[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 23611-23631]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 1906, AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD 
 AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2000

  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 317, I call up 
the conference report on the bill (H.R. 1906), making appropriations 
for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and 
Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for 
other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 317, the 
conference report is considered as having been read.
  (For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of 
Thursday, September 30, 1999, at page H9141.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) 
and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) each will control 30 
minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen).


                             General Leave

  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on 
the conference report to accompany H.R. 1906, and that I may include 
tabular and extraneous material.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New Mexico?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I feel somewhat like Mrs. Custer, and how she would have 
felt about Indian relief, after we have gone through this exercise 
earlier. But I am pleased to bring before the House today the 
conference report on H.R. 1906, providing appropriations for 
Agriculture, Rural Development, the Food and Drug Administration and 
Related Agencies.
  This bill does a lot of good for important nutrition, research, and 
rural development programs and still meets our conference allocations 
on discretionary and mandatory spending.
  Basic research on agriculture, food safety and nutrition has been 
increased by $80 million. The Farm Service Agency budget is also 
increased by $80 million, and this will be especially important to 
farms affected by the drought, the floods and the low prices.
  Loan authorizations for the Rural Housing Service are increased by 
$330 million. The program to provide loans and grants for rural schools 
and medical facilities, to allow them to access the resources of large 
urban institutions, is increased by two-thirds to $20.7 million.
  Our feeding and nutrition programs are all increased or maintained at 
the 1999 levels. This report has $108 million for the WIC program over 
last year, and the direct appropriation for Food and Drug 
Administration is $70 million over last year.
  We were able to make these increases by cutting administrative and 
management costs and by benefiting from lower loan costs in our farm 
and rural development programs.
  Finally, this bill carries an additional title this year that 
provides about $8.7 billion in emergency assistance, including $1.2 
billion for farm losses caused by natural disaster.
  OMB Director Lew has promised an assessment of Hurricane Floyd damage 
but indicated it may be some time before the assessment is completed. I 
expect we will be dealing with additional disaster needs in a future 
bill.
  Once again I would like to thank all the members of our subcommittee 
and their staffs for their hard work and cooperation on this bill, 
which began with the budget presentation back in February.
  I want to offer special thanks to the ranking member of the Committee 
on Appropriations, the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Obey), for his support, and a special thanks also to my good friend, 
the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural 
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, the 
distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). I know she has strong 
concerns regarding the conference report, but I want to make clear to 
every Member that she is a strong supporter of rural America and that 
she deserves a share of the credit for the good that this bill will do.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a bill that benefits every American every day, 
no matter where they live, whether it is FDA protecting the safety of 
our foods and medicines, or the nutrition programs for children and the 
elderly, or creating economic development in rural America. This bill 
is for urban and suburban Americans just as much as it is for the 
farmer and the rancher.
  And, by the way, I think that everybody, every member of the United 
States, is a farmer by acquisition, because everybody I know knows more 
about farming than most farmers do.
  I know some of our colleagues are concerned for what is not in the 
bill, particularly dairy policy and the relaxation of export sanctions 
to certain countries.

                              {time}  1130

  But if we all voted on the basis of what is not in a bill, I am not 
sure any legislation would ever get passed here. I would say to my 
colleagues that this is a good bipartisan bill, and it will benefit 
every one of their constituents.
  This is the first day of the new fiscal year, and we need to put this 
bill to work immediately. Please support the good that is in this bill 
today and vote aye on the conference report.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following for the Record:

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  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, let me commend my colleague, the gentleman from New 
Mexico (Mr. Skeen), for his hard work on this bill, though I cannot 
support the bill. I think it is like a two-legged dog being brought to 
the floor of the Congress today.
  Mr. Speaker, I will reserve my remarks until closing.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
the great State of Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), who has fought harder than 
any other Member here to try to get the needs of not just his district 
but rural America recognized.
  Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to oppose this 
conference report. And I do that reluctantly.
  I want to commend the chairman. He has been very fair and works hard 
on this. But I represent a part of America that has had disasters. Some 
of these people have lost their crops 6 years out of the last 7. And 
this bill does not address their problems. Frankly, I do not know what 
we are going to do if we do not get some help for these people up in 
this area.
  There is a disaster component in this bill. In my judgment, it is not 
enough money to cover all of the things that have gone wrong with this 
country. I also do not think that it is structured in a way that is 
going to get at what people really need.
  Also, we have got a price problem in this country, as everybody 
knows, in agriculture. Some of us that oppose Freedom to Farm said that 
we thought this was going to happen eventually, and it is here right 
now. And we all want to address that. But I do not know how I can go 
home and tell the people in Roseau County or Kittson County that it is 
more important that we put out money to people that have not been 
damaged by disaster, that have had bumper crops year after year after 
year and have sold those bumper crops, received the AMPTA payments and 
then we are going to give them additional AMPTA payments, and we are 
not going to go out and help the people that have lost crops 5 or 6 or 
7 years out of the last 7 years.
  I do not know how I can go home and tell the people that this is a 
good bill, that this is something we should support. I do not know how 
my colleagues can do that. I wish they could come up and look in the 
eyes of these people and see what they are up against. We are not 
dealing with this the way we should. We are spending this money the 
wrong way. We are not spending enough money.
  I would just implore my colleagues to defeat this bill, give us a 
chance to go back to the committee, and address these issues.
  As I understand it, this was basically taken away from the 
subcommittee, and there was not even a chance for people to debate 
these multiple-year problems, to debate these other disaster problems. 
Defeat this conference report.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Walsh).
  Mr. WALSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my chairman, the gentleman from New 
Mexico (Mr. Skeen), for yielding me the time and for the hard work that 
he has done on this very important bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take the unusual step of opposing my 
chairman and also opposing this bill, a bill that I have spent a good 
deal of my time on this year trying to resolve some of the real issues 
in farm country.
  I am very disappointed with the way this bill came out. I am 
disappointed with the process. We had assurances all the way along 
through subcommittee and full committee and then going into conference 
that we would be able to address the dairy issue, but that was denied 
us. In fact, the conference never actually concluded its work. We did 
not have the opportunity even to offer amendments or to debate these 
critical issues. That is very disappointing, and it is very unusual. I 
hope we do not see a lot of this in the future.
  But more to the point than just the process are the issues. The 
absence of dairy legislation in this bill is going to hurt farmers all 
over the country. It may benefit two States, but it will definitely 
hurt over 40. Dairy farmers who work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, who 
never get a break, are going to lose money. It is estimated as much as 
$8,000 a family in my State.
  And believe me, I do not know a dairy farmer in my State on a regular 
size farm that is putting $8,000 in their pocket after a year of dairy 
farming. It just is not a cash-flow business.
  Disaster relief. My colleagues, I have no envy for what the Midwest 
has accomplished in this bill. I praise them. I admire them. I wish we 
could have done the same for farmers in the Northeast. But the fact is 
Midwestern farmers will receive $7.5 billion in disaster payments 
because they did not get the price they wanted for the crops.
  Our farmers in the Northeast had no crops. In fact, they have no 
topsoil because of drought and now flood. They will get pennies on the 
dollar, $1.2 billion for all the Northeast for weather-related 
disaster; and the Midwest gets $7.5 billion. That is not fair. It is 
not right.
  Sanctions reform. My colleagues wanted to open up new markets to the 
farmers so that we could sell our crops and get the price that we need. 
Would they rather open up and sell food to Iran and Iraq, where people 
are starving, or would they rather spend all of our taxpayers' dollars 
to give the farmers the price that they want through an artificial 
means? Let us open up our markets. But we did not do it.
  The dairy compact, which provides price stability, supported by 
consumers and farmers in the Northeast, we cannot have that anymore 
because this does not allow it to be extended.
  Mr. Speaker, the pricing option that the Secretary has promulgated is 
a presidential policy, this is the Clinton policy on dairy, helps two 
States and it harms 40. I do not get it. I mean, I thought these people 
were good politically down at the White House. This makes no sense. It 
hurts 40 States to benefit two.
  But we do not have to do that. There is another option, Option 1-A, 
that holds Minnesota and Wisconsin harmless and it helps the other 
States. But that is not available to us, either.
  So, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I thank the chairman for yielding me 
the time to speak against our own bill. I respect him highly. I regret 
that I have to oppose this bill, but I can take no other action.
  I urge my colleagues to voice their objection to the process and the 
policy by voting no on this bill.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Hinchey), a member of the subcommittee, who has worked so 
diligently on this bill and, as the rest of the members on our 
subcommittee, was actually robbed of his rights as a Member of this 
institution because our committee was recessed and never called back to 
complete work on this bill.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to express my 
appreciation and respect for the chairman of the subcommittee and the 
hard work that he has done, the diligent and conscientious work that he 
has done to try to put an effective bill together. The gentleman from 
New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) is an example for all of us in this House. I 
also thank the staff of the subcommittee for the work that they have 
done, as well.
  For those reasons, I wish I could support the bill. But I cannot. I 
cannot support it for the same reasons which were enunciated just a 
moment ago by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), my friend and 
colleague from the other side of the aisle.
  I would focus my remarks in the brief time that I have on the dairy 
issue alone. As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) pointed out, 
the provisions that fail to appear in this bill would have benefited 
the dairy industry in 40 States across this country. They are suffering 
so that perhaps two States can benefit, and that is only perhaps. 
Because the real beneficiaries of this legislation and the failure to 
act in a responsible way with regard to the agriculture dairy industry 
in our country, the real beneficiaries are those

[[Page 23621]]

who seek to consolidate the dairy industry, those who seek to rob 
consumers of the opportunity to buy fresh, wholesome dairy products 
from local producers in their own State and the surrounding region.
  The real beneficiaries are a handful of people who are seeking 
increasingly to consolidate the dairy industry in the hands of fewer 
and fewer people so that they can control where dairy is produced, 
where it is shipped, under what conditions and at what price.
  Dairy farmers in New York and New England and New Jersey and 
Pennsylvania, the middle Atlantic States, and elsewhere in this country 
are suffering because of the failure to put effective dairy provisions 
in this legislation, and that failure is due entirely to the fact that 
the bill was wrested from the subcommittee by the leadership of this 
House which adheres to an ideological imperative which is outdated and 
always has been wrong, and that is let the free market system run 
agriculture in this country.
  It will not work because the free market is run by a handful of 
people. They control it, and they will continue to do so. Therefore, we 
must defeat this bill.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Nethercutt).
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of our subcommittee 
(Mr. Skeen) for yielding me the time. He is a fine gentleman and has 
been eminently fair with me and I thank every other member of the 
subcommittee. I thank him for his dedication to agriculture.
  Mr. Chairman, I speak today in support of this bill. I am going to 
vote for it. I think it is a good bill. It could be a much better bill, 
for the reasons that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) stated and 
I think the reasons that other Members may state here today, as well.
  My concern has been not only with process but with policy relative to 
this particular measure as it relates to me as a member of the 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration, and Related Agencies. I felt for a long time that, in 
order to have the Freedom to Farm approach to agriculture policy 
succeed, we have to have freedom to market. Our farmers need to market 
overseas.
  My State of Washington, the east side of the State of Washington, 
grows some of the best wheat crops and peas and lentil crops and 
potatoes and other commodities, apples and others, to compete with 
anybody in the world. But we are restricted, Mr. Speaker, because of an 
antique kind of a sanctions policy, unilateral sanctions policy, that 
hurts our farmers.
  The power to change this policy rests with Congress. And we tried to 
do that on this bill, but the process did not allow it. I felt 
frustrated, frankly, that we could not have a good vote on this issue 
and let the Senate speak, as they have, Senator Ashcroft, Senator Hagel 
and others, Senator Brownback, Senator Durbin, Senator Dorgan, who 
spoke in favor of this change in policy, as well as people on our side, 
like the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) and the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Walsh) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey) 
and others who feel that that policy is outdated.
  It is nonsense, in my judgment, that we should not sell food and 
medicine to countries that others can sell to around the world. It 
hurts our farmers. It hurts us as a country I believe. And we can open 
up dictatorships and open up terrorist regimes, for that matter, if we 
can engage them and engage the people.
  The measure that was ready to pass the subcommittee and the 
conference was no funding for government-to-government assistance. 
Absolutely not one dollar would go to the governments of Iran, Iraq, 
Cuba, or anyplace else. But there would be a funding option allowed in 
order to allow our farmers to get some coverage for the sale of their 
product overseas.
  I fought the President on this in some respects. This administration 
threw up a roadblock with respect to completing the sanction relief 
that we had imposed. We want to work with the administration and the 
Democrats and the Republicans and our leadership to try to have this 
sanctions policy relief become a reality.
  So I would urge my colleagues to support this policy in the future.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), a distinguished member of the subcommittee 
who also was robbed of her rights to offer an amendment, as these 
proceedings were recessed.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the agriculture 
appropriations conference report.
  The process was unprecedented and heavy-handed. But the substance and 
the policy and final version reflects the majority leadership's lack of 
concern for farmers of America.
  The summer's droughts and hurricanes have devastated thousands of 
farming families. In my own State of Connecticut, farmers suffered 
$41.6 million in losses. The pastures dried up. Fruit dropped. Trees 
and bushes and dairy production plummeted.

                              {time}  1145

  Farmers across the country are begging Congress to do something and 
we must do something. It is our responsibility. It is why we were 
elected. We come here to give voice to the people that we represent. 
Our constituents can only conclude from this conference report that we 
have been silent on their behalf.
  This report includes only $1.2 billion in much needed emergency aid. 
But this is a short-term fix to a long-term problem, the lack of 
markets promised when the Freedom to Farm bill eliminated the farmers' 
safety net.
  Committee members on both sides of the aisle were ready to address 
this issue with sanction relief, but the opportunity was snatched away. 
It is wrong to deny our farmers over $1 billion in new sales abroad, 
and it is wrong to punish innocent families, children, in other 
countries who suffer under repressive regimes by denying them food and 
medicine.
  Finally, this report fails to reauthorize the Northeast Dairy 
Compact. Without that compact, Connecticut's farmers will lose $4.2 
million a year as well as the security of stable prices to guarantee 
safe futures.
  We are here to help farmers address short-term disasters and the 
long-term problems that threaten their survival. The health of our 
Nation is directly linked to agriculture's future. We must do more. I 
urge my colleagues to oppose the conference report.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Dickey).
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, understanding the immediate need for 
assistance that our farmers have, I have signed the conference report, 
and I am supporting this bill. However, there were several issues that 
were left undecided, and I want to discuss one of them, that is, 
sanctions on our agricultural products with other countries.
  Let us take Cuba, for example, and in this context, we have to 
understand that our Arkansas farmers are the finest and the largest 
producers of rice there is in this country. For 37 years, it has been 
proven that the embargo on food and medicine in Cuba does not work. 
Fidel Castro and the members of his Communist regime have never missed 
a meal, but the poor have gone hungry. Those are who the embargo is 
affecting.
  But the effects of this embargo are not only felt 90 miles off of 
Florida's coast, it has had much more of a local effect. An enormous 
market for our agricultural products has been deemed off-limits. Our 
Arkansas farmers sit facing one of the largest financial crises that we 
have ever encountered. They are the best farmers in the world and 
produce an excellent crop, but they need more places to market it. The 
USDA estimates that Cuba will import 570,000 metric tons of long grain, 
rough rice from countries all across the world. Conversely, the United 
States has over 630,000 metric tons of this very type of rice from the 
1998 harvest still in storage. The USDA anticipates this number to 
drastically increase and next year our farmers will have 1.5 million 
metric tons of carryover stock from the 1999 harvest, all of which will

[[Page 23622]]

bring prices down. The Cuban rice market has an estimated value of $125 
million annually. Allowing our rice producers to trade with Cuba would 
not only enable them to collect the lion's share of the $125 million 
but it would also reduce our yearly carryover stock which would 
increase the commodity's market price.
  The Congressional Research Service estimates that current economic 
sanctions on agricultural goods for sanctioned countries in 1996 
reduced farm income by $150 million, overall U.S. economic activity by 
$1.2 billion, and U.S. jobs by 7,600. This is an issue that America 
cannot afford to ignore any longer. Even though I am going to vote for 
this bill, I want us to be aware of the fact that we must do something 
about these sanctions to help our farmers in America.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. Boswell) who represents such a major share of U.S. agriculture.
  Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
this time. First off, let me say that I am supporting this bill. I 
think that I have to associate myself with those who made other 
comments about the inadequacies. I do not understand why we did not 
have an opportunity to have the full discussion. But there is where we 
are at.
  We have got two economies in our country right now, a robust economy 
and an ag economy. The ag economy is in bad, bad shape. We have to 
address these things. The farmers are desperate out there. I am 
supporting this to get the movement going and get this money to those 
producers. They need it now. I would say to the Secretary and anybody 
else that is listening that this money needs to go to those producers 
that have had losses. They are the ones that need it. I would trust and 
hope that we are doing everything we can to get it to them.
  I also appreciate the fact that my colleague and friend the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is offering something that will be coming up 
I hope very soon, the Supplemental Income Protection Act that will help 
all of us put the money where it belongs and help the farmers move 
ahead. Support the bill.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. Latham).
  Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding 
me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the agriculture appropriations 
conference agreement. This agreement will keep America's family farms 
afloat, fund critical research and protect the environment in some of 
our most fragile regions. Furthermore, this legislation includes 
language that dramatically improves competition for livestock 
producers.
  Thanks to the cooperation of the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. 
Skeen), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) and determined 
colleagues in the Senate, in the other body, we were able to include 
mandatory price reporting for livestock in this package. This 
legislation will contribute to our efforts to revive the current farm 
economy. As anyone in Iowa can tell you, the difficulties associated 
with low grain prices have been compounded by low livestock prices to a 
devastating level last December and January.
  Today, America's farmers want to know if they are receiving fair 
compensation for their hard work. With this agreement, we have made the 
first step in assuring that they can. It is important that accurate 
information be available to the livestock industry in order for 
competitive markets to function properly. Without this pricing 
information, we risk supporting a business environment that gives too 
much control to a few. We cannot allow our Nation's farmers to be left 
without the tools they can use to make sure they receive the best 
possible price for their livestock.
  It is important to note that mandatory price reporting language 
included is the result of significant negotiations and represents a 
concerted effort to find consensus. Title 9 of the bill is identical to 
legislation that was ordered reported by the Senate Committee on 
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on July 29, 1999. The intent of 
these provisions and their attendant legislative history are explained 
in detail in that committee's report on the reported bill, S. 1672, and 
Senate Report 106-168.
  Much of the language in this report was also the subject of 
painstaking negotiations and represents the consensus of a number of 
parties interested in mandatory price reporting legislation. I join all 
of these interested parties in directing the Department of Agriculture 
and the administration generally to this document for use in the 
correct interpretation and administration of this important law.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely important provision, and this bill 
does truly address as best we can under the budget constraints that we 
have the real problem we have in agriculture today, trying to get in a 
very timely manner dollars in the hands of farmers who so desperately 
need it. I just want to thank the chairman and the ranking member of 
the subcommittee, the chairman and ranking member of the full Committee 
on Appropriations, the staff on the subcommittee and my personal staff 
for doing an outstanding job. There are problems obviously, but a lot 
of the issues that were not addressed should never be on this bill to 
start with.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the able gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) who has worked so hard with us to try to make 
sure that the producers of Pennsylvania and the drought affected areas 
of this country are treated fairly in this measure.
  Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the conference report. There is 
not a Member from either side of the aisle from the mid-Atlantic or 
northeastern States that can go home and look their farmers in the eye 
and say that this is a fair piece of legislation. It simply is not. 
$1.2 billion for all weather-related disasters simply does not add up 
to meet the needs of our farmers throughout the country. We have 
experienced a 100-year drought in the Northeast. In Pennsylvania alone, 
$700 million of damage; New York, $370 million; Maine, $31 million; 
Ohio, $600 million. Combined in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern part 
of the country, $2.5 billion of losses from drought. Then we look at 
the terrible situation in North Carolina, what they are facing in 
flooding and how we need to help our friends and colleagues from North 
Carolina; early on in the year, the flooding in the upper Midwest.
  Mr. Speaker, we were not trying to be greedy in this bill, we were 
just trying to ask for what our friends in other parts of the country 
received before in other emergency appropriation bills. We wanted 42 
percent of our losses that were uninsured to be paid for with cash 
assistance and livestock assistance. $1.2 billion, Mr. Speaker, simply 
does not get there. I urge my colleagues to reject this conference 
report and give us the opportunity to do what is fair for the mid-
Atlantic and northeastern States.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the ranking member 
of the Committee on Agriculture.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1906. Let me say 
I am grateful to the conferees for their recognition of the economic 
plight of American agriculture and I commend the chairman and the 
ranking member for their efforts. I cannot, however, feel good about 
the way in which we are helping our farmers and ranchers. For the 
second year in a row, we are using emergency spending to compensate 
producers for low prices. This fact is a stark admission that our basic 
farm program is not working. Our Nation deserves a long-term reliable 
farm policy. Taxpayers have a right to know what the Nation's 
agriculture programs will cost and agriculture producers should be able 
to know up-front what kind of assistance they can expect and what the 
rules will be for distributing it. I wonder how much longer we can go 
on

[[Page 23623]]

like this, how much more our government will spend on ad hoc, 
supplemental AMTA payments before we realize that a more rational, 
predictable policy needs to be in force.
  Mr. Speaker, last year we waited until the last hour to debate the 
omnibus appropriation bill and the emergency agricultural spending it 
contained. Many of us spoke at that time about the need to prepare for 
this year. Instead of preparing, however, we waited, and today we 
respond with off-budget spending to address a problem that was entirely 
foreseeable. I would like to once again thank the appropriators for 
delivering a bill that recognizes many of the needs. The deficiencies 
contained in the bill are a result of a lack of coherent agricultural 
policy which is impossible to address in one year's spending.
  Let me say to my friend from Pennsylvania who spoke a moment ago, his 
request is reasonable. We should treat the northeastern States no 
different than any other States were treated last year, and it is my 
belief that in a supplemental we will do so. Dairy policy, I agree, but 
we passed a bill here. It is now up to the Senate to deal with it in 
the regular legislative process. Sanctions, we ought to be doing more, 
but we cannot do it all on an appropriations bill. We need to do most 
of this in the regular legislative process. I am dedicated to working 
with my colleagues on that.
  I am very grateful that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) has 
announced that we start full committee hearings early next year to 
address this problem so we do not find ourselves back in the same 
position next year at the same time.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Missouri (Mrs. Emerson).
  Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for 
his extraordinarily good work in very, very unordinary circumstances on 
this bill. As everyone has said, our farmers are facing the worst 
financial crisis in decades because of low prices, because of weather-
related disasters, and unfortunately our current farm law does not 
provide a safety net for our producers. And so we will lose a lot of 
them this year, causing the very fabric, the very essence of our rural 
way of life to be at risk.
  And so with reluctance I say yes, we must pass this bill today. But I 
also want to say, as my colleagues have, as an ag conferee, the last 2 
weeks have been gut wrenching, they have been heart wrenching, as our 
rights to write this bill were stolen from us. That makes me angry. I 
am deeply disappointed that we were not allowed to vote on lifting food 
and medicine embargoes against six foreign countries. We should have 
learned the lesson from the Soviet grain embargo that food should not 
be used as a tool of foreign policy, that our farmers in America are 
the only losers in this battle. And we could not vote on fixing a 
problem for our dairy producers even though the vast majority of this 
body supports that fix.
  Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am greatly disappointed, but the bill does have 
many good things in it for America's producers, for our ranchers and 
our farmers. They need our help today. They need financial assistance 
today. And so I urge a ``yes'' vote on the bill. I can only say in 
closing that we will continue the fight to lift embargoes and 
sanctions, we will continue the fight for our dairy farmers, because 
that fight, Mr. Speaker, has only just begun.

                              {time}  1200

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Price) who has been such an advocate for the needs 
of farmers in his State as well as around our Nation.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding me this time, and I commend her for her hard work to focus 
attention and action on disaster relief in the bill. I think everyone 
in this body is aware of the disaster that has befallen our farmers, 
our citizens in North Carolina and other States up and down the Eastern 
Seaboard with Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd. Our communities 
have been severely damaged, our infrastructure, our farms.
  Mr. Speaker, it is already estimated that the overall damages in 
North Carolina for this hurricane will exceed the 6 billion in damages 
we experienced with Hurricane Fran, which was our historical high point 
up to this year. Too many North Carolinians are still in shelters, and 
many have returned home or will return home to find out they have lost 
everything. Estimates from the United States Department of Agriculture 
and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture now are approaching 2 
billion in agricultural losses alone for North Carolina alone, $2 
billion.
  Now, consider the amount of disaster relief in this bill. When we 
look at that, Mr. Speaker, we realize how pitifully inadequate it is. 
It is $1.2 billion, and it is supposed to meet the needs of both 
drought and flood relief.
  The State Departments of Agriculture in the Southeastern and Eastern 
States, drought States, have estimated that the need for drought 
assistance alone is $2.5 billion. That is before anyone had ever heard 
of Hurricane Floyd. And unlike aid to homeowners and businesses, direct 
aid cannot go to farmers unless we appropriate it in this or a 
comparable bill.
  Farmers need immediate assistance, and we ought to give it to them, 
yet there was never any real opportunity for the conference to consider 
disaster assistance. Before the conference had sufficient opportunity 
to take up this issue, the bill was taken by the majority leadership 
from the hands of the conferees. So, Mr. Speaker, we are forced to ask, 
what are we going to do? How are we going to get this assistance to the 
people who so desperately need it?
  Yesterday I offered, and the Committee on Appropriations approved, an 
amendment to the Labor HHS appropriations bill to provide 508 million 
for direct assistance to farmers in all the states affected by 
Hurricane Floyd for crop and livestock losses. The Labor-HHS bill is 
not the normal vehicle for agriculture disaster assistance, but 
fortunately, Appropriations Committee leaders, Mr. Young and Mr. 
Porter, as well as Mr. Obey, accommodated us, and we got this done.
  That is not the way this process is supposed to work, but it was made 
necessary by the inadequacy of this agriculture appropriations bill. 
Farmers in North Carolina and the other states affected by natural 
disasters need our help now, and that need is greater than what is 
provided in this bill.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Barrett).
  Mr. BARRETT of Nebraska. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding this time to me, and I certainly rise in support of the 
conference report. And I want to thank my colleagues on the 
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and 
Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee for their 
very hard work. This bill, especially the emergency provisions, is very 
badly needed by our farmers and ranchers.
  Mr. Speaker, we have got a unique problem in agriculture. It is a 
cash flow crisis, and this conference report will help ease that 
situation by providing farmers with the financial resources to close 
out this year's growing season and prepare for the next.
  I specifically want to commend the conferees for maintaining the AMTA 
payment mechanism. This will allow producers to receive payments in 
possibly less than 2 weeks after it is enacted, and I charge the 
Department of Agriculture to meet this goal.
  I strongly encourage the President to sign the bill. Our producers do 
not have the time for political games as they are making decisions 
today which will affect their families for many years to come. We have 
got the right bill, and now is the right time to sign it.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is critical that the House agree to this 
conference report, and I urge an aye vote.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) who has been such an active 
participant in these negotiations.

[[Page 23624]]


  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur) for yielding this time to me, and I appreciate her hard work 
along with the hard work of all the other people that have worked on 
this bill, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, our farmers need the assistance in this bill, and they 
need a lot more. The funding in this bill is just simply not enough.
  The other side of the aisle comes to the well over and over to 
criticize the lack of action on trade issues, yet when they have the 
opportunity, they fail to lift the sanctions on Cuba and other 
countries for food and medicine for only political reasons. Mr. 
Speaker, this is shameful.
  This bill is inadequate. I will vote for it, but once again we are 
forcing America's farmers to pay for the political and foreign policy 
failures. The majority leadership should be ashamed of this bill 
because they did not accomplish what they should have for America's 
farmers.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Combest).
  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot this morning about, 
obviously, the wants and desires of Members in regards to the process, 
in regards to things that were in the bill, that were not in the bill, 
and if we spent, made all of those decisions, based upon that and those 
Beltway issues, we would probably never pass anything. Let me just 
mention a few of the people that are out there that this bill has tried 
to intend to help that support it:
  The Southwest Peanut Growers Association of Virginia, North Carolina 
Peanut Growers Association, the American sheep industry, the American 
Farm Bureau, the National Cotton Council, the American Soybean 
Association, the U.S. Rice Federation, the National Grain and Sorghum 
Association, the United States Sugar Beet Association, the American 
Sugar Beet Growers, the Hawaiian Sugar Growers, the Florida Sugar 
League, the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, the National Corn Growers 
Association are the ones that have just come in since we started 
debating this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, let me mention one other thing, if I might, as well. I 
agree with those people who have said that this is probably inadequate 
in terms of disaster money. We do not know how much that is. In fact, 
in some instances and in some cases the waters have not even receded 
enough to know what the damage is.
  But I will tell my colleagues that as this bill started off at $500 
million, we had a hearing in the Committee on Agriculture, and we asked 
the administration and the Secretary how much would they need, and they 
said they had no idea. But they guessed, and they would estimate at 
this time between 800 million and 1.2 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill has 1.2 billion. It is at the top end of what 
the administration suggested that they would need. If that is not 
enough, then at some point in the process I think we should come back 
and revisit that issue. But I will tell my colleagues that the farmers 
of America see the opportunity in a very short order to begin to get 
some very needed assistance in their hands. This is the way to do it, 
and I would encourage Members on both sides to give strong support to 
this bill. I think the American farmers deserve it, and I think they 
anticipate it.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) who has done such a tremendous job as a 
member of the authorizing committee.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for 
yielding the time, and I want to thank her for her leadership and her 
strong advocacy for rural America and for her due process, and I want 
to thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), the chair of the 
subcommittee, for his fairness and his advocacy for rural America and 
for agriculture.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill does have things that many of our farmers are 
advocating. I, too, have received the notice from my peanut farmers, 
said they would like to have this bill passed. But I also have received 
notice from people who need disaster relief saying: Is that all the 
disaster relief they have? I have my farm bureau, which I am very 
strongly supported by, call and say, yes, this is insufficient, but 
vote for it.
  Here we have a bill. Not only did we have an opportunity to respond 
to the disaster, but we refused to. I heard the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Combest) say $1.2 billion was the up side of what USDA suggests, 
but that was before we had Hurricane Floyd. Now we have had such 
disaster in large proportions. We have lost in North Carolina alone the 
agriculture has estimated to be over $3 billion. Over 120,000 hogs have 
died, 2.5 million chickens have died; that is just agriculture, and all 
of the crop has gone.
  One third of agriculture production is said to be lost in North 
Carolina, and we have $1.2 billion both for the drought and for 
Hurricane Floyd from the Northeast and to the Midwest.
  How can we even think that is indeed sufficient response? We had a 
unique opportunity to respond. That is almost an insult, Mr. Speaker, 
to suggest that that is sufficient.
  Now do I find that there are things in this bill that my farmers 
want? I would be less than honest to say yes, they do. The process 
really is important. Process in a democracy is important. Even when we 
lose, we would like to think that people have had an opportunity to 
have a full discussion. I am amazed that we have refused to have the 
opportunity to talk about the disaster that we so desperately need.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas).
  Mr. LUCAS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer my strong 
support for H.R. 1906, the agriculture appropriations conference 
report. Let us pass this bill today and show our unwavering commitment 
to all agricultural producers across this country.
  I am extremely proud of this legislation, of what it does, and what 
it provides for Oklahoma agricultural producers. The 100-percent bump-
up on the 1999 AMTA payment is desperately needed by our producers who 
have faced some unbelievable challenges this past year including Mother 
Nature, low commodity prices, and the worldwide financial situation. I 
am proud that this Congress has decided to take the necessary steps to 
combat these obstacles.
  I am also pleased to see funding for the Cotton Step 2 program and 
the inclusion of much needed livestock price reporting language. We 
have worked with producers over the past several months to ensure that 
these items were included in the conference report. This is just one 
more indication that this Congress is listening and responding to the 
needs of our producers.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, this Congress expects the USDA to allow 
producers to collect a payment equal to their LDP on their wheat crop.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Vermont (Mr. Sanders) who has just been vigilant throughout this 
process to be fair to all segments of the United States.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this 
time to me.
  I strongly oppose this legislation, and I urge all of my Democratic 
and Republican Members and friends to oppose it.
  This bill should be opposed from both a process point of view and a 
policy point of view.
  In terms of process, there is no disagreement that this bill, as a 
Republican member, the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson), just 
told my colleagues a few moments ago was quote, unquote, stolen away 
from the committee by the Republican leadership. That is what she said, 
and what the Republican leadership then did is went behind closed 
doors, where, heavily influenced by special interests, they wrote the 
bill. We received the bill this morning, hundreds of pages, and now we 
are supposed to support it.
  This process is undemocratic, it is an outrage, and no Member should 
vote

[[Page 23625]]

for this bill on that ground alone. But we should also oppose this bill 
because of its content.
  Last week we had an all-day debate upon the crisis of dairy farming 
in this country. There were six or seven amendments, and we went on and 
on, and at the end of the day, by a 285 to 140 vote, the Members of 
this body, Republicans and Democrats, said we need to reform the milk 
market order system in order to protect family farmers all over this 
country; 285 Members voted for it. When that issue came to the 
conference committee, they did not spend 1 minute discussing that 
issue. We spent all day; we voted for it; they did not spend 1 minute.

                              {time}  1215

  How can you support legislation which ignores an attempt to address 
the crisis facing dairy farmers? Please vote ``no.''
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, again to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), for 
whom I have the highest respect, the chairman of our committee, I know 
that no member of our committee could be proud of the bill that is on 
the floor today. Many have referenced that in their remarks.
  I would urge the membership to recommit this bill back to our 
subcommittee where it belongs to fix its flaws.
  In the years that I have been here in the Congress, I have never seen 
a conference report that comes to the floor where over one-third of our 
members do not even sign it. There was pressure put on a number of 
these people who did sign. This is not the way that one of the bills 
out of appropriations ought to come to the floor.
  I want to say a word about how this overall legislation is 
structured. Our concern does not necessarily go to the fundamental 
appropriations for the Department of Agriculture that are in the bill 
for the Year 2000. Our problem goes to the heart of the emergency 
package, the disaster assistance package, which is so fundamentally 
unfair.
  I would beg my colleagues to listen. I am going to spend a few 
minutes here and lay out some numbers.
  There are two parts to that portion of the legislation. There is $7.5 
billion that goes out in economic assistance. That basically means low 
prices--trying to help people, as one of the gentlemen here said, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Barrett), meet cash flow problems in rural 
America. Of that $7.5 billion, $5.5 billion of it goes out under the 
AMTA formula. But, remember, AMTA is based on the planting of program 
crops in the years 1991 to 1995. It is not tied at all to what was 
planted this year, to what is planted now, prices received, or economic 
loss. In fact, there is no requirement to have planted a crop at all in 
order to get these dollars!
  In fact, there is nothing in that section of the bill for fruits and 
vegetables. Many of our Members are coming up here and saying we want a 
fair bill. There are provisions that are in there for sugar, for 
cotton, for peanuts, for tobacco, for oil seeds, for honey, for mohair. 
But there are no provisions for vegetables, for fruits, for 
revegetation.
  In fact, in that section of the bill, if we look at livestock, hog 
farmers, an industry that is on its knees, it only gets a chance to 
compete for up to $200 million nationally. Other claimants in that fund 
are livestock producers, including those suffering from natural 
disasters. So their ability to be made ``whole,'' or to even be helped 
to be made ``half'' or even ``40 percent,'' is almost nothing when you 
look at the losses that are out there.
  I will submit for the Record from the Governors of over a dozen 
States what they believe the losses to be in their areas. Or look at a 
State like Ohio, my own State, where over $600 million of losses is 
documented, with a letter from our Governor. Dollars in the bill for 
livestock amount to almost nothing as we try to keep some family 
farmers whole as they try to transition in this difficult rural 
economy.

                                               September 10, 1999.
     Hon. Trent Lott,
     Majority Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

     Hon. Thomas A. Daschle,
     Minority Leader,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

     Hon. J. Dennis Hastert,
     Speaker of the House,
     House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

     Hon. Richard A. Gephardt,
     Minority Leader,
     House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators Lott and Daschle and Representatives Hastert 
     and Gephardt: On behalf of farmers and agricultural 
     communities in more than 12 states, we request your help in 
     obtaining immediate federal emergency grant assistance to 
     address the economic losses caused by this year's severe 
     drought. Farmers and rural communities along the eastern 
     seaboard--from Rhode Island to South Carolina and west to 
     Ohio--are experiencing the worst drought in decades. The 
     drought of 1999 is compounded by the farm crisis caused by 
     low agriculture commodity prices. This combination is placing 
     tremendous financial stress on farmers throughout the region.
       Initial estimates indicate that these states will 
     experience agricultural losses in excess of $1.64 billion 
     because of the severe and extended drought conditions. This 
     will have a ripple effect on the economy. The USDA Disaster 
     Declarations which have been issued for our states enable 
     farmers to apply for emergency low interest loans; however, 
     loan assistance programs do not adequately respond to this 
     year's unexpected economic impact on the farm communities. 
     Many farmers are simply not in the financial position to 
     assume more debt when they have lost their income. We urge 
     you to act quickly to include direct payment assistance to 
     those producers impacted by the drought.
       The recently passed Senate Agriculture Appropriations bill 
     provides assistance for the commodity price disaster, but 
     does not address the natural disaster impacting our farmers. 
     We request that the final aid package be augmented to provide 
     adequate funding for USDA disaster assistance programs such 
     as the Crop Loss Disaster Assistance Program, the Non-insured 
     Crop Disaster Assistance Program, the Livestock Assistance 
     and the Emergency Conservation Programs. These programs can 
     provide the rapid response we are looking for and the 
     agricultural community deserves. We further request that this 
     disaster funding be earmarked for drought-impacted states.
       We appreciate your assistance in helping our farmers in 
     this time of crisis.
           Sincerely,
         Bob Taft, Parris N. Glendening, Jim Hodges, Cecil H. 
           Underwood, James S. Gilmore III, Lincoln C. Almond, 
           George E. Pataki, Jim Hunt, John G. Rowland, Tom 
           Carper, Tom Ridge, Christine T. Whitman.
                                  ____



                               memorandum

     Re: Latest Estimates of Agriculture losses in 13 State 
         Drought Region (revised 9/21/99 4:30 pm).
     Date: September 21, 1999.
     To: Agriculture Appropriations Conferees.
     From: DC Offices of Drought-Affected States.
       Following, you will find our most recent estimates of 
     agriculture losses in our states due to the recent drought. 
     You will note these estimates reflect increases from our 
     August numbers due to the inclusion of specialty crops, 
     livestock, aquaculture and dairy that had not been accounted 
     for in our previous estimates. Some states were unable to 
     provide specific estimates per commodity at this time. The 
     recent Hurricane has caused constraints on staff resources. 
     Our states believe these numbers are conservative estimates 
     of what is expected to be the eventual effect of this 
     devastating drought, but represent the best information we 
     can provide at this date.
       We also request the following programs be activated to 
     deliver immediate and direct emergency assistance to our 
     agriculture communities:
       (1) Crop Loss Disaster Assistance
       (2) Emergency Livestock Feed Program
       (3) Emergency Conservation Program
       (4) Dairy Loss Assistance Program
       (5) Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program
       (6) Tree Assistance Program
       The Secretary should be directed to release funds to our 
     farmers and producers in need within a reasonable, but 
     expedited timeframe, based on estimated crop losses. We 
     suggest 30-90 days.

                                                            In millions
State Losses:
    Connecticut.....................................................$41
    Delaware.........................................................30
    Maryland.........................................................78
    Maine............................................................31
    New Jersey.......................................................80
    New York........................................................370
    North Carolina...................................................53
    Ohio............................................................600
    Pennsylvania....................................................700
    Rhode Island.....................................................10
    South Carolina..................................................150
    Virginia........................................................200
    West Virginia...................................................200
      Total.......................................................2,543

[[Page 23626]]


                                  ____
                             State of Ohio, Washington Office,

                               Washington, DC, September 21, 1999.
     Hon. Marcy Kaptur,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative Kaptur: On behalf of Ohio's farm 
     families, I am writing to request your help in contacting 
     House leadership to secure federal emergency assistance to 
     overcome drought losses. This summer's drought not only has 
     devastated crops, but has caused corresponding economic loss 
     of livestock and dairy producers.
       In the past month I have notified you of the State of 
     Ohio's response to the drought emergency and expressed my 
     hope that additional appropriations might be made available 
     to provide the help that Ohio farmers badly need. Ohio's 
     drought losses already are approaching a projected $600 
     million and will continue to grow (see attached Ohio Drought 
     Impact Fact Sheet and memo to the Agriculture Appropriations 
     conferees for estimated crop loss breakout).
       I understand that Agriculture Appropriations conferees will 
     soon meet to discuss a final bill and will consider providing 
     meaningful drought assistance to states such as Ohio where it 
     is sorely needed. I hope that you can support this effort and 
     work with your House colleagues and the leadership to ensure 
     that this happens.
       As you know, the USDA has made available low interest loans 
     to disaster designated areas. However, loan assistance 
     programs do not adequately respond to this year's unexpected 
     economic impact on the farm communities of the Drought 
     affected states. Rather, producers impacted by drought 
     require dedicated direct payment assistance. A farm aid 
     package should provide adequate funding for USDA disaster 
     assistance programs, such as the Crop Loss Disaster 
     Assistance Program, the Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance 
     Program, the Livestock Assistance Program and the Emergency 
     Conservation Program. Further, this disaster funding should 
     be earmarked for drought-impacted states.
       In addition, I hope you will agree that in order for our 
     farmers to receive the help they need, Congress should 
     include emergency grant assistance for drought disaster in 
     the FY 2000 Agriculture Appropriations Bill.
       I appreciate your efforts with this important issue.
           Sincerely,
     Bob Taft.
                                  ____



 Fact Sheet: Impact of 1999 Drought on Ohio Crop and Livestock farms, 
                           September 21, 1999

       Drought Loss--Governors' recent estimate for 12 
     northeastern states: $2.5 billion.
       Natural Disaster Loss--National Assn. Of State Departments 
     of Agriculture (U.S.) estimate for all affected states: $3.56 
     billion.
       Drought loss--Projected estimate for Ohio: $600 million 
     (While harvest has just begun, there are projections that 
     Ohio's losses could be in the range of $600 million of 
     agricultural products. This represents about 10 to 15 percent 
     of the nearly $4.7 billion of Ohio agricultural products sold 
     in 1997. The FSA's July estimate was $422 million.)
     Estimated direct USDA assistance payments
       Drought Assistance--Estimated direct USDA assistance 
     payments for which Ohio producers would be eligible: $164.8 
     million.
       Breakdown of potential USDA funding to program assistance 
     grants:

     Crop Loss Disaster Assistance Program (CLDAP) and Noninsured 
         Assistance Program (NAP), $80.6 million;
     Livestock Assistance Program (LAP), $82.3 million;
     Emergency Conservation Program (ECP), $1.9 million.

       According to the Palmer Drought Severity Index, the long-
     term forecasting tool used by the NOAA's Climate Prediction 
     Center, all of Ohio is now in either severe or extreme 
     drought. Rainfall needed to end the drought, according to the 
     Index, ranges regionally from about 6 to 10 inches. Topsoil 
     moisture in Ohio is now 78 percent short to very short, 
     compared to the five-year average of 41 percent short to very 
     short. (See Palmer Index map.)
       Eighty-seven Ohio counties have been designated natural 
     disaster areas by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Glickman, 
     enabling qualified farmers in those counties to apply for 
     federal disaster assistance loans. Of those, 66 counties were 
     designated primary natural disaster areas.
       Hay Shortage: There is a significant shortage of hay in 
     southern Ohio (estimated need is 325,000 tons).
                                  ____



                               memorandum

     Re: Latest Estimates of Agriculture losses in 12 State 
         Drought Region.

     Date: September 17, 1999.
     To: Agriculture Appropriations Conferees.
     From: DC Offices of Drought-Affected States.
       Following, you will find our most recent estimates of 
     agriculture losses in our states due to the recent drought. 
     You will note these estimates reflect increases from our 
     August numbers due to the inclusion of specialty crops, 
     livestock, aquaculture and dairy that had not been accounted 
     for in our previous estimates. Some states were unable to 
     provide specific estimates per commodity at this time. The 
     recent Hurricane has caused constraints on staff resources. 
     Our states believe these numbers are conservative estimates 
     of what is expected to be the eventual effect of this 
     devastating drought, but represent the best information we 
     can provide at this date.
       We also request the following programs be activated to 
     deliver immediate and direct emergency assistance to our 
     agriculture communities:
       (1) Crop Loss Disaster Assistance
       (2) Emergency Livestock Feed Program
       (3) Emergency Conservation Program
       (4) Dairy Loss Assistance Program
       (5) Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program
       (6) Tree Assistance Program
       The Secretary should be directed to release funds to our 
     farmers and producers in need within a reasonable, but 
     expedited timeframe, based on estimated crop losses. We 
     suggest 30-90 days.

                                                            In millions
State Losses:
    Connecticut.....................................................$41
    Delaware.........................................................30
    Maryland.........................................................78
    New Jersey.......................................................80
    New York........................................................370
    North Carolina...................................................53
    Ohio............................................................600
    Pennsylvania....................................................700
    Rhode Island.....................................................10
    South Carolina..................................................150
    Virginia........................................................200
    West Virginia...................................................200
                                                               ________
                                                               
2,512otal............................................................
                                  ____


          NET EXPENDITURES OF THE COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION
                        [In billions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       Commodity
                                                       programs
                                               Total    (incl.     Other
                                                         AMTA)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 1990.....................................     6.5         4.5     2.0
FY 1991.....................................    10.1         7.8     2.3
FY 1992.....................................     9.7         6.9     2.8
FY 1993.....................................    16.0        11.9     4.1
FY 1994.....................................    10.3         6.1     4.2
FY 1995.....................................     6.0         4.1     2.0
FY 1996.....................................     4.6         4.5     0.1
FY 1997.....................................     7.3         5.3     2.0
FY 1998.....................................    10.1         8.0     2.2
FY 1999 est.................................    18.4        13.2     5.2
FY 2000:
    Budget estimate.........................    14.1        10.1     4.0
    Emergency package.......................     7.3  ..........  ......
                                             ---------------------------
      Total.................................    21.5
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 1999 and FY 2000 estimates are from the OMB mid-session review.
Figures for FY 2000 emergency package is CBO estimate of outlays
  resulting from the package (which is $8.7 billion in budget
  authority).
``Other'' includes export programs (EEP, MAP, export credit, etc.),
  conservation programs (CRP, etc.), various disaster assistance
  programs, among other items.

  Then if you look at the natural or weather-related disaster portion 
of the emergency bill, there is only $1.2 billion in that, $1.2 
billion. And these estimates are pre-hurricane Floyd. As Members have 
verified these numbers were put in the draft bill before North Carolina 
happened. So the natural disaster section is woefully inadequate. These 
are weather-related losses, and the funds are seriously short of what 
would be needed to assist those faced with disasters this year.
  Why should producers in the Northeast and the middle Atlantic States 
that have had droughts this year not get some attention in this bill, 
as have producers in Texas who had droughts last year? If you look at 
the way the formulas work, there is not fair treatment for these 
States. Had our conference not been suspended, we would have offered 
amendments that would have attempted to fix these formulas and 
constructs that give such unequal treatment.
  We know what this will mean are more bankruptcies and more loss of 
equity, which is so unfair. This bill should be targeted at people who 
are suffering hardship, not just some formula that was cooked up 3 or 4 
years ago that does not meet current needs.
  I wanted to put this on the Record and beg my colleagues, it would 
not take us long to go back to subcommittee to try to fix this, to make 
sure that we meet fairly the current needs of our country, and also 
help to position ourselves for the long term because of the fundamental 
inadequacy of Freedom to Farm alone to deal with the volatility that we 
have experienced with the downturn in the markets and what has happened 
with our lack of access to overseas markets.
  There are longer-term solutions here that we are not being given the 
opportunity to address in this bill. Please do not do this. Please do 
not do this. Next year we are going to be back here again with more 
requests for supplemental credit, as we were this year.

[[Page 23627]]

  This is not the way to deal with this problem. This is important 
enough and the gun is at our head, that if the Members of this Congress 
recommit this bill, we can do it right. Just do not bar us from the 
opportunity to do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling).
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I cannot get two pennies to help 
disadvantaged children in the area of education, but we can put $7 
million into this bill to make sure your children, my children, and 
every other child of a Member of Congress, can have a free breakfast. 
That really makes a lot of sense.
  They will tell you well, it has been authorized. It has been on the 
books, yes, but it has never been funded. Why? Because we have done 
something a darn sight better. What we have done is said that any 
school district that feeds a lot of free and reduced-price children in 
lunch can also serve free breakfast, and we know that 85 percent of all 
children eating free and reduced-priced meals at noontime are now 
eating breakfast.
  Others will tell you, oh, well, the rich and those almost rich do not 
have time to give their children breakfast. What a sorry state that is; 
the Government should do it.
  Give the money to the farmers who are caught in drought problems. 
Give the money to those of us who are trying to educate those who are 
disadvantaged. But, for goodness' sake, don't give $7 million to feed 
your children or my children free breakfast.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the Chair for doing a beautiful 
job of allowing equal time during this debate, which is something we 
were not allowed by the leadership of this institution in subcommittee. 
I would like to know how much time we have remaining on each side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). There are 6\1/2\ minutes 
remaining on either side at this moment.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Hayes).
  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. I am from North 
Carolina. We have a serious problem, a huge problem; but this bill 
helps our farmers now. We can do more for them later, and we will. But, 
please, support this conference report. It helps North Carolina farmers 
and it helps them now.
  I come to the floor today along with my fellow colleagues from North 
Carolina to educate Congress on the state of dire emergency in North 
Carolina. I support this conference report. As you know, Mr. Speaker, 
North Carolina has experienced the most destructive natural disaster 
ever to hit our State, It is already estimated that damages from 
Hurricane Floyd will exceed $2 billion in agricultural losses alone, 
not to mention loss of homes, businesses, roads, schools and other 
services.
  The extent of damage is currently still being assessed and will not 
be known for sure until the water recedes. It is for that reason that I 
implore this body, as Representatives of the United States, to work 
with us from North Carolina, as well as with those suffering in New 
Jersey, New York and other States from the destruction of Hurricane 
Floyd, when we came back to you in the upcoming weeks and ask for your 
assistance in passing a package which will accurately address the needs 
of these people who have literally lost everything.
  In light of the fact we do not have a clear idea of how much money 
will be needed to aid these hurricane victims, I believe it is wise for 
us to press forward with the emergency farm assistance package we are 
voting on today. Farmers from North Carolina, as well as farmers from 
all the nation, will greatly benefit from this bill. We need to pass 
this bill and pass it quickly so that farmers can begin receiving 
assistance as soon as possible.
  I urge you to vote in favor of this conference report.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood).
  Mr. SHERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I have the greatest respect for the 
chairman of this committee, a man with his roots deep in agriculture, 
and he has worked long and hard on this bill with his committee. But 
there are some fundamental problems if you are from the Northeast or 
mid-Atlantic. This does not address our drought relief. I wish the 
people that could have decided to shortchange us could have been to 
Bradford County, Pennsylvania, with me and looked at the corn this high 
and the barns empty of forage.
  This bill is bad for us for three reasons: it does not address the 
drought; it does not address option 1-A, which means we are going to 
allow Secretary Glickman's mistake to put our farmers out of business, 
and it does not address the compacts.
  Mr. Speaker, the only thing that this bill is good for in the 
Northeast is the auctioneers. I hate to go home and see the hammer fall 
on another Northeastern dairy farm.
  I ask Members to oppose this bill.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Becerra), who has been such an outspoken advocate for 
fairness to all people.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that we should be doing something and 
doing it quickly for our farmers in America, because they are in 
distress. At times of economic prosperity, we go to some of our 
agriculture regions in this country, and we find that farmers are 
having to close down their shop, and there are fewer and fewer farmers 
independently farming in this country, and that has to stop.
  But this bill, unfortunately, is very troubling for someone like me 
who comes from California, where right now, with a State prospering so 
much, and you find unemployment rates have plummeted in a State that 
for the longest time was suffering higher unemployment rates than the 
rest of the Nation, right now, while we are doing well in California, 
if you walk into the agricultural regions of California, you will find 
unemployment rates above 10 percent, up to 15 to 20 percent in some of 
our rural areas where there are farm workers desperate to work. Yet in 
this particular conference report we have a particular provision that 
was added with regard to guest worker programs where we get to import 
workers to do work here in America.
  This provision would allow us to go out and seek people from other 
countries to do the work that Americans can do today by simply saying 
that for 3 to 4, maybe up to 8 days, we searched for someone to do the 
job out there in the fields.
  That is unfortunate, because those unemployment rates for farm 
workers still exist. They are very high. Yet right now this bill would 
say rather than give those American workers a chance to work in those 
fields, to earn a decent living, even if sometimes it may be a low 
wage, no, instead we are going to allow some of these mega-corporations 
to go out and say we tried for 3 days to find an American worker to 
work that crop, but we could not find anyone, so now let us go abroad 
and hire the cheap labor to come in here and do the work for us.
  How can we do that right now, when not just farmers, but farm workers 
are hurting, to say we are going to cut the throats of agriculture? 
This is not the way to do it.
  This is a good bill with many good features to it, but why we had to 
go about doing it this way I do not know. It makes it very difficult 
for someone who, by the way, has not a piece of farmland in his 
congressional district, to get up here and say this; but I think we may 
have to oppose this bill.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Sweeney).
  Mr. SWEENEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, in the brief time I have, I simply want to say this: I 
have spent the last several weeks working with the committee and 
working with the members of the committee to impress upon them the 
needs of the dairy farmers of the northeastern part of our State.
  To my colleagues who will come to this floor to vote on this bill, I 
want to make this very clear: because we have been threatened by a veto 
and because we have followed a misguided path set for us by the 
Secretary of Agriculture

[[Page 23628]]

on option 1-A and because we have decided to ignore the fact that the 
Northeast Dairy Compact, which provides for minimum supports for 
farmers in the Northeast so that they can maintain their process, we 
have decided to put forward a bill today that promotes the worst kind 
of regional divisions in this body. We have decided to put forth a bill 
today that promotes and benefits singular Members, singular states, at 
the expense of others.
  So, with that, I would urge all of my colleagues to strongly oppose 
this bill and let us make sure we come back and do the right thing for 
all of our farmers.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from New York for 
his remarks and again plead with my colleagues, as we move to a motion 
to recommit, to support the motion to recommit and go back to 
subcommittee where it belongs and fix this bill.
  As you have listened to the speakers today, you have heard Members 
like the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson). We look at the 
farmers in the Red River Valley. We can do better for them. They have 
had no crops. Just because some areas of the country have been 
benefited by this current conference report before us, simply because 
of who was in the room writing it, does not mean that other parts of 
America that have been deeply hurt by drought and by crop loss do not 
also deserve the attention of this broader membership. We need to fix 
what was done improperly by those who took the bill away from our 
committee where it rightfully belonged.
  How can you turn down someone like the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
Baldacci), an area of the country in the Northeast that really has not 
had a lot of losses in years past.

                              {time}  1230

  Yet if we look at the specialty crop area, it is given almost no 
consideration in this legislation. Speaking for our region of the 
country, the heart of the midwest, for those people who are literally 
going bankrupt in the pork industry, why should they not be treated 
similarly to those who are in the row crop business?
  These are good Americans, too. They deserve the attention of this 
Congress. It is not going to take a Ph.D. or 6 years of education for 
us to go back into committee and fix this. All we need is people who 
are sensitive to the differing needs across this country to do a good 
job.
  I want to say to our chairman, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. 
Skeen), no chairman could have treated his committee members more 
fairly than he has. To the staff who has worked with us throughout, 
they have my highest admiration on both sides of the aisle.
  However, what was done to us is unforgivable, and it is the reason 
that we have a two-legged dog bill before us today. Give us the 
opportunity next week to go back and do what is right for America, for 
those who are hurting today and to help position this marketplace for 
the future.
  No less is expected of us as leaders who know more about these 
subjects, frankly, than anyone else in the United States. So to produce 
a bill that is half baked just does not do credit to this institution. 
I beg my colleagues who are listening today, to those who are with us 
here on the floor, to support our motion to recommit. Let us go back 
and fix this thing and bring it back next week. America deserves better 
than we are able to produce today.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), 
the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, is recognized to close. 
He has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to restate the points that I have made 
earlier. This is a bill that benefits every American every day, no 
matter where they live. Whether it is FDA protecting the safety and 
foods and medicines or the nutrition programs for children and the 
elderly or creating economic development in rural America, this bill is 
for urban and suburban America just as much as if it were for the 
farmer or the rancher.
  I know that some colleagues are concerned for what is not in the 
bill, particularly dairy policy and the relaxation of export sanctions 
to certain countries, but if we all voted on the basis of what is not 
in a bill then I am not sure that any legislation could get passed 
here.
  I would like to say to my colleagues that this is a good, bipartisan 
bill. It will benefit every one of our constituents. I have letters 
from a number of farm groups supporting this conference report: The 
American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cotton Council, USA Rice 
Federation, National Grain Sorghum Producers, and the National Corn 
Growers Association.
  Mr. Speaker, there has been talk of a motion to recommit. I think 
that recommitting this bill to conference would be a serious mistake. 
There is $8.7 billion in assistance to rural America in this bill. 
Sending this bill back to conference for weeks or months of more 
haggling would deny any money at all to the people that we are trying 
to help.
  A motion to recommit, in effect, says we want more money for farm 
assistance so we will send no money at all, farmers and ranchers will 
just have to wait while we talk.
  I would say to my colleagues, some folks cannot wait. They need 
assistance now. They do not need more talking from Congress. They need 
the help that is in this bill, and they need it now. Vote no on any 
motion to recommit.
  This is the first day of the first fiscal year, and we need to put 
this bill to work immediately. Please support the good that is in the 
bill today and vote aye on the conference report, and hopefully, Mr. 
Speaker, this will finally come to an end.
  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Agriculture 
Appropriations conference report. I am especially concerned about the 
Senate rider, not included in the House version of the bill, which 
would deny jobs to United States farmworkers by allowing agricultural 
employers to secure vulnerable foreign guest workers without any 
meaningful recruitment of U.S. farmworkers. This rider makes a mockery 
of the obligation of employers to show a labor shortage before gaining 
access to temporary foreign agricultural workers.
  The General Accounting Office has reviewed the unemployment rates in 
America's counties where there are major populations of migrant 
farmworkers and found that in most, there were double-digit 
unemployment rates. From this, one would expect that agricultural 
employers would develop new methods of recruiting this readily 
available pool of unemployed and underemployed farmworkers.
  But that is not what has happened.
  Instead, they have sought this legislation to permit employers to 
escape the requirement that they recruit U.S. workers before gaining 
access to vulnerable foreign workers. This proposal, offered by Senator 
McConnell of Kentucky, (where many tobacco growers use the H-2A guest 
worker program), would drastically shorten the time period for 
recruitment of U.S. workers before the Department of Labor must decide 
whether the growers actually faces a labor shortage.
  Agricultural employers, under this provision, will apply for guest 
workers 45 days before the first day of work. The Department of Labor 
then will have 7 days to make sure that the wages and working 
conditions meet applicable standards. If they do meet applicable 
standards, then the employer begins recruitment inside the state and in 
other states where migrant workers reside. That leaves just 38 days 
before the season begins. But the Department of Labor must decide 
whether recruitment was successful no more than 30 days before the 
season begins. So in reality, employers have just 8 days to recruit 
U.S. farmworkers.
  This would be bad enough, but there are even more problems: Often, 
the employer offers wages and working conditions that do not meet DOL 
standards. The Department must then give such an employer 5 additional 
days to correct the job terms. Recruitment does not begin until that 
approval is granted, at about 33 days before the season begins. But DOL 
is still bound to decide whether a labor shortage exists no more than 
30 days before the season begins. This leaves only three days to 
recruit U.S. workers--a scenario utterly designed for failure.
  In the meantime, many agricultural employers have elaborate 
recruitment networks that

[[Page 23629]]

have been seeking foreign guestworkers for months.
  I recognize that the H-2A law contains job preference requirements 
for U.S. workers. But there exist great economic incentives for H-2A 
program employers to hire foreign guest workers rather than domestic 
farmworkers. Guestworkers are far more docile and compliant than U.S. 
workers who have legal protections. Also, employers save money because 
guestworkers' wages are not subject to unemployment taxes or Social 
Security contributions. Once DOL has give approval to hire foreign 
guestworkers, U.S. farmworkers know that they usually won't be welcome 
at those jobs.
  The General Accounting Office report on the H-2A program made 
recommendations about the very issues the McConnell rider addresses, 
and the McConnell amendment is inconsistent with the GAO 
recommendations. The GAO recommended shortening the H-2A progress, 
which the Department of Labor recently did through regulation changes. 
But the GAO warned that recruitment of U.S. workers should not be 
reduced and that is precisely what the McConnell amendment does.
  I am firmly opposed to the conference committee report because this 
appropriations bill contains the McConnell amendment that unjustifiably 
denies jobs to the poorest of the working poor, America's farmworkers.
  Mr. MALONEY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 
1906, the Agriculture Appropriations Conference Report. If everyone in 
Congress is serious about locking away Social Security, we simply can 
not afford to pass this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to exercise 
fiscal responsibility, and vote ``no'' on this conference report.
  This agreement is a perfect example of the type of legislation that 
pushes us down the path towards raiding the Social Security trust fund. 
The Agriculture Conference agreement provides $69 billion for the 
Department of Agriculture and related programs--including $8.7 billion 
in ``emergency'' funds for disaster relief.
  Emergency funding aside, the conference report is approximately $100 
million over its allocation. That increase will be paid for through the 
projected surplus.
  Indeed, since the emergency relief funds do not count against the 
1997 spending caps, those, to, will be paid for with the surplus. In 
fact, the emergency funds alone consume more than half of the expected 
non-Social Security surplus for fiscal year 2000.
  If we continue to chip away at the surplus, beginning with H.R. 1906, 
Congress will begin to dip into Social Security. As someone who is 
committed to locking away Social Security and living within the budget 
caps, I urge all of you to vote No on this and every bill that leads us 
down a fiscally irresponsible path.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1906 the 
agriculture Appropriations Bill for FY2000.
  Mr. Speaker, I understand the concerns of my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle who have concerns about this bill. Farmers truly are 
facing a crisis in his country. From the drought of the Northeast to 
the recent flooding in North Carolina, more federal funding is needed 
to insure the livelihood of the American family farmer.
  But there is also an agriculture crisis in our cities. This bill 
funds important agriculture programs which help provide more greenery 
in our cities, trees to fight pollution and make the air cleaner and 
Federal research monies against plant and tree pests.
  I am supporting this bill because it addresses the needs in urban 
areas, and New York City in particular, which have been severely 
impacted by the Asian Long Horned Beetle. This predator, which is a 
non-native species came to New York and other areas through packaging 
materials in shipping crates. This infestation has led to the 
destruction of thousands of trees in Queens, New York and most recently 
was found in Central Park in Manhattan.
  I thank Chairman Skeen, Ranking Member Kaptur, and the House and 
Senate Conferees for including $2.1 million for the Animal Plant Health 
Inspection Service (APHIS) for eradication of the Asian Long Horned 
Beetle in New York City. This money is an important step to stop this 
pest which left unchecked will destroy the trees of New York City which 
provide my constituents with much needed shade and greenery.
  Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chairman I rise in support of this 
Conference Report for the Agriculture Appropriations bill for fiscal 
year 2000. We members of the subcommittee were charged with developing 
an appropriations bill, not a bill to address every agriculture 
authorization issue pending before Congress.
  There are several very important agriculture issues that call for 
attention. They should be addressed, and considered on the House floor. 
But these are not issues that should hold up a badly needed 
appropriations bill. In fact, I do not recall over the last two weeks 
hearing any complaints regarding the regular appropriations bill.
  There are some very good provisions in this appropriation. Each one 
of us would probably like to change some part of this bill, but we have 
to remember this bill provides for $8.7 billion in emergency assistance 
for agriculture producers.
  I have had calls streaming into my office from producers, and I am 
talking the producers, not the Washington lobbyists, asking me to 
support the bill. They know that the items in the disaster package are 
too important to lose.
  In this bill there is $5.5 billion in direct emergency financial 
assistance. There is help for cotton's step 2 program, help for 
livestock producers and $1.2 billion for disaster funding.
  No, this bill may not be perfect, and there are things that may not 
be in the bill that we would like to have seen in the bill, but I do 
not believe we can turn our backs on $8.7 billion in financial 
assistance and our producers.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express great disappointment on 
behalf of our farmers throughout the State of New York and the entire 
northeast region.
  In my home State of New York, agriculture is the largest industry. 
With abundant rainfall, productive soil, and proximity to the Nation's 
largest markets, the outlook for the future of New York's dairy farmers 
is of great potential. However, as a result of the recent drought, 
natural disasters, and fluctuating market prices, New York farmers are 
in dire need of assistance; which is not provided in this legislation.
  Apple and onion producers in New York State have suffered severe 
weather conditions in three out of the last four years, including this 
year's drought. Nevertheless, the USDA has been ineffective in 
providing needed, equitable crop loss disaster assistance for onion and 
apple producers.
  Due to 1998 onion and apple losses in New York State, repeated and 
intense communications transpired between producers, Congress and the 
USDA. Over the past few months, communications with the Secretary of 
the USDA, Dan Glickman, have failed to address most of our producers 
concerns.
  Our agricultural producers have received sympathy from the Department 
of Agriculture, but USDA has stated that they do not have a clear 
direction from Congress on how to proceed with the complicated, 
untraditional questions which are unique to these nonprogram crops.
  In 1999, estimates of drought losses to onions and apples in New York 
are again substantial. In fact, the loss in yield at $12CWT for onions 
on the 5,000 acres in Orange County, New York will translate into an 
approximate $15 million loss.
  The $15 million loss in 1999, coupled with the $15 million dollar 
loss in 1998 for onion producers in Orange County, will prove 
devastating not only for the Hudson Valley's family farms, but also for 
those businesses dependent upon the onion and vegetable $100 million 
industry in New York.
  Furthermore, New York's dairy farmers, which make up 60% of our 
agricultural base in my home State, have been cut out of this 
legislation. Producers and their organizations have been concerned 
about the viability of the dairy industry in the northeastern states 
for several years.
  Declining herd and cattle numbers, combined with drought and 
fluctuating market prices, have led to loss of infrastructure and 
revenue for our New York dairy farmers. Our farmers are facing the 
implementation of option 1B milk pricing, a plan that reduces farm 
income in 45 states and will force New York producers to lose at least 
$200 million annually. Our dairy farmers are relying on their inclusion 
in the Northeast Dairy Compact, to provide them with stability in 
pricing. However, that measure is not only missing from this 
legislation, it was not even permitted to be discussed. Time and time 
again, our Nation's dairy farmers have had to face the challenges of 
nature and an unstable market.
  In response to these challenges, these distressed farmers looked to 
the Congress to provide them with a crucial milk price safety net, by 
extending the Northeast Dairy Compact, and offering the preferred milk 
pricing structure, option 1A.
  Accordingly, along with my colleagues from New York and throughout 
the region, I anticipated the opportunity to respond to our farmers by 
negotiating for the inclusion of favorable dairy language in this 
legislation. However, in an effort to force this legislation through, 
this opportunity was not afforded to us.
  Therefore, on behalf of farmers throughout our Nation, I cannot 
support this legislation

[[Page 23630]]

and, in the name of the thousands of farmers forgotten today, I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, agriculture is Pennsylvania's number one 
industry and Pennsylvania has one of the largest rural populations in 
the nation. There are 45,000 farms in the state and Pennsylvania is 
second in the nation in the number of acres of farmland preserved for 
agricultural use. We all depend on the food that these hard working 
citizens produce for our tables.
  As we all know, 1999 has been a bad year for farmers. Month after 
month brought no rain. September brought hurricane rains.
  There is a small dairy farmer in my district who raises fresh market 
sweet corn to sell from a roadside stand. His normal production is 
about 28,000 ears. This year, his production was 500 ears. This farmer 
has already purchased hay from out of state for his dairy herd and will 
do so repeatedly through the winter. This is one small example of the 
effect of the devastating 100-year drought in Pennsylvania.
  Pennsylvania farmers have lost $700 million. This bill provides an 
anemic $58 million for our farmers. Our farmers need a combination of 
direct assistance, emergency livestock feed assistance and low interest 
disaster loans. Unfortunately, this bill does not adequately meet these 
needs.
  This conference report provides only $1.2 billion for crop losses due 
to all natural disasters in the 1999 crop year. This includes the 
damages due to Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd, natural disasters in Texas 
and the Northern Plains in addition to the 13 states affected by the 
drought.
  This bill leaves our northeastern farmers without enough help, and I 
will therefore vote against this conference report.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bereuter). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the conference report.
  There was no objection.


                Motion to Recommit Offered by Ms. Kaptur

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman opposed to the conference 
report?
  Ms. KAPTUR. We are, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Ms. Kaptur moves to recommit the conference report on the 
     bill H.R. 1906 to the committee of conference.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit 
offered by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 187, 
nays 228, not voting 18, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 468]

                               YEAS--187

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Bartlett
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Cardin
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Ehrlich
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Foley
     Forbes
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill (IN)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Istook
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     King (NY)
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Larson
     Lee
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Moakley
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Norwood
     Oberstar
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Phelps
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shows
     Shuster
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (WA)
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Sweeney
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Toomey
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Weiner
     Weygand
     Woolsey
     Wynn

                               NAYS--228

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boswell
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capuano
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fletcher
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kind (WI)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Mink
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Nussle
     Obey
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Paul
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pickett
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rodriguez
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Salmon
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Schaffer
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Stabenow
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Upton
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--18

     Berman
     Boucher
     Carson
     Chenoweth
     Clay
     Ford
     Hinojosa
     Hooley
     Jefferson
     Levin
     Meeks (NY)
     Rush
     Scarborough
     Stupak
     Taylor (NC)
     Waxman
     Weldon (FL)
     Wu

                              {time}  1257

  Messrs. MILLER of Florida, HAYES, BONILLA, BARRETT of Wisconsin, 
PITTS, EHLERS, and HOUGHTON changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. MURTHA, DOYLE, NADLER, LAMPSON, BENTSEN and GOODLING changed 
their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  Mr. WALSH changed his vote from ``present'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. SWEENEY, SAXTON and KING changed their vote from ``present'' 
to ``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

[[Page 23631]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The question is on the 
conference report.
  Pursuant to the provisions of clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays 
are ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 240, 
nays 175, not voting 18, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 469]

                               YEAS--240

     Abercrombie
     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Barton
     Bateman
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Capuano
     Chambliss
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coburn
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (VA)
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Emerson
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Fowler
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gibbons
     Gillmor
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hilliard
     Hobson
     Horn
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Jackson (IL)
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kasich
     Kind (WI)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller, Gary
     Minge
     Mink
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Nussle
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pastor
     Pease
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Reyes
     Riley
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sandlin
     Schaffer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Towns
     Traficant
     Turner
     Udall (NM)
     Walden
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watt (NC)
     Watts (OK)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--175

     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Bass
     Becerra
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Bonior
     Borski
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Campbell
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Collins
     Conyers
     Cox
     Coyne
     Crane
     Cummings
     Davis (IL)
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duncan
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Fattah
     Filner
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gilchrest
     Gilman
     Goodling
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hefley
     Hinchey
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Holt
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Johnson (CT)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     King (NY)
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Larson
     Lazio
     Lee
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHugh
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, George
     Moakley
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Norwood
     Oberstar
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Pitts
     Quinn
     Rangel
     Reynolds
     Rivers
     Rohrabacher
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanders
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shuster
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Stark
     Stearns
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Vitter
     Walsh
     Waters
     Weiner
     Weldon (PA)
     Weygand
     Woolsey
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--18

     Berman
     Boucher
     Carson
     Chenoweth
     Clay
     Ford
     Hinojosa
     Hooley
     Jefferson
     Levin
     Meeks (NY)
     Rush
     Scarborough
     Stupak
     Taylor (NC)
     Waxman
     Weldon (FL)
     Wu

                              {time}  1315

  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD and Mrs. MALONEY of New York changed their 
vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated against:
  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to cast a vote on the 
Agriculture Appropriations Conference Report due to a family emergency. 
However, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

                          ____________________