[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4765-4771]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2646, FARM SECURITY ACT OF 2001

  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct 
conferees.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:
       Mr. Smith of Michigan moves that the managers on the part 
     of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of 
     the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2646 
     (an Act to provide for the continuation of agricultural 
     programs through fiscal year 2011) be instructed--
       (1) to agree to the provisions contained in section 169(a) 
     of the Senate amendment, relating to payment limitations for 
     commodity programs; and
       (2) to insist upon an increase in funding for--
       (A) conservation programs, in effect as of January 1, 2002, 
     that are extended by title II of the House bill or title II 
     of the Senate amendment; and
       (B) research programs that are amended or established by 
     title VII of the House bill or title VII of the Senate 
     amendment.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) will 
be recognized for 30 minutes each.
  The Chair will also announce that at 2:45 we will conclude 
temporarily the business of the House. So if we are not finished, we 
will come back to it.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 
half of my time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) for 
purposes of control.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about this afternoon is should we 
have payment limitations on farm subsidy programs. We have a situation 
in law now that allows a loophole so there are no payment limitations 
in terms of price support programs. Just to be somewhat specific, we 
have loan deficiency payments, we have marketing loans, and there are 
limits on those marketing loans and those LDPs, loan deficiency 
payments.
  However, once that maximum is reached, there is a loophole. There is 
an end run that can be achieved by farmers, and that is through the 
nonrecourse loan where they can either forfeit the nonrecourse loan 
where they give the government possession of that particular crop and 
they keep the money. The money they keep is exactly the same subsidy 
benefit as they would have achieved through a marketing loan or a loan 
deficiency payment.
  So what we have ended up with is many farmers getting millions of 
dollars in payments, and let me say why I think this is so important 
that we have some limit on these payments. This is doing farmers ill-
will throughout the United States. We have had a lot of publicity on 
these millionaire farmers getting all of this money from government 
subsidy programs. We have had all of this publicity on landowners 
getting subsidy payments, sometimes in the millions of dollars; and not 
only does that affect what happens to farm programs here at the Federal 
level, but it also affects the reaction of local municipalities when 
they are discussing property tax and State laws that might help 
farmers. There is a negative image because of the publicity and because 
of the fact that a lot of these huge landowners and megafarms are 
getting megabucks.

[[Page 4766]]

  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would strongly suggest that we move ahead 
and unanimously support this motion to instruct that says we should go 
ahead with the Senate version of payment limitations in their part A of 
the bill, and that we should use some of that money for expanding 
agricultural research programs and increasing conservation programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I particularly appreciate one more opportunity to come 
before this House and talk about the fabulous job that the American 
farm does every day and has done since the beginning of this great 
Nation. I am always amazed and surprised at the people that some way or 
other have gotten the idea that the best way to keep the American 
farmer down on the farm is to starve him to death.
  I hear people come to the floor and talk about millionaire farmers. I 
see these stories in the paper that talk about all of the payments that 
these farmers get, and I am intimately familiar with some of these 
situations. These stories are simply not true. They have payment limits 
imposed on them, and they comply with the payment limits. In the end 
what happens is under the current system the American farmer is the 
most productive, the most incredible production machine that there has 
ever been in the history of the world.
  At the same time, for good reasons I am sure that the Members that 
are proposing that this amendment be accepted and that this instruction 
be made, they have good intentions. They mean well. They think that 
they are doing the right thing. They just simply do not understand what 
it takes to produce the food and fiber for this country, and a good 
portion of the rest of the world.
  If our farmers are taking advantage of the farm programs as they 
exist today and as they have been proposed by the House of 
Representatives in the bill that we passed, if they are doing such a 
terrible job of taking advantage of the U.S. Government, why are they 
going broke every day? Why does every farmer in the First Congressional 
District feel like they are just about to lose everything they have? 
Why does no one want to get into the business? Why do the children not 
want to get into the business? The list of things that indicate that 
American agriculture is threatened and our ability to feed this Nation 
and to clothe this Nation without importing monstrous amounts of food 
and fiber, why is that threatened if things are going so well and these 
farmers are being so well taken care of by the government?
  Another problem that I have with this motion to instruct, Mr. 
Speaker, is that it is an obvious attack on women. It would provide 
that a woman could only draw a small fraction of what a payment limit 
is, but a man can draw a lot more. Over four times as much. That is 
just simply unfair.
  I cannot imagine that this House or this Congress would be willing to 
promote such an idea and take advantage of the great women that have 
worked right along with their husbands to build American agriculture 
into what it is today. That is something that I find absolutely 
offensive, and I cannot believe that we would disenfranchise one more 
time in this country the American woman that has worked so hard on the 
family farm.
  It creates a situation where a family would be better off if a man 
and wife were divorced. It would put people in a position where they 
would have to make that decision. All of these things are part of what 
is bad about this bill. I urge this House to think about it very 
carefully.
  Mr. Speaker, we talk a lot today about national security. Over and 
over, every day we hear about national security on this House floor, in 
the Senate, from the White House. All of the media is full of national 
security issues. We all are very aware of the problem we have because 
we have to import too much oil from offshore.
  We are in danger of creating that same situation if we allow this 
motion to instruct to become part of the farm bill. We are creating a 
situation where the American farmer simply could not have the safety 
net they need to stay in production in times like this when prices are 
low, the value of the dollar is so high that they are almost held out 
of the export market.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on this motion to 
instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) for 
raising this important issue today. I appreciate his leadership on 
this, as well as those who worked very hard on this last fall: the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Dingell), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), and the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest).
  The problem with this farm bill is that it would reward the largest 
corporate farmers with $120 billion in Federal handouts; yet it will 
provide less than a third of that for conservation.
  Now, back in 1930, 70 percent of Federal support for agriculture went 
to conservation because we realized we were losing our topsoil and our 
prime agricultural land. Today's threats are no less real than when 
there were dust storms. The threats today of overdevelopment and sprawl 
are real. In Michigan, we continue to lose 68 square miles of prime 
agricultural land every year. That is the size of two townships in our 
State. We are going to lose our agricultural base at this rate. Large 
unchecked combine animal feeding operations in the southwestern part of 
our State are raising serious environmental health and safety concerns. 
Sediment from agriculture is a major source of pathogens and other 
contaminants in our drinking water.
  All we have to do is remember what happened a few years ago in 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where pathogens got into the drinking water; 104 
people died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as a result of that. The system 
that we live in in the Great Lakes cannot take it; but it is not too 
late to turn this around.
  We can keep our family farmers in business and protect our water and 
our wildlife habitat and our environment. Voting for this motion to 
instruct will begin shifting our priorities and getting us moving in 
the right direction again. Our motion will take some of the funds from 
commodity payments and funnel them into conservation programs and 
research.
  If we take this simple step, we could help smaller family farmers 
keep their land in farming, and we can protect our environment at the 
same time. We need to put more money into farm land preservation 
programs. This will help States protect farm lands from 
overdevelopment. We need to provide financial incentives to finance 
purchasing development rights so that farmers can afford to keep their 
lands in agricultural production and not sell off to developers. We 
need to put funding into the wetlands reserve program to protect 
wildlife habitat, and ensure that wetlands are there to filter bacteria 
and pollutants long before they enter our lakes and rivers.

                              {time}  1415

  Mr. Speaker, they are the natural barriers of filtration. They are 
the filtration. We cannot build anything better than what nature gives 
us. It is in our own economic interest to encourage farmers to set 
aside these wetlands.
  We need to put funding into the environmental quality incentive 
programs that help us protect our water quality from nitrates and 
pathogens. In our State, we use 250,000 tons of nitrate a year that run 
off our farms, into our waters, and cause algae and seaweeds to grow at 
such a rapid rate that it chokes off our canals, our lakes and our 
streams. And then we have the problem of pollution and trapping of 
sewage in our lakes and streams causing closings of businesses. We know 
the cycle there. Pathogens like cryptosporidium pose a human health 
risk and even can cause death, as I have mentioned in Milwaukee. So 
this is very serious stuff.

[[Page 4767]]

  Providing farmers incentives to reduce their use of nitrates and use 
alternatives to pesticides are commonsense steps that we can take to 
protect our water quality and to protect our health. If we do not take 
these steps, Mr. Speaker, we are going to pay for them later. We will 
not have enough farmland to grow enough food to feed our population. We 
will have to increase costs for roads and sewers and police and fire 
protection in areas where growth and development occur. Our urban cores 
will continue to lose population and the tax base leading to an 
inability to fund adequate services.
  You can see all of this happening and all of this coming. All you 
have got to do is open your eyes and look around and see all the big 
box department stores, the strip malls and the golf courses in our part 
of the State.
  My wife and I did a walk around our district a few years ago. We were 
out in the country. I have a lot of agriculture in my district, Mr. 
Speaker, as does the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith). We stopped by 
a farmer working in the field just to chat with him. He was eating his 
lunch. He had an orange in his hand. He took that orange, he had his 
hand around it, and he said, ``See where my thumbnail is around this 
orange? That's what's left of our prime agricultural land on the planet 
today.'' We are losing it an alarming rate. We have got to get back to 
the conservation, to deal with the basic levels of conservation in 
order to preserve it for tomorrow.
  I want to thank my colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) 
for introducing this motion to instruct. It is a very important motion. 
The Senate has acted, I think, quite well and honestly in moving in 
this direction. The House needs to do the same.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 35 seconds.
  Let me react to the agricultural leader from Arkansas, that the 
people that are offering this amendment do not understand farm 
programs, and I would just suggest, I have been a farmer all my life, a 
director of the Michigan Farm Bureau. I understand farm programs. To 
respond to your question why are farmers going broke, it is because 
Federal agricultural programs encourage more production, and that more 
production comes from the largest farmers. This amendment helps the 
smaller farmer. It limits the amount of subsidies that can go to those 
huge megafarms.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Ganske).
  Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, I speak on behalf of the motion to instruct 
conferees on the section of the farm bill dealing with payment 
limitations. I commend the objectives of the Grassley amendment in the 
Senate and I believe we should encourage Members of the House serving 
on the farm bill conference to accept the language as it was adopted in 
the Senate version.
  The Grassley amendment would place a cap of $275,000 on the amount 
that could be received in Federal farm support payments in a year. This 
is in contrast to the House bill and the Senate bill as it was 
introduced. Both pieces of legislation would have actually increased 
the cap from the current level of $460,000.
  During the previous House debate on the farm bill, I did not support 
an amendment which dealt with only one aspect of the problem and which 
would have left the increase in the cap to $550,000 intact. I believe, 
however, that the comprehensive approach of the Grassley amendment is a 
more balanced and fair way to address the growing problem.
  I have on many occasions commended Chairman Combest and Ranking 
Member Stenholm for the civil and nonpartisan fashion in which they 
have conducted their approach to the House farm bill. That has been in 
sharp contrast to the sometimes bitter process in the other body. 
However, in this instance, the Grassley amendment was passed with a 
bipartisan coalition of 66 Senators. I believe the provision would be a 
positive addition to the final farm bill product and in the best 
interests of Iowa farmers.
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
distinguished gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with the gentleman 
from Michigan that there should be some reform of payment limitations. 
I do not think anyone disagrees with that. However, I do rise to oppose 
the motion.
  I would like to point out to the gentleman from Michigan that the 
House version of the farm bill does increase conservation payments by 
80 percent. EQIP, which addresses primarily clean water, clean air 
standards, is increased by 600 percent, from $200 million to $1.2 
billion. Also, research is substantially increased, both versions, the 
House and the Senate. So I believe that those issues are being 
addressed.
  What I would like to point out is that the House Committee on 
Agriculture went through a 2-year process in formulating this farm 
bill. They had 47 hearings all around the country. It was a bipartisan 
bill. It was passed by a large majority on the House floor, 291-120. 
The other body, I think, has worked hard but primarily has done a bill 
within the last couple of months. It has been somewhat of a rushed 
process, I think most people would agree, and so therefore I am a 
little bit reluctant to accept the other body's version without careful 
thought, without making sure we have really understood fully what the 
circumstances are and what the repercussions might be.
  Currently the conferees are working hard. It is a complex issue. I am 
confident they will reform the payment limitation process. I would like 
to see them given the opportunity to work through the process. I think 
this is very important.
  The Environmental Working Group and their Web site that oppose the 
payments that farmers have received I think has led to a great deal of 
misunderstanding throughout the country. We have seen editorials, we 
see public opinion and all of these things that seem to be very much 
against commodity payments. However, I would like to point out that the 
payments that are posted on those websites do not constitute profit. 
People see a $500,000 payment and they assume that the person receives 
a $500,000 profit. Many people that I know who are receiving fairly 
large payments are still operating in the red. In my area of the 
country, almost every farmer will tell you that without farm payments, 
they would go under very quickly. Bankers will tell you that. It is not 
just farmers. So it is important that this is something that we 
understand the nature of it. The Web site has been very divisive. We 
lost 1,000 farmers in the State of Nebraska last year. So if it was 
such a windfall, it certainly would not reflect in that type of a 
figure, of 1,000 farmers in a relatively small State populationwise.
  I would like to just amplify what the gentleman from Arkansas 
mentioned earlier, which I think a lot of people do not think about. In 
the European Union, the average payment to farmers is $300 per acre. I 
have been to Brazil recently. Many people have who are interested in 
agriculture. You can buy very good agricultural land, equivalent to 
what we would pay $3,000 an acre for, for $100 to $500 an acre. The 
labor cost over there is 50 cents an hour on the average. And so we are 
asking our farmers to compete with the European Union where the subsidy 
is $300 per acre, we are asking them to compete with Brazil where the 
cost of land is very low, they can produce two crops, the topsoil is 50 
feet deep and they have no labor cost and no environmental cost. So I 
am saying that the $38 an acre that we have been paying our farmers is 
not badly spent.
  The last thing I would mention was, I think, in some congruence with 
what the gentleman from Arkansas was mentioning. That is, that about 15 
or 20 years ago, we found that we could buy petroleum from OPEC for $10 
a barrel. And so we were glad to oblige them. As a result, we have 
shipped our petroleum industry overseas. We quit exploring, we shut 
down much of our production, many of our refineries, and so now we find 
ourselves all of a sudden almost 60 percent dependent on foreign

[[Page 4768]]

oil. We are in a situation where everyone realizes that all we have to 
do is light the tinderbox in the Middle East and we have got a real 
problem. We can do the same thing to agriculture. We can do it very 
easily. We can say we are going to just forget about these commodity 
payments, they are evil, they are large, only rich guys get them. Most 
of the people that I know are not rich people that are receiving these.
  And so I am not arguing that we do not need reform. I agree totally 
that we do. I am just saying, let us take this thing and think it 
through. Let it go through the process and let us not just 
automatically accept the other body's view of what needs to happen 
because I have great confidence in the conferees that we have working 
at it right now.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome to our 
Chamber Senator Grassley. He is the sponsor of the Grassley-Dorgan 
amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that his statement be inserted 
into the Record at this point in the testimony.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman should not refer 
to the presence of a Senator. House rules do not provide for a 
Senator's statement to be inserted in the Record except as authorized 
by clause 1 of rule XVII.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
statement be inserted under my name.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, with us is Senator Chuck Grassley 
of Iowa, one of the sponsors of the Senate payment limitation 
amendment. These are his comments during debate on the Senate bill 
amendments for payment limits to the largest farms.

       Mr. President, I stand before you today to offer one the 
     most important amendments for the family farmer we have ever 
     considered. There have been a number of important amendments 
     already considered during the farm bill debate, and a couple 
     have been adopted, but if we are truly sincere about 
     improving this farm bill for the family farmer we have a 
     golden opportunity in front of us right now.
       The farm bill reported by the Senate Agriculture Committee 
     fails to adequately target assistance to family farmers and 
     will disproportionately benefit our nation's largest farms. 
     In fact, this farm bill unnecessarily increases the payment 
     limitations established in the Freedom to Farm Act which 
     allowed an individual to receive nearly a half million 
     dollars through subsidy payments.
       Moreover, the Committee bill fails to address the use of 
     generic commodity certificates which allow farmers to 
     circumvent payment limitations. In recent years, we have 
     heard news reports about large corporate farms receiving 
     millions of dollars in payments through the use of generic 
     certificates. Generic certificates do not benefit family 
     farmers but allow the largest farmers to receive unlimited 
     payments.
       I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senators Dorgan, 
     Johnson, Hagel, Lugar, Fitzgerald, Ensign, Durbin, and 
     Wellstone in support of this amendment to establish 
     reasonable payment limitations. Our amendment would more 
     effectively target the assistance provided by this 
     legislation to small and medium-sized family farms.
       Senator Dorgan and I have worked together to make this 
     amendment what it is right now. Without Senator Dorgan's 
     efforts we would not have the broad, bi-partisan coalition 
     supporting this amendment we currently enjoy. I know how hard 
     Senator Dorgan has worked in his own caucus to generate 
     support for this vital issue and how crucial his input was in 
     the drafting process and I appreciate his efforts.
       With that said, let's talk about the specifics of the 
     amendment. Our amendment would limit direct and counter-
     cyclical payments to $75,000. It would limit gains from 
     marketing loans and LDPs to $150,000, and generic 
     certificates would be included in this limit. The amendment 
     would also establish a combined payment limitation of 
     $275,000 for a husband and wife.
       Americans recognize the importance of the family farmer to 
     our nation and the need to provide an adequate safety net for 
     family farmers. In recent years however, assistance to 
     farmers has come under increasing scrutiny. Critics of farm 
     payments have argued that large corporate farms reap most of 
     the benefits of these payments. This amendment will fix that 
     problem.
       In addition, we will apply the savings provided by this 
     limitation against other significant problems our producers 
     currently face plus agriculture research, crop insurance, 
     Beginning Farmer Loans, and food stamps. In fact, we put a 
     large share of the savings in the Food Stamp Program.
       This amendment would increase Food Stamp spending by $810 
     million over ten years. The amendment would improve the 
     current proposal to increase and improve the standard 
     deduction, help provide more assistance to families that pay 
     large portions of their income on rent and utilities and make 
     it easier for more people to participate in food stamp 
     employment and training program by lifting the cap on 
     transportation reimbursements.
       Senator Dorgan and I have chosen to spend a significant 
     portion of the savings in this amendment on Food Stamp 
     programs. We feel strongly that these dollars are well spent. 
     For instance, we are trying to help low-income families by 
     not making them choose between eating or paying the heat 
     bill.
       I know that this issue is very important for my colleagues 
     from the Northeast, but this is an issue that all senators 
     from seasonally cold weather areas should be concerned. Many 
     low-income families spend large portions of their income on 
     shelter expenses. As families struggle to pay for their 
     housing, they will face problems paying for food, which can 
     have an adverse effect on family members, health and 
     children's development.
       My amendment would eventually eliminate the arbitrary cap 
     set on the shelter deduction which currently has the effect 
     of treating some money that a family must spend on housing 
     costs as available to meet its food needs. There isn't anyone 
     that can say that we are not doing the right thing by fixing 
     this problem. Even if the rest of this amendment wasn't as 
     popular as it is, my colleagues should support it because of 
     the inclusion of this provision.
       We will also extend eligibility for Loan Deficiency 
     Payments (LDP) to farmers who produce a contract commodity on 
     a farm not covered by a Production Flexibility Contract 
     (PFCC). The Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000, which 
     we passed into law last year, furnished LDPs to farmers who 
     produced a 2000 crop contract commodity on a farm not covered 
     by a PFC.
       In Iowa there are 6200 farms that do not participate in the 
     farm program. Non-participating farms are classified as farms 
     not enrolled in 1996 at the beginning of the program, or 
     farms that changed hands during the farm bill that were not 
     properly re-enrolled.
       Not all of the 6200 non-participating farms will choose to 
     use and benefit from an LDP, but for the family farmers in 
     Iowa who are not in the program, guaranteeing close to $1.78 
     on corn and $5.26 on soybeans is significant assistance.
       With the record low prices Iowa producers have experienced 
     recently, I think that the federal government should do 
     everything it can to keep producers on the farm. This by no 
     means solves all their problems, but it helps and it's 
     something we should have done for these individuals on a 
     permanent basis when we provided a one-year opportunity for 
     participation in the LDP program last year.
       In addition, we extend eligibility for LDPs to farmers who 
     have lost beneficial interest in their commodity. We 
     previously passed a similar one-year extension in the 
     Agricultural Risk Protection Act. This is only meant to 
     extend this opportunity until the 1996 farm bill comes to an 
     end.
       I would like to commend Senate Roberts for his leadership 
     on this issue. In June, he introduced stand-alone legislation 
     to address this issue and has clearly been the leading 
     advocate on this issue in the Congress.
       Mr. President, I will conclude my remarks by stating again 
     that I feel strongly the Agriculture Committee bill fails to 
     effectively address the issue of payment limitations. 
     Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment 
     which will help to restore public respectability for federal 
     farm assistance by targeting this assistance to those who 
     need it the most.
       This amendment has been endorsed by 35 groups. That list 
     includes the California Institute for Rural Studies, 
     California Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, Center for 
     Rural Affairs, Church Women United (NYS), Community Alliance 
     with Family Farmers (CA), Community Food Security Coalition, 
     Environmental Working Group, Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
     America, Illinois Stewardship Alliance and the Kansas Rural 
     Center.
       Land Stewardship Project (based in Minnesota), Michael 
     Fields Agricultural Institute (WI), Michigan Agricultural 
     Stewardship Association, Michigan Integrated Food and Farming 
     Systems, Minnesota Project, National Family Farm Coalition, 
     National Farmers Union, National Grange, National Campaign 
     for Sustainable Agriculture and the National Catholic Rural 
     Life Conference.
       NOFA--NY, North Dakota Council of Churches (Rural Life 
     Committee), Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society, 
     Ohio Citizen Action, Ohio Ecological Farm and Food 
     Association, Rural Advancement Foundation International 
     (USA), Rural Coalition, Rural Roots (ID), Sustainable 
     Agriculture Coalition and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
       United Methodist Church (General Board of Church and 
     Society), Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network, 
     Washington Tilth Producers, Western Sustainable

[[Page 4769]]

     Agriculture Working Group, Center on Budget and Policy 
     Priorities, America's Second Harvest, Food Research and 
     Action Center and Bread for the World.
       This is no time to be making backroom deals or playing 
     games. This is going to be our one shot at this issue and we 
     all know it. Look at what we have already accomplished on the 
     Feingold/Grassley amendment limiting mandatory arbitration 
     and the Johnson/Grassley amendment banning packer ownership. 
     Senators Feingold and Johnson knew those were important 
     issues to family farmers and helped me to offer amendments in 
     a bipartisan fashion.
       It's time to do the right thing again, support payment 
     limitations and support the family farmer. Help Senator 
     Dorgan and I restore integrity to the programs, reduce 
     pressure on rents and land prices, dampen overproduction, 
     raise farm income, and help maintain family farms and the 
     culture that surrounds our rural communities. In addition, we 
     will be funding additional nutrition crop insurance research 
     and development, and ag.

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I also would like to welcome the 
distinguished gentleman from Iowa whom I had occasion to serve with in 
this body and appreciate all his good works.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in allowing me 
to speak on this motion.
  Mr. Speaker, it is hard to imagine anyplace outside of the Beltway 
where having a subsidy of $275,000 limit is starving people to death. 
Yes, it is possible that people in this current system are involved 
with slowly spiraling down into greater and greater debt. 
Overproduction, my colleague from Michigan talked about that, where we 
are encouraging people to plant crops, overproduce, driving down the 
cost and leaving the problem either for the individual to bear the 
burden or for the taxpayer. There is a better way.
  There is the opportunity here with this motion to instruct for us to 
be able to deal with how we spend the money more wisely. There is no 
reason that we cannot help producers around the country do things that 
will make a difference to help them stay in business. It is expensive 
to be able to comply with water quality, to be able to change some 
agricultural practices. There are people that are being driven around 
the country into subdividing farms because of market pressures. We can 
have money for conservation payments, for purchase of development 
rights, to be able to help them stay in business.
  The current system, with its lavish spending, is not stopping the 
loss of farms. We just heard in Nebraska, a thousand farms went out of 
the hands of family farmers. We are having a system now without the 
limitation that it drives the incentives toward larger and larger 
activities, more and more overproduction for a few commodities, and 
then in my State where there are row crops, where there are specialty 
crops that do not get the help, there are people that are literally 
bulldozing orchards because they cannot afford to maintain it. This is 
goofy.
  We should go along with this motion to instruct to be able to have 
the support for the Senate efforts for conservation. Remember, on this 
floor earlier, my colleague from Wisconsin, there was a broad cross-
section, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) and others, had a 
strong showing, there is a strong basis of support for increasing 
conservation payments, limiting commodity. It narrowly was defeated 
here. It was passed in the Senate. That is no justification for the 
conferees to dramatically cut back on conservation payments.
  What we are going to face here as we continue to have celebrity 
farmers from Beverly Hills to Houston to Denver in the last 5 years got 
over a half billion dollars, we can crank down on that. We have the 
wherewithal to be able to limit payments to families. We do not have to 
be discriminating against one sex or the other. We can make sure that 
we are going to be able to have the help to the people who need it the 
most. But $17.1 billion for conservation programs means that people are 
going to be lining up, they are not going to get the money that they 
want, we are still going to lose family farms, and the taxpayer will 
pay the bill.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. It 
is interesting to hear this debate, to hear the other side say, ``Well, 
nobody's getting payments over $275,000. That's just a myth. That's 
just something we hear out there that's in the press. Nobody really 
does that.''
  If that is the case, then why oppose this motion? I commend the 
gentleman for bringing it forward. In my view, we ought to get back to 
the Freedom to Farm Act of 1996. We ought to be moving in the other 
direction. That is my position. But this motion makes what I believe is 
an obscene farm bill just a little more palatable. I would urge support 
of it and encourage the other side, hey, if it is true that nobody is 
receiving these payments, that if Scottie Pippen who makes $18 million 
a year posting up for the Portland Trail Blazers is not making another 
$150,000 digging postholes apparently around his Arkansas farm, if that 
is not the case, then, hey, support the motion.

                              {time}  1430

  It is not going to hurt anybody. But if it is the case, then, by 
golly, we ought to put a stop to it. With that, I urge support for the 
motion.
  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the 
gentleman from Arizona.
  This particular motion to instruct would actually help the Scottie 
Pippens of the world. It would add more money to that program.
  I would also add at this particular time, I stand by my statement 
that the people that support this motion to instruct do not understand 
agriculture and the high-technology business that it is today. It will 
be a long time before anybody can positively change my mind on that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).
  Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for 
yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose this motion to instruct. This 
same motion, as a resolution, was voted down by a vote of 238 to 187 
simply under a different name. Here we go again.
  Our farm families need a new farm bill. I am a member of the 
Committee on Agriculture. I come from a district in south Arkansas 
where agriculture is a huge part of our economy, and I can tell you 
that our farmers need a new farm bill. They do not need it today, they 
do not need it tomorrow, they needed it last year. And this body in 
this very Chamber approved a good farm bill last year. Now it is stuck 
in conference, gutted with amendments that will totally destroy farming 
in America and farming in Arkansas as we know it today.
  We already have payment limits. And for the gentleman that mentioned 
we need to go back to the days of the Freedom to Farm bill, that is 
what we are living under now; and we have fewer farm families today 
than ever before.
  It is pretty obvious to me that the majority of those who passed 
Freedom to Farm simply did not get it; they did not understand farming 
in rural America. In fact, it should have been renamed, Freedom to 
Fail, because that is exactly what has happened. We have lost many good 
farm families because of that so-called Freedom to Farm bill passed 
back in 1996. It was so horrible, that is why we are here 1 year early 
trying to pass a new farm bill.
  We already have payment limits. Our farm families are also small 
business owners, and they make decisions based on land, crops, 
equipment, loans, employees, based on the current payment limits, based 
on the farm bill. To change those rules for them will require many of 
them to file bankruptcy, laying off 10 or 12 employees.
  I recently was at the annual Watson Fish Fry in Watson, Arkansas; and 
a gentleman came up to me, a grown man, with tears in his eyes, as he 
talked to me about how, just that morning, he had filed bankruptcy and 
laid off 10 employees, eight of whom had been working for him for over 
20 years.

[[Page 4770]]

  Mr. Speaker, we have a farm crisis in America.
  I recently called another farm family to tell them I was sorry to 
learn that they were forced to sell; and when I reached the gentleman, 
guess where he was? He was at another farm family's auction, and that 
was the morning after the Senate amendment was put on the farm bill 
reducing payment limits. And guess what? Overnight the price of farm 
equipment at auctions dropped 35 percent.
  I was not real good at math, and you do not have to be to understand 
this: our farm families used to get $8.50 a bushel for rice. Today they 
are getting $1.50. Cotton, it costs them 60 cents to grow it. If they 
are getting 30 cents today, they are doing good.
  Our farmers do not want to be welfare farmers. They do not want to be 
insurance farmers. They simply need a basic safety net to help them 
survive when market prices are down and when our government does crazy 
things like imposing sanctions and embargoes on them.
  The sanctions and embargoes against Cuba, that happened the year I 
was born, 40 years ago. Cuba is still getting rice. They are just not 
getting it from Arkansas farmers; they are not getting it from American 
farmers. They are getting it from China. They want to buy our rice. 
They can get it in 4 days as opposed to a month.
  Our government does have a duty and an obligation and a 
responsibility to these farm families to assist them when market prices 
are down, when we are using them as a weapon. We have a strong defense 
in this country, and we need to make it stronger. We have watched what 
the military might of this country can do in Afghanistan and around the 
world. When we want to punish someone, let us help them using our 
military, but let us stop turning our farm families and their crops 
into a weapon.
  The issue of payment limits, let me tell you that if you take a look 
at it and you hear the talk that, well, we need to reduce payment 
limits so we will quit overproducing, I cannot believe that anyone 
would think that we are overproducing in a world where people go to bed 
every single night hungry. People are starving to death.
  We need fair trade. We need to remove sanctions and embargoes. We 
need to open up these markets. If we do that, we will not be 
overproducing; and if we do that, the prices will go back up at the 
market, and these farm families will not need our help. But as long as 
we stand in their way of doing what they do best, and that is feed 
America and feed much of the world, then, yes, they need our help, they 
need a new farm bill. They do not need this motion to instruct.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), who has been a great leader on 
this issue.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding 
me this time and the leadership he has shown on this issue, as well as 
my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), for the courage to 
bring this motion forward.
  I along with Representatives Boehlert, Dingell and Gilchrest,  helped 
assemble a coalition last fall, Mr. Speaker, a bipartisan coalition, an 
urban-suburban-rural coalition, offering to do basically what this 
motion to instruct suggests, and that is taking a look at the current 
subsidy program, the income support program that exists in this 
country, and seeing if there was a way of moving some of the subsidy 
payments from the biggest of the big producers in this country, the 
upper 2 percent, over 97 percent of the farmers in this country would 
not have been affected by the conservation title amendment that many of 
us offered last fall, and see if we can move some of these limited, 
precious resources into other areas to benefit all family farmers in 
all regions of the country.
  It did pull up a little bit short. We had 200 votes. Nevertheless, I 
think it was a strong showing of the need for this type of new approach 
in agriculture policy.
  This motion today is about developing a sensible and sustainable farm 
policy for all of our family farmers, but also for our communities. 
This motion is not about attacking family farmers. This motion is not 
about attacking the women in this country. It is about good economic 
policy, because right now we are operating under a perverse economic 
farm policy, one that pays more money to big producers based on how 
many acres they plant and how much they produce in a certain category 
of crops.
  This distorts the marketplace. This encourages production, not based 
on market price and what the market can bear, but, rather, based on the 
government paycheck. And we are seeing this across the country 
throughout all of our districts.
  I still have roughly 10,500 family farms in my congressional district 
alone in the State of Wisconsin. We have roughly 60,000 family farms in 
Wisconsin. This motion to instruct would affect 14 farms in my State; 
and yet, because of the way the farm bills in the past have been 
produced, where 90 percent of farm bill funding goes to a few 
producers, producing the, quote-unquote, ``right commodity crop,'' it 
distorts the marketplace. It encourages overproduction and oversupply, 
and then a plummeting of commodity prices as we have seen over the last 
few years, and then either farmers having to file bankruptcy and forced 
out of business, or for there to be farm relief bills, multi-billion 
farm relief bills coming before Congress every year to do something 
about it.
  I would submit that a farm policy that only provides income support 
payment to just 30 percent of the farmers and misses 70 percent of the 
rest of the producers we have in this country is no safety net at all.
  This motion really gets to the fairness issue of what we can do with 
the limited resources we can devote to help our farmers in this 
country, but in a fair and equitable manner, so all of our family farms 
in all regions of the country can participate.
  A great State like California, the largest agriculture-producing 
State in the Nation, and if it was a separate country would be one of 
the top producing countries in the world in agriculture, gets 3 cents 
on the dollar because they are not producing the right crop in 
California.
  What would this motion to instruct do? It would take the savings 
between the 275,000 cap, as we are recommending, from the $550,000 that 
passed out of the House, and apply those resources in voluntary and 
incentive-based conservation programs so we can not only provide 
economic assistance to family farmers who want to participate, but also 
encourage better watershed management, quality drinking supplies and 
the protection of wildlife and fish habitat.
  Anyone who does not think that sound, sustainable conservation 
practices should not be a major part of farm policy in the 21st century 
has not been looking at the type of issues I have seen in regards to 
quality water issues, which is going to be one of the predominant 
issues facing this Nation in the next 100 years. There is a way for us 
to be able to assist in that great endeavor, in that great challenge 
that we all face.
  The other part of the motion would devote resources to important 
agriculture research programs so we can talk about value added and 
creating wealth within the agriculture industry, rather than the 
proposed 40 percent cut in agriculture research spending that is 
currently being proposed in the conference committee.
  So, again, I commend my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Smith); my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), for 
offering this motion to instruct; and I would recommend to my 
colleagues to support this motion and send a message to the conferees 
that this is the direction we need to move in in farm policy in our 
Nation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The Chair would announce that 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) has 9\1/2\ minutes remaining, 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) has 2 minutes remaining, and 
the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining; 
and that pursuant to the previous order of the

[[Page 4771]]

House of today, further proceedings on this motion are postponed.

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