[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 144 (Tuesday, August 28, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5992-S5994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

       By Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. Carper):
  S. 3394. A bill to establish a national mercury monitoring program, 
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Environment and Public 
Works
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, today along with Senator Carper, I am 
introducing the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act. This 
bill would ensure that we have accurate information about the extent of 
mercury pollution in the United States.
  A comprehensive national mercury monitoring network is needed to 
protect human health, safeguard fisheries, and track the effect of 
emissions reductions. This tracking is particularly important in light 
of increasing mercury emissions from other countries, including a 
substantial amount of mercury emissions from China. Mercury can be 
transported around the globe, meaning emissions and releases can affect 
human health and environment even in remote locations.
  The issue of mercury emissions is growing in importance around the 
world. In 2013, the United States was the first Nation to join and sign 
the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global agreement to reduce 
mercury pollution. The Minamata Convention has been signed by more than 
125 countries and raises the issue that mercury poses a global threat 
to human health. At present, scientists must rely on limited 
information to understand the critical linkages between mercury 
emissions and environmental response and human health. Successful 
design, implementation, and assessment of solutions to the mercury 
pollution problem require comprehensive long-term information. A system 
for collecting such information, such as we have for acid rain and 
other pollution, does not currently exist for mercury--a much more 
toxic pollutant.
  Mercury is a potent neurotoxin of significant ecological and public 
health concern, especially for children and pregnant women. It is 
estimated that approximately 200,000 children born in the U.S. per year 
are exposed to levels of mercury in the womb that are high enough to 
impair neurological development. Mercury exposure has gone down as U.S. 
mercury emissions have declined; however, levels remain far too high.
  By accurately quantifying regional and national changes in 
atmospheric deposition, ecosystem contamination, and bioaccumulation of 
mercury in fish and wildlife in response to changes in mercury 
emissions, a monitoring network would help policy makers, scientists, 
and the public to better understand the sources, consequences, and 
trends in mercury pollution in the United States. We must have more 
comprehensive information and we must have it soon; otherwise, we risk 
making misguided policy decisions.
  Specifically, the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act 
would:
  Direct EPA, in conjunction with the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. 
Geological Survey, National Park Service, the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Association, and other appropriate Federal agencies, to 
establish a national mercury monitoring program to measure and monitor 
mercury levels in the air and watersheds, water and soil chemistry, and 
in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms across the nation;
  Establish a scientific advisory committee to advise on the 
establishment, site selection, measurement, recording protocols, and 
operations of the monitoring program;
  Establish a centralized database for existing and newly collected 
environmental mercury data that can be freely accessed on the Internet 
and is comprised of data that is compatible with similar international 
efforts;
  Require a report to Congress every two years on the program, 
including trends, and an assessment of the reduction in mercury 
deposition rates that need to be achieved in order to prevent adverse 
human and ecological effects every four-years; and
  Authorize $95 million over three years to carry out the Act.
  We must establish a comprehensive, robust national monitoring network

[[Page S5993]]

for mercury to provide the data needed to help make decisions to 
protect the people and environment of Maine and the United States.
                                 ______
                                 
       By Mr. WYDEN:
   S. 3403. A bill to authorize transitional sheltering assistance for 
individuals who live in areas with unhealthy air quality caused by 
wildfires, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Air 
Refugee Assistance Act of 2018 to help Americans who have been driven 
away from their homes by choking, hazardous wildfire smoke. Western 
wildfires are getting bigger, hotter, and more difficult to fight and 
scientists says it's only likely to get worse.
  Folks back home in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest already 
know what I'm talking about because they're on the front lines of these 
disasters. With dryer summers and lower snow packs, wildfires rage 
across the West. They're threatening lives, homes, and businesses and 
generating so much smoke that they're creating what I call clean air 
refugees.
  These are people who can't go outside and, in some cases, who must 
flee their homes and communities to find pockets of fresh air.
  I'm talking about children suffering from asthma and other conditions 
and seniors who need a respirator to breathe.
  In some cases, Oregonians lacking access to safe, clean air are being 
told to seek shelter in public places like libraries and government 
buildings.
  My legislation would help provide some relief by opening the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Transitional Sheltering Assistance 
program to people seeking temporary shelter from wildfire smoke.
  This program already permits FEMA to pay for temporary lodging for 
people who can't immediately return home following a disaster.
  My bill would permit clean air refugees to apply if they live in an 
area where the air quality index is determined to be unhealthy for at 
least three consecutive days as the result of a wildfire declared to be 
a major disaster by the President or Governor of the affected state.
  FEMA-approved applicants would pick from a list of participating 
hotels and motels and FEMA would pay the lodging costs.
  Mr. President, the Federal government needs to step up and be a 
better partner on these wildfires and it can start by helping Americans 
who have been driven from their homes find some refuge.
  Passing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act would be a breath of 
fresh air for folks struggling to escape the choking smoke, and I urge 
my colleagues to support this important bill.
                                 ______
                                 
       By Mr. BOOKER:
   S. 3404. A bill to impose a moratorium on large agribusiness, food 
and beverage manufacturing, and grocery retail mergers, and to 
establish a commission to review large agriculture, food and beverage 
manufacturing, and grocery retail mergers, concentration, and market 
power; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Food and Agribusiness Merger 
Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2018, a critical bill that would 
put a pause on the largest, most consequential acquisitions and mergers 
in the food and agriculture sector, and give Congress an opportunity to 
update our antitrust laws in order to protect America's farmers, 
workers and rural communities who are being harmed by the ever 
increasing levels of corporate concentration.
  Almost 20 years ago, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota introduced 
the Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 1999.
  Senator Wellstone introduced that bill out of a concern that growing 
concentration in the agricultural sector was harming our farmers and 
rural communities, and was causing agricultural commodity markets to 
become stacked against the farmer.
  Senator Wellstone was right to be concerned, and over the past two 
decades concentration has only gotten worse--much worse. Today a small 
number of giant companies control every link of the food chain.
  Consolidation has now reached a point where the top four firms in 
almost every sector in the food and agriculture economy have acquired 
abusive levels of market power.
  Recently I traveled and met with farmers and ranchers in rural 
America. I heard firsthand how excessive levels of concentration and 
market power hurt our independent family farmers, who are being forced 
to sell into ever more concentrated marketplaces that unfairly reduce 
the prices they receive for their crops and livestock.
  The data paints a grim picture: The farmer's share of every retail 
dollar has plummeted from 41 percent in 1950 to approximately 15 
percent today. Since 2013, net farm income for United States farmers 
has fallen by half and median farm income was negative in 2017 and is 
expected to be negative again in 2018.
  Excessive market power has led to price gouging of both farmers and 
consumers. For example, in 2016 the largest pork producer in the U.S., 
Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, credited its enhanced profits to the 
14-year low prices paid to farmers for live hogs and the higher selling 
prices for pork to consumers.
  In the past three decades, the top four largest pork packers have 
seized control of 71 percent of the market, up from 36 percent. Over 
the same period, the top four beef packers have expanded their market 
share from 32 percent to 85 percent. The top four flour millers have 
increased their market share from 40 percent to 64 percent. The market 
share of the top four soybean crushers has jumped from 54 percent to 79 
percent, and the top four wet corn processors control of the market has 
increased from 63 percent to 86 percent.
  The top four grain companies today control nearly 90 percent of the 
global grain market.
  During the past two years, there has been a wave of consolidation 
among global seed and crop-chemical firms, and three companies now 
control nearly two-thirds of the world's commodity crop seeds. Those 
same three companies now also control nearly 70 percent of all 
agricultural chemicals and pesticides.
  In the United States, the four largest corn seed sellers accounted 
for 85 percent of the market in 2015, up from 60 percent in 2000. Over 
the past 20 years, the cost for an acre's worth of seeds for an average 
corn farmer has nearly quadrupled, and the cost of fertilizer has more 
than doubled. Yet corn yields increased only 36 percent over that time, 
and the price received for the sale of a bushel of corn increased only 
31 percent.
  71 percent of the contract poultry growers who depend on the income 
from their poultry contracts live at or below the federal poverty 
level.
  The United States is losing farmers at an alarming rate, agricultural 
jobs and wages are drying up, and rural communities are disappearing.
  These problems can be mitigated by more active use of our antitrust 
laws, and allowing an opportunity for U.S. farmers and ranchers to 
compete in fair and open markets.
  The Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act 
provides the opportunity to stop increased consolidation through 
acquisitions and mergers until such time as a full review of the impact 
of concentration is completed and government responses are formulated.
  Specifically, this bill would halt large mergers in the food system 
for 18 months and would set up a commission to study how to strengthen 
antitrust oversight of the farm and food sectors and publish 
recommended improvements to merger enforcement.
  This moratorium would provide needed time to develop new tools to 
strengthen merger enforcement and antitrust rules to address the unique 
conditions in the farm and food economy and protect farmers, workers 
and consumers.
  The federal government needs to provide safeguards to the 
agricultural marketplace so that farmers and workers have the 
opportunity to share in the prosperity that open, transparent and fair 
markets can provide them.
  Senator Wellstone was prescient when he put forward this legislation 
almost twenty years ago. The problem of concentration was apparent 
then, and has grown even worse. What would

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have been had the Senate passed this legislation then?
  I did not have the opportunity to serve alongside Senator Wellstone, 
but I know from my colleagues who did, that there was no better 
advocate, no better organizer, who understood the power of coalitions, 
who understood the power of taking an issue to the Senate floor and 
demanding action. I look forward to working with my colleagues, 
educating others about this issue, and continuing the work he started 
to defend farmers, workers, and consumers from the harms being posed by 
corporate concentration.
  This legislation has broad support, with endorsements from the 
following organizations:

       ActionAid USA, Alabama Contract Poultry Growers 
     Association, Alliance for Democracy, American Agriculture 
     Movement, American Grassfed Association, Animal Wellness 
     Action, Appetite for Change (MN), Beyond Pesticides, 
     California Dairy Campaign, California Farmers Union, Campaign 
     for Contract Agriculture Reform, Campaign for Family Farms 
     and the Environment, Cattle Producers of Louisiana, Center 
     for Food Safety, Community Farm Alliance (KY), Contract 
     Poultry Growers Association of the Virginias, The Cornucopia 
     Institute, Crawford Stewardship Project (WI), Dakota Rural 
     Action of SD, Dallas Farmers Market Friends, Family Farm 
     Action.
       Family Farm Defenders (WI), Farm Aid, Farm and Ranch 
     Freedom Alliance, Farmworker Association of Florida, 
     Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, 
     Food & Water Watch, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Food for 
     Maine's Future, Food Policy Council of San Antonio, Friends 
     of the Earth U.S., Government Accountability Project, GROW 
     North Texas, HEAL Food Alliance, Idaho Organization of 
     Resource Councils, Illinois Farmers Union, Illinois 
     Stewardship Alliance, Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming, 
     Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Iowa Citizens for 
     Community Improvement, Iowa Farmers Union.
       Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (MD), Kansas 
     Farmers Union, Land Stewardship Project (MN), Michigan 
     Farmers Union, Minnesota Farmers Union, Missouri Farmers 
     Union, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, National Family Farm 
     Coalition, National Farmers Organization, National Farmers 
     Union, National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association, 
     National Women Involved in Farm Economics, Nebraska Farmers 
     Union, North Dakota Farmers Union, Northeast Organic Dairy 
     Producers Alliance, Northeast Organic Farming Assoc.--NY, 
     Northeast Organic Farming Assoc.--VT, Northern Plains 
     Resource Council (MT), Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance 
     (MA), Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.
       Oklahoma Independent Stockgrowers Association, Oklahoma 
     Stewardship Council, Organic Farmers' Agency for Relationship 
     Marketing (OFARM), Organic Seed Alliance, Organic Seed 
     Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA), Organization for 
     Competitive Markets, PCC Community Markets (WA), Pennsylvania 
     Farmers Union, Powder River Basin Resource Council (WY), R-
     CALF United Stockgrowers of America, Rocky Mountain Farmers 
     Union, Rural Advancement Foundation International--USA (RAFI-
     USA), Rural Coalition/Coalicion Rural, Rural Vermont, Slow 
     Food Dallas-Ft. Worth, South Dakota Farmers Union, Southern 
     Colorado Livestock Association, State of Missouri National 
     Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Western 
     Colorado Alliance, Wisconsin Farmers Union.

  Thank you, Madam President.

                          ____________________