 7,000 
homes were gone. I was there the next day or the day after. They were 
gone. It was like a nuclear blast. The pictures from Moore, OK, remind 
me of that. Five hundred businesses were gone.
  I will say for the people in Joplin, they immediately began to think 
about Joplin tomorrow instead of Joplin yesterday. Two years later it 
is still a community dealing with loss, but it is a community that is 
building new schools and new businesses, and houses are under 
construction. I talked to someone just yesterday. Their family member 
was about to get into a house that Habitat helped them build.
  One of the things I found out that I had never really thought about 
even though I had a lot of experience with storm loss--never anything 
like 7,000 homes at one time--the people who are the least likely to 
have insurance are the people who have their house paid for. In that 
group, they are the least likely, or the people who may have inherited 
the house from their parents, because there is no banker to tell them 
they have to have an insurance policy. Maybe it was just kind of a 
seamless moving back home or staying home and suddenly that house is 
gone.
  By the way, this is something the Federal Government--really probably 
rightly--does not have a role in. If you do not have insurance, you 
made that choice not to have insurance. When we talk about Federal aid, 
we are almost always talking about cleaning up the streets, the water 
systems, the power facilities, getting the community back in order. 
There are some programs for public buildings that are available. It is 
not that we are going to go in and help you rebuild your house if you 
chose not to have insurance. That is not what happens.
  But volunteers immediately show up. The first volunteers are your 
neighbors. The first responders are your neighbors. It happened this 
week in Oklahoma. It happened 2 years ago in Joplin. As soon as people 
had brushed themselves off and found their own family members, they 
began to look up and down the street to see whom they could help, whom 
they could help dig out of rubble or whom they could help secure 
something they were concerned about. Those are the first responders.
  Then your neighbors from not too far away--in fact, Oklahoma is right 
on the edge of our State. They are our neighbors. There were people 
from--public officials, fire and water and police from Joplin who were 
there within 12 hours, and they will be back when they are needed.
  There is a lot to be done. The one thing I would advise people who 
want to know what they can personally do to help--there are places to 
send money, there are charities to help. They are helping. All those 
things are important and good. My personal advice if you want to help, 
if you can at all, find out before you go what it is you are going to 
be doing. The last thing communities in this kind of situation need is 
a lot of people wandering around, wondering what they can do to help. 
There are plenty of people wandering around already. But if you come 
through your church, your civic club, through some organization you 
have helped in the past, through Habitat for Humanity, through a group 
you have worked with before that does this--link up with them and go. 
That is probably the better thing to do.
  There is a lot to be done. First responders, as I said, are your 
neighbors. By the way, they are also the last responders. The people 
still there 2 years later helping build a Habitat for Humanity house 
are probably at that point your neighbors. They are probably not 
Habitat for Humanity from 1,000 miles away. They are local people who 
have finally found another family who needs help, and they are helping 
them.
  This disaster, by all recent standards, deserves Federal assistance. 
FEMA is there, but beyond that, the Federal assistance that we give 
when a disaster is too big for a community to handle on its own and too 
big for the community and the State they are in to handle on their own, 
that is where the Federal Government should step in and does and will.
  There are people all over the country who want to help, but they also 
are going to be helping as taxpayers. It appears that the resources to 
do that are in the current pipeline. As I said, FEMA is there. We are 
going to be there, I am sure, working in this body with our colleagues, 
Senator Coburn

[[Page S3722]]

and Senator Inhofe, to do our best to reach out to our fellow Americans 
who have a real tragedy, and that is a tragedy where all the American 
people can step up and help by doing what we do when these disasters 
strike.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I would like to associate myself with the 
wise words of my colleague from Missouri, whose State has experienced 
so much tragedy last year much like the devastation in Oklahoma. On 
behalf of the State of Minnesota, our hearts and thoughts are with the 
people of Oklahoma.
  I would also like to thank Senator Blunt for cosponsoring an 
amendment in the farm bill which will make it easier for seniors and 
those with disabilities to receive groceries in their homes that is 
delivered by volunteers. They pay for it with their SNAP dollars.
  I am grateful to the whole Senate for adopting the farm bill package 
by unanimous consent. I am very grateful for that.
  I am very pleased the Senate has taken up the farm bill, and I hope 
we can pass this in the Senate and the House so our Nation's farmers 
have the certainty they need to provide food for the rest of us.
  There are so many important pieces to this bill which will be great 
for Minnesota and Wisconsin. For example, it contains provisions to 
support beginning and young farmers to help them start farming 
operations. I think the average age of a farmer in Minnesota is about 
58. We need young and beginning farmers.
  The farm bill also contains important conservation measures so 
farmers can better protect their land. It also contains a comprehensive 
energy title--that I helped to write--in order to make our agriculture 
sector and our Nation more energy independent.
  Above all, the farm bill provides a safety net for farmers, and that 
safety net is the centerpiece of this bill. The reason it is there is 
because agriculture is inherently risky. Just last year we witnessed a 
historic drought which devastated the Nation's corn and soybean crops 
and forced ranchers to cull their livestock. Agriculture is prone to 
weather disruption such as drought, flood, hail, pests, disease, and 
global market forces which can drastically disrupt prices, and that is 
why the farm bill safety net is so essential and important.
  The farm bill safety net provides disaster assurance for livestock 
producers, and it contains crop insurance so farmers have certainty 
over their planting decisions. It also contains a dairy program to make 
sure we have a healthy dairy economy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, 
New York, and other States.
  That is why we have the Sugar Program, to help protect our sugar 
growers. The program is important to Minnesota's sugar growers and to 
growers across the Nation. In addition to protecting farmers, these 
programs enhance the domestic supply of food that is so important to 
our Nation. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues don't support a strong 
farm safety net, and they have decided to go after the Sugar Program in 
the farm bill this year.
  Let's be clear about one thing: By attacking the Sugar Program, or 
any other farm safety net, they are helping to send jobs overseas. 
Ironically, this attack comes just a week after 60 Senators supported a 
provision to make sure some of the funds used in water infrastructure 
projects are used to purchase U.S. iron and U.S. steel. Some of the 
very same Senators who are fighting for a domestic steel industry are 
now turning their backs on our farmers by pulling the plug on our Sugar 
Program. I also heard some argue that we should just let the free 
market work.
  Madam President, did you know that the government of Mexico is 
Mexico's biggest producer and exporter of sugar? That is not much of a 
free market.
  Brazil, the world's largest sugarcane producer, spends billions of 
dollars to subsidize its Sugar Program. Let's be clear: Removing the 
protections we have for our domestic sugar producers will do nothing 
but kill an American industry and outsource jobs to our competitors.
  Some have depicted the amendment of Senator Shaheen and Toomey as 
nothing more than a rollback of U.S. policy to the pre-2008 policy.
  Let's be clear: The reason Congress modified the U.S. sugar policy in 
the 2008 farm bill was primarily because the provision in NAFTA, which 
allows subsidized Mexican sugar unfettered access to U.S. markets, 
kicked in in 2008. The reason the bill changed in 2008 is because the 
Sugar Program changed. Let's be clear: Eliminating or weakening the 
Sugar Program is going to kill rural jobs in America.
  I urge my colleagues to stand for agriculture and American jobs. I 
ask that my colleagues oppose the amendment of Senator Shaheen and 
Senator Toomey.
  I see the Senator from Illinois is here and about to join us on the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. The tragedy that hit Oklahoma earlier this week--killing 
innocent people and children and destroying homes, businesses, and 
schools--just reminds us of how vulnerable we are to the forces of 
nature. It wasn't the first time the wind blew in Oklahoma. In fact, 
that same community had been victimized by a tornado years ago.
  If we go back in history to the 1920s, the State of Oklahoma faced 
what we have now characterized as the Dust Bowl. I didn't know much 
about that, but I read about it. I kind of knew it destroyed lives, 
farms, and many people had to pick up and leave. They moved to 
California and other places.
  I ran across an excellent book written by a man named Tim Egan. Tim 
is from Seattle, WA. I don't know him personally, but Senator Murray 
and Senator Cantwell know him. He writes for the New York Times and 
also writes excellent books. He wrote a book called ``The Worst Hard 
Time,'' which tells the story about the Dust Bowl.
  What happened, as I understand it, was there was speculation on wheat 
during World War I. There was a scarcity of wheat because of the war in 
Europe. People in the United States saw the prices of wheat going high, 
so they started planting. They planted on fragile ground. As a 
consequence, they were churning up the ground to plant the wheat and 
were not mindful of some serious possibilities that the topsoil would 
blow away.
  One thing led to another and it became a natural disaster--the Dust 
Bowl. As a consequence, many people left Oklahoma and many people saw 
their lives change forever. Tim Egan's book, ``The Worst Hard Time,'' 
tells about that in detail.
  As a result of that experience in the 1920s, a couple of things 
happened. First, we started taking conservation seriously; for example, 
how to conserve the topsoil of our land so it doesn't blow away. 
Ultimately, this gift from God is what gives us such fertile soil.
  Secondly, because we know a farmer is at the mercy of nature, we 
started to think of ways--under President Franklin Roosevelt--to make 
sure the farmers could get through hard times, such as a bad year, a 
bad crop, or low prices.
  Starting in the 1930s with the New Deal, we started dreaming up farm 
programs, and there were many of them. I can recall when I was elected 
to Congress in 1982, I represented an agricultural district. At the 
time I knew little or nothing about farming. I was trying to learn as 
fast as I could as to the options and history of these programs. I 
learned some things, but I am certainly not an expert.
  Over the years we have tried a lot of different ways of protecting 
farmers from the vagaries of nature and the market. Not that long ago--
10 or 15 years--we had a situation where we were seeing these natural 
disasters--such as floods, droughts, and disease--that claimed crops. 
Many of the farmers affected by those came to Congress and asked for 
help. We were giving them disaster payments, we called them, to get 
them through another year.
  Well, the decision was made about 10 years ago that it would be 
better for us to deal with that unpredictability of nature and move 
away from disaster payments to a program which is known as the Crop 
Insurance Program. It speaks for itself. It is a program where a farmer 
can buy insurance and with that insurance protect that farm from a bad 
productive season or low prices in the market.
  More and more farmers started looking for that protection, but they 
were not that happy with crop insurance as

[[Page S3723]]

it was too expensive. So what we did was make a calculation that if we 
subsidized the crop insurance premiums and if the Federal taxpayers 
kept them low, more farmers would buy it and we would pay less in 
natural disaster payments since the insurance program would take care 
of that exposure.
  That is basically what we decided 10 years ago, and since then there 
has been a decrease in the cost of premiums and an increase in farmer 
participation and crop insurance, which is a good thing.
  I might also say that during the same period of time we had some 
income protection for farmers in what was known as direct support 
payments. Unfortunately, those payments were guaranteed even in good 
times, and they became indefensible. We had some farmers with record 
profits on their farms and still getting a direct Federal support 
payment check.
  We have the farm bill pending on the floor. Senator Stabenow of 
Michigan has done a remarkable job--again, for the second time--in 
writing a farm bill. She wrote a farm bill last year, which we sent to 
the House of Representatives after we passed it with a strong 
bipartisan vote, and they basically ignored it. They didn't want to 
call it so it could be considered on the floor of the House, but they 
could not come up with their own farm bill.
  We are hoping for a better outcome this time. Once again, Senator 
Stabenow sat down with the agriculture committee in the Senate and 
produced this farm bill which is before us.
  I am here today to describe an amendment which Senator Tom Coburn of 
Oklahoma and I are offering. Senator Coburn, a very fiscally 
conservative Republican, and I have come to an agreement on an 
amendment which we are offering to the Senate--a Republican and a 
Democrat.
  Here is what it comes down to: Our amendment would reduce the level 
of premium subsidy for crop insurance policies by 15 percentage points 
for farmers with an adjusted gross income of over $750,000.
  Let me explain what is behind this. Crop insurance is not a real 
insurance program by private sector standards. In other words, the 
premiums being paid by the farmers do not create a reserve large enough 
to cover the amounts that are paid off or paid out for losses each 
year, so the Federal Government makes up the difference.
  Currently, on average, when it comes to crop insurance policies, the 
Federal taxpayers--not the farmers--pay 62 percent of the premiums and 
the farmers pay 38 percent, so it is a heavily subsidized program. That 
is understandable because we want to keep the premium costs low so 
there is more participation, but it is also the reality. So we are 
dealing with a program that is important to our farmers and important 
to our Nation with a heavy Federal subsidy.
  Last year farmers put in $4 billion in the purchase of crop insurance 
across America. The Federal taxpayers put in $7.1 billion in subsidies 
to the same Crop Insurance Program. So this is not a traditional 
insurance program, it is one that is heavily subsidized and heavily 
leveraged by the Federal Treasury.
  I might also add the taxpayers are on the line for the cost of 
administering the program, which recently was $1.3 billion in a year, 
so $7.1 billion in premium subsidies and $1.3 billion in administrative 
expenses. We are basically saying the taxpayers, by a margin of 2 to 1, 
are putting more money in the crop insurance program than the farmers 
who are protected.
  Going back to the Dust Bowl story, remember that one of the things we 
decided to do was to protect fragile lands from wind and water and the 
type of erosion that reduces their value. Over the years we had these 
conservation programs saying to farmers, if you have a wetland or a 
land that is particularly fragile or vulnerable, set it aside; don't 
plant on it. This bill Senator Stabenow brings to the floor makes this 
conservation practice a condition for buying crop insurance. I think 
that is a good thing, and I totally support that. And, from the 
viewpoint of the Federal taxpayers, I don't think it is too much to ask 
that the farmers participating in the crop insurance program also 
participate in conservation practices to protect farmland across this 
country. That is included.
  Four percent of the most profitable farmers in America account for 
nearly 33 percent of all the premium support by the Federal Government. 
In other words, there are a lot of small farmers with crop insurance 
who don't have much exposure, don't pay much in premiums, but there are 
a lot of large operations that are quite different.
  This is a GAO study that was put out in March of 2012. They analyzed 
the crop insurance program. Interesting reading. ``Savings would result 
from program changes and greater use of data mining.'' That was their 
conclusion, after investigating this program last year.
  What they are talking about when they say ``data mining'' is taking a 
look at the farmers who are buying crop insurance. Who are these 
people? Well, they came up with some interesting examples, if I can 
find them. In the year 2010, according to the GAO, the average value of 
the premium subsidy received by participating farmers was $5,339. 
Thirty-seven participating farmers each received more than $500,000 in 
premium subsidies--that is subsidies from taxpayers--37. The 
participating farmer receiving the most in premium subsidies, a total 
of $1.8 million in Federal subsidies for one farmer--was a farming 
operation organized as a corporation that insured cotton, tomatoes, and 
wheat across two counties in one State.
  There is another one here. Another of the 37 participating farmers 
was an individual who insured corn, forage, potatoes, soybeans, sugar 
beets, and wheat across 23 counties in 6 States for a total of $1.6 
million in taxpayer subsidies for his crop insurance. In addition, the 
cost of the administrative expense subsidies the government spent on 
behalf of this farmer--one farmer--administrative expenses: $443,000. 
This is a farmer farming in 23 counties across 6 States.
  The point I am trying to get to is this: When we think of farmers and 
the struggles they face, we shouldn't ignore the obvious. For the 
wealthiest 1 percent of the farmers in America, they are doing quite 
well. I think--and Senator Coburn agrees--the Federal subsidy in crop 
insurance to those farmers should be diminished some to save money for 
the program and to reduce the deficit. That is what our amendment is 
all about.
  What we are suggesting, as I said at the outset, is that instead of 
62 percent of the premium being paid by taxpayers for the richest 
farmers in America, it be 47 percent of the premium. That is still 
pretty generous, is it not, for someone who is getting $1.8 million in 
subsidies already and $400,000 plus in administrative expenses? We are 
helping that farmer in 23 counties over 6 States with over $2 million 
in Federal subsidies. I think he can afford to pay a little more. That 
is what this amendment says.
  This farm bill is a good bill. It eliminates direct payments. I 
salute Senator Stabenow for doing that. Eliminating direct payments 
made regardless of need saves about $4.5 billion a year, $40.8 billion 
over 10 years. Hats off to Senator Stabenow. She is reducing the 
deficit with this farm bill.
  I think crop insurance is a much better safety net than direct 
support payments and much more defensible. But Senators who are 
concerned about the growth of government and its costs ignore the fact 
that this heavily subsidized crop insurance program cost the Federal 
Government more than $14 billion last year. While this growth is mostly 
due to costs associated with drought, we have to find commonsense ways 
for savings in the program. That is why we have suggested that farmers 
with an adjusted gross income of over $750,000 pay 15 percent more when 
it comes to their premiums for crop insurance.
  Let me add something which is not a very well-kept secret: Many of 
these very large farming operations divide up their farms and their 
income between husband and wife. So when we are saying $750,000 
adjusted gross income, it is actually from a couple that is making over 
$1.5 million in adjusted gross income in many instances. Our amendment 
says if the adjusted gross income; that is, after deducting business 
expenses, health care costs, and other deductions, is at $750,000, 
premium support is reduced by 15 percentage points. The amendment is 
roughly estimated to impact the wealthiest 1 percent of farmers. Who is 
going to pay this? Who

[[Page S3724]]

is going to pay the extra premium? Twenty thousand farmers across 
America will pay the extra premium. I just described a couple of them. 
Twenty thousand out of two million. Twenty thousand. Well, what is it 
worth to those 20,000 farmers to pay 15 percent more? It is worth $1 
billion over ten years; $1 billion coming into our Treasury.
  When I think of the ways we are cutting spending to reduce our 
deficit, which include taking 70,000 children out of Head Start as an 
example, how can we possibly justify, for the wealthiest 
multimillionaire farmers in America, not asking them to pay a little 
more when it comes to their crop insurance premium? How can we excuse 
them and say, No, no, no, these very rich farmers absolutely deserve 
the maximum when it comes to the Federal taxpayer subsidy? I don't 
think that is acceptable.
  The amendment may sound familiar to some of my colleagues. It was 
adopted before by a vote of 66 to 33 in the Senate. Of the 33 who voted 
against the amendment, 29 voted for a nearly identical amendment that 
only varied in the scope of the study. This is a study associated with 
our amendment.
  Some may come to the floor and say that following last year's 
drought, we shouldn't change crop insurance at all. Last year was the 
worst drought in over a decade. Eighty percent of agricultural 
production felt it and my State of Illinois certainly did. The USDA 
declared 2,245 counties in 39 States disaster areas. Crop insurance 
worked for those covered and has allowed those producers to plant again 
this year without missing a beat. Our change in the law would not 
change that circumstance at all.
  I recognize the importance of crop insurance. It is far preferable to 
disaster payments. But for goodness sake, if we can't say to 1 percent 
of farmers--the wealthiest in this country--that they are going to take 
a slightly diminished Federal tax subsidy for their crop insurance, 
then we aren't very good as budget cutters. We say to a lot of people 
who have a lot less to work with in life, You are going to have to face 
up to the reality of the deficit. Can't we say it to 1 percent of the 
farmers, that they are going to have to face up to the same basic 
reality? That is what this amendment is all about.
  I asked my staff to come up with a couple of examples of farmers and 
the premiums they pay for the Record. One example: An Illinois corn and 
soybean grower received $740,000 in premium subsidies to cover the 
crops he planted in 18 counties in Illinois. This is no small mom-and-
pop farmer; this is a big operator. And while I love my Illinois 
farmers, I can't justify this kind of a subsidy of $740,000 to one 
farmer in my State. While his exact additional costs are impossible to 
calculate without knowing all the circumstances, even if he is caught 
by this amendment and purchased the same policy, instead of a $740,000 
taxpayer subsidy he would have a $639,000 Federal taxpayer subsidy.
  Another example: A South Dakota corn and soybean farmer received $1.4 
million in premium subsidies to cover crops in eight different 
counties; $1.4 million Federal taxpayer subsidy for his crop insurance. 
This producer would only receive $1.19 million in premium support under 
this amendment. Would he stop participating in the program? Of course 
not. If he is that large a producer he needs this program and the 
subsidy is still very generous.
  This is an issue which I know is a little complex, but when I listen 
to the speeches on the floor about the deficit--and we have heard 
plenty of them today and we will hear plenty of them tomorrow--I have 
to ask myself, Will Senators on both sides of the aisle stand with 
Senator Coburn and myself and say the wealthiest 1 percent of farmers 
in America should have their Federal subsidy for crop insurance reduced 
by 15 percent? Not unreasonable. They will still make a lot of money 
and the taxpayers will see $1 billion more coming into the Treasury.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, would the Senator allow me to 
propound a unanimous consent to be allowed to speak for 10 minutes as 
in morning business following the Senator from Connecticut?
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I have absolutely no objection.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I make that unanimous consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Connecticut.


                     Sexual Assault in the Military

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, in the past couple of weeks we have 
seen some major encouraging efforts in the Senate to rid our military 
of sexual assault, to punish it more aggressively and effectively, to 
deter it, and to aid victims who may suffer from sexual assault--
victims of both sexes who may be survivors of this spreading scourge. 
Last year alone, an estimated 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact; 
only about 3,300 of them reported. So the key to more effective 
prosecution and deterrence is more reporting as well as swifter, surer 
punishment and a better program within the military to deal with it.
  I will be proposing over the next few weeks additional measures. I 
have already cosponsored the Military Justice Improvement Act, a very 
important measure sponsored by our colleagues Senators Gillibrand and 
Collins that would transfer prosecuting and charging authority from 
military commanders to a separate, trained, experienced cadre of 
prosecutors in the military.
  I have also cosponsored the Combating Sexual Assault in the Military 
Act proposed by my colleagues Senator Murray and Senator Ayotte; again, 
very important legislation providing special victims counseling to 
survivors or victims of sexual assault, and the Ruth Moore Act 
sponsored by my colleague Senator Tester, that provides aid for 
disabled veterans who suffer from this problem.
  Today I rise to praise Secretary of Defense Hagel for his decision 
and his leadership in avoiding furloughs of any of the civilian sexual 
assault prevention personnel as a result of the sequester. As we know, 
the sequester has caused furloughs of many civilian employees at the 
Department of Defense as well as some similar personnel decisions 
across the Federal Government. I wish to say that all of us who are 
advocating this cause did express appreciation to our Secretary of 
Defense for his leadership as well as to the military leadership at all 
levels for their focus on this issue. These measures are good, their 
intention is commendable, but it is not yet enough, as many of them 
would acknowledge very candidly and have done so to all of us in the 
Senate who are interested in this issue.
  We need to hire more civilians trained and qualified to help victims, 
not just avoid the furloughs of the advocates and sexual assault 
response coordinators we have in place right now, but to hire more of 
them.
  I raise this issue because--and here is the statistic everyone should 
keep in mind--the U.S. Army has hired only 80 out of the 446 whom it 
should have in place right now among the sexual assault prevention 
personnel--80 out of 446.
  Let me give a little bit of the history. At the end of 2011, Congress 
set in Public Law 112-81 that new requirements should be expanded in 
the provision of victims advocates and that they either be in uniform 
or civilian employees who have the proper training and qualifications 
to perform this important service. The Army announced in June of last 
year--almost a year ago--that it would have 829 victims advocates. Of 
those, 446 would be civilians. As a result, each brigade and 
equivalent-sized unit would be covered by a full-time victims advocate 
and below that level have the role of victims advocate performed as a 
collateral duty.
  So I was troubled to hear in April of this year, just a couple months 
ago, when Secretary McHugh testified before the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, that the Army's Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and 
Prevention Program--known as SHARP--had hired only 63 of that number; 
in other words, 63 out of 446. I understand the most updated number is 
80 out of 446.
  These civilian sexual assault prevention personnel, very simply, are 
needed

[[Page S3725]]

today. The military and our leadership know that this problem is a 
scourge that is a direct threat to the good order and discipline of our 
military personnel. It has confronted this problem in many commendable 
ways. But hiring victims advocates and sexual assault response 
coordinators is vital to the effort. It is vital to encouraging both 
men and women victims to come forward and have the courage and strength 
to report these incidents when they occur.
  These incidents are more than just disciplinary infractions. They are 
vicious, predatory criminal acts. They should be punished as vicious, 
predatory criminal acts. Victims of them need advocates and counselors 
to have that strength and courage to come forward and participate in 
the grueling and often painful process of supporting a successful 
prosecution. Without successful prosecutions, there can be no 
punishment, and successful prosecutions require witnesses and 
cooperation and support from the victim.
  My hope is that the Army will swiftly stand up this force, that it 
will do more than just avoid furloughs, that it will, in fact, recruit 
actively and successfully. Other branches of our military service 
should also be asked: How are you doing in this process? And if you are 
doing better, what are the keys to your success?
  All across the military there must be a robust SHARP program, Sexual 
Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program. It is a mouthful. 
It is a long term, but it stands for a program that must be 
successfully and carefully built and sustained.
  I will be introducing legislation tomorrow focusing on victims' 
rights and what can be done to bolster not only the substance of those 
rights but the remedies to make those rights real.
  For today, I say thank you to the Secretary of Defense for the step 
he has taken and hope we can count on additional steps to make these 
rights real, to guarantee successful prosecution, to make sure our 
military rules and remedies against sexual assault and abuse are worthy 
of the greatest, strongest, best military in the world, staffed by men 
and women second to none in their training and dedication. The system 
of military justice must be worthy of their service and sacrifice.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Madam President, I rise to speak on S. 954, the 
legislation to reauthorize agricultural programs.
  As a former chairman and ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, 
I recognize how difficult it is to combine all the diverse interests 
into a single piece of legislation that meets the needs of all crops, 
all regions, and all rural and urban communities the farm bill impacts.
  I thank Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Cochran for the work 
they have done to craft a reform-minded bill that not only saves $24 
billion with sequestration cuts included but also provides an effective 
safety net for farmers and ranchers all across the country to rely on 
in times of need.
  This bill embodies reforms, streamlining, and consolidation, and with 
the biggest issue facing our country today being our growing debt and 
deficit, I commend the members of the Agriculture Committee for 
stepping up and doing the work necessary to find savings. While we take 
these essential steps, we must also do it in an equitable and a fair 
manner.
  Agricultural producers face a combination of challenges such as 
unpredictable weather, variable input costs, and market volatility that 
all combine to determine profit or loss in any given year. The 2008 
farm bill provided a strong safety net for producers, and successor 
legislation must adhere to and honor the same commitment we made 5 
years ago. It is also important to note that this bill must not only 
work to protect producers in times of need, but it must responsibly 
serve as the Nation's safety net for the nutritional well-being of low-
income Americans.
  Last year, when we went through this process, I was unable to support 
the bill. However, I appreciate the chairwoman and ranking member for 
making improvements to last year's bill. While the bill before us is 
not perfect, I believe everyone who is involved in agriculture 
understands that it addresses the needs of U.S. agriculture, which is 
what the policy coming out of this body should address.
  While I understand there are different ideas about what safety net is 
best, I urge my colleagues to recognize that one program does not work 
for all crops. The bill before us attempts to provide producers with 
options to find what works best for them, and that is a step in the 
right direction.
  A new program known as Adverse Market Protection seeks to serve the 
needs of those who are not protected by the Agriculture Risk Coverage--
ARC--and Crop Insurance Programs. It is imperative that the farm safety 
net provide protection for multiyear declines, especially for southern 
crops such as rice and peanuts, since the protection provided by ARC 
and crop insurance is not sufficient.
  Also, I would like to recognize that the upland cotton policies 
contained in the chairwoman's mark represent fundamental reform in the 
support provided to cotton farmers--reforms that contribute $2.8 
billion toward savings in the committee's budget target. The 
legislation eliminates or changes all title I programs providing direct 
support to those involved in cotton production and puts us down the 
path to resolving our WTO dispute with Brazil.
  Further, I would like to express my support for a provision in this 
bill that ties conservation compliance to crop insurance. My amendment 
last year on the floor relinked the two, and since then 32 leading 
agricultural, conservation, and crop insurance groups have come to 
support this provision and have come together with ideas to form a 
compromise on details of this linkage. The compromise will provide a 
strong safety net for our farmers and natural resources, while allowing 
them to be wise stewards of the taxpayer resources.
  For those of us who enjoy hunting and fishing and the outdoors, this 
provision will provide for future generations of Americans the same 
opportunity we have to hunt and fish today.
  There is another provision that did not come up in the discussion in 
the Agriculture Committee that I would like to briefly comment on, and 
that is the dairy program. The dairy program is always an integral part 
of every farm bill, and I am not anywhere near an expert on the dairy 
program. In fact, I kind of leave that to States where it has a more 
significant impact. But in my State, when I came to Congress almost 20 
years ago, we had in excess of 700 dairies in Georgia. Today we have 
less than 300. In fact, it is closer to 250.
  I do not know what the problem is, but I do think, as we move this 
bill off the floor and into conference--particularly with what has been 
going on in the House relative to dairy and the discussion over there--
we need to be mindful of the fact that we need to address this program 
long term. If the way it is designed now is the best we can do, so be 
it. But I do think it is going to merit a significant discussion on 
dairy once we get to conference and have our ideas shared with the 
House and the House ideas shared with us.
  This will be my fourth and final farm bill as a Member of Congress. 
As a member of the Agriculture Committee and as a strong supporter of 
Georgia agriculture for my nearly 20 years in Congress, I have 
witnessed several disputes, especially regional disputes. However, I am 
confident we can balance the needs and interests between commodities 
and regions to reach our common goal of getting a farm bill across the 
line.
  Ultimately, the reason we are here is to represent those who work the 
land each and every day to provide the highest quality agricultural 
products and the safest agricultural products of any country in the 
world. We have the opportunity to write a bill that is equal to their 
commitment to provide the food, feed, and fiber that allow America to 
be the greatest Nation on Earth.
  Madam President, I thank you, and I look forward to the forthcoming 
debate on the remaining amendments.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I came here today first of all to 
talk about the farm bill. I am a member of the Agriculture Committee. 
We are very proud of this bill. It is a strong bill. As Senator 
Chambliss just pointed

[[Page S3726]]

out, it enjoys broad bipartisan support. Of particular importance to 
the State of Minnesota is the safety net that is in the bill; the focus 
on ag research, which the Presiding Officer from the State of 
Wisconsin, with her great universities, knows is very important; and 
the work we have done with dairy in trying to improve the dairy 
program.
  The dairy farmers have been the hardest hit in our State of any of 
the agricultural groups. I have done some new things for new and 
beginning farmers.
  Then, of course, there is the Sugar Program--something that has been 
a topic today, as some of our colleagues are trying to strip the Sugar 
Program out of the bill. I would argue that this is 30,000 jobs in the 
Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. American sugar is 
actually much less expensive than you see in the price on the global 
marketplace. The Sugar Program works. It works for workers, it works 
for America, and we need to continue it.


                               The Budget

  I would like to turn to the focus of my remarks today, which is, 
first of all, on the budget. I thank Senator Murray for her leadership 
on the Budget Committee and for all her hard work in advancing a smart, 
balanced budget to meet our country's fiscal challenges.
  This is not the first time I have come to the Senate floor in the 
last year or in the last several years to stress the critical need for 
Democrats and Republicans to come together and focus on smart solutions 
to reducing our debt. I think it is a good sign that both the House and 
the Senate have passed budgets and that the President introduced his 
budget last month.
  I see this time as a real opportunity to come together to work 
through this budget process and get a deal done. That is why we must 
take the next step in the process, which is to move forward under 
regular order and have the House and Senate conference on a budget 
deal.
  For years we have been hearing from our colleagues across the aisle 
about how the Senate did not have a budget. Well, the Senate passed a 
budget, and all we want to do is to move this into conference committee 
so that the House and the Senate can work together so that we can get a 
budget for this country.
  There is growing bipartisan support for going to conference and 
starting the conversation so that we can come to an agreement on a 
long-term budget. Last night Senators McCain and Collins came to the 
floor and talked about how we need to return to regular order in the 
Senate, and regular order means going to conference to come to a budget 
deal.
  Doing so will allow us to stop lurching from crisis to crisis and 
address our fiscal challenges in an open, bipartisan way. I believe 
this is what folks outside of Washington, especially the people I talk 
to in Minnesota, want; for us to put politics aside for the good of the 
country and come together on a budget deal that reduces our deficit in 
a balanced way but also lays a foundation for sustained economic 
growth.
  In the past 2 years Congress has made some progress in reducing the 
deficit. We have already achieved $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction, 
with a goal of a $4 trillion reduction in 10 years within our grasp. 
Last week the Congressional Budget Office reported that deficit will 
fall to $642 billion this year, $200 billion less than what the CBO 
projected just 3 months ago. The better numbers reflect good news in 
housing and larger than expected increases in tax revenue.
  But I believe that resting on those numbers would be a mistake. If we 
are to get closer to reaching a new deficit agreement, it is only going 
to happen if we work in a bipartisan way through regular order to get a 
deal done. Along with addressing our fiscal challenges, working through 
the budget process and coming to agreement will create a stronger, more 
resilient framework for economic renewal.
  We certainly see how we got a major bill done through the Judiciary 
Committee last night when we were able to get the immigration bill 
done. There is no reason a conference committee should not be at work 
right now taking the Senate budget that we have heard for years needs 
to be done and paring it up with the House budget and coming together. 
In the bigger picture, this presents an opportunity for us to reinforce 
our role as a world leader in innovation, entrepreneurship, exporting, 
education; in other words, that which we have always taken pride in. We 
want to be a nation that produces, that invents, that exports to the 
world. Part of that is showing the world we have our fiscal house in 
order.
  I believe the Senate proposal is the right blueprint for moving us 
forward. On the most immediate front, it will allow us to build on the 
progress we are already seeing in the economy. Last month, the national 
unemployment rate dropped to 7.5 percent, the lowest level in 4 years. 
Our housing market is turning around. Consumer spending has picked up 
in the first months of the year as has private business investment. The 
unemployment rate in my State of Minnesota is at 5.4 percent.
  But even with this progress, our economy remains vulnerable to 
headwinds. We should keep this good economic momentum going but only if 
we are willing to find common ground on a budget plan that also moves 
our economy forward.
  We need to take a balanced approach to deficit reduction. You do not 
have to take my word for it. Nearly every commission that has offered 
ideas for reducing our debt has stressed the importance of balance. 
This includes the original Bowles-Simpson plan, the Rivlin-Domenici 
plan, and even the revised Bowles-Simpson plan, which calls for another 
$2.4 trillion in deficit reduction, one-quarter of which would come 
from new revenue totaling $600 billion.
  We do not just need a balanced budget; we need a budget that is in 
balance. I believe the Senate's budget achieves that goal. It includes 
an equal mix of responsible spending cuts and new revenue from closing 
loopholes and ending wasteful spending in the Tax Code. Our budget 
builds on the $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction we have already 
achieved in the last 2 years, with an additional $975 billion in 
targeted cuts and $975 billion in new revenue, surpassing the 
bipartisan goal of $4 trillion.
  Just this morning I was at the Joint Economic Committee--I am the 
Senate chair of that committee--where Chairman Bernanke testified. He 
warned us about the negative impact--that cuts solely focused in the 
short term can negatively impact economic growth. He noted that 
policies such as sequestration are creating headwinds against short-
term economic growth and that Congress needs to take a broader, long-
term view toward our debt and deficit.
  That is what this conference committee is about. That is what regular 
order is about. We have a Senate budget. We have a House budget. We 
have that opportunity to bring those budgets together in a conference 
committee. Some of the most important points in the Senate budget 
include the fact that it replaces the sequester with smart targeted 
cuts while also making critical investment in areas such as education, 
workforce training, and infrastructure.
  It produces savings in Medicare and Medicaid by eliminating waste and 
fraud, promoting efficiency, and emphasizing cost alignment. Our budget 
also recognizes there is a massive amount of spending that takes place 
through the Tax Code, to the tune of over $1 trillion per year in tax 
expenditures. The Senate budget eliminates wasteful tax loopholes and 
subsidies.
  All told, the Senate budget cuts the deficit by approximately $2 
trillion. This continues us on a downward path where our debt-to-GDP 
ratio will be about 70 percent by 2023. Getting the Federal budget on a 
sustainable path will only promote growth and stability. The American 
people want us to get this done. They want us to compromise. They want 
us to work together to get the economy on the right track.
  I urge my colleagues to support moving to conference so we can begin 
the work of finding solutions to a very important matter.


                               Gas Prices

  I wish to speak briefly on one other topic that is an important 
economic issue for families and businesses in Minnesota; that is, the 
recent spike in gas prices. We do have some good things in the farm 
bill that will help us, including the promotion of energy and biofuels, 
but I came to discuss the recent spike in gas prices in Minnesota,

[[Page S3727]]

a problem that is disrupting commerce and hurting consumers, small 
businesses, and farmers across the State and throughout our region.
  In Minnesota, the average gas price is $4.25, 40 cents higher than 1 
week ago and over 80 cents more than only 1 month ago. In fact, a few 
days ago it was the highest in the country, higher than Honolulu. It 
happened all of a sudden, in literally a 2-week period. That is a 
significant increase which puts family budgets under severe pressure.
  I am focused on immediate relief. I am taking actions now so we can 
avoid similar gas price spikes in the future. With Memorial Day around 
the corner and the start of the summer driving season upon us, this 
kind of price spike is simply outrageous. To cut back on costs, some 
families are already putting off family trips and scaling back 
vacations. I have already heard from families who have canceled or 
scaled back their plans.

  But there are some things people cannot put off, such as driving to 
work, such as going to the doctor's office. More money to fill the tank 
means less money for food, housing, and everything else families need. 
Families in Minnesota cannot afford an 80-cent spike in the price of a 
gallon of gas, neither can business owners who need to ship their goods 
to market or farmers who rely on diesel fuel to keep their equipment 
running.
  We know what is causing the price increase--supply shortages 
resulting from the simultaneous closing of several oil refineries in 
the Midwest. We also know what is not causing the price increase. The 
price of crude oil has not moved. We are about $96 a barrel, similar to 
where prices were 1 month ago. In fact, the national trend in gas 
prices, which tracks the price of crude, has not moved much either. 
OPEC has not been jacking up their prices. We did not have a hurricane 
or even a blizzard that would affect supplies or prices. The increase 
has not been caused by a pipeline rupture or geopolitical threats.
  Rather, the price spike has resulted largely from the combination of 
a number of refineries going offline for scheduled and unscheduled 
maintenance which serve the upper Midwest to prepare for the summer 
fuel blend. I understand that refineries need to adjust their blends 
and occasionally perform upgrades to protect worker safety and repair 
equipment.
  But scheduled routine maintenance should not be an excuse for major 
gasoline shortages and price spikes. Three refineries in Indiana, 
Illinois, and Flint Hills, MN, currently are shut down for maintenance 
or upgrade. A fourth refinery in Wisconsin is currently offline as they 
turn their productions over to summer fuel blend. A fifth refinery in 
St. Paul Park, MN, remained down longer than expected, but I understand 
that refinery is again operational.
  The result of all these closures is Minnesota and other parts of the 
Upper Midwest simply did not have enough refined gasoline to make it to 
the market right now. In this day when we have a surplus of fuel, when 
we are drilling record amounts in North Dakota, when we do not see a 
huge increase in the price of oil, this just should not be happening. 
That is why last Thursday I called on the Department of Energy to 
thoroughly review the timing of scheduled maintenance operations and to 
take action to address future supply problems that are preventable. I 
have also spoken with the Department of Energy about ways to resolve 
the issue quickly and prevent disruptions down the road. I am working 
with DOE and industry partners on legislation that addresses known 
scheduled closures of refineries for maintenance.
  Having improved information could serve as an early warning system to 
protect consumers from production problems within the refinery 
industry. With more transparency and more lead time, fuel retailers 
will have the opportunity to purchase fuel at prices that better 
reflect the underlying cost of crude oil and better reflect supply and 
demand across the country.
  I also believe refineries should give immediate notification of any 
unplanned outages. I am working to address this as well. I am also 
working with the Secretary of Energy to look at the potential for 
additional refined fuel storage capacity in our region. Minnesota has 
less storage capacity for refined products than other parts of the 
country, making us more vulnerable to the kinds of refinery outages we 
have experienced this year, both planned and unplanned.
  If we had additional storage in place, we could better ensure fair 
and consistent prices for our consumers. This week I talked to all of 
the major oil companies that own these refineries. It looks as though 
additional shipments from another pipeline are helping to increase 
supplies. This should provide some relief.
  Petroleum markets in Minnesota have reported the spot prices in the 
wholesale markets were down by 30 cents, but that drop has not yet 
reached our consumers. I believe we need an all-of-the-above plan to 
get serious about building a new energy agenda for America. This, of 
course, means less dependence on foreign oil, more domestic production 
of oil as we are seeing in North Dakota, natural gas, and, of course, 
biofuels. It also means tougher vehicle efficiency standards that help 
cars to go farther on a tank of gas.
  But my focus is on our immediate problem. We need to get refineries 
up and running and get gas prices down so we can all we begin to enjoy 
this summer. I look forward to continuing to work with the Department 
of Energy and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to address the 
recent and unnecessary spike in gas prices and prevent this from 
happening again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Michigan.


                           Amendment No. 925

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Shaheen, I called 
up her amendment No. 925.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Michigan [Ms. Stabenow], for Mrs. Shaheen, 
     Mr. Kirk, Mr. Toomey, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. 
     Alexander, Ms. Ayotte, Mr. Corker, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. 
     Portman, Mr. Coats, Mr. McCain, Mr. Coons, Mr. Coburn, Mr. 
     Warner, Mr. Johnson of Wisconsin, Mr. Kaine, and Mr. Heller, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 925.

  Ms. STABENOW. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the 
amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To reform the Federal sugar program, and for other purposes)

       In title I, strike subtitle C and insert the following:

                        Subtitle C--Sugar Reform

     SEC. 1301. SUGAR PROGRAM.

       (a) Sugarcane.--Section 156(a) of the Federal Agriculture 
     Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 7272(a)) is 
     amended--
       (1) in paragraph (4), by striking ``and'' after the 
     semicolon at the end;
       (2) in paragraph (5), by striking the period at the end and 
     inserting ``; and''; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(6) 18 cents per pound for raw cane sugar for each of the 
     2014 through 2018 crop years.''.
       (b) Sugar Beets.--Section 156(b)(2) of the Federal 
     Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 
     7272(b)(2)) is amended by striking ``2012'' and inserting 
     ``2018''.
       (c) Effective Period.--Section 156(i) of the Federal 
     Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 
     7272(i)) is amended by striking ``2012'' and inserting 
     ``2018''.

     SEC. 1302. FLEXIBLE MARKETING ALLOTMENTS FOR SUGAR.

       (a) In General.--Section 359b of the Agricultural 
     Adjustment Act of 1938 (7 U.S.C. 1359bb) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (a)(1)--
       (A) in the matter before subparagraph (A), by striking 
     ``2012'' and inserting ``2018''; and
       (B) in subparagraph (B), by inserting ``at reasonable 
     prices'' after ``stocks''; and
       (2) in subsection (b)(1)--
       (A) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``but'' after the 
     semicolon at the end and inserting ``and''; and
       (B) by striking subparagraph (B) and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(B) appropriate to maintain adequate domestic supplies at 
     reasonable prices, taking into account all sources of 
     domestic supply, including imports.''.
       (b) Establishment of Flexible Marketing Allotments.--
     Section 359c of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (7 
     U.S.C. 1359cc) is amended--
       (1) in subsection (b)--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``but'' after the 
     semicolon at the end and inserting ``and''; and
       (ii) by striking subparagraph (B) and inserting the 
     following:
       ``(B) appropriate to maintain adequate supplies at 
     reasonable prices, taking into account all sources of 
     domestic supply, including imports.''; and

[[Page S3728]]

       (B) in paragraph (2)(B), by inserting ``at reasonable 
     prices'' after ``market''; and
       (2) in subsection (g)(1)--
       (A) by striking ``Adjustments.--'' and all that follows 
     through ``Subject to subparagraph (B), the'' and inserting 
     ``Adjustments.--The''; and
       (B) by striking subparagraph (B).
       (c) Suspension or Modification of Provisions.--Section 359j 
     of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (7 U.S.C. 1359jj) 
     is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(c) Suspension or Modification of Provisions.--
     Notwithstanding any other provision of this part, the 
     Secretary may suspend or modify, in whole or in part, the 
     application of any provision of this part if the Secretary 
     determines that the action is appropriate, taking into 
     account--
       ``(1) the interests of consumers, workers in the food 
     industry, businesses (including small businesses), and 
     agricultural producers; and
       ``(2) the relative competitiveness of domestically produced 
     and imported foods containing sugar.''.
       (d) Administration of Tariff Rate Quotas.--Section 359k of 
     the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (7 U.S.C. 1359kk) is 
     amended to read as follows:

     ``SEC. 359K. ADMINISTRATION OF TARIFF RATE QUOTAS.

       ``(a) Establishment.--Notwithstanding any other provision 
     of law, at the beginning of the quota year, the Secretary 
     shall establish the tariff-rate quotas for raw cane sugar and 
     refined sugar at no less than the minimum level necessary to 
     comply with obligations under international trade agreements 
     that have been approved by Congress.
       ``(b) Adjustment.--
       ``(1) In general.--Subject to subsection (a), the Secretary 
     shall adjust the tariff-rate quotas for raw cane sugar and 
     refined sugar to provide adequate supplies of sugar at 
     reasonable prices in the domestic market.
       ``(2) Ending stocks.--Subject to paragraphs (1) and (3), 
     the Secretary shall establish and adjust tariff-rate quotas 
     in such a manner that the ratio of sugar stocks to total 
     sugar use at the end of the quota year will be approximately 
     15.5 percent.
       ``(3) Maintenance of reasonable prices and avoidance of 
     forfeitures.--
       ``(A) In general.--The Secretary may establish a different 
     target for the ratio of ending stocks to total use if, in the 
     judgment of the Secretary, the different target is necessary 
     to prevent--
       ``(i) unreasonably high prices; or
       ``(ii) forfeitures of sugar pledged as collateral for a 
     loan under section 156 of the Federal Agriculture Improvement 
     and Reform Act of 1996 (7 U.S.C. 7272).
       ``(B) Announcement.--The Secretary shall publicly announce 
     any establishment of a target under this paragraph.
       ``(4) Considerations.--In establishing tariff-rate quotas 
     under subsection (a) and making adjustments under this 
     subsection, the Secretary shall consider the impact of the 
     quotas on consumers, workers, businesses (including small 
     businesses), and agricultural producers.
       ``(c) Temporary Transfer of Quotas.--
       ``(1) In general.--To promote full use of the tariff-rate 
     quotas for raw cane sugar and refined sugar, notwithstanding 
     any other provision of law, the Secretary shall promulgate 
     regulations that provide that any country that has been 
     allocated a share of the quotas may temporarily transfer all 
     or part of the share to any other country that has also been 
     allocated a share of the quotas.
       ``(2) Transfers voluntary.--Any transfer under this 
     subsection shall be valid only on voluntary agreement between 
     the transferor and the transferee, consistent with procedures 
     established by the Secretary.
       ``(3) Transfers temporary.--
       ``(A) In general.--Any transfer under this subsection shall 
     be valid only for the duration of the quota year during which 
     the transfer is made.
       ``(B) Following quota year.--No transfer under this 
     subsection shall affect the share of the quota allocated to 
     the transferor or transferee for the following quota year.''.
       (e) Effective Period.--Section 359l(a) of the Agricultural 
     Adjustment Act of 1938 (7 U.S.C. 1359ll(a)) is amended by 
     striking ``2012'' and inserting ``2018''.
       Strike section 9008 and insert the following:

     SEC. 9008. REPEAL OF FEEDSTOCK FLEXIBILITY PROGRAM FOR 
                   BIOENERGY PRODUCERS.

       (a) In General.--Section 9010 of the Farm Security and 
     Rural Investment Act of 2002 (7 U.S.C. 8110) is repealed.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Section 359a(3)(B) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act 
     of 1938 (7 U.S.C. 1359aa(3)(B)) is amended--
       (A) in clause (i), by inserting ``and'' after the semicolon 
     at the end;
       (B) in clause (ii), by striking ``; and'' at the end and 
     inserting a period; and
       (C) by striking clause (iii).
       (2) Section 359b(c)(2)(C) of the Agricultural Adjustment 
     Act of 1938 (7 U.S.C. 1359bb(c)(2)(C)) is amended by striking 
     ``, except for'' and all that follows through `` of 2002''.

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, for the information of Members, we are 
working to set up a vote later this afternoon on this particular 
amendment. I am working with Senator Cochran and his Republican 
colleagues in order to set up that vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Immigration Reform

  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss a very 
important topic and one that itself is coming to the Senate floor soon. 
That is the problem of illegal immigration and proposals for so-called 
comprehensive immigration reform. Specifically, of course, the Gang of 
8 bill, as it has been dubbed, is being reported out of the Judiciary 
Committee. We will be debating that bill, and hopefully a lot of 
important amendments to it soon, in June, on the floor.
  Let me say at the outset, I think there are at least a couple of 
things we can all agree on. No. 1, I think we can all agree that the 
United States is an immigrant nation with a proud history of 
immigration--legal immigration. It is absolutely one of the core 
features of our Nation that makes us unique and that makes us strong. 
So I wish to say that upfront, very proudly, very strongly. I support 
that tradition, that history of being an immigrant nation. All of us 
are the children of immigrants--not a question of if, it is just a 
question of when, because that is the nature of America. That goes to 
the core of our strength.
  No. 2, the other thing I think we can all agree with is our present 
immigration system is broken. In fact, it is badly broken, and we need 
to fix the system.
  As I said a minute ago, we have a proud history of immigration, legal 
immigration. That is the tradition, the history we need to get back to. 
Unfortunately, right now we have a system of wide open illegal 
immigration, almost open borders in some cases and some areas, and that 
desperately needs to be fixed.
  Having said that, I have real and fundamental concerns with the so-
called Gang of 8 bill, and they fall into five or six big categories. I 
want to talk about each of those important categories in turn.
  First and foremost, my biggest and my most fundamental concern, I 
think the so-called Gang of 8 bill repeats mistakes of the past 
because, at its core, it is amnesty now, enforcement later, and maybe 
never. We have tried that model before. We have tried it several times 
before, and it has never worked.
  The most clear example is the 1986 immigration overhaul. That bill, 
at its core, was the same model, amnesty now and enforcement later, and 
maybe never. In fact, much of that enforcement was never. That is why 
it didn't work. The amnesty kicked in immediately, the millisecond the 
bill was signed into law. That was a powerful message to invite more 
and more illegal crossings across the border, more and more illegal 
immigrants into the country. That part of the bill, that part of the 
message, was heard loudly and clearly. The promises of enforcement 
never fully materialized. Many of them never materialized at all.
  What happened when you had that combination of immediate amnesty with 
promises of enforcement that never materialized? Again, you attracted 
more illegal crossings, and you had no capability or will to do 
anything about them.
  The promise then was we are going to have to do this once; the system 
will be fixed; we will never have to look back. We will never have to 
look in the rearview mirror. The problem will be solved.
  What happened? Well, we all know the problem wasn't solved. In fact, 
the problem simply wasn't continued, the problem was quadrupled. What 
were 3 million illegal immigrants then were mostly made legal. But that 
number 3 million quadrupled, and now today we have 11, 12 million 
illegal immigrants, some think more.
  That, at its core, is the Gang of 8 bill, and immediate amnesty, 
promises of enforcement. That is not good enough, particularly when we 
have decades--decades--the Federal Government, Republicans and 
Democrats, who have promised us before and have never ever delivered. 
The American people say we will trust but we want to verify. Trust but 
verify. We need to see this enforcement in action before we move on to 
anything else.
  In fact, in some ways this Gang of 8 bill is worse in terms of that 
basic

[[Page S3729]]

model than previous versions such as 1986. If you look at page 70 of 
the bill, it actually has a period of an enforcement holiday, so 2\1/2\ 
years of a pure enforcement holiday. Not only is this amnesty now and 
enforcement later, it may never apply to folks who are in the country 
illegally now. They can keep coming. The message will be sent out, and 
they can come the day after the bill passes, the week after the bill 
passes, the year after the bill passes, 2 years after the bill passes, 
and it is part of the same amnesty. They would get the benefits of that 
amnesty as well. That enforcement holiday, 2\1/2\ years, makes that 
combination of a big amnesty now, with promises of an enforcement 
later, even more potentially disastrous.
  The second big problem I have with the bill as it is currently put 
together is it doesn't enforce the law, and it doesn't enforce the 
border, particularly the troublesome southern border with Mexico. It 
doesn't enforce other enforcement provisions. It doesn't actually 
guarantee that those are put into place and executed in an effective 
way.
  The proponents of the bill talk about so-called triggers in the bill 
before the amnesty, before the new legal status is granted. When you 
look hard at what the triggers are, they are triggers on a toy plastic 
gun, not real triggers in any meaningful sense of the term. The 
triggers basically narrow down to two things. First of all, the 
Secretary has to submit two reports, two plans. The Secretary of 
Homeland Security has to submit plans or reports, a so-called 
comprehensive ``southern border security strategy,'' so she has to 
submit a strategy. Great. This was promised for three decades but now 
she has to submit a strategy, a piece of paper and a southern border 
fencing strategy, so that is one trigger.
  The other triggers are certification that the border strategy is 
``substantially deployed'' and ``substantially operational.''
  What is the problem with that? Two things. Who the heck knows what 
``substantially deployed'' means and, No. 2, even more troublesome, do 
you know who has to certify that? The Secretary of Homeland Security, 
who has not been effective at enforcement to date in any way, shape, or 
form. Those so-called triggers are absolutely meaningless.
  The bill doesn't require a fence, as is actually required under 
present law, so we are weakening that. We are walking away from that. 
It weakens current law regarding border security. Operational control 
is the standard now, and that is being weakened, changed to effective 
control. It doesn't require a biometric data system for entry and exit 
screening. That has been pushed by Congress since 1996. Congress 
started mandating this in 1996, and it was one of the prime 
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, full deployment of the US-VISIT 
system. The 9/11 Commission said that needs to be a high priority. That 
is exactly how the 9/11 terrorists got into our country and overstayed 
their visas. It doesn't do any of that. Again, there is an enforcement 
holiday for 2\1/2\ years and no border security now before the amnesty 
kicks in.
  No. 3, I am very concerned that we will continue the present status 
quo, which is significant benefits being available to these immigrants, 
which act as a magnet to incent other illegal immigrants to come into 
the country. The so-called Gang of 8 made all sorts of promises about 
certain promises not kicking in until full citizenship is granted down 
the road. Many benefits would kick in immediately, certainly 
participation in the Social Security system, certainly all those Social 
Security benefits, and their loopholes about these benefits. I think 
many illegal immigrants will clearly gain access to public benefits far 
sooner than any 13 years as advertised. That is another serious 
weakness of the bill.
  Fourth, I am very concerned about the cost of this bill. Authors of 
this bill have been very clever. They saw that cost issue coming, and 
they devised the bill so the big costs of the bill are outside the 10-
year budget window. Why is that important? Well, not to get into the 
weeds, but it is very important because CBO scores legislation 
primarily on its impact on taxes and spending in the first 10 years. 
The authors of the bill were very careful, very clever in devising a 
bill that would look OK in the first 10 years with regard to cost. 
After that first 10-year window, the costs explode and none of that 
will be reflected by this CBO score.

  We have seen this movie before, because this is exactly the same 
approach to CBO scoring and costs of legislation, exactly the same 
approach the proponents of ObamaCare put forward. They were very clever 
to push many of the costs in the outyears beyond the first initial 
scoring window, and that is why they were able to wave CBO scores 
around to somehow suggest this would help lessen the deficit. It is 
perfectly clear now, ObamaCare is not going to make our fiscal 
situation better, it is going to make it far worse and far more 
onerous.
  I believe exactly the same thing is true with this bill in terms of 
the costs, and I believe the proponents of the bill, quite frankly, 
have gamed the system in the same way to hide those costs, given the 
way CBO scores legislation.
  In contrast to that, there is an objective study of the full costs of 
the bill, and that is a study by Robert Rector of the Heritage 
Foundation. He went into extreme detail tracking the full costs and 
fiscal benefits of the bill. His conclusion was that the full costs of 
the bill are $6.3 trillion over the full life and the full impact of 
the bill, $6.3 trillion, with a T. He concluded that the bill, because 
of all the folks it would legalize, would kick in $9.4 trillion in 
benefits. There are more government benefits we are going to have to 
pay out, $9.4 trillion.
  These folks being legalized would pay some taxes into the system, 
which they do not pay now, and that would be $3.1 trillion. When you 
subtract 3.1 from 9.4, that obviously doesn't net out to zero. That is 
a net increase in the deficit, increased cost to the government, to 
society, to the taxpayer, of $6.3 trillion net. That is a serious 
impact on these budget and fiscal issues we are already very concerned 
about.
  The Robert Rector study is very credible, it is very detailed. I have 
seen no comparable study in terms of the detail of the analysis. I 
would challenge anyone who cares about this issue, wherever they are 
coming from, to put up any other study that can compete with the Rector 
study in terms of detail and analysis. I think currently that is the 
last and final word on costs of the bill.
  Two final points. A fifth big concern I have about the bill is I 
believe this bill is very unfair to legal immigrants and folks who are 
waiting in line in the legal immigration system now. It puts some 
people--not everybody who would be made legal, but some people--ahead 
of them in line and dishonors the fact that these would-be legal 
immigrants are following the rules now and following the law now.
  Sixth and finally--and this is no trivial matter--I am very concerned 
that this would depress wages in the United States for many hard-
working Americans, legal immigrants, others who have followed the law 
who are working hard in a very tough economy now. I think it would 
depress the general wage situation and make that more difficult for 
them to deal with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. VITTER. In closing, I urge all my colleagues to look carefully at 
these and other concerns and try to address them fully, directly, 
completely, on the Senate floor.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, as we continue debate on the 
Agricultural Reform, Food and Jobs Act, I want to remind my colleagues 
how important this bill is for our economy and for the 16 million 
people whose jobs rely on agriculture. When we go home at night and sit 
down at the dinner table, it is because those 16 million people have 
worked hard to make sure we had safe, affordable food on the table. 
They are the men and women who farmed the land. They are also the 
people who manufacture and sell the farm equipment, the people who ship 
the crops from one place to another, the people who own the farmers 
markets and the local food hubs, the people who work in processing and 
crop fertility, not to mention the researchers and the scientists who 
work hard every day to fight pests and diseases that threaten our food 
supply.

[[Page S3730]]

  I want to talk specifically for a few moments about the work we are 
doing in the conservation title of the farm bill. Our farm bill 
improves 1.9 million acres for fish and wildlife habitat. This is about 
jobs as well. Healthy wildlife habitats, clean fishable waters, are not 
only good for our environment, but they also support hunting, fishing, 
and all of our other outdoor recreation that benefits our economy and 
creates jobs. In fact, outdoor recreation supports over 6 million jobs 
in our United States.

  In this farm bill we are including a new historic agreement around 
conservation--the most powerful conservation work in decades. It is 
truly amazing what can happen when people actually sit down and listen 
to one another and work together. If farmers want to participate in 
title I commodity programs, including the current Direct Payments 
Program, they must take steps to use best conservation practices on 
their land when it comes to highly eroded soil and wetlands. This has 
been the case for many years.
  Of course, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act we are debating 
now eliminates those subsidies.
  Instead, we are strengthening crop insurance, which farmers need to 
purchase, and we are making market-oriented reforms to the commodity 
programs. But here is the issue: If we eliminate direct payment 
subsidies, we don't want to create unintended consequences by not 
having that link any longer. It is important for all of us that 
sensitive lands be managed in the best possible way. That is how we 
avoided having a dust bowl during the droughts. It is important for us 
to continue protecting wetlands, which help prevent flooding and are 
important to wildlife habitats for ducks and other waterfowl.
  Commodity groups and conservation groups were on different sides of 
this issue for a long time. They looked at the issue from vastly 
different viewpoints, and they didn't agree on the best approach. They 
could have followed the very typical Washington playbook. They could 
have gone to their corners, fired off e-mails and press releases, 
brought the lobbyists in and demonized each other. But that is not what 
happened.
  Like farmers and families across the country, they sat down together 
around a table and did something we don't do enough. They listened to 
each other. They listened and tried to see the other's viewpoint and 
they came to understand one another. It turned out their differences 
weren't so great after all. With a little compromise and a lot of hard 
work these groups were able to come together with a plan that conserves 
soil and water resources for generations to come and protects the 
safety net on which our farmers rely.
  This has been called the greatest advancement in conservation in 
three decades. I want to underscore for my colleagues that this is an 
important historic agreement, and others deserve credit. As much as I 
certainly would like to take credit for this, or I am sure Senator 
Cochran would--and we certainly were very supportive in encouraging 
this--the agreement came about from a group of people working together.
  I know a number of my colleagues are planning to talk about 
amendments on crop insurance. Some have already been on the floor 
talking about amendments. I know a number of colleagues voted for some 
of those amendments the last time around, but this conservation 
agreement puts us in a very different situation this year. For one 
thing, we want to make sure the biggest landowners who control the most 
acres are using crop insurance.
  Crop insurance is voluntary. Prior to crop insurance, there were 
subsidies and then ad hoc disaster assistance. Now we are encouraging 
them to purchase crop insurance, and we want them to have it, which 
means now they would need to use conservation practices to preserve 
sensitive lands and wetlands on those largest tracts as well as small 
tracts.
  So amendments that weaken crop insurance would reduce the number of 
farmers participating in crop insurance, raising premiums for family 
farmers and reducing the environmental impact and the environmental 
benefits of this historic conservation agreement. With this new 
agreement, the math is very simple: The more acres that are in crop 
insurance, the more we have environmental and conservation benefits.
  My dear friend from Illinois came to the floor a while ago and said: 
The majority of crop insurance is with a small number of farmers. Well, 
that is true. The larger the farm, the more one would use crop 
insurance. It is just like saying anybody who buys insurance for a 
bigger home has more insurance than the smaller home. Bigger 
businesses--manufacturers--probably buy the biggest part of insurance 
rather than small businesses. I am not sure what the point is of saying 
that. Of course, we have large farmers buying more crop insurance than 
small farmers. We want to make sure we have the environmental and 
conservation benefits on those large farms just as on smaller farms.
  Here is another reason my colleagues should reevaluate these 
amendments, and I would encourage, as they come before us, that we vote 
no. This chart shows the counties that were declared disaster areas 
last year. An awful lot of red. And 2012 was one of the worst droughts 
on record ever in the United States.
  In the past, in situations such as this we would have passed ad hoc 
disaster assistance for the corn growers, the wheat growers, the 
soybean growers, and the other crop farmers. But we didn't have to do 
that because crop insurance works.
  Crop insurance is not a subsidy. When people have crop insurance they 
get a bill to pay. We share in that cost to make sure there is a 
discount so they can afford the bill, but they get a bill. They do not 
get a check. The only farmers last year who needed disaster assistance 
were the ones who can't participate in crop insurance, which we fix in 
this farm bill.
  We address permanent livestock disaster assistance. They do not have 
access to the same crop insurance. We address farmers, such as my 
cherry growers, who were wiped out when it got warm in the spring and 
then froze again and completely wiped out the cherries. They do not 
have crop insurance now. They need some extra help. In this farm bill 
we are giving them access to crop insurance, which is the primary risk 
management tool for farmers.
  Producers purchase crop insurance so they are protected when there is 
a disaster, but if we weaken crop insurance, resulting in premium hikes 
of as much as 40 percent on small farmers, we are going to be going 
back to the days of ad hoc disaster assistance, something we cannot 
afford in today's tight budget climate.
  Finally, we need to keep this historic agreement in place through the 
conference committee. We owe that to the folks who sat down and worked 
out this agreement. So I ask colleagues to stand with the 34 different 
organizations that came together--and I ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record the names of the groups in the coalition that put 
this together.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


              Groups in Conservation Compliance Coalition

       American Association of Crop Insurers, American Farm Bureau 
     Federation, American Farmland Trust, American Society of 
     Agronomy, American Soybean Association, American Sugar 
     Alliance, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Audubon, 
     Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau, Crop Science Society 
     of America, Ducks Unlimited, Environmental Defense Fund, Land 
     Improvement Contractors of America, National Association of 
     State Conservation Agencies, National Association of 
     Conservation Districts, National Association of Resource 
     Conservation and Development Councils, National Bobwhite 
     Conservation Initiative.
       National Conservation District Employees Association, 
     National Corn Growers Association, National Cotton Council, 
     National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, National Farmers 
     Union, National Wildlife Federation, Pheasants Forever, 
     Pollinator Partnership, Quail Forever, Soil and Water 
     Conservation Society, Soil Science Society of America, 
     Southern Peanut Farmers Federation, Theodore Roosevelt 
     Conservation Partnership, The Nature Conservancy, USA Rice 
     Federation, Wildlife Mississippi, World Wildlife Fund.

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, we need to make sure our colleagues in 
the House, as well as in the Senate, stand with all of these groups who 
worked hard to compromise and forge this very historic constructive 
agreement. If we want to preserve conservation wins we have in this 
farm bill, we

[[Page S3731]]

need to support the farmers, the environmentalists, and the 
conservationists who have made it very clear this agreement is 
something they stand behind. We should not be weakening crop insurance 
or making it harder for large producers, who have the majority of the 
land we want to conserve, to have less of an incentive to participate 
in the program.
  Let me just say--and I know my colleague from Vermont is here to 
speak as well--that I want to thank again the 34 organizations--
everyone from the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean 
Association, the Audubon Society, Ducks Unlimited, the Environmental 
Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, National Cotton Council--
and right on down the line--the National Farmers Union, Nature 
Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and USA Rice Federation.
  This is an incredible coalition, and it speaks very loudly both to 
the fact we need to keep in place the No. 1 risk management tool for 
our growers but that we need to also make sure they are providing the 
conservation practices to protect our soil and our water which is so 
critical for the future--for our children and grandchildren.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by congratulating Senators 
Stabenow and Cochran for their hard work on this very important piece 
of legislation, especially for rural States such as Vermont, but I 
guess for everybody who eats, which is the majority of the people in 
our country, I would imagine.
  I want to spend a few minutes talking about some important amendments 
I am offering. I think one of them--the amendment I will talk about 
first--will be coming up for a vote either later tonight or tomorrow, 
and that deals with the right of States to label genetically engineered 
food. That is amendment No. 965.
  This year, the Vermont State House of Representatives passed a bill 
by a vote of 99 to 42 requiring that genetically engineered food be 
labeled. I can tell you with absolute certainty the people of Vermont 
want to know what is in their food and are extremely supportive of what 
the State legislature has done. But this is an issue certainly not just 
limited to Vermont.
  Yesterday, as I understand it, the Connecticut State Senate, by an 
overwhelming vote of 35 to 1, also passed legislation to require 
labeling of genetically engineered food. In California, our largest 
State, where the issue was on the ballot last November, 47 percent of 
the people there voted for labeling, despite the biotech industry 
spending over $47 million in a campaign in opposition to that 
proposition. That is an enormous sum of money, and yet 47 percent of 
the people voted for labeling of GMOs.
  In the State of Washington, some 350,000 people signed a petition in 
support of initiative 522 to label genetically engineered foods in that 
State. In fact, according to a recent poll done earlier this year, 
approximately 82 percent of the American people believe labeling should 
take place with regard to genetically engineered ingredients.
  All over this country people are increasingly concerned about the 
quality of the food they are ingesting and the food they are giving to 
their kids. People want to know what is in their food, and I believe 
that is a very reasonable request.
  What I am proposing today--the amendment I am offering--is certainly 
not a radical concept. In fact, the requirement of labeling genetically 
modified food exists today in dozens and dozens of countries throughout 
the world, including our closest allies in the European Union, 
including Russia, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, China, New 
Zealand, and other countries. So this is not some kind of new and crazy 
idea. In fact, it exists all over the world.
  At a time when many of my colleagues express their strong conviction 
about States rights and that States should be allowed to have increased 
responsibilities, this amendment should be supported by those people 
who, in fact, believe in States rights. The reason for that is when the 
State of Vermont and other States go forward in passing legislation to 
label genetically modified food, they have been threatened by Monsanto 
and other large biotech companies with costly lawsuits. So States are 
going forward, doing what they think is proper for their own people, 
and then Monsanto and other very large biotech companies are coming 
forward and saying: We are going to sue you.
  Now, Monsanto is arguing, as one of the major grounds for their 
lawsuit--which I believe is absolutely incorrect--that States do not 
have the right to pass legislation such as this; that it is, in fact, a 
Federal prerogative and not something a State can legally do.
  I believe very strongly that Monsanto is wrong, but that is precisely 
what this amendment clarifies.
  Today we have an opportunity with this amendment to affirm once and 
for all that States do have the right to label food that contains 
genetically engineered ingredients.
  Let me briefly tell you what is in this amendment. This amendment 
finds that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
clearly reserves powers in the system of federalism to the States or to 
the people. This amendment finds that States have the authority to 
require the labeling of foods produced through genetically engineering 
or derived from organisms that have been genetically engineered.
  Furthermore, this amendment requires that 1 year after the enactment 
of this act, the Commissioner of the FDA and the Secretary of 
Agriculture shall undertake the necessary regulations to carry out this 
amendment.
  There is strong precedent for labeling GMOs. The FDA already required 
the labeling of over 3,000 ingredients and additives. If you want to 
know if your food contained gluten, aspartame, high-fructose corn 
syrup, trans fats or MSG, you simply read the ingredient label. 
Millions of people every day look at labels: How many calories are 
there in the food? What are the ingredients in the food? This simply 
does what we have been doing as a nation for many years, only right now 
Americans are not afforded the same right for GE foods.
  Monsanto and other companies claim there is nothing to be concerned 
about with genetically engineered food. Yet FDA scientists and doctors 
have warned us that GE foods could have new and different risks, such 
as hidden allergens, increased plant toxin levels, and the potential to 
hasten the spread of antibiotic-resistant disease.
  This is a pretty simple amendment. It basically says the American 
people have a right to know what they are eating. This is legislation I 
know the people of Vermont, I gather the people of Connecticut, and I 
think people all over this country would like to see agreed to. I ask 
for its support.
  There are a couple of other amendments I would like to briefly 
discuss, having to do with SNAP. One of them deals with the need for 
seniors to be better able to access SNAP. It is no secret that in our 
country today, millions of seniors are struggling to get by on limited 
incomes. The result of that is that after they pay their prescription 
drug costs or their rent or their utilities, they do not have enough 
money to spend on food. It is estimated that some 1 million seniors are 
going hungry in the United States of America. That is something we 
should be embarrassed about and an issue we should address as soon as 
possible.
  Clearly, the toll that inadequate nutrition has for seniors impacts 
their overall health. My strong guess is that this amendment will end 
up saving us money because when seniors get good nutrition, they are 
less likely to fall, break their hips, end up in the emergency room, 
end up in the hospital.
  I think from a moral perspective, from a cost perspective, we want to 
make sure all seniors in this country, regardless of their income, have 
the nutrition they need.
  SNAP plays a crucial role in our country in reducing hunger. In 2011, 
SNAP raised nearly 5 million people out of poverty. But here is the 
main point I wish to make: Only 35 percent of eligible individuals over 
age 60 participated in SNAP in 2010. In other words, there are many 
seniors out there who could benefit from SNAP but for a variety of 
reasons, one of which I am addressing right now, they do not 
participate.
  As you may well know, the SNAP application process can be confusing 
and cumbersome for many households, especially for seniors. Individuals 
apply

[[Page S3732]]

for SNAP sometimes by visiting an application center, which is a 
challenge for people with mobility issues. If you are a senior and not 
able to get out of your home, if you cannot afford transportation, 
getting to that center can be very difficult.
  It is also challenging when dealing with an application over the 
telephone if you are hard of hearing--which clearly many seniors are. 
At the same time, the complicated interview process costs local, State, 
tribal, and Federal governments additional administrative dollars.
  The SNAP amendment I am offering is pretty simple. It will help 
alleviate hunger by allowing seniors to more easily apply for and 
access SNAP benefits in order to reduce barriers for seniors applying 
for SNAP.
  This amendment proposes to do the following. It allows States to 
deputize, which in this case means to certify nonprofit organizations 
and area agencies on aging that are meeting with seniors directly and 
helping them with their SNAP application to conduct the interview on 
behalf of the State. The State agency would still determine 
eligibility.
  Further, States would have the flexibility to deputize only the 
agencies that have the capacity to fulfill the State's interview 
requirements on their behalf. This amendment does not waive any 
documentation requirements or ease any other requirements. Eligibility 
for the benefits must still be verified. What it does do is reduce 
duplication of effort and ease the burden on vulnerable families and 
seniors for whom it is a challenge to travel to a State office or wait 
for days at a friend's house who has a phone to make a call.
  All this is doing is saying: If we want to make sure seniors stay 
healthy, get the nutrition they need, stay out of the emergency room, 
stay out of the hospital, let us make it easier for them to take 
advantage of the programs that are currently available. In this case, 
the SNAP eligibility process for seniors is pretty complicated and 
sometimes people who want to be in the program simply are unable to do 
that. I hope we could have support for that amendment.
  The other SNAP amendment deals with an equally important issue of 
people who are wrongfully dropped from the SNAP, often due to an 
administrative error. The current system is inefficient. We are 
spending government money that should be going to help people buy food 
and instead we are spending it on paperwork and bureaucracy. 
Improvements I am proposing will help alleviate hunger as fewer people 
will go without the benefits they need, and State and Federal resources 
will be used more effectively.
  My amendment requires the USDA to track information from States on 
the problem of churn. That is the term used when eligible people are 
dropped from the program and then must reapply. The USDA and advocacy 
groups have identified children as a key problem in the administration 
of SNAP benefits. Having people reapply who never should have been 
dropped from the benefit in the first place adds to the caseload 
burden.

  Tracking the information is only a first step. Then we must find 
solutions to reduce the problem so people do not lose their benefits, 
whether that be improved training, clearer forms and notices or simpler 
recertification processes. These improvements will reduce hunger by 
making sure people get the benefits for which they are eligible and 
which they so desperately need.
  The last issue I briefly wish to touch on deals with the need for the 
USDA to help us understand, through a study, the impact that global 
warming is having on agriculture. We all know we are looking at record-
setting droughts in Australia, Brazil, and locations in America. U.S. 
cities matched or broke at least 29,000 high-temperature records last 
year. Ice-free Arctic summers will be with us within a couple of years. 
That is the reality of the moment.
  The impact of global warming clearly will be felt far and wide, but 
farmers across the country are among those who will suffer the most. 
Warmer temperatures, water shortages and droughts and other extreme 
weather disturbances will force producers to alter practices, change 
crops, and spend more money to sustain their operations.
  This amendment simply asks the USDA to do a study to provide us with 
a better understanding of how changing climate will impact agriculture 
across the country and help farmers plan and adapt to those changes. It 
will help local communities and States make critical adjustments now, 
and it will reduce the vulnerability of the entire agriculture sector 
to the damaging consequences of climate change.
  We think this is an important amendment. State farmers need to have 
the information about what scientists believe will be happening, the 
work they are doing for years to come. I ask for support for that 
amendment.
  In the past we have successfully offered an amendment on community 
gardens. In Vermont, now schools, communities are working on gardens 
all over the State. We had a national program passed last year as well. 
This would simply expand that program to allow schools and communities 
to engage with limited help from the Federal Government in community 
gardens, teaching kids about the foods they are eating and about 
agriculture. It is a very inexpensive concept, which has been working 
very successfully and I think needs to be expanded.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise to offer my support for the sugar 
reform amendment being offered on the farm bill by Senator Shaheen. 
This important amendment would begin a reform process that deals with a 
complicated and burdensome program that artificially raises sugar 
prices in the United States. For nearly three-quarters of a century 
now, American businesses and consumers have paid a premium price for 
sugar. This inflated price is due to a tangled web of price 
manipulation, stringent import quotas and tariffs. The net effect has 
been that Americans are paying as much as twice the world market base 
price for sugar.
  We all realize the amount of sugar that is used in a number of 
products across the United States, but let me bring this down 
specifically to what impact it has on some of the confectioners in my 
home State. Albanese Confectionary Group, Inc, is a renowned Indiana-
based manufacturer of a number of products that use a lot of sugars, 
including chocolates and Gummi bears--they call it the World's Best 
Gummies--and a lot of other confections. Their estimate is that they 
would save $3 trillion annually if they were able to buy sugar at the 
world price.
  Lewis Bakeries, headquartered in Evansville, IN, is one of the few 
remaining independent bakeries in our State and in the Midwest and is 
the largest wholesale bakery we have. Artificially high prices for 
Lewis Bakeries contributes directly to higher food and beverage costs 
that weigh down family budgets. Even larger companies such as Kraft 
Foods, which has a marshmallow and caramel plant in Kendallville, IN, 
knows that phasing out the Sugar Program would enhance the 
competitiveness of U.S. sugar manufacturers.
  Why is that important? Because these sugar prices for those in this 
business of using large quantities of sugar is driving them offshore. 
They are moving to Canada, they are moving to Mexico, they are moving 
to other places where they then can buy the most important ingredient 
for their product at world market prices and save a great deal of 
money.
  I encourage my colleagues to support the Shaheen amendment. It 
promotes jobs, fights consumer price inflation. It reduces the level of 
government interference in private markets. I think we should be 
pursuing policies that allow the free market to determine the cost of 
sugar rather than this complicated web of tariffs and regulations and 
others that protect that price.
  This amendment does not accomplish all of that, but it goes a long 
way toward beginning the process of unwinding this and making our 
companies more competitive around the world.
  I would like to take a moment to address another issue with the farm 
bill. Senator Donnelly and I are cosponsors of a bill called planting 
flexibility. We are hoping this provision we have offered will be 
included in the managers' amendment. I appreciate all the work that has 
been done behind the scenes to

[[Page S3733]]

address this important issue. Planting flexibility simply allows 
farmers to respond to market signals when making their planting 
decisions, rather than following requirements to grow a particular crop 
to participate in government programs.
  For example, Hoosier tomato farmers were restricted on where they 
could plant their crop. Red Gold, a family-owned and operated tomato 
business in Elwood, IN, estimates that roughly 50 percent of its 
tomatoes are now grown on flexible acres. Red Gold produces a whole 
number of tomato products that are sold all over the United States and, 
in fact, all over the world.
  Allowing this flexibility, again, is a free-market-based choice which 
producers can follow based on supply and demand. It gives them the 
flexibility they need to address crops outside the coverage of this 
particular bill.
  I think both of these measures are commonsense, market-driven reforms 
that I hope will be included in the farm bill, and I ask that my 
colleagues support them.
  Mr. President, unless the ranking member on the Agriculture Committee 
needs the time, and since no one else is on the floor, I would be 
remiss in not speaking a little longer.
  If I could speak as if in morning business, I wish to do so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                            Oklahoma Tragedy

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the first thing I want to do is extend our 
sincere regrets over the tragedy which occurred in Oklahoma. Sincere 
thoughts and prayers are coming from many Hoosiers for those people who 
have suffered greatly.
  Last year we had a serious tornado roar through southern Indiana 
along a 50-mile path. Fortunately, we didn't have the level of 
destruction they had in Oklahoma City. But having been there and viewed 
the destruction of that tornado in Indiana and the impact it had on the 
lives of so many people and then comparing it with what happened in 
Oklahoma, it certainly brings home the nature of this tragedy. Whenever 
Mother Nature's vicious wrath strikes, it not only tears apart homes 
but families.
  During these times of tragedy--such as what I witnessed in southern 
Indiana and what we are witnessing on television as we watch what is 
happening in Oklahoma--we see the extraordinary heroism, generosity, 
volunteerism, and resolve of the American people to pitch in and help.
  I ask all Hoosiers to keep our friends in Oklahoma in their hearts 
and prayers and to help wherever we can.


                             Jobs and Debt

  Mr. President, in the last few weeks there has been scandal after 
scandal unfolding in Washington. Obviously this is a difficult period 
for the current administration, but more importantly, it has resulted 
in a difficult time for our Nation.
  What we saw last week is further justification for the American 
people's deeply disturbing distrust of government. Under this current 
administration, there has been a pattern of misleading the American 
people and there has been a culture of intimidation toward those who 
disagree with their policies.
  We saw it when the administration misled the American people with the 
events in Benghazi, and we saw it when the administration avoided 
letting people know about the IRS targeting conservative groups. 
Whether it is the IRS, Benghazi, or other issues we have become aware 
of in the last few weeks and months, they call into question the 
integrity of this administration. The American people deserve straight 
talk and the truth as to what happened rather than the 
mischaracterization or lack of revelation of what has happened.
  Through calls, emails, and letters, I am hearing from concerned 
Hoosiers who are outraged with what they see taking place in 
Washington. Given the headlines they have seen in the last few weeks, 
they have every right to be concerned.
  The only way to eliminate this current trust deficit in Washington is 
to hold people accountable, get complete answers, and make changes to 
ensure this abuse of power and misinformation which is coming out of 
this administration will not continue. We need to continue with these 
ongoing investigations until we get answers and determine who is 
responsible.
  In the midst of these investigations, let me state there is another 
scandal we must not overlook, and that is the ongoing chronic debt and 
unemployment crisis.
  Four-and-a-half years after the end of an admittedly deep recession, 
the fact that 22 million Americans are either unemployed or 
underemployed is a scandal. More than $16.8 trillion of debt, with its 
impact on future generations, is a scandal. Borrowing $40,000 per 
second and saddling each child born today in America with over $50,000 
of debt is a scandal. These numbers are not partisan or political, they 
are the facts. Those are the facts that this body, as well as this 
administration, have to deal with because we are careening on an 
unstable fiscal path which will bankrupt the critical programs our 
seniors and retirees depend on and rob them of the benefits they have 
been promised.
  We are seeing meager gains in jobs only to find out more and more 
Americans are being forced from full-time employment to part-time 
employment. In April alone, nearly 280,000 Americans involuntarily 
entered into part-time employment. At the same time, the average work 
week and weekly take-home pay continues to decline.
  These two issues--our debt crisis and our jobs crisis--should consume 
the work of this Congress and this administration. Instead, we careen 
from drama to drama. We wait for the fiscal cliff and debt limit 
deadlines, and then we enact far short from what we need to do with 
legislation that is often flawed, such as the across-the-board 
sequestration policy. None of this remotely solves the problem we face.
  In a recent Gallup poll, when asked what they would like Congress and 
the President to address, 86 percent of the American people named 
creating jobs and growing the economy. From Fort Wayne to Evansville 
and from Gary to Jeffersonville, Hoosiers tell me they want Congress to 
bring growth and certainty to our economy and create meaningful jobs 
for the underemployed and unemployed.
  As we address the issues before us, let's not forget about this major 
debt crisis which faces our country and impacts every American. Let's 
not forget about those Americans who are looking for work and cannot 
find it, or those who have been forced into part-time jobs which will 
not begin to be enough to support a family. Let's not become distracted 
and drop the ball on tackling these issues because the daily headlines 
are simply pointing to something else.
  The best way we can restore the trust deficit in this country is to 
do our job here, make the tough decisions we know we need to make, and 
address our greatest challenge.
  We must come together on a credible, long-term plan to reduce our 
debt and put our country back on a path toward growth and job creation. 
The future of our country depends upon it. Each of us, starting with 
the President, has a moral obligation to address this most critical 
issue. I hope we will be willing to stand up and do this.
  Yes, we have other issues. We have the farm bill, which we need to 
address. We will be talking about immigration a week after we come back 
from the break. We will be holding investigations and looking into some 
of these scandals that have surfaced over the last few weeks, but we 
still have not focused on the real problem here.
  While we have to do these other tasks, let us not forget what the 
real challenge is before us: restoring economic growth and creating 
jobs. We owe it to the American people.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Unanimous Consent Agreement--S. Res. 65

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding the previous order, the Senate begin consideration of 
S. Res. 65 at 3:45

[[Page S3734]]

p.m.; that there be 50 minutes for debate, that the Republicans control 
30 minutes and the majority control 20 minutes, and that of the 
majority's time, Senator Menendez control 15 minutes and Senator 
Blumenthal control 5 minutes; that all other provisions under the 
previous order remain in effect; and that upon disposition of S. Res. 
65 the Senate resume consideration of S. 954; that there be 2 minutes 
for debate equally divided in the usual form and the Senate immediately 
proceed to vote in relation to the Shaheen amendment No. 925; and that 
there be no second-degree amendments in order prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. President. As a result of this 
agreement, if all time is used, at approximately 4:35 p.m. there will 
be two rollcall votes, the first on adoption of S. Res. 65, the Iran 
sanctions resolution, and then in relation to the Shaheen amendment on 
the Sugar Program.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.


                           Amendment No. 925

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to address the Shaheen amendment 
No. 925 the chairman of the committee just referred to. I urge my 
colleagues to support this amendment. I wish to start by thanking 
Senator Shaheen for her leadership, Senator Kirk for his leadership, 
and Senator Durbin for his support and leadership. We have all worked 
together on this amendment. I wish to briefly explain why I think it is 
important and why this amendment deserves the support of this body.
  First of all, people ought to understand we have an extensive and 
complicated system by which taxpayers and consumers are forced to prop 
up, to an artificially high price, the price of sugar in this country. 
We subsidize a handful of wealthy sugar growers at the expense of 
everybody in America because I can't think of any consumer who doesn't 
consume sugar. Everybody uses some amount of sugar. It is in virtually 
all processed food. It is obviously in any kind of confectionery or any 
kind of sweets. It is a staple, a fundamental staple. In fact, the 
poorest Americans spend the highest percentage of their limited income 
on sugar because that is the nature of this food staple that is sugar.
  Well, what do we do through our agricultural policy? One of the 
things we do is we put a limit on how much we can bring in from 
overseas. It just so happens there are some places in the world that 
can grow sugar cheaper than we can, and rather than take advantage of 
the opportunity to have a lower cost staple for all Americans--
including the poorest of Americans--instead we establish a quota and 
say there is only so much we are going to bring in without imposing a 
big, huge, expensive tariff on them, and since we don't grow enough 
ourselves to meet the demand, when we hit that quota, we do, in fact, 
impose that huge tariff on the additional sugar we need to buy.
  But that is not all we do to subsidize these handful of growers at 
the expense of American taxpayers and consumers. Another program we 
have is an extensive loan program where ultimately the taxpayer lends 
money to sugar producers, and it is a ``heads-I-win, tails-you-lose'' 
program for the sugar producer. If the price drops too low on sugar 
that the producer would actually have to reach into his own pocket to 
pay back the loan, guess what. He doesn't have to do that. He can say: 
Nevermind, I am not going to pay back the loan. I will just give you 
the sugar. This is classic ``heads-they-win, tails-we-all-lose.''
  It goes beyond that because in an effort to prop up the price at 
artificially high levels so we are all paying more than we need to for 
sugar, we have a program that is called the Feedstock Flexibility 
Program. This program is one in which the USDA takes taxpayer money and 
buys up huge quantities of sugar in order to drive up the price for all 
of us. I know it is hard to believe this is true. I am not making this 
up. I am not creative enough to make this up. This is real.
  Then what does the USDA do with the massive quantity of sugar it 
might buy? By the way, there was a front-page story in the Wall Street 
Journal just a few weeks ago about a huge purchase the USDA is 
seriously thinking about making, has the discretion to do it, and might 
very well make. If they don't use all of the sugar, they don't have 
anything to do with it, so they sell it at a huge loss. They sell it to 
somebody who is going to make ethanol or something with it. That is 
what we do with it. It is unbelievable, all the ways in which taxpayers 
or consumers are forced to subsidize a very wealthy group of sugar 
growers. So that is what we do as policy under existing law.
  This amendment tries to push that back a little bit. That is all we 
are trying to do. What Senators Shaheen and Kirk and Durbin and I have 
done with this amendment is say: Can we at least push back some of the 
most egregious features? Can we go back to the policy we had prior to 
the 2008 farm bill because prior to 2008, we did subsidize sugar, but 
at least not quite as much as we do today. So that is what we are 
trying to do. Let's just go back to the policies we had before 2008, 
and specifically let's eliminate this Feed Stock Program, this program 
whereby the USDA can go out and purchase huge quantities of sugar, 
driving up the price, and then turn around and sell it at a huge loss. 
Let's end that, and let's have a little bit more flexibility on this 
quota so American consumers can have the opportunity to buy more sugar 
at prices that are at least a little closer to the world prices.
  Here are a few facts we ought to keep in mind. The net effect of all 
of these programs on all of our consumers--and as I say, everybody 
consumes sugar--is that we pay, on average, about 30 percent more than 
the world market price for sugar. That is what we are doing to our 
consumers now. By the way, that is separate and apart from the cost to 
taxpayers. That is just what consumers are forced to pay.
  Now, does that have the effect of maybe protecting a handful of jobs 
among sugar growers? It probably does. So the Commerce Department 
decided to take a look at this, and they did a study. They discovered, 
sure enough, there are a certain number of jobs among sugar producers 
that are protected by the fact that we don't allow a free market in 
sugar and we don't allow imports from more efficient producers. But 
here is what else they discovered. They discovered for every job we 
save among sugar producers, we lose three jobs among companies that 
manufacture with sugar--companies that make cakes and desserts and 
candies and all the other kinds of goods we manufacture that require 
sugar as an ingredient. The reason we lose those jobs is because those 
companies can't compete with foreign imports that don't have this crazy 
Sugar Program.

  So, for instance, we have candy companies that have left America and 
have moved to Canada because Canada doesn't do this. When they relocate 
in Canada, they can buy sugar at a normal world price, the same as 
anyone else anywhere in the world outside of America--maybe not 
anybody, but lots of people outside of America can buy sugar that is 
much cheaper than what they have to pay for sugar when they are an 
American citizen, an American company, so they can make candy much 
cheaper.
  So we lose American jobs, which we have lost, they go to Canada or 
somewhere else, and how can that possibly be a good outcome to lose 
three jobs for every one we protect. It doesn't make any sense.
  This is a badly flawed policy. I would advocate that we completely 
repeal all of this. That would be my personal view. That is not what 
this amendment does. All we do in this amendment is say let's just go 
back to where we were before the farm bill of 2008 expanded this 
program and created this new liability for taxpayers.
  So I urge my colleagues to support the Shaheen amendment No. 925 for 
some good, commonsense improvements to our existing sugar policy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Ms. HEITKAMP. Mr. President, yesterday I came to the floor of the 
Senate to talk not only about the farm bill, but specifically about the 
importance of the Sugar Program to the compromise that is the farm 
bill. I talked about growers getting protections in terms of crop 
insurance, I talked about the dairy program, I talked about specialty 
crops, and I

[[Page S3735]]

talked about the importance of protecting the domestic sugar industry 
and using a no-cost approach which has been the approach we have dealt 
with for years in the Sugar Program.
  Today I don't want to repeat all of that discussion. What I would 
like to do, however, is respond directly to the Shaheen amendment and 
some of the information we have been hearing about the Shaheen 
amendment going forward. I think it is important because we have heard 
the Shaheen amendment would simply roll back the Sugar Program to the 
policies in place before the 2008 farm bill. In reality, this amendment 
would do far more than what was included in the program prior to 2008 
and would, in fact, threaten 142,000 American sugar-producing jobs in 
22 States.
  I want to be very specific about the uniqueness of this compared to 
pre-2008. So, specifically, the amendment institutes two new policies 
beyond repealing the 2008 farm bill changes to the Sugar Program that 
are damaging to our farmers and sugar manufacturers in the United 
States.
  First, the amendment would mandate for the first time a 15.5-percent 
stocks-to-use ratio. Sugar supplies in the United States are already at 
historically high surplus levels at a stocks-to-use ratio in the 18-to-
20 percent range. This proposal would mandate artificially inflated 
increased inventories in order, really--realistically--to push down 
prices for food processing companies. At a stocks-to-use ratio of less 
than 15.5 percent earlier this year, sugar producer prices were 
collapsing below average levels of the 1980s and the 1990s.
  We hear over and over again about how we have had this dramatic 
increase in sugar prices, and that has led to the loss of American 
processing jobs. Really, nothing could be further from the truth. In 
fact, we have seen historically low prices. In fact, sugar prices 
earlier this year were collapsing below the levels of the 1980s and 
1990s.
  Second, it would make U.S. sugar import quota rights tradable--
tradable--on the open market, and I think that would risk potential 
fraud and abuse and denial of quota benefits to developing countries 
that count on the quotas. So if a country could not, in fact, meet 
their quota, that quota could be traded on the open market. I think 
that is a formula for interjecting a factor that has never been 
instituted before in the sugar bill.
  I think U.S. policy provides access to developing world countries to 
our sugar market, one of the largest in the world. Allowing governments 
of developing nations to trade their quotas does nothing to empower 
those farmers in developing countries. Instead, the quota rights will 
be traded to subsidized industries in powerful sugar companies such as 
Brazil, which could lead to further excess supply in the American 
market.
  Because everybody seems to believe that pre-2008 was a panacea for 
sugar, and if we just went back there everything would once again be 
fine, I wish to set the stage for what the world was like before the 
2008 farm bill. The 2008 farm bill updated the Sugar Program in 
response to a change in the relationship between the United States and 
Mexico regarding sugar. Under NAFTA, agricultural trade was liberalized 
between our two countries which removed barriers and allowed a more 
free flow of goods. The NAFTA provisions regarding sugar were fully 
realized in 2008.
  If dropping the trade barriers resulted in a level playing field, 
this would have been no problem because our American farmers are the 
most efficient in the world, and we can win in a free market condition. 
However, a level playing field was not the case. Mexican sugar is 
highly subsidized. In fact, the government owns approximately 20 
percent of their sugar industry.
  Candy and major food-producing companies are having some of their 
most successful years in memory. When we hear the stories of lost jobs 
and additional burden, I think we need to look at reality, and I think 
reality is that nothing has--the price of sugar has not prevented them 
from achieving record profits, strong profits, and continued growth.
  Another fact that doesn't get talked about much when we talk about 
the Sugar Program is that today the price of sugar is roughly the same 
as what it was in 1985. What product can we say that is true of? Sugar 
is the exact price as it was in 1985.
  Additionally, the domestic price of sugar is often lower than the 
international price when factoring in transportation costs. To claim 
the Sugar Program is breaking the backs of American consumers, again, 
is not a fair or accurate statement.
  The U.S. wholesale sugar price in April was 26 cents per pound. The 
internationally traded sugar price in April was 22 cents per pound. The 
transportation cost of bringing sugar to the United States from Brazil, 
the Dominican Republic, or the Philippines--three of the largest 
importers of sugar under the program--exceeds the 4 cents-per-pound 
difference.
  So I think it is important that we at least have some response to 
this idea that, No. 1, things were good in 2008 so we should just roll 
back the program to 2008. If that were true, obviously, I do not think 
we would be standing here fighting this amendment. But I do not think 
it is true. Plus, I think there are provisions in this amendment that 
have not yet been revealed as provisions that were not included in the 
pre-2008 Sugar Program, and that concerns me.
  It concerns me that this amendment has not had a discussion in 
committee. This amendment has not been something that the experts on 
the Agriculture Committee have deliberated.
  Then I want to kind of pull back and look at a higher view, which is 
the American farmer, American agriculture, and what the farm bill 
attempts to do to guarantee a sure and steady supply of food for our 
country and, arguably, for the world.
  The farm bill is a compromise package. The farm bill represents, in 
each one of those elements, a different provision for different parts 
of our country: dairy, important in Wisconsin; dairy, important in 
Vermont; dairy, not so important in North Dakota. But sugar is 
critically important to the economy of North Dakota. Sugar is important 
to the economy of Minnesota, the economy of Florida, the economy of 
Hawaii.
  All of us have come together to fashion a farm bill that responds to 
the need for certainty in American agricultural policy. The farm bill 
is critical not only to our farmers but to the 16 million jobs the farm 
bill supports, and we forget that. We forget that this is much bigger 
than a sugar program, it is much bigger than any one individual 
commodity. It is about food security, combined with an effort to do 
what we need to do to provide certainty and surety to American 
producers.
  My concern is that when you single out one commodity--whether it is 
soybeans or corn or sugar or tobacco or rice--when you single out one 
commodity, you threaten the effectiveness of the overall farm bill. So 
I would urge my colleagues to work within the structure of the 
Agriculture Committee, understand that where you may have individual 
concerns about each piece of this--and I may have individual concerns 
about varying pieces of this farm bill, this ag bill, but it is 
critically important that we not single out one commodity on which to 
reduce our support. Sugar is too important to our economy, it is too 
important to our food processing to risk simply that we are going to 
have enough sugar on the international market, that we are not going to 
have a domestic supply because many of these provisions would drive the 
domestic producer out of the market, making us beholden to foreign 
sources of sugar. I do not think that is why we have a farm bill. I 
think we have a farm bill so we can guarantee that farm commodities and 
farm products that we are able to grow in this country are available 
and local.
  So I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. I think it is extreme. 
This amendment, which has basically been reported to be a simple 
rollback to 2008, is not exactly as it appears. I believe it is 
critically important that we keep the compromise, which is the farm 
bill as reported out of the committee, essentially intact by 
recognizing the needs of all the commodity groups.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S3736]]

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOEVEN. I want to take several minutes to respond to some of the 
comments that were made here in regard to the farm bill, and 
specifically the Sugar Program. We have got a vote coming up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We currently have an order to move to the 
consideration of S. Res. 65 at 3:45 p.m.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, that is my resolution with Senator 
Menendez. I do not mind yielding a couple of minutes to the Senator to 
make his points.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOEVEN. I thank my colleague. I do want to respond to some 
comments that were made in regard to the Sugar Program and the cost of 
sugar for American consumers. It is very important to understand that 
the price of sugar in the United States is actually less than the 
international price. So because of the Sugar Program we have, American 
consumers benefit. Again, I want to reiterate that point.
  Also I want to express how important it is to understand that we have 
low-cost producers in this country who are precluded from selling their 
sugar in markets such as the European Union because of tariffs and 
restrictions. As an individual who strongly supports international 
commerce and trade, on many of these issues I am down here talking 
about how we want to continue to expand our ability to export. I 
believe that. But at the same time, we have to make sure our companies 
and our farmers, our ranchers and our producers, particularly when we 
are talking about a farm bill, are treated fairly.
  We have a situation where they operate internationally and they are 
precluded from many markets throughout the world, even though they are 
low-cost producers. That is what our Sugar Program is designed to do, 
to try to level that playing field. It does so effectively. The Sugar 
Program has cost this country nothing over the last decade. In fact, 
consumers in this country benefit from lower sugar prices than the 
international price, not higher prices.
  I yield the floor.

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