[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 129 (Thursday, August 6, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4519-S4521]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
______
By Mr. PADILLA (for himself, Ms. Warren, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Markey,
Mr. Booker, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Gillibrand, and Mr. Lujan):
S. 5301. A bill to amend the Department of Agriculture Reorganization
Act of 1994 to reauthorize the position of Farmworker Coordinator; to
the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Voice
for Farm Workers Act, which I introduced today.
Our Nation's farmworkers are the backbone of the U.S. food supply
chain. In the 2008 farm bill, Congress created the Farmworker
Coordinator position: one person statutorily dedicated to serving as a
liaison between the more than 2 million farm workers and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately, Congress has never provided
the resources necessary to support a position of this magnitude. The
time to fix this injustice is now.
The 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture Equity Commission Interim
Report included a strong recommendation for the USDA to fund and
elevate roles for professional staff solely dedicated to farm workers'
concerns and perspectives.
That is why I am introducing this bill to expand and strengthen the
Coordinator position to carry out the responsibilities necessary to
better meet the needs of our farmworkers. This bill would also support
increased collaboration within the Department, with farmworkers, and
with relevant stakeholders to create recommendations for new
initiatives and programs to support farmworkers.
As we negotiate a new farm bill, I urge my colleagues to prioritize
and support the workers that ensure our families and loved ones remain
fed and healthy. Farmworkers' voices must be and deserve to be heard.
______
By Mr. PADILLA (for himself, Ms. Warren, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Markey,
Mr. Booker, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Rosen, and Mr.
Lujan):
S. 5303. A bill to amend the Department of Agriculture Reorganization
Act of 1994 to establish the Office of the Farm and Food System
Workforce; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the
Supporting Our Farm and Food System Workforce Act, which I introduced
today.
Farm and food system workers feed our Nation, We know this well in
California--the agricultural heart of the Nation--where we have one of
the largest populations of farmworkers and food system workers in the
United States. Throughout pandemic, these workers put food on our
tables and kept our grocery store shelves stocked despite facing deep-
rooted inequities in the workforce and often experiencing food
insecurity themselves.
Right now, just one person in the Federal Government is statutorily
dedicated to serving as a liaison between farm workers and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture--the Farmworker Coordinator. While the 2008
farm bill created this position, Congress has never provided the proper
resources to support or staff this position. The 2023 U.S. Department
of Agriculture Equity Commission Interim Report included a strong
recommendation for the USDA to fund and elevate roles for professional
staff solely dedicated to farmworkers' concerns and perspectives.
It is time that we give those who provide the food for our Nation a
voice in the national conversation. We must give farm and food system
workers a dedicated office within the USDA to integrate their
invaluable perspectives into the decisions that directly affect their
lives and livelihoods.
That is why I am proud to introduce this bill, which would create the
USDA Office of the Farm and Food System Workforce to not only serve as
a liaison for farm and food system workers but also to provide a
platform for their concerns and interests to assist in the creation of
recommendations and new initiatives for the Department.
The bill would also create a Farm and Food System Worker Advisory
Committee, composed of a diverse cross-section of members representing
these workers' varied interests and perspectives--such as workers
themselves, labor unions, higher education professionals, civil rights
advocates, women worker-focused groups, and trusted community-based
non-profits.
The legislation would also establish a Farm and Food System Workforce
Interagency Council, comprised of representatives from various Federal
Agencies to improve coordination, planning, program development, and
policymaking across Cabinet-level leadership. The Office would also
appoint staff to various USDA entities to serve as liaisons on matters
related to farm and food system workers within the Department.
Finally, the bill would require annual, publicly available reports,
in multiple languages, about the Office's work, including
recommendations to improve the work and livelihood of farm and food
system workers, the climate change impacts on the food system, and the
barriers workers face to accessing Federal programs.
During this year's farm bill negotiations, I urge my colleagues to
remember the workers behind the American food system, the workers who
keep our families and communities fed and healthy. These workers
deserve a seat at the table.
______
By Mr. PADILLA (for himself, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr.
Blumenthal, Ms. Cortez Masto, Ms. Warren, Mr. Schiff, Mr.
Markey, Mr. Booker, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Gallego, Ms. Alsobrooks, Ms.
Rosen, and Mr. Lujan):
[[Page S4520]]
S. 5304. A bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to
provide increased labor law protections for agricultural workers, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the
Fairness for Farm Workers Act, which I am reintroducing today.
Farmworkers feed our Nation. This is especially true in California--
the agricultural heart of the Nation. California is the most successful
State in agricultural production and has the largest population of
farmworkers. In fact, nearly half of the country's vegetables and over
three-quarters of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in
California.
Farmworkers put food on the tables of millions of Americans despite
working through extreme weather conditions, injuries, disasters,
pandemics, and more. Yet farmworkers have been unjustly excluded from
labor laws. The time to address these inequities is now.
While the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act established Federal standards
for minimum wage and overtime pay, the law excluded millions of
domestic and agricultural workers--workers who were and remain
overwhelmingly people of color. In 2016, California recognized the need
to provide farmworkers overtime protection. The California overtime
law, which ensures farmworkers will have an equal right to overtime
pay, serves as the model for this Federal bill.
Farmworkers in California and across the Nation deserve an end to
discrimination in labor laws. We must undo the discriminatory exclusion
of farmworkers by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act.
That is why I am proud to introduce this bill, which would improve
the lives of farmworkers and their families, create equity in our food
system, and benefit farming communities as the increased wages are
spent in local businesses.
This bill will gradually implement overtime pay over the course of 4
years and bring greater equity to the American agricultural industry
and greater prosperity to historically marginalized workers.
I want to thank Congresswoman Grijalva for introducing this bill with
me, and I hope our colleagues will join us to provide a measure of
long-overdue fairness for our Nation's farmworkers.
______
By Mr. PADILLA (for himself, Mr. Heinrich, and Mr. Schiff):
S. 5309. A bill to amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to provide
payments for alternative manure management practices under the
environmental quality incentives program, and for other purposes; to
the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Converting Our
Waste Sustainably (COWS) Act. This legislation will help dairy and
livestock producers reduce methane emissions, improve air and water
quality, and implement more sustainable alternative manure management
practices.
As the leading dairy State in the country and the second in cheese
production, California is the largest producer of milk, butter, and
cheeses like mozzarella, Monterey Jack, and queso fresco. Dairy
operations contribute billions to California's economy but are also a
significant source of California's methane emissions.
Recognizing the urgency of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions like
methane, California and the dairy industry are working to reduce dairy
methane emissions by 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2030, largely due
to the successes of California's own Alternative Manure Management
Program, AMMP.
The COWS Act would allow alternative manure management practices to
be eligible under USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
EQIP, to help dairy and livestock producers transition towards pasture-
based management, alternative treatment and storage practices, solid
separation systems, and scrape technologies.
These practices, which have proven to be effective through the AMMP,
will provide more resources for the dairy and livestock industry to
modernize technologies for manure management that help boost
profitability, improve water quality, and reduce methane and nitrogen
oxide emissions.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural operations is
critical for addressing the climate crisis. Because of the high
construction and operation costs associated with anaerobic digesters,
nondigester manure management practices can provide a more cost-
effective alternative for family dairy and livestock operators seeking
to improve air and water quality for their communities.
I would like to thank Congressman Costa for leading this bill in the
House, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass the
COWS Act.
______
By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Kim, Ms.
Alsobrooks, and Ms. Blunt Rochester):
S. 5320. A bill to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to
prohibit certain securities trading and related communications by those
who possess material, nonpublic information, and for other purposes; to
the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, today, I am joined by Senators Van Hollen,
Kim, Alsobrooks, and Blunt Rochester in introducing the Insider Trading
Prohibition Act, a bill that will finally define the offense of insider
trading. This legislation is desperately needed because in the absence
of a statutory definition, the courts have cobbled together a dizzying
array of interpretations of anti-fraud statutes, creating what is an
inconsistent and complicated body of common law for deciding insider
trading cases. What should be simple has become unnecessarily complex.
Indeed, Judge Jed Rakoff, who has presided over many insider trading
cases before the Southern District of New York, wrote in a recent
opinion that ``the crime of insider trading is a straightforward
concept that some courts have somehow managed to complicate.''
Consider the following hypothetical example. A financial analyst
receives information about XYZ Corporation's earnings from a company
insider, like an executive or board member, before this information is
publicly released. The analyst then shares this inside information with
her portfolio manager, who subsequently trades in XYZ stock.
I suspect most Americans would agree that the portfolio manager was
given an unfair advantage.
But the courts are not so sure. They have left an open question
whether this very trade would constitute illegal insider trading.
Experts agree that this kind of judicial uncertainty is one reason
among many of why Congress must clarify the law of insider trading.
Current SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in response to questions for the
record that ``following several high-profile insider trading cases, in
1988 Congress adopted the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud
Enforcement Act, but despite the statute's name, did not define
`insider trading' because of lack of consensus of how to define it.
Almost four decades later, the situation is even muddier as courts have
applied the concept to various fact patterns.''
Former SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson and former U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara have written that ``[t]he shoddy state of American
insider-trading law affects everyone. Prosecutors and regulators are
stuck enforcing laws that are ill-suited to 21st-century misconduct.
Lawyers struggle to tell their clients what they can and cannot do
within the bounds of the law. And ordinary Americans are left asking
whether financial markets are stacked in favor of those who skirt the
rules.''
Columbia Law School Professor John C. Coffee, Jr., noted that ``there
is general agreement today that the law of insider trading has grown
overly complex and technical. As a result, it is hard for the public to
understand its logic or for practitioners to give advice with respect
to the scope of the prohibition. Moreover, to the extent that insider
trading is judge-made law, disparities and inconsistencies among the
U.S. circuit courts becomes inevitable because there is little in the
way of a definitive statutory text to provide precise guidance.''
[[Page S4521]]
State regulators agree too. For example, Maryland Commissioner of
Securities Melanie Senter Lubin has stated on behalf of the North
American Securities Administrators Association that ``defining the
standards for insider trading liability by statute would add greater
clarity and consistency to this important area of the law.''
This is precisely what my colleagues and I are doing in our bill. We
are seeking to finally distill the offense of insider trading to clear
bright line rules. Simply put, if a person trades a security on the
basis of information that the person is aware is material and nonpublic
and is aware was wrongfully obtained, then that person has engaged in
unlawful insider trading.
Under our legislation, insider trading would be prohibited if a
trader knows or has reason to know that her information was wrongfully
obtained, for example, through theft, bribery, hacking,
misappropriation, or a breach of a fiduciary duty for a personal
benefit. We do not intend to restrict those who take the time to
independently develop their own information from publicly available
sources from trading on the independently developed information.
By cracking down on those who rig securities markets to favor the
well connected, our legislation provides everyday investors with a fair
shot at seeing some returns after investing their hard-earned savings.
Incidents of insider trading and the perceived pervasiveness of the
practice have for years served to validate the public's worst
assumptions about Wall Street culture. It is time we clearly define
what is appropriate under the law and take this meaningful step towards
improving the integrity of our securities markets for professional
traders and retail investors alike.
I would like to thank my Banking Committee colleagues for working
with me on this legislation, and I urge our colleagues to join us in
supporting the Insider Trading Prohibition Act.
______
By Mr. SCHUMER (for himself, Mr. Wicker, and Mrs. Gillibrand):
S. 5323. A bill to designate a building of the Chancery of the United
States in Pristina, Kosovo, as the ``Eliot L. Engel Building''; to the
Committee on Foreign Relations.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of
the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 5323
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. DESIGNATION.
The building of the Chancery of the United States located
at Arberia, Nr.25 Rr. 4 KORRIKU in Pristina, Kosovo, shall be
designated as the ``Eliot L. Engel Building''.
SEC. 2. REFERENCES.
Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper,
or other record of the United States to the building referred
to in section 1 shall be deemed to be a reference to the
``Eliot L. Engel Building''.
______
By Mr. PADILLA (for himself and Mr. Cornyn):
S. 5352. A bill to amend the Water Infrastructure Improvements for
the Nation Act and the Water Desalination Act of 1996 to reauthorize
certain desalination programs, and for other purposes; to the Committee
on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the
Desalination Reauthorization Act.
This bill would reauthorize BOR's programmatic approval to
provide grants for desalination projects, which will
otherwise expire this year. It would also allow public-
private partnerships to compete for this funding.
The bill would also reauthorize the desalination and water
purification research program and amend it to authorize
advanced pilot projects. Advanced pilots can cover the gap in
developing new technologies known as the Valley of Death
between a successfully validated laboratory prototype and a
commercially viable, scalable product. During this phase,
public grants typically dry out, while private investors
demand proven market traction before committing capital.
The Federal cost-share under the program is limited to 24
percent of the cost of any desalination project. The bill
would direct the Reclamation cannot administratively impose a
maximum funding amount that each desalination project can
receive, which would allow large desalination plants to
receive the full 25 percent cost-share. I believe it is
important that the bill support desalination projects of
varying sizes. Large projects can allow multiple water
districts in a region to participate and can lower the unit
cost of the water produced.
The desalination projects supported by these Bureau of
Reclamation programs have supplemented local supplies,
provided flexibility during water shortages, and diversified
the water supply.
Desalination offers a drought-proof water supply
alternative, and we need to keep funding both commercial
desalination projects and research to lower its costs and
reduce its environmental impacts.
I would like to thank Senator Cornyn for coleading this
bill.
____________________