Opinion ID: 545560
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Other Legislative History

Text: 84 When the bill reached the floor of the Senate after committee hearings, Senator Burdick (D-ND) offered an amendment on the Senate floor to provide expressly that any person would have a right to sue under the Act. His concern was that the House bill, which conferred an express cause of action only on borrowers, was too narrow, eliminating existing rights. 5 He stated: 85 Currently, any person has the right to sue these two entities. However, the House provision arguably limits this right to borrowers of the System. This restricts rights of persons who are not yet borrowers, or who are farmer-borrowers, to sue. 86 My amendment simply cleans up this problem and restores the rights to all persons, whether borrowers or not. 87 133 Cong.Rec. S16995 (Dec. 7, 1987). 88 Senator Boren (D-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Agricultural Credit and floor manager for the bill, responded as follows: 89 I am told that the House has unduly restricted the right of the borrower to bring suit and that this is the proposal in the House bill. It would be my thought ... that we would oppose that House provision in the conference committee. That would have much the same effect as the adoption of the Burdick amendment would have without our attempting to write the actual language of the amendment here on the floor at this time. 90 Senator Lugar (R-Ind.), ranking minority member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, stated: 91 I would confirm the understanding that the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma and I have with the distinguished author of this amendment. We will in fact oppose the House amendment in conference. We understand the problem, and we would appreciate the Senator's not pursuing this amendment on this occasion with that assurance. 92 Id. On the basis of these assurances, Senator Burdick withdrew his amendment and the bill passed. 6 This is both the best and only explicit explanation of why the cause of action provision was eliminated at Conference. To conclude otherwise, as the majority has, is to assume Congress' intent without support in the language, structure, or legislative history. 93 The comments of Senator Boren and Senator Lugar are not, as described by the Bank and the Ninth Circuit in Harper, 878 F.2d at 1176, isolated comments in the legislative record selected by plaintiffs to bolster their case. They were the comments by those in the Senate responsible for managing the Act through the legislative process.