[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 188 (Thursday, November 29, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S7214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Farm Bill

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I first wanted to comment on the 
importance of an agreement on the farm bill. This is something that has 
been long in coming. I want to thank Chairman Roberts and Ranking 
Member Stabenow for their work, as well as the Members in the House, 
including my colleague from Minnesota, Republican leader Collin 
Peterson. He will be taking over the Ag Committee in the House next 
year. This is a bill that is so important to rural America and in my 
State.
  We have seen low commodity prices for too long. As a member of the Ag 
Committee, I know the last farm bill--the one we are operating under 
currently--has some things for a strong safety net, but this farm 
bill--the new tentative agreement--will allow us to make some changes 
to the way the data is collected, which will be helpful for our farmers 
with crop insurance. We have some improvements in dairy. We have some 
good work that is going on with regard to conservation and some changes 
there.
  As you know, our Senate bill got 86 votes. We don't even get that for 
a volleyball resolution around here. It was a bipartisan bill, and much 
of that bill, I know, will be contained in this tentative agreement. 
``Tentative'' is with a small ``t,'' and the only reason we are saying 
that is because we have to get the printed version out, and my hope is, 
we can get this done in the next week. We do not want to go into next 
year without a farm bill, with what we are seeing with the tailwinds 
from these tariffs, with what we are seeing with diseases lurking out 
there. In Minnesota and in other States in the Midwest, we just got 
through avian flu a few years back, and every so often we have seen 
some outbreaks of that. We lived through H1N1. We have a really good 
provision in here that I authored with Senator Cornyn for a vaccine 
bank.
  So there is a lot of important, steady policy in the farm bill to 
show rural America we have their backs and really to show the world 
that at a time of great global competitiveness and with issues for our 
farmers with everything from weather to prices, to global competition, 
we want to make sure America stands by our farmers, and this farm bill 
is a sure way to do it.
  I am very excited, as a member of the Ag Committee, that we are close 
to releasing some language here and look forward to getting this done 
immediately.
  We have all litigated these issues over the last year. It is not like 
some new idea had been airlifted into this bill. Literally, every 
single issue--from the nutrition discussions to the conservation 
issues, to what we have seen on the farm programs, to rural economic 
development, to rural broadband--has been discussed at length, and we 
are ready to go. Let's get this bill done.