S5966 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE August 2, 2012 

recognize and honor the work of the 

Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, NY; 

and the lifelong dedication of Sisters 

Francis Gerard Kress, Edward Joseph 

Murphy and Alice Francis Young for 

their 80 years of service to their religion, professions and country. 

f 

REMEMBERING GORE VIDAL 

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I 

rise to pay tribute to the great talents 

and accomplishments of Gore Vidal, 

the extraordinary American writer who 

died this week at age 86 in California, 

where he spent the last 9 years of his 

life. 

Gore Vidal was a child of the Senate—or more precisely, a grandchild of 

the Senate. His maternal grandfather 

was Senator Thomas Pryor Gore of 

Oklahoma, and the writer’s happiest 

childhood memories were of the times 

he lived at Senator Gore’s Washington 

home. According to Vidal’s New York 

Times obituary, ‘‘He loved to read to 

his grandfather, who was blind, and 

sometimes accompanied him onto the 

Senate floor.’’ Vidal himself later said, 

‘‘At something like 13 or 14, I wanted 

to be a politician, but knew that I was 

a writer. . . .’’ 

This change of career path worked 

out best for everyone. Gore Vidal’s 

prose was elegant and crystal clear, 

and his range as a writer has seldom 

been equaled. His essays, perhaps his 

greatest triumph, utilized and displayed his wide-ranging interests, encyclopedic learning, and dazzling wit. 

He also wrote more than two dozen 

novels including a series on American 

political history that is widely read 

and admired on both sides of the aisle— 

as well as plays, screenplays, television 

dramas, and two volumes of memoirs. 

Gore Vidal twice ran for office, losing 

a 1960 run for Congress in upstate New 

York and a 1982 Senate primary in 

California. Despite these political setbacks, he remained convinced that 

‘‘There is no human problem which 

could not be solved if people would 

simply do as I advise.’’ He dispensed his 

advice with great wit and intelligence 

for more than 60 years, and America is 

far the richer for it. 

f 

DROUGHT IMPACT 

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise 

today to speak about the devastating 

impact the drought gripping nearly 80 

percent of the country is having on 

food producers. 

Fewer natural occurrences are more 

devastating to agricultural production 

than extreme drought. The drought 

conditions the United States is facing 

today are considered the worst the 

country has seen in more than 50 years. 

Data computed in the Palmer 

Drought Severity Index indicate that 

the severity of the current drought is 

on par with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. 

USDA has determined that more 

than 1,000 counties in 26 States, encompassing more than two thirds of the 

lower 48, are experiencing drought conditions. Drought conditions stretch 

from coast to coast and encompass 

nearly every State south of 42nd parallel west of the Mississippi River 

while also including nearly all of Florida, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It is also worth noting that farmers on Delmarva peninsula are coping 

with a drought of their own as well as 

record high temperatures. 

While these conditions undoubtedly 

present challenges for commodity 

growers, agricultural science, modern 

farming techniques and a series of financial support programs help commodity growers cope with increasingly 

difficult growing conditions. 

These advances in farming, combined 

with robust grower supports like commodity direct payments and federally 

subsidized crop insurance premiums, 

along with a high market price for 

corn, driven by increased demand for 

corn from a variety of sectors, including ethanol producers who must meet 

government mandates to produce 15.2 

billion gallons of ethanol this year, all 

help U.S. grain growers survive this 

difficult growing season. 

Our national farm support programs 

are centered on assuring the financial 

security of commodity growers. However, there is little to no assurances on 

the availability and affordability of 

corn feed for livestock and poultry and 

for food production broadly. 

This issue hits very close to home for 

me as Maryland’s poultry industry continues to struggle tremendously during 

this drought because there is so little 

corn feed available. What feed is available is extremely expensive. 

Feed accounts for more than 75 percent of the cost of raising poultry. 

Corn futures project the price of corn 

hitting $9 dollars a bushel by the end of 

the summer. As the price of feed continues to rise, feed costs will make up 

an even greater percentage of the cost 

to grow birds to market weight. 

And unlike raising hogs and cattle, 

which ruminant species that can eat 

other types of feed like soybeans or 

hay, chickens can only eat grains—in 

other words corn. 

To understand how important the 

availability of affordable corn is let’s 

take a look at chicken by the numbers: 

As of today, the price per bushel of 

corn is $8.20. 

One bushel of corn equals 56 pounds 

of shelled corn. 

On average, it takes 7 weeks and 131⁄2

pounds of corn to raise a single chicken 

to market weight. 

Market weight for a single chicken is 

approximately six pounds, although 

the weight of the bird that is actually 

meat is probably somewhere closer to 

three or four pounds. 

Approximately four birds can be 

raised, from egg to slaughter, on a 

bushel of shelled corn—or, a little more 

than $2 worth of corn. 

The retail price for a whole three 

pound chicken at a popular Maryland 

supermarket chain is $6 (at $2 per lb). 

That means that the retail price of a 

pound of chicken is equal to the price 

of corn feed. And corn is just one input 

cost to raising poultry. 

Clearly market conditions like this 

are not sustainable for maintaining a 

viable domestic poultry industry. 

Domestic poultry, beef, and pork producers operate without the safety nets 

commodity growers have. Those domestic producers that are still owned 

by U.S.-based companies are at an even 

greater disadvantage, because many of 

the foreign owned meat and poultry 

companies in the U.S. can afford to operate at a loss for extended periods of 

time because they have financial backing from state-run banks overseas. 

Our meat and poultry producers are 

in dire need of relief if they are going 

to survive into the future. One way to 

provide some relief for poultry and 

livestock growers would be to modify 

the Renewable Fuel Standard’s ethanol 

production mandate for corn ethanol so 

as to provide our farmers better access 

to the corn stocks they need. 

Food producers—including livestock 

and poultry producers, who use tremendous amounts of corn to raise their 

livestock and produce food—do not 

have the luxury of a mandated market 

for their products. 

I understand the important role domestic ethanol production will play in 

helping our Nation achieve greater energy security. However, the nurturing 

and growth of our domestic biofuels industry must not come at the expense of 

our domestic food supply. In other 

words, we cannot sacrifice U.S. food security for energy security. That is why 

I do not support the use of food based 

feedstocks like sugar and corn to be 

commercially produced into ethanol. 

Domestic food production is reaching 

a state of crisis driven by the increasing cost of inputs, like corn, that the 

food producers have to unfairly compete with industries that are operating 

with under government production 

mandates. 

That is why Senators BOOZMAN, MIKULSKI and I introduced legislation 

making a simple change to the Renewable Fuel Standard to help provide domestic food producers access to corn. 

This legislation will link the amount 

of corn ethanol required for the RFS to 

the amount of U.S. corn supplies. This 

legislation sets up a process so that 

when the USDA reports on U.S. corn 

supplies towards the end of each year, 

based upon the ratio of corn stocks to 

expected use, there could be a reduction made to the RFS mandate for corn 

ethanol. This is a commonsense solution to make sure that we have enough 

corn supplies to meet all of our corn 

demands. 

Once a year, the administrator of the 

Environmental Protection Agency will 

review the current corn crop year’s 

ratio of U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio in 

making a determination of the RFS. 

Another way to deliver some of this 

needed relief would be for the House to 

immediately pass the Senate Farm Bill 


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August 2, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S5967 

that passed with bipartisan support in 

the Senate in June. 

The livestock disaster provisions 

originally enacted in the 2008 Farm bill 

expired in 2011, leaving producers without disaster assistance for the current 

crop year. The Senate bill strengthens 

these programs and makes them retroactive to address the current drought 

of 2012. 

As of July 17, approximately 73 percent of cattle producing areas were affected by moderate or more intense 

drought. 

As I mentioned earlier, the Delmarva 

peninsula, where a fair amount of the 

corn is raised for feed for Delmarva 

poultry, is in a state of drought, as are 

the regions of the country where the 

rest of the corn Delmarva poultry uses 

is shipped in from. 

Livestock disaster programs are critical as farmers and ranchers experience 

losses in livestock and grazing land due 

to extreme heat, drought, and fire. The 

2012 Farm Bill provides permanent 

funding and authority for the Livestock Disaster Programs. 

Beyond helping livestock and poultry 

growers, the 2012 Farm Bill also provides much needed assistance to fruit 

and vegetable growers, too, by expanding crop insurance coverage to these 

farmers. The bill also allows the Risk 

Management Agency to conduct research and development on new crop 

insurance products to expand access to 

index-based weather insurance products for fruit and vegetable growers. 

The House appears poised to just 

kick the can for a year. The House is 

likely to consider a measure to merely 

extend the 2008 Farm Bill for a year, 

while also offering some drought assistance—paid for from cuts to conservation programs. 

This is a plan that the American 

Farm Bureau opposes, and demonstrates both the dysfunction of the 

House—in that they won’t simply do 

what’s easiest and best for farmers by 

taking up and passing the Senate bill— 

while also ignoring how vital farm conservation is to preventing agricultural 

disasters. 

The Senate Farm Bill preserves 

USDA conservation programs. The 

Natural Resource Conservation Service, formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service, was born out of the 

tragedy of the Dust Bowl. 

The disastrous droughts of the 1930s 

taught us the lesson that we need to do 

more to protect water and soil resources so that we do not repeat the 

mistakes of the past. 

The 2012 Senate Farm bill conservation programs are critical for keeping 

America’s farmers and ranchers doing 

what they do best—growing and producing a safe and stable food supply. 

Crops need healthy soil and plentiful 

water to grow, and natural disasters 

like drought have a long-term impact 

on soil and water quality. 

The Farm bill’s conservation title 

provides farmers and ranchers access 

to the tools they need to conserve and 

keep our Nation’s natural resources as 

resilient as possible, even in the face of 

drought and other natural disasters. 

For the good of American agriculture 

and the American consumer, I urge the 

House leadership to take advantage of 

this last opportunity before the August 

recess to do what is right and pass the 

Senate Farm bill. My hope is that 

House leadership will realize that it behooves us, when we go home to our districts during the summer recess and attend State and county fairs, to be able 

to tell our farming communities that 

we sent a Farm bill to the President 

with meaningful reforms and essential 

disaster relief to help them through 

these difficult times. 

Personally, I want to be able to tell 

my poultry growers that Washington 

hears their plight. That is why, in addition to urging House passage of the 

Senate Farm bill, I would also like to 

see further relief for poultry growers in 

the form of improved access to corn 

feed. 

For decades, America’s corn growers 

were outproducing demand for corn 

from food producers. While consumers 

may have benefitted from relatively 

low corn prices, American corn and 

grain growers were hurting badly. 

Since 2007, the tides have been turning significantly. National demand for 

corn is at an all-time high and corn is 

likely to reach $9 a bushel in the near 

future. A growing and hungry Nation, 

combined with new demands for corn 

that are the result of technological innovations, have created new uses for 

corn in the form of ethanol as both a 

motor fuel additive and in plastics. 

These new uses, combined with expanded traditional uses, have fueled 

the upward spike in corn prices. 

The effects of the 2012 drought are 

obviously a catastrophe that we cannot 

legislate away. However, there are actions that the USDA and EPA could 

take to help improve market access to 

the corn stocks food producers need to 

keep feeding America. 

Senators HAGAN, CHAMBLISS, PRYOR, 

BOOZMAN, and I have authored a letter 

to the EPA administrator calling for 

the waiver of the Renewable Fuel 

Standard’s conventional ethanol production mandate for this year. Doing 

so would allow food producers to compete fairly with ethanol producers for 

corn. 

While ethanol production is down, 

due to high corn prices ethanol producers are sitting on roughly 2.5 billion 

production credits, known as RINs (Renewable Identification Numbers), that 

they could cash in and further reduce 

the perceived demand for corn and increase the supply available to food producers. 

I understand the important role domestic ethanol production will play in 

helping our Nation achieve greater energy security. However, the growth of 

our domestic biofuels industry must 

not come at the expense of our domestic food supply. We cannot sacrifice 

U.S. food security for energy security. 

That is why I do not support the use of 

food based feedstocks like sugar and 

corn to be commercially produced into 

ethanol. 

I believe the future of biofuels must 

be in the development and production 

of cellulosic and advanced biofuels that 

are not derived from feedstocks that 

are part of essential food sources. 

Because of corn’s many uses, it has 

become a commodity that is in high demand. Assuring our domestic food producers’ access to this valuable and increasingly scarce crop is so important 

to controlling the cost of food in America and maintaining the economic viability of our U.S. food companies. 

I urge my colleagues to join Senators 

HAGAN, BOOZMAN, PRYOR, CHAMBLISS

and I in calling on EPA to waive the 

RFS corn ethanol production mandate 

and call on the House to pass the Senate’s Farm bill. 

f 

BRUMIDI GOLD MEDAL CEREMONY 

Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remarks I deliver on July 11 at the Brumidi Gold 

Medal Ceremony be printed in the 

RECORD. 

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the 

RECORD, as follows: 

STATEMENT ON S. 254 

A BILL TO AWARD POSTHUMOUSLY A CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL TO CONSTANTINO

BRUMIDI CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI GOLD MEDAL

CEREMONY, RAYBURN ROOM, DELIVERED JULY

11, 2012—11 AM

Mr. Speaker, Leaders, Mr. Ambassador, fellow Italians—and friends of Italy. This is a 

process that started about five years ago, 

and it’s the first one that one hundred Senators ever sponsored. It’s taken 5 years but 

for Constantino Brumidi, there was no greater honor than being called an American citizen. It was a title he sought and then signed 

with pride on the best of his work. 

For my own family and for many of you, it 

wasn’t long after Constantino Brumidi left 

for America, that my own ancestors heard 

the call for freedom and came here as well. 

Just like Constantino Brumidi they left the 

beauty of Italy—its mountains and its sunny 

shores—to come and be a part of the great 

adventure called the United States. 

And I swear that if you walk through these 

halls late at night you can almost hear the 

whispers of the past and the hushed echoes of 

the voices of our Founding Fathers, past 

Senators and Representatives as they debated and discussed the issues of the day. 

And perhaps Constantino, as he talks about 

the art. 

The history books tell us that Constantino 

Brumidi was born in Rome of Italian and 

Greek heritage, and he had a great talent for 

painting that revealed itself at an early age. 

After he came to the United States and one 

day, after completing a commission, he 

stopped in Washington, DC, to visit the Capitol on his way home, and looking at its tall, 

blank walls and empty corridors, he must 

have felt the excitement and inspiration 

only an artist facing an empty canvas can 

know. On that day he began what was more 

than an assignment for him—it was a labor 

of love—as he brought to life the great moments in American history for all of us to 

see on the walls and ceilings. His efforts were 

destined to earn him the title of ‘‘America’s 

Michelangelo.’’ 


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