of our own on worthiness of your goodness as our senator has labor to day make them extensions of your power in our world made a arrange their priorities according to your will and view their challenges from an ethical perspective lord use lawmakers to bring relief to the suffering and to work for greater peace in our world help them to walk in your way  may prolong their days and prosper work give them the wisdom to be worthy of respect self control and willing to me read a communication to the son of washington d c november fifth two thousand and seven to the senate under the provisions of rule one paragraph three understanding rules of the senate i hereby point animal jim webb a senator from the commonwealth of virginia chair as i previously announced or be no roll call votes today as a result of what we were able to accomplish last week on tuesday the house expected to vote on an override of the president's feet over the water resources bill which was a very bipartisan which passed overwhelmingly both the house and senate anticipate the senate will debate that veto message during sometime this week but an overriding could be as early as wednesday reminder to members present france will address the joint meeting of congress wednesday morning at eleven a m also this week the senate has a lot of other things to do mr president i have i've had a lengthy conversation just a few minutes ago with republican leader he's aware of the many obligations that we have and it's going to be difficult here are working on this week we can get it done and the reason i mentioned this week i know that this veterans day coming that people have a very busy schedule saturday sunday and monday i know i do and i'm sure like everyone else they are sore all the good that we there are certain things we have to finish we're going to be out of here for the thanksgiving recess to go back to our states our families and but there are things that are out that obligates us to stay until we finish and we only have this week and next week to do that this week we will receive the conference report for the veterans and labor and health education appropriations committee this legislation was again supported on a bipartisan basis it provides a most of the most important funding increase ever to care for our troops and veterans who have sacrificed so much for our country and repairs woelfel conditions we've seen at walter reed and other military centers helps reduce the logjam that's keeping thousands of veterans from receiving health care because the a has been all over funded during the bush years this bill makes critical investments in america's children and substantially increase the federal commitment to medical research for a multitude of diseases which the bush budget goes backwards rolling increases this legislation passed the senate overwhelmingly because our good priorities for america unfortunately the president has said he's going to veto this bill and that's unfortunate because this is the same president mr mr president was underfunded and shortchange our troops our veterans and other domestic priorities here at home argues that this bill cost too much in the same breath had a report last week that there's one hundred billion dollars and spent in iraq on infrastructure this much of it is still standing most of it most money has been a wasted and what was attempted to be constructed has been destroyed or the constructions been so faulty it simply is not usable president's wrong and it appears republicans will attempt to separate the v a portion the bill which i think is unfortunate the minority supported the v a bill the labor bill overwhelmingly and i think would be a shame to put up road ranking members chambliss and grassley deserve a lot of credit for working among our cox's across out to write the bill we're debating this week and twenty four years i've been in congress first my house now of course the senate's actually twenty five years no farm bill is somebody is much reform is this one there are some who say this bill doesn't go far enough in the direction of reform to those critics it dollars by reforming existing programs which is allows new investment to expand food and nutrition programs for families now italy and disabled solo well as an expansion of the fresh fruits and vegetables program to all fifty states to improve the health and wellness america's children invest more than four billion dollars in conservation programs get wetlands grasslands working farm working farms is present more than sixty percent of this bill is simply nutrition programs this bill takes a step closer to the wild goal of energy independence of more than a billion dollars for programs or environmentally responsible for growing the farm economy we import about seventy percent of our oil is present we don't import seventy percent of our food one reason we don't is we have farm programs that work could they be made better i repeat of course they could be but this bill does do some extremely important things response urgent need for permanent disaster assistance which will help farmers respond and recover from future unavoidable disasters and invest about two billion dollars in specially crops water specially crops strawberries apples those programs that are so important to our country so that stops us from having to import as much as we would do if we didn't have these programs but with the weather changes  had some of these programs some of these farmers have had tremendous losses they have not been able to recover from you know awful offers a reasonable compromise and country of origin labeling  there's a lot more going lugar offer an alternative farm bill amendment so mcconnell i and these members are important members on both sides aisle and will work together to ensure that ample time is given for consideration i'm confident hopeful that this process resolved in a truly barbwire bipartisan bill that was put our goal to communities promote a cleaner environment and grow our economy but i do say on alert everybody to this fact we've had a really good  legislative session once we get to a bill we've had basically all the amendments on most every bill i think this bill is going to have a little trouble with that mr president we have to complete our work by next friday a week from this friday and so we'll make sure that the amendments that are directly related to this bill will have an opportune to offer those will do our very best to see that's the case but this bill is a tax bill and there could be a lot of these chivas amendments offered if it were simply often amendment process and i think we're being late on this year session of congress everyone understands we can't do that when we have work we must complete the farm bill is a very bipartisan bill i think i can  can see cloture on the bill right now and probably do a pretty good job because it's really a remarkable bipartisan bill i don't want to have to do it now but i do want everyone to know that we're not going have an open i'm in process and that's my i've explained that to the republican leader this president this weekend we've seen a crisis unfold in pakistan it's not going crisis which has become much more difficult for a leader that in ministrations considered a partner in the fight against terrorism  extremism has taken steps to reverse course away from about democracy and he suspended fundamental human rights in the process i've had great hope for pakistan turn dash on i took a trip to that part of the world right after musharraf took power and we were impressed with him we came back to the united states the state department had told president clinton he should go to pakistan he was already headed for india and we prevailed on him to go to pax and i'm glad that the president did go to pakistan president clinton but things haven't worked out the way that i'd hoped is unfolding crisis must be watched very carefully and we must be prepared to respond to protect our security and our national interests of the all sides will show restraint sharpness keep the promise he made when sarah dash i met with him and when he took power almost eight years ago put pakistan back on a path toward democracy so i call upon general musharraf to return to the constitutional rule of law release the lawyers and others peaceful protesters that he's in prison and throw the past three and fair elections as early as possible situations only or a reminder one must change course in iraq we've been so focused on iraq mr president we've had the situation develop in israel with the palestinians ignored that crisis we've had in the middle east we have advanced situation around we have not heard no diplomacy only threats of war we have this intractable civil war in iraq that's ongoing which is now made more complicated result of what's going on in northern iraq with the kurds we have not focused on our diplomacy look what's happened in pakistan because we place all around this is on a person rather than on a country by staying so bogged down in iraq civil war president bush made it harder to respond to the pakistani problem and other challenges around the world iraq war leaves secretary rice and the fallen now their officials responsible  middle east south east and south asia with no strategic reserve to respond to humanitarian other crisis situations reminded that while the administration meant focus on iraq has failed to craft an effective strategy for eliminating but a recent national intelligence  described as an al qaeda safe haven the afghan pakistan border region and it's failed to catch osama bin laden or his number two salahi so today i also call upon president bush to conduct next expedited and and review of the national security strategy as it relates to the war in care and pakistan including a review of u s aid to pakistan and how we are going to get our troops out of iraq i will present bush to take a good look at the cost missed opportunities caused by his stay the course approach interact take steps to craft a more effective strategy addressing the threats and challenges america faces across the globe his friends and i would ask unanimous consent that the time for morning business be a full on the previous order the leadership time is reserved on of the previous order of the senate will proceed to a period of mourning business until three pm if i'm told three fifteen with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each present the casey as the next attorney general of the united states in that capacity mr president i've had the chance to sit through the car formation hearings in which judgment casey testified before our committee for two days i chaired the panel of independent witnesses and had a chance to question national experts in regards to the issues i think are important and must be met by our next attorney general i had the opportunity to personally meet with judge mckay see in my office to go over the priorities of the department of justice and how he would try to reverse some of the problems in that department i had the chance to specifically asked written questions to the nominee and got responses on those written questions i must tell you first i do believe that judge mckay sees anon or will person he has a distinguished record of public service and he would represent a refreshing change within the department of justice he has the ability to restore the morale and traditional pref professionalism tickly among the career attorneys at the department of justice but one of the critical issues that i value away on who should be our next attorney general is whether that individual where exercise the independence that is so required by the attorney general of the united states in short whether he will represent the people of our nation and not just the president of the united states we all know the record of the former attorney general alberto gonzales we know about how politics interfered with the selection and promotion of career attorneys at the department of justice we all now know the story of the firing of the u s attorneys and how it appears that partisan politics in criminal investigations criminal investigations may have interfered with the operations of the department of justice so in the pendants is a critically important factor in the next person to be the attorney general of the united states and because of judgment casey's response on the questions related to waterboarding i have concern about his independence he refused judge the case he refused to is torture he did in questions that were asked acknowledge that he would use independent judgment as to what constitute torture he said he would prosecute anyone who violated our laws he said in fact his views in a fundamental way conflicted with the president i'd states if he was unable to reconcile those those differences the would leave the office rather than compromising his views let me just read three questions that i asked of the attorney general nominee i asked as attorney general would you water the justice department to prosecute individuals who under eighteen u s c twenty three forty and twenty three forty a committed acts of torture judge mckay's easy answer the department of justice has an obligation to bring prosecutions to enforce all valid criminal statutes and as i explained during the hearing torture is prohibited by federal law then asked many do you believe that any exceptional circumstances exist that would justify torture is answer no i then asked as attorney general would you authorize the use of torture in any circumstance once again his answer was no so mr president i just can't understand why judgment casey won't tell us clearly that waterboarding is illegal under our  the fact that he leaves open that waterboarding could be permitted as an interrogation technique has me very concerned judge of the case he now acknowledges he understand what is generally meant by waterboarding i gave him the benefit of the dorna hearing he said i'm not familiar with the technique well that's difficult to understand but ok he then had time to reflect and learn about waterboarding as generally understood that has been  condemned for literally hundreds and thousands of years since the spanish inquisition so we now know hundreds of years he now understands what is generally meant by waterboarding but during the confirmation hearing and follow up questions he would not rule out the potential use question asked during the confirmation hearings did not ask about a specific technique that may have been authorized by the president for interrogating detainees that's that was a question that was asked as about waterboarding is generally understood it was not a hypothetical question  thousand what reporting has been condemned by the united states united states prosecuted japanese soldiers for waterboarding as a war crime after world war two we brought charges under war cry for those who would try to use that torture technique against americans in two thousand and five the congress passed the mccain amendment which prohibits the use of coal in your main and degrading treatment and punishment of person other detention custody or control of the united states government we also don't require the army must use the field manual while interrogating detainees in two thousand and six the army manual specifically prohibited water boarding during the independent counsel i had a chance to question admiral hudson who has a very distinguished record of service to our country former navy judge advocate general senior uniformed legal adviser to the secretary the navy in the chief of naval operations so we had a chance to talk about waterboarding he said waterboarding is one of the most iconic examples of torture it was  d during the spanish inquisition it's uses has been repudiated for centuries for centuries what admiral hutson said we look to the attorney general as our chief law enforcement officer he has to be absolutely unequivocal as to what torture is and what is not unique clarity from our principal leaders so it appears to me that judge that casey was yielding to the white house pressure on waterboarding in answering the questions to our committee and i find that very troubling because i'm looking for an attorney general who exercise independent judgment as to what the law of our country is and then no one's above our law on november first two thousand and seven that president bush implied that it judge in the casey answered the questions on waterboarding he would give terrorists a window into which techniques we may use and which ones we may not use well mr president i want the president in the united states and the attorney general of the united states to tell the world unequivocal that the united states will not permit the use of torture i'm not clear about the president we all remember his signing statements to the mccain amendment with leads questions as to whether torture could be allowed under some circumstances and now we're not clear with the case these answers as to whether waterboarding could be permitted under some circumstances a form of torture i think it is absolutely clear that our leaders make it apparent to all that the united states will not use torture nor will it ever tolerate any other country using torture or any individuals using torture against an american if a foreign agent attempts to use waterboarding as generally understood or any other form of torture against an american i want our country to use every means at its disposal to hold that offender accountable the president also said on november first that judgment case he could not go on the record about the details of a classified program he has not been briefed on lo i agree with the present in the united states judgment casey was not asked about pacific practices of the classified program he was requested to give information about waterboarding as generally understood he had an obligation to answer that question the nine eleven commission in one of its recommendations to congress said the u s should engage its friends to develop a common approach towards the tension and humane treatment of captured terrorists instead we've gone over it alone we haven't sought the advice of the international community and we're paying a heavy price for the manner in which we're proceeding we're losing our support internationally as it relates to how we treat detainees we're losing our ability as an international leader as the leader on fighting for human rights advancement throughout the world we're losing our leadership in credibility on this issue the president i served as the co chair of the health safety commission the senate chair of that commission the o s c helsinki process was started in one nine hundred seventy five countries in europe central asia canada the united states it's best known for its human rights dimension it has fought during the soviet union days and behind the iron curtain we thought to open up the process and to defen human rights and to stand up against torture and today we're fighting in the emerging democracies that make it clear that human rights of all people must be respected and torture cannot be permitted well we are being questioned by the organization for security and cooperation in europe as to what we are doing and mr president i'm having a hard time finding the right answers particularly on the issue of torture as i said beginning judge of a case he's a good person an honest man on the critical issue is standing up to this administration as an independent advisor against torture i have my doubts and for that reason i will be voting against his confirmation in the j mr president the subject that the senator from maryland speaks about is a subject of enormous gravity to this country we have been laboring with this issue in the intelligence committee and the issues coming to a head with regard to this nomination for attorney general clearly the policy of this country has to be clearly there can be no torture at the same time we have a world out there with a great deal of bad guys that are trying to do harm and it is important for us when they are in our custody that we get their cooperation in order to get the information in order to protect our country now striking that balance with no torture and still being able to adequately get the information in the debriefing sessions or interrogation if you will is the delicate balance that this country  must face an answer that question american america is a beacon of light to the world we have to be  people who crafted that constitution of our us said we are going to be different than the rest of the world and that we're going to protect freedom of speech and  religion and of assembling and of the press and we are going to protect our citizens from intrusion into their privacy by the government unless there is a check and balance of a separate branch of government a judge in the judicial branch granting an order called a warrant so that the government can invade that privacy  all of these things are under assault because of the abuses that we have seen in this administration in the last six years normally there wouldn't be the abuses but there are and that's what brings a lot of these delicate issues out into the open issues we had much preferred to be deciding privately without the full glare of the sunshine if in fact the government were abating the law but that's not been the case and thus again as the senator from maryland points out  we we are coming to another very delicate situation and this time with regard to the nomination of a very good man as the senator says but will he act unlike the previous attorney general did will he act as the lawyer for the people instead of the lawyer for the president and there and it makes it all the more difficult in some of the decisions we're make well mr president i came here to speak about another subject and that is another one that is exceptionally important to the future not only of america but the future of planet earth and that is whether or not this delicate environment that surrounds this planet in an atmosphere is going to go into cardiac arrest and it's going to be irreversible unless we do things now and there is a step in the right direction and that is i want to thank senator lieberman and senator warner for their efforts and their hard work in introducing the climate change legislation called america's climate security act i am a co sponsor of this act and because it is acts like this that will start us all on a path to tried to reverse the greenhouse effect that is happening to the planet what is the greenhouse effect it's simply when we start putting greenhouse gases in excess into the atmosphere gases like carbon dioxide c o two like sulfur dioxide as so too and when particularly it's the carbon carbon dioxide they come from a variety of sources maybe forty percent of the excess carbon dioxide is coming from our personal modes of transportation another forty percent is coming from our electrical utilities plants what happens is if you get too many of these gases particularly c o two in the air what it does is as the sun's rays come in and hit the earth and balance off the earth that he that radiates out into space these gases act like the glass top of a greenhouse and trap in the heat a greenhouse that  perfectly warm during the winter because of the sun's heat coming in and cannot escape once inside that's exactly how these greenhouse gases work and so if you get too much of a concentration high in the atmosphere then the heat cannot radiate out into space and the earth starts to warm so we have to go at the cross cause of the problem lessening the amount of those gases that act as this greenhouse topped surrounding the earth and that means cutting emissions from power plants from manufacturing plants and from transportation and cutting it significantly this bill calls for cutting the levels now here we are in two thousand and seven cutting back to the levels that were emitted in night two hundred ninety and to do that in thirteen years by twenty twenty and then it further says that thirty years after that that we would cut those emissions from the nineteen ninety level another sixty five percent and that's the only way that we're going a catastrophic global warming climactic of event that if it goes up another four and a half four point six degrees fahrenheit you cannot reverse it and then the seas are going to continue to rise the earth is going to continue to warm as the earth warms the past ellipse increases the storms become more frequent and more ferocious and if you live in a state as i do a land we call paradise but paradise is a peninsula call florida sticking down into the middle of oceans on both sides then you have the greater frequency of the storms the higher intensity of the storms and all the greater pestilence that comes along with the storms so what this bill does is it sets an overall cap on the greenhouse gas emissions that word as a matter of law have to be met over that period of time twenty twenty then twenty fifty and the way that you wouldn't force it and the mechanism would be the buying and selling of credit that companies would have to have in order to get the amount of the missions down to what is the reduced cap now there's already been a similar plan that has been tried and that was way back almost two decades ago the plan on reducing acid rain it was buying and selling these credits in some cases optioning them under the new bill and it worked so we've got to get something into law and get on the process of saving our plan earlier this year i went with the chairman of the environment committee senator boxer she took a bunch of senators on our committee she was kind enough to allow folks like me that were interested in the subject to go we went to greenland greenland is the place that has the biggest glacier why it is an island that is twelve hundred miles long from south to north it is five hundred miles wide and hundreds of thousands of years it was a piece of rock and then what would happen each year is the water in the earth would evaporate they would form clouds the clouds would be cooled the clouds would turn instead of to rain to snow the snow would fall and it would form a layer of snow the next year the same thing would occur and when you do that over hundreds of thousands of years the snow is packed each year and all that layer two miles now becomes a knife a glacier and what's happening and what we saw with our own ah this is that within just a few years already six miles of the glacier at the edge of the glacier is receding six miles and how it recedes is that it breaks off and in the particular here ward or river that we went to could see these big chunks of ice falling off the glacier into the feel lord floating down the fjord and out into the atlantic ocean and when they get into the atlantic ocean they are what you've always heard an iceberg and what we saw as we went around these icebergs in a little boat huge moun ice but that's only ten percent of it above the surface of the water ninety percent is underneath and then they get on out into the atlantic they melt the long and short of it is if that entire glacier on greenland were to melt now this is going to surprise the seas of the entire pla would rise twenty one feet now obviously that's going to take a long period of time but you can just imagine if we don't reverse what in fact is happening and don't give me this stuff that one person says global warming is true and another person it says it isn't true and the press treats it as if one is balancing against the other no ninety nine point nine nine of the scientists say that global warming is a fact a deep minima some out say that it is not let's recognize the science and this is where you just see that major committee in the united nations received one half of the united nations or rather the the nobel peace prize along with the former vice president of the united states global warming is a fact you can imagine if sea start to rise suppose they only rise not twenty one feet but  three feet you know what would happen to the coast of florida to the coast of louisiana to parts coming in and down hilton head and charleston and houston and even all the way up the eastern seaboard the stakes are too high and that's why i am co sponsoring this bill this bill made some progress last week when it was approved by a subcommittee on the environment and public works committee the full committee should be taking up soon i hope that we get action on this and we can get out here on the floor of the senate and debate this and i hope to be able to bring to this debate the information that a bunch of us led by senator boxer are going to go to bali indonesia for a global conference on the world climate change to get the input of the other nations of the world who have shown that they are a lot more concerned about this than the united states has been in the last few years and so i want to thank our colleagues all who've been involved in this i want to thank senator boxer for her leadership to thank senator warner who didn't have to do this he's retiring from the senate the senior senator from virginia he's a conservative republican but he knows that planet earth is in peril i want to thank senator lieberman who has been at the forefront of these environmental issues for years just the absence  all about was simply the house bill is come over it was at the desk and and on behalf of senator chambliss i just offered for both of us the substitute amend them as that is the senate passed a bill and that's now what's pending at the desk and so the dust begins today our deliberations and amendments on the two thousand and seven food and energy security act otherwise known as the farm bill president i intend to take some time here to lay out basically the farm bill itself the different titles some of the things that we did in committee and approaches that were done in the past and what we're looking at in this farm bill and so i hope to take some of my time this afternoon to do that as i understand mr president if i understand correctly under the previous order there will be no amendments in order today the senator is correct i understand it and so just opening statements on the on the bill itself and we'll proceed to amendments i say to other senators tomorrow at whatever time the senate convenes tomorrow so mr brown on behalf of the senate on agriculture nutrition forestry i'm pleased to bring to the floor the food and energy security act of two thousand and seven which enjoys broad bipartisan support among all our committee members in fact we reported it out by voice partnership in producing this bill along with the chairman and ranking member of the finance committee senator baucus and senator grassley as well as the chairman of the budget committee senator conrad mr president we generally refer to this legislation as the farm bill but that title does not do justice to the range in the scope of the bill yes the bill helps farmers and ranchers who produce an abundance of food and fiber and who are contributing ever more to our nation's energy security the bill also helps conserve and protect the environment on tens of millions of acres of farmland ranch land and wetlands it's the most important legislation to allow millions a low income american families put food on their table as the single most important legislation for boosting economic growth and jobs and improve quality of life in rural communities across our nation we have faced a real challenge in writing this legislation this year when we wrote the in two thousand and two we had about seventy three billion dollars of new money over ten years to invest but for this bill this year we barely had any funding above baseline fortunately we have had some help from the finance committee and obtaining additional funds we've also reexamined all of the spending in our baseline to come up with budget office as we have come by in these funds and produce what i believe is a forward looking bill that makes historic investments in energy conservation nutrition rural development and promoting better diets and health for all americans of course it also maintains a strong safety net for america's farm producers the bill looks to the future and creates new opportunities in agriculture and rural communities and yet i want to emphasize this bill complies with strict pay as you go budget rules that we had opted for earlier this year are present this legislation continues a strong system a farm income protection it's a truism we've heard many times but no farmers no food our nation needs programs that will help farm and ranch families survive the inevitable down markets disasters crop failures we need these programs so that the cycles of markets and weather do not force out of agriculture people who are so vital to grow food fiber and increasingly energy for our nation now you'll notice i referred to cycles and agriculture and that's why i have long been a strong supporter of what is commonly called counter sick they kill income protection programs for our farmers and ranchers that's a type of program that pays adequately when farm income falls yet is careful with taxpayers dollars when farm income is good because a countercyclical program is just good common sense i have never been a fan of direct or as they came to be known in the mid ninety's freedom to farm payments that were acted in the one nine hundred ninety six farm bill says the freedom to farm payments or the direct payments are not count er cyclical what we found is they help too little when times are bad for farmers but they are very hard to justify direct payments to farmers when we may be having record prices and high incomes how can you justify giving sort of quote free money when times are good so in my view a very positive feature of this bill is that we continue the countercyclical income protection system that we reinstated in the two thousand and two farm bill we also allow farmers at their option to choose a new form of countercyclical program called average crop revenue modeled after legislation introduced by senator durbin and brown this new choice for farmers will make farm income protection stronger and more flexible allow farmers better to manage their farms risks in today's uncertain and evolving farm economy our legislation also includes other improvements i'd like to explain further why i stressed the countercyclical elements in this legislation the farm programs are supposed to be about income protection helping farm and ranch families survive cycles of hard times regardless of income now it is true that for over seventy years federal price and income support have been the dominant feature of u s food and agriculture policy yet it's a mistake to suggest the farm program payments are somehow the most important contributor to the past success of american agriculture or to its success in the future a lot of times people say well you know these farm programs in the past have been a great success look what they've done to help us become the leader in the world in terms of agricultural production well they've been helpful but not the most important the most vital elements in the success of american agriculture has been the skill to take dedication and the hard work of the men and women and families on farms and ranches across the nation also all of the people who develop and supply technology and other production requirements like all the new hybrids that have come in in the last thirty to forty years that's increased production exponentially and of course the highly productive land and climate with which our nation has been so blessed thanks to these thirteen percent i learned sixteen percent increase in productivity of agriculture thirteen percent and the rest of the american economy so while this legislation we have for today is vitally important let us not forget the true sources of america's agricultural strength and abundance for those reasons i strongly believe that in addition to a solid countercyclical farm income protection system we must also make investments to help u one area in this bill where we are reaching out to help agriculture producers is in initiatives for growers of what we call specialty crops fruits vegetables tree nuts other horticultural or flor cultural crops past farm bills have focused heavily on a few crops that we have come to be known as storable commodities most notably cotton rice corn soy beans and  which are of course vitally important however according to u s d a specially crops now accounts for roughly fifty percent of the total value of u s crop production and this bill before we include a dramatic increase in our assistance to specially crop producers not in the form of subsidies or payments they have not asked for those this legislation will help our nation specially crop growers address the diverse array of challenges they face in today's increasingly complex and competitive global marketplace the programs within this bill will help america special properties yours gain access overseas markets well they can promote and sell their products but also strengthen our national prevention and surveillance system for invasive pests and diseases which will help protect the stability and health of fruits and vegetables in this country and of course we increase research on specially crops to prevent the spread of plant based viruses for instance the clean plant network for which we include twenty million dollars over the life of the bill will be a tremendous help to our orchard and nursery industry we claim plant network establishes a national system of diagnostic and receive research facilities to help ensure that our orchards and nurseries have the safest plant materials possible to grow the fruits and vegetables that we need we also provide a significant amount of money in this bill to address the trade related challenges of u s special crop producers the current trade deficit for especially crops in the united states is roughly two point seven billion dollars now the words we import two point seven billion dollars more fruits and vegetables and horticulture things like that than we export now the market access program at u s d a provides funding to nonprofit agricultural trade associations and agricultural cooperate is to help promote u s agricultural products overseas in other words to try to get that bal more in line the bill invests in additional ninety four million dollars in the market access program which would bring the program up to almost two hundred forty million dollars a year again this program has been tremendously popular among special crop or do three who receive nearly fifty percent of the m a p funding the bill also makes crucial investments in the prevention of invasive pests and diseases a total of two hundred million dollars in new funding is provided for a pest and disease program at u s d a to enter into cooperate agreements with state department of agriculture that conduct early plant past detection and surveillance activities president to some the farm bill may seem an abstraction removed from the pulse of everyday life but this is not the case the farm bill touches the lives of millions of americans every single day and nowhere is this more evident than in the nutrition title of the farm bill in the nutrition sections of this bill we strengthen america's commitment to fighting hunger and promoting sound health and nutrition by strengthening food assistance to low income americans a bill that's before us will help millions of americans who currently live daily in the shadow of hunger because of the assistance that this bill provides millions of americans will put food on their tables will be better able to afford child care so they can enter the workforce will be able to save modest sums for retirement for the education of their children and because of this bill millions of low income children in school throughout america will be introduced some perhaps for the first time the fresh fruits and vegetables that science tells us are critical to sound health and prevention of diet related  the current u s d a nutrition assistance programs need to be modernized and strengthened nowhere is that more evident than in the persistence of the term food stamp program that we've all heard of food stamps even though the paper coupons have long since gone by the wayside so we rename it the food and nutrition program no longer food stamp program but the food and nutrition program and we update it in a number of important ways we made some progress in the two thousand and two farm bill but the economic challenges for low income americans have in many respects multiplied in recent years since  number of americans experiencing food insecurity has increased from thirty one to thirty five million people similarly between two thousand and two thousand and six median household income in the united states adjusted for inflation actually decreased over the same period the number and percentage of american children living in poverty increased so u s d a food assistance has not kept up with inflation or changes in the real world for example because of budget cuts and acted in the mid one nine hundred ninety s the purchasing power of u s d a food benefits has continued to erode with each passing year similarly despite growing recognition that low income americans require the same incentives to save for their future as others current rules all but force low income americans to spend down the savings to rock bottom before they are eligible to receive food assistance during times of insecurity these punitive rules on family assets have not been meaningfully addressed since the light late  seventy s right now if you let's just take the case of a single mother who's working as a couple of kids she may be working at a low income job but she's put away a little bit of money for a rainy day she loses her job something happens temporarily unemployed need to have food assistance for her and her children right now she has  thousand dollars in savings two thousand dollars in savings she's ineligible for any food assistance as i said that two thousand dollars was set in the one nine hundred seventy s has not been increased barely since if it  up with inflation that would be about six thousand dollars right now so that's one of the things that we address in this bill finally as more and more low income women have entered the workforce in recent years congress has often spoke of the need to support families during this transition from welfare to work but our actions have not suited and matched our rhetoric for example despite the fact that childcare is critical to successful participation of women in our workforce when calculating income for a household to qualify for food assistance and to set benefit levels no more than one hundred seventy five dollars per child per month  and be counted as child care costs despite the fact that the average monthly cost of childcare in two thousand and six was well over six hundred dollars and i'm proud to say this bill addresses all of these issues stops the erosion of the and even increases food assistance for most receptive families the reforms asset rules by increasing the asset limit modestly we should i wish we could have done more we just didn't have the money for it but we did increase it and we also adjusted for inflation we exempt tax deferred retirement accounts and educational savings accounts from the asset limit we take that off the table it promotes work by allowing the full deduction of child care cost no more one hundred seventy five dollars limit whatever your child there are costs you get to deduct that and i want to again here again thank the administration and the r farm bill that they had proposed earlier this year this is also one of the key features of the administration's policy was to take away that limit on child care deduction so fighting hunger and food insecurity is a central mission of the farm bill is nutrition but title but it's not the only mission and this title we also seek to address poor health and nutrition among america's children much has been said and written about the sad state of nutrition among our kids manifested in rising rates of type two diabetes cardiovascular disease and a national epidemic of childhood obesity in this bill we act to improve child nutrition with a major expansion of the fresh fruit and vegetable program for schools i was able to initiate this program in the two thousand and two farm bill i've always believed that one of the reasons kids don't eat fresh fruits and vegetables is because they simply don't have the opportunity to do so so i figured let's give them an opportunity and see what happens so we began by providing fresh fruits and vegetables for free i might add fried fresh fruits and vegetables to  hundred schools in four states and one indian reservation we just want to test out what would happen if you gave three fresh fruits and vegetables to get in school not in the lunchroom but in the morning when they get the the teachers principals parents all of this program not one of the schools that is participate in this program it's all voluntary no one is forced into it they're all voluntary not one school that's participate in this program is asked to drop out in fact every school that has participated has begged to stay in it now by two thousand and five because other states were clamoring to get in the program and other schools we had expanded to ten states and two more indian reservations that's how successful it's been and in those states in which we do have it the schools that aren't getting the free fresher's abed vegetables are lined up saying we want to also we've seen the positive effects it's had kids no longer eating junk food is no longer sneaking candy cookies no longer going to vending machines to get the get some sugary snack or eating fresh fruits and vegetables well in this bill we make a quantum leap forward for this program the bill provides one billion dollars that's right one billion dollars over five years to expand the school fresh fruit and vegetable programs to reach nearly four point five million children nationwide with a special focus on high poverty school districts and i want to emphasize and i've been to some of these schools where they have this free fresh fruit vegetable program i can remember being in one where fourth grade kids fourth grade kids some of these kids have never never had a fresh apple in their entire life or in fourth grade fresh bananas never had such a thing i remember the class one time they had fresh pears because didn't even know what they were kiwifruit roberts i remember i went to school  eat these fresh fruit i have actually seen with my own it i kids eat fresh broccoli now that might come as a surprise to somebody a shock that kids actually eat fresh broccoli i've actually seen kids eat fresh spinach and because of the popular the program because it's grown some of the marketers have packaged are now packaging fruits and vegetables just for this program so the kids get a little plastic package rip it open they got enough inert for a little snack well as i said this taken on is providing better health better nutrition for kids they studied better they behaved better as i said there were some reticence when we started this program teachers thought oh my gosh kids are being thrown peels on the floor and apple corps at each other and making a mess of everything this has not happened this has not happened in fact teachers are now some of the strong supporters of this program so when you go in the schools and see these kids eating this stuff and they ripped open a package sent us these little love baby spinach leaders and they got a little love around ten of like ranch dip they opened up a diff those leaves in her broccoli and eat it right this because we're expanding this program big i have a goal that i have stated and long as i'm here i want to keep fighting for that goal and that is to make sure that this program is available to every elementary school in america within ten years within ten years i think you'll do more to childhood obesity to provide better health plus kids you know when kids start eating these things and we have some anecdotal evidence of this of kids who are eating fresh fruits and vegetables who they go home and ask her parents and we have some of this at home they go to the store with their parents or they go shopping and we had this in school i really like this i really like this food i like these vegetables that we have this at home so i think it's going to do a lot for really helping get out this problem of childhood obesity and some of the chronic diseases like diabetes that we're having among younger kids now long talk a bit about the energy title another very important and simon kind of a new area for agriculture the energy title here will help farmers in rural communities across the country join in a major transition in which our agricultural sector supplies clean biofuels and renewable energy for all of america it gives farmers a chance to add biomass crops to their farming operations with federal support to protect against the financial risks associated with the transition it supports real communities with the development of bio refineries for the production of biofuels and bio products that helps farmers and ranchers and rural small business who want to improve their own energy systems through grants and loans guarantees for energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems and it emphasizes a particular opportunity help for farmers and communities to install livestock manure to energy facilities that address environmental and odor problems while utilizing a valuable energy resource it will make investments in research that will complement enhance rural energy production opportunities members of the senate are well aware of the disastrous consequences of america's dependence on foreign oil no less an authority than alan greenspan has said that the war in iraq is really about oil at the same time with oil prices relentlessly approaching one hundred dollars a barrel our dependence on foreign oil is a threat to both our national security and the health of our economy and the bigger picture is that new oil discoveries around the world are steadily declining at the same time that global oil consumption is rising i had this chart here to indicate that these are the billion barrels of oil per year and discoveries and we can see the thirty's the fifty's huge increase the sixty's the seventy's a little bump up there with alaska then we keep coming down so we can see that global oil discoveries are rapidly rapidly rapidly declining at the same time we superimposed on that this red line showing consumption so as the oil discoveries are going down look at our consumption it keeps going up and up and up well the national petroleum council's report delivered to the department of energy this past summer states that quote it is a hard truth that the global supply of oil and natural gas from the conventional sources relied upon historically is unlikely to meet projected fifty to sixty percent growth in demand over the next twenty five years well our country needs energy we need energy to grow and to produce we need energy for the new the new kinds of manufacturing we're going to have in this country for transportation well as an urgent national priority priority to accelerate our transition from oil to homegrown foreign based renewable sources of fuel and electrical power reach our full potential and producing renewable biofuels using feedstock from our farms and forests we can replace as much as thirty percent of our transportation fuels by twenty thirty by twenty thirty right now current ethanol production is about seven billion gallons annually i believe we're headed towards a production of sixty billion gallons of biofuels requiring fifty to one hundred million acres of cropland dedicated to biomass crops by the year twenty thirty and these charge show the sharp upward trajectory of u s production of biofuels over the past five years and with the contributions that we're making in this bill so here's what we've done on biofuels i mean it doesn't go back very far so if you go back just about the late eighty's early ninety's millions of gallons not very much but look at the sharp curve up that we came up in the late ninety's and the two thousand up to two thousand and five and then look at the projections so here we are two thousand and five two thousand and thirty at sixty billion gallons a year so that's the trajectory that's rejected that we're basically on and that most a lot of us have committed  billion dollars over five years for new investments and farm based energy it's imperative that we accelerate the transition to biofuels produce from say last feed stocks in addition to grains if we want to get to that sixty billion gallons per year and here in addition to speeding up the development and evaluation of conversion technologies we also confront a classic chicken and egg dilemma entrepreneurs build  address this dilemma very aggressively on the supply side we allocate one hundred thirty million dollars over five years to the biomass crop transition program we know it takes a few years to get crops like switchgrass  miscanthus or soft or fast growing poppers or whatever it might be takes time to get them started and established so farmers are going to need financial assistance during the transition that's what we provide in this  bill on the other side on the demand side we all take a three hundred million dollars to support grants and loans for bio refinery pilot plants loan guarantees for commercial bio refineries and support f million dollars to support feedstock purchases for advanced biofuels production we continue the section nine zero zero six program of grants and loans guarantees that we put in the two thousand and two farm bill this is for farmers and ranchers to purchase renewable energy systems or energy efficient viciously systems for their own farm or ranch the budget for this is two hundred thirty million dollars double what we put in the farm bill in two thousand and two biofuels can be produced in just about everywhere in the united states this will expand biofuels production beyond our major corn producing regions and to places closer to where the fuels are blended and consumed and i'll make this prediction if we can preserve the senate energy provisions in conference maybe get some additional funding for them which will try to do  five years by the end of the life of this farm bill we're going to see silencing biofuel refineries crowding up like mushrooms all over this country that will help restore energy security and our national security it's good  environment it's good for farmers and the rural economy let me talk a little bit about another important part of this farm bill that's the conservation time agriculture and forest lands accounts for sixty nine percent of all the land in the united states that means that farmers ranchers forest land owners are the first line of defense for our environment they are america's first conservationist conservation time of this bill gives them the tools they need for a voluntary effort to conserve oil protect water and air quality and to increase wildlife habitat on their land and maintain and improve our nation's natural resources for future generations the conservation programs are like a tool kit to address conservation needs from the basic function of providing technical assistance on how best say to protect the waterway from erosion and runoff to paying for easements to protect wetlands and grasslands are working farmland that's under the threat of development to cause share incentive payments and enhancement payments to help farmers build and adopt new conservation practices this bill look to the future in preserving our natural resources by allocating four billion dollars in new budget authority for the conservation title this is extraordinarily important to the future of farming in the united states i'm pleased that we're able to accomplish so much within relatively limited funding for example the wetlands reserve program had no baseline to continue to control wetlands after this year so we had to put in new money for that the grass and reserve program was also out of funds to enroll new land we had to put new money in for that the conservation security programs funding had been cut by billions almost four billion dollars over the last five years to pay for agriculture disasters and budget reconciliation we needed to restore sufficient funding the allow the program to enroll more acres nationwide and i'm pleased to say that we have successfully resolved all of these funding challenges in addition to maintain your expanding existing programs we address some new needs in this bill for example here in the mid atlantic area where washington d c is located we devote one hundred sixty five million dollars to improving conservation to help clean up chesapeake bay this is money that will be used for the plant treatment so all that runoff will be going into chesapeake bay in the southeast in order to provide better wildlife habitat we provide funding to improve the management of trees planted on conservation reserve program acres i'm pleased to join with the committee's ranking member senator chambliss who was the basic mover behind this the conservation time also establishes new incentives for producers to allow voluntary public access to the land for hunting fishing and other wildlife related activities senator conrad has been a leader on this issue  legislation and we have included it in this bill the conservation time also makes important policy changes we have worked to streamline the process to acquire conservation conservation easements in the wetland reserve program the farm and protection program and the grass and reserve program that process has been paper heavy since the beginning and we in this bill we've addressed that to cut down on the paperwork and this bill w make significant improvements in the conservation security program which was created in the two thousand to farm bill to reward farmers and ranchers for good conservation practices on working land now this was new in the two thousand and two farm and it basically is most in the past most conservation programs were land that was taken out of production one way or the other wetlands grasslands the c r p program others land out of production but as we saw more and more land coming into production base a lot of it for ethanol production more more marginal and started coming in and we had to do something about that well in this bill the program was renamed the conservation stewardship program to reflect the goal of the program to promote the long term benefits to our nation by adopting and maintaining good conservation practices we have yet to realize the full potential of the conservation stewardship program because of tight restrictions on funding that excluded many producers regulations that only allowed certain farmers and acres to be rolled in certain designated watersheds every year and in addition the process resulted in some kinds of crops and production techniques being largely excluded from programs like organic for example well the new conservation stewardship program will eliminate the store shortcomings it will grow happily at a pace of more than thirteen million acres a year which with the fifteen million acres already enrolled will total eighty million acres in five years acres will be allocated to states based not of watersheds but simply on each state's share of the national eligible acres within each state enrollment will be accomplished through a ranking process that will prioritize producers who are already doing good conservation and who are willing to do even more and again i emphasize here that this program will start in two thousand and two is going to grow rapidly as i said eighty million acres the idea behind it basically is to reward farmers for being good conservation those farmers who practice good tell each method of conservation tillage to put buffer strips along rivers and streams of those who apply just the right amount of fertilizer not huge amounts of fertilizer get runoff into our rivers in our streams klute chesapeake bay and other places so again the idea is to basically reward good stewardship of our land and i think it's a good investment and i think it's one that will be broadly supported by the american people as i said these kinds of conservation programs are more important than ever the rising demand for commodities is bringing millions of acres in a production a lot of land that was in the conservation reserve program is now coming out we can't force people into it and we don't have enough money to build everything back into it so if that land is going to be planted for some kind of crop production then we better be doggone careful that it's done in a and serving manner and so we provide the incentives here in the conservations stewardship program for that for that to make sure they get the technical assistance to cochere the payments to prevent erosion and runoff as we look to the future we have to look at these conservation programs normally as a boost to the environment and cleaning up our environment but as a deputy oh a world trade organization compliant way of assisting farmers and ranchers i kind of got the idea for this conservation security program now renamed the conservation stewar p program traveling through europe in the one nine hundred ninety s late one nine hundred ninety s and looking at their farmers and being amazed at how clean the countryside was and then i looked at how much money european countries were giving to support their farmers a lot more than we were what they were and what they were deputy o compliant i had to figure this out how were they giving so much money to farmers more than we were but it didn't violate trade but the money we were given to farmers violated trade was simply that they were making quote green payments to farmers payments to their farmers for conservation and up rivers and streams green  green payments are under the quote green box of deputy o and is deputy o compliant so we do not violate any of our agreements under dead deputy go by providing farmers payments for being good conservationis south i mentioned earlier that one element has been overlooked seriously in our farm bills in the past now we put a little bit in the two thousand two farm bill dealing with organics and that was a the organic certification but the fact is org it is the fastest growing sector in u s agriculture and the demand for organic products is so great that  outpaces our domestic supply much of that two point seven billion dollars of of products i would call for products coming into this country over what we send out is  organics i that people in the organic food business who are selling organic foods say that they can't get it locally they cannot get it in this country so they have to import it but we don't have enough farmers getting into organic production so imports pick up the slack well in this bill we make it a priority to help farmers who are serious about getting into organic food production and we help them overcome the challenges of transitioning  we include eighty million dollars over five years for research into organic production and marketing we include five million dollars for price field and overall data collection which we don't even know about now we remove the five percent available for farmers to transition into organic agriculture one that one of the problems in organics that we've had is that for a farmer to get certified to be organic you have to have at least three years of not using herbicides and pesticides that well during that three year period your yields go way down you cannot yet marketed as organic and get the higher prices that organics demand are now demanding and you goes down so you're losing money and the other markets the non organic market so we have provided some cochere assistance to get farmers to what they all this valley of death if they're serious about becoming organics maybe even on a part of their farm not the whole farm but a few acres this could provide the help that they need to get into that kind of organic food production let's talk about hunger and malnutrition that we're that we provide in this in terms of our food assistance programs another part of our bill be very proud that over the last half century the united states has been the world's leading donor of food to hungry people around the world now to be a source of great pride to us programs are estimated to have helped more than three point five billion people over that period i firmly believe that our humanitarian activities throughout the developing world continue to be an essential component of our long term effort to combat poverty and to build bridges of goodwill to foreign countries is a shocking fact that here in the twenty first century there is an estimated eight hundred million hungry people in the world half of them children and april the government accountability office released a study on how to improve the targeting and efficiency of u s international food aid programs a study that senator chambliss and i requested last year i'm pleased to report that the agencies involved in the delivery of u s food aid are on a path to adopt most of the recommendations made by the g a o some of the other recommendations those that require statutory changes are addressed in this bill we set aside a specific amount of funding under title two for non emergency development assistance systems projects the creation of this safe box as it's called is intended to send a strong message that it is not acceptable not acceptable for us and id to use non emergency program funding as the piggy bank its regular appropriations for title two emergency programs are inadequate i believe it is shortsighted to withdraw assistance from hungry people striving to break the vicious circle of poverty in order to provide food to even hungry or more desperate people to me this approach is like using one family's seed corn to feed another family in the end both will be left congress and the first family's efforts to lift itself out of poverty last few years the president has requested authority to use up to twenty five percent of title two funds for local or regional cash purchase but i think this concept needs careful testing before we consider adopting it on a larger scale i also want to make clear that i see local cash purchases as a complement to donation of u s commodities not as a substitute i've already noted the funding for this new farm bill is extremely tight so we were limited in what we could do to increase resources for international food aid programs however the trade cattle provides an increase the amount that can be spent on transporting us commodities under the food for progress program the food for progress program is a name that is aimed at improving economies and helping to build democratic institutions in developing countries and in eastern european countries transitioning to democracies obviously we would like to do more to increase funding for the food for progress program i also would like to provide mandatory funds the actual mcgovern dole international food for education program a program that i helped establish that we put in the two thousand and two farm bill the mcgovern dole program is designed to encourage children in developing countries to go to school and stay in school by providing them a free or subsidized lunch just like the school lunch program in this country reef lifetime a program has helped nineteen million kids attend and stay in school developing countries think about it this way in the united states we provide free and reduced price school all over america but you know where we spend less than ten percent of our disposable income on food you know providing a free lunch is not that big of an impact on a when you get to some of these poor countries in africa and india in southeast asia where they're spending over sixty percent of their disposable income on food to provide a free meal to a child is a big deal it can be the magnet that gets that get out of the abuse of child labor and into a school by providing that one meal every day so it's a great program i remember when both senator dole and senator mcgovern came to see me about it in the late ninety's trying to get into the next farm bill which we did and their hopes and dreams for i still think if we can put the money into this and to grow it it could be one of the best things we could do to fight terrorism in the world by providing kids this free meal once a day would be one of the best things we could ever do to fight terrorism well despite limited new funding i'm proud of the work that we've done on food aid in this building the other trade if we should present farmers markets or expanding all of the i mean they're all over the place last several years we've seen farmer's market springing up all over the place people want to purchase fresh locally grown food however these are very challenging enterprises they require grassroots organizing planning advertising farmers have to be recruited there are regulatory and logistical challenges in both the two thousand two farm bill and this new farm bill i've worked to help people overcome some of these barriers in the two thousand to farm bill we had a program called the farmer's market promotion program to help people develop and organize farmers markets and to enable direct producer to consumer market opportunities and the bill before us w thirty million dollars the life of the bill for these types of activities too often farmers can and want to expand production of food to be sold locally but they face difficulties finding markets larger retail outlets  consistent and abundant quantity which is something else small farmers just can't provide this bill seeks to solve this problem by fostering new opportunities for farmers to band together providing funding through value to produce some of their land to grow produce or vegetables or fruit or whatever it might be or maybe they want to do some free range chickens or organic meat or something like that on the part of their operation well like i said they can't get to the bigger markets so what we need are aggregators who can go after this farmer and that farm that farmer say ok you bring your beats here and you bring your beets and you bring your beater you bring your character you bring your a and whatever it is we put them together and then we can sell them the whole foods or two if they're organic or to other large grocery chains that's what we've done in this this bill to promote and to make it easier for farmers to get their produce to farmers markets we also see it for photo opportunities and production agriculture as we do that we have to realize that the success of our farm whole households is tied not only to what's produced on the farm but the strength of the sound the surrounding economy rural economic development currently more here i mean it's amazing when you look at it the percent of farm household income from off farm sources two years ago northern great plains sixty nine point three percent in the heartland where i'm from iowa sixty six point seven percent mississippi portal ninety point one percent southern seaboard ninety four point nine percent northern crescent eighty five point two percent i guess would by be the least and in the  heartland of sixty six point seven so even in our area two thirds of farm income comes from off farm income sources and again nine out of ten people who live in rural america are not even farmers so our committee has a responsibility for crafting public policies that support not only farmers but all of our citizens who live in small towns and rural communities rural america confronts unique challenges because of us low population density the limited capacity of local governments other special circumstances in recent years we have come to appreciate that agriculture and real development are closely intertwined they have a common fate and we need to go forward with  policy framework that supports both our farms and our rural economy for years many economic development leaders have been frustrated that we have failed to create a more comprehensive approach to rural economic that's why i'm excited about the rural collaborative investment program in this bill which received one hundred thirty five million dollars in funding over five years this new program provides federal support for regional collaboration it's becoming clear to us that no one rural town or county can go it alone rural areas must work together regionally to scale up investments build competitive economic clusters overcome geographic disadvantage the rural collaborative investment program awards innovation grants are competitive basis to regions that creatively leverage these funds with other federal state private and philanthropic resources it provides incentives for elected officials leaders of the business community and nonprofit organizations to come together to jointly develop plans that work best to improve the economy in their particular area those that develop the best plans will receive significant resources from us a to help implement their plans because of federal limited federal funding many who compete for innovation grants when i get one but they will still come out winners because they will have gained valuable experience in collaborating across county and town boundaries and they will have created a plan of action tailored to their specific area again i just think this is so essential if we look at the fact that household income coming from non farm income and i've often said before what good does it do if we save every farm but all the of small towns right blow away already in my own state of iowa kids that live on farms are getting on a school bus going an hour and a half to school in the morning in the dark hour and a half back at night in the dark farm families can't even buy the essentials for their family unless a drive one hundred miles there's no local support turkey's got so we have small towns and i work churches no longer exist go to church have to drive forty fifty miles just to get to church on sunday so we had to do something to start enhancing the economic viability of our small towns and communities and that's what we do here one other key element i want to point out is the promotion of community foundations you know it's not that rural america is poor and rural america we have billions of dollars in assets land good valuable land and quite frankly a large share of this i know in my area and in the upper midwest i don't know so much about some other part of the country but i hope it holds true almost all over large share of this asset value is held by people who are sixty five years of age and older well these farmers ranchers care deeply about their communities they care deeply about the rural way of life they care about the institution of the family farm many would be more than happy to give a generous share of their well when that wealth transfers to another generation or they sell it they would be more than happy to give a generous portion of that back to their communities if they had a credible agency to make good use of the gift and that's exactly the role that community foundations play the perfect vehicle for bringing together local financing local brainpower local leadership to focus on solutions tailored to a given community or group of communities i might also say that the real development of this bill also provides forty million dollars for a new micro loan program championed by the senator from nebraska senator nelson provides support for organizations that help people of modest means acquire the expertise to start their own businesses that provide small loans to these new entrepreneurs we provide fifty million dollars in new funding for rural hospitals each dollar supports about eighteen dollars in direct loans and more dollars as loan guarantees this will help rural hospitals to acquire the equipment they need to improve patient care computerized their records again i was remiss just a few minutes ago in talking about all the needs of rural america when the big needs of health care and making sure that we have rural hospitals there with primary and emergency care we provide forty million dollars for the construction of daycare centers again demographics show that many young families are leaving rural america poll after poll shows that they'd like to stay there but they need an off farm job and to get that off farm jobs need daycare and there just simply isn't much daycare to be had access to quality affordable daycare is a big part of the solution and it's urgently needed and we provide forty million dollars for the construction of daycare centers in rural america i might also add that one of the provides one hundred thirty five million dollars to reduce the backlog of these applications one other thing that's going to help a lot with these off farm income jobs is the introduction of broadband services for small towns and communities and not just a small towns and communities but to the farms themselves i like to think that the extension of broadband to our farms is every bit as essential today as the extension of electric lines were to paperwork we also cut down basically we shift from financial systems going to areas that already have broadband service we don't need that we need to get into areas that don't happen and this is a basic utility i think it should be thought of as a basic utility both for the kids who need it for their school work for farmers and rural business people in order to do business i do have instances where and small communities a small business person was growing his insurance business but he needed access to broadband and there were like you know i forget exactly how it is less than ten people work there but he's going to grow his business you know we could but he needed broadband access if he'd had broadband access he could have stayed in that small town maybe employed fifteen to twenty people so they could do it he moved to a larger city deploying our capital agricultural research which has been so important for that one hundred and sixteen percent increase i said in agricultural productivity since one thousand nine hundred sixty the research title increased competitive opportunities for basic and applied ag research it will strengthen the research extension and education programs administered by u s d a through our land grant institutions will achieve these objectives by restructuring the grant administering agency a and transforming it into a national institute of food and agriculture this will improve integrate and streamline the management of competitive and infrastructure programs and will require a road map be led by the undersecretary for research education economics to refocus the research mission at u s d a as i said the farm bills research title has historically produced enormous benefits relatively modest funding my experience few people appreciate the transformational impact of breakthroughs in agricultural research give one example of the work of an island what was known as the green revolution which just saved upwards of a billion lines dr bore logged and won the nobel peace prize and recently won the congressional gold medal and very nice ceremony here in the capital but many people still don't realize how his success as an ag research really have changed the world so we're continue to achieve great agra nomic breakthroughs in ag research but agricultural research is rapidly changing and so we need to change the methodology by which we fund and promote ag research and that's what we do in this bill the national institute of food and agriculture will lay the groundwork for a more robust ag research system hopefully lead to increased funding in the future funding i might add that has remained flat and about in the past twenty years i would also like to just highlight that in ag research we've provided eighty million dollars for specially crops research advanced breeding and mechanization and her prove the safety i emphasize the safety of fruits and vegetables and we have provided eighty million dollars for research in organic agriculture which i said earlier is the fastest growing part of our agricultural economy the largest obstacle to farm entry for a beginning farmer and rancher and our access to two things credit and hundred portion of the funding in the farm service agency loan programs have been reserved for beginning farmers and ranchers this bill expands the credit opportunities for beginning farmers by increasing the funding set aside and increasing the direct farm ownership and operating loan them for the first time in over twenty years we have in increased the loan programs the operating loans and the direct ownership loans for beginning farmers for the first time in almost twenty years them also proud of the fact that this is the first farm bill ever like doing first things here in the senate five years ago we put the first ever energy title and i'm proud of the fact that this is the first farm bill ever to include a livestock title dedicated to the needs of our livestock poultry and a producers and aimed at promoting animal health and expanding market opportunities consolidation and vertical integration the livestock and poultry industry has dramatically reduced the number of buyers and some reason or just a few left this has created an acute need for market reforms and more rigorous u s d a enforcement of the packers and stockyards act and the agricultural fair managing and forcing these to act the bill would limit packer ownership of livestock in order to provide stability to the marketplace for independent producers that provides basic fairness for producers using contracts so that companies can't force producers to travel great distances to settle disputes knowers the traveller across the country or a pack of corporate headquarters might be located in addition this bill makes arbitration voluntary voluntary so the producers are not forced into on friendly terms and take it or leave it contracts let me also mention that at the urging of senator urban and others the bill requires the creation of a congressional bipartisan food safety commission this commission would be responsible for using the nation's food safety system and making recommendations on how best to modernize th current structure over the last year we've had outbreaks of the cold like contamination in bags spinach and lettuce and numerous recalls a very large quantities of meat meat products just over the weekend and in today's paper i read there's like a million pounds of ground beef being recalled from area stores i think in this area and i don't know what other areas of the country we've had repeated cases of contaminated food everything from peanut butter so the work of this new congressional bipartisan food safety commission will both be timely and urgent and our consumers are basically demanding that so in sum i know i've taken a long time but mr praed i want to lay out the comprehensiveness of this bill a lot of people focus on payments to farmers and i think that's the farm bill small part of the farm bill comprehensive we cover everything we cover the waterfront so to speak and everything and i just mentioned in food safety our consumers want us to have a better handle on food safety we do that in this bit crude assistance to hungry people it would be good for far murs good for rural communities good for our environment it will promote our help improve our energy security and it is fiscally responsible it was a strong bipartisan support in the remembers of the four in a timely fashion hopefully we can complete our work this week and go to conference as soon as possible i might just add one final thing i didn't mention this i assume that the finance committee in his opening remarks will will dwell more on but the substitute amendment at the desk that we just offered of the house bill includes appropriations of the finance committee package now again this includes a permanent disaster assistance program tax credits to help offset the costs of conservation programs in this bill and other tax provisions related agriculture as i said i expect senators  these provisions at greater length however i want to thank them both and thank the members of the finance committee including the occupant of the chair for all of their support and helping the agriculture committee meet its goals and at the same time stay within our budget guidelines so mr president i know i've taken a lot of time but again i want to take the time again to let those who may be watching  monitors people around the thank you watching on c span and others who think that a farm bill is only about farm payments to farmers i want to lay it out to show the comprehensiveness of this bill that touches our lives every day in many many ways from the safety of the food that we eat to the to the lunches and the stacks that our kids get in school to their systems to a family down on its luck that needs some food assistance to feed their kids during a maybe they're out of work for a period of time that provides the kind of funding to help us meet our energy needs in this country get us off of our oil pipeline to foreign countries it saves our soil provide for clean water wildlife habitats for hunters our fishermen in this country research more research into how to do things better how to be even more productive to be more safe we have growing demands on our land and yet we have to make sure that our productivity keeps going up we've seen tremendous strides in the past because of a energy security bill covering everything all the food that we eat and consume all the food that we produce all the food that we have in our food assistance programs and yes our energy needs in this country also that's what his his stewardship up of this committee when he was chairman and for all the hearings that senator chambliss had last year all around the country came to my state of iowa and a great hearing in iowa when all over this country elena groundwork for this bill and it was a smooth transition this year when our party took over the senate in the elections of last year and we continued that great work great groundwork that senator chambliss laid this bill people wonder why we took so five and i've always been it's been it's been a wonderful in a way in some ways i've been a wonderful thing that farm bills are never partners i've never seen a partisan fight on a farm bill i have seen regional fights on farm fields though and different regions of the country and  it's kind of hard to put it all together especially when you have the budget constraints that we've had you know in two thousand and two or that sailed through you see we had seventy three billion dollars over baseline men make everybody happy with that but under the leadership of senator conrad in the budget committee we decided this year we're not going to do this deficit spending anymore we're going to get out of the hole we're in we're going to get back up again if you back up out of these deficit budget that we've had in the past and so we have a paygo budget and we met our all obligations here with this bill to do just that so it took a long time to work it out but we also need is a little bit extra help and that help came to the finance committee in the finance committee again because of a lot of reasons they have a lot of things on their plate too could not get to this until late in the september and so once that was finished and we had our allocation from them we move ahead very aggressively with just a matter of days to finalize this and all the building gather and we had tough negotiations but farm bills as i said have always been tough negotiations but they've been good negotiations and i think they've been done in the spirit of making sure that all the pieces fit together that's what this farm bill that makes all the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle may not be everything that i wanted in the beginning it may not be everything that senator chambliss wanted to be getting or nobody else but that's what that's what this is it's a it's a kind of a grand compromise if i might say but all these things together and to fit them together so that the entire country benefits from this and so i say that in a way of thinking sen i see senator conrad is on the floor also thanking him both in his capacity as chairman of the budget committee but also as a ranking member on the agriculture committee to help us put all these numbers together so they work and again i  close my remarks again by thanking senator chambliss for his stewardship when he was chairman but also being a being my partner in this to bring this bill together as a ranking member and and hopefully it be just fine with me if we long been a great partner and a great friend for agriculture and that's what this is all about at the end of the day it's not about not about the individual but it's about those farmers that we represent and  friendship back in two thousand and two when we when the conference committee went as a member of the house he is a member of this body agreed on several things that we work together own and work very hard together on to make sure when cooperated i that two farm bill and as we moved into the process the debate on this farm bill just been a great partner for american agriculture and and we've had opportunity with both with our staffs and without our staffs and numerous discussions hours of discussions about the direction in which we ought to go and the one thing that budge from the difficult issues we've had to had to compromise and come in to agreement and we've done that in a very professional way in and the product of all of that discussion and work is this farm bill which  three of us have produced in a file here today and i think it's a good product and it shows that when we do work together in a bipartisan way and too often on the floor of this body we don't do that but in this case we certainly have and when we do we can produce what the american people lawn and that is a good legislative package mr president i want to rise today in support of the bab partisan food energy security act of two thousand and seven that was overwhelmingly reported out of the senate agriculture committee on october twenty five two thousand and seven this bill as i said is a result of many long hours of hard work on the part of master the steps of chairman harkin and budget chairman conrad in addition i have met regularly with republican staff members  scheme republican members of the senate committee and tatt tried to address their thoughts and concerns throughout the entire process as a result of those outreach efforts many of the republican members on the committee played a critical role in constructing this bill particularly liked to thank santa create for all the hard work he did in crafting the bipartisan conservation title in addition i entire committee worked in a bipartisan fashion and largely was able to accommodate the interests and priorities of almost every member of the ag committee i'm extremely grateful that we were able to report this farm bill out of committee with all but one member of the committee an agreement i indeed a luxury to pass a bill out of committee with twenty out of twenty one members lending their support particularly in this time of increasing political differences and legislative inactivity i think it speaks highly of the men and committee that we were able to have a constructive debate that has led to a bipartisan bill that will strengthen american agriculture it is my hope and expectation that we will engage in a similar open bap artisan process as we consider the farm bill on the floor of the senate this week and probably in the next week traditionally the senate consideration of farm bills have been conducted in an open manner and i see no reason to diverge from that course during this debate the substitute amendment that we will consider beginning today is an extremely complex piece of legislation and i want to echo what senator harkin stated a little bit earlier and that is we finance committee pieces and then we have the ag committee piece that have been joined together we would not have been able to produce the ag committee piece without a contribution from the finance committee the work of is extremely important and has mailed it in to the work that we did on the ag committee it is complex farm bale's in and of themselves extremely complex whether you look at the commodity title where we talk about and use phrases that are not common to most members of the senate most of them don't understand when we start talking about marking loans or countercyclical payments because they're not used by  members of this body in everyday ongoing discussions like what the the finance committee piece is extremely complex and involves some all sets of some programs that most of us don't deal with on a daily basis so i'm very hopeful that the process will move in the course that it normally moves along with respect to farm bills and that is that we have a free and open debate and that everybody has the opportunity to come in and talk about any interest they have in the farm bill to offer amendments  portion of the farm bill and then at the end of the day when all of the votes are counted i am very confident that we're going to come out of here with a very positive forward leaning reform minded forward thinking farm bill that will allow us to go to conference with the house and come out of that conference with a farm bill that provides a safety net makes the reforms in the right areas of agricultural policy where we need those reforms the time provides the canned of programs that we need in nutrition and screw lunch in an energy as well as in conservation research and the other critical portions of this bill will need to carefully and methodically consider all proposals but put forth bowels senators both on the agricultural and the finance related provisions of the bill it would be counterproductive to attempt to circumvent our careful deliber process by restricting the consideration of any proposal that is offered i believe in an open farm bill debate and i will not support any circumvention of the normal process with respect to amendments that anyone may want to offer it is mass and sear hope that the senate will agree with our committee and support this farm bill that will strengthen the nation's food security protect the livelihood of our farmers  ranchers preserve our efforts to remain good stewards of the environment and enhance our nation's energy security efforts i consider a safe affordable and abundant food supply a critical national security interest i realize that many people today are far removed from the farm and it's hard for them to comprehend the complexities of production agriculture and how vitally important it is to the nation that i agree cultural history that our agricultural industry can support the that american citizens without relying on imported food and products free market advocates will say that we will always be able to buy what we need from other countries and that is true but i don't want to take that chance i don't want to rely on other countries from africa as we do now for energy senator hark just put up some charts over here that talked about the production of all we can to put up similar charts that talk about the production of food but it in the day the bottom line is that american farmers  ranchers produce the safest most abundant high school out of food supply of anybody in the world and when the consumer buys those products at the marketplace americans pay less out of every disposable dollar than any other country in the world that safe abundant and hack quality of food supply now despite challenging budgetary do i wish we had more resources sure but we found ourselves in a different situation today compared to the last time congress passed a farm bill it is ironic that the strong prices we're experiencing today in farm country would make our job more difficult in drafting a new farm bill that being said key agricultural priorities including specially corruption nutrition conservation and energy programs all receive additional funding allowing these critical agriculture sectors to realize unprecedented gains that will stimulate production and benefit not only the farmers and ranchers that produce agricultural products but also the consumers and food aid participants that enjoy them an affordable price americans enjoy that safest most affordable and most abundant food supply and all of this being done with less than one percent of the federal budget being spent as a first go conservative ak and support that can of investment any time and i may point out that the largest funding increase in this farm bill goes to nutrition i think in the last farm bill we spent twenty eight percent of the budget on the commodity title alone in this farm bill we are spending approximately fourteen percent on the commodity title we are increasing the nutrition title bout over fab billion dollars and that is no spall accomplishment and the additional resources were made available by reductions in other areas of the bill including the commodity and crop insurance programs which you have always been the heart and soul of production agriculture center should understand the delicate compromise this entails and further efforts to take funds from the farm safety net could stall this bill nutrition title is a vital part of this farm bill in the committee passed bill makes important improvements to the food stamp program that have long been on the agenda of  hunger community and said to harkin alluded to the fact that we have increased the asset limit from two thousand dollars to thirty five hundred dollars he's exactly right that's a critical aspect of this bill with the with regard to the nutrition title i have been a supporter to try and increase that to four thousand dollars which on a culture of living scale over the last twenty years that's what it should be and we had hoped to do that and i actually have a bill out there it's a standalone bill to do that but unfortunately with the limited funds that we have we weren't able to do that but when we did found some additional money candidate the end of the day just before we finished the writing of this bill and i agreed very quickly that where we are to put that my is in the nutrition title to make sure that we can do the things like make some of the programs permanent as well as raise the the asset limit and make sure that that we have a food stamp program which benefits farmers and ranchers as much as it does the beneficiaries that will be meaningful and will be workable add especially like to thank my dear friend bill bolling a executive director of the atlanta community food bank not only for his council as we have gone through the preparation of this farm bill but also for hosting the committees nutrition hearing at his facility this past april this provided us a great opportunity to better understand the needs of food banks all across america as well as hear firsthand testimony from georgians who rely on the food assistance programs that are  an important part of this farm bill this bill takes important steps to improve the food purchasing power of food stamp participants and makes the food stamp program more accessible to working families with low incomes by raising the asset limit exempting certain our s approve savings accounts increasing the standard deduction and increasing the minimum benefit for food stamps this legislation will better enable low income americans to afford the food and nutrition they need to lead productive lives this bill also substantially increases the federal funding for the emergency food assistance program from one hundred forty million dollars annually to two hundred fifty million dollars annually these additional resources will help people in need as well as the local food pantries that provide these important services in communities throughout the country in addition the farm bill promotes healthier dads ending access to farmers markets as well as expanding the fresh fruit and vegetable program to all states targeting benefits to low income children and again senator harkin exactly right we have farmers markets popping up all over we have a great system and our state of georgia that is led by our commission of agriculture tommy irvin who has made sure that we have very active and viable farm farmers markets in virtually every area of our state and that farmers have access to those markets not just in the metropolitan areas where the price may a little bit be a little bit better but in the rural part of georgia where i live there is not a community that act in think for a candidate act in think that does not have a very active and babble farmer's market where we sell fresh fruits and vegetables and whatever's in season where that watermelons cantaloupes or or snap beans the farmer's markets have all of those products readily available for the consumer the committee has once again wisely decided to include an energy title in this farm bill and that's not by accident in two thousand and two the congress passed a farm bill for the first and that contained an energy title and we have expanded this important title in the two thousand and seven seven bill b programs to stimulate the production of say elastic crops that can be converted into energy the southeast has not been a participant in this arena to date but with the expansion of these programs to include say your last feedstocks southeastern farmers will hopefully be able to make fuel from agricultural products all the way from kudzu to peanut halls one hundred percent of the ethanol manufactured in this country today comes from coal or we don't grow the corn in the southeastern part of our country nor do we grow in the western part of a country in the abundant state it's grown in the midwest and there are reasons for that but we have the ability  because of our long growing season both in the west as well as in the southeast to grow virtually any crop that may be after there so by providing funding for the additional research by providing funding for those investors who won't to manufacture ethanol from something the sad cohen they now are going to have that funding available to them to invest in say your last production of ethanol and at the same time we're going to encourage producing all sorts of alternative crops that can be used in the production of ethanol and now i'll cite just one instance of that in georgia we have the first say your last six ethanol plant that is been committed for construction in our part of the world and the investor in this particular say your logic producing ethanol facility is going to take a crop that we grow with great abundance in the southeast and that's  and he has developed a system that will allow him to take pantries and convert those pantries into ethanol and the good news about it is that when he sticks that pantry in that cylinder for the manufacture of  nothing escapes nothing comes out in the form of emissions into the air everything is used in recycle so it's an amazing process and it's exactly the type of entrepreneurial exercise that we're encouraging in this farm bill through the inclusion of this title we continue to push forward a research development and promotion of renewable fuels that will enable america's farmers and ranchers to contribute to the nation's expanding alternative energy industry notably the energy tyler receives the largest percentage increase compared to the farm bill baseline an increase of over one billion dollars importantly this bill takes a fresh look at akamai out of the program as well containing the traditional safety net so critical to america's farmers in addition we have created a program whereby farmers may choose to manage the inherent risks of agricultural production through a new type revenue assurance program i'm pleased that farmers will have the option to utilize this new average crop revenue program to harkins been asked to mentally in crafting the senate to durban and brown had been instrumental after to kill a want to compliment senator roberts for the great effort that he put into dad jesting this new program that is extremely complex it has the potential of offering farmers and ranchers a new option and it's one of those options where we as a committee and we as a body have been thinking outside the box relative to programs of agricultural policy that benefit farmers and ranchers and i think with the amendment that we've got in place now in this bill that we are going to encourage farmers and ranchers to think about some alternative to the conventional programs that we've always said i understand that several members have an interest in offering amendments to further limit payments to the hardworking farmers and ranchers in this country however i want the senate to realize that the committee reported bill includes the most significant reforms to payment limits that we've seen in the history of american foreign policy any amendment that attempts to make draconian reforms is going to be met with my strong opposition our urge my colleagues to compare this bill with current law and recognize as the romantic dramatic changes as my good friend senator conrad was quoted in the press the other day this the changes in this bill represent the most significant reform in the long battle over payment limitations and he's exactly right you want to further say that all payments will be attributed to an actual living breathing human being rather than some paper entity because now we're going to have attribution we've eliminated three entity and we have changed the numbers dramatically many of the proponents of significant reform to agricultural policy will argue that only a small percentage of americans receive any benefit from farm programs agricultural economist at the university of georgia recently released a study on the community economic analysis and impacts of georgia cotton production this study focused on one cotton producing canning in the southern part of our state the cotton production in this one can alone has a thirty six million dollar impact on u s output and almost a now million dollar impact on labor income in the united states another interesting result from this study was that each dollar received in government payments generated one dollar and thirty seven cents new tax revenue in the u s economy and i may repeat the this study concluded that for every dollar received in government payments th ose that one dollar generated one dollar and thirty seven cents of new tax revenue in the u s economy the following excerpt came from the october edition of southern farmer magazine the results of the university of georgia study a columnist steven ford notes and i quote in summary if cotton subsidies paid to farmers are two billion dollars one point two billion is returned to the federal treasury through tax revenue from economic activity generated back cotton farmers economic activity generated by net investment of eight hundred million grows the u s economy by twenty eight billion provides another eight hundred million and state and local tax revenue and generates a seven dollars payroll and two hundred and thirty thousand jobs this investment generates a thirty four hundred percent return and close quote although the study only focused on one small can enjoy a job when expanded the national impact of the cotton industry in the cotton program is astounding i hope my colleagues understand that after arm program benefits all americans not just gotten farmers in south georgia it's vitally important to the farmers and ranchers of georgia as well as to farmers and ranchers all across this great nation that we uphold the strength of the safety net that american agriculture depends on and this farm bill the agriculture and food sector represents over fifteen percent of the gross domestic product of the united states this bill requires our attention and commitment to the farmers and ranchers who put food on our plates every day if we go down the path of crippling our farm programs in response to the newspaper editorials will result will be the outsourcing of the production of our food and fiber while u s agriculture exports continue to grow agriculture imports increased by ten percent and we are fast approaching a point in time when exports will equal imports and this is the one segment of our economy mr president that has consistently and continually over the last several decades provided a positive balance of trade for our economy and if we let that slip away from us it's going to be a huge mistake let the current energy crisis be a warning santa every member of this body of america becomes as dependent on foreign nations to supply our food and fiber as currently is the case with petroleum we will threaten the security of this nation and leave our children's health and that to the political whims of foreign nations let me finish by saying that at the end of the day the reason we are here is to represent the hard working men and women who get dirt under their fingernails each and every day to provide the safest most affordable and highest quality agricultural products in the world i hope my colleagues keep those americans and man when they debate this critical piece of legislation mr president have some additional comments that i would like to submit for the record  and that alan mackey and patty laurence detail each from the u s department of agriculture on my committee staff have floor privileges for today's session without objection president i would yield the floor senator from north dakota president i come to the floor today to speak and support of the food and energy security act of two thousand and seven one deeply appreciate the time and the effort they have poured into this bill this has been months of determined effort to produce a consensus bill that can command a super majority in the united states senate it certainly did in the committee it passed without a dissenting vote president first chairman harkin i applaud his vision for a new direction for farm policy in america make no mistake this is a very different farm bill because of chairman her hearkens determination and leadership and vision this farm bill goes in a new direction with a much greater commitment to conservation one that i think over time will prove to have been very wise because we all know what's happening in the world we have got to do more through the conservation elements of the program in order to be sustainable over time and in addition of that chairman hurrican has played the lead role in creating a new option for farmers with the state revenue assurance plan and of course he has been a champion for rural development and for reform and make no mistake this bill is the beginning of significant reform if he would have told us five years ago we could get the elimination of the three entity rule and direct attribution we would have thought that the skies had opened up and there was a whole new day the fact is that's in this bill and i want to also applaud senator harkin staff mark halverson his staff director who you can see is now somewhat gray haired and in pay that's gone through of martin bell flight goes to gray because this is tough this is hard to do regional differences are deep across the country as chairman but he really proved his mettle in helping us bring this farm bill to the floor he is a consummate professional you know i've worked with a lot of people over the years on farm legislation it's always difficult as always contentious and yet we produced i think some very good bills i think this one is by far the best and senator chambliss played an absolutely essential role and make no mistake he fought for his people and he did it effectively in a clean jewel way and that's what you would hope for in the united states senate any always had his eye on the ball and that was to bring duce a result for american agriculture and also like to salute his staff the very professional martha scott and bernie hubert that were terrific to work with every step of the way really the ranking member senator grassley because without their help the rubin infinitely more difficult to write this bill let's say right at the beginning that we have eight billion dollars of new resources here and other words we're eight billion above the so called baseline and the only reason we could do that was because of the help of the finance committee and that's made a profound difference as a result and as a result of the exceptional leadership of chairman and ranking member chambliss this bill significantly improves commodity programs energy we are now embarked on a massive effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil it's in this bill it's critically important there are also new resources for nutrition changes that have not been made in nutrition in over thirty years have been made in this bill and people can be proud of it over five billion dollars of new resources for nutrition and we should recall to all those who are listening this isn't just a food an energy security bill this is also at root  nutrition bill sixty six percent of the money in this bill is for nutrition in america that affects every city and town every fireman gave every  in america sixty six percent of the money in this bill is for nutrition and for all of those critics and there are legions of them out there especially in some parts of the media who have never bothered to actually look at this bill or read this bill or research what's in it we should know sixty six percent of this bill is for nutrition the thing that drives most of their attack the so called commodity programs less than forty teen percent less than one in every seven dollars in this bill is for commodities president's conservation because of senator harkin's vision and leadership this is by far the most ambitious conservation program ever included in farm legislation and he's right he's right to take us in that direction that people who are the critics should know that conservation and nutrition are at the centerpiece of this legislation development programs as well as the president this legislation is good for farm and ranch families it's good for rural communities and main street businesses and it is an win for consumers and taxpayers this legislation is the product of countless hours of deliberation that represents a broad consensus let me also say that the occupant of the chair senator salazar of colorado played a key role time after time after time at bringing people together at the end of the day what you learn in a legislative body is you've got to have an idea a kernel of an idea for legislation and it is then got to be sold to so many people and that is the difficult part and bringing people together is an extraordinary skill the occupant of the chair senator salazar has it in spades i have to told others we are lucky to have somebody of his character and somebody of his ability to talk to others even when they disagree to find areas of agreement and that has been his great gift in this bill there are so many others i want to single out senator debbie stabenow of michigan who is such a passionate advocate for especially crabs my goodness chairman harkin if we heard once we heard a hundred times from her about specialty crops and boy she  delivered for those people in this bill over two and a half billion dollars of new resources for specialty crops when you include everything what a major advance for specially crops and nothing better than this fresh fruit vegetable program of course the chairman is the champion of that program but we're going to go from fourteen states that have this fresh fruit vegetable program for kids in schools and it's going to go to all fifty states and a dramatic increase in resources because we know we can see what's happening in america we can see what's happening with obesity we can see that there's got to be change and there is dramatic change in this bill contributed really this was a team effort there were there was a team effort on both the republican side and the democratic side we appreciate the efforts of so many of our colle i think of our friend from arkansas who was so passionate about defending her people blanche lambert lincoln you know it's tough when you're in a minority situation but she was absolutely determined that her people not be hurt and she worked tirelessly to make certain that that was the outcome so i appreciate the efforts  so many and ben nelson of nebraska who comes from a farm state much like mine who is so determined as well that we write a farm bill that could get through the committee in a strong bipartisan vote and then get through the fo ethanol could not meet the ambitious national goals that have been set by the congress the united states and that we had to turn towards cellulosic and she was right there with ideas and vice and also a willingness to it is difficult to write this bill because as the chairman said we had a lot less money this time than last let me put that just in terms that people are more easy to understand visual terms the green line the green buyers are the old c b l baseline what the farm bill would cost the red line is what this bill is actually cost and what you find if you net it all out is that the two thousand and two farm bill cost about twenty billion dollars less than the congressional bug that office said it would in august of two thousand and two looking forward we have twenty two billion dollars less in baseline to write this farm bill than was estimated by the congressional budget office in two thousand and two let me just say i just took a call from mr chuck conner the acting secretary telling me they're going to recommend they're going to say tomorrow that they'd recommend a presidential veto this legislation and they do it on cost grounds and they have a number that they throw out there that has no relationship to any reality it is an imagining on their part it is their sort of make believe writing up of the numbers the fact is the fact is we have twenty two billion dollars less baseline rate this bill than was predicted when we look wrote the last one twenty two billion dollars less and so we are a billion over the baseline and every penny of it paid for that is the fact it is also true that this was difficult this bill difficult to write not only because we had less money but also because the financial circumstances of the country had changed dramatically the death of the country has increased from five point eight trillion dollars at the end of two thousand and one to eight point nine trillion dollars at the end of this year so we're writing this bill in a totally different environment than when we wrote the last bill when we wrote the last bill there were surpluses fires the eye could see now as far as the eye can see is red ink is debt that profoundly changed the circumstance and in addition to that we also face a very hostile media environment especially from leading newspaper in this town that hasn't seen a single initiative for farm and ranch families in this country that they like they haven't been positive about one single thing agro welfare aids a bumper crop for farmers aid of fire ranchers was diverted for big profits no drought required for federal aid let me just to the lowest cost food in the history of the world that's what this food policy has led to the lowest cost food in the history of the world the most plentiful the most the safest supplies and the most ambitious nutrition programs of any country in the free world that's what's here you see one word of that printed in the washington post one word one word on the positive things that are here not one they take every little anomaly every little exception blow it into a big headline take things out of context to be ashamed of themselves that to be ashamed of themselves they have they take stories from people who have dedicated their careers to dismantling the farm programs of the united states programs that are the envy of the world the president here's what's happened to food expenditures as a share of disposable personal income in our country in one nine hundred twenty nine twenty three cents out of every dollar went to buy food today it's ten cents and that include by the way eating out and we're still at we're down to ten cents of every dollar going for food in this country there's a lot to be proud of proud of in the agricultural policy of the united states and here i would put right at the top who pays the least for food in the entire world who pays the smallest part of their disposable income for food we do america pays the least this is and by the way these comparisons they're just looking in the other countries at food purchased for home consumption our number is home consumption and eating out and look indonesia fifty five cents out of every dollar goes to buy food philippians thirty eight cents of every dollar china twenty six cents of every dollar france fifteen cents japan fourteen cents and remember their numbers are both food consumed at home and conspired consumed outside just food in the home our number ten percent is food at home and food outside the home what a dramatic difference it is what our people are paying out of their disposable income for food and what everyone else in the world is paying we can be proud of that president we look at our major competitors and again the washington post never writes this story never you know we're just not in this world alone they happen to be other countries you look at what they do for their producers versus what we do for ours this is a five year baseline two thousand and seven farm bill this is what nutrition what we're doing for nutrition this is we're providing five times as much for nutrition over the five years as we are for commodities five times as much for nutrition as we're providing for commodities five times as much washington post wanted to write that story why don't you tell people the whole story and the other element that i wanted to mention that i was leading up to was what's happening with the europeans are leading competitors do for their producers versus what we do for ours washington post why don't you read this story european union  hundred thirty four billion dollars and this is after their cap reform this is what they're spending on farm supports more than three times greater than the united states at forty three billion dollars so i don't see washing clothes telling this story i don't see them ever helping the american people understand what we're up against in the real world that our major competitors are spending more than three times as much as we are to support their producers what happens if you pull the rug out from under our producers what would happen mass bankruptcy that's what would happen is that what we want to do in this country we want to bankrupt american agriculture we want to bankrupt firemen ranch families i don't think so people need to think a little more carefully and some of these columns that i have seen written do and they owe it to the american people to tell the whole story tell the whole story of what american food policy has meant to president i want to just also look at what our european friends are doing on export subsidy this is a pie chart of what the europeans are doing an export subsidy they account for eighty seven percent of the export subsidies in the world is the europeans the united states this little sliver is the united states one percent european union is outgunning us eighty seven to one mr president these are the hard realities that those of us who have a responsibility for writing agricultural policy have to cope with those of us who have actual responsibility those of us who will actually be held accountable the people in this chamber after deal with reality not fantasy not misrepresentations not the exceptions we have to deal with what right at the heart is the effect of american foreign policy i'd like to read from just one paragraph from wall street journal article from september twenty eighth of this year that article said this the prospect for a long boom is riveting economists because the declining real price of grain has long been one of the un powerful farm equipment the productivity of farmers in the west in asia has stayed so far ahead of population growth that prices of corn and wheat adjusted for inflation had dropped seventy five percent and sixty nine percent respectively since just one teen seventy four among other things falling grain prices made food more affordable for the world's poor helping shrink the percentage of the world's population that is malnourished and ever see that reported in the washington post that once you know that once to characterize this bill in this policy is a giveaway to farmers is not accurate or warranted a total farm bill outlays for the commodity conservation nutrition energy and other priorities are estimated to represent less than two percent of total federal outlays here's total federal outlays here's what's going for the farm bill these are the this farm bill is going to be less than two percent of total federal expenditure and the commodity provisions the commodity provisions  drawl the fire one order of one percent we used to talk about the farm bill in the last farm bill being three percent of total federal outlays now we're down to less than two percent so those that run out and say as the administration apparently is going to do tomorrow and chastise this bill for its spending why don't they put it in perspective why don't they level with the american people why don't they tell the whole story why don't they tell them that the old farm bill used to consume three percent of the federal budget this one's down to two percent and a commodity programs that used to be one third of one percent are down to one quarter of one percent why not tell the whole story why not tell the whole story why not give people the facts from which they can really make a reasoned judgment mr president we know that the european union is spending three times as much to help their producers as we spend to support ours we know that they're outspending us and export subsidies eighty seven to one we know the european union is not the only culprit we know that brazil argentina china and others are again ing unfair market advantage through hidden subsidies and i know what this means to my state my state of north dakota according to north dakota state university says without the farm bill that farm income in north dakota would have decreased from seventy seven thousand dollars per farm to six to about thirteen thousand per farm a reduction of sixty four thousand dollars that's how significant this is the average net farm income for all farms was seventy seven thousand dollars without the provisions of the farm bill net farm income would average thirteen thousand the two thousand and two farm bill decrease says the income variability by forty seven percent mr president these are facts so i conclude that our current foreign policy is working not just for farmers but for consumers and taxpayers but that's not just my conclusion after the past over the past two years i've engaged in long conversations with people all across my state they told me the two thousand and two farm bill of been a great success and they recommended that we build on those successes by maintaining and re balancing commodity programs by promoting energy production in america so we're less dependent on foreign sources so that instead of turning to the middle east we could look to the mid west would not be a great thing for america we're spending almost three hundred billion dollars a year importing foreign oil how much better would our country be if that money could be spent here rather than sending it to places all over the world and the people back home of told me ensuring predictable help is available for producers stricken by disasters whether should be a part of a farm bill that we should enhance the conservation of our land and provide new resources for nutrition all of those things are in this farm bill and those who really wrote it deserve to be proud let me now just briefly talk about what i see as the high points of the bill before us in the commodity programs this bill strengthens the producer safety net by rebalancing support for many crops leads direct payments untouched increases loan rates for key american commodities like wheat barley sunflowers and canola provides higher target prices for wheat barley oats soybeans and minor oilseeds that have for many years in treated less to after what they do in brazil that has led them to energy independence they were at one time far more dependent than we are they were getting eighty percent of their energy supplies from abroad they are now on the brink of energy independence and a higher sugar storage rate and improves the safety net for dairy producers especially crops growers get a substantial boost under this bill two and a half  billion dollars of increased funding for nutrition research production and market promotion programs that will further grow our fruit vegetable industry there are also reforms to eliminate abuse and make farm programs more transparent these include elimination of the three entity rule and and the requirement for direct attribution of farm program payments if somebody is listening to say what does that mean what does that mean very simply it means we're going to have to be a living breathing human being out there getting fired program payments they're not going to be able to hide behind a mishmash of legalisms they're not going to be a high hide behind paper in a daze and no one knows who gets the money that's going to be all over this bill also provides a new state revenue based countercyclical program and contains a supplemental agricultural disaster assistance program that was crafted as part of the senate finance committee work in particular i want to again recognize senator baucus for his leadership and taking a concept advanced by the national association of state departments of agriculture and making it a reality it is extremely well thought out we're also aware of the tremendous financial pain caused by droughts floods hurricanes and other acts of nature when disasters occur we respond but sometimes those responses come much later than they should a standing disaster assistance program sets us on a predictable predictable and logical path to deal with disaster related conditions for our farmers and ran north dakota three years ago we faced conditions like this massive flooding waters fire as the eye could see and there was no relief for three long years mr president that shouldn't happen in america this supplemental disaster program has the following elements a supplemental revenue assistance program that provides payments when the whole farm revenue falls below the whole farm revenue guarantee and improve non insurance assisted program non insured assistance program to more fairly protect crops that are not currently covered by crop insurance some crops aren't covered  insurance that doesn't mean there's not a program under the current law the most people can hope to recover is twenty seven and a half percent of what they lose twenty seven and a half percent that's the most they can lose they can possibly recover of watches they might suffer because of a natural disaster twenty seven and a half percent under this program they'll be able to do better a livestock lost assistance program to indemnify producers when deaths occur or disaster related conditions a tree assistance program to help restore and replace damaged orchards and vineyards and especially crap pest and disease prevention programs to reduce the likelihood of disaster related losses due to past infant infestation the supplemental disaster program was built on sound principles authored by the state commissioners of agriculture  one a predictable agriculture disaster program two it covers program crops specialty crops forage and livestock three it provides assistance as a percentage of the difference between actual and expected whole farm crop revenue it compliments crop insurance and non insured assistance programs in fact it creates an incentive to buy out that's exactly what we should be doing and that's in this bill this program is designed to be made available soon after a disaster hits not after the auction signs go up this was from my hometown newspaper earlier this year first the drought then the auction and this is showing a fire moxon in north dakota from the perspective of this fellow's boot let me just say i've been to these auctions i've watched the mother of the family crying at the kitchen table after losing a farm that was in the family for five generations i have seen farmers and their kids and the looks of agony on their faces as everything they have known is taken in a few hours i've seen anybody who's felt the emotion knows what i'm talking about incredibly good and decent people who lost it all because of something they did because of the vagaries of mother nature because of disease because of movements in a market that are the most difficult to predict other than the energy markets of any market in this country mr president if we want firemen ranch families to just be wiped out by natural disasters we could do that but that isn't america when katrina hit americans rushed to help out i know i myself my wife and i called red cross to make our donation and the man answering the phone told me he'd never seen such an outpouring in his life of just average citizens digging into their own pockets to help people in another part of the country that's america you know there's a history in farm country if your neighbor gets sick and the crop is out and needs to be harvested all the neighbors come together and they got harvest that farmer's crop if a barn burns down although they don't they don't wait for the insurance settlement they go up there the neighbors get together and they build that byron back up that's a good thing that's right at the heart of what makes america a great place mr president let me just briefly talk about the energy title that helps us reduce our dependence on foreign oil the reason the bill is called the food and energy security act is because it makes smart investments in breaking our long term dependence on foreign oil and that's why the energy title is the most exciting piece of this legislation to me it's focused isn't developing  waste into fuel will be able to take full advantage of the agricultural abundance of our country we are sept and a path to freedom from relying on foreign desk spots for the energy that we need this energy title will provide more than two and a half billion dollars including the finance committee tax credits to encourage production of advanced biofuels and renewable energy the farm bill assists with biofuel and renewable energy production in several ways one it provides assistance for the establishment of renewable biomass crops it includes grants and loan guarantees to develop biofuels refineries it provides an incentive for increase production of advanced biofuels it helps farmers in rural small businesses invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy technology and accelerates research and development of advanced biofuels mr president i think this is the most exciting part of this bill it is in every americans interest that we do this and we do it sooner rather than later it's in this bill it deserves people's support the conservation title enhanced as the conservation of our land with the four and a half billion dollar expansion from our current conservation efforts it fully funds it's successful programs like the wetlands reserve program that's important veyron mentally grassland reserve program it also maintains the overall acreage limit of the conservation reserve program additionally twenty million dollars as provide the fund the open fields initiative that i offered with senator roberts open fields under right state programs that offer incentives to farmers and ranchers who voluntarily voluntarily open their land to hunting and fishing and people who might just want to take a walk or look at birds to president i'm proud this bill boost nutrition funding by almost five point three billion dollars over five years that's more than a billion dollars higher than the house adds for nutrition in fact nutrition gets a bigger increase than any other area in this bill within that total of billion dollars the fresh fruit vegetable program that the chairman has championed is going to make a difference to kids in every state in the union previously we could only provide assistance to fourteen states now every state in the nation will be able to have a fresh fruit and vegetable program we also increase funding for the emergency food assistance program by five hundred fifty million dollars over five years this additional funding will allow food banks to serve those most in need who among us has not heard from our food banks that they are having increasing difficulty meeting the demands made on them finally we've updated a number of food stamp policy for the first time in thirty years these changes represent additional three point seven billion dollars for that program mr president in addition to all the important improvements i noted this bill is fully paid for it complies with the new pay go budget discipline and that has not been easy we will hear from the administration tomorrow that somehow we've come up with thirty six or thirty eight billion dollars of new money they arrive at that total by the most creative accounting i've ever seen the fact is this bill is eight billion dollars over baseline the further fact is this bill allowed us twenty two billion dollars less than we had when we wrote the last farm bill anybody that suggests this isn't fiscally responsible is just not looking very hard mr president when the two thousand  farm bill two thousand and two farm bill was written eg committee had seventy three and a half billion dollars in new resources to utilize in addressing the challenges of that bill as many in this body remember that was not an easy process will this year agriculture committee working in close cooperation of the senate finance committee had only eight billion dollars above baseline in new funding resources and as i've indicated even with that we were twenty two billion dollars below on the baseline basis what was available for writing the last farm bill the same time  by rebalancing and reforming the commodity title and establishing a standing agriculture disaster assistance program committee has been able to maintain and improve the economic safety net for farmers including those who produce specialty clock crops at the same time the adjustments made the commodity title when coupled with the funding made available by the finance committee this legislation provides about ten point seven billion dollars it used to address other priorities within the jurisdiction of the agriculture committee so here you now hear me now we have reduced the commodity portion we have reduced crop insurance we've reduced commodities by thirty four percent crap insurance by thirty two percent by dance committee provided twenty eight percent those are the funding sources to increase conservation by thirty nine point four percent nutrition got forty six point eight percent of the increases energy nine percent other four point seven percent so that's where the money came from it came from commodities and crop insurance it went to conservation and nutrition that's a fact that's not the only fact that we ought to draw to people's attention we also point out of you look ahead on this farm bill to where all the money goes you look at this whole bill and where the money goes sixty six percent goes to nutrition conservation nine percent crop insurance seven point six percent commodity programs thirteen point six percent a dramatic reduction from the previous farm bill that's just a fact that's just a fact i think in the last farm bill commodities where it's fifteen about fifteen percent so this president's there's been no easy task but the farm bill we're considering represents a tremendous effort by chairman harkin ranking member chambliss as well as by chairman baucus and ranking member grassley i tell you i've never seen ever come out without a dissenting vote i've been here twenty one years i have never seen that kind of bipartisan support as we saw for this bill and why because it's deserved it's deserved because this bill breaks new ground it is the beginning of reform it commits substantial new resources to nutrition that is already by far the biggest part of farm legislation and it has the hope for america being able to reduce its dependence on foreign energy that's right at the heart of this bill that's why we call it the food and energy security act i commend the leaders for their hard work it's been the result of months of bipartisan collaboration and as i have said it's fully paid for over the next several days i expect we'll hear some colleagues unfairly criticized the bill for providing an economic safety net for our producers let me remind my colleagues that current laws estimated by c b s to spend almost fifteen percent of total mandatory outlays for the colony programs sixty six percent of the estimated outlays go to support food stamps and other nutrition programs for the needy and just under eight percent of the outlays are for resource conservation programs under the bill proposed by the senate agriculture committee the amount for commodity programs is reduced more than eleven percent to thirteen point six percent of total outlays spending for nutrition programs ran remains at about two thirds of total outlays and conservation spending has increased nearly seventeen percent to nine percent of total estimated spending in closing this farm bill represents an investment in american agriculture will benefit our producers or rural communities or main street businesses taxpayers and consumers particularly the most needy among it deserves the support of every senator or president i yield the floor duration of the consideration of the farm bill without objection mr president before i make my comments on the farm bill i want to follow on something that the senator from north dakota said about the bipartisanship of this bail but it's to remind people that might be listening that what they see on the evening news about dissension within congress does not present a very clear picture of the way congress really operates now we can all say that there's too much partisanship but in the final analysis at least as far as the united states senate stud nothing's ever going to get done here has not bipartisan so i compliment the senator from north dakota verse peeking about the bipartisanship of the farm bill that's now before the united states senate but take that opportunity to remind people that when you have fifty one democrats and forty nine republicans that  and you have a filibuster that it takes sixty votes to move forward to stop a filibuster to get finality on a bail that we would never have anything done in the united states senate if it wasn't at least somewhat bipartisan and so i would say to the american people watch television tonight and get fed up because there's talk about too much partisanship going on the united states congress and too much too many things being done to make one party look better than the other party and vice versa that this farm bill is an exam appel of how things get done in the united states senate because the parties must work together or nothing will get done and this farm bill will be passed by the united states senate just for the reason that it is bipartisan i thank my colleagues who have worked so hard on this particularly the leadership of the senate agriculture committee and senator harkin for his leadership in this area it's a lot of hard work to bring a bill to the floor that supports rural america when you consider only about two percent of the people in this country are producing the food that the other ninety eight percent eat while this bill isn't perfect it is something that will really help the family farmers the most important job that the committee has to do every five years is to write a farm bill it's not all that we do we operate in a lot of different areas but one of the most important things that the agriculture committee does is provide a safety net for farmers and we generally review and rewrite that piece of legislation every five or six years i'm glad that in addition to the agriculture committee being involved in this mail as a senator from north dakota point as pointed out the finance committee has had a part of the action because we were able to contribute to that process and free up over three billion dollars for the agriculture committee to spend upon priorities that are very important the agriculture committee once more for the first time that i'm aware of we will be merging our agricultural tax policy with the agriculture committee s authorization and spending policy this bipartisan encourages worrell economic development and helps family farmers to get started in the business of agriculture i've never been a big proponent for a permanent disaster program but there are a few key items that i want to point out about the bill that is before this program will set up a permanent system to administer disaster aid we won't have to go through the trouble then of setting up a new way to administer a disaster program every time that we do and we have done on an ad hoc basis from year to year is disasters might happen also what's most important to me about this part of the farm bill that comes from the finance committee is that it is tied directly to crop insurance we want to promote farmers managing their own risk and one way to do that is through the crop insurance program another crop insurance program might not cover all disasters and so that's why this program set up what is a precondition to participate in the disaster program that is in the finance committee's provisions that are going go into this farm bill is that each farmer that wants to benefit from it have crop insurance in my home state of iowa we have a very successful crop insurance system i like that farmers have to take risk mitigation into their own hands tying the two together was the only way that it would work i know that this body will be looking at additional provisions that might affect the crop insurance program i'm not opposed to changes but i urge my colleagues to be careful that we don't undermine a successful risk pool for our farmers i believe that we should give producers as many tools as possible revive them an adequate safety net and optional revenue protection program is a step in the right direction farmers should be able to make the best choices for their individual operations based up on the level of risk management that they as their own manager decides that they need i'm glad to see that option including the farm bill and look forward to anybody suggesting improvements in that program one of the most important titles in the agriculture committee bill and it's added for the first time to a farm bill is a livestock competition title i'm glad to see a compromise on legislation that we call cool  acronym for country of origin label and i look forward to the law being implemented quickly this school legislation was actually passed five years ago and it is been held up by action on separate appropriation bills over the years so that this bill has never been implemented hopefully once and for all it will be implemented because it's a darn good time to let consumers know that where their food comes from the country of origin of their food is just as important as their knowing the country of origin of any other product that they might buy as a consumer in the united states that is a law for every other consumer for every other product that consumers buy that they know what country it comes from why not the same requirement for food as well we've also put a band on mandatory arbitration in production contracts this is the say that are proof that a producer can agree to arbitration once a dispute arises in fact i am very much a supporter of the process called arbitration but i'm very much opposed to mandatory arbitration but then because of this legislation processors can no longer force these arbitration clauses on farmers who have no choice but to sign the contract for lack of computation i'm also very pleased that my amendment to ban packer ownership for owning or feeding livestock has been accepted into this package by senator harkin and other leaders on the community on the committee this is very good news for small livestock producers who deserve to make sure that the competitive marketplace is working and one of the things that brings is about is the fact that the meat processing industry has said very clearly from time to time why do they own livestock they own lives stock they say in their words because when prices are high they can kill their own life stock when prices are low they buy for the farm i think it's easy to see how do you moralizing that is to the family farmer when he sees working hard to produce a product that somehow he can be undercut by the vertical integration of of meatpackers owning their own lives to all while this is not accomplished all that we need in this area enhanced competition for the family farmer it's an important first step towards ramming the biggest problem facing farmers today the problem of concentration in agriculture particularly in this senator harkin and i along with other members of this body will be offering additional reforms that are critical to a vibrant future in the livestock industry i call on my fellow senators to support the livestock title and these additional reforms another issue that i've been working to address through the farm bill relates to the administrative rules issued by a department on related called the department of homeland security well related in the sense that they have responsibilities to make sure that products coming into our country are safe but this regulation i'm talking about is their attempt to regulate stored quantities of propane energy sources earlier this year the department homeland security issued regulations that required registration of all pain tanks storing seven the five hundred pounds of propane these regulations were on duly burdensome and disproportionately impacting rural american homeowners farmers and rural small businesses senator harkin included a provision in the farm bill that i authored that would reduce its impact on rural americans coincidentally after the provision was included the department of homeland security stepped up and increase the threshold quantity of propane exempting many small homeowners farmers and small businesses by excluding tanks smaller than ten thousand pounds of propane and raising the threshold to six thousand pounds for a large pane large tanks that is a movement in the right direction so this change in regulation by the department of homeland security is welcome but the department should have alerted everyone advance and eliminated the need for us to include a provision in this bill at all that said we're currently working on some new language that would ensure that the department of homeland security reports to congress the impact that its new rule will have and ensure that rural americans aren't disproportionately impacted as a family farmer on the agriculture committee i made it my job to look out for small and medium sized family farmers however the position of the family farmers being become increasingly weaker as there's been consolidation and agger agribusiness and it seems to have reached an all time high farmers today have fewer buyers for their products and fewer suppliers for their to buy their imports from and it seems like there's concentration is more now than ever before the result is an increasing loss of family farms and the smallest farm share of the consumer dollar and the history is important for us to remember that family farmers ultimately derive their income from the agriculture marketplace not from the farm bill family farmers have unfortunately been in a position of weakness in selling their products to large processors and buying their imports from large suppliers i've been fighting for real payment limitations for since the last farm bill and i have to some extent over a period of decades in congress helping to pass farm bills now senator dorgan in north carolina i mean north dakota and i realize that a hard cap on payments is a most effective tool in helping our small farmers get a level playing field with a corporate mega farms ask a taxpayer if a quarter of a million dollars is enough for a farm that's what our cap is going to be i think that we would all know that the answer to that question would be very positive the family farmer continues to struggle with land prices literally skyrocketing landlords know what kind of payments of farmers getting and takes that into account in the price of rent that they charge we cannot sit idly by and do nothing while family farmers suffer i certainly not going to i that's why boys for reform in our laws that have the effect on family farmers and particularly in helping young farmers to get started farming the time for real reform is now our family farmers deserve it i think we've got a good start on a good package for rural america an adequate safety net will assure us a safe and abundant food supply it's critical for economic and energy independence of the future i look forward to the debate over the next few days to improve this bill and i would like to highlight the issue of a hard cap on farm pay presently we've got ten percent of the large farmers in america getting seventy two of all the money that we put into a farm bill now there's nothing wrong with big farmers getting bigger but there is something wrong when we have subsidies and farm programs going to big farmers and getting bigger partly because of subsidy what we want to do is maintain urban support for a farm safety net for farmers it seems in order to maintain that safety net we're going to have to maintain credibility with urban taxpayers and urban consumers and we can't do that very easily when big farmers can percent getting seventy two percent of the benefits out of it because the tax payers in the cities are going to start raising the question what is this farm safety net all about if it's only helping the biggest of farmers and to get a farm bill through the house of representatives where urban urban representation is so all powerful it's very important for us to take that into consideration another factor we need to take into consideration is an extent to which as i've already alluded to that these that drives up the price of case rent so it's very difficult for a new generation of young farmers to get started farming when they have the unfair competition of ten percent of the biggest farmers getting seventy two percent of the benefits of the farm program then it seems to me that we ought to take into consideration what has been the history of the safety net for funds for for family farms it's generally been targeted towards medium and small size farmers by because these are the people that when they have an opportunity to farm and and things beyond their control and that could be a natural disaster that could be next and freezing beef prices is  it could be in the same administration prohibiting the export of soybeans when they've got thirteen dollars an acre driving it down to four or five i said thirteen dollars an acre i mean thirteen dollars a bushel driving it down to maybe three dollars a bushel in just a matter of a few days you can have international war you can have energy high price like it is now because opec all of these things are things beyond the control of the family farm and the small and medium sized farmer doesn't have the ability to withstand some of these things that are beyond his control but there's a certain level of a face and see a certain level of bigness in farming where you have enough staying power so that you can withstand some of that so we've tended to  payment limits tended the target the farm program start small and medium sized farms now it's quite obvious that one ten percent of the biggest farmers get seventy two percent of the benefit out of the farm program that targeting is no longer the case well what senator dorgan and i are trying to do in our amendments that will come up shortly is a make sure that we keep that targeting and that safety net water really is a safety net to help people when they have problems beyond their own control to overcome them stay in business to keep producing why because we have come to the conclusion after a decade and a half i mean a century and a half th family farmer is a most efficient food producing institute we should anywhere in the world and we ought to maintain it we ought to keep it strong this legislation will do that some improvements we can make and that legislation in the areas of payment caps will help even more so are you of the floor another from mr president i'm pleased to come to the floor the ny state senate to support a farm bill i believe that the committee has produced a good bill i believe as my colleague senator conrad and and senator grassley have said and i've been before them senator harkin and chambliss have talked about the need for a farm bill number one a number two the ability to produce a bill that gives farmers some hope it is late in the year my hope is that we can pass a bill here go to conference with the house and give farmers and their lenders another some certainty by the end of this year about what the rules will be what the farm program will be as they begin to think about getting into the fields in the spring they are already planning for spring planting and they need to understand what are the rules so this is a very important debate and i want to congratulate and say to my colleagues you've got a good job it has been bipartisan i like my colleague from  iowa senator grassley believe we can improve it in a couple places and we'll try to do that but but i support this bill i want to try to give some description to what this is about it is not just about statistics you know it's not just about theory it's about people who populate this country a living out on the land by themselves under a yard light trying to raise a family trying to raise a crop and risking everything and they're called family farmers and ranchers and in most cases they live out in the country alone it's them against the odds there are they're having to confront uncertain whether uncertain commodity prices uncertain international events that can affect whether they can make a living or not all of these things now you know we we are here in suits and ties and we debate and what a wonderful thing the farmers unlike us the farmers  take a shower after work we take a shower before work and then we put on a suit and tie but the family farmers in this country in most cases they get up and do chores they say it's doing chores five six in the morning get up and get out and get busy and they work hard all day and they come in and they're out there by themselves there's sole proprietor running their own business living under a yard light hoping things go well so they plan a crop they planted a seed in the ground they hope it'll grow maybe it will they hope they don't get too much rain they hope they get enough rain they hope if the seed grows it doesn't develop some sort of plant disease they hope it doesn't hail and they hope at some point they'll be able to harvest it and when they harvest it they hope that there will be a price at the elevator that gives them a half a shot at making a profit these are all hopes the only way a farmer can live is on hope hope that things are going to be better hope that tomorrow is going to be good these are families that live on hope and this piece of legislation this farm bill gives those families some assurance some safety net over difficult times when these international price swings move up and down this is a bridge over those price valleys that say the family farmers we think you matter to this country we think the fact that you exist makes a difference we think the fact that families produce america's food makes a difference in this country now family farmers produce a lot more than crops they also produce communities i come from one of those communities three hundred people the arteries that fed life into that small community where the family farmers all around on saturday nights you couldn't find a parking place on main street because family farmers come to town to talk about the weather talk about the crops visit with neighbors it's what a rural lifestyle is about it's about producing communities an author named critchfield once described family values in america he said family farms are the seed bed of family values the very seed bed of family values and those family values role from the family farms to small towns to big towns to nurture and refresh the value system of this country and so there is a poet in north dakota who's a farmer rancher named rodney nelson and rodney wrote a piece that asked plaintively what's it worth and i don't remember the piece exactly but what it says exactly what should be said here he asked this question what is it worth for a kid to know how to plough a field what is it worth for a kid to know how to grease a combine what's it worth for a kids know how to pour cement what's it worth for a kid to know how to teach a calf to suck from a pail what's it worth for a kid to know how well does seem what's it worth for a kid to know how to build a lean to what's his world he said all of those skills you learn in the family farm it is the only university in our country where they teach all of those skills what's it worth to the country he asks and it's a good question i hope that the answer is rooted in a farm bill that says to those family farms we want you to have a chance to continue because we think you add great value to our country to our culture there are many who don't have the foggiest notion of what family farming is about i remember i took a congressman with me from the east coast to come to north dakota on a trip some while ago and we went to north dakota and one of the stops was at a dairy barn george doll's dairy barn north of new salem north dakota and we stood in that there a barn with the soft light of the late afternoon coming through the the the boards on that that barn and the cattle came into the milk the milk cows came in and went to their assigned stanchions and george doll and his wife began milking eighty cows and my colleague from the east coast in a blue pinstripe suit observe this standing in that dairy barn and realize this is a lot of work and so finally he said to me how often do they do this byron i said well they do this twice a day they do this in the morning i said george what time do you get up there he said we start about five in the morning and then we do it about five in the evening and then he watched for a while more and then he said to george he said george do you have to do this on weekends he didn't know when cars are fresh you milk cows seven days a week twice a day but he didn't know that there would have been no reason to know where milk comes from except a carton unless you go to a farm that is milking cows and see what kind of work it really is and so it seems to me that there is much to be said about the value system here in talking about family farming i'll make one other point some talk about agriculture i prefer to talk about family farming if this is not about family farms we don't need the bill really i mean we would have probably separate pieces of legislation dealing with nutrition and so on food stamps but it seems to me the question of a safety net is almost exclusively the question about do we want to try to help family farmers through tough times the big corporate egg or factories they can make it through tough times if you have a real tough time price depressions and other things the big corporate egger factories they can make it through there but the family farms get washed away and so we develop instead a safety net and that safety net is rooted in the legislation before us which incidentally i think improves the safety net and that's why i like this built it also includes a disaster titled why i like this bill i think it was important to do i had included a separate piece of legislation calling for a disaster type and i'm very pleased that this bill contains a disaster title now mr president my colleague from iowa indicated that he felt there should be some additional reform as do i and so we will offer perhaps tomorrow or perhaps a day later a piece of legislation that will provide some further limitations on payments why would we do that because i really worry what's going to happen here is we're going to erode the support for the farm program if we don't provide the reforms and changes that are necessary and one of those reforms and part of that change is payment limitations so that we really are structuring this to try to provide the most help the family size farms i don't have anything against big corporate egg or factories if they want to farm two or three counties god bless them i just don't think the federal government has a responsibility to be their bank or they're big enough to be a big corporate agro factory and they're they've got the financial strength to get through tough times we ought to provide a safety net to help those families during tough times to stay on the land and so mr president the the proposal that we offer is a proposal that really does say a couple important things one is a payment limitation of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a hard cap i will admit that  the piece of legislation that has come to the floor of the senate includes some significant improvements it is emanates the triple entity rule for example which i think is a significant reform it has and adjusted gross income requirement  sorts and so it does make some progress in a couple of areas but it does not for example cap payments for all of the payments it's one of the folks that it caps it at two hundred thousand dollars but it well there needs to be a limitation on that on the direct payment the countercyclical payment and the marketing alone which produces an l d p there ought to be a limitation second it seems to me reasonable that we would limit farm program payments those that are actively involved in farming i mean that ought not be radical a an arts patron from san francisco i want to use her name but a patron of the arts in san francisco gets one point two million dollars i've tough couple of charts here but they have names on them and i think i shall not do that at this point but arts patron that doesn't have a name do with farming grandfather had something to do with farming but she doesn't she collects one point two million dollars from the farm program is that sort of thing going to ruin the reputation of the farm program at some point i think it will or what they call cowboy starter kits they have a situation in rice country where going back to one thousand nine hundred one if you grew rice on land and you now o a horse on nine acres you never farm you don't have to farm and you have nine acres you get farm program price supports because they grow rice on a twenty years ago that's not justifiable and one of the ways to shut that down of course very simply very effectively is safe you're going to get benefits you have to have some real tangible connection to farming so my colleague senator grassley and i will offer an amendment that is very simple and it is not an amendment that is attempting to under this important piece of legislation it's an attempt to improve it and improve it in a way that will give it even more credibility a payment limitation of two hundred fifty thousand dollars and a requirement that you have active involvement in farming if you're going to get a farm program benefit that that's what we would intend to do and i my hope is that working with senator harkin in the senate chambliss we will be able to offer that perhaps tomorrow and i would be willing to come in the morning and with my colleague if he is available as he's still on the floor and perhaps we can reach agreement and offer an amendment have that debate at any rate it's my hope to be to be helpful to both the chairman of the ranking member to move this legislation we're going to have a couple of these discussions where there will be disagreements and we'll have a vote and we'll see what the view of the senate is but i want this piece of legislation to be done i want to i would like to improve it some but but i i give this bill good marks and i'm going to be a supporter i'm going to be here on the floor of the senate working to try to get this through the senate get it passed get it to conference so that we can tell family farmers here's what we're going to do here the rules i might say finally i hope when we have completed our work i hope the president be supportive as well that's another part of this process and i know that many are working with the president for that support and so mr president as i've indicated earlier i know that there are thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of farmers out around the country waiting for an answer what will be the farm program as they begin to think about getting into the fields next spring and they can hardly wait that's just the nature of being a farmer i mean they want to get on a tractor they want to get moving they want to plant some seeds they want to go bison calves that's just the way it is because they live on hope my my expectation is that we can give them much greater whole if we pass a piece of legislation that says to them this country wants to invest in your future your farmer living out there alone trying to raise a crop in a family and you run through a tough patch you run through some tough times we want to help you the farm bill really says to those farmers you're really not alone this country believes in the merit and the value of having a network of family farms populating this country producing food for a hungry country so having said all that let me again thank my colleagues for the the bill they have produced and look forward to being here tomorrow with my colleague grassley and offering a member then further working this week perhaps by the end of this week or at least in the next week to get this piece of legislation through and get a final vote on it this president you before mr president senator from i would i would ask unanimous consent to speak for ten minutes as of the morning business without objection mr president earlier this year the senate tried to solve the very complex and emotional issue of immigration reform the immigration bill that we considered included border security interior enforcement and amnesty it also included medini needed reforms to our legal immigration yes i said throughout the debate that congress needs a long term solution to the immigration issue we cannot pass a band aid approach that includes a path to citizenship for lawbreakers rather congress  channels i firmly believe that companies want to hire illegal workers and people want to enter the united states illegally if we fix our visa policies we can restore integrity to our immigration system and all ebell i think that we should consider passing legislation that we can agree on i'm taking the floor at this time to talk about the h one b visa provisions that were included in the immigration bail and asked my colleagues to take a second look at these needed reforms many companies use h one b program it has served a valuable purpose but we need to re evaluate how this program operates and work to make it more effective the h one b program was officially created in one thousand nine hundred fourteen workers legally and our country for over thirty years and it was brought into existence to serve american employers who needed high tech workers it was created to fill a void in the u s labor force the visa holders were intended to fill jobs for a temporary amount of time while the country invested in american workers to pick up the skills that are a condom i needed we attach fees to the visas that now bring in millions of dollars these fees and the dollars that come with it are invested in training grants to educate or own work for we use of funds to put kids through school for science technology engineering and ma skills we provide students with scholarships with the hope that they will replace imported foreign workers unfortunately the h one b program is so popular that it is now see the u s labor force rather than supplementing the high tech business the high tech and business community is begging congress to raise or eliminate the annual cap that currently stands at eighty five thousand visas each year these numbers do not do not include an account for those that are exempted from that eighty five thousand dollar cap for instance we don't count employees at institutions of higher education or nonprofit research organizations we don't count those who change jobs or renew their each one so my point is that we have many more than eighty five thousand eight hundred one b visas distributed each year so i'm here to tell my colleagues that increasing the visa supply is not the only solution to the so called shortage of high tech workers since march of this year the senator from illinois and mr durban and i have taken a good look at the h one b visa program we have raise issues with the citizen citizenship and immigration service as well as the department of labor we have aspirations of companies that use the h one b visa and i have raised a shoe with attorneys who would visor clients on how to get around the permanent employment regulations i'd like to share what i have learned i want to give you some fraud and abuse examples unfortunately the unfortunately there are some bad apples in the h one b visa program some examples in two thousand and five a man was charged with fraud and misuse of visas money laundering and mail fraud for his participation in a multi state scam to smuggle indian and pakistani nationals into the united states w man created fictitious companies often running only a cubicle simply to have a mailing address fabricated tax returns and submitted over one thousand faults  another man pled guilty last august to charges of fraud and conspiracy this man an attorney charged for nationals thousands of dollars to fraudulently obtaining h one b b says he provided false documents to substantiate their h one b positions petitions the programmers guild a group representing u s workers interests filed over three hundred discrimination complaints in the first half of two thousand and six against companies who boasted quote h one b visa holder only unquote ads on job boards anyone can go on the internet and find jobs that target h one b visa holders there are more than just anecdotes how are everyday americans copies of e mails showing how he's often bombarded with requests by companies who want to lease their h one b workers to that aisle there are companies with h one b workers who are so called on the bank meaning they're ready to be be deployed to a project hundreds of foreign workers are standing by waiting for work so justify to the federal government that they have adequate business opportunity that requires additional visa holders it's a complete falsification of the market justification for  workers these firms are making commodity out of h one b workers they have visa holders but are looking for work it's supposed to be the other way around there should be a shortage or a need first and foremost then and only that we allow foreign workers to fill these jobs temporarily another constituent sent me a letter saying that he saw firsthand how foreign workers were brought and while higher ones were similar qualifications were let go he tells me that he is a computer professional with over twenty years experience he was laid off and has yet to find a job quote i believe my employer has a history of hiring h one b computer personnel at the expense of qualified american citizens and i'm quoting from that letter another iowan from cedar falls wrote in support of our review of the h one b program he's a computer programmer with a master's degree and over twenty years of work experience in that field he says quote despite all my qualifications in the last four years i have applied for thirty seven hundred positions and have received no job offers and a quote he believes that he is in constant competition with  these homes i received a letter from a man in arizona who works for a company that employs dozens of h one b workers when he asked his supervisor why so many foreign nationals were being hired the head of human resources said that quote if the company has an american and a person for main dia those with the same skill set the company will hire the person from india because they can pay them less and quote these are firsthand stories from us work so i would ask those begging for an increase in foreign workers to explain these cases to me why are americans struggling to get jobs as software developers data processors and program analysts senator durbin and i inquired was several foreign based companies that use the h one b program than sending a letter to all companies that use a program which would be over two hundred companies we decided to start our investigation with foreign based entities our intention was that learn how foreign companies are using  we learned that the top nine foreign based companies use twenty thousand pieces in two thousand and six just think of what a high percentage that is of that eighty five thousand just nine foreign based companies twenty thousand pieces in the year two thousand and six i say that twice for emphasis it just so happens that indian companies are using one third of the available visas that we allocate each year but there's more or we're not done asking questions we meaning senator durbin and i continue to talk to u s based companies and companies in our own states that use a program the citizenship and immigration service also has concerns our review has prompted discussion among the executive branch among businesses among labor unions and among workers and workers are the ones that we're concerned about so we're not the only ones asking questions the u s citizenship and immigration services also worried about fraud in the program this agency's investigative arm that subdivision is called the fraud detection and national security unit that unit is doing a fraud assessment of the h one b and the l of these a program i asked the unit to brief my staff on their work and they reported that they're not finished with analyzing the data senator collins of maine and i put the agency on notice that we're anxiously awaiting for this report so that we can continue our quest to reform the program appropriately in the meantime the bill that senator durbin and i entered tuesday includes measures for reinin you it goes a long ways to slow some loopholes to protect american workers it's our hope that these measures will bring the program back to its original mission that is to help u s based companies find it highly skilled workers to fill the shortie for a temporary period of time that's what the h one b visa programs all about under current law all companies can bring in foreign workers on an h one b visa without first attempting to hire an american our bill would require every employer to attest that it is not displacing  worker by hiring an h one b visa holder and that that employer has taken good face steps to recruit u s workers for the jobs in which an h one b visa holder is being sought why would anyone oppose this me our bill also gives more oversight and investigative authority to the department of labor right now the department may only review labor certification for quote clear indication of fraud and mr representation and of quote the secretary of labor is unable to review applications for anything but what the laws calls incompleteness and cannot initiate an investigation unless request this means that the labor department in effect is required to turn a blind eye to information that is suspicious to remedy this problem our bill provides the department of labor the ability to initiate an investigation on their own and gives the department of labor more dine review applications this could also they could the department could also do random audits of any company that uses a program aside from these majors our bill would prohibit employers to only advertise available jobs to h one b visa holders it would encourage information sharing between the department of labor and the department of homeland security double the penalties for employers non compliance with the h one b program requirements i'm happy to report that most of these commonsense solutions were included in the immigration bill i challenge any of my colleagues who oppose these needed reforms before we talk about increasing the number of h one b visas or at the very least in conjunction with that process today i take the floor then to tell my colleagues and i'm willing to work on this issue before the end of the year i know businesses want more of these i know groups that represent workers and visa holders want reform i know the american people want a sensible system in place that gives their children a chance at these highly skilled jobs some of my colleagues think that the solution is increasing the cap on h one b visas and doing nothing else before we agreed to import more foreign workers let's restore integrity in this h one b program the c the system needs a medical i'm willing to consider an increase in one h one b visas supply but only if reforms are included we must fix the loopholes before we just allow more former workers to come in and take jobs that americans want to do i would think that my colleagues i would want this program to work and to work as it was intended by its original authors and and my colleagues should want to protect the jobs of our various constituencies and help our businesses find the workers they truly need i yield the floor and i suggest  minutes each without objection thank you mr president mr president it is an unfortunate reality that with so much at stake in the ballot box organized efforts to suppress the vote go nearly as far back as the right to vote itself their efforts have cast a shadow over what justice earl warren called the essence of a democratic society the right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice the first voter suppression in america was direct blanket restrictions based on race based on gender based on class over the years these overt efforts were eventually replaced by more in direct and nefarious means poll taxes literacy tests whites only primaries and myriad other disenfranchisement laws aimed directly at minority voters these crafty legal obstacles were often supplemented by blunt physical violence but despite the many and varied efforts to impede the franchise american democracy has shown an extraordinary resilience and the american people have shown an abiding dedication sometimes paying with life and limb to defend the right of their fellow citizens to vote this senator of course has a checkered past on voting rights for many years the senate is where civil rights bills came to die stalled by filibuster and tangled in parliamentary technique eventually of course the tide turned and congress i should in a series of laws that remain among the most important ever enacted the twenty fourth amendment banning poll taxes civil rights act and the voting rights act of one thousand nine hundred sixty five which banned literacy tests authorized the attorney general to appoint federal voting examiners to ensure fair administration of elections and require the federal government to pre clear certain changes in the voting laws of local jurisdictions that law has been improved and reauthorized the number of times as recently as last year and is a cornerstone of our democracy nevertheless as we all know efforts to suppress the vote persist and continue to erode the promise of democracy for many americans for example in the last election cycle we saw organized efforts to deceive voters by sending out flyers with false information about the location of polling places or with phony endorsements we saw frets that immigrants could be imprisoned if they voted the judiciary committee under the wide leadership of chairman leahy has responded with the deceptive practices and voter intimidation prevention act which would criminalize various forms of voter intimidation and election misinformation in recent years we have also seen the rise of another voter suppression tactic which has come to be known as vote caging caging is a voter suppression tactic whereby a political campaign sends mail directed do not forward return to sender to a targeted group of voters often targeted into minority neighborhoods the campaign then challenges right of those citizens whose mail was returned as undeliverable on the grounds of the voter does not live at the registered address of course of the president there are many reasons why a piece of mail might be returned to sender that have nothing whatsoever to do with the voter's eligibility for example a voter might be an active member of the armed services and station far from home or a student lawfully registered at their parents address even a typographical error during entry of the voter's registration information might result in a false negative nevertheless these individuals end up facing a challenge to their vote and possibly losing their right to vote caging came into the media spotlight this summer during congress's investigation into the political dismissal of united states attorneys but this practice is not new and it is not rare in fact hundred two the republican national committee has been operating under a consent decree filed in new jersey united states district court which states that the r and c shall and i quote refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct or the actual conduct of such activities this consent degree was entered into after the republican national committee during the one nine hundred eighty one new jersey gubernatorial election initiated a massive voter caging operation sending mailers marked do not forward to voters in predominantly african american and latino neighborhoods throughout the state the republican national committee then compiled a caging list based solely on the right turned letters and challenged these voters at the polls they did it again in louisiana in one thousand nine hundred six when the republican national committee hired a consultant to send three hundred and fifty thousand pieces of mail marked do not forward to districts that were mostly african american and the consent decree was then modified to require the united states district court in new jersey to pre clear any so called ballot security programs undertaken by the republican national committee however in part because the federal consent degree does not apply to state parties or other campaigns caging has continued during the past few election cycles there has been credible evidence of caging in ohio in florida in pennsylvania and elsewhere not every caging operation has been successful but the failure of a voter suppression attempt is no excuse for it therefore i am introducing the caging prohibition act which would prohibit challenging a person's eligibility to vote or to register to vote based on a cage ing list simply put eligible voters should not fear their right to vote might be challenged at the polls because a single piece of mail never reached them the bill would also require any private party who challenges the right of another citizen to vote or to register to vote to set forth in writing under penalty of perjury the specific grounds for the alleged ineligibility the principle here is simple if you're going to challenge one of your fellow citizens right to vote you should at least have cause and be willing to stand behind it mr president i am very proud of the extraordinary group of senators who have agreed to be original co sponsors of this piece of legislation chairman leahy of the judiciary committee senator feinstein senator dodd senator kerry senator feingold senator schumer senator nelson of florida senator clinton senator obama senator menendez senator brown and senator cl proud to work closely with the brennan center for social justice and the lawyers committee for civil rights under law to develop the language of this bill and i would also like to thank people for the american way for its support of this legislation but the present in the one nine hundred sixty four case of reynolds versus sims the united states supreme court stated and this is a quote the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired matter is preservative of other basic civil and political rights that's the end of the quote in other words every right we have depends upon the right to vote organized voter suppression efforts including vote caging schemes infringe on this right and undermine our democracy congress should rise to the occasion and say enough is enough vote or caging i thank my many distinguished colleagues who have co sponsored this bill and i ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in stopping this nefarious voters to russian activity mr president senator from rhode island thank you mr president i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number four fifty two one three four seven  without objection the senate proceeds to the measure with the president i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time passed and the motion to reconsider laid upon the table that any statements appear at the appropriate tuesday november sixth that on tuesday following the prayer and pledge the journal of proceedings be approved today the morning hour be deemed expired the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day that there then be a period of mourning business for sixty minutes with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each and the time equally divided and control between the leaders or their designees with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half that after the close of morning business the senate resumed consideration of h r two fo one nine further that on tuesday the senate stand in recess from twelve thirty p m to two fifteen p m for their respective party conference meetings without if there is no further business i now ask that the senate stand adjourned under the previous order the senate stands adjourned until ten a m tomorrow