[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13620-13636]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
proceed to the consideration of S. 1233, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative assistant read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1233) making appropriations for Agriculture, 
     Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
     Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
     2000, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.


                         Privilege Of The Floor

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
following Appropriations Committee staff members and intern be granted 
floor privilege during consideration of this bill and any votes that 
may occur in relation thereto: Rebecca Davies, Martha Scott Poindexter, 
Hunt Shipman, Les Spivey and Buddy Allen.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to present for the Senate's 
consideration, S. 1233, the fiscal year 2000 Agriculture, Rural 
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies 
appropriations bill. This bill provides fiscal year 2000 funding for 
all programs and activities of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the 
Food and Drug Administration, and the Commodity Futures Trading 
Commission.

[[Page 13621]]

The Forest Service is not included. It is funded in the Interior 
appropriations bill.
  As reported, the bill recommends total new budget authority for 
fiscal year 2000 of $60.7 billion. This is $6.2 billion more than the 
fiscal year 1999 enacted level and $1.2 billion less than the 
President's fiscal year 2000 budget request.
  Changes in mandatory funding requirements account for the overall 
increase from the fiscal year 1999 enacted level primarily due to a 
$5.9 billion estimated increase in the required payment to reimburse 
the Commodity Credit Corporation for net realized losses. In fact, I 
point out that just over three-quarters of the total $60.7 billion 
recommended by this bill is for mandatory appropriations, over which 
the Appropriations Committee has no effective control.
  The spending levels for these programs are governed by authorizing 
statutes. The mandatory programs funded by the bill include not only 
the payment to reimburse the Commodity Credit Corporation for net 
realized losses which I just mentioned, but the food stamp and child 
nutrition programs, and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Less 
than one-fourth of the total funding recommended by this bill is for 
discretionary programs and activities.
  Including congressional budget scorekeeping adjustments and prior 
year spending actions, this bill recommends total discretionary 
spending of $13.983 billion in budget authority and $14.254 billion in 
outlays for fiscal year 2000. These amounts are consistent with the 
subcommittee's discretionary spending allocations.
  I will take a few minutes to summarize the bill's major funding 
recommendations. For the Food Safety and Inspection Service, 
appropriations of $638 million are recommended, $21 million more than 
the fiscal year 1999 level. For the Animal and Plant Health Inspection 
Service, $445 million is recommended, $11 million more than the 1999 
level. Appropriations of USDA headquarters operations and for other 
agriculture marketing and regulatory programs are approximately the 
same as the 1999 appropriations levels, with the exception of a $7 
million increase in the mandatory USDA rental payment to the General 
Services Administration, a $7 million reduction in funding for the 
census of agriculture, and increased funding for programs and 
activities included in the President's food safety initiative.
  For farm credit programs, the bill funds an estimated $3.1 billion 
total loan program level, $798 million more than the fiscal year 1999 
level, excluding additional loans funded through fiscal 1999 emergency 
appropriations. The amount recommended includes $559 million for farm 
ownership loans and $2.4 billion for farm operating loans.
  Total appropriations of $795 million are recommended for salaries and 
expenses of the Farm Service Agency. This is $80 million more than the 
1999 level and the same as the President's budget request.
  For agriculture research, education, and extension activities, the 
bill provides total appropriations of $1.8 billion. Included in this 
amount is a reduction from fiscal year 1999 of $3.4 million for 
Agricultural Research Service, ARS, buildings and facilities, a $24 
million increase for research activities of the ARS; and a $12 million 
increase in total funding for the Cooperative State Research, 
Education, and Extension Service.
  For USDA conservation programs, total funding of $807 million is 
provided, $15 million more than the 1999 level. This includes $656 
million for conservation operations, $99 million for watershed and 
flood prevention operations, and $35 million for the resource 
conservation and development program.
  USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service is funded at a level of $140 
million. In addition, a total program level of $946 million is 
recommended for the Public Law 480 program, including $159 million for 
Title I and $787 million for Title II of the program. These amounts, 
together with projected carryover balances, will, at minimum, be 
sufficient to maintain the fiscal year 1999 funded P.L. 480 Titles I 
and II levels of $220 million and $837 million, respectively, in fiscal 
year 2000.
  The bill also provides a total program level of $2.2 billion for 
rural economic and community development programs. Included in this 
amount is $718 million for the Rural Community Advancement Program, $55 
million for the Rural Business-Cooperative Service, and a total of $1.6 
billion program level for rural electric and telecommunications loans.
  In addition, the bill devotes additional resources to those programs 
which provide affordable, safe, and decent housing for low-income 
individuals and families living in rural America.
  Estimated rural housing loan authorizations funded by this bill total 
$4.6 billion, a $343 million increase from the fiscal year 1999 level. 
Included in this amount is $4.3 billion in section 502 low-income 
housing direct and guaranteed loans and $114 million in section 515 
rental housing loans.
  In addition, $640 million is included for rental assistance program. 
This is the $200 million more than the budget request and $57 million 
more than the 1999 appropriations level.
  Over 58 percent of the bill's total funding, $36 billion, is provided 
for USDA's domestic food assistance programs. This includes $9.6 
billion for child nutrition programs, including $13 million for the 
newly-authorized school breakfast pilot projects and evaluation; $4 
billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, 
Infants, and Children, WIC; $131 million for the commodity assistance 
program; and $21.6 billion for the food stamp program. The bill also 
provides first-time funding of $3 billion for Bill Emerson and Mickey 
Leland Hunger Fellowships through the Congressional Hunger Center.
  For those independent agencies funded by the bill, the Committee 
provides total appropriations of $1.1 billion. Included in this amount 
is $61 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and $1 
billion for the Food and Drug Administration, FDA.
  Total appropriations recommended for salaries and expenses of the FDA 
are $65 million more than the 1999 level, and reflect the full increase 
requested in the budget for FDA rental payments to the General Services 
Administration, an additional $25 million for FDA food safety 
initiatives, and an increase of $28 million for premarket application 
review.
  In addition, the bill makes available $145 million in Prescription 
Drug User Fee Act collections, $13 million more than the fiscal year 
1999 level.
  The increase provided for premarket application review is the full 
amount requested by the President for these activities through a 
combination of direct appropriations and collections from proposed new 
user fees. By FDA's own admission, new blood products, animal and 
generic drugs, medical devices, and food additives all suffer from 
lengthy review time, far short of meeting the statutory performance 
requirements. This increase is essential to enable FDA to perform its 
core statutory mission of reviewing drugs, foods, medical devices and 
products within statutory time frames and to ensure patients' speedy 
access to new products and the latest technology.
  I point out to my colleagues that the discretionary budget authority 
allocation for this bill is nearly the same as the CBO baseline level, 
or a ``freeze'' at the 1999 enacted appropriations level. To provide 
the selected increases I just cited and to maintain funding for 
essential farm, housing, and rural development programs, several 
mandatory funding restrictions are included in the bill. Modest 
limitations are imposed on Food Stamp program commodity purchases, the 
Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and on new acreage 
enrollments in the Wetlands Reserve Program. Funding for the Initiative 
for Future Agriculture and Food Systems is limited to $50 million, and 
restrictions are imposed on fiscal year 2000 funding for the 
Conservation Farm Option Program and the Fund for Rural America.
  I also point out to my colleagues that although the total 
discretionary spending recommended by this bill is

[[Page 13622]]

approximately $190 million in budget authority below the President's 
request level, the President's proposed budget relies on additional 
revenues and savings to accommodate much higher levels of discretionary 
spending. The President's budget proposes to generate a net total of 
$532 million in collections from new user fees proposals; to make an 
additional $180 million available by double-counting savings used to 
offset 1999 appropriations; to shift the Foreign Market Development 
Cooperator program from the discretionary to the mandatory side of the 
ledger, saving $28 million; to defer until fiscal year 2001 a portion 
of the funds needed to meet rental assistance requirements, saving $200 
million; and to redirect funds from ongoing projects and Congressional 
initiatives to pay for Presidential initiatives.
  We do not propose savings from scorekeeping tactics, or have the 
luxury of being able to rely on revenues and savings from legislative 
proposals that have not been acted on by the Congress or signed into 
law. Consequently, within the discretionary spending limitations 
established for this bill, we have not been able to afford many of the 
discretionary spending increases and new initiatives proposed by the 
administration.
  I am going to highlight what I think to be some of the important 
provisions of this bill and discuss how the subcommittee reached its 
decisions as to the priorities we felt were important enough to include 
for increases in spending and how we generally approached developing 
this legislation.
  As the occupant of the Chair may well remember, we decided this year 
to conduct our hearings based on subject matter categories. We defined 
food safety as one of the highest priority interests in the country 
today, and one of the most challenging issues.
  After hearing the Secretary of Agriculture present the overall budget 
request for the Department of Agriculture this year, we then began 
concentrating on the issue areas we thought to be considered high 
priority areas of interest. Food safety was the first one we 
considered, with witnesses being the highest ranking officials in the 
administration with responsibilities over those areas of the 
President's budget. Testifying were the Commissioner of the Food and 
Drug Administration, for example; the Director of the Food Safety and 
Inspection Service and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta was 
represented at this hearing as well. Based on our findings and the 
information we were able to obtain, this committee has recommended 
increases for funding of programs and activities that come under this 
general issue area.
  We also want to point out that it was clear to us, because of the 
programs and activities and hard work in the past, we are able to enjoy 
the safest food supply in the world, the most abundant food supply, the 
most affordable food supply. The fact of the matter is, Americans ought 
to feel very confident and comfortable with the inspection programs, 
with the recent initiatives that have been developed to make them 
better, more effective, and the funding levels that are contained in 
this legislation to help assure that we continue to improve upon the 
record of the past.
  There have been problems, and we are frightened when we hear about 
contaminated food products. We think more needs to be done in terms of 
educating the public in the handling of food and in the preparation of 
foodstuffs.
  At the same time, there are some responsibilities that peculiarly 
belong in the hands of the Federal Government. Our challenge is to make 
sure those programs are being administered in the way they should be, 
in the way Congress provided the authority for them to be administered, 
and that they are using the funds effectively.
  I believe we can be confident in the expression of support we have 
for the food safety initiative. We have added funds for that and in 
other ways we think we have strengthened the activities of the 
Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and others 
as they relate to food safety.
  I am also happy to report that we were able to recommend funding for 
important nutrition programs. People may not realize it, but almost 60 
percent of the funding in this bill is allocated to food and nutrition 
programs. Of the total amount of $60.7 billion, almost 60 percent of it 
will be spent in the year 2000 to help provide food that is needed by 
those who cannot afford to adequately meet their own needs and the 
needs of their families, and for other programs, like the School Lunch 
Program which we know is tied directly to child health and learning and 
school performance.
  There are other programs, as well, for those who are out of work and 
disabled. The Food Stamp Program is one of the best known and also is 
funded at a high level, although the trend has been going down. That is 
an indication of the strength of the economy and the fact that when we 
do have a good economic growth program and jobs are being provided, 
less money is needed for the Food Stamp Program. That is one reason we 
were able to hold down the increase in the mandatory programs, because 
there is a reduction of about $1 billion in the expected cost of the 
Food Stamp Program for next year as compared to last year. That is good 
news.
  We are increasing the funds for the WIC Program, the Special 
Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants, and Children. This is 
the special program that deals with those women who are pregnant, and 
young children who need special assistance. We are increasing the funds 
so that those needs will be met as a result of the spending in this 
bill.
  There was a pilot program authorized last year by the agriculture 
committees that have legislative jurisdiction over these programs for a 
school breakfast program. This will be a demonstration program that 
would provide free breakfasts to all children in a school to find out 
what effect that would have, whether the need is there, whether the 
demand is there. We provided funds to start up and evaluate a pilot 
breakfast program in this legislation.
  We have added funds for a fellowship program for the Congressional 
Hunger Center. These fellowships will be named for Bill Emerson, a 
former Congressman from Missouri, and Mickey Leland, former Congressman 
from Texas, both of whom have been instrumental in their careers when 
they served in the Congress on hunger issues and in dealing with 
problems of those who do not have enough to eat.
  We are hopeful the entire nutrition area will meet with favor in the 
Senate because of the way we analyzed and went about trying to identify 
the priority needs, looking at the available funding and trying to 
match those in a reasonable and thoughtful way in the bill, and I think 
we have done that.
  Research is an area a lot of people do not think about too much 
unless they are involved in it or benefit directly from it. But it is a 
part of this Department's activities where we have recommended 
additional spending, additional spending compared with last year and, 
in many cases, additional spending as compared with the President's 
budget request.
  We think these are wise investments in making sure we identify the 
emerging technologies that can benefit production agriculture, farmers 
who are out there trying to deal with the big problem of prospective 
low income because of low commodity prices.
  One way you can make that up or help deal with that challenge is to 
improve yields of crops, to develop ways to operate a farm more 
efficiently, to cut down the costs of the so-called inputs into 
production agriculture, the costs of pesticides, herbicides, 
fertilizer, and other variable costs of production.
  One way to get at this is develop new techniques. Biotechnology is 
one example. Seed genetics is another. Private industry is contributing 
an enormous amount of research and development in these areas, but the 
Federal Government has a role to play, too.
  In many cases, what the Federal Government starts in the way of 
research in some of these areas is carried on by others in the private 
sector. Colleges and universities have laboratories and

[[Page 13623]]

students and scientists involved in many of these research projects. So 
across the country, we see very important work being done in 
agriculture-related research that will help farmers achieve profits in 
agriculture in the future and help make our food supply safer, help 
make production agriculture more compatible with the environment 
through more effective pesticides, and other inputs in production 
agriculture that are very costly to the farmer but also contain some 
inherent environmental risk as well and have to be closely monitored. 
So I think agriculture research, particularly ARS research activities, 
as they are increased in this bill, are justified because of the end 
results that we think will flow from these activities.
  Another area that we emphasized in this legislation is conservation, 
not just protecting our land and water resources from erosion or 
contamination but also using incentives in this legislation to 
encourage farmers to manage their lands, to enhance wildlife habitat, 
and to be more sensitive to the needs of those who enjoy the outdoors 
for hiking along the beautiful rivers and streams we have in our 
country. All of these are very important national assets.
  So this legislation funds programs that are designed to achieve the 
goal of protecting our environment, protecting our land from erosion, 
protecting our water from contamination.
  One example of a fairly new program that farmers are beginning to 
appreciate more and more is the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. 
Funds are made available directly through the Commodity Credit 
Corporation to encourage farmers who participate in and who want to be 
involved in this program with new techniques in ways of improving 
wildlife habitat on their land, devoting certain acreage to wildlife 
plantings or conservation techniques. We are finding that is a very 
important new program.
  We are also providing more funds for wetlands conservation program 
activity than ever before in this bill. The Conservation Reserve 
Program is another important program. It has led to a lot of tree 
planting, a lot of conservation practices, idling acres that had been 
in production agriculture that probably should not have been in 
production agriculture from the beginning and defined by those at the 
Department of Agriculture, who have responsibilities for soil 
conservation programs, as erodible, highly erodible lands. So we have 
provided the continuation of funding for that program as well.
  So this is an effort to establish priorities and to see that within 
the limitations that we have for discretionary spending, that we target 
the funds where we think they are very definitely needed. We think this 
is one of those areas.
  Let me just say something about farm income support. We had an entire 
hearing looking at the prospects for farm income. The chief economist 
at the Department was there. Other high-ranking officials of the 
Department of Agriculture came and testified as well. We learned what a 
lot of people already know who watch this situation very closely; that 
farm income is going to be down, net farm income, by over $3 billion in 
this next crop year, which has already begun.
  You compare that with last year's level of income which was 
substantially lower than the year before, that triggered a $6 billion 
disaster assistance program, and you understand how serious the income 
situation is for those involved in farming in America today.
  We talked about what could be done, what programs are in place that 
we could fund or continue or improve that would improve the likelihood 
that farmers could achieve a better result than projected.
  Some things came to mind: Doing a better job in the promotion of 
American agriculture products overseas, trying to make sure that our 
trade relations are good, getting the Government more actively involved 
in taking up for farmers in the sale of what they produced in overseas 
markets.
  If they are denied access to a market or if American commodities are 
being discriminated against in some way, the Government has an 
obligation to get actively involved and not just say: farmers, sorry; 
exporters, sorry. You are on your own. This is a business country, and 
free enterprise means that you have to get out there and do this on 
your own.
  We do not agree with that hands-off attitude in this committee. We 
are funding programs that will help ensure that farmers get a better 
chance of selling what they produce in overseas markets.
  Breaking down barriers to trade, sometimes Congress does itself in on 
this issue. I hear that we are considering taking up a bill to put 
imports on steel. Somebody may say: Who cares? What does that have to 
do with farming? If you do something like that, immediately you reap 
the whirlwind, because those that you put a quota on, who are trying to 
sell you something, put a quota on you. And what do we sell most of? We 
have a surplus of trade in agriculture commodities.
  We have a deficit in trade on most other things. We have an overall 
trade deficit. Agriculture is one of the few sectors of our economy 
with a positive trade balance. But we are going to undo that if we are 
not careful as we take on some of these issues that may sound good for 
the moment or please some organized labor union. We are going to find 
out that is not very smart. I hope the Senate will be careful as it 
approaches issues like that.
  But one thing we are doing, legislation reported by the Agriculture 
Committee, which I hope the Senate will pass, which does something 
about rationalizing the attitudes of how to use sanctions and imposing 
sanctions on trade when we are mad at some country because they do not 
behave in a way that we think they ought to.
  In the past, we have seen administrations--including this one; 
others, too--impose sanctions to try to punish that country. What 
happens is we end up punishing our farmers because we cannot export our 
agriculture commodities.
  We are exempting, as the Senate has recently acted on, food in trade 
relations. We know that food should not be used as a weapon. We are 
learning that. There are a few clear examples where we are going to 
continue to do it, I suppose--Cuba, some other countries that are in 
that category--but generally speaking, we are changing the policy so 
that farmers will not have to pay the price and bear the brunt of 
American foreign policy by giving up trading opportunities and the 
opportunity to export and sell farm commodities in the international 
market. But nonetheless, there are going to be problems, even though we 
are trying to do the right thing on trade sanctions reform, on fair and 
reciprocal trade relations.
  Tax reform is another jurisdictional committee responsibility, but we 
are seeing progress being made there. Interest rates are a big factor 
because that is a major input into the costs of production agriculture 
in some areas of the country, particularly in the South. We are hopeful 
that the interest rates can remain low and will not be increased. That 
can be a very serious detriment to the effort to try to improve farm 
income.
  There are some in our committee who wanted to attach to this bill a 
$6.5 billion amendment for disaster assistance. It was offered in our 
committee, but I made a motion to table the amendment. That motion 
carried. Then in the full committee, while it was mentioned as a 
possibility for debate in the full committee, it was not offered in the 
full committee. But we have been told there will be an amendment 
offered to add $6.5 billion or thereabouts to this bill for disaster 
assistance for farmers.
  I do not think there is any question that farmers are in trouble this 
year because of low commodity prices, and other factors, some of which 
I have mentioned. We do not know what the weather situation is going to 
be. This is the beginning of the crop year.
  To try to anticipate right now what the situation is going to be at 
harvest time and at the time when most farmers may be selling their 
crops, we know that it is likely that income is going to be down. So 
what we hope we will see is an administration that remains very

[[Page 13624]]

much involved in monitoring the situation that confronts production 
agriculture and submit to the Congress a request for additional funding 
for disaster assistance as may be needed based on the circumstances. 
Senators will remember that this month the Department of Agriculture is 
just now getting around to sending to a lot of farmers benefit checks 
that were approved last October in the disaster bill which was passed 
by Congress in the total amount of about $6 billion. Some $2.4 billion 
of that amount was for weather-related disasters, multiyear disasters.
  Arguably, the administration had a difficult time determining 
eligibility, settling on the regulations to implement the program. It 
was a big job; there is no question about that. But it took a long 
time.
  We responded, when we were requested to provide additional funding 
for staffing to process the applications from farmers who wanted to 
apply for benefits under that program. We provided in the initial bill 
about $40 million for that purpose for additional funds for the Farm 
Service Agency offices. Then later this year we were asked to provide 
more. We responded and provided more. As a matter of fact, in the 
supplemental that was passed in May, there was about $575 million of 
additional funding approved for the Department of Agriculture, a good 
bit of which was related to the continuing disaster program and the 
administration of that program that was identified last year by 
Congress and the administration.
  One thing that stands out in my memory about this disaster assistance 
issue is that this bill last year, when we were on the floor presenting 
it to the Senate, had included an issue relating to disaster 
assistance. What the Senate did was try to listen to other Senators. We 
were here on the floor discussing alternatives for responding to the 
disaster. We ended up, in the course of handling this bill, developing 
a disaster assistance program of $4 billion for America's farmers for 
emergency disaster assistance. Guess what happened. The President 
vetoed the bill.
  I am going to read you what the President said in his veto message to 
the Congress after vetoing the agriculture appropriations bill last 
year:

       I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 4101, the 
     Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration 
     and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1999. I am vetoing 
     this bill because it fails to address adequately the crisis 
     now gripping our Nation's farm community.

  Then, after four paragraphs or so, the President says this:

       I am extremely disappointed that the Congress has reacted 
     to this agriculture emergency situation by sending me a bill 
     that fails to provide an adequate safety net for our farmers. 
     I have repeatedly stated that I would veto any emergency farm 
     assistance bill if it did not adequately address our farmers' 
     immediate needs, and this bill does not do enough.

  Then at the end of the message:

       Therefore, as I return this bill, I again call on the 
     Congress to send me a comprehensive plan before this session 
     ends that adequately responds to the very real needs of our 
     farmers at this difficult time. William J. Clinton, the White 
     House, October 7, 1998.

  That wasn't very long ago. Well, what happened next was, we 
reconsidered the agriculture appropriations bill in the Congress. The 
House and Senate conferees got back together with representatives of 
the administration. This was a bipartisan effort to try to reach some 
agreement as to what would be an adequate amount of disaster 
assistance. We had tried to get the administration involved early in 
the process, and we didn't have any luck. There was no active 
involvement in providing information, any guidance as to what the 
President's views were. There were differences of opinion all over 
Capitol Hill as to what should be done. Then we passed a $6 billion 
disaster assistance package in the Omnibus Appropriations Act at the 
end of last year's Congress. That was signed by the President.
  Now we are just getting all of those benefits delivered to the 
farmers. This is June, and it was June when the last checks were 
supposed to be going out from that October disaster assistance bill 
last year.
  What I have suggested we do, rather than doing what we did last year, 
which provoked a veto--Congress acted first. We went forward and tried 
to develop a sensitive and, we thought, thoughtful response. The 
President gave us the back of his hand, in my view, with an effort to 
win political points with a distressed agriculture community, and said: 
Congress was not generous enough, but I will be more generous. I will 
insist that they spend more.
  Well, we are not going to fall for that again. I am not going to 
recommend to this Senate that we pick a number and try to satisfy the 
President and guess at what the weather situation is going to be 
throughout the country, what the yields are going to be in all the 
different commodities, who is going to have the big problems, the 
serious problems, and who may be able to weather it without disaster 
assistance this year.
  I have been joined in an effort by 21 other Senators. This letter was 
sent to the President on June 15, which is the day we proceeded with 
the markup on this bill. I will read it into the Record:

       Dear Mr. President: American farmers are currently facing 
     one of the most severe economic situations in recent history. 
     Last year, rising world commodity supplies, coupled with 
     weakening international demand for U.S. agricultural 
     products, greatly reduced farm prices and the value of U.S. 
     farm exports. Congress responded by providing emergency farm 
     assistance totaling $5.9 billion.
       Many farmers who struggled with cash flow problems in 1998 
     will likely see their problems worsen in 1999. It is 
     projected that net cash farm income will decline by $3.6 
     billion this year. Also, according to USDA, 1998 net farm 
     income for wheat, corn, soybeans, upland cotton, and rice 
     crops was 17 percent below the previous 5-year average. For 
     1999 crops, current projections indicate that income will be 
     27 percent below the previous 5-year average.
       We are writing to invite your personal attention to the 
     statement of managers language accompanying the recent 
     emergency supplemental appropriations bill that calls upon 
     the Administration to monitor the agriculture situation 
     closely and submit a request to the Congress for any 
     additional funds needed to address this potential farm 
     crisis.

  The letter was signed by this Senator and 21 other Senators.
  We have not had a response, and I did not expect one by now from the 
President. But the point of this is to involve the White House in the 
process up front, at the outset, rather than presume to be able to 
write a disaster assistance package at this point in this crop year 
that would anticipate everything that is going to happen that would 
affect production agriculture in this crop year.
  It is just impossible. I didn't think we had a member of our 
subcommittee smart enough to do that. I am not sure there is a Senator 
serving today smart enough to do that. There is nothing wrong with 
working, though, with the administration to prepare and to think about 
the options.
  That is a good idea. Farm groups have met with the President. We have 
invited representatives of farm organizations to meet with Senators. I 
am sure that has been happening on the House side, too. We have had 
hearings in our Agriculture Committee with representatives of producers 
and other associations who are familiar with this situation. And the 
outlook is not good. It is serious.
  I want to be sure that everybody understands we are aware of the 
problem. We want to be actively involved in helping to deal with it in 
a fair and thoughtful way. We also recognize the limitations we have 
under the Budget Act that was passed and signed by the President under 
the budget resolution adopted by the Congress. So this subcommittee 
isn't going to presume to do anything that violates the provisions of 
those legislative enactments. But we are prepared to work in a 
cooperative way with all concerned to reach a just and fair solution 
and a response that is sensitive to the problems as they exist in 
agriculture.
  So I invite Senators to review this legislation. I am hopeful it will 
meet with the approval of the Senate, and that we can proceed with 
considering any suggestions that Senators have for changes in the bill.

[[Page 13625]]

  The programs and activities included in this bill are, for the most 
part, funded at or near the 1999 levels. There are some increases 
recommended. These include $80 million to meet the President's 
requested level for salaries and expenses of the Farm Service Agency, 
which administers the farm programs; $53 million for agricultural 
research; $15 billion for conservation operations; $21 million for the 
Food Safety and Inspection Service; $114 million for the WIC Program, 
to maintain an average monthly program participation level of $7.4 
million in fiscal year 2000; and $65 million for food safety and 
premarket application review activities of the Food and Drug 
Administration.
  Food safety, as I pointed out, continues to be a high priority of 
this committee. The bill provides the funds necessary to ensure that 
American consumers continue to have the safest food supply in the 
world. Not only does the bill provide increased funds required for meat 
and poultry inspection activities for the Food Safety and Inspection 
Service, it provides total funding of $321 million, which is a $46 
million increase from the 1999 level, for Department of Agriculture and 
Food and Drug Administration programs and activities included in the 
President's food safety initiative.
  I also want to thank the distinguished ranking member of the 
subcommittee, the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl, as well as all of 
the other members of the subcommittee for their support and cooperation 
in putting this bill together. I believe the bill represents a balanced 
and responsible set of funding recommendations within the limited 
resources available to the subcommittee. I hope the Senate will support 
it.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the letter I 
read and addressed to the President be printed in the Record, with the 
signatures of all Senators who signed it.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                    Washington, DC, June 15, 1999.
     Hon. William J. Clinton,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: American farmers are currently facing 
     one of the most severe economic situations in recent history. 
     Last year, rising world commodity supplies, coupled with 
     weakening international demand for U.S. agricultural 
     products, greatly reduced farm prices and the value of U.S. 
     farm exports. Congress responded by providing emergency farm 
     assistance totaling $5.9 billion.
       Many farmers who struggled with cash flow problems in 1998 
     will likely see their problems worsen in 1999. It is 
     projected that net cash farm income will decline by $3.6 
     billion this year. Also, according to USDA, 1998 net farm 
     income for wheat, corn, soybeans, upland cotton, and rice 
     crops was 17 percent below the previous 5-year average. For 
     1999 crops, current projections indicate that income will be 
     27 percent below the previous 5-year average.
       We are writing to invite your personal attention to the 
     statement of managers language accompanying the recent 
     emergency supplemental appropriations bill that calls upon 
     the Administration to monitor the agriculture situation 
     closely and submit a request to the Congress for any 
     additional funds needed to address this potential farm 
     crisis.
           Sincerely,
         Thad Cochran, Conrad Burns, Craig Thomas, Wayne Allard, 
           Slade Gorton, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Ted Stevens, 
           Larry E. Craig, Trent Lott, Chuck Grassley, Mike Crapo, 
           Paul Coverdell, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Kit Bond, Pat 
           Roberts, Orrin Hatch, Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, 
           Michael B. Enzi, Peter Fitzgerald, Sam Brownback, Chuck 
           Hagel.

  Mr. KOHL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I am very glad to join my friend from 
Mississippi, Senator Cochran, in bringing to the floor S. 1233, the 
fiscal year 2000 appropriations bill for Agriculture, Rural Development 
and Related Agencies. I am grateful to Senator Cochran, the Chairman of 
the subcommittee, for his gracious approach to crafting this bill and 
for the fair and reasonable manner in which the interests of all 
Senators have been given consideration.
  Senator Cochran has outlined the general spending levels for items 
included in this bill. I would like to emphasize to all Senators the 
importance of the programs funded by this bill, and the need to ensure 
its passage. This bill provides funding for programs vital for our 
nation's continued leadership in agricultural production through 
research, implementation of farming practices, and marketing. This bill 
also includes funding to protect the environment, to restore economic 
prosperity to rural America, and to improve the standard of living 
there. This bill provides funds to help feed the most vulnerable of our 
populations at home and abroad, and this bill helps American farmers 
maintain a strong presence in foreign markets while, at the same time, 
combating the destructive consequences of unfair foreign trade. Also, 
this bill provides funds important to protect the public health of this 
nation in the areas of food safety, medical drugs and devices, and 
oversight of our blood supply.
  There will likely be some Senators who will question whether the 
levels of spending in this bill are adequate. When our subcommittee 
received its initial allocation for discretionary spending, I had grave 
concerns that we would not be able to craft a bill that I could 
support. I was prepared to vote against the allocations at that time, 
but Chairman Stevens persuaded me that we needed to move forward in 
order for the full Senate to see what effect the discretionary caps 
will have on ongoing programs in fiscal year 2000. Fortunately, since 
then our subcommittee did receive an increase in the allocation, and I 
supported reporting this bill at both the subcommittee and full 
committee levels.
  I have received a communication from the Director of the Office of 
Management and Budget regarding this bill. While that letter describes 
certain programs for which the Administration would like to see 
increased funding, there is nothing in the letter to indicate that the 
President would not approve this bill if sent to the White House in its 
present form. Likewise, I have letters from Secretary Glickman that 
makes appeals for increased funding in some areas, and at the 
appropriate time, I will ask unanimous consent that these letters be 
entered into the Record.
  The Senate Report to accompany this bill begins with the following 
statement, ``Given the budgetary constraints that the Committee faces, 
the bill as reported provides the proper amount of emphasis on 
agricultural and rural development programs, and on other programs and 
activities funded by the bill.'' I believe this statement to be true. 
Senator Cochran has done an outstanding job in crafting a bill that is 
fair, and goes far in meeting the expectations of all Senators, and in 
view of the foregoing statement, I join Senator Cochran in supporting 
this bill.
  Still, we should all give pause to consider the first four words of 
the statement I quoted above, ``Given the budgetary constraints'' and 
the implication of those words for the work that this Congress must 
complete before September 30th. In terms of the bill before us today, 
each Senator will have to consider for his or her self whether the 
``budgetary constraints'' have weakened the programs in this bill 
beyond the point they can allow. Over the past several years, we have 
seen programs at USDA, FDA, and the other agencies funded by this bill, 
suffer a slow strangulation that is affecting programs and services to 
the American people and the ability of the agencies to carry them out.
  I do support my chairman, Senator Cochran, in urging the passage of 
this bill, but I seriously hope that we have all come to the 
realization that continued reductions in these programs must come to a 
halt. It is for the full Senate to decide whether we have already gone 
too far.
  Mr. President, during committee debate on this bill, an amendment was 
discussed, though never offered, that involved dairy pricing issues. 
That amendment would have extended the life of the Northeast dairy 
compact and created new compacts in other regions. In committee, I was 
willing to delay the agriculture spending bill indefinitely to avoid 
inclusion of such an

[[Page 13626]]

amendment. It concerns complex issues in the jurisdiction of the 
Agriculture and Judiciary Committees--issues that have no place on a 
funding bill. Also, if passed, the amendment would do unacceptable 
damage to the dairy industry in the State of Wisconsin and all around 
the Upper Midwest. And finally, it would put in place permanently and 
nationally an unprecedented policy of regional protectionism.
  For these reasons, I, and many of my colleagues, oppose such an 
amendment adamantly and will do everything within our rights to keep it 
off of this bill. To that end, I regret to inform my colleagues, I will 
not be able to clear any amendments, no matter how uncontroversial, or 
agree to any manager's package, until it is clear no destructive dairy 
amendment will be offered or included in this bill.
  Mr. President, at this time I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
in the Record a letter from the Director of the Office of Management 
and Budget and letters from the Secretary of Agriculture regarding this 
bill.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                            Executive Office of the President,

                                    Washington, DC, June 17, 1999.
     Hon. Herbert Kohl,
     Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and Related 
         Agencies Appropriations, Committee on Appropriations, 
         U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Kohl: The purpose of this letter is to provide 
     the Administration's views on the Agriculture, Rural 
     Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
     Agencies Appropriations Bill, FY 2000, as reported by the 
     Senate Subcommittee. Since the Administration has not had an 
     opportunity to review the Subcommittee's bill and report 
     language, our comments are based on preliminary information. 
     As the Committee develops its version of the bill, your 
     consideration of the Administration's views would be 
     appreciated.
       The allocation of discretionary resources available to the 
     Senate under the Congressional Budget Resolution is simply 
     inadequate to make the necessary investments that our 
     citizens need and expect. The President's FY 2000 Budget 
     proposes levels of discretionary spending that meet such 
     needs while conforming to the Bipartisan Budget Agreement by 
     making savings proposals in mandatory and other programs 
     available to help finance this spending. Congress has 
     approved, and the President has signed into law, nearly $29 
     billion of such offsets in appropriations legislation since 
     1995. The Administration urges the Congress to consider such 
     proposals.
       The Administration appreciates efforts by the Subcommittee 
     to accommodate certain of the President's priorities within 
     the 302(b) allocation. However, the Subcommittee bill is over 
     $500 million, or four percent, below the program level 
     requested by the President. The FY 2000 Budget would increase 
     spending within the discretionary caps for agriculture and 
     other programs in the bill by 3.6 percent over comparable FY 
     1999 spending. We urge the Committee to consider the over 
     $600 million in user fees proposed in the Budget in order to 
     fund high-priority programs. Given the current period of 
     financial stress in the agricultural sector, now is not the 
     time to reduce assistance to farmers, ranchers, and rural 
     residents.
       Below is a discussion of our specific concerns with the 
     Subcommittee bill. We look forward to working with you to 
     resolve these concerns as the bill moves forward.


                      food and drug administration

       While the Administration is pleased that the Subcommittee 
     has reportedly provided an increase over the FY 1999 enacted 
     level for the FDA, we are disappointed that the Subcommittee 
     has apparently not funded the full request for the FDA, 
     including important youth tobacco prevention activities and 
     the proposed seafood inspection program transfer.
       The Administration is concerned that the Subcommittee's 
     apparent reduction of $40 million from the President's 
     request for non-foods/tobacco FDA activities would jeopardize 
     the FDA's ability to improve the public health infrastructure 
     through enhanced product safety assurance and injury 
     reporting systems.
       The Administration is committed to Youth Tobacco Prevention 
     activities and urges the Committee to provide the requested 
     increase of $34 million for these programs. Every day, three 
     thousand young people become regular smokers. Reducing young 
     people's tobacco use would improve public health for 
     generations to come. This is particularly important in light 
     of the recent decision of the conferees on the FY 1999 
     Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act to permit States to 
     retain the entire amount secured from tobacco companies 
     without any commitment whatsoever from the States that those 
     funds be used to reduce youth smoking. To help discourage 
     youth smoking, we urge the Congress to consider the 
     Administration proposal to increase tobacco taxes.


                         food safety initiative

       The Administration appreciates the Subcommittee's support 
     for the President's Food Safety Initiative through increases 
     above the enacted and House bill levels provided to USDA and 
     FDA. Nonetheless, we are concerned that the Committee has 
     reportedly provided only $46 million of the $62 million 
     increase over FY 1999 levels requested in this bill for the 
     Initiative. American consumers enjoy the world's safest food 
     supply, but still too many Americans get sick, and in some 
     cases die, from preventable food-borne diseases. The 
     President's requested increase would provide critical 
     resources to expand USDA's and FDA's food safety research and 
     risk assessment capabilities. We strongly urge the Committee 
     to provide full funding at the requested levels for these 
     activities and consider the Administration's proposal to 
     charge user fees for Federal meat and poultry inspection 
     services in support of a safe food supply.


                  women, infants, and children program

       The Administration strongly supports the $33 million 
     increase for WIC over the House level. The Committee mark 
     should sustain a participation level of 7.4 million in FY 
     2000. We remain concerned, however, that this is still 
     insufficient to support the proposed average monthly 
     participation level of 7.5 million, thereby not achieving our 
     longstanding 7.5 million goal.


                  food and nutrition service research

       The Administration strongly objects to any provision of the 
     Committee bill that would prohibit the use of Food and 
     Nutrition Service (FNS) funds for research and evaluations on 
     nutrition programs. To address program integrity and 
     performance issues properly, it is crucial that research on 
     nutrition programs also occur in the context of the programs' 
     administration. We urge the Committee to provide funding for 
     these activities within FNS.


                      common computing environment

       The Administration is very concerned by the Subcommittee's 
     decision not to fund the Common Computing Environment, either 
     directly through the Support Service Bureau as requested in 
     the President's Budget or by providing additional funds in 
     the county-office agency salaries and expense accounts. Some 
     in Congress have criticized USDA this year for delays in 
     providing the crop-loss assistance funds to farmers that were 
     provided in P.L. 105-277, the FY 1999 Omnibus Consolidated 
     and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, and for long 
     waiting periods some farmers and rural residents have faced 
     in receiving other assistance through USDA county offices. 
     Yet this bill would not provide the funds needed to address 
     the very problems that contributed to the delays. At a time 
     when the farm community is under financial stress and the 
     demand for farm credit and other programs is high, the need 
     for timely and efficient service to producers and rural 
     residents has never been greater. Without the proposed $74 
     million in funding, it will not be possible to modernize the 
     technology in USDA's local field offices, create ``one-stop 
     shopping'' for rural customers, and promptly deliver the 
     programs that Congress enacts with available staffing levels.


                conservation and environmental programs

       The Subcommittee bill appears to cut spending on key USDA 
     conservation programs by at least $140 million from the 
     President's request. The $26 million reduction in the 
     Environmental Quality Incentives program (EQIP) would mean 
     13,000 farmers and ranchers not receiving needed financial 
     and technical assistance to stop soil erosion, improve waste 
     treatment in animal feeding operations, and implement other 
     voluntary conservation measures critical to protecting our 
     natural resources. To further advance this important work, 
     including addressing the significant backlog of farmers' 
     requests for aid, the Administration requested a $100 million 
     increase in the EQIP program as part of its Clean Water 
     Action Plan. The combination of the EQIP reduction and the 
     Subcommittee's failure to fund the requested additional funds 
     for technical assistance to animal feeding operations could 
     damage livestock owners' progress toward ensuring that their 
     operations are environmentally sound and community-friendly.
       Other valuable environmental programs would be severely 
     underfunded by the Subcommittee bill, and we urge the 
     Committee to restore funding for them. The Subcommittee 
     failed to fund the $50 million discretionary portion of the 
     Administration's request for the Farmland Protection Program, 
     which is part of the Administration's Lands Legacy 
     Initiative. America's farmers need these funds to help them 
     stay on their land, through easements that permanently 
     protect 80,000 acres of prime farmland from development. We 
     urge the Committee to provide the $50 million in 
     discretionary funds requested for the program and redirects 
     its savings from the Conservation Farm Option to this 
     program, as well as to the Wildlife Habitat Incentives 
     Program to assist over 3,000 farmers in protecting and 
     restoring wildlife habitat. In addition, the Subcommittee has 
     not provided the $12 million

[[Page 13627]]

     requested in the Conservation Operations account to assess 
     soil management's effects on carbon sequestration, and $5 
     million for USDA's initiative to help communities make use of 
     geospatial data to make more informed land use decisions and 
     promote smart growth. The Administration recommends funds be 
     redirected to these high-priority activities, such as by 
     eliminating the Forestry Incentives Program as requested and 
     as included in the House bill.


              outreach for socially disadvantaged farmers

       The Subcommittee bill does not provide the requested $7 
     million increase for the Outreach for Socially Disadvantaged 
     Farmers program. This program has proven effective in 
     mitigating the decline in the number of minority farmers by 
     increasing their participation in agricultural programs, 
     assisting them in marketing and production, and improving the 
     profitability of their farming operations. USDA loan default 
     rates have also improved in areas where this program 
     operates. The requested increase is needed to expand this 
     program beyond the limited areas in which it now operates, to 
     further these farmers' equal access and their opportunity for 
     success, and to continue USDA's work to improve its civil 
     rights performance.


                                research

       The Subcommittee bill would fund USDA's National Research 
     Initiative at $81 million below the request of $200 million, 
     while providing funding for a large number of unrequested, 
     earmarked research grants. We urge the Committee to increase 
     the funding for competitive research grants and reduce 
     earmarks for lower-priority programs.


                           rural development

       The Administration appreciates the support in the 
     Subcommittee bill for priority USDA rural development 
     programs, such as water and wastewater loans and grants, 
     Business and Industry guaranteed loans, and rental assistance 
     for very-low income rural residents. The Administration is 
     concerned, however, that the Subcommittee bill's funding for 
     Rural Development salaries and expenses would jeopardize 
     effective implementation of these programs. The $25 million, 
     or five percent, reduction from the requested salaries and 
     expenses funding could require USDA to eliminate over 400, or 
     six percent, of its staff through a Reduction-In-Force. We 
     urge the Committee to provide the requested level of funding 
     to ensure an adequate delivery system for these vital 
     programs for rural America.
       We look forward to working with the Committee to address 
     our mutual concerns.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Jacob J. Lew,
     Director.
                                  ____



                                    Department of Agriculture,

                                     Washington, DC, May 17, 1999.
     Hon. Herbert H. Kohl,
     Ranking Democratic Member, Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural 
         Development, and Related Agencies, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Herb: The Department of Agriculture's (USDA) outreach 
     program to small, limited-resource, and minority farmers and 
     ranchers--known as the 2501 program--is critically important 
     to USDA's efforts to help these farmers weather the crisis 
     spreading across the farm country and to further the 
     accomplishments of the Department's civil rights agenda. 
     Unless this program is funded at the fully authorized level 
     for next fiscal year, as the Administration requested in its 
     budget, both of these objectives will suffer, as will, more 
     importantly, the thousands of farmers who benefit from the 
     2501 program. Congress has been extremely helpful in the past 
     with requests I have made with respect to my civil rights 
     initiative, and I hope you will once again respond positively 
     by working to see that next year's appropriations bill 
     includes the full $10 million I have requested.
       Over the next year, USDA's estimates project crop prices, 
     and thus farm income, at about the current levels, levels 
     that have this year alone pushed demand for our credit 
     programs up some 65 percent over last year's requests. The 
     need for operating and refinancing credit has been especially 
     acute among limited resource farmers, and USDA has 
     aggressively sought to meet their requests. A crucial 
     component of responding to them has been more than just the 
     farm loans, it has been the technical assistance we have been 
     able to underwrite through the 2501 program whereby 
     cooperating institutions and groups have helped these farmers 
     assemble their financial projections and operating plans so 
     they could successfully apply for loans. If these groups 
     cannot continue to provide this assistance, as well as the 
     work they do making sure farmers know about our programs and 
     other sources of assistance, because the 2501 program is not 
     adequately funded, I fear that the decline in limited-
     resource and minority farmers, in particular, will accelerate 
     and we will come ever closer to removing from American 
     agriculture a viable, capable segment of farmers who have 
     contributed richly to our rural and agrarian culture.
       Last year, Congress took the nearly unprecedented step of 
     waiving the statute of limitations, opening the way for USDA 
     to settle the oldest civil rights cases filed against it for 
     alleged discrimination in USDA's lending programs, and a few 
     weeks ago, the federal court approved the consent decree the 
     Department reached to settle the class action discrimination 
     case brought against it for the same reason. Much needs to be 
     done, however, both in bringing these accomplishments to 
     fruition and all the other work I have launched across the 
     board to improve USDA's civil rights performance. The 2501 
     program is vitally important to our strategy; it reaches the 
     farmers and ranchers too long neglected by the Department and 
     the ones whose complaints we have pledged and are obligated 
     to correcting. Without adequate resources, our reach will be 
     limited and the potential that I believe we have begun to see 
     will not be fully realized.
       I appreciate fully the constraints within which the 
     Congress is working in assembling the fiscal year 2000 
     appropriations bill, and I will no doubt be back in touch 
     with you through this process on this and other priorities; 
     but in view of the critical importance of this program and 
     the regrettable fact that the Subcommittee on Agriculture, 
     Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
     Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of 
     Representatives, chose not to fund fully the Administration's 
     request, I decided I needed to point out to you the special 
     importance of this program and its high personal priority 
     with me. I hope you will give it and the Administration's 
     budget request positive consideration.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Dan Glickman,
     Secretary.
                                  ____



                                    Department of Agriculture,

                                     Washington, DC, May 12, 1999.
     Hon. Herbert Kohl,
     Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural 
         Development, and Related Agencies,
     Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Herb: Now that the fiscal year 2000 appropriations 
     hearings are over, I want to thank you and your entire 
     subcommittee for your attention and courtesy to the 
     Department of Agriculture's (USDA) witnesses. I know you face 
     difficult decisions writing an appropriations bill responsive 
     to the needs of those who benefit from USDA programs, so I 
     want you to know also that we are ready to work with you 
     through the process of developing a bill that addresses your 
     priorities as well as the Department's.
       USDA needs to modernize our county-based delivery system, 
     especially now so we can help farmers through these very 
     difficult times we are facing with reduced staff levels in 
     our local offices. This means we must continue our efforts to 
     carry out our Service Center Initiative (SCI), including the 
     installation of the Common Computing Environment (CCE). In 
     this respect, I want to direct your attention to our proposal 
     to spend $74 million under the new Support Services Bureau 
     (SSB) account to finance continued progress on the 
     modernization effort.
       The Department could not provide detailed testimony on the 
     SSB for the simple reason that the SSB is not yet 
     operational. As indicated in the budget, the bureau will be 
     operational by October 1, 1999. It will consolidate 
     administrative management support activities for the Farm 
     Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and 
     Rural Development. One of its responsibilities will be to 
     continue to install and support the CCE. The $74 million 
     requested in the budget will finance continued business 
     process reengineering, data acquisition, and the necessary 
     hardware and software to move this effort forward.
       This request is an extremely high priority. Implementation 
     of the SCI will improve customer service by providing 
     collocated agencies the ability to share information and 
     deliver services in a modern business manner. The problems we 
     are having providing timely assistance to our hard pressed 
     farmers in the current farm crisis best illustrates the need 
     for infrastructure and program delivery modernization. The 
     service center agencies' stove pipe technology systems and 
     program processes present real barriers to delivering 
     services in a modern way and optimizing the use of county-
     level staff. For example, I am convinced that had this 
     initiative been complete we could have implemented the 
     disaster assistance programs from the FY 99 Omnibus 
     Appropriations bill much more quickly than we are doing.
       As implementation proceeds, the SCI will streamline and 
     integrate services, reduce paperwork, and provide technology 
     so our customers can do business with us differently 
     including the use of the Internet. Since 1993, USDA has 
     significantly reduced staffing levels as a result of 
     reorganization and budget constraints. This investment in our 
     technology infrastructure and integrating business processes 
     is essential to maintaining and improving service to the 
     customers of our rural and county-based agencies.
       The common computing environment is also critical to the 
     SSB. The effective consolidation of three separate and 
     largely redundant administrative systems into one, 
     nationwide, SSB is dependent on the timely

[[Page 13628]]

     deployment of reengineered administrative systems and a 
     modern technology infrastructure.
       I want to assure you that the technology our budget request 
     will finance is based on identified business needs. It 
     complies with USDA's overall information technology 
     architecture, and meets the Office of Management and Budget's 
     criteria for such investments.
       The CCE will replace the existing stove piped agency 
     systems with a single, modern and flexible shared information 
     system built around servers and personal work stations. This 
     technology can be adapted to meet any changes brought about 
     by business process reengineering or by any future decisions 
     affecting the size of the agencies. If the budget request is 
     approved, including the funding mechanism proposed for the 
     SSB, we will establish clear accountability for this effort 
     in the Support Service Bureau with strong oversight from our 
     Chief Information Officer.
       I am enclosing a briefing paper on the subject, and will 
     provide you any further information you need.
       I am sending an identical letter to Congressman Skeen, 
     Congresswoman Kaptur, and Senator Cochran.
           Sincerely,
                                                     Dan Glickman,
                                                        Secretary.

       Enclosure.

  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, the communications from the Office of 
Management and Budget and the Secretary of Agriculture make the case 
for the need to provide additional resources for this bill. I am also 
aware that funding constraints have prevented the bill from including 
levels of spending for programs important to Senators. In support of, 
and in addition to, the comments provided by OMB and USDA, I would like 
to offer the following observations.
  While this bill provides a substantial increase for the President's 
Food Safety Initiative, it does not meet the fully recommended level 
submitted by the President. Perhaps the greatest single responsibility 
of this subcommittee is to protect public health. That responsibility 
is carried out primarily through oversight of the blood supply, the 
approval of medical drugs and devices and, most certainly, the food 
supply.
  Many of the procedures for protecting our food supply are now in 
transition, moving toward a HACCP system that provides a new set of 
checks and balances in the production, processing, manufacturing, and 
distribution of food. In addition, we are learning through research new 
techniques to help enhance the safety of the food we eat. It is 
unfortunate we are unable to find the resources within our ``budgetary 
constraints'' to provide the fully requested increase. We should, at 
least, provide the fully recommended level for inspections of meat and 
poultry provided for the Food Safety Inspection Service.
  One of the most popular programs funded in this bill is the Women, 
Infants, and Children (WIC) program. Again, this bill provides a 
significant increase for this program and I am very happy to report 
that the level appropriated, more than $4.038 billion, is determined to 
be adequate to support an average program participation level of 4.7 
million people, which is likely to be an increase above the FY 1999 
participation average. However, we know that this program is not only 
popular, it works. It works in protecting people who are nutritionally 
at risk, and it works to protect the American taxpayer by lowering 
future health care costs. The President's budget would have allowed for 
the program to grow to the fully targeted participation level of 7.5 
million women, infants, and children and this Congress should be 
providing the resources to make that happen.
  In addition, this bill should be providing higher levels for WIC 
Farmers Market Program, the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance 
Program, the Nutrition, Education and Training Program, for the 
Commodity Assistance and Food Donation Programs and for the Secretary's 
Food Recovery and Gleaning initiative. Also, this bill should restore 
full levels for the studies and evaluations activities of the Food and 
Nutrition Service (FNS). It is curious that while Food Stamp rolls are 
dropping, we are seeing increased demand for food assistance at 
shelters, through charitable organizations, and through the various 
food donation programs. We need to understand this phenomena better and 
to do so, the agency in charge of these programs should be given the 
tools to research and evaluate what is happening. At the very least, a 
reasonable level of funds should be provided to FNS to conduction 
studies and evaluations of activities directly related to nutrition.
  Agriculture has always been, and continues to be, the backbone of the 
American economy and society. The history of this nation is firmly 
grounded in the development of agriculture beginning with the earliest 
settlers who learned farming techniques, such as fertilization, from 
Native Americans. The first Thanksgiving was, among other things, a 
celebration of agriculture.
  As the growth of America continued, agriculture was a driving force 
economically, socially, and politically. Thomas Jefferson, whose 
philosophy in so many ways personifies the national spirit, centered 
much of his political and governmental engineering around the role of 
the farmer. In time, farming in this nation followed the lines of 
westward expansion and filled the vast spaces of our interior with 
continuing advances in production and further development of democratic 
principles. When the United States entered the stage of world power, 
especially during our two world wars and since, the American farmer 
continued to provide the basic necessities to keep our armed forces fed 
and our populations safe.
  In so many ways, food security is an integral part of national 
security. We all are aware of the hard times now facing farmers and the 
rural economy. Yet, without agriculture, and the economy that supports 
it, food shortages and disruptions would lead to urban panic and riots. 
No region of the nation would be safe and our entire national security 
would be at risk. In spite of these facts, we struggle to find the 
resources to protect agriculture. Can any Senator imagine how absurd it 
would sound to stand here on the floor of the Senate and announce that 
we simply can't afford national security? To a degree, that is what we 
are saying when we announce that we can't afford to help our farmers.
  Does this bill fully fund the request for agricultural research, no 
it does not. Neither does it provide funding for initiatives to help 
farmers overcome today's economic troubles through outreach to socially 
disadvantaged farmers, small farmers, or to help USDA agencies protect 
against unwarranted market concentration. This bill does not provide 
additional levels to help establish and hold on to foreign markets 
through export programs such as PL 480 which combines humanitarian 
assistance with overseas market development.
  I am also disappointed that our allocation has prevented us from 
making the gains we should in the area of conservation and 
environmental protection. In order to achieve savings, this bill has 
had to impose limitations on the Wetlands Reserve Program, the 
Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the Conservation Farm 
Option program. It also fails to fully fund many of the other 
conservation initiatives recommended by the President.
  In addition, if resources were available, we could provide additional 
funds to help the environment, and the farmer, through the development 
of better methods for overcoming pesticide related problems. In the 
near future, the fumigant methyl bromide is going to be removed from 
the market and unless a viable alternative is developed, production of 
various commodities will fall sharply, much to the dismay of farmers 
and consumers who have come to take the availability of these food 
items for granted. Also, this bill does not provide adequate levels for 
Integrated Pest Management and for program increases requested for 
implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act.
  Mr. President, there are many other items I could describe and I do 
not, in any way, want to detract from the fine work of my colleague, 
Senator Cochran. As I stated earlier, my friend from Mississippi has 
done an outstanding job in crafting this bill with the resources he was 
given, and I support him and

[[Page 13629]]

this bill. I simply feel it is my responsibility to remind my 
colleagues that everything is not necessarily fine simply because 
things are not getting a whole lot worse.
  I don't know if this subcommittee will receive any additional 
resources between now and when this bill goes to conference with the 
House. We can't count on that happening and we must realize that what 
we approve here may be all that is finally included in the 
appropriations for these programs in fiscal year 2000. As we proceed 
with this bill on the floor, it is important that we all work together 
for what is best for all farmers and for all areas of rural America, 
and for all Americans.


                         Privilege Of The Floor

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, on behalf of the Senator from South 
Carolina, Mr. Thurmond, I ask unanimous consent the privilege of the 
floor be granted to Ernie Coggins, a legislative fellow, during the 
pendency of S. 1233.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, for the information of Senators, we are 
hopeful we can take up amendments that Senators may have on this 
legislation. We will have between now and about 5:30 available for that 
purpose. The leader had announced when the Senate recessed last week 
that a vote was anticipated at or about 5:30 today. It could be that a 
vote on an amendment to the bill will occur at about 5:30 today.
  If Senators would like to offer an amendment and get a vote, this is 
an opportunity to do that--debate the amendment, explain the amendment; 
the managers are available here to consider any suggested changes in 
the bill. We invite Senators to come to the floor and offer their 
amendments or make statements on the bill.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROBERTS. 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. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of S. 
1233, the fiscal year 2000 agriculture appropriations bill. I commend 
Senator Cochran and Senator Kohl for bringing forward what I believe is 
a solid bill to fund our most important programs in agriculture and 
provide continued benefits to rural America. This has been no easy 
task. With the tight budget caps that are in place, preparing this bill 
was a very difficult task, and I applaud the Senator for his hard work 
in this area.
  Let me just say a word about the Senator from Mississippi in this 
regard. There is a routine procedure in this body and that is to thank 
the hard-working chairmen of our Senate committees, and, of course, 
their ranking members, for their hard work in bringing important 
legislation to the floor. That practice is certainly appropriate in 
regard to the Senators who have worked to bring this bill to our 
consideration, including the chairman, as I have indicated, and the 
distinguished ranking member from Wisconsin, Senator Kohl. But I would 
like to offer three cheers and a ``well done'' to Senator Cochran.
  If there is a Senator who I think everyone would agree is the epitome 
of a Southern gentleman and a Senator who goes about his work with 
dignity and decorum and truly still gets things done, that Senator is 
Senator Cochran. Here we are in the midst of all sorts of problems and 
challenges in agriculture today, unprecedented situations, really, what 
with the world depression that is still hindering our markets, unfair 
trading practices by our competitors, record world production that has 
caused market declines in virtually every commodity, trade policy that 
is hampered by all sorts of challenges, the need for sanctions reform, 
crop insurance reform, and tax policy changes and reform. The list goes 
on, as has been mentioned by the distinguished chairman of the 
subcommittee, including the need for emergency assistance under the 
current farm bill. We are going to be debating all this and the answers 
individual Senators will bring to this debate and to this legislation. 
But through it all we will have the steady hand of Senator Cochran and 
his calm and reasoned and experienced leadership. I thank the Senator 
for the job he has done for our farmers and ranchers, the men and women 
of rural America who work so hard to feed our Nation and a troubled and 
hungry world.
  Chairman Cochran has presented a bill that really freezes the 
discretionary spending at the fiscal 1999 level, while still managing 
to provide increased funding in several areas, including agriculture 
research, the staffing for the farm service agencies, and the Food 
Safety Inspection Service. I mention the freeze in particular because 
what we would like to do, as we consider the 13 major appropriations 
bills, as we are going through that process, is stick to the budget as 
best as we possibly can. Obviously, if we do that, interest rates will 
remain low. Hopefully, we will control inflation, because interest 
rates are of tremendous importance to the farmer and rancher, and, for 
that matter, every business person in America.
  Investing in agriculture research, as Senator Cochran and Senator 
Kohl have done, is perhaps one of the most important investments we can 
make as a nation. Today our farmers and ranchers actually produce more 
food to feed more people on less land--on less land--than ever before. 
That is a modern day miracle, and it is a miracle in no short part 
because of agriculture research.
  Ag research has played a major role in increasing the productivity of 
our Nation's farms in the past century. The projections indicate that 
as the world's population continues to grow in the next 50 years, the 
world understandably will have to dramatically increase its agriculture 
production and its food output. The United States will be the leader in 
this quest to feed, as I have indicated before, a troubled and hungry 
world with a growing population, but we are not going to be successful 
without this continued commitment to agriculture research funding. The 
Senators have done that in regard to their subcommittee work, and it is 
now before the Senate for our consideration.
  I also thank Senator Cochran for his efforts to increase funding for 
the Farm Service Agency staff. I know any increased funding for any 
Government program or Government agency staff is not very popular in 
Washington. I have often had my own concerns with such increases. I 
assure my colleagues that this increased funding is desperately needed.
  Many county farm service agencies--that is the old ASCS--have been 
swamped by the number of loan deficiency payment and USDA lending 
requests they have had to address. As a matter of fact, when we 
considered the farm bill of 1996, I do not think any of us would have 
imagined the vulnerability of the Farm Service Agency or the demands on 
the Farm Service Agency as a result of the LDP payments that came into 
play. Despite the best efforts of our county offices to serve our 
producers in a timely and efficient manner, the staffing necessary to 
accomplish this goal simply has not been up to the level needed to 
provide the quality of service that our producers expect.
  I also thank the chairman and the ranking member for increases in the 
FSIS budget. That is an acronym which stands for the Food Safety and 
Inspection Service. A safe food supply is essential, and our consumers 
demand it. As my colleagues know, my State of Kansas is one of the 
largest beef producers in the world, with a large number of packing 
operations as well. With a continued shortage of inspectors in the 
Topeka district, I am concerned, and I hope and expect the Secretary of 
Agriculture to address these deficiencies--I know he will--through this 
increased funding. I also ask him to contact the Congress and inform us 
of any continued shortfalls that may be occurring.
  Before I close, I want to address what I know is also a very critical 
concern of many of my colleagues, and that is the tough times we are 
experiencing

[[Page 13630]]

throughout rural America. Every farm organization, every commodity 
group, every producer one visits with obviously tells the same story. I 
thank Senator Cochran for making it very clear we are going to work 
with the President and we are going to work in a bipartisan fashion--we 
have already had several meetings since the first of the year--to try 
to address this.
  When the President does inform the Congress, along with the help of 
Secretary Glickman and others, on what kind of an additional package is 
necessary and some of the specifics as the crops are harvested, we will 
be more than willing to take a hard look at this need as harvest season 
moves along. We did last year. The process, as the Senator has pointed 
out, was a little backward in regard to how we approached that. Let's 
do the right thing in regard to the President making his recommendation 
and working with us and we will work with him.
  I agree with Senator Cochran; prior to the President's request, we 
can do a lot of talking about it, and we have for the last several 
years, but I believe that would be premature. Secretary of Agriculture 
Dan Glickman, my good friend and colleague from Kansas, was quoted in 
the press last week as saying it would be preferable to go in that 
direction and it was too early to determine the size of any package 
that may be needed.
  In the meantime, I am committed, as a member of the authorizing 
committee, the Senate Agriculture Committee, to pursuing the long-term 
goals needed to ensure the long-term financial viability of our farmers 
and ranchers. Senator Cochran and others have talked at length in this 
Chamber about these, about the crucial needs--expanded export markets, 
sanctions reform, embargo policies, tax reform, regulatory relief, crop 
insurance reform--all of the things we talked about, by the way, when 
we were trying to put together the 1996 farm bill.
  There was a list. There was a ledger, as a matter of fact. In those 
days, I had the privilege of being the chairman of the House 
Agriculture Committee as we put that together. We said: Look, if we go 
to a more market-oriented farm policy--we all wanted that and we wanted 
producer flexibility to meet the producer's individual needs, to 
restore the decisionmaking back to the farm level as opposed to 
Washington--we can do that but only in a component package of other 
things we need to do.
  Quite frankly, I must tell my colleagues that we, and I am using the 
editorial we--Democrats, Republicans, the administration, the Senate 
and the House--we have not done that. We have not gone down that list 
that I and others put on the ledger. There is no pride of authorship 
here. We need to do it now. Had we done it then and 2 years ago, I do 
not think the situation would be nearly as grave throughout our rural 
areas. Let's get cracking on these challenges, as well as meeting the 
crucial spending needs or the appropriation needs in regard to U.S. 
agriculture.
  I mentioned expanded export markets, sanctions reform, tax reform, 
regulatory relief--all of that. We need to pass this legislation and 
move to a very quick conference with the House. The programs funded in 
this legislation are too important to be delayed. We need action on 
them.
  I commend, again, Senator Cochran and Senator Kohl for their fine 
efforts on this legislation under very difficult funding circumstances. 
I look forward to working with my colleagues to move this legislation 
to quick passage and then working with my colleagues on the other 
policy changes I have mentioned, and, yes, I know at the end of 
harvest, we will work with the President, we will work with everybody 
on that side of the aisle to put together a reasonable program of 
relief because we have yet to see the relief in our markets. This has 
been going on now for 2 years.
  Again, I thank Senator Cochran and Senator Kohl for their efforts. I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am genuinely flattered by the kind and 
generous comments of my distinguished colleague from Kansas, Senator 
Roberts. As others know, he served with distinction as chairman of the 
Agriculture Committee in the other body. He led the passage of farm 
legislation in that body, and he has been a very effective spokesman 
for the farmers and ranchers of the entire country, not just of his 
home State of Kansas. We benefit from his advice and counsel. I 
appreciate his personal friendship as well and taking time to talk 
about this legislation and point out what we are trying to accomplish 
by funding the programs in this bill. I appreciate his remarks very 
much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I say to my colleague, Senator Dorgan from North 
Dakota, I will be very brief. I did not come to the Chamber with 
prepared remarks, but I do want to pick up on the closing remarks my 
colleague from Kansas was making; by the way, a Senator who has lived 
and breathed agriculture for many years and whose expertise I certainly 
respect.
  I think the appropriations bill raises a lot of questions that we 
better answer and we better answer soon. I do not really think we can 
have a discussion about agriculture--the Senator from Kansas at the 
very end said: Listen, as I speak today, I am mindful of the economic 
pain out there in the countryside.
  We are experiencing an economic convulsion in agriculture. Frankly, I 
do not think there is any way to talk about what is happening in the 
countryside without talking about this Freedom to Farm, what I have 
always called the ``freedom to fail'' bill.
  In my State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Star Tribune--which is the 
largest newspaper in our State, which editorialized very strongly in 
favor of this bill not that long ago--had an editorial saying, listen, 
we need to revisit this.
  Clearly, we do not have any safety net any longer. Clearly, we do not 
have a way that farmers--family farmers, family farmers, family 
farmers; we need to say that three or four times --have any leverage in 
the marketplace to get a decent price.
  I think one of the really bitter ironies of what is going on is we 
are spending--this was supposed to be the market--$25, $30 billion of 
bailout money--and actually I am all for getting the credit to farmers 
so they can live to farm another day, but most of the farmers in 
Minnesota basically say, thank you, but, in fact, they are going to 
need even more to be able to keep on going.
  But what they also say is: Senator Wellstone, what's even more 
important to me is, where will we be 5 years from now? Where will our 
kids be 5 years from now? I am just telling you that I know on our 
side, the Democrats, we are going to be out here--and I am hoping with 
a lot of Republicans as well--with a whole package of proposals.
  Time is not neutral. We cannot wait around. Time is not neutral at 
all for these farmers. The projections for the number of farms we have 
lost in Minnesota and we will lose on our present course are 
devastating. We have to change that course.
  I think maybe we need more of a reality check. We can talk about the 
fact that we all care about agriculture, and we have this bill, and we 
are spending this much money, and all the rest, but this isn't business 
as usual. We are talking about a crisis, all spelled out in capital 
letters. We have to take some action. If we do not take some action, 
then I think this will be kind of the last stage of just losing the 
family farm structure in agriculture.
  By the way, when I am talking about family farms, I am talking less 
about the size of the farm, though I do think there are clearly some 
limits, as far as I am concerned, when we talk about any kind of 
subsidy or support. I am talking about the pattern of the 
decisionmaking; I am talking about entrepreneurship; I am talking about 
the family farm as in the people who work the land, live on the land, 
that they make the decisions. That is what I am talking about.
  So I just want to make it really clear, whether or not you take the 
cap

[[Page 13631]]

off the loan rate, whether or not you figure out a way to have corn and 
wheat in the same kind of ratio in relation to the price that we now 
have for soybeans--a lot of farmers in Minnesota are planting soybeans, 
soybeans, soybeans. This whole Freedom to Farm bill is a nightmare. The 
sooner people here are going to be willing to face up to it, the 
better.
  As I said before--I will say it again--it was a great bill for 
Cargill. It was a great bill for the big grain companies. And it is a 
living nightmare for family farmers. They cannot cash flow on the price 
they receive. If we do not talk about price, price, price, then, 
frankly, we are not going to enable people to make it. So that is my 
first point.
  My second point, speaking just for Senator Kohl, who stepped off the 
floor briefly--and I include myself in his camp; I know Senator 
Feingold has the same belief--one of the reasons we are on the floor is 
because we are not going to see any extension of the dairy compact. 
Those of us from the Midwest are not going to let that happen. If there 
is one thing I do agree with, it is the adage that all politics is 
local. We are here to fight for people in our States. We are not going 
to let dairy farmers in our States come out on the short end of the 
stick. So just to be crystal clear about that, that is just not going 
to happen.
  My third point--and I will have two others, I say to Senator Dorgan; 
the third and fourth point I can do in 2 or 3 minutes--is that we have 
a good piece of legislation which ought to be slam dunked. It ought to 
be slam dunked. There ought to be 100 votes for it. The sooner we get 
to it, the better--price disclosure. You have this situation where it 
is not just the grain farmers; it is not just the dairy farmers; it is 
our livestock producers as well.
  I have said it many times, but it is worth saying again on the floor 
of the Senate. You have this bitter irony of our hog producers facing 
extinction, our pork producers facing extinction, and the packers are 
in hog heaven. They are making record profits. We want to know what is 
going on.
  So at the very minimum, our family farmers who are not vertically 
integrated, our family farmers who do not represent the conglomerates 
that have so effectively muscled their way to the dinner table, 
exercising their power over so much of the food industry, want to know 
exactly what people are being paid for their product. We think that 
ought to be public information. We think our family farmers have a 
right to know that. I just will say that this ought to be slam dunked. 
There ought to be 100 votes for it; the sooner the better. What are we 
waiting for?
  I could go on and on, and later on, when it is appropriate, I will 
bring out any number of different studies, with a lot of data, because 
I think it is really worth talking about. In some ways I almost find 
this ironic. I think maybe I am going to pick up on an argument that 
some of my Republican colleagues like to make about the problem of just 
throwing money at a problem. With all due respect, if we do not change 
this structure of agriculture, a lot of the family farmers in the 
Midwest, South, all the family farmers who are left in the country, are 
just not going to make it. They are not going to make it.
  Everywhere you look, in all sectors of the food industry, whether it 
be the input side or the output side--from whom the farmers buy, to 
whom they sell--you are lucky if you have four firms that dominate only 
50 percent of the market. Quite often it is more than 50 percent of the 
market. It isn't even an oligopoly. It isn't even four firms dominating 
50 percent of the market. It is a monopoly structure. Whether it be the 
packers, the stockyards, the USDA, or the Justice Department, we need 
antitrust action. We need antitrust action. We need to put some free 
enterprise back into the food industry.
  Give the family farmers in Minnesota a level playing field, give them 
a fair shake, and they can compete against anybody. But right now what 
you have is a situation where these conglomerates have muscled their 
way to the dinner table and exercised their raw political power over 
family farmers, over consumers, over taxpayers, and we need antitrust 
action.
  That means we have to take on big economic interests. That means we 
have to take on some of the largest contributors on the floor of the 
Senate. My colleague, Senator Feingold, said the other day he was going 
to start calling a kind of rollcall of big contributors as we go to 
different bills. On agriculture I probably ought to come out here and 
just go over the list of contributions. It is not for a particular 
Senator but the Senate.
  All of us need to change the system of contributions that come from 
these packers, that come from these big agribusinesses, that come from 
those corporate giants, because, frankly, we seem to be afraid to take 
them on. But if we are not willing to take them on and we are not 
willing to have antitrust action for real competition, our family 
farmers cannot make it.
  So I just say that now is the time. We have legislators coming in to 
Washington, DC tonight. Many of them travel out here with their own 
income. They do not have a lot of income. Many of them are farmers from 
State legislatures. Many of them work with really good grass-roots 
organizations.
  This isn't business as usual. So sometime, whether it be on this 
bill, whether it be within the next month, whether it be in the fall, 
this Senate has to take some action that makes a real difference to 
family farmers so they have some kind of future. One of the first 
things we have to do is be honest, just declare that the Freedom to 
Farm bill has been a ``freedom to fail'' bill. We need to change this 
legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I want to make a few opening comments as a member of 
the subcommittee. The Appropriations Committee is an interesting and a 
very productive committee. I am a member of the subcommittee that is 
chaired by Senator Cochran from Mississippi and whose ranking member is 
Senator Kohl from Wisconsin. I commend them for the job they do. It is 
not an easy job.
  We have the classic problem of economizing. The definition by an 
economist of that is trying to fulfill unlimited wants with limited 
resources. That is not a very easy thing to do.
  As I start, let me again compliment the work of Senator Cochran and 
Senator Kohl.
  I will talk also about some of the challenges that we face that are 
not in any way addressed by this legislation. The legislation funds a 
range of issues with respect to the Department of Agriculture and 
agricultural programs. We need to do better in some of those areas.
  I specifically mention the human nutrition study programs that exist 
in USDA. The administration had proposed a very substantial investment 
in those programs. We have not been able to meet that. I hope we can, 
because the work that goes on in those human nutrition labs is very 
important work in the nutrition area.
  There are a number of other areas where we need to do better in 
research and agricultural-related areas, but I want to talk a bit about 
the crisis that faces our family farmers. We are going to have a 
Democratic Policy Committee hearing on Wednesday morning here in the 
Capitol from 9:30 to 11:30 on this subject: the farm crisis. We have a 
very serious problem on America's family farms. Frankly, we need to 
address it. I hope we can do that in a bipartisan manner.
  This weekend I was in North Dakota. I drove to Finely, ND, for an 
event in the American Legion hall in Finely that had to do with a rural 
empowerment zone. Once again, in Finely, ND, as I would have found in 
every part of North Dakota, family farmers told me that they are not 
going to be able to make it much longer unless something changes. You 
cannot plant seeds in our ground, then tend those seeds, fertilize, 
spray for pests, hope they grow, hope it doesn't hail, hope the plants 
develop, hope it doesn't rain too much but rains enough, hope against 
crop disease and then, at the end, finally harvest that grain and take 
it to the elevator, only

[[Page 13632]]

to discover that the elevator or the grain trader is willing to pay you 
a $1, $1.50 or $2 a bushel less than what it cost to produce the grain. 
That is not a formula for success. That is a formula for failure. Most 
family farmers know they will not last long with that kind of a 
formula.
  Will Rogers once said: When there is no place left to spit, you 
either have to swallow your tobacco juice or change with the times. 
Well, there is no place left to spit. That is not a delicate way to say 
it, but there is no place left to spit on these issues. The current 
farm program is not providing price supports that are able to help 
family farmers continue in operation during a time of collapsed prices. 
It just isn't. We had to do an emergency piece last year, and we did 
that in the appropriations process. I commend all of those who were 
involved in it, including the Senator from Mississippi. My colleague 
from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, myself and many others worked to 
make sure that we did an emergency piece that provided some income 
support for families during collapsed prices. But the prices are still 
collapsed. We will not have many family farmers left unless we provide 
some mechanism of supporting prices here in the Congress.
  Is it our job? No, it would be better if we could get the price in 
the marketplace. But that is not happening. The price in the 
marketplace is dismal. Farmers are told that their hogs aren't worth 
much and their cattle are not worth much. The grain isn't worth much 
too.
  There was a time when you could speak on the Senate floor when the 
farmer was hauling a hog to market and getting 10 cents a pound. In 
fact, that farmer could go to the grocery store in that small town and 
discover that it would cost him three times as much to buy a relatively 
small ham than he was able to get for the whole hog.
  Now, there is something wrong with that. When prices collapse, if we 
want family farmers left in our country's future, then we have to do 
something about it.
  My colleague from Minnesota talked about the need to reform the 
system. I was not able today to hear my colleague from Mississippi or 
my colleague from Wisconsin as they opened this discussion, but I know 
that they are well aware of the farm crisis. I will hold up a couple 
charts, if I might.
  This chart shows the number of farm youth, down 82 percent since 
1970, fairly steadily. We are ending up without any young people left 
in rural America.
  This chart shows the last year for which we have net income data. It 
shows the change in net income, 1996 and 1997. We do not have the next 
2 years. North Dakota lost 90 percent of its net income; Minnesota, 42 
percent. These are net income losses. It would be interesting to know, 
I wonder how any wage earner would handle it if 90 percent of their 
income were gone. I wonder what Wall Street would do if they discovered 
that some industry of theirs had suffered a 90-percent loss. Think that 
would crash, that industry? You bet your life, in a moment.
  But on the family farm, in 1 year a change in net income, down 38 
percent in Nebraska, 28 percent in South Dakota, 90 percent in North 
Dakota, these figures change from year to year and State to State. The 
fact is, we have seen a dramatic change in net income in a negative way 
in my State and others. It results from a collapse in prices.
  Now, there are people who say that is because EEP wasn't used. It is 
because of this or that other thing, 100 different reasons. The fact 
is, it is price. You can come up, I suppose, with your own notions of 
how to increase price in the marketplace, but I think we have a failure 
here.
  The failure is that we have a farm program that says: Let us not care 
about supporting prices. Whatever the price in the marketplace place 
is, if it is 10 cents for hogs or if it is $2.50 for wheat, that is 
just tough luck. That is the way the market is. So let's have farmers 
get whatever they get from the marketplace.
  The problem with that is, we won't have many family farmers left, if 
that is the attitude we take, because the marketplace doesn't work for 
agriculture. There is no free market for agriculture. Everybody knows 
it. Anybody that comes out here and preaches about a free market for 
agriculture is preaching a sermon that is not worth listening to.
  Now, my colleague from Minnesota talked about the issue of 
monopolies. I want to talk about that just for a moment. I want to show 
a cartoon that appeared in the newspaper in Lincoln, NE, the Lincoln 
Journal Star. The cartoon shows something that I have previously spoken 
about on the floor of the Senate. The cartoon says: If the grain to 
make this costs pennies--talking about grocery cereal--and I have to 
pay $3.95, who gets all the rest? And here is a picture of a farmer 
giving up.
  It is interesting that at a time when prices have collapsed for 
grain, cereal manufacturers have announced that they will increase the 
price of their cereal. I found it interesting that when grain prices 
increased a few years ago, wheat went to $5.50 a bushel, the cereal 
manufacturers were complaining that they had to increase cereal prices 
because grain prices were strengthening. So grain prices collapse, drop 
in half. What happens to cereal prices? They go up. What is wrong with 
that picture? It seems to me you would fail third grade math with that 
kind of calculation.
  The point that the Senator from Minnesota made is an accurate point. 
In every direction the farmer looks, the farmer faces either a monopoly 
or a near monopoly. Let's say the farmer raises grain and wants to have 
it transported. So the farmer takes it to the railroad and the railroad 
operator says: We will transport that grain for you. And they tell the 
farmer exactly what it will cost. If the farmer doesn't like it, it is 
tough luck.
  In our State, our State Public Service Commission says the railroads 
overcharge North Dakota, principally farmers but all businesses. They 
overcharge North Dakota farmers $100 million a year. How can they do 
that? No competition. We do not have three railroads vying for that 
business. When you have near monopoly or a monopoly, they charge what 
they want. So when the farmer goes to the grain trade and decides to 
sell their grain, what do they find? Only a few companies control most 
of the grain trade.
  Two of those companies now want to get married. Continental and 
Carghill decided they like each other so much they don't want to 
compete anymore. They want to get together. So now they have this 
merger proposal, meaning more concentration. Does that make sense for 
farmers? To me, it doesn't. I do not think they ought to be allowed to 
merge.
  Then when the farmers decide that they want to sell their fat 
steers--they had some calves and they raised some fat steers and 
heifers--they take them to market. Eighty-seven percent of the fat 
steer market slaughter in this country is controlled by three 
companies, three. So they tell the farmers and ranchers: Here is what 
we are going to pay you.
  They say it is a free market. Of course, it is not free. So let's 
assume that the grain trade wasn't throttled at the neck of the bottle 
by a concentration of large corporations, and instead you had a free 
market.
  Is it a free market for our producers, who raise a steer or heifer or 
cow and want to sell the beef to Japan, are faced with a 50-percent 
tariff because of a beef agreement with Japan, which does come down a 
little year by year, but snaps back up if you get more beef in? 
Currently, as I understand it, the tariff on beef going into Japan is 
45 percent. Is that fair? I don't think so.
  Or China sends us all their shoes and trousers and shirts and 
trinkets, and they have a $50 billion to $60 billion trade surplus with 
us, or we a deficit with them, and they say: When we want wheat, we 
want to buy it elsewhere; plus we want to keep part of your wheat out, 
and we don't want your hogs at all. Is that fair trade? Does a farmer 
have a right to complain about that? I think so. In every single 
direction, farmers have a right to say it is not a free market.
  Let me mention trade. Our family farmers--despite having mentioned 
some trade with Japan and China, our

[[Page 13633]]

family farmers are furious about our trade situation with Canada. We 
passed this NAFTA bill here in the Congress. I didn't vote for it, but 
everybody who voted for it, I guess, felt that the people who sold it 
said we were going to get some 300,000 new jobs in America with this 
NAFTA.
  NAFTA turned a trade surplus with Mexico into a trade deficit very 
quickly and doubled the trade deficit we have with Canada. Now the 
fancy economists who decided they wanted to make money putting out 
studies telling us how wonderful NAFTA was going to be are saying: 
Maybe we were wrong. When you pass an agreement that creates huge 
deficits, lose jobs instead of gaining jobs, you are wrong.
  But take a look at the trade back and forth across the border. What 
you will find with Canada is, we have massive quantities of Canadian 
grain coming in and undercutting our American farmers, and you can't 
get much American grain into Canada. I have been to the border there. I 
was riding in an orange truck trying to get durum wheat into Canada. I 
could not do it. But I saw Canadian trucks hauling Canadian wheat 
south. Is that fair trade? I don't think so.
  That is what farmers face, unequal treatment. If you wipe all that 
away and just have farmers trade in the open market, free trade or fair 
trade, then when the farmer competes against the European grain or 
livestock producer in an international marketplace, how do you get 
around the fact that the Europeans subsidize their grain sales 10 times 
our subsidy--10 times? We say to our farmers, well, that is fair; it 
would be like a competition, let's give the other team a huge head 
start and then say it is a fair competition.
  I don't know what people are thinking about. It is not fair. It 
doesn't make any sense. Our farmers in this country have a right to be 
very upset, because I don't think they have been supported very well by 
our range of policies, our agricultural and trade policies. They have 
not been fair and consistent.
  On the United States-Canada free trade agreement, I was in Montreal 
when Clayton Yeutter was negotiating with Canada. I will tell you what 
happened with Canada. The U.S. agricultural interests got traded away--
flat out traded away. This country got something for it. I wasn't in 
the room, but I guess we got access to 20-some million people for the 
financial services industry, and so this country got something for it. 
But farmers got traded way. So at the end of the time, we got an 
agreement that weakened section 22, all of our trade remedies, and then 
we got a piece of paper from Clayton Yeutter, the Trade Ambassador. I 
could read it, but generally the paper said we have essentially a 
spirit between us that, following the agreement, there will not be a 
substantial increase in grain flowing across the border one way or the 
other. That wasn't worth the paper it was written on. It was a 
guarantee.
  I was on the Ways and Means Committee; that is where this had to 
originate--the passing of the language on the agreement--and we got 
from the Trade Ambassador a guarantee that was worthless. We 
immediately began to see a massive quantity of grain coming into our 
country in a manner, in my judgment, that clearly violates our trade 
laws--dumping below the cost of acquisition.
  Now, I know some of this is probably confusing and difficult. But I 
want to illustrate this point. The U.S. farmers said: Wait a second, 
this is not fair; we were told by our Trade Ambassador's office this 
wasn't going to happen. We have it in writing, we have a guarantee; 
this isn't fair. So action was taken against the Canadians to try to 
stop it.
  Do you know what we discovered in that action? A side deal had been 
made between the Trade Ambassador's office and the Canadians that was 
never disclosed to Congress, never a part of debate. It gave to the 
Canadians, in selling into the American marketplace the ability to go 
below acquisition cost, the Canadians will not have to include their 
final grip payment--it is called a grip payment--to their farmers.
  So what they did was set aside part of the cost of the acquisition of 
that grain and said that will not be considered. By definition, the 
formula says they can sell at below cost in this marketplace and they 
will not be in violation, because there was a separate side deal 
between our Trade Ambassador and the Canadians, in effect, selling out 
the interests of our farmers.
  Do farmers have a right to be upset about that? Do they have a right 
to be concerned about policymakers who don't support our farmers' 
interests? You bet your life they do. Now, we have to decide in this 
Congress whether we are going to be willing to rebuild and invest and 
strengthen family farms.
  Let me make this point. I am not at all bashful about coming to the 
floor and saying we need this help. We were just in a conference 
committee--I was part of it--in which the President said: We need some 
additional money for Kosovo. We need money for Kosovo. So Congress 
said: Well, how much do you need? The President said: Well, we need $16 
billion. Congress said: No, you don't need that, you need more than 
that. So Congress added $6 billion to the President's request, saying: 
We don't think you have asked for enough money. If it is for defense, 
we don't think you have asked for enough money. There are those who 
said that the sky is the limit for defense. They said: The President 
didn't ask for enough, and we want to add $6 billion more.
  I say to them, what about the issue of family farming in this 
country? What about the issue of agriculture? That is here at home. 
Those are our interests. That is not Kosovo. That is not bridges. That 
is not investment in weapons. That is here in this country. What about 
that? Is that not a priority? Are we not willing to decide that we will 
provide that resource?
  Some say, well, the President should ask for it. Yes, he should, but 
the President didn't ask for the extra $6 billion Congress put in the 
emergency bill for defense. So apparently you have two standards. The 
President doesn't have to ask for the extra $6 billion for defense, but 
he must for agriculture. Well, those who say the President needs to be 
involved and ask for it, they are right. Let's have him do that. I want 
him to be engaged here with a request, and I think he will be.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DORGAN. Yes.
  Mr. HARKIN. In listening to the Senator's very eloquent remarks, the 
Senator from North Dakota really does understand the depth of the 
problems in agriculture. He has been one of our great leaders in 
fighting for family farms and our rural communities, in making 
statements and comments about the lack of free trade and the other 
economic conditions that are working against the farmer.
  What I really wanted to ask the Senator is, What role do the 
increasing sorts of conglomerates, vertical integration, the fact that 
we are getting fewer and fewer hog farms, for example, that we are 
experiencing in Iowa and other places, smaller and smaller numbers of 
meatpackers and slaughterers in this country--when you look at the 
increasing concentration, what, I might ask, is this doing, and what 
effect does this increasing concentration have in reducing the price 
that the farmer gets?
  In other words, we saw the cartoon about the person in the grocery 
store saying, ``It only pays pennies. Who gets the rest?'' I ask the 
Senator from North Dakota again, what is the effect on the farmer?--in 
other words, what the farmer is getting from the consumer's dollar, 
because in the past you had a lot of competitors out there competing 
against one another to take the raw product and get it to market. Now 
you have just a few. You have a very narrow funnel now. It has been my 
opinion and observation, based upon a lot of economic data, that this 
small funnel now they have to go to, the few meatpackers and 
processors, vertical integration, basically that is where the consumer 
dollars stops, and it is not getting back to the farmer.
  The Senator has been very eloquent on this issue of the increasing 
concentration and what that means for family farming; does the Senator 
share that feeling?

[[Page 13634]]


  Mr. DORGAN. The share the farmer gets from the food dollar has 
diminished about 20 percent.
  All the other interests that touch what the farmers produce make a 
lot of money, and many of them are making record profits right now. The 
farmer raises the grain; buys the tractor, plows the ground in the 
spring, tends the land; and takes all the risk. They harvest it and 
work hard.
  Family farmers don't make much money. Now they are losing a lot of 
money. Even in the best of years they don't make that much money, 
taking into account all the unforeseen risks. They put the product on a 
railcar to market; it goes to a cereal manufacturing plant. The rail 
car company makes money and the railroad companies are making record 
profits. The grain trade makes profits. The grain goes to a cereal 
plant and they take that wheat and inject it with some air. Now it 
becomes puffed wheat. They package it in a bright colored, big box, 
with cellophane wrapping that can't be opened in the morning and they 
send it to a grocery store.
  Farmers, last year, lost their shirt on the very same wheat that was 
puffed up by air and produced by the cereal manufacturers. The farmers 
lost their shirt; the cereal manufacturers make record profits.
  Something is wrong. Those who haul it, those who trade it--every step 
along the way the big economic interests are making big profits. It is 
the folks who grow it that are told: No, somehow you don't matter.
  On this Earth, every single month, we add another New York City in 
population; every single month we add another New York. Yet, the farmer 
is told by the grain trade--when the farmer loads the truck and takes 
it to the elevator--that this grain isn't worth very much; this food 
isn't worth very much.
  We are told half a billion people go to bed every night with an ache 
in their belly and it hurts to be hungry. Most of them are kids. Half a 
billion go to bed every night with an ache in their belly because they 
are hungry. Far more people are malnourished than that. And we are 
adding a New Yorker to the City every month, yet we have farmers in 
Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Mississippi, and Wisconsin going broke 
because they are told--after all of their work, all of their risk, all 
of their dreams--that the grain they produce doesn't have value. They 
load the truck, go to the elevator, and get the message. The message 
is, food doesn't have much value.
  Within recent months, we had people come to Capitol Hill to testify 
about the famine in the Sudan. We had testimony by people talking about 
old women climbing trees to gather leaves to eat because there is 
nothing to eat, and our farmers are told: Your food has no value.
  If we get past the question of, does food have value, there is a 
larger question. Who farms in this country, and does it matter? Family 
farmers are more than just planters. It is the family farm around my 
hometown of Regent, ND, that provides the blood vessels which make that 
small community live. It is the family farmer who helps build the 
church. It is the family farmer who helps keep the main street open. It 
is the family farmer who helps create a rural lifestyle. This is more 
than just a question of, does food have value; it is, who is going to 
farm in our country?
  Some say: Let the corporations farm. They are fine; they can farm 
America from California to Maine. That is true. And we will have no 
population left in the middle part of our country.
  This map demonstrates what is happening in the middle part of our 
country. The red represents the counties that have lost more than 15 
percent of their population. You can see what is happening. In the 
middle part of America, we are depopulating a significant part of our 
country. People are leaving, not coming.
  I was in two different counties on Saturday in North Dakota. One 
county lost 60 percent of its population, and one of them had lost 50 
percent of its population in the last 25 years.
  Picture trying to do business in a small town, in an area that has 
lost 60 percent of its population. That is trying to do business in a 
depression.
  It matters who farms--not just what is the return, what is the price 
of grain, but that we do we have a system that encourages family 
farming. Is the family, as an economic unit, something that has merit 
and value? Some say, let the market decide that. The market is not an 
allocator of all goods and services in a fair way at all times. There 
are times when we have to be a referee in the marketplace.
  That is why we have had a farm program. If we hadn't had a farm 
program, we probably wouldn't have any family farmers now. When prices 
collapse and you have the valley, the only way family farmers get 
across the valley is by building a bridge called price support. Three 
or 4 years ago we were told: That is old fashioned; blow up the bridge. 
So Congress did--I didn't vote for that. It was called the Freedom to 
Farm bill. We blew up the bridge and pulled the rug from the family 
farmers. Let them go to the market. Whatever the grain trade says is 
the price, that is the market price.
  We found out that is absurd. That doesn't work. China, Japan, Canada, 
Mexico, and Europe are engaged in the kind of trade practices that 
restrict our products, there are sanctions against food--some of which 
have, fortunately, been revoked--the farmer finds it can't sell into 
certain markets, it is locked out of about 11 percent of the 
international wheat market.
  In my judgment, sanctions should almost never be put on. Hubert 
Humphrey used to say, send them anything they can't shoot back. It 
certainly makes sense to be able to send food to people who are hungry 
in the world. That has nothing to do with foreign policy or with guns.
  When there is a sanction, certainly farmers should have been paid. 
Why should farmers bear the cost of this country's national security 
issues? We have had the sanctions, have had a range of other trade 
issues and farmers have always been the victims.
  There is a way, it seems to me, for Congress, with both Republicans 
and Democrats to decide jointly that family farmers ought not continue 
to be victims in this country on trade policy or agricultural policy or 
policies dealing with market concentration. We need to do much better 
than that. Frankly, in recent years, I think we have let the farmers 
down.
  This bill is an appropriations bill. There is much in it that is 
important. I say to the Senator from Wisconsin, your work and the work 
of Senator Cochran is very important work, as is the work of both 
staffs on the subcommittee. I was pleased for the first time this year 
to be able to join the subcommittee. It is an important subcommittee 
that makes critical investments in a wide range of agricultural issues.
  At the end of the day, when all of this is clear, we must do 
something about prices for family farmers. If we don't do that, all of 
this other investment is not going to be very productive for our 
country. We must do something to address the question of price 
collapse.
  We offered an amendment in the emergency supplemental bill a couple 
of months ago. Senator Harkin and I offered that amendment. I recall, I 
think, it was midnight or so when Senator Harkin was recognized to 
offer it. He spoke, I spoke, and several others spoke. Then we had a 
vote. We made the points, I and Senator Harkin, about the difficult 
time in agriculture, the real crisis that exists at this point. The 
vote, I believe, was probably a vote on tabling or a vote up or down. 
We lost on a 14-14 tie vote, and that was only with the Senate 
conferees.
  I know the Senator from Iowa is going to offer an amendment, and I 
certainly intend to join him during this appropriations process, to 
have a discussion about that amendment, about an emergency farm bill 
that puts some resources into rural America to try to respond to this 
farm crisis.
  I am not now going to speak at much greater length on the amendment. 
I have more things to say, and I will say them at a more appropriate 
time. My expectation is this legislation will be on the floor for some 
while. I do want to speak at greater length about some

[[Page 13635]]

of these farm issues, and my colleague from Iowa and others have a fair 
amount to say as well about these issues.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to raise a problem relating to 
pharmacy compounding and a proposed Memorandum of Understanding from 
the Food and Drug Administration with state boards of pharmacy relating 
to compounding.
  Pharmacy compounding is a part of the practice of pharmacy that 
involves specially-tailoring a prescription drug product for a specific 
patient's needs. A good example is when a pharmacist takes a pill 
prescribed for an infant--but which that infant can't swallow--and 
grinds it up and mixes it into a sweet syrup that the baby is happy to 
take.
  Pharmacy compounding has been part of what pharmacists do for 
centuries, and it is important to preserve their ability to do this 
without huge regulatory hassles. Pharmacy compounding is important for 
many patients who need specially-designed drugs because no 
commercially-available product meets their specific needs. Interfering 
with compounding will only hurt these patients by making it more 
difficult to get--or even denying them--the specific pharmaceutical 
products they need.
  But the Food and Drug Administration is now threatening to create 
problems for many pharmacists who do a lot of pharmacy compounding--
which means problems for the customers they serve. The FDA has proposed 
a joint regulatory setup with states that calls on state Boards of 
Pharmacy to investigate pharmacists if more than 20 percent of the 
total prescriptions they distribute are compounded products sold out-
of-state.
  This proposal is supposed to guard against a handful of bad actors 
who are mass-producing drugs but are trying to avoid FDA regulation by 
saying they are actually involved in pharmacy compounding. The problem 
is that this proposed solution will also interfere with honest 
pharmacies and pharmacists who are legitimately engaged in pharmacy 
compounding.
  Two types of pharmacists who are particularly at-risk of being 
hassled by this rule are pharmacies that are located in multi-state 
areas and pharmacists who specialize almost exclusively in pharmacy 
compounding and who are well-known for their specialty either nation-
wide or region-wide.
  Under the regulatory setup the FDA has proposed, these pharmacies are 
vulnerable to automatic state investigations or other regulatory 
actions, even if there is no evidence that they are doing anything but 
legitimate pharmacy compounding.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I thank my colleague from Missouri for raising this 
issue. For patients who have very specific pharmaceutical needs, 
pharmacy compounding is clearly extremely important, and I don't 
believe the federal government should be creating unnecessary hassles 
or problems for pharmacists who are legitimately serving these patients 
needs.
  Mr. BOND. I thank the Chairman for that comment, and would like to 
bring up one specific example of the unnecessary problems this proposal 
creates.
  Last week, I spoke to a woman from Kansas City, Missouri, who runs 
two separate pharmacies. One is a typical drug-store type pharmacy 
where you can go in to fill prescription drugs that came straight from 
the manufacturer. Her other pharmacy--which is legally separate--is 
exclusively involved in pharmacy compounding. The only thing this 
pharmacy does is specially-tailor prescription products for people in 
the Kansas City area.
  The problem is that easily over 20 percent of her compounding 
customers are from across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas. She 
also suspects that many of these Kansas customers--although she's not 
sure exactly how many--live more than 50 miles away from her pharmacy, 
meaning she might not fit in the protections the FDA tried to include 
for pharmacies that are selling to out-of-state customers locally.
  Because this pharmacy in Kansas City doesn't meet the somewhat 
arbitrary FDA guidelines, this woman could automatically be subject to 
an investigation by the state Board of Pharmacy, even though all of her 
pharmacy compounding is done legitimately for specific patients.
  I just don't believe the FDA has done a good job writing these 
guidelines. There must be a more sophisticated way to approach this 
problem that won't threaten legitimate pharmacies with unnecessary 
regulatory hassles. I believe Congress needs to take a stand on this 
issue to force FDA to reconsider their proposal.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I thank the Senator for his thoughts, and pledge to work 
with him and others during deliberations of the conference committee on 
this bill to address this problem.
  Mr. BOND. I thank the Senator.


                           Amendment No. 702

    (Purpose: To amend the Public Health Services Act, the Employee 
 Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code 
  of 1986 to protect consumers in managed care plans and other health 
                               coverage)

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am asked to send an amendment to the 
desk for Senator Daschle. I do so at this point and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The clerk will report.
  The legislative assistant read as follows:

       The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], for Mr. 
     Daschle, proposes an amendment numbered 702.

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COCHRAN. I object.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the amendment.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The clerk will read the 
amendment.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment (No. 702) is printed in today's Record 
under ``Amendments Submitted.'')


                 Amendment No. 703 To Amendment No. 702

  (Purpose: To improve the access and choice of patients to quality, 
                        affordable health care)

  Mr. LOTT. I send a second-degree amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Lott] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 703 to amendment No. 702.

  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The text of the amendment (No. 703) is printed in today's Record 
under ``Amendments Submitted.'')
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I find our Democratic colleagues have put 
the Senate in an unfortunate position by offering this bill at this 
time. The pending bill is the agriculture appropriations bill, 
certainly a very important appropriations bill. I think you could 
probably argue they all are. But even more so than usual, the 
agriculture appropriations bill this year is very significant because 
we are still dealing with an agriculture economy that has been shaken 
by prices and by the loss of some markets around the world. We need to 
move this bill forward.
  American farmers are in dire need of many of the provisions in this 
bill that has been developed in a bipartisan way, with Chairman Cochran 
leading the way. These farmers rely on the legislation and 
appropriations every year. For some reason, the Democrats have decided 
to ignore the needs of the American farmer and instead turn this bill 
into the health care reform bill.
  I have in the past, and as recently as last Friday, offered our 
colleagues on

[[Page 13636]]

the other side of the aisle an opportunity to debate this issue in the 
form of a separate bill under a time agreement. However, they have 
always indicated a request for dozens and dozens of amendments. In 
fact, the latest discussion, sort of indirectly, but the latest number 
would call for a minimum of 40 amendments.
  Now, I thought they had a bill that basically represented the 
position they wanted to take on the Patients' Bill of Rights, as 
developed by Senator Kennedy and Senator Daschle. We have our approach, 
which is quite different, developed by Senator Nickles, the Senator in 
the Chair, Ms. Collins, Senator Frist, who certainly is one who could 
be very helpful in devising health-related legislation. So we have our 
two alternative bills, which I thought we could get a direct vote on 
and have some reasonable number of amendments and then go on to a final 
conclusion.
  However, it seems to me that colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle are interested in having an issue rather than bringing this 
Patients' Bill of Rights issue to a conclusion.
  I think clearly there are some things we need to do in this area. I 
assume there are some areas of agreement. There are some fundamental 
disagreements. For instance, I believe very strongly, in dealing with 
patients' rights and needs, where there is a dispute, there should be a 
process for resolving that dispute within a managed care organization 
or through an expedited outside procedure to get a result and not just 
look for more opportunities to file more lawsuits.
  However, I will continue, as I did last year, to work with the 
Democratic leader to propound a time agreement which will allow for 
votes on these important issues, the two approaches, as well as a 
reasonable number of amendments.
  In the meantime, I call for regular order with respect to the State 
Department authorization bill.

                          ____________________