[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Pages 31945-31947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to speak in 
connection with the 2007 farm bill which was being debated on the floor 
of the Senate over the last several weeks prior to the time of 
Thanksgiving. As I rise to speak about the farm bill, I wish to say 
thank you to my colleague and good friend from Massachusetts, Senator 
Kennedy, for again bringing to the attention of the American public the 
importance of what is happening economically across the spectrum of 
America today, which is that there is a great sense of concern and 
instability and nervousness among the American public about what is 
happening in their own economic lives and whether their children will 
have access to higher education, whether they will be able to afford 
health care and health care insurance, whether gas prices are going to 
essentially force them to not be able to afford the essentials of life.
  I think within all of that, one of the things Senator Kennedy so 
eloquently speaks to is this covenant of America, that somehow we are 
all here as Americans in a common mission to try to create a better 
world for our children and for our grandchildren and for the rest of 
humanity. The one thing we cannot afford to do is to allow that 
covenant to be broken. We in this Chamber of the U.S. Senate, working 
in a bipartisan way, have an obligation to ensure that the covenant of 
America is something we honor, something we give dignity to in our 
efforts through our work.
  As part of that work, one of the things I think is very critical is 
that we not forget those parts of America which, in many ways, have 
been the forgotten America, and those are the communities of rural 
America. Those are communities like the towns and the counties where I 
come from and the county of Conejos County, which is one of the poorest 
counties in the United States of America, which, no matter how well the 
rest of America is doing, seems to be struggling on the vine.
  So it is important for us in the Senate, in the weeks and days ahead, 
to do everything we can to make sure we pass the farm bill because it 
is a farm bill that is good for America. It is a farm bill that is good 
for nutrition. As my good friend Kent Conrad and my good friend Senator 
Harkin have kept reminding the people of America, 67 percent of the 
bill we are working on is for nutrition. That aspect of our legislation 
is invented to provide assistance to those who are most in need. So I 
am hopeful that as we move forward this week and next week, we as the 
Senate will come together on a bipartisan basis to move forward with a 
farm bill that is so essential to the food security of the Nation.
  I wish to thank Chairman Harkin and Senator Chambliss for their hard 
work on this farm bill we have put so much time on for the last 2\1/2\ 
years. I also thank Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley for 
their work on the Finance Committee because their contribution to this 
farm bill has been so essential to get us to a point where we have a 
forward-thinking and balanced bill on the floor. I know that as I speak 
this afternoon, there are negotiations underway with respect to whether 
we can narrow the number of amendments to be considered on the floor so 
that we can move forward to consideration and hopefully final passage 
of this bill.
  A lot of folks in this country are looking to us in the Senate this 
week and next to see whether we have the courage to pass a farm bill. 
In my view, we must pass this farm bill. It is a bill that helps the 50 
million Americans living in rural communities. It is a bill that helps 
kids who deserve fresh fruits and vegetables with their lunches. It is 
a bill that helps put healthy and safe food on the tables of the people 
of this country. It helps us reduce our dependence on foreign oil and 
build a clean energy economy for the 21st century, and in my view that 
clean energy economy will be the signature domestic and foreign policy 
issue of our future here in America.
  A few days ago, I was in the San Luis Valley with my family at our 
ranch. Our land, which we have ranched on for

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five generations, is just a few miles north of the New Mexico-Colorado 
border in a county that reflects many of the challenges that are facing 
rural America. Almost a quarter of the residents in my home county of 
Conejos--that is one in four--live below the poverty line, with a 
median household income of around $27,000 a year. In the neighboring 
county, Costilla County, household income is about half the median in 
the United States.
  It is an inescapable fact of America that rural communities across 
the country are struggling. Median income in rural counties nationwide 
is $11,000 lower than the national median. If you live in a rural 
community, that means you are going to be making a lot less money than 
if you live in a nonrural community. Jobs and population are 
disappearing in these counties.
  I wish to point out this map. It is a map of what has happened just 
in the last 5 years here in the United States of America. The counties 
that are in red on this map are counties that have lost population. 
These are part of the rural America we are trying to address in this 
bill by opening a whole new chapter of opportunity that will give the 
farmers and ranchers and residents of these rural counties and States 
and communities for the good way of life, the way the rest of America 
has that good way of life. All of the counties on this map that are 
either red or yellow are counties that are losing population and are 
falling behind the national average. Many of those counties are 
counties such as the ones in my State. There you will find schools with 
declining enrollments, you will find hospitals and health clinics 
across those counties that are closing, and you will find stores on 
Main Streets that are getting boarded up.
  Here is a picture of downtown Brush, CO. Mr. President, you know 
these towns and communities in Virginia the way I do in my State of 
Colorado. I can go across the eastern plains or the southern part of my 
State, and in town after town out in the rural areas of my State, these 
Main Streets of America are being boarded up and are for sale because 
of the declining economic vitality in those communities. These are 
places where the tractor dealerships, the hardware stores, and the feed 
stores are closing down. You know from all of the signs you see out 
there that farmers and ranchers are struggling.
  This has certainly been the case in Colorado. We have had a severe 
drought in my State now for the last 8 years, and we are now just 
pulling out of that drought. In 2002, we lost 30 percent of our wheat 
on account of the drought. The acres that were harvested had an average 
yield of 23 bushels per acre--not enough to cover the operating and 
overhead costs of producing those 23 bushels per acre. In 2004, it 
happened again, and we lost 600,000 acres of wheat production in my 
State of Colorado. In 2006, again, our wheat losses amounted to around 
$95 million. But it is not just wheat and corn; it is also what has 
happened with respect to disasters in my State. This is a picture taken 
in Washington County, named after George Washington, right outside of 
Akron, CO, where you see the results of drought which essentially have 
annihilated this field from any kind of yield or production on the 
eastern plains.
  Over the last few weeks, I have heard people, both in this Chamber 
and especially in the media, paint a rosy picture of our rural 
economies. They say corn and soy and wheat prices are up, and they 
argue, therefore, that farmers are doing well and perhaps a farm bill 
is not needed. They use this as a ground for attacking and blocking the 
bill that is before us--this bill, which is a bipartisan product. But 
it is no secret that the commodity prices in the business section 
aren't a very good indication of how farmers and ranchers are actually 
doing. If corn prices are up, that doesn't necessarily mean farms and 
ranches in Baca County or Yuma County, CO, are doing much better. I can 
tell you that the cattle business, for one--the cattle business, which 
I know well--gets a whole lot more difficult when feed prices are high.
  Where has Washington been while our farmers and ranchers have been 
fighting to stay afloat? For years, in my view, Washington has turned a 
blind eye to the problems in rural America, perhaps because we in rural 
America don't have the clout people in urban America have because of 
their votes. It is a neglect that is surfacing yet again among those 
who hold this legislation from going forward.
  This neglect is disheartening when you know just how much possibility 
and promise there is in the rural communities of America. With modest 
investments, rural America can be the engine of our clean energy 
economy, fueling an alternative energy revolution that capitalizes on 
the hard work, the productivity, and the entrepreneurship of our 
farmers and ranchers across our great land. It can continue to provide 
us safe and healthy food, and it can continue to protect millions of 
acres of land and waterways that we value.
  Here is a picture of one of the educational programs in my State 
called EQIP which is addressed in this farm bill. This picture shows 
the farm bill at work, helping to protect our land and our water while 
keeping our farmers the most productive in the world. These are some of 
our farmers from the Saint Vrain and Boulder Creek watersheds learning 
some new practices that reduce tillage and increase the yields from our 
farms.
  The field day which is shown in this picture was part of a 3-year 
EQIP conservation innovation grant that was done in partnership with 
the local conservation district, with the local farmers, seed 
companies, and farm equipment dealers. At the end of the day, these 
farmers went home with a few ways to boost their bottom line while 
protecting the land and water of Colorado and America.
  The farm bill has an enormous impact on this Nation's land and water. 
We think about America the beautiful, this great land. Well, non-
Federal agricultural and forest lands occupy about 70 percent of the 
lands in the lower 48 States. So 70 percent of the lands in the 48 
States is what is at the heart of this farm bill. Seven out of 10 acres 
in the contiguous United States are affected by the farm bill. These 
lands provide the habitat and corridors that support healthy wildlife 
populations, filter groundwater supplies, regulate surface water flows, 
sequester carbon, and provide the open space and vistas we all love. As 
I learned growing up on our ranch in southern Colorado, farmers and 
ranchers are some of the best stewards of these resources. They want to 
take care of their land because they know that taking care of their 
land and water is essential for their livelihood.
  Our farmers also want to be very much a part of a clean energy future 
for America. This is a picture of an ethanol plant, which is new, in 
Sterling, CO. This ethanol plant produces about 42 million gallons of 
fuel a year. This is only 1 of 3 plants in our State that have come on 
line just in the last 2 years and partly as a result of the work that 
was done in this Chamber in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. It is part of 
the renewable energy revolution that is taking place across America. 
Title 9 of the farm bill addresses this renewable energy future for our 
country. A fourth ethanol plant just like this one has come on line in 
Colorado just in the last week.
  But it goes beyond biofuels, which is a central part of this section 
of the farm bill. It goes to other kinds of renewable energy.
  It goes to programs such as wind. Here is a wind farm in Prowers 
County in the eastern plains of Colorado, out in that part of the 
``forgotten America.'' It is that part that is so red in my State 
because we know that is part of the area that was part of the great 
Dust Bowl, which, even at this point in time, in 2007, is a place that 
is so sparsely populated but has so much potential for our future. This 
wind farm in Prowers County is part of an effort in our State whereby, 
at the end of 2008, we project we will be producing over 1,000 
megawatts of power from wind in Colorado. That is the equivalent of the 
amount of electricity produced by three coal-fired powerplants, and we 
have been able to do that in a period of 2 years.

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  We planted the seeds for these kinds of projects in the 2005 Energy 
Policy Act and in the Energy bills we passed earlier this year, which I 
hope we get to refurbish and pass again in the next several days. But 
the farm bill is also part of that.
  The 2007 farm bill takes the next step by helping farmers and 
ranchers deploy the renewable energy technologies that have been 
developed in lots of places around our country, including the National 
Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, CO.
  With the $1.3 billion that this bill devotes to energy programs, 
farmers will be able to apply for grants to develop biorefineries and 
to improve the handling, harvest, transport, and storage of feedstocks 
for biofuels. The bill includes tax credits for small wind turbines and 
cellulosic biofuel production. And it stimulates research into the 
methods and technologies that will allow the most productive lands in 
the world to provide more and more of our energy. The farm bill, in 
title IX, shows us how rural America will help us grow our way to 
energy independence.
  Reducing our dependence upon foreign oil will be the central national 
security, environmental security, and economic security challenge for 
all of us in the coming decades. It is also a tremendous opportunity.
  The country that successfully replaces its imports of foreign oil 
with clean home-grown energy will reap competitive and technological 
advantages that will keep it out front in the world for decades to 
come.
  Mr. President, it is time to put the interests of rural America 
before the politics of obstructionism. I urge my colleagues, Democrats 
and Republicans, to find a way forward in which we can narrow the 
number of amendments that have been filed on this legislation, so that 
under the leadership of Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss we can 
have an opportunity to vote on a final farm bill as part of the 
Christmas present that we should be delivering to the American people. 
It is my hope that, as we move forward on the farm bill, we move 
forward with equal fervor in having the Energy bill concluded, which is 
now on its way to passage in the House of Representatives.
  I yield the floor.

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