[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8155-8157]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I had hoped to be able to come down today 
and call up an amendment to the pending legislation, the farm bill. I 
understand we are not currently on the bill but, rather, in morning 
business. I hope to have the opportunity to try to get an amendment 
pending.
  We have been trying now for several days to have amendments 
considered to the farm bill. This is a germane amendment. It is very 
relevant to the bill. It is one that I think the Senate, the full 
Senate, ought to have an opportunity to debate and ultimately to vote 
on. It is very unfortunate, in my view, that we are where we are on a 
piece of legislation that has this much consequence for our economy, 
for farm country, and for consumers across this country.
  This is a bill that is a major piece of legislation. Unfortunately, 
we have not had the opportunity in the course of the days that we have 
been on the bill to get up amendments pending, debated, and voted on.
  I can't tell you how disappointing that is to those of us who come 
from farm country and wish to try to shape the best farm bill we 
possibly can in the Senate, so that when we go to conference, which I 
hope we will, with the House of Representatives, we would be in the 
best position possible to have a bill that addresses the important 
needs of farmers and ranchers across this country with regard to 
certainty from a multiyear farm bill. This would also be a bill that we 
can defend to the American taxpayers, a bill that is reform oriented. 
It moves us into the future of agriculture, not the past.
  The amendment I had hoped to offer today, amendment No. 1092, amends 
the commodity title of the farm bill that we have been debating. Last 
year

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the Senate passed its farm bill by a vote of 64 to 35. Sixty-four 
Senators voted for a farm bill that most of us believe offered a level 
of reform that we could support and defend to the American taxpayer.
  As several of my colleagues and I pointed out during the debate on 
the farm bill in the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, we 
have deep concerns over what we believe is a step backwards in the 
commodity title with the creation of the adverse market payments, or 
what we refer to as the AMP Program. This program takes a step 
backwards from last year's farm bill by recreating a program with 
countercyclical payments and fixed target prices.
  In fact, I would argue this is a policy that goes back. This policy 
predates cell phones. This policy predates the Internet. This is going 
back to 1980s-type farm policies. Last year's Senate farm bill 
completely eliminated this program, which meant we could honestly say 
we had passed a reform-minded farm bill, a farm bill that is more 
interested in policies that are about the future rather than the past, 
that are about the market, that are about making sure we have a 
necessary safety net in place for our farmers but doing it in a way 
that is defensible to the American taxpayer and moves us on the path to 
reform.
  Our concerns are not crop specific. There has been a lot of 
discussion about this being something between the Midwest or the South 
or regional. This is not a crop-specific concern; this is a policy-
specific concern. An outdated target price program is not--is not--what 
most producers in this country asked us for in a new farm bill--just 
the opposite.
  Almost every member of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 
Committee was told by our producers that a sound crop insurance program 
is a much higher priority. Amendment No. 1092 is simply a response to 
the wishes of most farmers in the United States. This amendment strikes 
the newly created AMP Program and places peanuts and rice back into the 
ARC Program or, to put it simply, this amendment replaces the commodity 
title in the bill that we have before us and replaces it with a reform-
minded, market-oriented commodity title that was included in the farm 
bill that we passed last year.
  I do not believe Congress is capable of setting accurate fixed prices 
for the next 5 years because that is precisely what the commodity title 
is in this bill. The House bill commodity title is even much worse in 
that respect. It has Congress setting, by statute--we, as Members of 
Congress are basically setting fixed prices for the next 5 years. The 
market, not Congress and not the USDA, should be setting prices for 
title I commodities.
  If fixed target prices are set too high and commodity prices drop, 
history has proven farmers will once again begin planting for a 
government program rather than in response to market signals. This not 
only creates a potential unnecessary liability for taxpayers, but it 
also increases the risk of overproduction and negative impacts on 
global markets, making certain crops subject to possible WTO disputes.
  This amendment not only moves us to the reforms we included in last 
year's farm bill, it also saves taxpayers more than $3 billion. That 
increases the total savings in this bill by more than 12 percent. That 
is $3 billion that most of our farmers have told us we don't need to 
spend. This is something the American farmer, the producers out there 
have made very, very clear and of which I would argue the American 
taxpayer would be very supportive.
  I urge my colleagues, if we get the opportunity to debate this, to 
ultimately support this amendment because it would recapture the level 
of reform we had in last year's farm bill and save $3 billion at the 
same time.
  There are many amendments that were filed to this bill that are not 
getting debated, that are not getting voted on. This is one in 
particular to the commodity title of the bill that saves over $3 
billion from the bill before us today--over $3 billion in savings--by 
moving toward a market-oriented policy as opposed to a high fixed 
target price policy where the Congress sets in statute the target 
prices rather than having the market determine what those prices ought 
to be. That is one amendment I have offered to the commodity title of 
the bill.
  I have another amendment to the SNAP or food title or nutrition title 
of the bill which would save $2 billion out of overhead administrative 
costs. It doesn't affect beneficiaries or income or asset eligibility 
standards; it simply finds savings in the food stamp program that are 
related to overhead administrative costs and saves $2 billion. We ought 
to be voting on that.
  We ought to have an opportunity to debate these things and vote on 
these amendments. I know colleagues of mine as well have offered 
amendments that save dollars and make this a more responsible farm 
policy--a policy that is oriented toward reform and that achieves a 
significant amount of savings for the American taxpayer.
  So I want to say again what I said at the beginning of my remarks; 
that is, it is unfortunate that we are where we are--debating a bill 
that over a decade will cost nearly $1 trillion. Of course, about 80 
percent of that is in the nutrition title of the bill. But we have an 
opportunity to actually improve this as it moves across the floor of 
the Senate and proceeds into a conference with the House of 
Representatives, where they will have passed a bill out of the 
Agriculture Committee which will head to the floor and has high fixed 
target prices--higher fixed target prices than are included in the 
Senate bill--and high fixed target prices for all commodities, as 
opposed to the Senate bill, which has them simply for rice and for 
peanuts.
  We are looking at heading down a path that takes us not to the future 
but to the past--to a time when farmers were farming for the government 
program rather than farming for the market; to a time when there were 
lots of potential disputes because these are trade-distorting, market-
distorting policies that are driven by government as opposed to being 
driven by the market. We can do so much better, and we should do so 
much better for our producers across this country and for the taxpayers 
who ultimately foot the bill.
  The amendment I have would do that. It would save over $3 billion in 
the commodity title of the bill, it is market-oriented reform, and it 
is something we ought to be considering and debating in the Senate. It 
is incredibly unfortunate that we are not having that opportunity.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak to an amendment to 
the farm bill on a subject important not only to the farmers of Maine 
but also to the participants in the WIC program. I am pleased that 
Senator Mark Udall has joined as the lead cosponsor of the amendment, 
which would require that all fresh fruits and vegetables, including 
fresh white potatoes, be included in the final USDA rule. Specifically, 
the amendment would only allow fresh, whole, or cut vegetables to be 
included--vegetables with added sugars, fats, or oils would be 
prohibited.
  The proposed final USDA rule for the Special Supplemental Nutrition 
Program for Women, Infants, and Children, WIC, food package, which went 
into effect in December 2009, includes a ban on the purchase of fresh 
white potatoes by WIC participants. Fresh potatoes are the only fruit 
or vegetable to be excluded, which sends a message to WIC participants 
that USDA believes that potatoes are not healthy.
  The USDA has said that the proposed ban on fresh white potatoes is 
based on a 2005 National Academies' Institute of Medicine, IOM, report, 
which considered recommendations of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for 
Americans, DGA, and includes consumption data nearly 20 years old. The 
subsequently published 2010 DGA, however, recommends 5 to 6 cups of 
starchy vegetables per week for women with a daily caloric intake of 
1,800 to 2,400 calories--an increase of 2 to 3 cups per week from the 
2005 DGA. USDA has yet to update the rule to reflect the most recent 
DGA.
  The 2010 DGA lists four ``nutrients of concern''--potassium, dietary 
fiber, calcium, and Vitamin D. The guidelines state that dietary intake 
of these

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four nutrients ``are low enough to be of public health concern for both 
adults and children.'' Since USDA is concerned about a lack of these 
nutrients in the American diet, it would make sense for the Department 
to promote good sources of these critical nutrients. Yet the 
Department's proposed WIC rule eliminates a vegetable such as the 
potato that is an excellent source of these nutrients. USDA should not 
limit the availability of the potato but instead should encourage its 
healthy preparation and consumption. In a rather puzzling example of 
inconsistency, while the newest WIC regulations will no longer allow 
WIC mothers, infants, and children to buy white potatoes, if those same 
participants get benefits from the WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition 
Program, some States may allow them to purchase white potatoes at a 
farmers' market.
  Consider the following nutritional facts about potatoes that are 
often overlooked: potatoes have more potassium than bananas, a food 
commonly associated with this nutrient; potatoes are cholesterol free, 
fat free, and sodium free, and can be served in countless healthy ways; 
a medium-baked potato contains 15 percent of the daily recommended 
value of dietary fiber, 27 percent of the daily recommended value for 
Vitamin B6, and 28 percent of the daily recommended value of Vitamin C.
  It only makes common sense to include a healthy, locally grown, and 
nutritious vegetable such as the fresh white potato in the WIC package 
and I believe the sound recommendations in the 2010 DGA support this. 
The Collins-Udall of Colorado amendment would achieve this by requiring 
that all fresh fruits and vegetables, including fresh white potatoes, 
be included in the final USDA rule.

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