[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 186 (Monday, December 16, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7052-S7053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Farm Bill

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I am sorry that I am here at this hour of 
the day on Monday, the beginning of what we hope to be the last week of 
this congressional session, as we recess for about a week before 
returning for the new session of the U.S. Congress.
  I am here this evening to hope to express my hope that things that 
have not happened that have created challenges for farmers and ranchers 
across Kansas and around the country are addressed in legislation 
pending before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.
  We have made mistakes, errors. We have failed in a couple of 
significant ways this congressional session in regard to the 
appropriations process and the consequences that the failure to pass a 
farm bill has upon farmers across my State and around the country.
  First of all, I am saddened that we have not completed the 
appropriations process, the 12 appropriations bills that should have 
marched across this Senate floor and across the House and already been 
sent to the President.
  In the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which I am a senior 
member, we passed all but one of those bills and reported them to the 
Senate floor with no further action. As a result of that, one of the 
items that has not occurred is that there is no appropriations bill 
dealing with agriculture that is ready for the President's signature or 
that should have been signed by September 30, earlier this year.
  Secondly, the Senate Committee on Agriculture has not provided us 
with a renewed, improved farm bill. We are operating under an 
extension, and I would expect, before the end of the week, we will 
extend the farm bill one more time.
  As a result, we are combining the effort to meet the needs of farmers 
and ranchers in this process by which we will pass a continuing 
resolution funding the Federal Government, presumably, to March; and 
included in that continuing resolution is what we call disaster 
assistance.
  The disasters that occurred across the country--Helene, Milton; the 
damage that was done by tropical storms in Florida, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee--and the storm damage in many places 
across the country are to be addressed this week in an addition to the 
continuing resolution that funds the Federal Government. I support 
that.
  There are significant challenges to people that have occurred through 
no fault of their own. One of those challenges is to farmers and 
ranchers, who, through no fault of their own, have no farm bill--
therefore, no safety net--and who have no opportunity to address the 
needs as they go to their bankers--their financial bankers--to plan for 
the new year--no farm bill in place to provide a safety net and, 
without passage of disaster assistance, no assistance to help them get 
through the planting season for agriculture commodities across the 
country.
  So before the end of this week, we need to do serious and significant 
work. And the point I want to make tonight is that, without the 
inclusion of assistance to farmers and ranchers in the continuing 
resolution, I will not vote for the continuing resolution. I despise 
voting for them regardless, all the time. I have because I so oppose 
government shutdowns. But in the absence of solving the challenges that 
farmers and ranchers meet--through disaster assistance, through 
financial assistance to those farmers--the CR will not attain my vote.
  So the negotiations are ongoing, as I understand it. They were to 
have been completed, perhaps a long time ago, but they were certainly 
to have been completed last night and filed. It has not happened yet, 
and the deadline is December 20, before there is a government shutdown.
  The circumstances that we face is no--let me repeat this so I can 
make it perhaps clearer. Without a farm bill, there is no safety net. 
The safety net that was present under the old farm bill, even if 
extended, does not meet today's current challenges that farmers face.
  The cost of inputs--fuel, fertilizer, seed, labor, land values, 
interest rates, in particular--have skyrocketed, and the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture has determined that ``on the farm'' income 
will be down more than 43 percent over what it was when we passed the 
last farm bill, now 6 years ago--no farm bill to meet the needs, no 
farm policy to meet the needs of the challenges that ranchers and 
farmers have.
  And then, unless we provide the disaster assistance--the natural 
disaster assistance that is so needed--and, again, I mentioned States 
that have had hurricanes. I will highlight that, in the State of 
Kansas, we have been in a drought for the last 4 or 5 years. This is 
the most severe year yet.
  Seventy-nine percent of Kansas agriculture experienced drought across 
our State, most of it in severe fashion. This past year, Kansas wheat 
farmers experienced their smallest crop since 1961, largely due to lack 
of moisture.
  So you add these things together--terribly high input costs, low 
commodity prices, and then if you have no commodity to sell because you 
couldn't grow anything--one of my staffers told me, when I said: You 
should be home for harvest earlier this year.
  He said: Jerry, we plant wheat; we don't harvest wheat.
  And that is exactly what happened across the State this year and, 
unfortunately, for past years.
  Some will say we have crop insurance to deal with this issue. Crop 
insurance is hugely important to producers around the country, but it 
doesn't work when there are multiple-year disasters because the average 
for which you can receive compensation is based on previous years.
  So we have never figured out--RMA, the Department of Agriculture have 
never figured out--a crop insurance product that meets the needs of 
farmers who, year after year after year, have less production.
  The point I want to make is, this is a real circumstance that has 
huge consequences, not only on the farmers of Kansas and other States 
across the country but upon the need to meet our hunger needs around 
the world and the need to meet the nutrition and safety and well-being 
of Americans across the country.

[[Page S7053]]

  Again, I ask my colleagues to make certain that the continuing 
resolution include assistance to agriculture producers and it be done 
in a way that actually meets their needs. And then, let's make certain 
we get a farm bill done--again, already late, but can we get it done 
early in 2025?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall 
vote scheduled at 5:30 begin immediately.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.