[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 29691-29692]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 2419

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendments to 
H.R. 2419 be relevant to the bill or to the substitute amendment.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I hope beyond all hope that we can have a 
farm bill that will be related to the substance rather than the 
procedure. It is a good bill. The committee has worked very hard on it. 
People have some problems with parts of the bill. But if we had a vote 
on the bill right now, we would get 70 votes. We are not going to be 
able to do that. People are going to come out here--and I suggest they 
are going to have to write new speeches. This has happened so many 
times, all you have to do is go to the Congressional Record and read 
what has gone on before. It doesn't matter whether it is a Democrat or 
a Republican who is majority leader, the same thing always happens when 
we are trying to get out of here.
  This time we are trying to finish the work period before 
Thanksgiving. There are things we have to do. I say to my friends, do 
people really want an open process on this bill? Do we want to debate 
the war in Iraq on this bill? Do we want to debate amendments relating 
to labor issues throughout this country? I have been told those are 
some of the amendments that are going to be offered on my side. I have 
no idea what amendments the Republicans will offer, but I have kind of 
a good idea. I have see the rule XIVs in the last few weeks and the 
very mischievous amendments that have nothing to do with the farm 
bill--political amendments.
  We are late in this year of Congress. We have just a few weeks left, 
and every majority leader does what I have done. I didn't invent this. 
As I said earlier this morning, I learned a lot from my Republican 
counterparts--from Senator Lott, when he was majority leader, and from 
Senator Dole. They did the same thing. I have to acknowledge that 
Senator Mitchell did it and Senator Daschle did it because it is the 
only way we can get the business of the country done.
  We have had an open amendment process this year--not always but 
generally speaking. Once we got to the bills--and that has been tough--
I have had to file cloture on motions to proceed, which has been a big 
waste of time. But we have been able to work our way through many 
different things we have done.
  I think we have accomplished a great deal, Mr. President. We have 
done the minimum wage; the balanced budget, pay as you go; the CR; the 
work on U.S. Attorneys; the excellent work we did on higher education, 
health care for vets, and Active-Duty servicemembers; disaster relief, 
wildfire relief, SCHIP--a lot of good things.
  So I hope everyone will understand Harry Reid hasn't invented what is 
taking place on the Senate floor. I am just copying what others have 
done. Why? Out of necessity. I have told everybody this farm bill is a 
pretty good bill. It is not everything I want, but one of the 
interesting things about American farm policy is we don't import 65 to 
70 percent of our food as we do oil. Oil, we have been told, is soon 
going to go up to $4 per gallon.
  Food, Mr. President, we pay too much for food. But we pay far less, 
on a proportionate basis, than any other country in the world. Why? One 
reason is the farm policy in this country. Could the farm policy be 
better? Sure. That is why we are having a bipartisan effort to change 
the underlying bill. Democrats and Republicans think it could be 
better.
  Mr. President, we should move forward on this farm bill and finish 
it. We only do it every 5 years. If there are amendments that deal with 
this, I have said--and that was my consent just asked--if there are 
relevant amendments dealing with farm policy, move to change it, debate 
it, and vote on it. That is all I am asking. But I don't want to debate 
the estate tax repeal. The American people don't deserve that at this 
time. I don't want to debate another SCHIP bill that a number of 
Republicans believe is the right way to go for children's health 
because they are in such desperate shape for the vetoes the President 
has done. I have mentioned just a few things.
  Mr. President, we are doing the right thing. I hope people will go to 
work on

[[Page 29692]]

the farm bill. Both Democrats and Republicans have worked for months on 
a farm bill to get here. Do you think it was easy for Chairman Harkin 
to get a bill out of committee? No; it was difficult. How many meetings 
did he hold--private meetings--with this group or that group of 
Senators? I have no idea, but there were scores of them. We are at a 
point where we are today so that we have a farm bill that received 
overwhelming support in the Agriculture Committee, and now it is on the 
Senate floor. For the American people, we need to do this bill.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the leader yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. Yes, without losing my right to the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the leader for his statement. I just want to make 
sure everyone understands what just happened. As I understand it, the 
majority leader propounded a unanimous consent request that all 
amendments to be offered to the farm bill be relevant to the farm bill; 
is that not correct?
  Mr. REID. That is exactly what I said.
  Mr. HARKIN. There was objection on the other side. Why would there be 
an objection to that? We have a farm bill, and we have worked hard. The 
leader is right. We reached a bipartisan agreement. I daresay none of 
us like every little bit in the farm bill, but that is the art of 
compromise. You compromise on these sorts of things and you move them 
ahead.
  I don't know, for the life of me, why there would be an objection to 
saying that all amendments should be relevant to the farm bill. Let's 
move the farm bill. I hope people in farm country are watching this. I 
hope agribusiness is seeing this. I hope people know what is at stake 
in this farm bill for rural America for specialty crops, for our dairy 
farmers, for rural development, and I might add the nutrition programs, 
food stamp recipients, things that we have done good work on in this 
bill, to provide an underpinning of nutrition and support for some of 
the least among us. We have done good work in that area. Now it is held 
up because some people want to offer nonrelevant amendments. For the 
life of me--and this is my seventh farm bill, counting my time in the 
House, and my second as chairman--I don't understand why we cannot have 
a bill. Yes, open it to amendments on the farm bill. If people have 
amendments on the bill and want to change this, add this, or subtract 
that, fine. But why should we now debate, as I said, the war?
  Can the leader think of any reason we should not just stick to the 
farm bill?
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, the chairman, and to the ranking 
member, who have worked well together, I am not saying we are only 
going to allow Democratic amendments to be offered. I have made it very 
clear in my presentation to the Senate this morning that I am talking 
about mischievous amendments not only by Republicans but my colleagues 
over here.
  I also say this of the farm bill: I was listening this morning to 
public radio as I was doing my exercise. There was one provision that 
struck me on this bill. Over a billion dollars for fresh fruits and 
vegetables will go to schools. That may not sound like much to people. 
I was raised, as everybody knows, in rural Nevada. When I was a boy 9 
or 10 years old, the only grocery store in Searchlight burned down. It 
was never rebuilt. To this day, I like canned asparagus better than 
fresh asparagus. I love canned peas and canned fruit. The reason is, we 
never had fresh fruits or vegetables. We didn't have them and could not 
buy them. We all know fresh fruits and vegetables are better than that 
heavily salted stuff you get in a can that I am used to eating.
  This bill is going to say the kids in Searchlight today are still--
there are a few, such as the 7-Eleven you can go to.
  Places, such as where I was raised, where there are no stores, but 
they have some food programs, they are going to be able to have fresh 
fruits and vegetables on occasion. Isn't that great? I would know--I am 
using me as a point of reference--what a fresh asparagus is, an apple, 
an orange. So this is a good bill. It has a lot of warts and pimples on 
it, but it is a good bill. I only picked one provision.
  Why don't we go ahead and try to get this bill passed? I am not 
trying to play any games with anybody. I am trying to do what I have 
made a decision on that I think is best for the American people. Do we 
want to spend all this week on one amendment? People say: How would 
that happen? Let's go back to the Amtrak legislation. What happened 
when we went on that bill? As soon as it was open for amendment, bang, 
out came a tax amendment, and we spent all week on it, Internet tax. I 
am glad it is done, and that issue has now been sent to the President. 
He signed it. But we do not have time to do that this week. We must get 
an appropriations bill to the President. The House is going to work and 
send us something tonight. The President will wind up getting Labor-HHS 
later this week, unless we get hung up on some procedural issue.
  We need to pass the Defense appropriations conference report, with a 
CR included in that, this week. So this is no effort on my behalf to 
try to circumvent rules or procedures. I am following the rules of the 
Senate to the letter. But I am saying, I repeat, I am doing what every 
majority leader has done, similarly situated, in recent history.
  I said I hope we can deal with this important bill as we focus on 
efforts to pass an important farm bill. It appears the minority intends 
to offer unrelated amendments to the farm bill. They will have to wait 
until later to do that. Hopefully, maybe the time we are here during 
December, there will be amendable vehicles we can deal with. I hope we 
can work on this bipartisan farm bill in an orderly, relevant fashion.
  So in an effort to keep this debate focused on farm-related issues, I 
intend to fill the amendment tree, but I will be willing to lay aside 
pending amendments for Members who wish to offer farm-related 
amendments to this bill.
  I ask the Presiding Officer to lay down the bill.

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