[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2450-2475]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              AGRICULTURAL ACT OF 2014--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2642, 
which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Conference report to accompany H.R. 2642, a bill to provide 
     for the reform and continuation of agricultural and other 
     programs of the Department of Agriculture through fiscal year 
     2018, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 12:30 
p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or 
their designees.
  The assistant majority leader.


                       Commending Senator Booker

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before I address the farm bill, I would 
like to make two other points. The first is to commend the Presiding 
Officer. Yesterday he gave his first speech on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate. About 20 of us were here and listened carefully. I am glad I 
did. It was time well spent. It was a speech which the Presiding 
Officer clearly not only worked on but believes in, and it showed. He 
addressed the plight of working Americans, and particularly those who 
have lost their jobs, and the responsibility of this Congress and this 
Nation to stand by these families while they are in transition looking 
for new opportunities.
  I sat here and listened and watched as the Presiding Officer spoke to 
this subject, addressing specific people he has met in his State who 
told him their stories. I thought to myself: I have met quite a few in 
Illinois in like circumstances. I wish every Member of the Senate would 
do what the Presiding Officer has done--visit the towns, the 
restaurants, the veterans centers, and other places where unemployed 
people gather and listen to them.
  The point the Presiding Officer made so convincingly was those who 
dismiss the unemployed as just lazy people have never met them. They 
are not lazy. They are workers who want to work again. What they are 
asking for is a helping hand, and the Presiding Officer made that point 
so eloquently yesterday.
  What was particularly good for me, having served in the Senate for a 
number of years, was to hear a new Member of the Senate, in his first 
speech, really reach back to the values that inspired many of us to run 
for this position. It is easy to become jaded after you have been here 
for a while and been engaged in the petty political fights that take 
place here with some frequency. It is easy to forget why you asked your 
family to stand behind you when you ran, why you sacrificed to try to 
come to this place, and why each of us--some 1,200 or so who have had 
this distinct honor to serve in the Senate--should not miss the 
opportunity to bring our values and passion to the floor every single 
day.
  So I thank the Senator from New Jersey, our Presiding Officer, for an 
extraordinary maiden speech, first speech on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate. It was one of the best.


                    Environmental Protection Agency

  Secondly, I would like to address the issue that was raised by my 
colleague from the State of Kentucky. The State of Kentucky is just 
south of Illinois. We have coalfields too. Almost 75 percent of our 
State has coal under the ground. We mine that coal--not like we used 
to, but we still mine it and use it, and we have coal miners and coal 
companies, and coal is an important part of the Illinois economy.
  The Senator from Kentucky came to the floor today to really take 
exception to a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency as it 
affected coal country in Kentucky. I do not know anything about the 
particulars of his complaint involving the Cumberland Lake and the 
Endangered Species Act, so I will not address that, but I would like to 
address one, more general topic.
  To argue that the Environmental Protection Agency is the enemy of 
coal country is to completely ignore what has been in the newspapers 
for the last several weeks. There are 300,000 people in the State of 
West Virginia who are afraid to drink the water because of a leak from 
a tank that had a chemical solution used for cleaning coal. These 
people worry that drinking this water, cooking with this water, even 
bathing in this water is a danger to them. And where did they turn for 
some indication of safety for their families? This part of America--
West Virginia, coal country, just like Kentucky and Illinois--turned to 
the Environmental Protection Agency. Of course they did. Is it safe? 
Can my child drink this water safely? Can I use it for cooking?
  So to argue that the Environmental Protection Agency is the enemy of 
coal country is to ignore the obvious. They can make wrong decisions. 
We all do. Agencies do. But time and again, when we are in trouble, 
when it comes to something as basic as the safety of our drinking 
water, we turn to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers 
for Disease Control and ask them to help us determine whether that 
water is safe.
  Let me add parenthetically, Mr. President, your predecessor, Senator 
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, was a leader, and I was happy to be his 
partner in trying to get to the bottom of the danger of many of these 
chemicals. Most Americans mistakenly believe this government reviews 
the toxicity or danger of all the chemicals in use in this country. In 
fact, only a small percentage is ever reviewed by the government. We, 
in fact, trust those who make and sell these chemicals to do

[[Page 2451]]

the right thing, and many times they betray that trust and sell 
something dangerous which we discover later after the damage has been 
done.
  Again, the role of the Environmental Protection Agency and the 
Centers for Disease Control, the role of the Federal Government in 
monitoring these chemicals for the safety of businesses and families 
and individuals across America is essential whether you live in the 
cities of Newark or Chicago or coal country, USA. So if we are going to 
go to war against the Environmental Protection Agency, let's at least 
be honest about the critical role they play. I hope that is remembered 
as we reflect on some of the things said on the floor this morning.
  Mr. President, this is the conference report for the Agricultural Act 
of 2014. Senator Stabenow was on the floor earlier. She has stepped off 
now. She has poured her heart and soul into this document and into this 
work. Two years ago we passed the farm bill on the floor of the 
Senate--2 years ago. She did it with Senator Roberts of Kansas. I voted 
for it, and I thought it was an exceptional effort on her part. It went 
to the U.S. House of Representatives--as is the custom under the 
Constitution--to wither and die 2 years ago.
  Then a year ago they said let's try again. Let's pass the farm bill 
again in the U.S. Senate in the hopes that the U.S. House of 
Representatives will take it up--a year ago. So a year ago Senator 
Stabenow and Senator Roberts sent this measure to the House of 
Representatives for consideration, and again it languished. It may have 
been one of the longest running conference committees in the history of 
Congress, but thank goodness for the perseverance of Senator Stabenow 
and many others; they produced this document.
  For those who do not live in farm country, this may seem like a 
foreign text, but for those of us who do live in farm country, just 
reading the table of contents will tell you the important elements of 
this bill and why it is so critically important to Illinois and 
virtually every State in the Union.
  I commend Senator Stabenow. As I said, she really poured her heart 
and soul into this document. There are provisions in here that many of 
us may never really appreciate that she fought for over a long period 
of time. I am going to acknowledge a few of those during the course of 
my formal remarks. But while she is here on the floor, let me give 
special credit to my colleague. She really took on this task and did it 
in an extraordinary way.
  After years of expirations and short-term extensions, primarily due 
to the problems and inaction in the House of Representatives, this bill 
finally is going to provide farmers in Illinois and across the Nation 
with some guarantee of certainty on their future.
  Compared to the presequester budget levels--that is budget talk 
around here for past budgets--this bill is going to save $23 billion 
over the next 10 years. This conference report before us works to do 
four things: invest in energy and research, help our rural communities 
grow--those of us who represent smalltown America know how important 
that is--ensure stability for our farmers who face the vicissitudes of 
weather and markets, and provides food assistance for those most in 
need both here and overseas.
  These are amazing and important goals. I am glad Senator Stabenow and 
all the conferees applied themselves to make this happen. I am 
disappointed by one provision. I know Senator Stabenow will not be 
surprised. Despite modest reforms, we still provide extraordinary 
outside premium support for many farmers who buy crop insurance.
  In fairness, this bill eliminates a price support program that was no 
longer defensible, a program that paid farmers in good times as well as 
bad. So it was not what it was designed to be, emergency help for 
farmers in need. She eliminated the direct payment program, by and 
large. That, to me, is a step forward.
  Instead, this bill moves farmers toward crop insurance. Most of us, 
stepping back, say: That sounds like a responsible thing to do. A 
farmer buys an insurance policy, so if things go bad on the farm, a 
flood, a drought, some other problem, or the prices happen to be 
disastrous when the farmer goes to market, the insurance policy will 
make sure they can live to plant again. That is a good thing. But as I 
have said several times, any time you put the two words ``Federal'' and 
``insurance'' in the same sentence, I advise my colleagues to step back 
and ask some questions. This is not insurance as you envision it. It is 
not a matter of automobile insurance, where the automobile owners pay 
enough in premiums to create a reserve to cover the exposure of 
accidents.
  This is different. Under the Crop Insurance Program, similar to many 
Federal insurance programs, there is a massive Federal subsidy: 62 
percent of the reserves that are necessary to make the program function 
are provided by the Federal Treasury, not by premiums paid by farmers. 
So it is a good program. It is a valued program. It is critically 
important. But let's keep our mind on the reality. It is heavily 
subsidized by the Federal Government.
  Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a very conservative Republican, and I 
decided to offer an amendment which said: If you are a farmer whose 
income is over $750,000 a year, we will reduce, slightly, the 
government's subsidy of your crop insurance. Over $750,000 in income, 
we will reduce, slightly, the 62-percent Federal subsidy on your crop 
insurance. You will pay slightly more in premiums because you are able 
to. You are better off than most.
  This passed not once but twice on the floor of the Senate. As it 
turned out, the conferees, primarily from the House, hated this 
provision like the devil hates Holy water. So they struck this 
provision from the bill. That is unfortunate. Not only did we pass it 
twice, the House had passed on the floor an instruction to conferees to 
include it. Members wanted to be on record saying they liked this idea. 
When the conferees got their hands on it, they lopped it right out of 
the bill.
  Let me ask the Presiding Officer to hold on to that thought for a 
moment while I get into another section of the bill. The areas where 
the House conferees worked up an appetite was when it came to the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the so-called Food Stamp 
Program.
  Again, let me commend Senator Stabenow as chairman of the Agriculture 
Committee. She called me several times to tell me about the battles she 
had to wage to protect the food stamp program.
  Let's talk about the program for a minute. Almost 15 percent of 
households across America have trouble keeping food on the table. SNAP, 
the food program, provides 47 million Americans with essential food 
assistance. Eighty-three percent of the households that receive food 
stamps include a child or a person with disability or a senior citizen. 
Nearly 1 million veterans use the Food Stamp Program each year in 
America.
  In Illinois, over 2 million people, almost one in seven residents, 
rely on SNAP benefits to buy the food they need. Who are these people? 
Who in the world needs food stamps in a great State such as the State 
of Illinois? Let me tell you about two or three of them.
  One of them was the elderly lady whom I met at the Irving Park 
Methodist Church food pantry. She was on a walker. She had a very short 
haircut, suggesting that perhaps she had been through some chemotherapy 
or radiation. She soldiered her way right up there to get a bag of 
groceries. She sat down and I talked to her.
  I said to her: Can you tell me a little bit about how you are doing.
  Sure Senator. I am doing OK. I get $800 a month in Social Security.
  I said: How in the world do you live in Chicago on $800 a month?
  Ain't easy, Senator. Got to pay the rent. Got to pay the utility 
bills and the basics. She said: I come to this food pantry and one 
other one. Each one of them gives me 3 days' worth of food. So I get 
about 1 month, 6 days' worth of food, out of the two food pantries. I 
thank them for that. I get food stamps worth about $130 a month.
  That is it, folks. That is what she lives on, an elderly person. When 
the

[[Page 2452]]

House Republicans said what we need to do is cut $40 billion--that was 
their original recommendation--$40 billion out of food stamps, they 
apparently had never met this lady and what she was up against or they 
might have met a couple of workers whom I had a press conference with 
on Sunday in Chicago, working full time and qualifying for food stamps. 
One was a fellow who worked on the west side of Chicago at a used car 
lot. Does it all, he said--cleans the cars, shovels the lot, sells the 
cars, and gets paid $8.25 an hour, which is our State minimum wage--
four kids, his wife is sick and cannot work.
  He gets food stamps. He needs them to put food on the table for the 
kids, for a full-time worker at a minimum wage job. Then on the other 
side was a lady who is a waitress. She told the story of being a single 
mom. Her son is now 19. She is heading him off to the City College of 
Chicago. That is a great deal. But she works a job which has a 
guaranteed minimum wage in Illinois of about $4.50 an hour. That is 
what waitresses are guaranteed--tipped wage. Nationally, the tipped 
wage is $2.13 an hour. She said: I do not work in a fancy restaurant. I 
am lucky to come home with $10 or $20 in tips in a day.
  So do the math. She said: Some days they do not call me in to work. I 
get nothing. She relies on food stamps too, a woman who is ready to 
work and works hard, standing all day, waiting tables. So in come the 
House Republicans saying we need to come down hard on these people, 
these lazy people on food stamps. I wish they would meet some of those 
folks who use food stamps to get by, to survive. These people are our 
neighbors. They are hard-working people who lost their jobs or got 
sick. They are seniors living on a limited fixed income.
  This bill does cut $8 billion out of SNAP, the Food Stamp Program. I 
understand the cuts that were made. I think Senator Stabenow and others 
have done these carefully. I do not want any fraud in this program. She 
does not either. We think we have tightened it so it will not affect 
the payments to those who are truly eligible and those who need the 
help. Yet it will make sure the taxpayers are treated fairly as well.
  But look at the contrast. Some of the conferees walked into this 
hearing and said that farmers who make almost $1 million a year should 
not have any reduction in their subsidy for crop insurance, but people 
such as the lady at the Irving Park Methodist Church food pantry, being 
paid $800 a month, we ought to take a hard look at the $130 a month we 
give this lady. That is upside down. That does not reflect the values 
of this country or the priorities we need to face.
  I thank the Senator from Michigan. She worked long and hard, was a 
real champion when it came to SNAP, the Food Stamp Program. 
Incidentally, the good news is, as the economy improves and people get 
back to work, the number of people on food stamps is going down, which 
is what we want to see. But does it not say something about us as a 
nation, a caring, compassionate Nation, that we are going to be there 
to help those families living in our towns and our States, going to our 
churches, when they are struggling to put food on the table?
  Why was that such an inviting target for some of the House conferees? 
I do not understand that. There is a lot of money that can be saved in 
government. We do not want to waste a penny of it. But let's focus 
primarily on those who can afford to pay and are getting a Federal 
subsidy as opposed to those who are just struggling to get by and are 
asking for a helping hand. This bill does so much. I could not even 
start to describe all of the different areas dealing with risk on the 
farm, key investments in energy and research, ag research, programs to 
help rural communities grow, and helping those in need.
  Most importantly, this reauthorization gives Illinois farmers 
certainty about farm programs. They need it. That is something they 
have not had for the last 3 years. I am going to support this bill. I 
wish we had been able to preserve the provision that Senator Coburn and 
I included. But I believe, on balance, it is an important step forward 
in farm country across America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, as the Senate turns its attention this week 
to the farm bill conference report, my thoughts turn to the Wild West 
to put its provisions in context. Frankly, its 950 pages lend 
themselves to talking about the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly.
  I mention the good, because while this farm bill falls far short of 
gaining my support, it is not entirely without provisions worth 
highlighting. Conferees, including a one-term extension of the Payments 
in Lieu of Taxes, or the PILT Program. That gives temporary 
predictability at least for counties with low tax bases due to Federal 
land ownership and provides Congress with time to chart a long-term 
solution in this regard.
  In addition, the bill authorizes permanently the stewardship 
contracting authority. This is a critical land management tool that 
allows us to proactively reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. It 
is one I have long called for. While reforms to the liability 
requirements are also included, the report fails to include necessary 
flexibility on cancelation ceilings. That is something I will continue 
to work on in the future.
  Sadly, when it comes to the bad, there is not enough time to list all 
of the items in the report that should make any lawmaker cringe who is 
concerned about our crushing national debt or those of us trying to 
reform agriculture policy.
  Rather than truthfully trimming the already generous agriculture 
safety net, taxpayers should prepare for yet another round of entirely 
new alphabet soup subsidy programs. The Senator from Illinois explained 
very well the Crop Insurance Program that is so heavily subsidized, 62 
percent.
  I think all of us with auto insurance or other types of insurance 
would love to have that kind of contribution from the Federal 
Government. This report does not even provide commonsense reforms that 
limit waste and largess to sustained hallmarks of agriculture 
subsidies. The report also fails to limit agricultural payments to 
those who are actually involved in farming.
  It cannot even provide a reasonable income limit, as was discussed by 
the Senator from Illinois, for those who already receive crop insurance 
subsidies. Incomprehensibly, any renegotiation of the arrangement 
between crop insurers and the Federal Government would be required to 
be revenue neutral, despite billions of dollars in taxpayer savings 
having been found in previous renegotiations.
  This bill is purported to be fiscally conservative because it saves 
$16 billion or so in tax dollars. Before we pat each other on the back 
in this regard, we need to remember that Congress has a pretty dismal 
record of actually knowing how much farm bills are going to cost.
  According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, ``The last two farms bills 
are on pace to exceed their Congressional Budget Office score by more 
than $400 billion, and there's no assurance that this farm bill will be 
any different.''
  Let's get to the ugly. For years, direct payments have been one of 
the clearest signs of what needs to be changed in Federal spending. The 
Federal Government has been handing out roughly $5 billion a year to 
farmers regardless of whether they are farming the land. I want to pay 
tribute to the Senator from Michigan who has fought to end these direct 
payments.
  The Senate did a pretty good job there, but the House did not. I 
myself have long sought to end these direct payments. I was encouraged 
with the Senate action to end these payments outright. But despite our 
fiscal situation, the best we could get in the House was allowing 
direct payments to continue, albeit slightly reduced for cotton, for 
2014 and 2015.
  This conference report purports to end direct payments but ends them 
in name only for cotton. Let's be clear. It simply renames direct 
payments for cotton for 2 years. They will now be called transition 
payments. Cotton growers will continue to receive payments until--wait 
for it--the other new

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subsidy programs created in this report come online.
  Perhaps, instead of western movies, I should have conjured up images 
of Shakespeare to describe this fiscal tragedy: a government-funded 
handout by another name is still a government-funded handout. It is 
also worth recalling that when originally created in 1996, in the 1996 
farm bill, direct payments went by the name AMTA payments or 
Agricultural Market Transition Assistance payments.
  It would appear that for some commodities, there will always be a 
transition from something to something else that will result in a 
taxpayer-funded handout.
  According to the CBO score, the report actually takes the zero cost 
from the Senate proposal and the $443 million cost from the House 
proposal and compromises at a higher cost of $556 million in 2015. That 
is some compromise, to go well above both the House and the Senate 
numbers.
  While the 10-year score for the transition payments in the report is 
lower than the House proposal, the first-year costs are actually 
higher. It is at this point that one can simply stop being surprised at 
what will happen when it comes to farm subsidies. Sadly, rather than a 
blockbuster of fiscal sanity, taxpayers are going to be saddled with 
what looks to be another rerun of missed opportunities to reform 
Federal agricultural policy. Although livestock groups have decried the 
absence of fixes to ongoing regulatory problems, and fiscal 
conservatives are chafing at the continued waste in spending, this 
report is still likely to be adopted.
  There are other issues addressed, and I am pleased that some of this 
will end up on the President's desk, but I cannot support this 
conference report. I will continue to push for real fiscal discipline 
and sound agricultural policy.
  I should note I remember when I first came to Congress, or about 1 
year after, I came to the floor of the House to rail against the farm 
bill at that time, the 2002 reauthorization. We had gone in the 1990s 
from the Freedom to Farm Act to the Farm Security Act. For those of us 
conservatives who talk about moving from freedom to security and all 
that means, that was actually in the title of the bill, and we haven't 
improved much since that time. That was more than a decade ago. I have 
to say we should have made progress that was simply not made in this 
bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. I rise today to discuss legislation that benefits all 
Americans, and particularly my home State of Ohio.
  I appreciate Senator Flake's comments. I admire his integrity and his 
focus on waste in government for the decade or so that I have known 
him--longer than that. I think he makes good points in this 
legislation. We come down on different sides in the end. Some of the 
things he had talked about, eliminating a lot of direct payments, were 
especially important and were made possible by legislation Senator 
Thune and I introduced.
  This is an ongoing process to improve this bill every year. Every 5 
years I am hopeful we can do that. I thank Senator Flake for his 
comments.
  This bill is bipartisan. It reduces the deficit, it helps farms, 
helps families, helps our economy, and it helps our environment. It 
saves 23 billion taxpayer dollars. It provides certainty and support to 
one of the Nation's largest job creators, agriculture. Food and 
agriculture together are about one in seven jobs in Ohio. Agriculture-
related businesses such as food processing, fertilizer and feed sales 
also are part of Ohio's largest industry.
  I thank Senator Cochran and Senator Stabenow for getting us to this 
point. They have been dogged in their support for our Nation's farmers 
and our rural communities.
  I have spoken with Ohio's corn and soybean growers, as well as 
members of the Ohio Farm Bureau. On Friday I spoke and met with a group 
of 300 farmers, members of the Ohio Farmers Union, in Columbus. They 
have told me the importance of passing a 5-year farm bill. They 
especially emphasized the certainty, finally, of this bill. They can 
make the planning and planting decisions that business people and 
farmers need.
  I have traveled across Ohio's 88 counties and listened to farmers 
from Minster to Millersburg, who have told me they want a leaner, more 
efficient, and market-oriented farm safety net. Taxpayers deserve that 
too.
  This bill is a reform farm bill. It eliminates direct farm payments, 
links crop insurance to conservation compliance, and it reforms our 
risk management programs--all important things in agriculture policy.
  Ohio farmers were clear they wanted a farm bill that eliminated those 
direct payments and provided the risk management tools they needed when 
times are bad, but without the market-distorting policies that ensure 
farmers are planting for the program and not the market. Unfortunately, 
that was happening far too often.
  In the last 6 or 7 years during my time in the Senate, leading up to 
the 2007-2008 farm bill and the 2013-2014 farm bill, I held some 25 
roundtables with farmers and rural development people around my State. 
Working with my colleagues Senator Thune and Senator Durbin, we were 
able to streamline the farm safety net and make it more market 
oriented. Our bill, the Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management Act, is 
the basis for the Agricultural Risk Coverage Program, which was 
included in the commodity title. By reforming commodity programs to 
better align with the market instead of simply sending out checks--even 
when times were good and in many cases to people who don't need them--
this bill will provide farmers with increased risk management tools 
while improving the integrity of these programs.
  The bill incorporates many portions of the Local Farms, Food, and 
Jobs Act that I introduced. We know too many farmers struggle to find 
local markets for their products. Too many Ohioans are also unable to 
access fresh and affordable food. This legislation helps to put them 
together. Whether by improving Farmers Market Promotion program, or the 
Value Added Producers grant, this bill makes a significant investment 
in local and regional food production and marketing.
  We know what has happened in rural America in terms of development. 
While agricultural prices have been such that farmers have been 
prosperous enough and that many in rural America are doing OK, rural 
development is still an issue as people move out of the these 
communities looking for jobs.
  Whether it is bringing broadband to southeast Ohio or a water and 
sewer project in Henry County or a low-interest loan to Buckeye Power, 
this bill will make sure rural communities have the tools, the 
programs, and capital that they need to succeed.
  My State is home to approximately 130 companies that use agricultural 
crops to make new biobased products, ranging from natural pet foods to 
paint, soy ink, toner, and plastics. Last week, USDA Secretary Vilsack 
and I toured a Columbus plastics factory, where they are working to 
make more of their products with biobased feedstocks instead of oil. We 
know what that means for renewable energy in our State. Our homegrown 
products can replace imported oil in our everyday products. This is a 
win for our local economies and for Ohio farmers.
  We also know the importance of helping young farmers. If someone goes 
to any farm organization meeting, farmers are typically in their 
fifties, sixties, and seventies. We don't see enough in their twenties, 
thirties, and forties. In this legislation, we will help to recruit, 
train, and retrain the next generation of farmers. That is part of this 
conference report. USDA needs to redouble its efforts, particularly in 
making capital available, and ensure that young and beginning farmers 
are able to succeed.
  The bill streamlines and, in my opinion, improves USDA's conservation 
programs. That is so important in the western Lake Erie basin of the 
Great Lakes. We have seen what has happened with algae blooms east of 
Toledo along places like Port Clinton and Sandusky. It is reaching 
almost as far east as Lorain. We are seeing the problems

[[Page 2454]]

it causes to water quality, recreation, tourism, and to development 
along the lake that is so important.
  The House wanted, on the SNAP issue, to slash food stamps by $40 
billion. We fought back. Our conference committee rejected every 
proposal passed by the House to cut off the assistance to workers and 
their families who have fallen on very hard times. When we couple what 
some in this body want to do with cutting unemployment, failing to 
extend unemployment insurance, failing to raise the minimum wage, 
making huge cuts in Food Stamp Programs, this was a huge victory in our 
conference committee.
  This bill needs to pass. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to pass 
it and send it to President Obama so he can sign this bill at the end 
of this week or the beginning of next week.
  Before I leave the floor, I do want to speak in great detail about 
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, and the nutrition 
title of the bill. SNAP benefits are very modest and are essential part 
of our nation's social safety net. The average SNAP household gets just 
over $9 a day in benefits or $1.46 per person per meal. Yet, for people 
that are food insecure, SNAP is the difference between putting food on 
the table or going hungry.
  When there is an economic downturn, SNAP responds to support those 
who need assistance: the elderly, children, and working families. When 
we last strengthened the program in the 2008 farm bill, we ensured that 
a strong SNAP was there for families and communities. We saw the 
caseload rise from 28 million people in 2008 to over 47 million people 
today.
  Too often, we forget that those who rely on SNAP are real people, and 
not just some statistic. I want to tell you about a couple of those 
people. Doris, from Reynoldsburg, is a 60-year-old who was diagnosed 
with stage 4 colon cancer in 2009. The doctors only gave her 6 months 
to live, but nearly 5 years later, she continues to fight. Because of 
her illness, she had to quit her work and she lost her health 
insurance. Doris has worked all her life and saves the little money she 
has to pay her bills and rent on time. Since she is on disability, she 
is eligible to receive $16 a month in SNAP benefits. After the cuts to 
the program that went into effect on November 1, her benefit is now $10 
per month. She's too young to collect Social Security, so each week she 
and a friend drive to Columbus to the Mid-Ohio food bank for fresh 
produce.
  Roxanne lives in northeast Ohio and is a home-health aide. She's a 
single mother and has four growing children under the age of 17. 
Roxanne works more than 60 hours per week, but relies on SNAP to help 
her make ends meet and ensure her children have enough to eat. For the 
past 3 years she has received about $400 per month; after the November 
cut to SNAP, her family now receives $335 per month. Unfortunately, 
this usually only lasts through the third week of the month. As she has 
tried to stretch her income, she has been forced to choose between 
serving her family healthy fruits and vegetables or ordering off the 
dollar menu at a fast food restaurant. Roxanne never thought she would 
be in a situation where she would have to rely on a food pantry to help 
her feed her family.
  I am proud that we were able to maintain a robust and responsive 
nutrition assistance program. The conference has rejected every 
proposal passed by the House to cutoff assistance to workers and their 
families who have fallen on very hard times. Rather than arbitrarily 
impose new and harsher time limits on how long unemployed workers may 
receive SNAP benefits, the bill strengthens SNAP employment and 
training program capacity. It provides modest but meaningful 
improvements in program administration and clarifies and codifies 
technical but important aspects of eligibility policy. The bill 
supports new anti-fraud initiatives, requires strong but efficient data 
matching in program administration, and supports keeping program retail 
operations up-to-date with the evolving food retailing environment.
  There has been criticism about this bill's SNAP savings--which are 
far more modest than the House's proposal to cut $40 billion from SNAP. 
I appreciate these concerns. This bill achieves savings by correcting a 
quirk in the SNAP benefit calculation that allows some State agencies 
to give households higher benefits by allowing them to deduct more 
income from their shelter costs.
  SNAP benefits are based on the size of the household and how much 
money it has available to buy food. This amount is determined by 
subtracting out essential costs that households must pay and cannot use 
to buy groceries. For example, households with high shelter costs 
relative to their income have less money for buying food. Shelter costs 
include rent or mortgage payments and the cost of utilities such as 
heating and cooling. Rather than trying to document each household's 
utility costs over the course of a year, the rules allow States to set 
a standard utility allowance, ``standard allowance,'' for households 
with these expenses. This standardization enormously reduces the time 
and paperwork required to calculate income. Almost every State uses the 
standard allowance, and most require it to be used to budget utility 
costs and do not allow any option to claim actual expenses.
  Program rules have long recognized that the receipt of Low Income 
Household Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, aid is a simple method 
of determining if households incur utility costs. A few States have 
authorized households to receive negligible LIHEAP assistance--
generally only $1--merely to get them higher benefits. This was not the 
intention of connecting the standard allowance to LIHEAP. This bill 
closes this loophole by requiring that a family's LIHEAP payment must 
be at least $20 in order to qualify for the standard allowance solely 
on the LIHEAP connection. LIHEAP funds are very limited and at this 
dollar level States would no longer be able to fund the broad-based 
benefits for SNAP households that some now offer.
  This change does not affect anyone in my State of Ohio, but I 
recognize that this will not be an easy adjustment for households that 
are affected. I expect that the Department will ensure that State 
agencies do not summarily deny the standard allowance to households 
that received a nominal LIHEAP payment. State agencies and the USDA 
must work with families so they can determine whether they have any 
heating or cooling costs that would qualify for the standard allowance 
regardless of LIHEAP. These costs are most likely a bill from a utility 
company, but could be a charge from a landlord.
  As I have said, this farm bill ends the policy whereby some States 
give $1 of payment to most if not all SNAP households. I am concerned 
that many if not most of these households really do have heating and 
cooling costs and need the standard allowance to get an adequate and 
correct benefit. So I expect that USDA will work with State agencies to 
ensure that households have a meaningful opportunity to claim these 
costs so that they get the right amount of benefits.
  Finally, I'm concerned about the very quick implementation 
requirement for this provision. If a State is not able to implement 
within 30 days, I don't think SNAP households should be held 
responsible. I hope that my friend Secretary Vilsack will find a way to 
ensure that households who may continue to receive higher benefits 
because the State agency was not able to implement this policy change 
within 30 days will not be held accountable for mistakes arising from 
such an aggressive implementation schedule.
  There are a number of other provisions that do not result in benefit 
cuts to households, but change eligibility rules or codify common 
practices. I would like to turn to them now.
  The title codifies longstanding SNAP student eligibility policy. 
While SNAP remains unavailable to most college students, low-income 
people on SNAP who are trying to gain skills and credentials needed for 
immediate employment can access SNAP.
  Historically, most college students have not been eligible for SNAP 
and this bill does nothing to expand their eligibility. But at a time 
when workers need to continually acquire new and

[[Page 2455]]

better job skills, States have concluded that many participants can be 
best served by enhancing their vocational skills through training 
offered by State career and technical education networks. These 
networks offer training and education that aims at enabling students to 
keep or qualify for new jobs. Many times the programs are offered by 
community colleges which are considered part of the higher education 
system. I want to be sure that SNAP State education and training 
programs can connect SNAP recipients to this type of vocational 
education because in the long run it has the greatest potential to help 
people achieve lasting self-sufficiency. Giving people a stark choice 
between putting food on the table today or getting a job credential 
that will help them get a job tomorrow is counterproductive. By helping 
people stay in a vocational program, we can support them so they can 
better support themselves.
  The bill clearly stipulates that the farm bill can support this type 
of education, and that students in these courses can continue to get 
food assistance. This reinforcement of current policy is an opportunity 
for the Department to work more closely with State agencies to 
establish better connectivity with their State career and technical 
networks to strengthen energy and training programs. We want worker 
training programs that will help people learn the skills necessary to 
get the good paying job they want so they will no longer need SNAP 
benefits. In the long run, this is a much better investment than 
supporting programs that result in procedural sanctions that churn 
households on and off the program in the short run but do little to 
improve self-sufficiency in the long run. Another provision tightens 
eligibility policy to make sure that people who enjoy substantial 
lottery or gambling winnings are ineligible for SNAP and will not 
become eligible until such time as they meet the normal income and 
resource standards for SNAP. This provision responds to a few isolated 
instances in which a SNAP recipient reaped a State lottery windfall. 
While such cases are extremely rare, we want to be certain that they 
are taken into account.
  I expect that the Department will construct rules that will target 
these extraordinary cases without burdening State agency workers and 
recipients with unproductive reports. The first issue is how to define 
``substantial.'' I believe the intent of Congress was to identify 
really extraordinary windfalls that change lifestyles, and not winnings 
that reflect good fortune but will be rapidly dissipated by paying 
major bills or addressing overdue car or home repair issues.
  Crucial to implementing this is how the State SNAP agency learns 
about these winnings. This bill requires State SNAP agencies to work 
with any in-State gaming authorities to establish a mechanism to report 
substantial winnings. We envision a process that will rely entirely on 
agency-to-agency reports. Our intent is twofold. First, the only truly 
reliable source of this information will be the State gaming or lottery 
commission. It will offer much more dependable and authoritative 
information about winnings than recipient reports. Second, we want to 
avoid cluttering notices on responsibilities for reporting and action 
on changes with items about extraordinarily rare events such as a 
lottery windfall. This would run the risk of distracting participants 
from reporting much more frequent and important events such as changes 
in income and household membership. We want to maintain reporting 
requirements that are sharp, clear, focused, and short. We do not 
intend for this provision to trigger any additional household reporting 
or require additional questions on application and certification forms.
  Another issue is regaining eligibility for those who had enough 
winnings to be disqualified from SNAP. The bill provides for applying 
the regular financial eligibility standards to these households if they 
apply for SNAP again. We intend this to mean the normal gross and net 
income eligibility guidelines and the dollar-limited resource 
eligibility thresholds specified in the Food and Nutrition Act, and 
expect that normal verification rules will be applied.
  The bill reinforces policy on the eligibility of felons. Felons 
fleeing from law enforcement or violating their parole or probation are 
ineligible for SNAP. This bill highlights the ineligibility of those 
felons convicted of crimes such as murder and armed robbery who violate 
their parole or probation. Ex-offenders who have completed their 
sentences and comply with any parole conditions placed on their 
release, and who are otherwise eligible for food assistance through 
SNAP, remain eligible for assistance. But persons on the run from 
justice after committing one of these crimes should not be eligible 
based solely on technicalities about how the crimes are designated 
under some jurisdiction's criminal code.
  This provision should not affect current application procedures which 
ask applicants about fleeing felon and probation violation issues. 
Rather, we believe that eligibility workers must receive clear guidance 
on especially serious crimes that should be treated as felonies.
  The bill addresses program integrity concerns about multiple requests 
for electronic benefit transfer, EBT, card replacements. EBT cards are 
routinely replaced for a wide variety of valid reasons. State agencies 
need to be able to quickly replace them so families can continue to buy 
food. A small number of households frequently request replacement 
cards; we are concerned that a small subset of these households may be 
misusing their cards and benefits. The bill aims to require States to 
seek explanations from households with an excessive number of card 
replacement requests while preserving strong procedural protections for 
households. We envision it to work as follows: USDA is required to set 
a standard for excessive requests for card replacements. I think that 
the floor should not be fewer than 4 replacements over the course of a 
year. States must seek explanations from households that exceed this 
threshold as to why another card is needed prior to re-issuing a card. 
The process must allow households the opportunity to immediately 
provide the explanation because of the critical importance of 
maintaining access to food assistance. Any delay in working with the 
household freezes their food purchasing. I expect the Department to 
monitor this process and examine how long households are going without 
cards. Even if a State's computer lists the household as eligible, if 
it cannot access its benefits, it might as well not be. Any policy that 
denies a household effective food assistance should be treated as the 
equivalent of an eligibility cut-off.
  Replacement cards can be needed for a wide range of legitimate 
reasons. Cards can be stolen, damaged, or simply lost. Some people may 
not understand that the cards are reusable, or may confuse a PIN 
problem with a card problem. Because some people are particularly 
vulnerable to these problems, this bill requires that rules will 
establish protections for persons with disabilities, homeless persons, 
and crime victims. Some people with disabilities may require 
accommodations or authorized representatives.
  The bill does not allow for using this process to suspend or 
terminate SNAP participation. Program rules spell out procedural 
standards for acting on evidence of intentional program violations. 
These standards enable State agencies to pursue recipient fraud in a 
manner that protects the due process rights of the accused. If a State 
believes that its evidence about multiple card replacements indicates 
an intentional program violation, it must replace the card and use its 
established disqualification procedures such as administrative 
disqualification hearings or court actions. It cannot force a household 
member to submit to an interview in order to get access to its 
benefits.
  I want to highlight two areas where the bill provides more resources 
to improve program integrity. First, we are giving the Department more 
resources to enhance its retail store monitoring through more data 
mining and analysis. We recognize that the Department

[[Page 2456]]

has been actively using its data base of retailer transactions and want 
to enable more activity in this area.
  Second, we're authorizing funding for Federal-State partnerships to 
implement pilot projects to combat trafficking. I expect that the 
Department will seek and select State agencies that demonstrate sound 
and fair procedures for determining fraud.
  The bill has several provisions that I worked on that will better 
link SNAP retailer policy to evolutions in retail technology and 
marketing. The Secretary is authorized to test the use of mobile 
technologies in SNAP. This could really help SNAP customers shop at 
retailers such as farmers markets and vegetable stands that are unable 
to install traditional debit card machines but may be able to connect 
to smart phone applications. This provision was included in my Local 
Food, Farms, and Jobs Act. But as we expand ways to accept benefits, we 
must maintain program integrity. That is why we are starting with a 
pilot project to test mobile technology in SNAP, including protections 
for recipients such as bans on any food price markups. We expect USDA 
to carefully examine program integrity issues as part of a required 
feasibility report, and would not expect any expansion of mobile 
technology unless the report shows a satisfactory level of integrity. 
The Department needs rock solid means of ensuring that mobile devices 
approved for a seemingly legitimate retailer do not end up in 
disqualified or other dishonest retailers' facilities.
  This bill also allows pilot projects to test the feasibility of 
allowing the online purchase of food with SNAP benefits. More retailers 
are offering food delivery based on an online transaction. Food 
delivery can make the program more accessible to individuals who may 
have trouble getting out to shop. Again, any new way of redeeming 
benefits must meet high program integrity standards. The bill specifies 
that the Department must stop any growth of online transactions if we 
can't achieve the strong level of integrity that we expect. While the 
provision makes clear that delivery fees associated with online 
purchases may not be paid with SNAP benefits, I also expect USDA to set 
standards for the fees to ensure no adverse effect on food security. If 
consumers are paying an inordinate amount for delivery or other fees 
this could undermine food security. Most SNAP recipients are expected 
to spend a considerable amount of their own money to buy a 
nutritionally adequate diet, and if they are paying large delivery fees 
they may not be able to do that.
  I would like to point out that in the mainstream retail environment 
these new mobile and online technologies do not rely on photo 
identification or other biometric information to authorize payments and 
maintain integrity, nor do standard credit or debit card transactions. 
A longstanding principle of SNAP benefit use has been that the SNAP 
retail transaction should look like any other debit card transaction to 
customers and retailers. I am concerned that USDA has approved State 
requirements for photos on SNAP cards to be presented at the point of 
purchase. This is not a condition for a regular credit or debit 
transactions--in many if not most cases, cardholders swipe their own 
cards without handing them over to a cashier. The SNAP retail 
environment should be consistent with general practice. The 
Department's regulations provide that, and they ought to be enforced.
  While benefits have been issued and used successfully through EBT 
cards for years, there have been a few instances when cards failed to 
operate. In the event of a natural disaster or a major crash of the EBT 
system, participants may be in even greater need of assistance and must 
be able to use their benefits to purchase food. This requires the 
capacity to quickly and efficiently issue manual vouchers to affected 
individuals. We expect USDA to allow a switch to manual vouchers when 
EBT card use is undermined by major systems failures or natural 
disasters. States must be able to understand the criteria for issuing 
vouchers so that they can act quickly when a problem threatens access 
to food assistance, such as the cancellation of cards affected by a 
data breach.
  The bill requires State agencies to use the Department of Homeland 
Security system to validate immigration status. This system--the 
Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements--is already used by most 
State agencies. This bill does not change immigrant eligibility, or 
require anything new or different from applicants in the certification 
process.
  The bill also requires States to have a system for verifying income 
and eligibility. SNAP has longstanding, rigorous, and specific 
verification standards. We intend that States have a system for 
verification and believe that all now do. We are not mandating the 
imposition of any specific matching requirements such as the match 
requirements under section 1137 of the Social Security Act. These 
matches were required 20 years ago and were not productive. We made 
them optional in the 1996 welfare reform legislation and intend that 
they remain optional. We expect States will employ verification systems 
that employ timely and useful matches with reliable sources of data.
  One of the most important measures in the bill is authority and 
funding for pilot projects to enhance the Employment and Training 
Program. This bill provides support for up to ten projects and a 
rigorous independent evaluation of the impact of the projects on SNAP 
receipt, employment, and earnings.
  I know that all of my colleagues share the goal of seeing more 
Americans earning enough so they do not need SNAP. I believe that this 
is best achieved through strong work programs, and not arbitrarily 
cutting off food benefits to people who can't find jobs. People are not 
choosing unemployment and SNAP over gainful employment. There simply 
aren't enough jobs. The ratio of the number of unemployed persons to 
relative to the number of job openings has been improving steadily but 
remains at historically high levels--about 3 unemployed people for 
every job opening. As a comparison, when the recent recession started 
this ratio was 1.8 unemployed people per job. So I think we need to do 
more to help SNAP participants successfully compete for the increasing 
number of jobs that we hope will be there as the economy continues to 
recover.
  Employment and Training, E&T, has been a component of SNAP since 
1987, but very little is known about its efficacy. E&T has afforded 
States substantial flexibility to design work programs and leverage 
Federal matching funds. The result has been a wide variation in the 
types and scope of services offered. While the most prevalent 
components are job search and job search training, followed by 
workfare, more States are offering career and technical education in 
recognition that many SNAP participants need significant skill building 
and education. In terms of funding, some States invest substantial 
amount of State funds to realize the Federal match, while many States 
rely exclusively on the 100 percent Federal grant to fund program 
components. So we have a program with huge variations but we don't know 
what works. And because we are not confident that we are getting 
results, fiscal support for the program has been tepid; the basic 
Federal grant was $75 million in 1987 and is only $79 million today.
  What we do know is that SNAP reaches a very large number of 
employable low-income people. E&T presents a real opportunity to reach 
these Americans with better services. And this is a population we need 
to reach more effectively. A recent report by the Miller Center at the 
University of Virginia shows that low-income workers were much less 
likely to get skills training than better off workers. In other words, 
the people who most need training the most are the least likely to get 
it. So we need to do a better job of reaching low-income workers with 
training opportunities, and make sure that the services offered can 
help people get ahead.
  What we want to do here is test different approaches to work and 
training programs and find which produce the best results. For far too 
long, we've reauthorized this program because we all want SNAP 
participants to be better

[[Page 2457]]

off, but we haven't invested in learning if we are succeeding or how we 
can do better.
  We envision a comprehensive approach to choosing the pilot projects 
that will incorporate a range of services and serve a range of SNAP 
recipients with different needs. This does not mean that every pilot 
must serve a wide range of participants with a wide range of services, 
but rather that USDA will approve a group of pilot proposals that as a 
whole will provide different services and reach different types of 
participants. The bill specifies that the pilots as a whole must reach 
able-bodied adults without dependents, people with low skills or very 
limited work experience, and people who are already employed.
  Current law requires State E&T programs to be coordinated with their 
statewide workforce development systems. We expect that these pilots 
will at least be coordinated, and hopefully leverage existing 
infrastructure such as one-stop career centers and career and technical 
education networks. The bill provides for contributing funds from 
Federal, State, or private sources.
  I want to briefly touch on employed persons who get SNAP. These are 
people who have shown that they can get a job but are not earning 
enough to make ends meet without help from SNAP. So we are interested 
in approaches that can help the working poor improve their 
circumstances. While hopefully many people will earn enough to no 
longer need or qualify for SNAP, others may increase their earned 
income but remain eligible for a smaller SNAP benefit. But they will be 
better off, and program costs will be reduced.
  In many cases, stronger work supports could enable people to get a 
job or work more hours at their current job. For example, if some 
parents had better childcare, they may be able to take jobs that offer 
longer hours or better wages. Similarly, transportation support such as 
bus or transit passes may enable people to take a first job or get a 
better job. In many cases, people may be able to qualify for jobs 
without further training, but can't take the jobs because of issues 
like child care. So I see work supports--particularly child care--as a 
very promising E&T component that some pilot projects could support. I 
also believe increasing the minimum wage will help low-wage workers, 
but I will speak more on that issue at a later date.
  Pilots may also test private sector employment as a component. This 
may be subsidized or unsubsidized employment. We expect USDA to ensure 
that any employment components adhere to the full range of worker 
protection standards in the Food and Nutrition Act and in other laws on 
issues such as workplace safety and health, wages and hours, workman's 
compensation, and family leave. In addition, the Department should 
examine whether any additional protections are needed.
  If employment components are presented as an E&T requirement, new 
issues arise around sanctions because the State agency may not know the 
circumstances when an assignment does not work out. But the basic 
principle holds: no one should be sanctioned unless he or she willfully 
refused an assignment without good cause. People may not be able to 
keep up with jobs because of changes in schedules, transportation, 
child care, or sometimes because they lack the skills that an employer 
wants. None of these situations should lead to a sanction. Current 
program rules have addressed situations such as transportation and 
child care problems. In an employment component, a new issue arises if 
people are dismissed for a lack of competence. There is a real 
difference between refusing to work and not being able to work 
competently. If people are not working out in a job, maybe they need 
more training. Maybe they would be better in a different job. They do 
not deserve a sanction. We expect that State agencies--not employers--
will make these decisions based on policies set out by the Department 
that address very specific criteria for when a sanction may be invoked 
in an employment component.
  To get the best results from pilot projects, I think that individual 
assessment of participants is going to be important to get people in 
the right component. Pilots need to assess people's work history, 
education, skills, and child care and transportation situation to 
understand which component can help them the most. I expect the 
Department to examine assessment procedures as part of its monitoring. 
We see a strong independent evaluation as critical to the success of 
these pilots. The Department may use project funds for this purpose, as 
well as for Federal costs of managing the projects and any evaluation 
contracts. We expect that the evaluation will look at the impacts of 
different interventions such as job search, workfare, vocational 
training, and remedial education on different types of SNAP recipients 
in different local labor markets. Most importantly, we expect that the 
study will identify impacts on SNAP receipt and impacts on employment 
and earnings, including whether reductions in SNAP are attributable to 
higher earnings. The bill also allows the Department to authorize 
State-initiated reviews of their projects which can supplement the 
Federal evaluation.
  I am pleased that these pilots strengthen the work component of SNAP 
without creating incentives to end assistance for people who can't find 
work or curtailing the ability of States with struggling labor markets 
economies to secure waivers of current time limits. Pilot participation 
by participants may be mandatory or voluntary. It is my understanding 
that if participation is mandatory, an individual who fails to comply 
with any work requirements may lose his or her SNAP benefits under the 
same rules that would have applied if she or he committed the same acts 
while assigned to the E&T program instead of the pilot. As the bill 
authorizes unsubsidized work as an allowable pilot activity for the 
first time, we expect the Secretary to issue guidance describing what I 
think are very limited circumstances under which a working person who 
loses a job could be sanctioned. Only if a person willfully refuses to 
continue a job without good cause should sanction policy come into 
play.
  I turn now to some other modest improvements in program 
implementation.
  The bill requires State agencies to use the Department of Health and 
Human Services' National Directory of New Hires to check on whether 
SNAP applicants have jobs. Currently States may use this data base to 
check on the employment of SNAP recipients. The bill requires States to 
check the National Directory data when a household applies for SNAP to 
enhance eligibility determinations. There is no expectation of matching 
during the period of certification. We expect the Secretary to issue 
rules to set standards to ensure that State matching practices are 
efficient and effective. As an example, it would seem prudent to focus 
matches on employable household members and not spend time and money on 
matches with children, elderly, and disabled members. The Secretary 
should work with the Department of Health and Human Services to fashion 
rules that balance the potential gains in payment accuracy with State 
administrative costs.
  More Federal programs are implementing standards for exchanging 
information in an automated environment. This bill requires SNAP to 
develop these standards. More electronic data exchanges can help both 
participants and administrators. However, the strong privacy and 
confidentiality requirements of the Food and Nutrition Act must be 
preserved.
  The bill tightens policy on using funds for program informational 
activities while preserving the authority to get information out so 
that people can make informed choices about the program. Let us review 
a little history. In the 1996 welfare reform law, we prohibited using 
Federal funds for recruitment. The idea was that support for 
information about the availability of help for grocery bills was okay, 
but we did not want to cross a line to persuade people to enroll if 
they already had learned about the program and decided to forego 
benefits.

[[Page 2458]]

  Over the last decade, we have made enormous strides to extend food 
assistance to eligible families. USDA, States, and a wide range of 
community organizations have worked hard to inform low-income people 
about the availability of SNAP. And as we have changed the name of the 
program from the Food Stamp Program to the Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program, and States have branded their own programs 
differently, the need to get out clear information has never been 
greater. I want to commend USDA and its partners inside and outside 
government for helping to make SNAP a more effective anti-hunger 
program. In this bill we have drawn some bright lines for the Secretary 
to use in funding information efforts. First, no support for 
partnerships with foreign governments. Second, no contracts based on 
``bounties'' that tie compensation to the number of people enrolled. 
And finally, re-affirmation that recruitment is not a legitimate 
activity for SNAP funding. I think the first points are clear and want 
to expand on the last one. Giving people information about the 
availability and benefits of the program to enable them to make 
informed choices about managing family food budgets to put enough food 
on the table is a legitimate use of Federal funds. If it crosses over 
into pushing people who have made an informed choice not to apply to 
apply, then we have a recruitment situation that the Conferees do not 
support. As long as households have the knowledge and access to 
participate if they so desire, what they actually decide is up to them.
  Providing positive information about the program and why or how to 
apply or assisting them in navigating a complex application process is 
not recruitment and remains an allowable activity and cost. We expect 
SNAP to continue to provide people with the information they need to 
make informed decisions about participation, while ensuring that all 
funds for public information are used responsibly and judiciously.
  Finally, I would like to raise a problem about issuance that this 
legislation does not address--because we thought that earlier 
legislation did. Staggered issuance refers to spreading the issuance 
dates for loading benefits on to EBT cards over a period of time--
generally 10 but sometimes 15 days or more. This way you don't have so 
many SNAP households shopping on the same day. It benefits both 
retailers and their customers because stores are less crowded. The Food 
and Nutrition Act provides two key participant safeguards when a State 
agency moves to staggered issuance: first, no household can go beyond 
40 days without an allotment, and, second, no household's allotment may 
be reduced for any period. I have become aware that the Department has 
been approving plans that recognize only one of these provisions; plans 
simply extend some households for 40 days between issuances. This means 
that an allotment designed to cover 30 days must now cover 40 days. 
Benefits are simply inadequate to stretch this far.
  When a 30 day benefit must be stretched over 40 days, the daily 
benefit is clearly reduced. And since we eat every day, the daily 
benefit is a meaningful measure of benefit reduction. I am troubled 
that this important protection in issuance law is seemingly being 
ignored, and urge the Department to re-examine this situation and 
require supplemental issuances when States are implementing staggered 
issuance. Staggered issuance should be beneficial to all concerned. It 
should not increase hunger during transition months. Referrals to food 
banks during those months are a poor use of food bank resources and 
completely unnecessary given the act's requirement that households not 
suffer a loss of benefits--which having to stretch the same allotment 
over a longer period certainly is. Food banks are already being 
stretched thin and it should not be policy for SNAP recipients to rely 
on local food banks because benefits are stretched over this longer 
time period.
  All in all, this farm bill represents 2 years of hard work by both 
Agricultural Committees. The nutrition title is not my ideal; the 
benefit reductions obtained by requiring significant utility assistance 
in order to qualify for the standard utility allowance will be painful 
for those households affected by it. But I believe it is a narrowly 
targeted way of strengthening the program, and with other modest 
improvements, makes the title worth supporting. I urge my colleagues to 
support the bill.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, it is my understanding Senator Bennet is 
going to be due here shortly. I should be done by that time and ask 
unanimous consent that I take about 15 minutes of Senator Cornyn's 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, January 2014 may go down on record as the 
coldest of the months in United States history. Between the freezing 
temperatures from last week's polar vortex storms, much of the Nation 
experienced record cold weather at least once or twice, and this has 
been going on now for the last 3 years. While we won't have official 
nationwide temperature data for January for a few more weeks, we do 
have preliminary figures. Throughout the entire month, over 2,387 daily 
cold temperature records were set around the country, and many of those 
were in my State of Oklahoma. At least 49 of these daily records 
occurred on January 6 and 7 when the first round of the polar vortex 
hit. In Tulsa yesterday it went down to 2 below zero. That was a 
recordbreaker--that had held since 1912. That was the last time it got 
that cold. The same day in Enid, OK, it got down to minus 3. In 
Bartlesville--and this may be wrong, but the figure showed it was 
actually minus 14, making it even colder than the South Pole, where it 
was only minus 11.
  The cold weather is continuing into February. Many schools canceled 
classes today around the State of Oklahoma because of the cold weather. 
It snowed more than 2\1/2\ inches in Tulsa yesterday, 5.2 inches in 
Henryetta, just south of Tulsa.
  There was an article in the Daily Oklahoman. They have a great zoo 
over there, but they reported that the grizzly bears refused to go 
outside their habitat yesterday because it was too cold.
  I know many in the media cry foul when I talk about global warming 
when it gets cold outside, but is this really any different from the 
President talking about global warming on a hot day in June of last 
year when he announced his climate action plan? No one seemed to mind 
that, but there seems to be a different set of rules when we talk about 
how cold it has been, which it has been for the last 3 years.
  When we experience extreme cold like we have had the last few weeks, 
everyone in their right mind takes a step back and wonders if global 
warming is really happening. When you look at the facts, you just have 
to wonder. Consider this quote from the journal Nature, which stated 
that over the last 15 years, ``the observed [temperature] trend is . . 
. not significantly different from zero [and] suggests a temporary 
`hiatus' in global warming.''
  This is something that has been a pattern for a long period of time. 
I can recall--and I am going from memory now--from the time they 
started keeping these temperatures, we started the first cold spell of 
recent history in 1895, and that lasted until 1918; 1918 turned into 
another warming area that went to 1945; and 1945 to 1975 was again 
another cooling spell and, of course, from 1975 to 2000. So we know 
what has been happening.
  The President has not acknowledged this fact. In fact, on multiple 
occasions he has said--and this is something he has said over and 
over--``the temperature around the globe is increasing

[[Page 2459]]

faster than was predicted even 10 years ago.'' Unfortunately for his 
talking points, the data that has been reported in Nature magazine, the 
Economist, and even in the United Nations IPCC report shows that is 
just simply not true.
  Two weeks ago, in a hearing we had in the Environment and Public 
Works Committee, my friend Senator Sessions pressed EPA Administrator 
Gina McCarthy on this point, asking her whether the President's 
statement was true. Ultimately, after running around the question for a 
few minutes, she said, ``I can't answer that.'' You may not think this 
is an important fact, but it is. The President's entire climate action 
plan and efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 
are built fully on the fact that global warming is happening and that 
we are all going to die if we don't do something about it.
  What we all need to be aware of is that the impact of the President's 
climate action plan, when implemented, will be stunning. It will 
completely adopt global warming policies and the implementation of 
regulations like cap and trade. The President has already done a 
stunning amount of this work already. We have been able to uncover that 
in the first 4 years he was in office, he actually spent--and people 
are not aware of this--$110 billion of taxpayer money on global 
warming-related activities.
  The cap-and-trade legislation we have debated over the last 10 years 
carries a price tag of $300 billion to $400 billion a year. It would 
have been the largest tax increase in American history. It was soundly 
defeated--a bill in the Senate--but through the climate action plan the 
President is now trying to accomplish by regulation what he couldn't 
achieve through legislation.
  We have heard the term ``the imperial President'' being used 
recently. Well, listen to what was stated in the State of the Union 
Message, and these are the words he used: ``We are going to set new 
standards on carbon pollution from power plants.'' What he is saying is 
this: We couldn't pass it for 12 years with four bills to do that. We 
can't get more than 25 percent of the Members to vote for it, so we are 
going to do it through regulation.
  The first round of greenhouse gas regulations was proposed in the 
first week in January. These regulations, if finalized, would impose 
strict regulations on new powerplants that would make it impossible to 
build a coal-fired powerplant. You may wonder: Do we really need coal 
anymore with all the new energy we have coming onto the market, with 
the natural gas and the shale deposits and all that? The answer is yes.
  Before I go into that discussion, I think it is important to point 
out a problem with the timing of the new rules proposal. I had a chart 
here--I don't have it with me right now--that showed that when I was 
ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee--and this 
would have been way back in October 2012--we released a report 
highlighting the administration's actions to delay the finalization of 
costly environmental regulations until after the 2012 Presidential 
elections. Whether it was the farm dust rule or the ozone standard, the 
President punted regulation after regulation until after the election 
to minimize the influence it would have on voters. It appears that is 
exactly what is happening today with the first round of greenhouse gas 
regulations for the construction of new powerplants.
  As we know, under the Clean Air Act new rules for powerplants must be 
finalized within 1 year of the proposal's publication in the Federal 
Register--that is what kicks it off, when it is written in the Federal 
Register--or the proposed rule is invalidated. This is important 
because after announcing his climate action plan, the President ordered 
the EPA to ``issue a new proposal by no later than September 20, 
2013.'' The EPA proposed a new rule on September 20, but it did not 
publish in the Federal Register until January 8, 2014--this past 
January. Had the EPA published this rule in the Register on the same 
day they proposed it on September 20, 2013, they would have been forced 
to finalize the rule by September 20, 2014, which would be 6 weeks 
before the 2014 elections.
  This reveals an astounding double standard and is consistent with the 
remarks made at the State of the Union. On the one hand, the President 
says we don't have time to delay action on global warming. He says we 
must act before it is too late. But on the other hand, his actions show 
that it is OK to wait to finalize rules that will harm the economy 
until after the elections. Ultimately, this hypocrisy reveals that the 
administration is fully aware that the EPA's greenhouse gas regulations 
will put a drag on the economy, and now that we are starting to see 
strains of our electricity markets develop, the cost is becoming real 
to consumers.
  Consider American Electric Power, one of the country's largest 
electric companies. They are the ones that actually supply the power 
for my State of Oklahoma. Last week, during the recent cold weather, 
they reported they were running 89 percent of the coal generation they 
scheduled to retire in 2015. But these coal-fired powerplants, which 
were critical to keeping homes all around the country warm during these 
cold temperatures, are going to be shut down because of President 
Obama's environmental regulations.
  American Electric Power said: What it should make everyone think 
about is, what are we going to do when the generation is not available? 
We need to be thinking about reliability and resilience in extreme 
times, not just the status quo.
  If this recent cold weather occurs again in a year or two from now, 
once these plants are shut down, there simply will not be enough 
electricity available to keep homes and businesses warm. If cold 
weather pushes electricity demand up to the point where remaining 
powerplants are overloaded--the ones that haven't been shut down by the 
President--it could result in massive blackouts, and when Americans 
need their electricity it won't be there. It would be as if we were 
living in the 1600s and everyone will be cold. Again, the annual cost 
of this would be in excess of $300 billion to $400 billion that would 
be a hit on the GDP. And this does not even begin to measure the 
suffering we would have to experience.
  The President, as he has done with ObamaCare, may just say that these 
plants can stay open, that he won't enforce these new rules he is 
creating, but I don't think that is realistic. American Electric 
Power's warning comes in the wake of regulations the President has 
already finalized. The new ones that are being developed will make 
things even worse by making coal-fired powerplants impossible to build 
or keep open. What has been a steady source of cheap electricity will 
be gone in just a few short years.
  I have long said the Clean Air Act was never intended to regulate 
greenhouse gas emissions; it was written only to include the most 
egregious, harmful air pollutants, not carbon dioxide and other 
harmless greenhouse gases.
  Surprisingly, even some Democrats are starting to publicly agree with 
me. Last week, at an Energy and Commerce Committee meeting over in the 
House, Congressman John Dingell from Michigan, a staunch Democrat, 
said, ``Like most members of this committee, I think the Supreme Court 
came up with a very much erroneous decision on whether the Clean Air 
Act covers greenhouse gases. Like many members of this committee, I was 
present when we wrote that legislation, and we thought it was clear 
enough that we didn't clarify it, thinking that even the Supreme Court 
was not stupid enough to make that finding.''
  That is a direct quote from John Dingell. So I wish the Supreme Court 
would have sided with Congressman Dingell.
  As things now stand, the EPA is poised to put the Nation out of 
business with greenhouse gas regulations that would cost the entire 
economy some $300 billion to $400 billion.
  Every year I always calculate the number of people in my State of 
Oklahoma who file Federal income taxes. This $300 billion to $400 
billion cost would mean about $3,000 per family of

[[Page 2460]]

those who file Federal income tax returns. So it is a huge amount, and 
it would be the largest tax increase in history. Out of this concern, I 
am introducing a commonsense bill today, the Electricity Reliability 
and Affordability Act, which will allow States to keep their 
powerplants open if they believe it is necessary to maintain 
electricity, reliability, and affordability. In other words, the States 
can opt out.
  American Electric Power's announcement should cause all of us great 
concern, but the EPA is not listening. States have long protected and 
conserved their environments with great success, and State governments 
are in a much better position to determine which powerplants should and 
should not remain open, despite the regulations.
  I know my friend from Colorado is waiting to take the floor, so the 
last thing I will say is that in the State of the Union Message, the 
President made the statement that he is going to go ahead and do this, 
regardless of the fact that we have killed this legislation four times 
over the last 12 years. And at that time, I was talking about $300 
billion to $400 billion as the cost, but that would have been the cost 
if this had been legislation. Specifically, talking about legislation 
such as the Lieberman-Warner act and several of the others, that would 
regulate sources with at least 10,000 tons of CO2 emissions. 
However, if you do it by regulation and not legislation, that would 
have to be under the Clean Air Act, which would regulate systems of 250 
tons of CO2 a year. So while the legislation would have 
regulated the CO2 emissions for powerplants, refineries, and 
major factories, if the President is able to do it through regulations, 
that would cover every school, every church, and every apartment house 
in the Nation. So it is very significant.
  I know that right now we are on the farm bill, but we have to remind 
people that this is something that has been just announced that they 
are going to be doing.
  I remember when Lisa Jackson was the Director of the EPA. She was 
appointed by President Obama. I asked her the question: If we are to 
regulate this and one of these bills would pass, which means we would 
be regulating CO2 emissions, would this have the effect of 
reducing CO2 worldwide?
  She said: No, because that would only apply to the United States of 
America.
  That is not where the problem is. The problem is in China, India, in 
Mexico, and other places.
  So I remind my fellow Members this is something very serious and 
worthy of consideration at this time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Oklahoma for 
yielding.
  I wish to speak about the farm bill which, thanks to months and 
months and actually years of tireless work by Chairwoman Stabenow, 
Ranking Member Cochran, and other conferees on the bill, Democrats and 
Republicans in both Houses of Congress--thanks to all of this work, we 
are going to be able to pass this bill this afternoon.
  There are 16 million people working in agriculture in our country. 
These workers and our rural communities are demanding the certainty 
which comes with a long-term bill. I am pleased to say we are passing 
not a 2-month extension, not a 10-minute extension, not an ``I hope we 
get it done tomorrow before we leave town'' extension but a genuine 5-
year farm bill, which is going to give us a lot of certainty.
  This bill eliminates direct payments made to farmers regardless of 
market conditions or what they planted and prioritizes what is working 
for producers; namely, crop insurance.
  I have spoken on the floor before about Colorado's battle against 
historic drought conditions. Some of our farmers lost half their corn 
yields in 2012. It is hard to imagine any business losing half its 
production in 1 year, but that is what has happened to many Colorado 
corn producers. Mr. President, 2013 was a little better for corn in our 
State, but it is hard to celebrate when producers still face 
significant losses fighting against this dry soil. The Crop Insurance 
Program is what is keeping these farmers and rural economies in 
business during these tough times. That is why it is a priority.
  That is why we should have passed it 1 year ago, 2 years ago, but 
today we finally have the chance to do it.
  Beyond crop insurance, another key highlight of this bill is its 
conservation title. I spoke last week on the floor about the revamped 
easement programs, and the important linkage between conservation 
practices and crop insurance which has been preserved in this 
conference agreement.
  But beyond those highlights, the bill places a new emphasis on water 
conservation, which is so important to the West. Programs such as EQIP 
and the Regional Conservation Partnerships Program are going to be 
critical as the West faces record drought conditions brought on by 
climate change. New conservation tools, coupled with crop insurance to 
help hedge risk, will help our producers as we move into a new normal 
of a drier American West.
  The conservation title programs help producers, but they also help 
the fish in our rivers and the wildlife on our lands.
  Here is a great illustration of why sportsmen groups support this 
bill. This is a photo taken of my friend John Gale hunting pheasants in 
Yuma County, CO. The Conservation Reserve Program, CRP--a program 
reauthorized through this farm bill--provides important habitat for 
pheasants and other upland birds all across the country. The land 
surrounding this photo is all CRP land.
  The program protects habitat but also helps hold highly erodible 
soils in place--such as the soil in Baca County, CO, where over 250,000 
acres are enrolled in CRP. As the Presiding Officer may know, Baca 
County in many ways was the epicenter of the area devastated by the 
Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Thanks to CRP, Baca County has weathered recent 
droughts a lot better than their forefathers did. Healthy grasslands, 
open landscapes, and abundant wildlife are a fundamental part of the 
West, to be a part of the West, and we need to preserve those 
grasslands, those open spaces, and our species. That is what the 
conservation title of the farm bill does. A lot of people don't know 
about it, but it is a very important part of the farm bill.
  As a result, this farm bill is supported by over 250 conservation and 
environmental organizations--groups such as Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants 
Forever, National Wildlife Federation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, 
and the National Rifle Association, among others.
  This legislation not only ensures we have healthy croplands and 
grasslands but also prioritizes the health of our forests--an issue of 
huge importance to western States as we deal with our massive 
wildfires.
  Here we can see the Waldo Canyon fire from 2012. I chair the 
agriculture subcommittee on forestry, and we held a hearing on 
wildfires not too long ago. We looked at the terrible fires which have 
raged across the West, the budgetary nightmare they have caused, and 
Washington's inability to understand what we are actually facing out 
there. My clearest takeaway from this hearing was that when it comes to 
our forests, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
  If we prioritize the fuel mitigation work on the front end, we will 
save on fire suppression and recovery costs on the back end. If we 
don't, we will break our budget and not preserve our forests. The 
Congressional Budget Office has found that for every $1 we invest in 
forest health, we save $5 in costs associated with wildfire.
  This farm bill conference report makes these investments and gives 
the Forest Service new tools to treat areas in need of restoration and 
mitigation. This bill makes commonsense reforms, reduces the deficit, 
and will bring certainty and continued prosperity to rural America. It 
passed the House last week with broad bipartisan support.
  I strongly urge a ``yes'' vote when we vote on the farm bill 
conference report later today. With all the uncertainty our farmers and 
ranchers are facing in these tough times, in these drought times, it is 
the least we can do.

[[Page 2461]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from 
Colorado for his words about the farm bill. He and I are an example of 
how this bill is important to every region of the country. His kind of 
farming is very different than our kind of farming, but they are 
equally important to our States.
  I rise to talk about the farm bill. This bill is a long time coming. 
There has been back-and-forth between the two Chambers, the House and 
Senate, and between various regions, probably most famous, South versus 
Midwest farming, but that is not the only one--different types of crops 
and different types of farm products. It may be sugar, milk, soybeans 
or corn. Who knows what it is going to be.
  Nonetheless, I am happy to report that finally this bill overcame the 
partisan gridlock we have seen in Washington. I am sorry it took so 
long. I know last year the House basically blew up this bill on kind of 
``my way or the highway'' politics. I thought that was very 
unfortunate. But here we are with a bipartisan farm bill, one that got 
a huge vote in the House and I hope will get a huge vote in the Senate.
  I am glad this cut, cut, cut ideology did not prevail, because when 
we look at this bill and how important it is, not just to my State but 
to every State in the Union and so important to the U.S. economy--this 
bill is very important to the Nation's economy and to the future of our 
Nation.
  Agriculture is something we do in this country better than anybody 
else in the world. We do a lot of things great in this country, and we 
should be proud of those, but no one does agriculture better than the 
good old United States of America. Our farmers, our producers, our 
agribusiness do incredible work. We literally are the envy of the 
world. It is a core strength of the U.S. economy.
  It is critical to keeping our Nation's economy strong that we have a 
strong agricultural sector. It is critical to our Nation that we have 
strong rural communities and to a large extent--not completely but a 
lot of what this bill is about is helping rural communities.
  Not everyone in this country lives in the big cities or lives in the 
suburbs. This bill will help every American in lots of ways, no matter 
where they live, whether they live in the biggest city in the country 
or the smallest town out in the countryside. But it will also help 
millions and millions of hard-working people and their families in 
rural America. Why in the world would we want to let ideological fights 
and partisan bickering jeopardize this economic powerhouse we built for 
ourselves? Nonetheless, today we have overcome that.
  This legislation is a win-win for everyone. We have seen Democrats 
and Republicans from all regions of the country come to the floor to 
talk about this farm bill, why it is important to them and why it is 
important that it pass.
  Just a few of the provisions in there:
  There are market protections for our farmers and ranchers all over 
the country.
  The PILT Program is so critical to a number of western States but 
certainly a number of our counties in Arkansas. We have counties in our 
State where literally half or more of their land is Federal. They can't 
get any tax base off of it, so PILT helps to fix that.
  The Catfish Inspection Program. We don't subsidize catfish, but we 
have the inspection program to make sure imported catfish meet U.S. 
standards. This is critical. We want a safe and good food supply. There 
is a big emphasis on exports. We all know we have a terrible trade 
deficit. Our trade deficit would be horrendous if it wasn't for 
agriculture.
  Of course, there is nutritional assistance for hard-working families 
in this country. We have the richest, most bountiful, most blessed 
Nation in the history of the world, and we have people who are hungry. 
These nutrition programs in many cases are the difference between life 
and death.
  This bill also focuses on conservation. Not everyone is a farmer, but 
there are millions of people all over this country who love to enjoy 
the great outdoors. They like to go hunting, they like to go fishing, 
and other activities. Conservation programs are critical to keep 
habitat where it is and critical for large sections of our economy. 
Hunting and fishing is a huge part of our economy, not just in Arkansas 
but all over the country.
  The rural development programs are essential for rural America. We 
know there is everything from wastewater programs in here to rural 
housing, to all kinds of programs. But rural development programs are 
critical for the quality of life in rural America.
  I am the first to say this bill isn't perfect. I think all of us 
agree this is a series of compromises. There are probably things each 
one of us would do differently if we could change a provision or two in 
the bill, but it is a good bill. It is going to provide and stabilize 
good jobs and economic security for our country.
  Our agricultural producers not only feed us and clothe us, but they 
feed and clothe the world. In the Senate we hear every day from the 
business community. They want more certainty. They want more stability. 
This bill provides that in the agricultural economy. Our farmers, 
producers, and others deserve that same certainty and stability, and 
this bill provides that.
  In closing, I would read a quick passage from James 5:7. I was going 
to read it from King James, but I will paraphrase it. Be patient, 
therefore, brothers . . . see how the farmer waits for the precious 
fruit of the Earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early 
and late rains.
  Our agricultural producers have been patient long enough. They have 
waited and waited and waited on this legislation. I sincerely hope all 
of us will give this bill strong consideration. This bill provides good 
common ground. It provides economic security. It continues the safe and 
abundant food supply that we have in this Nation.
  I hope Members on both sides of the aisle will join me in voting yes 
for this conference report today.
  I yield the floor.


                          Milk Pricing Formula

  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Michigan, her 
committee and staff for their tireless work that has brought this farm 
bill to fruition. Further, I greatly appreciate the Senator's 
willingness to discuss an issue that is absolutely critical for dairy 
farmers in the Northeast: prehearings to review the Federal pricing 
formula for class III and class IV milk.
  Ms. STABENOW. I want to thank the Senator from Maine. This 
legislation addresses many aspects of agriculture including dairy. 
During our deliberations we heard clearly from various dairy 
stakeholders who argued that the class III and class IV milk product 
pricing systems are outdated and not responsive to the needs of 
producers or consumers.
  Mr. KING. The senior Senator from Maine and the junior Senator from 
New York authored the provision included in the Senate farm bill which 
required USDA to address the pricing formula for class III and class IV 
milk through a public, transparent prehearing process. Their work has 
been essential in moving this conversation forward.
  As the Senator from Michigan well knows, milk pricing policy is a 
complex, convoluted, and controversial business and challenging to 
handle in a package such as the farm bill. Does the Senator believe 
that the USDA, which is charged with stabilizing farm income; 
conserving soil, water, and other natural resources, and ensuring the 
availability and quality of food and fiber products, should provide an 
opportunity for a thoughtful, balanced process for addressing essential 
dairy pricing structure?
  Ms. STABENOW. Yes, the USDA has the economists and experts that can 
analyze various alternatives to the current system of pricing milk--and 
if the system is not working well for most of the players in the dairy 
industry, especially the farmers, the Department should make changes. A 
public, thoughtful and thorough discussion of those alternatives needs 
to take place,

[[Page 2462]]

guided by nonbiased people who are focused on the goal of creating the 
best policy.
  Mr. KING. I thank the Senator for her response. The dairy producers 
in Maine have told me that they believe that it will take just such a 
thorough review of proposals from interested parties, to help address 
concerns from industry, assist with the stabilization of the price of 
milk and provide greater certainty for dairy producers.
  Does the Senator agree that the Secretary has the authority and 
ability to conduct a prehearing procedure to consider alternative 
pricing formulas for class III and class IV milk products?
  Ms. STABENOW. Yes, I believe that not only does the Secretary have 
the authority to act upon a petition, but as was said earlier, the USDA 
has the ability to conduct a thoroughly researched prehearing procedure 
to consider alternative pricing formulas for class III and class IV 
milk products and that would be welcomed by the Senate Agriculture 
Committee.
  Mr. KING. I understand that the Dairy Industry Advisory Committee has 
recommended that the Secretary take such action and review interested 
party proposals to address class III and class IV pricing formula 
changes in a participatory and transparent manner.
  Ms. STABENOW. Yes, that is correct; the Dairy Industry Advisory 
Committee has recommended such action. Further, I believe that a study 
of pricing alternatives, followed by a rigorous prehearing process, 
would cut to the heart of the issue. This would not only clear the air 
on many of the disagreements that plagued the farm bill debates but 
might even reduce the reliance on temporary stopgap government supports 
through better financial connections for all sectors of the dairy 
industry with the consumer value of dairy products.
  Mr. KING. The dairy producers that I have spoken with are calling on 
the USDA Secretary to undertake a study of alternatives and to agree to 
hold prehearings on such alternatives as a basic component of the 
USDA's fundamental mission to the dairy industry. They believe it is 
time for Congress to direct the USDA to take the bull by the horns and 
to ensure that all regions of the United States can sustain viable 
dairy sectors and meet local, national and international demand for 
high quality U.S. dairy products.
  Ms. STABENOW. I am happy to assist dairy farmers in their efforts and 
will contact the Secretary to ask that he take action on a prehearing 
request.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, today, I will vote nay on the Agricultural 
Act of 2014, also known as the farm bill.
  Florida's economy and the livelihoods of many family-owned businesses 
and workers rely on a vibrant agricultural industry. Unfortunately, 
this farm bill goes far beyond agricultural programs and includes 
antipoverty programs and renewable energy programs, among other 
spending measures that total nearly $1 trillion.
  With Washington facing a $17 trillion debt and another debt ceiling 
increase in a few weeks, this bill does not undertake any fundamental 
reforms to ensure every taxpayer dollar is being properly spent to 
secure our Nation's food supply instead of needlessly growing 
government or continuing the status quo on programs that need reform.
  For example, Food Stamp Programs are an important part of our safety 
net, but we should have a separate debate on these and other 
antipoverty programs with the goal of empowering States to better 
design these programs to help their people escape poverty.
  While energy innovation is an important debate and will be a key 
economic growth driver in the 21st century, we should be discussing 
renewable energy and biofuels programs in the context of energy policy, 
not lumping them in to this bill that is supposed to be about securing 
our Nation's food supply.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, today we will pass the final conference 
report for the farm bill, called the Federal Agriculture Reform and 
Risk Management Act of 2013. This important bipartisan bill protects 
jobs and identifies new reforms that will ensure the long-term success 
of our Nation's agricultural industry. I would like to thank Chairman 
Stabenow for her leadership and commitment to getting this bill passed. 
In addition, I would like to thank Senator Cochran for his work on this 
bipartisan bill.
  The U.S. citrus industry is facing a devastating disease called 
greening, for which we know no cure and which kills the citrus tree 
within 5 years. The disease is spread by an insect called the Asian 
citrus psyllid. Citrus greening spreads quickly and, because of its 
dormancy period, has often already destroyed surrounding groves once it 
has been discovered.
  In a 2012 report, University of Florida researchers found that the 
disease cost Florida's economy $4.5 billion and 8,000 jobs between 2006 
and 2012. Florida was ground zero, but the disease is spreading to 
every citrus-producing State, including Texas, California, and Arizona. 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has already affirmed this emergency 
with the citrus quarantine for Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Hawaii, 
Louisiana, and Mississippi as well as parts of California, South 
Carolina, and Arizona in October 2012. If we don't do something, soon 
we won't have a domestic citrus industry.
  The farm bill sets up a new research initiative especially for the 
citrus industry within the existing Special Crop Research Initiative, 
which is called the Citrus Disease Research and Extension Program. The 
primary goal of this program is to help fund research to find a cure to 
citrus greening and save the U.S. citrus industry.
  The new Citrus Disease Research and Extension Program will ensure the 
close collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the 
citrus industry stakeholders, and the relevant entities engaged in 
scientific research under this program. The farm bill directs the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture to consult closely and regularly with the 
industry stakeholders in the formulation, consideration, and approval 
of research projects and grants performed under this program and will 
give great weight to input from these stakeholders. This close 
coordination will ensure the research program will advance the research 
for citrus greening and other threats to the U.S. citrus industry.
  Because of the devastating nature of the citrus greening disease, I 
worked to make sure the citrus program established guaranteed funding 
in the farm bill. Senator Stabenow agreed and worked with other members 
of the farm bill conference to include $125 million in mandatory 
funding for the citrus research program. Money in this grant program 
will go toward scientific research aimed at addressing diseases, 
domestic and invasive pests, and other challenges to the U.S. citrus 
industry, helping to also disseminate the research findings to growers.
  In this age of economic uncertainty, Congress should be doing 
everything it can to improve our economic situation. In this case, we 
are doing just that by saving an industry that is vital to not only 
Florida's economy but to Texas, California, Louisiana, Alabama, 
Arizona, Georgia, and the Nation as a whole.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, while this is far from a perfect bill, I 
am pleased that the Senate will pass the Agriculture Act of 2014. This 
legislation--a result of more than 2 years of deliberation--reaches a 
compromise that protects small farmers, fights hunger, and saves 
taxpayers more than $16 billion.
  I thank Chairwoman Stabenow and Ranking Member Cochran, along with 
leaders in the House of Representatives, for their hard work in 
reaching this agreement.
  This year's farm bill makes targeted investments in our Nation's 
agricultural and nutrition sectors while eliminating some of the 
wasteful subsidies that cost taxpayers billions of dollars. The bill 
supports our rural economies and helps protect our farmland and forests 
for generations to come. And it makes historic investments in fruit and 
vegetable farming and in organic agriculture.
  During negotiations on this bill, I worked with Chairwoman Stabenow 
and Senator Leahy to ensure that new dairy programs will adequately 
protect New Hampshire's small farms, which

[[Page 2463]]

are struggling to deal with high feed costs and volatility in milk 
prices. I am hopeful that the new dairy program will provide stability 
for New Hampshire's dairies and create an environment in which these 
family-owned businesses that are so important to our State's economy 
can grow and thrive.
  I am particularly pleased that the conference report includes 
language nearly identical to my bipartisan legislation, the Oilheat 
Efficiency, Renewable Fuel Research and Jobs Training Act.
  This important provision will reauthorize the widely supported 
National Oilheat Research Alliance, NORA, the oilheat industry's 
national program for research and development, consumer education and 
technical training. It will allow the industry to continue funding 
vital national oilheat efforts for 5 years--at no cost to local, State 
or Federal governments.
  Consumers will benefit from the development of improved and efficient 
equipment, increased safety through technical training, and the 
availability of up-to-date information regarding safety practices and 
fuel conservation. Importantly, these objectives will be achieved 
without raising consumer costs. NORA provides a direct path for 
responsible, domestically produced and efficient energy consumption 
without raising consumer costs. Its inclusion in the farm bill is good 
for consumers, American businesses, and the environment and will 
provide tangible value for the country for many years to come.
  I also thank Chairwoman Stabenow and Senator Wyden for working with 
me to preserve the Environmental Protection Agency's treatment of 
regulating forest roads as nonpoint sources through State-adopted best-
management practices. This approach will allow for the continued 
sustainable development of working forests in New Hampshire.
  In New Hampshire, more than 100,000 people rely on the Supplemental 
Nutrition Assistance Program each month to keep from going hungry. The 
farm bill reauthorizes SNAP and other critical programs that help 
millions of American families put food on the table. The bill also 
contains important reforms that will provide food for our Nation's food 
banks and improve low-income Americans' access to fruits and vegetables 
and other healthy foods.
  The legislation also improves consumer access to local foods with 
increased funding for farmers' markets. In recent years, interest in 
supporting local agriculture has grown significantly. New Hampshire 
currently has more than 70 farmers markets across the State, with 
nearly 30 open through the winter. Americans want to know where their 
food comes from, and farmers want to be able to sell their products in 
their communities.
  The farm bill significantly increases funding for programs that 
support small and beginning farmers, including greater support for 
grant programs that enable small farmers to invest in improving the 
value of their products.
  One dairy farmer from Landaff, NH, accessed these programs to help 
her grow her cheese-making business. Because of the grant, she was able 
to hire two full-time employees and several part-time employees, and 
her second-generation farm now sells award-winning cheeses in stores 
and restaurants around the country. These are the kind of job-creating 
investments we need to be making in rural America.
  However, while the legislation implements some reforms to subsidy 
programs that will save taxpayer dollars, it does not go far enough in 
cutting wasteful spending.
  Senator McCain and I worked to repeal a duplicative catfish 
inspection program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has 
already cost taxpayers $20 million over the past 5 years and has yet to 
inspect a single fish. Unfortunately, this bill does nothing to end 
this unnecessary and wasteful program.
  I am also disappointed that this bill continues the Federal Sugar 
Program with no changes. Taxpayers were forced to pay nearly $300 
million last year to bail out the sugar industry, in addition to the 
$14 billion this wasteful program has cost consumers and businesses 
over the past 5 years. The high price supports and strict trade 
restrictions continued with no reform in this bill will ensure that 
sugar remains the most tightly controlled commodity in America.
  This bill also continues the wasteful practice of providing subsidies 
to large and wealthy farm businesses with no meaningful payment limits. 
Some programs in the bill will allow huge farming operations to receive 
unlimited subsidies, and the new crop insurance program includes no 
individual caps or means testing requirements.
  The Senate-passed bill would have reduced subsidy payments for the 
wealthiest farmers, but this provision was removed from the final 
conference report. And there was no consideration of implementing a 
provision I offered with Senator Toomey to place a reasonable cap on 
crop insurance subsidies that would have saved taxpayers $3.4 billion 
over the next 10 years.
  As we confront our Federal debt and deficit and as millions of 
families across the country are tightening their belts, we cannot 
justify unlimited subsidies for wealthy farmers and giant 
agribusinesses.
  While I will continue working to end wasteful farm bill programs and 
protect taxpayers, I support this legislation because it supports New 
Hampshire farmers and our State's rural communities, reduces the 
deficit, invests in healthy foods, and helps prevent low-income 
Americans from going hungry.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, reauthorization of the farm bill presented 
an opportunity to make much needed changes in our agriculture policy to 
rein in taxpayer subsidies for big agribusiness, support the growth of 
small farms and local food systems, and ensure that our constituents in 
need do not go hungry. Unfortunately, despite the extraordinary efforts 
of Chairwoman Stabenow, the reforms included in the bill before us 
today fall much too short.
  Most troubling is that the bill cuts more than $8 billion from the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. I cannot support reducing 
hunger assistance for the most vulnerable Americans while creating new 
crop insurance programs, increasing crop insurance spending by $5.7 
billion, and continuing to subsidize the wealthiest farmers. As such, I 
will oppose this bill.
  The nutrition cuts are particularly challenging in my State, where 
roughly 1 in 6 Rhode Islanders receive SNAP benefits--a reflection of 
the challenging economic times in our State, where the unemployment 
rate remains above 9 percent, the highest in the country. According to 
a survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 15 percent of 
Rhode Islanders are food insecure, meaning they do not always know 
where they will find their next meal and thus are at risk of hunger. 
And this number has grown over the last 5 years, from 58,000 households 
to more than 66,500 today. Many local food banks like the Rhode Island 
Community Food Bank--are struggling to keep pace as the need for food 
assistance grows. The SNAP cuts in this bill cannot be easily made up 
by food banks and other charitable organizations even with increased 
funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program.
  While the conference agreement does not include the far more damaging 
policy changes proposed by the House, it will reduce benefits for about 
850,000 low-income households by an average of $90 a month, according 
to the Congressional Budget Office. This is on top of the across-the-
board cut that hit all SNAP households last November when the benefit 
boost under the 2009 Recovery Act expired. When these cuts went into 
effect, families of 4 lost an average of $36 a month, while single-
person households lost an average of $11. Without the Recovery Act 
boost, SNAP benefits will average less than $1.40 per person per meal 
in 2014. Now we are asking some of our most vulnerable constituents to 
get by with even less--all while growing the safety net for the 
wealthiest farmers and the crop insurance industry. This is 
unacceptable.
  As I noted, these remain trying economic times, with many Americans 
still struggling to find work or working

[[Page 2464]]

low-wage jobs that do not provide the resources necessary to meet basic 
needs like food. This is not the time to cut a lifeline benefit like 
SNAP. I am deeply disappointed that some of the savings generated in 
this bill were not reinvested into SNAP to help meet the need for food 
assistance across this country.
  Unfortunately, the conference agreement also maintains the 
duplicative USDA catfish program--a program that both the House and the 
Senate have voted to repeal, the Government Accountability Office has 
called wasteful, and the administration proposed defunding in its 
fiscal year 2014 budget. This program would require seafood processors 
to comply with USDA regulations for catfish while the FDA would 
continue to oversee inspections for all other seafood. According to the 
GAO, repealing this program would avoid duplication of Federal programs 
and save taxpayers millions of dollars annually. We should be finding 
ways to make government processes more efficient, not less.
  While I am unable to support the conference report because of the 
deep cuts to SNAP and inadequate reforms to crop insurance and farm 
subsidy payments, I would like to acknowledge several provisions in 
this bill, including several that will support the development of local 
and regional food systems and improve the affordability of and access 
to fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income families. I am 
particularly pleased that the bill includes many measures from a bill 
that I cosponsored, Senator Brown's Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act, 
that will increase funding for specialty crop block grants to support 
research and promotion of fruits, vegetables, and other specialty 
crops. Another measure is the enhancement of the Farmers Market and 
Local Food Promotion Program to aid direct producer-to-consumer 
marketing channels and local food sales to retailers and institutions.
  The bill also allows Community Supported Agriculture operations to 
redeem SNAP benefits and creates Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive 
grants, providing $100 million over 5 years for a national pilot to 
incentivize the purchase of fruits and vegetables at farmers markets by 
SNAP participants. A similar program has already been successfully 
implemented in Rhode Island. Farm Fresh Rhode Island runs the ``Bonus 
Bucks'' program where every $5 in SNAP benefits spent at a farmers 
market allows low-income individuals to receive an additional $2 to 
spend on fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, fish, meats, and cheeses 
produced by local farmers and fishermen. Within the first year that 
``Bonus Bucks'' was implemented, Farm Fresh Rhode Island saw a 675 
percent increase in the amount of SNAP spent at their markets. In 2013, 
22 Rhode Island farmers markets up from 8 in 2008, have booths that can 
accept EBT cards.
  It is exciting to see the ingenuity of our States replicated at the 
national level in ways to help ensure that low-income families have 
access to nutritious local foods. These types of programs also help 
grow local food economies by encouraging purchases from local 
producers. A win-win.
  The bill also makes several changes to enhance and promote 
conservation. Requiring farmers to comply with conservation practices 
in order to receive taxpayer-supported subsidies on crop insurance will 
help further the conservation of natural resources and ensure that our 
farmers remain good stewards of the land.
  Thankfully, the conferees rejected a harmful amendment included in 
the House bill that would have had far-reaching consequences by 
prohibiting States from regulating agricultural products within their 
jurisdiction. This bill also makes it a federal crime to attend or 
bring a child under the age of 16 to an animal fighting event--a 
slightly modified version of a bill I cosponsored that was introduced 
by Senator Blumenthal.
  The conference report also includes legislation to reauthorize the 
National Oilheat Research Alliance, NORA. I have cosponsored bills to 
reauthorize this program during the last several Congresses and am glad 
it will now become law. NORA seeks to strengthen and improve the oil 
heating industry through education and training and improving home 
heating efficiency. With more than 1 in 3 Rhode Islanders dependent on 
fuel oil to heat their homes this winter and heating oil prices on the 
rise, it is important to reauthorize NORA.
  While Chairwoman Stabenow's efforts helped to ensure some positive 
provisions and reforms, the bill simply does not go far enough. It 
wisely eliminates direct payments but restores some of those cuts by 
creating new crop insurance programs, while not going far enough to 
limit commodity and crop insurance subsidy payouts. The bill does not 
even include an amendment that I cosponsored and was passed in the 
Senate to set income limitations for crop insurance making a very 
modest 5 percent reduction for farmers making over $750,000 annually.
  We must do more to ensure that farm subsidies are available to the 
small and medium-sized farms that need it most and rein in the taxpayer 
subsidies to large, wealthy farming operations. And we certainly should 
not be paying for expensive farm programs by cutting SNAP, thereby 
placing additional burdens on those who are struggling to make ends 
meet.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the bipartisan farm 
bill conference agreement before us today. This 5 year bill provides 
certainty to both the producer and the consumer. It's a jobs bill 
supporting 16 million jobs across the Nation. It also is a reform bill 
that cracks down on fraud and abuse and ends direct payments.
  Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Maryland. We have 12,800 farms 
and 350,000 Marylanders employed in the industry. Poultry is Maryland's 
largest agricultural industry followed by nursery grown plants and 
dairy.
  Maryland's Eastern Shore is home to a $1.4 billion poultry industry 
responsible for over 5,000 jobs. There are nearly 1,000 chicken farms 
and three processing plants. In fact, one in seven jobs on the Eastern 
Shore is poultry related.
  For poultry growers, this bill continues the supplemental agriculture 
insurance assistance which provides disaster aid. This program lapsed 
in 2011, and this bill makes the program retroactive to 2012. This 
means Maryland's chicken farmers will continue to get disaster 
payments. The bill also continues to allow farm operating loans for 
poultry growers who do not qualify for operating credit at other 
lenders.
  This farm bill requires country-of-origin labeling, which I have long 
supported. Every consumer has the right to know where their food comes 
from on their dinner table. I acknowledge there are some in the poultry 
industry that oppose these requirements. I think it is the right thing 
to do.
  For Maryland's 500 dairy farms, the bill creates two new price and 
income support programs. The Dairy Production Margin Protection Program 
takes into consideration the high price of feed costs. This is a first 
for dairy programs and a win for dairy farmers struggling to survive 
with escalating variable and fixed operation costs. The premium cost to 
participate in this program will be very low for Maryland's small dairy 
farmers. The Dairy Production Donation Program will guarantee a profit 
for dairy farmers when the market becomes over saturated.
  This legislation is important to the Chesapeake Bay conservation 
efforts. It includes the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, a 
new competitive program. The bill provides $100 million annually for 
this program. The Bay Watershed will compete with eight other regions 
for these critical conservation dollars. This bill also ties farmers' 
conservation compliance to crop insurance. This means if your land is 
not compliant, you will not receive a premium subsidy.
  For sugar producers and refineries, the bill continues the existing 
Sugar Program. The U.S. Sugar Program supports over 140,000 American 
jobs, including 500 jobs at Domino Sugar located at the Port of 
Baltimore. Significant reforms to this program will put these jobs at 
risk and they may be shipped overseas.

[[Page 2465]]

  This bill helps Maryland's growing specialty crop and organic farmers 
by gradually increasing specialty crops block grants from $55 million a 
year in 2014 to $85 million in 2018. Maryland receives more than $1.7 
million from this program. The bill also increases organic research 
funding to assist farmers transitioning to organics.
  The bill makes modest reforms to the food aid program following a 
similar path as the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014. I support 
the reforms in the bill and believe this is another step in the right 
direction to allow more locally purchased food.
  Finally, I would like to address food stamps, now called SNAP. I am 
for food stamps and always will be. We have approximately 800,000 
Marylanders receiving food stamp benefits. In November, I visited the 
Maryland Food Bank with my House Democratic colleagues. We announced 
that we were standing up for SNAP and opposing the House's harmful cuts 
to the program.
  During my visit, I met Tracey Coleman, a hard-working Marylander 
whose husband was laid off through no fault of his own when the steel 
plant in Baltimore closed last year. Tracey has three kids, including a 
daughter with special needs. She shouldn't have to choose between her 
son's asthma medication and a family meal. Tracey had nowhere else to 
turn. She signed up for SNAP benefits to keep food on the dinner table 
for her family.
  I personally thank Senator Stabenow for working so hard to protect 
SNAP families in this bill. She fought off the House Republicans that 
wanted to gut the program, cutting $40 billion from SNAP and axing SNAP 
benefits for 4 million people, including putting 77,000 Marylanders at 
risk. I am happy to report no American will lose their benefits under 
this bill--not one. Most important to me, no Marylander will see their 
benefits reduced from the reforms in this bill.
  I know some of my colleagues are going to vote against the bill 
because of the changes to the standard utility allowance calculation 
that will reduce benefits for their constituents. I understand. But 
what we all have to understand is that a compromise is a compromise and 
Senator Stabenow fended off the worst. I was recently in her shoes 
negotiating the appropriations bill with the House. It is tough.
  I commend Senators Stabenow and Cochran for their hard work on this 
bill. I urge all my colleagues to support this bill. It is good news 
for American farmers and consumers.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today I will support final passage of the 
conference report of the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management 
Act of 2013. The conference report is particularly important to my home 
State of Michigan, where agriculture, the State's second-largest 
industry, supports one in four jobs.
  While the legislation presented contains many laudable provisions, I 
am deeply disappointed that the final conference report includes cuts 
to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP. SNAP benefits 
provide nutrition assistance to millions of families. It is distressing 
that we are reducing food stamp support for those families.
  While I oppose the SNAP cuts, the positives of this legislation are 
important enough that it deserves support. I applaud the work of my 
colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, whose leadership as the 
chair of the Agriculture Committee helped craft this important 
compromise. This legislation makes critical reforms, reduces our 
deficit, and brings certainty to farmers and business owners.
  This legislation is more than just a farm bill. This legislation 
covers conservation, nutrition assistance, crop insurance, 
international food aid, forestry and so much more.
  This legislation makes significant modifications to help farmers 
better manage their risk by eliminating direct payments to farmers and 
replacing it with two new risk management programs. This will ensure 
farmers receive support only when there is a drop in farmers' income. 
This legislation also creates a new and voluntary insurance program to 
protect dairy farmers from losses. It also includes valuable reforms to 
disaster assistance. Of note is the creation of a permanent livestock 
disaster assistance program and retroactive coverage for orchardists 
and nursery growers who have recently been affected by droughts and 
winter storms.
  Importantly, this legislation also strengthens agriculture research 
programs, such as the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. This 
investment in specialty crops is vital to Michigan, which leads the 
nation in growing a wide variety of specialty crops including tart 
cherries, blueberries, cucumbers, dry black and red beans, and 
cranberries.
  I am pleased the conference agreement retains important conservation 
provisions that will help protect our water and air quality, restore 
fish and wildlife habitat, and improve flood control. The agreement 
consolidates 23 existing conservation programs into 13 programs which 
should streamline implementation. Further, conservation compliance is 
tied to crop insurance, which should ensure that basic conservation 
practices are implemented more broadly. Conservation provisions in the 
farm bill will help prevent soil erosion, reduce water runoff and 
pollution, and shift production away from sensitive lands. In addition, 
the conference agreement retains the Regional Conservation Partnership 
Program, which should benefit Great Lakes water quality and improve 
fish and wildlife habitat.
  The bill also includes a 1-year extension of the Payments in Lieu of 
Taxes--PILT--Program, which provides funding to rural communities to 
help offset losses in property taxes due to nontaxable Federal lands 
within their boundaries. Each year, Michigan typically receives about 
$2.5 million under PILT, funding that is vital for providing essential 
services such as education, law enforcement, and emergency response.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I too rise to speak on the farm bill.
  Similar to many Nebraskans, I am relieved that a final conference 
agreement has been reached and will provide much needed certainty for 
both producers and consumers. This legislation accomplishes a great 
deal. It provides risk management and disaster assistance programs. It 
promotes environmental stewardship. It bolsters export opportunities. 
It encourages rural development, advances research, helps beginning 
farmers and ranchers, and delivers nutrition assistance to our needy 
families.
  While the bill is not perfect, it is the result of compromise and a 
long collaborative legislative process.
  One of the most challenging issues for lawmakers was addressing 
nutrition assistance programs, which comprise 80 percent of the farm 
bill's total spending. With one in every seven Americans receiving 
supplemental nutrition assistance, it is important to strengthen the 
program's integrity and its accountability, while better targeting 
programs to serve those in need.
  I am also pleased the bill empowers States to help capable adults 
enroll in work programs to reduce reliance on taxpayer assistance. The 
bill provides tools to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, including 
cracking down on trafficking through data mining, terminal ID, and 
other measures.
  While these are all steps in the right direction, it is disappointing 
that the bill will not achieve additional savings from nutrition 
programs, which are projected to cost more than $756 billion over the 
next decade.
  True farm programs--the commodity programs and crop insurance--only 
comprise about 14 percent of all of the farm bill spending, but they 
account for more than half of the savings under this proposed bill. In 
fact, the commodity title contributes more savings than any other title 
in the entire farm bill.
  The legislation makes significant reforms to farm policy. Direct 
payments are repealed and replaced with risk management that offers 
protection only when warranted by significant price or revenue 
declines. In Nebraska, agriculture is our No. 1 industry, and it is one 
of which we are very proud. Our farmers and ranchers take on an 
enormous amount of risk. They endure the

[[Page 2466]]

elements every day as they work to feed the world and responsibly take 
care of our natural resources.
  I am pleased this farm bill maintains and strengthens one of the most 
important risk management tools for our farmers, and that is crop 
insurance. This is a very successful public-private partnership that 
helps farmers invest in their own risk management by purchasing 
insurance policies so they are protected from adverse weather or market 
conditions.
  This legislation also provides needed disaster assistance to 
livestock producers. Unfortunately, the Livestock Forage Program and 
the Livestock Indemnity Program both expired in 2011 under the last 
farm bill. In 2012, livestock producers experienced the most 
devastating loss of pasture, rangeland, and forage in decades due to 
widespread drought, affecting approximately 80 percent of our country.
  Then, in October of 2013, an unexpected early fall blizzard killed 
more than 20,000 cattle, sheep, horses, and bison in the Dakotas and in 
my State of Nebraska. While those affected by these hardships have been 
without assistance for more than 2 years, this farm bill will now help 
producers to rebuild those herds and sustain their ranching operations.
  I also appreciate that this farm bill continues our commitment to 
strong conservation programs. The bill consolidates and streamlines 
those programs, providing landowners with incentives and assistance to 
protect and improve our land, our water, and our air.
  Agriculture continues to be a bright spot for U.S. trade, thanks in 
part to the successful export promotion programs, and those are 
reauthorized in this bill as well. An independent study conducted for 
USDA in 2010 found that for every dollar expended by government and 
industry on market development, U.S. food and agricultural exports 
increased by $35. Through the Market Access Program and the Foreign 
Market Development Program, we can expect increased demand for U.S.-
grown agricultural products and commodities.
  This farm bill also continues investment in rural development, 
providing assistance to communities to build that very critical 
infrastructure and access to credit to help grow small businesses.
  Also supported by this farm bill are critical agricultural research 
initiatives which allow American producers to innovate, to become more 
efficient and productive with fewer and fewer resources. Moreover, the 
bill also provides support for developing technologies that reduce our 
dependence on foreign oil.
  Finally, this bill provides some needed regulatory relief for the 
agricultural industry. I am very pleased the bill includes an amendment 
I offered to fix bureaucratic hurdles impacting farmers' access to 
seeds. This bipartisan amendment, cosponsored by Senator Carper, 
ensures that EPA does not treat biotech seeds as pesticides when those 
shipments are imported.
  I was disappointed, though, that the conference did not include 
language to address one of the worst regulatory challenges confronting 
farmers: EPA's overregulation of on-farm fuel storage under its Spill 
Prevention Control and Countermeasure Program.
  The House farm bill included an SPCC relief provision, and the Senate 
unanimously passed a similar amendment which I cosponsored to reduce 
farmers' SPCC compliance burdens during consideration of the Water 
Resources Development Act. There is bipartisan agreement on both sides 
of the dome that this regulation needs to be fixed. The farm bill did 
provide the perfect opportunity for getting this relief enacted into 
law, but that chance was missed. However, I stand ready to work with my 
colleagues to ensure we don't miss another opportunity to address this 
issue--to fix this issue--and we can do that during the WRDA 
conference.
  As I said, this bill is not perfect, but on balance this farm bill 
goes a long way in promoting opportunity and providing certainty for 
both producers and consumers. I encourage my colleagues to join me in 
supporting the final passage of the farm bill.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor for the third time 
to express my opposition to the farm bill--obviously not in total, but 
to certain provisions of it, particularly provisions I had a hand in 
writing--and to set the record straight, once again.
  I come here because several of my colleagues have approached me 
indicating confusion on whether the payment limits provisions I fought 
for are in this bill or not in this bill. People are going to tell 
colleagues there are payment limitations in this bill, but I am here to 
set the record straight with facts. They don't accomplish what I tried 
to accomplish, and they are even much more liberal than in existing law 
in regard to my amendment.
  My original payment limit provisions included a $50,000 individual/
$100,000 married couple cap for the shallow loss programs shown as 
Price Loss Coverage--PLC--and the Agricultural Risk Coverage--ARC--
programs. In this bill farmers will have to pick one of those programs 
for the next 5 years.
  The conference report allows individual farmers to get $125,000 and 
married couples to get $250,000 from the PLC and the ARC programs.
  This is where this has really exploded because what I just referenced 
is a 150-percent increase over what my limits allowed--the limits that 
passed the Senate without discussion and limits adopted in the House of 
Representatives on a 230-to-194 vote. That is just a plain, simple 
fact--a 150-percent increase over what my limits allowed. The 
conference report allows the PLC and ARC programs to pay out 150 
percent more than my limits did.
  This intentional change by the conference committee allows each 
farmer to get significantly more from these new countercyclical 
programs that are not even World Trade Organization--or, as we say 
around here, WTO--compliant.
  Another way of looking at this, under the 2008 farm bill, an 
individual farmer could only get $65,000 from the countercyclical 
program. Under this bill, they can get $125,000 from the 
countercyclical program. That means they almost doubled what the 
countercyclical program will pay out compared to current law.
  Furthermore, some university analysis has already shown the high 
target prices for certain crops in this bill will likely have a 70- to 
80-percent chance of triggering payments through the PLC program any 
given year of this farm bill.
  So, I say to my colleagues, please don't buy what my opponents are 
selling on this issue, or at least trying to sell. My payment limits 
are not in this bill. The result of that is going to be a 
countercyclical program that will be much more market-distorting than 
the current ones for a few crops. How can it not be more distorting? 
The PLC program is designed to trigger more often and pay out larger 
amounts than the old countercyclical program for certain crops in the 
2008 farm bill.
  That is just a plain, simple fact. I am sorry if proponents are 
having a tough time acknowledging that publicly, but that is what this 
bill actually does. Their bill does lots of things, but brilliantly 
reforming Title I is not one of them.
  I am sure we have been told that this bill reforms. It is like some 
of the opponents of payment limits still thinking this is 1975 or some 
year back then. Back then, the national debt was still measured in 
billions and the WTO didn't even exist. Unfortunately for them, things 
are very different today. Recently, the WTO declared our cotton program 
noncompliant, and we happen to have a $17 trillion national debt. But 
worse than this, I say to my colleagues, is the fact that these 
amendments were adopted on the floor of the Senate, and they were 
adopted in the House of Representatives by a 230-to-194 vote. They 
should not have even been subject to negotiations.
  The moral authority of the people of the United States was behind 
what both Houses did. Because we have a $17 trillion national debt, we 
ought to be

[[Page 2467]]

able to save this $387 million that this amendment would have saved. It 
had the moral authority of a majority of the House and the Senate, 
which moral authority should not have been overridden by a handful of 
people sitting in conference.
  I stress this latter point for one simple reason: Rule XXVIII of the 
Senate says if things are the same in both Houses, they should not be 
conferenceable. I say this to my friends, not that this bill is going 
to go down to defeat and we start over again and maybe accomplish what 
I want to accomplish, but to make sure other conferences do not abuse 
the Senate rule like this conference abused the Senate rule; and also 
to tell my colleagues here that, both working with what rules maybe we 
can get through the U.S. Department of Agriculture or on some other 
piece of legislation, I intend to pursue these goals that I sought, and 
I intend to keep reminding my colleagues of Senate rules being violated 
by conferees that should not have been violated.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the 
many ways ObamaCare continues to negatively affect Americans.
  Yesterday, the Washington Post published an article exposing yet 
another problem with healthcare.gov. I would like to share a couple of 
excerpts from that article. The article begins:

       Tens of thousands of people who discovered that 
     HealthCare.gov made mistakes as they were signing up for a 
     health plan are confronting a new roadblock: The government 
     cannot yet fix the errors. Roughly 22,000 Americans have 
     filed appeals with the government to try to get mistakes 
     corrected. . . .

  Those mistakes, according to the Post, include being overcharged for 
health insurance, being directed to the wrong insurance program or 
being wrongly denied coverage.
  So what is the status of those appeals?
  The Post reports:

       For now, the appeals are sitting, untouched, inside a 
     government computer. And an unknown number of consumers who 
     are trying to get help through less formal means--by calling 
     the health-care marketplace directly--are told that 
     HealthCare.gov's computer system is not yet allowing federal 
     workers to go into enrollment records and change them. . . .

  So let me summarize here. Mr. President, 22,000 Americans are either 
without insurance or are paying too much for insurance as a result of 
mistakes made by the Federal health exchange.
  Healthcare.gov contains no appeals process. Attempts to find recourse 
by other means have been unsuccessful, and the administration's 
response is basically: Tough luck.
  President Obama was interviewed by FOX News' Bill O'Reilly this 
weekend. One of the topics they covered was healthcare.gov's problems.
  The President said:

       The goods news is that right away we decided how we're 
     going to fix it. It got fixed within a month and a half. It 
     was up and running, and now it's working the way it's 
     supposed to. . . .

  Let me repeat that The President of the United States said: `` . . . 
now it's working the way it's supposed to. . . .''
  Well, tell that to the 22,000 people wondering why there is no 
appeals process on the Web site or why their paper appeals are stuck in 
a computer system at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 
where, the Post says, the appeals process is currently stopped because 
``the part of the computer system that would allow agency workers to 
read and handle appeals has not been built.''
  When Bill O'Reilly asked President Obama about the Web site problems, 
the President responded by saying that--and I quote again--``I don't 
think anybody anticipated the degree of problems that you had on 
healthcare.gov.''
  That is not an excuse. It was the President's job to ensure that 
people in the administration were anticipating the problems that would 
occur, and the President owes the American people an explanation of why 
he did not because this is not just a story of bureaucratic 
incompetence. It is the stories of the tens of thousands of individual 
Americans who are suffering as a result of the Web site glitches and 
who are wondering how they will afford their health care under 
ObamaCare--Americans like Addie Wilson, whose story is highlighted in 
the Post article.
  Addie is a 27-year-old who makes just $22,000 a year. She was sure 
she would qualify for a subsidy on the exchanges, and she was 
absolutely right. She did--only healthcare.gov did not tell her that.
  So Addie phoned one of the call centers, which told her to sign up at 
the more expensive price she was quoted and to appeal the decision 
later.
  Since her old insurance plan was on its way out and she needed 
surgery in January, that is what she did. Now she is stuck paying $100 
more a month than she should be paying, along with a deductible that is 
$4,000 higher than it should be. That too-high of a deductible is of 
particular concern since she incurred huge hospital bills in January 
when she was forced to have surgery. If she does not get relief from 
the appeals process, she could end up paying $4,000 in medical bills 
that she should not have to pay and cannot afford.
  But it is not just the Web site that is driving up Americans' medical 
bills--it is the law itself. As awful as Addie's situation is, at least 
maybe she will get help eventually. For millions of other Americans, 
their high deductibles are no mistake.
  For too many Americans on and off the exchanges, the reality of the 
so-called Affordable Care Act has been a staggering increase in health 
care costs.
  Some family plans on the exchanges carry deductibles of almost 
$13,000. That is more than some families will spend this year on their 
mortgage.
  Upper-income families may be able to absorb these costs--and some 
limited help is available for lower-income families--but what middle-
class family can afford $13,000 a year in medical costs?
  Too many families around the country will be putting on hold their 
plans to buy a home or send their kids to college because they have to 
devote every spare dollar to paying their health care bills.
  On top of crippling cost hikes, many of these same families are 
facing the loss of doctors and hospitals, as insurance companies narrow 
their networks in response to ObamaCare's mandates.
  So far I have only mentioned the personal devastation ObamaCare is 
causing. But ObamaCare is not just affecting families' pocketbooks; it 
is affecting the economy as a whole.
  In response to ObamaCare's burdensome mandates and new taxes, 
businesses are cutting employees' hours, declining to hire new 
employees, and abandoning their plans to expand. That means fewer jobs 
available for the millions of Americans looking for work and fewer 
opportunities for career growth and advancement.
  In fact, just this morning, there was a story in the Wall Street 
Journal, and it references the Congressional Budget Office report that 
estimates now that the impact of this law through the year 2024 will 
mean 2.5 million fewer jobs--2.5 million in job losses as a result of 
ObamaCare. It is so much so that you see many of the very labor unions 
that supported and wholeheartedly endorsed ObamaCare when it passed 
coming out now and saying ``[i]t would be a sad irony''--and I am 
quoting from a letter that went out from several of the labor unions--
``[i]t would be a sad irony indeed if the signature legislative 
accomplishment of an Administration committed to reducing income 
inequality cut living standards for middle income and low wage 
workers.'' The letter also says that the ObamaCare law ``undermines 
fair marketplace competition'' and that they are ``bitterly 
disappointed.'' This comes from labor unions in this country that 
wholeheartedly endorsed this law when it passed several years ago.
  The American people have endured 5 years of economic stagnation, and 
ObamaCare has been making things worse.
  The President has called for 2014 to be a year of action, but I have 
seen no evidence that he plans to address the

[[Page 2468]]

causes of our sluggish growth or provide relief for the millions of 
Americans struggling with crippling health care costs.
  Republicans have a number of health care proposals, from 
comprehensive plans like that proposed by Senators Coburn, Hatch, and 
Burr, to commonsense ideas to lower costs by allowing businesses to 
pool together to negotiate lower rates, and by allowing insurance 
companies to sell health care plans across State lines to promote more 
competition and give people more choices.
  If the President really wanted to make health care more affordable 
and accessible, he would abandon this government takeover of one-sixth 
of our economy and work with Republicans to pass real health care 
reform. But given the President's record, I am not holding my breath 
that is going to happen.
  But at the very least--the very least--I hope the President will see 
his way to supporting bipartisan proposals to improve the economy and 
to open new jobs and opportunities to struggling Americans.
  Just last Friday, the Obama State Department released its fifth 
environmental impact study on the Keystone XL Pipeline. Once again, the 
review found that the pipeline would have no significant impact on 
global carbon emissions. Senators and Representatives of both parties 
support this job-creating measure. It is high time for the President to 
approve the pipeline and open the 42,000 shovel-ready jobs it will 
support.
  He should also pick up the phone that he keeps talking about to call 
the Senate majority leader to tell him to stop obstructing bipartisan 
trade promotion authority legislation that would help American farmers, 
ranchers, entrepreneurs, and job creators gain access to a billion new 
consumers around the globe.
  The President and the majority leader held a White House meeting 
yesterday, we are told, yet an aide reported that there was no 
discussion of the majority leader's antitrade comments last week.
  Given this legislation's importance for increasing American jobs, it 
is difficult to understand why the President would not bring this bill 
up at that meeting.
  Finally, the President of the United States also should join the vast 
bipartisan majority in the Senate that supports repeal of the job-
killing ObamaCare medical device tax, which is forcing American 
companies to send jobs overseas.
  The President will be visiting the Democrats' retreat tomorrow, which 
would be a prime opportunity for him to get on the same page with his 
party in support of these bipartisan measures.
  Republicans are ready and willing to work with the President and with 
Democrats, and we hope we will have willing partners to do the things 
that are necessary to get people back to work, to create jobs, to grow 
our economy, and to help provide and build a better future for middle 
class families in this country.
  The American people should not have to wait any longer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, once again, the President of the United 
States has failed to meet the statutory deadline to propose a budget. 
In fact, he has missed the deadline so many times that people hardly 
notice anymore. Failure seems to become the rule, not the exception. 
The President has now missed the budget deadline five times since he 
took office in 2009. By comparison, his three White House predecessors 
missed the deadline a total of four times in 20 years. Five times under 
President Obama; four times in the last 20 years under his three 
immediate predecessors.
  All totaled, it is now the 18th time that the Obama administration 
has missed a legal deadline related to the Federal budget. I guess the 
President and his administration consider the law purely an advisory 
matter not binding on them. The law is for other people, not for this 
President and for his administration, seems to be their attitude.
  The reason this is so important is because, as we all know--whether 
it a family budget or a budget for your business--setting a budget is 
where you establish your priorities: the things you have to have, the 
things you would like to have but maybe need to put off, and then those 
things you really cannot afford. That is how you budget. That is why it 
is so important.
  But if your budget includes massive amounts of new spending, along 
with firm opposition to major reforms, you would have no choice but to 
ask for a huge tax increase. The President, I do not think, wants to 
put himself on record again, like he did last year, for another huge 
tax increase, nor does he want his party's members, who are running for 
election in 2014, to have to cast the hard vote on the President's own 
budget.
  Last year, his 2014 budget proposal would have raised taxes by 
roughly $1 trillion--a trillion-dollar tax increase. That is on top of 
the $1.7 trillion that taxes have gone up during the last 5 years under 
this administration.
  It looks as if the President's priorities are more taxes, more 
spending, and more debt.
  But if those sorts of priorities led to robust economic growth and 
job creation, we would see one of the strongest economic recoveries in 
American history. But the truth is more taxes, more spending, and more 
debt are not a recipe for economic growth and job creation--just the 
opposite.
  We are seeing the evidence of that right now. We are suffering 
through the weakest economic recovery since the great recession in 
modern history. Actually, we are seeing the weakest economic recovery 
since the Great Depression right now. There are a lot of reasons, but 
the Congressional Budget Office has given us some reasons that I want 
to talk about just briefly.
  They talk about ObamaCare and its impact on job growth and economic 
growth. As a matter of fact, the Affordable Care Act, the President's 
signature legislative accomplishment--the Congressional Budget Office 
said the number of full-time workers will go down by 2 million in the 
coming years as a result of the Affordable Care Act. So in addition to 
people getting cancelled policies or sticker shock and finding out that 
their health care costs did not go down, they went up, or finding if 
you like your doctors you cannot keep them, what we are finding is that 
these same people may find themselves out of work as a result of the 
policies in the Affordable Care Act.
  The Congressional Budget Office looked primarily at how employers 
would respond to a new penalty for failing to offer insurance to 
employees who worked more than 30 hours. That response would include 
cutting people's hours, hiring fewer workers, and lowering wages for 
new jobs. I know my friends on the other side of the aisle agree with 
the President when he said we ought to raise the minimum wage.
  Well, one of the problems is the President's own health care policy 
that they all voted for is killing full-time work and putting people in 
part-time work, meaning that their weekly wages have been depressed. 
For them the answer is not to deal with the source of that problem, 
which is ObamaCare, but to fix wages at 40 percent higher than they 
currently are per hour, which we know--economists tell us and it is 
intuitively true--is going to put more people out of work, put more 
pressure on workers.
  Perhaps one of the most distressing things about the Congressional 
Budget Office's report today is what they said, what the prospects look 
like for the President's remaining term in office. The Congressional 
Budget Office does not see unemployment falling below 6 percent for the 
rest of President Obama's term--6 percent for the remainder of his 
term.
  Yet, despite all of this, the President still will not get behind 
genuine progrowth reforms. He will not support genuine reforms of our 
existing programs such as Medicare and Social Security that would 
actually save them and put them on a fiscally sustainable path. He has 
no plan for controlling our national debt.

[[Page 2469]]

  I went back and looked. Last time Congress came within one vote of 
passing a balanced budget amendment, do you know what the national debt 
was then? It was $4.85 trillion. Do you know what it is today? It is in 
excess of $17 trillion, with no end in sight. So the truth is 
Republicans have put forward ideas for streamlining Federal 
regulations, for mitigating the negative effects of the Affordable Care 
Act and for replacing ObamaCare with patient-centered reforms that 
would cut costs, broaden quality insurance coverage, and improve 
patient access. But so far, the majority leader and the President have 
shown zero interest in trying to work with Republicans to solve our 
Nation's most serious economic challenges, which are having a direct 
impact on the American people.
  Instead, the President said he is going to go it alone. He has a pen; 
he has a phone. But as I have suggested before, one of the things he 
could do that would put Americans back to work almost immediately and 
make us more North American energy-independent would be to sign the 
Keystone XL Pipeline.
  I know my time is expired. I ask unanimous consent that the three 
articles I was referring to on the CBO report be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Feb. 4, 2014]

          CBO: Health-Care Law Will Reduce Jobs By Two Million

                (By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Sarah Kliff)

       The Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time 
     workers by more than two million in coming years, 
     congressional budget analysts said Tuesday in the most 
     detailed analysis of the law's impact on jobs.
       After obtaining coverage through the health law, some 
     workers may forgo employment, while others may reduce hours, 
     according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. 
     Low-wage workers are the most likely to drop out of the 
     workforce as a result of the law, it said. The CBO said the 
     law's impact on jobs mostly would be felt after 2016.
       The agency previously estimated that the economy would have 
     800,000 fewer jobs in 2021 as a result of the law. In that 
     analysis, the CBO looked primarily at how employers would 
     respond to a new penalty for failing to offer insurance to 
     employees who work more than 30 hours a week. That response 
     would include cutting people's hours, hiring fewer workers 
     and lowering wages for new jobs.
       On Tuesday, the agency released a more detailed estimate 
     that includes how ordinary Americans would react to those 
     changes by employers. Some would choose to keep Medicaid 
     rather than take a job at reduced wages. Others, who 
     typically do not work full-time, would delay returning to 
     work in order to keep subsidies for private insurance that 
     are provided under the law.
       As a result, by 2021, the number of full-time positions 
     would be reduced by 2.3 million, the agency said.
       The reduction in employment from the health care law 
     ``includes some people choosing not to work at all and other 
     people choosing to work fewer hours than they would have in 
     the absence of the law,'' the CBO said.
       The law also estimated that the botched rollout of the 
     health law's Web site may reduce the number of people who 
     will sign up for coverage by 1 million through March 31, the 
     CBO estimated. Initially, the agency predicted 7 million 
     would have signed up by then.
       In its new analysis, the CBO said it had reduced its 
     estimate of how many Americans would sign up for the 
     insurance through the online marketplaces ``in light of 
     technical problems that impeded many people's enrollment in 
     exchanges in the first months of the open enrollment 
     period.''
       The CBO said that the program would catch up over time, 
     with a total of 13 million Americans signing up in 2015 and 
     24 million by 2017.
       Late last month, the Obama administration announced that 
     about 3 million Americans had signed up for private health 
     plans so far under the federal health exchange and separate 
     exchanges that are being run by 14 states.
       The administration and the CBO agree there should be a 
     surge of sign-ups near the March deadline to apply for 
     coverage in 2014.
       The CBO estimated that 84 percent of the U.S. population 
     would have health insurance in 2014, rising to 89 percent 
     within a few years. Medicaid, the program for the poor 
     expanded under the law, should add 6 million more people this 
     year.
       At the same time, the CBO reported that the federal budget 
     is rapidly shrinking and is projected to decline to $514 
     billion this year, providing fresh evidence that the problem 
     that has been Washington's obsession for the past several 
     years has become far less urgent.
       Tax hikes, spending cuts and faster economic growth have 
     helped close the deficit, which topped $1 trillion for 
     several years following the onset of the Great Recession.
       The budget deficit would equal 3 percent of the total size 
     of the nation's economy this year--what many economists see 
     as a healthy level. The deficit is expected to decrease to 
     $478 billion next year, or 2.6 percent of the size of the 
     economy.
       One of the more troubling aspects of the CBO report was its 
     assessment of long-term economic growth.
       The CBO said that the economy will continue to enjoy a 
     solid recovery for the next several years, but will slow to a 
     pace of expansion of 2.2 percent a year from 2018 to 2024.
       Much of the slowdown has to do with fewer workers active in 
     the economy--mainly a result of baby boomers retiring.
       The slow growth the economy will reduce taxes by $1.4 
     trillion of the next years, leading to a larger than expected 
     deficit by 2024 $1.07 trillion, or 4 percent of the size of 
     the economy.
       The CBO said it would still take until 2017 for the 
     unemployment rate, currently at 6.7 percent, to fall to 5.8 
     percent, and may not reach 5.5 percent until 2024.
       Today, the agency said the economy is about six million 
     jobs short of where it should be.
                                  ____


                     [From The Hill, Feb. 4, 2014]

         CBO: O-Care Slowing Growth, Contributing to Job Losses

       The new healthcare law will slow economic growth over the 
     next decade, costing the nation about 2.5 million jobs and 
     contributing to a $1 trillion increase in projected deficits, 
     the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released 
     Tuesday.
       The non-partisan group's report found that the healthcare 
     law's negative effects on the economy will be ``substantially 
     larger'' than what it had previously anticipated.
       The CBO is now estimating that the law will reduce labor 
     force compensation by 1 percent from 2017 to 2024, twice the 
     reduction it previously had projected.
       This will decrease the number of full-time equivalent jobs 
     in 2021 by 2.3 million, it said. It had previously estimated 
     the decrease would be 800,000.
       It said this decrease would be caused partly be people 
     leaving the workforce in response to lower jobs offered by 
     employers, and increased insurance coverage through the 
     healthcare law.
       It also said employer penalties in the law will decrease 
     wages, and that part-year workers will be slower to return to 
     the work force because they will seek to retain ObamaCare 
     insurance subsidies.
       The healthcare law isn't the only reason the CBO is 
     projecting slower economic growth between 2014 and 2023, 
     however. It also cited inflation and lower productivity as 
     reasons why it was lowering its projections.
       The slower growth will mean less tax revenue, which will 
     add to the deficit. Instead of adding $6.3 trillion in 
     deficits from 2014 to 2023, the government will add $7.3 
     trillion, CBO now projects.
       By 2023, the gross debt of the United States will be $26 
     trillion, up from a projected $25 trillion. A year later the 
     debt will rise to $27 trillion as the $1.074 trillion deficit 
     for fiscal 2024 is added in.
       ``Most of the increase in projected deficits results from 
     lower projections for the growth of real GDP and for 
     inflation, which have resulted in projected revenues between 
     2014 and 2023 by $1.4 trillion,'' CBO explained.
       CBO now thinks the economy will grow at 3.1 percent in this 
     fiscal year, which ends in October, rather than the 3.4 
     percent growth it predicted last year.
       The unemployment rate is projected to fall to 6.7 percent 
     by the end of the year, much lower than the 7.6 percent CBO 
     saw for 2014 previously. The budget office does not see 
     unemployment falling below 6 percent for the rest of 
     President Obama's term, however.
       In the near term, the CBO is projecting smaller deficits.
       The budget office says that legislation enacted since last 
     May has reduced deficits by $400 billion.
       For 2014, the deficit is slated to be $514 billion, an 
     improvement of $46 billion from last year's projection.
       In 2015, the deficit falls to $478 billion. That is still 
     higher than the last full year of the Bush administration 
     when the deficit was $458 billion, but it is a steep drop 
     from the $1 trillion deficits of most of the Obama years.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
asking for the passage of the farm bill that we are going to have a 
vote on shortly. I thank my colleague from Michigan, the Chair of the 
Agriculture Committee, for her unbelievable work on this very important 
policy for America. I know she understands these issues well because, 
while everybody thinks of Michigan as a manufacturing State, it also is 
a very big agricultural

[[Page 2470]]

State. We share a lot of the same crops, being kind of on a northern 
plateau: apples and wine and a variety of others. I certainly thank her 
for her help and support in getting an important new program in our 
school lunches for very nutritious peas and lentils, called pulse 
crops, and to thank her for her input.
  I rise today to talk about the importance of the farm bill, because 
it is a jobs bill for our Nation. Two years ago I joined my colleague 
Senator Johanns from Nebraska and sent a bipartisan letter with 44 
Senators saying it was time to act on the farm bill because we thought 
it was so important for our economy as we were still struggling coming 
out of a recession. Today it is finally here, that opportunity to put 
all of that hard work into a bill that goes to the President's desk.
  Agriculture employs 16 million Americans, and it produces exports 
worth $115 billion of agricultural products to markets around the 
world. I do not think we always focus on that. A lot of times we come 
out here and we talk about the individual crops in our State or the 
individual focus. But what we really need to understand is it is a very 
big product for the United States.
  We live in a very competitive global economy. One of the biggest 
advantages we have in this global economy is that we in the United 
States of America know how to grow things. So the emerging middle class 
around the world can now afford to eat higher quality products. The 
U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue put it best in a speech he 
gave about the global marketplace last year. He said:

       You play to your strength. You leverage your advantages and 
     then you find ways to improve them. And one of the greatest 
     strengths in America is agriculture.

  Mr. Donohue said those remarks as an example of what innovation is 
driving in American agriculture. He is absolutely right, because not 
only do we know how to grow things but we also know how to innovate. 
There is a lot of innovation going on in the ag economy. In fact, there 
are some people in the Pacific Northwest who say now there is as much 
investment going into new innovations in agriculture as there was 
recently in high tech or even green energy. So people get it. It is a 
great investment.
  I have seen in Washington State cutting-edge research done at our lab 
in Prosser for new wheat rotation crops in the Palouse, to savvy 
entrepreneurs making connections like getting Washington cherries into 
the new Korean market. So simply put, this is a growing, growing 
opportunity for the U.S. economy.
  American farmers and businesses are seeing demands for their products 
rise on two fronts: First, American consumers want to buy their 
products directly from the farms in their communities, so that means 
the farms are creating products for exactly what their end customer 
wants. Because they are doing that, they can make more money on 
delivering to the end customer exactly the kind of product they want.
  Secondly, a rising middle class in places such as Asia to South 
America wants to use their new-found spending power on purchasing our 
products as well. So this farm bill helps on both of those fronts. 
Again, thanks to the chairwoman from Michigan. It helps get more goods 
to the market, whether that is a farmer's market around the corner from 
your local supermarket, or whether that is a new market in South Korea.
  In 2030, China's middle class will have 1 billion people. That is up 
from 150 million today. India's middle class will grow by more than 800 
percent. Maybe because we sit on the Pacific, just like the Presiding 
Officer, he knows how important it is to get products to those 
marketplaces.
  In 2012, the United Nations reported that the world will need 70 
percent more food by the middle of the century. This is a tremendous 
opportunity but only if Congress acts today and passes the farm bill. 
We need to maintain our investment in research and exports so American 
farmers can thrive and win in the expanding global marketplace. I am 
confident if we do that, our farmers and our businesses--and we make 
sure that they have a level playing--will win.
  But other countries are playing for keeps too. Every farmer around 
the world wants access to that rising middle class. The European Union 
spent $700 million on export promotion for food products in 2011. That 
is nearly three times as much as America spent. China is planning to 
boost its agricultural investment over the next decade. It is a 
sentiment that I heard in October when I visited one of our wholesalers 
when he was talking to an overseas client. He was talking about export 
and agricultural leaders in Washington State and how other countries 
were starting to use particularly the apple market to try to open new 
opportunities.
  That is why we need to increase opportunities within the farm bill 
and to move forward on trade deals that help open the door to new 
agricultural markets. That will help unleash an entrepreneurial spirit 
we need to be aggressive about. Many people have heard of Walla Walla--
or maybe you have not or maybe you thought that was a term. But Walla 
Walla is a great community in the southeast corner of our State with 
30,000 people. It is deeply tied to the global economy. It has wine and 
wheat and peas and lentils. The farmers there, I know, are very 
appreciative of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. They thanked me many 
times for making sure that got passed. I can tell you that many of 
those farmers went to Bogota to try to sell wheat to the growing 
Colombian middle class. That is what entrepreneurship in America is all 
about.
  So Congress must not dampen our entrepreneurial spirit. Farmers need 
to start this season and make sure they can put long-term plans in 
place. Then the seeds that will be planted, the fields that will be 
harvested, the crops that will be shipped, the smart, targeted 
investment toward those new international markets will be done. That is 
what this farm bill is about.
  The bill, I can tell you, is a compromise. Again, I thank the 
chairwoman for her hard work, because I know how hard she worked on 
forging those compromises. I can tell you that it cuts SNAP far more 
than I would have cut it. I was one of 26 Senators who voted for the 
amendment by my colleague from New York offered to restore those cuts. 
But it is time we move forward.
  I want to take a second to talk about three reasons why people should 
be for this farm bill. First, as I talked about, it continues to expand 
the export programs that are so important for America's new markets. 
While I might have been for a more robust program, some of my 
colleagues obviously have not quite understood why this is such a great 
benefit to market U.S. products around the globe. I think some people 
think of big global corporations and things; why do we need that?
  Well, I can tell you, when I am talking about apples or cherries or 
pears, these are not big corporations. They are a collection of 
hundreds or thousands of farmers working together. When MAP helps 
target getting people in the Asian market to consume those products, it 
is a win-win situation for America.
  Secondly, this bill funds research, making our crops stronger and 
healthier and more competitive.
  Third, it starts initiatives on products such as a pulse crop that I 
think can be so beneficial to us over the long run with new, as I said, 
school lunches, but just healthier products.
  Our new farm bill will do the research on specialty crops that are so 
important for us in the Pacific Northwest. This is the first time in 
this farm bill that the reauthorization makes long-term investments in 
specialty crop block grant programs and specialty crop research 
initiatives. Again, I thank the Senator from Michigan for her help on 
that, understanding how important these specialty crops are.
  I think everybody in America and around the world knows the brand of 
Washington apples. I can tell you, I have been in the Chinese 
marketplace and seen how people took off the Washington label, 
particularly on Fuji apples, and tried to stick it on other apples, 
because they knew if that sticker

[[Page 2471]]

was on that apple, everybody in China would consume those apples even 
though they were not really Washington Fuji.
  So what this specialty research initiative does is say we are not 
going to let apples and pears and cherries basically constantly fall 
off the radar as it relates to research, but they will be a permanent 
part of a program for research and have a block grant program so they 
can basically continue to do the research that is needed.
  Again, if any of my colleagues have ever had a chance to visit the 
research facilities within their State, they will know what I am 
talking about. If they haven't, they should go and do it.
  But when we are fighting against or upon a competitive field with 
Israel, China, or anybody else when it comes to apples, we constantly 
have to answer questions about phytosanitary issues, and we have to 
constantly talk about ways we can make sure we gain access to those 
marketplaces. Science and research are the only ways we can fight some 
of these trade barriers that exist when our products can't get into 
those countries. So we need to make sure we continue to fight that.
  Lastly, I am very pleased about pulse crops--peas, lentils, things 
like chickpeas. I am sure a lot of people ate a lot of hummus over the 
weekend while they were watching the Super Bowl and the Seattle 
Seahawks victory. Hummus is a crop that has exploded 500 percent in the 
last 15 years. It is definitely a product people have been consuming 
all over the world for a long time, but we in the United States are 
starting to consume more of it. The fact that product has had such a 
huge increase has given our farmers in Washington State great 
opportunity. But this product is also a very healthy product and one 
that we fought hard to make sure would be included in a new school 
lunch program, something where students could get access to a high-
protein, high-fiber product that certainly is more affordable for our 
schools. With the research that is going to go on on pulse crop 
derivatives and the fact that school lunches are now going to have the 
opportunity to serve pulse crops more aggressively, we are very excited 
about this farm bill.
  I thank my colleagues in the Senate, Senators Crapo and Risch. I also 
thank my colleagues from South Dakota and North Dakota for helping 
because both States are very big on these pulse crops. They certainly 
helped to make sure this stayed in the conference report.
  To all of my colleagues, please vote for a bill that will really help 
our economy, will help us tackle the growing middle class around the 
world and keep America putting great products on those market shelves 
and help create more jobs in the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I am proud of what we were able to 
accomplish in the nutrition title of the Farm Bill. It achieves 
important reforms in SNAP, but also protects food assistance for 
families, many of whom never dreamed that they would need help putting 
food on their table. We are adopting important reforms to clarify the 
law or rules in a few places where members had legitimate concerns. At 
the same time, and perhaps more importantly, we are rejecting many 
draconian proposals that would have caused serious harm to program 
participants by slashing benefits or kicking families off of SNAP, 
undermining the primary purpose and the basic framework of the program.
  Let's start by reviewing some of the improvements we made to SNAP to 
address concerns around minor eligibility issues.
  In Michigan, we discovered two lottery winners were continuing to 
receive benefits after winning a million dollars. In a program with 46 
million participants, this really is an example of a very rare problem. 
Nevertheless, we want to make absolutely clear in federal law that 
individuals who win the lottery are not eligible for SNAP. So we 
tightened rules in a way to ensure that not even one lottery winner can 
get SNAP. But we also wanted to make sure that this prohibition does 
not result in a burdensome new requirement to ask all applicants and 
participants if they had recently won the lottery.
  The provision requires that State SNAP agencies and local lotteries 
and gaming commissions set up data-sharing to ensure that the SNAP 
agency is informed when individuals win substantial sums of money. A 
SNAP agency can then take action to contact the winning participant and 
review their eligibility in light of these major winnings. I'm pleased 
that we managed to find a way to address this problem without imposing 
new requirements on the millions of struggling low income households 
who participate in this program. There is no need to put questions 
about the lottery or gambling on the application form, and we expect 
USDA to ensure that won't happen. In other words, this change allows us 
to use our data and technology to prevent this extremely rare event 
from happening again without putting new burdens on participants.
  States will apply regular income and asset tests apply to lottery 
winners--if someone has winnings that make them ineligible, they can be 
disqualified from SNAP. But if that person paid off debts or was able 
to finally afford costly home repair or health care and now had income 
that made them eligible, they have every right to receive SNAP 
benefits.
  Another area of eligibility that follows the same principle on 
implementation is eligibility for ex-offenders felons who are fleeing 
criminal justice. Current SNAP law prohibits people with criminal 
records who are fleeing from law enforcement or violating the terms of 
their parole from participating in SNAP. Because criminal law is a 
complicated mix of federal and State statutes and definitions, members 
wanted to make very clear that people committing odious crimes would be 
ineligible for SNAP if they were fleeing or violating their parole. 
This does not apply to any convicted criminal who satisfies his or her 
debt to society by serving out the sentence and complying with any 
court order. So, it's a narrow group of people that we're highlighting. 
For that reason, we do not expect any changes to the SNAP application 
and eligibility process. Applicants are already asked about their 
fleeing felon status, so we expect that additional inquiries about 
applicants' criminal records will not be necessary.
  We did include one provision that will result in a cut to SNAP 
benefits for some households. Some States have been providing as little 
as $1 in heating assistance for the sole purpose of qualifying 
recipients for higher benefit. While I agree that SNAP benefits are 
often insufficient to cover a family's food needs over the course of a 
month, the very structure of SNAP is meant to award benefits based on 
how much money a family has available to purchase food. Providing $1 in 
heating assistance skews benefits away from this income and expense 
based system. So the change we made means a SNAP recipient now must 
receive $20 in heating assistance to qualify for the Standard Utility 
Allowance. If you do not receive at least $20 in low income heating 
assistance, you will need to produce a utility bill. This is intended 
to make the energy assistance a real contribution to the actual 
expenses of a poor household. Congress never intended to permit 
households that don't have heating or cooling costs because they are 
included in rent or covered by the landlord to get a deduction as if 
they did have expenses. The law is ambiguous on this point, so this 
bill would clarify the issue.
  When we decided to make this change, I insisted that we do it in a 
way that did not harm any household that had actual heating or cooling 
costs, including costs passed on by a landlord or shared with another 
family. That means we expect USDA to make three things a priority when 
overseeing State implementation of this change. One priority is that 
anyone currently getting this $1 in energy assistance must be given a 
chance to show whether they have energy costs of any kind. I think many 
of these households will have these costs and qualify for the deduction 
that raises their benefits.

[[Page 2472]]

That's how the current program works in the majority of States that do 
not offer this minimal energy assistance. States must give households a 
chance to document actual costs. I expect USDA to provide guidance to 
States to ensure that reflects many different living scenarios that 
low-income households experience are taken into account when 
implementing this change.
  The second priority for USDA is to make clear that this change should 
have no effect on anyone currently receive a more typical LIHEAP 
payment. We continue to support the connection between SNAP and LIHEAP 
and do not expect these changes to cause problems for the majority of 
people who rely on and receive LIHEAP, or are applying and are likely 
to receive it, in getting the SNAP utility deduction. I know this puts 
the burden on States to make sure their application process and benefit 
calculations are performed in a way that allows them to determine 
everyone eligible for the deduction based on receiving energy 
assistance. We expect households to be given the opportunity to attest 
to their participation in LIHEAP. Many States offer that option to 
households now, and we do not intend to change that. We expect that a 
State SNAP agency could certify that its State State does not provide 
LIHEAP payments of less than $20 per year. This would mean there is no 
need for households to provide information about the amount of LIHEAP 
they receive or the method or frequency of those payments. We expect 
the Secretary to monitor this change closely and help States come up 
with the least burdensome implementation options available. Because CBO 
did not assume any savings from reduced benefits in States that have 
not implemented this practice, we expect the Secretary to implement 
this change in a way that is consistent with the intent to not impact 
those States.
  Although we did provide States the flexibility to phase in the 
provision for most participating households, I remain concerned that 
the timetable for implementation of these changes is short. For new 
applicants and households, the provision is effective just 30 days 
after enactment. Under SNAP regulations, States will be protected from 
being cited for errors during the first few months after enactment. 
However, low-income households do not have the same administrative 
protection. It is possible that they could receive higher benefits as a 
result of the State not being able to convert its systems quickly 
enough. I urge the Secretary to work with States to waive any household 
liability that results from receiving slightly higher benefits because 
States were unable to implement the provision in a timely manner.
  Let me turn now to a significant outcome in the nutrition title. I am 
particularly pleased with the reforms that we have proposed to SNAP's 
employment and training program. A key element of that effort is a new 
demonstration project to test innovative strategies to help build 
individuals' skills and employability. The majority of adults enrolled 
in SNAP who can work do. Even more work just before or just after their 
participation in SNAP. Nevertheless, all of the conferees had a shared 
goal of exploring whether there were ways that SNAP could more 
affirmatively support SNAP participants' desire to work and improve 
their and their families' situation. We agreed to look for ways to help 
adults get the training, support and encouragement to find suitable 
employment. Of course, we had to do this in an environment with very 
constrained resources.
  We worked on a package of ideas that would make better use of 
existing federal resources, provide modest new sums of money for SNAP 
employment and training and provided funding to test innovative new 
approaches. We wanted to be sure that by the time of the next 
reauthorization we would have a better sense of what kinds of services 
States were offering, what was producing results for families, and that 
USDA would have more capacity to oversee an employment and training 
effort.
  The bill provides $200 million to for up to 10 State pilot projects 
that will test new strategies to support individuals to return to work, 
enhance their skills to improve their earnings, and address households' 
barriers to work. The pilot will operate within SNAP's employment and 
training program framework, but we have also expanded the types of 
activities that can be offered. Now States will have the option to 
include activities offered through the State's cash assistance as well 
as supportive services that are allowed under SNAP. States can use the 
funding to cover the mandated supportive services, such as child care, 
for participants in the pilot. Moreover they can test whether 
supportive services such as child care or transitional housing are 
appropriate interventions on their own. After all, a mother with safe, 
stable high quality child care is far more likely to be able to look 
for and maintain employment than one without such help. Similarly an 
individual with a place to live is far more likely to find and keep 
employment than someone without housing.
  It was important to me to include unsubsidized employment as an 
allowable activity because that's ultimately what we want all job 
training participants to find. This required some careful 
consideration. Private employment is a different kind of activity than 
a class or program run and monitored by the State. States, very 
understandably, will have very limited ability to oversee private 
employment situations. So we wanted to ensure that the kinds of 
protections that exist in the private labor market, such as workplace 
protection laws, health and safety standards and wage and hour 
protections also apply to any private employment programs under SNAP 
employment and training programs. We also made clear that placements 
into unsubsidized employment cannot displace an existing worker at the 
employment site. That has long been the rule under other types of SNAP 
employment and training programs, and we expect the same here. I expect 
that USDA will issue comprehensive standards that incorporate all 
existing SNAP protections as well as the appropriate private employee 
protections such as the Fair Labor Standards Act into the requirements 
for offering unsubsidized employment. Despite that responsibility, I 
hope USDA shares my excitement that including unsubsidized employment 
as an education and training activity is an unprecedented opportunity 
to support low-income individuals as they enter or rejoin the 
workforce.
  I specifically focus on one challenge in offering unsubsidized work. 
The pilot projects will allow States to apply SNAP's sanction policy to 
any individual who is assigned a work activity, but willfully refuses, 
without good cause, to take an action that he or she could safely take. 
In the traditional education and training setting, it is usually--
though not always--relatively straightforward to determine whether an 
individual has complied. Did the person participate in the required 
activity? If not, did the person have good cause, like sickness, not to 
do so? But in the unsubsidized work placement, it may be difficult to 
make the correct assessment when an individual does not meet the work 
requirement. The private employer may have reduced work hours or 
transferred the individual into a position for which they are clearly 
not qualified. Such action does not speak to the individual's 
willingness to work. Because of the inherent challenges in determining 
compliance with unsubsidized work activities, the pilot program 
requires clear evidence that an individual willfully refused to take a 
safe and proper action without good cause before the State can subject 
him or her to sanctions. I also encourage the Secretary to issue 
guidance about the very limited circumstances under which a person who 
is working could be sanctioned for losing his or her job. When someone 
who is working loses the job for reasons beyond their control, we want 
to ensure they are not doubly punished by losing SNAP benefits as well.
  The only way we will know if the pilot projects are succeeding is if 
we have a high quality, longitudinal evaluation. So any State applying 
to conduct a pilot must also participate in a comprehensive evaluation 
to determine

[[Page 2473]]

what works and what doesn't. We want to measure actual outcomes--
employment and changes in earnings, as well as documented improvements 
in a participant's skills, training and experience, since successfully 
completing a job training program is not a guarantee of immediate 
employment. We also want to better understand how to ensure that the 
assessment of each job training participant helps match the individual 
with the training or support best suited for their needs. After all, if 
a job training volunteer really just needs help with child care or 
transportation in order to accept a job offer, we don't want that 
person assigned to job search or workfare. Assessment is already a 
requirement under federal rules. Gaining more insight into how a good 
assessment and assignment system can improve participant outcomes may 
be one of the most cost-effective lessons we can hope to gain from this 
effort.
  This is an area where I want to thank my fellow conferees for all of 
their hard work. We came to the conference with very different ideas 
about what the issues facing the program and clients are, and what 
SNAP's approach towards promoting work out to be. We spent a tremendous 
amount of time educating ourselves about the issues, the opportunities 
and the risks of various approaches. I believe we ended up with a 
stronger program that encourages work without penalizing those who are 
willing to work but unable to find a job in this economy. The pilot 
program represents a true compromise and an important step forward in 
helping low-income Americans succeed in the labor market.
  In addition to the pilot projects, the bill requires States to begin 
measuring actual individual-based outcomes from participating in job 
training. We directed USDA to compile and analyze this information so 
we can learn what kinds of services work best to provide SNAP 
participants with the skills and experience they need to find 
employment. Because matching an individual's employment needs to an 
appropriate program or service is critical to positive employment 
outcomes, this review should include a focus on the individualized 
assessment that is required of SNAP work registrants. As I mentioned 
earlier, this is an aspect of employment and training that is already 
required. Understanding individuals' needs and abilities is crucial to 
matching them to a job training or work program where they can succeed. 
That is the first important step in making future improvement in the 
program. We were very clear that successful outcomes can mean more than 
a full-time job placement. We expect that the State outcome data 
reflect this by including measures of improved employability, like 
educational attainment, credentials and work experience. We also expect 
USDA's analysis to acknowledge the reality that getting suitable 
employment may take more than the completion of a job training course. 
This admittedly increases the attention both USDA and the States must 
place on their education and training programs, but it will give us 
invaluable information about how best to meet the needs of SNAP 
participants.
  Another area of the legislation where we made some important 
investments is enhancing USDA's efforts to combat fraud. The agency has 
done a remarkable job of identifying and preventing fraud and 
trafficking; even as household and retailer participation grew 
drastically, fraud remained at a historic low percentage. So we 
targeted every small area we could to improve the integrity of the 
program.
  We've increased funding for USDA to address retailer fraud through 
data mining and expand State and federal partnerships to combat 
retailer fraud. Historically, States have pursued household fraud and 
USDA has dealt with retailer fraud. But, in some cases, the fraudulent 
activity involves both types of parties, so we're creating pilot 
projects to see how collaboration can help stretch resources. While 
States have done a good job with their responsibility to prevent and 
prosecute fraud, some States have developed troubling techniques that 
pressure innocent low-income households to admit wrongdoing. When USDA 
selects States to partner with, we intend that they prioritize States 
that have a record of addressing fraud through investigations, hearings 
and actual third-party findings of fraud. We urge USDA to take a close 
look at States that have a high number of disqualifications that come 
from client confessions in the absence of investigations. States that 
are ready to take on new responsibilities under the pilot must be those 
that ensure their disqualifications are in fact a result of documented 
fraud.
  Another provision deals with a rare, but important, participant 
integrity issue. SNAP benefits are paid on a debit card we call 
Electronic Benefit Transfer or EBT cards. Clients use these at the 
grocery store to buy food just like any other consumer. Clients who 
lose their card can request replacements. That's an important customer 
service feature which ensures needy households don't lose the 
assistance they need. However, some households requesting multiple 
replacements may raise red flags. Multiple card replacements might be 
an indication that the household needs help in how to use the debit 
card. In other cases, multiple replacements could be an indication that 
an individual in the household is trying to sell the card.
  The farm bill requires the household to provide an explanation when 
they request an excessive number of replacements in a given year. In 
order for this to be helpful in fighting fraud, rather than become a 
burden on innocent households that struggle to keep their cards, we 
added a set of protections that USDA must implement. After consultation 
with the Department, we expect they would consider it excessive if a 
household requested more than four replacement cards per year. USDA's 
own analysis indicates that fraud is only an issue when the requests 
are that frequent. Second, the provision requires that households be 
given the flexibility in how they want to provide their explanation. In 
particular, States may not require households to go to the local SNAP 
office or to be interviewed about their card loss. The goal was to 
avoid undue burdens on households, including those who are working, are 
homebound, or who may not have the means to travel to a SNAP office. 
This provision also does not empower the State to withhold household 
benefits based on the household's explanation. If the State questions 
the validity of the household's reason, we encourage the State to 
pursue a fraud investigation. SNAP has processes in place already for 
program violations and we expect these processes to be followed. This 
provision does not expand or alter that authority.
  Finally, it is important to emphasize that this process is not just a 
way to identify potential fraud; it's also a way to identify households 
that need help in using the benefits they are eligible for. There are 
many perfectly legitimate reasons to need a new card, and we intended 
that this integrity measure not entrap households that have done 
nothing wrong. That's why we require USDA to include specific 
protections for the homeless, people with disabilities and victims of 
crime. My colleague, Senator Harkin, has led the way in championing the 
needs of people with disabilities and making clear that federal 
programs have an obligation to provide such individuals accommodation. 
We expect this provision to result in States' intensifying their 
efforts to identify and assist individuals who would benefit from more 
assistance.
  SNAP retailers operate within a rapidly changing food retail 
environment. We've seen fundamental changes in the way food is sold 
since the last farm bill, so the conferees sought to make some changes 
in the way SNAP benefits can be redeemed. This farm bill will direct 
USDA to conduct pilots to test both mobile technologies, like smart 
phone apps, and online technologies. These pilots offer an exciting 
opportunity for farmers markets and other small retailers who find the 
point-of-sale EBT equipment to be too expensive or cumbersome. They 
also provide access to SNAP recipients that may have real physical or 
geographical challenges in getting to the store. But one of the risks 
of embracing new technology is that bad actors will find a

[[Page 2474]]

way to defraud the program. So we included a set of protections, for 
both recipients and retailers, and expect USDA to carefully monitor the 
pilot programs for evidence of fraud. This may require USDA to develop 
standards of transparence and recordkeeping for mobile technologies 
that differ from those used in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. 
Most online retailers charge a fee for the delivery of food. For low-
income SNAP participants, fees like that can really cut into their food 
budget. We were clear that SNAP benefits cannot be used to pay for any 
delivery fee or premium, and we required that the cost of food be the 
same as the in-the-store price, but we cannot prevent retailers from 
charging for delivery. So we urge USDA to pay special attention to 
these fees and be willing to deny participation to entities that cannot 
ensure that fees will be minimal. We also want USDA to assess whether 
fees undermine the ability of a household to afford an adequate diet 
with SNAP benefits.
  Since we are moving towards adapting SNAP to emerging retail trends, 
I'd like to note what we did not do in this bill. First, we have not 
removed the requirement that SNAP households be treated the same as 
other customers. Whatever steps States and USDA take to modernize 
benefit redemption methods cannot result in overt identification of 
SNAP households, such as SNAP-only lanes in grocery stores.
  Because technology continues to evolve, we included several 
provisions that have to do with ``data matches.'' Data matching is 
where the SNAP agency or eligibility worker can check information about 
SNAP participants' household circumstances with third party data bases. 
When done well, this is a cost effective means to test the veracity of 
client statements as well as to catch information that client may fail 
to provide the program. If done poorly, data matching can result in 
lots of confusing data matches that do not actually improve 
verification. We don't want States to undertake data matching for data 
matching's sake. The point is to empower States with good information 
at the right time to inform effective eligibility processing.
  First, we include a provision to add federal standards for data 
exchanges to SNAP so that SNAP can more easily share data with other 
programs. This is a commonsense provision that will ensure that across 
the various State and federal programs, our systems can ``talk'' with 
one another. SNAP law and the privacy act protects client's personal 
privacy and this authority does not change that obligation.
  Second, we required States to use the Department of Health and Human 
Services' National Directory of New Hires (NDNH). This database 
primarily is for State child support agencies to learn information 
about the employment of noncustodial parents who live or work in other 
States and States currently have the option to use it for SNAP. By 
requiring its use at the time a household is certified for SNAP, we 
believe it can help States determine eligibility and the correct level 
of benefits. We do not, however, dictate how States must use the data.
  Third, the bill codifies the existing State practice of verifying 
immigration status by using the Citizenship and Immigration Services 
database for immigrants' status through the federal Systemic Alien 
Verification for Entitlements program. Currently in SNAP, States have 
the option to use SAVE and nearly every State currently does. The Food 
and Nutrition Act references SAVE and another database, the Income 
Eligibility Verification Systems, or IEVS, in the same place in the 
Social Security Act. I want to make clear that we are only mandating 
States use SAVE. We did not intend to change anything about how States 
use IEVS--use of that database would continue to be optional for 
States. Longstanding SNAP policy has required rigorous verification 
procedures, and IEVS is one of many ways to get information to ensure 
correct eligibility decisions.
  We want States to have a plan for using the data available to them. 
The goal is not to require data matches that States know to be 
unhelpful, or where they determine it is not cost-effective to do so. 
Moreover, we are not pressing States to run afoul of simplified 
reporting and check these databases between reviews. In our last two 
farm bills, we took great pains to reduce needless paperwork burdens on 
States and households between certifications. These changes are not 
meant to override the framework of simplified reporting. Instead, 
States will use third-party data to make periodic reviews as accurate 
as efficiently possible while always providing participants the ability 
to challenge data matches they believe to be inaccurate.
  The nutrition title also takes steps to ensure that federal funds 
used to inform Americans about the SNAP cannot be used in inappropriate 
ways. To be clear, USDA has done a fine and necessary job getting 
information about SNAP to low-income households that struggle to put 
food on the table. The program cannot be effective if those who may 
need it are unaware of its existence or believe they are not eligible. 
Moreover, outreach and program promotional materials can be helpful to 
improving program integrity. Applicants and clients who are informed 
about their responsibilities and educated about what the application 
process entails will be better prepared to complete the application and 
renew process. That's likely to increase program accuracy, reduce fraud 
and enhance overall efficiencies.
  It's important that we provide low-income households with accurate 
information about the program, just as we do with Social Security or 
Medicare benefits. That's the only way that individuals can make the 
right choice for them about whether or not to apply. In this bill, 
Congress continues to support this kind of information sharing, while 
clarifying that aggressive recruitment, including recruitment outside 
of the United States, is not permissible. Recruitment is trying to 
persuade or convince someone who has made an informed decision not to 
apply to change his or her mind. That hasn't been a permissible 
activity, and the bill simply codifies that practice. Providing and 
producing positive information about the program and the benefits of 
applying or assisting households to navigate the complicated 
application process would still be permitted. We expect the agency will 
continue to provide necessary information while ensuring that education 
funds are used appropriately.
  As I said at the start, this bill is not perfect. I much prefer to be 
discussing more ways we could better ensure SNAP benefits were adequate 
to help families have enough healthy food throughout the month. 
However, I continue to believe this farm bill protects SNAP, which is 
the best defense we have against hunger in our communities. We have 
continued the long tradition in the Agriculture Committee of bipartisan 
support for the program. This was not an easy task, given how far apart 
the House and Senate were just a few months ago. This farm bill is an 
important step in dealing with the most important food and agricultural 
issues facing the nation today. I urge my colleagues to support it.
  I understand we will recessing for lunch in a moment, but there are 
some very important people I would like to thank today. I wish to take 
this moment before we have the final vote to do so. I know, listening 
to other colleagues, as we come to major pieces of legislation, at the 
end they talk about the importance of their staff. I have come to 
realize just how powerful those words are. I have been blessed with an 
incredibly talented, hard-working staff. They are the reason we are 
here today talking about the Agricultural Act of 2014. Every single one 
of them should be very proud of their contribution, as I am proud of 
them.
  This certainly starts with our staff director Chris Adamo. We have 
been on speed dial for so long, I am sure I will be doing that probably 
out of habit from now on, day and night. I appreciate his incredible 
leadership, tenacity, talent, and hard work. Chris deserves a 
tremendous amount of credit for leading us with his team. I thank him.
  I also thank Joe Schultz, who is our chief economist. No matter what 
the problem, he seemed to make the numbers add up, whether it is the 
commodity title, crop insurance, or dairy.

[[Page 2475]]

When at the very end it became very clear that after 3 years of hard 
work and passing a dairy policy, it wouldn't get the support of the 
House Republicans and we were going to have to rewrite it in a week and 
a half--which was no small thing--Joe continued to give us the right 
kind of advice. I am proud to say that we started with a commitment to 
have $23 billion in deficit reduction, counting our sequestration and 
spending cuts, and we have ended with $23 billion in deficit reduction 
and spending reductions in agriculture. Joe has been a huge reason why 
we have been able to get there.
  I thank Jonathan Cordone, who is our chief counsel. He made sure we 
were right on the process and worked specifically on issues such as 
trust funds with many colleges and around the complex areas to help 
them to be able to meet the issues of their States. There were 
important issues, such as payment reforms and a number of legal issues. 
He has been an incredibly valuable and important member.
  Russ Benham is our counsel on regulatory issues. Some of the trust 
fund issues we had to address related to regulatory issues and forestry 
issues. We are very proud that in this bill there is an agriculture 
advisory committee to the EPA, moving forward on rules. It is extremely 
significant to have the voice of agriculture involved with the EPA in a 
formal way. In this and so many other areas, Russ has been very 
instrumental.
  To our conservation team, Tina May is amazing. She is going back to 
the USDA next week to help lead the implementation, which gives me 
confidence that this is really going to be done as we intended. Tina 
May's brilliance in strategy, negotiation, and commitment on these 
issues is unmatched. Her team is Kevin Norton and Hanna AbouElSeoud. 
The area of conservation is really landmark in reforms, protecting our 
land, water, conservation compliance, and setting real standards around 
strong conservation practices and in forestry as well. These are 
important areas that we have addressed in forestry and international 
food aid--America's opportunity to fulfill our values around the world 
and create more flexibility for us to help feed a hungry world.
  Karla Thieman is also on speed dial. The very last phone calls I was 
making and emails before we wrote and finalized the conference report 
were with Karla and Chris. Our energy title is about jobs and about 
energy efficiency. I am so proud of what we were able to do; a landmark 
energy title; livestock disaster assistance, all of the areas that 
support livestock and, again, dairy. Karla was our lead on dairy. I 
think we may have finally stopped waking up in the middle of the night, 
dreaming about dairy policy. I am not sure, but we are getting there.
  Cory Claussen led our efforts on farm credit and beginning farmers. I 
am so proud we have added our veterans to the support there. I thank 
him so much.
  Brandon McBride--rural development, jobs, and quality of life in 
rural America. Brandon led our effort to make sure we were 
strengthening tools for businesses and local units of government and 
all of those who count on rural development; also research, a new 
research foundation and partnership, a real commitment to research in a 
way we have not seen before. I thank Brandon for leading that effort.
  Of course, on nutrition, fruits and vegetables, Jacqlyn Schneider and 
Katie Naessens led an extremely complicated area. Jacqlyn had to 
negotiate some very difficult areas. I am proud to say that we rejected 
every harmful policy in the House bill. Because of Jacqlyn and Katie's 
efforts, we have a strengthened commitment to organics and farmers 
markets, fresh fruit and vegetables for our children's schools, and so 
many other areas in which we are beginning to change the paradigm about 
local food systems and strengthening opportunities for local markets 
for our farmers.
  Grant Colvin has worked so hard on commodities as well as livestock 
and trade and, of course, exports. They are so very important to us. It 
is an area of real strength and jobs for our country. I thank Grant for 
all of his expertise.
  As staff assistants, Alexis Stanczuk and Kyle Varner helped the 
entire team every step of the way. They have been there to help us on 
every single project, every single effort we needed help with. I thank 
Alexis and Kyle.
  Jessie Williams and Nicole Hertenstein are clerks. Their entire team 
basically kept the whole thing together. They made sure we were doing 
the right thing on point. I thank Jessie, Nicole, and their team as 
well.
  Finally, I would like to thank my personal staff.
  Bill Sweeney, my chief of staff, has been with me in a multitude of 
different capacities--from telling the story on the floor with our 
charts to making sure we had a coordinated team between the Agriculture 
Committee staff and all of the talented people on my personal staff, as 
well as wonderful strategy advice. Bill, as my chief of staff, I am 
proud to say, has been invaluable in this process.
  Matt VanKuiken, my legislative director, worked as a team every 
single step of the way.
  Our press team, when we looked at telling the story of the new farm 
bill approach, Cullen Schwarz, Ben Becker, Alex Barriger, Will Eberle, 
and Matt Williams--they were telling this story and getting the facts 
out every step of the way.
  My State team, led by my State director Teresa Plachetka, Kali Fox, 
Mary Judnich, Brandon Fewins, Korey Hall, Jeremy Hosking, and Adrian 
Walker--they made sure Michigan's voice was heard in every part of this 
bill, a tremendous amount of hard work. This bill is better, certainly, 
for Michigan as a result of all their efforts.
  Kasey Gillette in Senator Reid's office worked as our partner on 
everything.
  Gary Myrick, Trish Engle, Tim Mitchell, and all of our floor staff--I 
thank them for all of their patience as we have passed this once, 
passed this twice, and finally we are going to pass the conference 
report this afternoon.
  I also thank legislative counsel Michelle Johnson-Wieder and Gary 
Endicott.
  I thank Senator Cochran's staff of T.A. Hawks and James Glick for 
their partnership and excellent work.
  Finally, I thank Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack and the USDA. The 
technical expertise we have received on every single section has been 
absolutely invaluable. When it came to the final days on dairy, the 
Secretary played a very critical role in helping us get the compromise 
that will allow us to meet the goals and address farmers all over the 
country.
  Last but not least, I thank the Congressional Budget Office, which we 
called on day and night. We appreciate their efforts.
  I appreciate the patience of the Presiding Officer, who allowed me to 
speak at this time to make sure we had a chance to say thank you to a 
lot of folks who deserve, as usual, a tremendous amount of credit for 
getting this done. They are the folks behind the scenes who have made 
this happen. I am very proud of each and every one of them.

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