To amend the Food Security Act of 1985 to ensure the availability of funds to provide technical assistance for certain conservation programs of the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. President, today I am introducing with the cosponsorship of Senator McCain and Senator Baucus the Auditor Independence and Tax Shelters Act, a bill designed to strengthen auditor independence by prohibiting audit companies from selling tax shelter services to the publicly traded companies they audit and to the officers and directors of those companies.

Last year, Senators McCain, Baucus and I each participated in investigations conducted by our respective Committees, the Committees on Commerce, Finance, and Governmental Affairs, into corporate misconduct by Enron and other major U.S. companies, including participation in misleading accounting and tax practices. These investigations led each of us to focus on the role of accounting firms in, not only going along with publicly traded companies' using abusive tax shelters, but also selling them the very tax shelters they used to overstate their earnings on their financial statements.

In fact, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on which I am the Ranking Minority Member, has spent the last year investigating the roles played by accounting firms and other professional organizations such as banks, investment advisors and law firms, in developing, marketing and implementing abusive tax shelters. The Finance Committee held a hearing today on this same topic.

Tax shelters have become a huge business in this country. An 1998 article in Forbes magazine--five years ago--described how tax shelter use was growing even then:

Pay attention. These letters are prime evidence of a

thriving industry that has received scant public notice: the

hustling of corporate tax shelters. These shelters are being

peddled, sometimes in cold-call pitches, to thousands of

companies. Will the shelters hold up in court? Maybe yes,

maybe no, but many schemes capitalize on the fact that

neither the tax code nor the IRS can keep up with the exotica

of modern corporate finance. Hesitant at first to

participate, respectable accounting firms, law offices and

public corporations have lately succumbed to competitive

pressures and joined the loophole frenzy.

A March 2003 article in BusinessWeek magazine states that U.S. corporations are some of the biggest players in the tax shelter game:

The federal tax rate for corporations is 35%, but few pay

that much. . . . Many have achieved the Holy Grail of

corporate finance: steadily growing profits coupled with a

dramatically shrinking tax burden. . . . [I]n the late 1990s,

the hunt for tax breaks became a much bigger business. . . .

Tax avoidance became a competitive sport, with even blue-chip

companies aggressively benchmarking their effective tax rates

against those of rivals. According to a recent Harvard

University study, U.S. companies avoided paying tax on nearly

$300 billion in income in 1998.

Recently, the New York Times reported that a consultant's report prepared for the IRS but not released to the public until now will show that ``corporate tax cheating in 2000 cost the government $14 billion to $18 billion'' in revenues during that one year alone.

Accounting firms are in the thick of the tax shelter activity, earning tens of millions of dollars in fees. According to Bowman's Accounting Report, the Big Four accounting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG, and Ernst & Young, brought in $5.6 billion of U.S. tax practice revenues in 2001, more than twice the tax-related revenues these companies posted in 1995. While some of these fees are the result of tax return preparation work, our Subcommittee investigation indicates that significant fees were generated by tax shelter services provided to wealthy individuals and corporations.

Increased tax shelter activity has not only led to substantial U.S. tax revenue loss, it has complicated U.S. tax enforcement efforts and undermined taxpayer confidence in the federal tax compliance system, leading the IRS to designate abusive tax shelters as an enforcement priority.

The IRS has accordingly begun a major effort to combat this form of tax avoidance. In 2002, for example, the IRS issued about 200 summonses seeking tax shelter related information from 30 accounting firms and other tax shelter promoters, and filed suit against two major accounting firms, KPMG and BDO Seidman, and two major law firms, Jenkens & Gilchrist and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, to obtain information about their tax shelter activities. In addition, the Securities Exchange Commission and the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have expressed serious concerns about accounting firms that audit publicly traded companies while wearing two hats: those of the tax shelter promoter and those of the auditor auditing the same tax shelters it has promoted.

That issue is the focus of our legislation.

Auditors of publicly traded companies are supposed to be independent watchdogs charged with determining whether a company's financial statements are accurate and fairly report the company's finances. But multiple accounting scandals involving billions of dollars at companies like Enron, Tyco, Healthsouth, Aldelphia, and MCI-WorldCom have rocked investor confidence in auditors and severely damaged the reputation of the U.S. accounting profession. These accounting scandals showed again and again that our laws and financial systems were insufficient to ensure that U.S. auditors were doing their jobs.

In response, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. A primary purpose of that law was to strengthen auditor independence and restore investor confidence in U.S. financial statements. Among other measures, it established the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to strengthen auditing standards, investigate and discipline auditor wrongdoing, and oversee auditing practices to ensure adequate financial statement reviews. While the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a landmark piece of legislation--replacing decades of self-policing in the accounting industry with independent oversight--a number of reform issues remain unresolved.

One key, longstanding issue that continues to compromise auditor independence is the role played by accounting firms in developing and selling tax shelters to public companies they audit.

As part of their review of public company financial statements, auditors are supposed to review the company's tax practices to ensure that the company is not understating its tax liability and overstating its earnings. But in some cases, the same accounting firm is also pitching tax shelters to that client, many of which rely on aggressive and novel interpretations of tax law. If a company buys one of these tax shelters from its accounting firm, the unacceptable result is that the accounting firm can then turn around and audit the company's financial statements and, in effect, audit its own work, a situation that strikes at the heart of auditor independence.

In some cases, the accounting firm may have even negotiated ``success fees'' which are contingent upon a tax shelter's success in reducing a client's tax burden. In such cases, accounting firms will audit tax transactions in which they have a direct financial interest, creating a conflict of interest between the firm's income and auditing responsibilities, and making it highly unlikely that questions will be raised about a tax shelter that the firm itself sold to its client.

Similar conflicts may arise when accounting firms offer tax shelter services to the officers and directors of the companies they audit. One case extensively discussed in the media involves a major accounting firm which not only audited Sprint Corporation, a publicly traded company, but also sold tax shelters to the Sprint CEO and other Sprint executives. These tax shelters supposedly eliminated taxes owed on millions of dollars in personal compensation from stock options given by Sprint to its executives. When the value of the stock options later fell,

the accounting firm apparently analyzed strategies that could have lowered the individuals' taxes but increased the company's taxes, pitting the individual against the company, with the same accountant on both sides of the equation. Sprint eventually fired several of the executives and recently announced it was also changing auditors. In addition, Sprint has instituted a new policy barring its auditor from providing any financial services to its executives.

Investors, our markets, and the American public deserve better. The legislation we are introducing today would end these auditor conflicts by prohibiting auditors from providing tax shelter services to both the publicly traded companies they audit and to those companies' officers and directors. In addition, the bill would codify four common-sense principles of auditor independence that would assist public companies in analyzing what services may compromise auditor independence.

Our bill would build upon the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which took the first step last year to address the conflict of interest problems that arise when accounting firms provide tax services to the companies they audit. Seeking to limit a wide range of possible conflicts of interest, the Act broadly prohibited auditors from providing any tax service to an audit client without first obtaining the approval of the audit committee of the company's board of directors.

The SEC took the next step when it proposed regulations to implement the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The SEC issued a draft proposal that essentially would have prohibited auditors from selling any tax shelters to their audit clients. The draft SEC proposal also contained the four principles that would have helped company audit committees evaluate whether other tax services proffered by auditors would impair auditor independence. Unfortunately, under heavy lobbying pressure from accounting firms in the tax shelter business, the SEC dropped both of these important provisions from the final regulation.

So we need to legislate. Our bill would, first, prohibit accounting firms that audit publicly held companies in the United States from providing tax shelter services either to the companies they audit or to the companies' officers and directors. The bill defines tax shelter services by referring to existing law, using language in an existing definition of tax shelters in section 6111(d) of the tax code. The bill would prohibit auditors from providing to their audit clients those services related to designing, promoting or executing tax transactions which have tax avoidance or evasion as a significant purpose and which generate fees for the auditing firm exceeding $100,000. It is intended that questions about whether particular tax-related services fall within this definition would be resolved by corporate audit committees when asked by their accounting firm to approve the company's paying for the particular services. The audit committee could consult with the IRS, SEC, or other experts in reaching its decision.

If an audit committee were to approve tax shelter services that should have been barred, the bill does not provide new penalties or enforcement authority, but makes use of the existing oversight authority of the SEC and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to enforce compliance with federal law. That means, for example, if an audit committee were to allow its auditor to provide prohibited tax shelter services, the SEC or Public Company Accounting Oversight Board could use their existing oversight authority to require the company to ``cease and desist'' paying for the services or to prohibit the accounting firm from providing the services. If appropriate, the SEC could also order the public company, the accounting firm, or both, to pay a monetary penalty for violating the tax shelter services prohibition.

The legislation would further reduce potential conflicts by codifying four principles of auditor independence that public company audit committees would be required to apply when determining what non-audit services an auditor can provide. These principles have been repeatedly cited in SEC efforts to strengthen auditor independence and were also cited during debate on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. They provide that auditor independence is compromised when auditors: 1. audit their own work; 2. perform management functions for their clients; 3. act as advocates on behalf of their clients; or 4. act as promoters of their clients' stock or other financial interests.

To better ensure auditor independence, our bill would require audit committees to apply these four principles when considering what services, not otherwise prohibited, an auditor may provide to their company. If an audit committee were to find that the proposed auditor service would reasonably result in a violation of one of the above principles, the audit committee would have to disallow the proffered service.

Experts in the financial and accounting industries agree that auditors should not be permitted to provide tax shelter services to their audit clients. In January of this year, The Conference Board's blue-ribbon Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise, co- chaired by John Snow before he became Secretary of the Treasury, concluded the following:

[P]ublic accounting firms should limit their services to

their clients to performing audits and to providing closely

related services that do not put the auditor in an advocacy

position, such as novel and debatable tax strategies and

products that involve income tax shelters and extensive off-

shore partnerships or affiliates. . . . The Commission

believes that any work performed by the company's outside

auditors [should] be closely related to the audit. Auditors'

development and recommendations of new tax strategies for

their clients is not closely related to the audit, and, in

our opinion, removes focus from their audit work and poses a

potential conflict of interest. Furthermore, the development

and recommendations of these strategies have often been

accompanied by ``success fees.'' In turn these strategies, if

implemented, were often then subject to an audit by the firm.

This practice, in our opinion, is highly undesirable. The

firm's need for impartiality in conduct of the audit is in

direct conflict with the financial incentives to provide tax

strategies which themselves must be audited.

William McDonough, Chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, has indicated that the Board is also considering whether to ban auditors from providing tax shelter services to their audit clients and will be closely monitoring how accounting firms audit a company's tax liabilities and any company use of tax shelters. In testimony before the Finance Committee earlier today, Mr. McDonough stated:

While the SEC made clear that it did not consider

conventional tax compliance and planning to be a threat to

auditor independence, it distinguished such traditional

services from the marketing of novel, tax-driven, financial

products, which the SEC noted raise some serious issues. . .

. [T]he AICPA has also suggested that ``advice on tax

strategies having no business purpose other than tax

avoidance is an appropriate dividing line for activities that

should be prohibited to auditing firms registered under the

Sarbanes-Oxley Act.'' Thus, there appears to be consensus

that auditors ought not to be selling abusive tax shelters to

audit clients.

In an unrelated Wall Street Journal interview, Mr. McDonough was described as saying that ``[w]hat he finds problematic is `very creative tax work' . . . . `There is no way you can do that and claim to be independent,' he said.''

The Sarbanes-Oxley Task Force formed by the American Bar Association's Section of Taxation, has also expressed support for barring auditors from providing tax shelter services to their audit clients. In a comment letter supporting the proposed ban in the SEC regulations on auditor independence, the Task Force wrote:

We believe that tax shelter products raise particular

auditor independence concerns. Companies purchasing tax

shelter products are exposed to a variety of risks over and

above the calculation of tax liability. An accounting firm

that markets a tax shelter product to a registrant should be

prohibited from conducting the audit of the registrant

because it cannot be expected to fairly evaluate the risks

inherent in the tax shelter product.

Our legislation has been endorsed by a number of public interest groups working to strengthen auditor integrity, renew investor and consumer confidence in the financial statements of U.S. publicly traded companies, and curb abusive tax shelters. The Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Consumer Action, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and Common Cause have stated in a letter of endorsement: ``Passage of this bill is one of the most important steps Congress could take to ensure that last

year's corporate reform efforts have their intended effect of restoring real independence to the 'independent' audit and, with it, a reasonable level of reliability to public companies' financial disclosures.''

Our bill's reforms are straightforward. Auditors should not audit their own work, including evaluating a tax shelter that the auditor itself sold to its audit client. Auditors should not sell personal tax shelters to the officers and directors of its audit clients, due to the conflicts of interest that can arise. Publicly traded companies ought to have explicit guidance to help them avoid auditor conflicts of interest, and the best guidance we can give them is the four auditor independence principles that have long guided SEC and Congressional action in this area.

Together, a ban on auditors providing tax shelter services to their audit clients and a codification of the four auditor independence principles to guide public companies away from auditor conflicts of interest could go a long way to restoring the confidence of investors in the U.S. auditing profession, financial reporting system, and capital markets. I urge my colleagues to support this common-sense and much-needed legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues, Senator Leahy and Senator Burns, in cosponsoring the Conservation Technical Assistance Act to preserve funding for our Nation's working lands conservation programs. Through these valuable programs, farmers across the country are able to participate in voluntary farmland, grassland, environmental and wildlife conservation programs that balance stewardship goals with on-farm production. For many States that do not receive large crop subsidies, including Maine, conservation programs are the principal source of Federal assistance and are a valuable tool for helping small and specialty crop growers enhance their production while caring for the land.

This legislation does not set new policy, rather it reinforces the mandates Congress made in the 2002 farm bill. Congress recognized the importance of conservation in agriculture by significantly increasing funding for the working lands conservation programs in the 2002 farm bill. Under the new farm law, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) should have expanded the opportunity for farmers to practice environmental stewardship.

Unfortunately, the USDA has not followed through on congressional intent. Over the past year, the USDA has diverted $158 million from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP), the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program (WHIP), and the Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) to pay for technical assistance of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). As a result of these actions, countless numbers of farmers were prevented from participating in working lands conservation programs.

Without corrective action, farmers' conservation options will be curtailed even more severely as the USDA transfers funding to other programs in the Department. I join my distinguished colleagues today because I believe it is high time that Congress intervene with a solution.

The northeast is home to an incredible array of agricultural products grown by producers both large and small, and, in some cases, sold locally or nationally. In northern Maine, fields of potatoes stretch for miles along the rolling hills of Aroostook County. Along the eastern coast, wild blueberry barrens dot the maritime horizon. Diary farms populate much of inland Maine, and nearly every other type of speciality crop is grown in farms across the State. Despite the unique needs of each grower, the one common thread between these farmers is their nearly unanimous support for the additional commitment Congress made to working lands conservation programs in the 2002 farm bill.

These programs are the State's most effective and substantial source of Federal agricultural support. EQIP, FRPP, WHIP, and GRP make up the lion's share of funding for many States that do not grow traditionally subsidized row crops. Maine, with its diverse agricultural sector, is a prime example of a State that relies on working lands conservation programs to both enhance production and conserve our natural resources. Funds from these programs can be used for projects such as irrigation assistance, water quality, soil erosion control, crop rotation, and other practices. Yet, we are finding these very programs and the benefit they provide being cut by the very department that is tasked with funding them, the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In fiscal year 2003, the USDA diverted over $158 million from key working lands conservation programs to pay for technical assistance for CRP. The funding shortfall created by this diversion has dramatically reduced the available resources for EQIP, FRPP, WHIP, and GRP and led our States to have to deny assistance to countless willing farmers. As more acres become available to be enrolled in CRP in future years and the program's technical assistance costs rise, the impact on working lands conservation programs will become more severe.

It would have been unnecessary to raid working lands conservation programs to pay for CRP had the Department adhered to the specific language in the 2002 farm bill. In fact, Congress anticipated the need to fund technical assistance for CRP and provided specific language in the 2002 farm bill directing the Department to use mandatory funding to pay for CRP technical assistance.

Until we can reach a broader agreement on implementation of the 2002 farm bill provision on conservation technical assistance, it is imperative that we take steps to hold our working lands conservation programs harmless. This legislation does this by simply, but explicitly, stating that the USDA may not take funding from working lands conservation programs to pay for CRP technical assistance. This clarification will allow EQIP, FRPP, WHIP, and GRP to retain the funding that Congress provides. It does not add or subtract funding from an account, rather it makes sure that the funds are used by the program for which Congress intended.

Maine's farmers and our farm community cannot afford to be short changed for another year. In fiscal year 2003, my state received a little more than $8 million in conservation funding compared with the promise for $12 million as required by the regional equity provision of the 2002 farm bill. This short-fall in funding not only meant less direct assistance to farmers, but it led the USDA to propose cutting 20 Natural Resource Conservation Service staff positions throughout Maine. While I am pleased that the USDA decided against laying off these NRCS workers, the specter of further conservation shortfalls in the future does not bode well for my State. I cannot allow both farmers and the professionals who support them to suffer because of USDA's actions.

In closing, I would like to again thank the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Montana for working to craft a temporary solution to the conservation technical assistance problem. I believe that this is the right step to take and I hope to continue working with my colleagues to address the problem down the road. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Medicaid Psychiatric Fairness Act of 2003, which will serve to improve access to mental health treatment and remove an unfunded mandate on our private mental health treatment centers. I am particularly pleased to introduce this bill with my good friend and colleague, Senator Conrad, who like me believes we must improve access to treatment for many of the 18.5 million Americans who are afflicted with a mental health disorder.

Moving one step closer to achieving this laudable goal, our bill will require the Medicaid program to provide reimbursement to private mental health facilities that receive patients under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA. EMTALA requires hospitals to provide emergency care to patients, regardless of their ability to pay. However, this stands in conflict with Medicaid law, which in most cases prohibits payment for psychiatric treatment for people between the age of 21 to 65 years. Our bill takes the critically important step to provide Medicaid coverage for emergency treatment, which will expand access for acute care and will ensure that Americans receive the assistance they vitally need in a timely fashion.

Under current law, Medicaid payment for psychiatric treatment for patients between the age of 21 and 65 years is restricted to hospitals that have an in-house psychiatric ward. If a patient seeks care from a private psychiatric hospital or is transferred to a private facility from a community hospital that does not have a psychiatric treatment ward, Medicaid payment is not provided. In comparison, if that same patient seeks care under EMTALA from a hospital because of a physical ailment, Medicaid provides coverage regardless of the type of facility that provides the treatment. By introducing this bill, we are taking a vitally important step toward removing an unfunded mandate on private providers that has served to limit access to care for millions of Medicaid recipients.

It also is important to note that the current situation is jeopardizing Medicaid recipients' access to emergency treatment, and ultimately is overwhelming our emergency rooms and in many cases the criminal justice system. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that on average 16 percent of inmates in local jails suffer from a mental illness and in Maine, NAMI, a state advocacy group for persons with mental illness, estimates that figure is as high as 50 percent. This is the result of a severe shortage of psychiatric beds in Maine, and as a result many people go without treatment. Action must be taken to provide access to care and we must start by ensuring that Medicaid reimburses facilities that provide treatment.

Senator Conrad and I have joined together in introducing our legislation that will require Medicaid to pay for the cost of care associated with psychiatric treatment necessary to comply with EMTALA. No longer will private entities be required to shoulder the burden of this federal mandate, and no longer will Medicaid eligible beneficiaries go without access to necessary emergency treatments.

In my home State of Maine, 65,000 people have a severe mental illness and could benefit from this bill. Ensuring that our community treatment facilities are appropriately paid, we will be able to open access to vitally important treatment options.

This bill has been carefully crafted with input from both the provider and beneficiary communities to ensure assistance is directed to those who are most in need and to ensure that the coverage only extends to people who require emergency treatment. We have tied the legislation to the EMTALA statute to ensure that this new requirement cannot be exploited.

Demonstrating the importance of this legislation, we have received support from a number of leading national mental health and medical associations, including NAMI, the National Association of County Behavioral Health Directors, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Hospital Association and the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems. I am especially pleased to have

also received endorsements from a number of Maine organizations, including the Maine Hospital Association, Maine chapter of NAMI, the State Department of Behavioral and Development Services and the Spring Harbor Hospital.

This legislative change is vitally important to ensure Medicaid patients have access to emergency mental health treatment. I want to thank Senator Conrad for his help in crafting this policy and urge my colleagues to join us as cosponsors.

I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce bipartisan legislation with Senators Snowe, Burns, Jeffords, Lautenberg and Dodd to restore the conservation funding commitment Congress and the administration made to farmers and ranchers in the 2002 farm bill.

Despite the historic conservation funding levels in the 2002 farm bill, family farmers and ranchers offering to restore wetlands, or offering to change the way they farm to improve air and water quality, continue to be rejected when they seek U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation assistance. Producers are being turned away due to USDA's decision earlier this year to divert $158.7 million from working lands conservation programs to pay for the cost of administering the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) despite a clear directive in the 2002 farm bill that the USDA use mandatory funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to pay for CRP and WRP technical assistance. In particular, USDA diverted $107.9 million from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), $27.6 from the Farmland and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP), $14.6 million from the Grasslands Reserve Program, and $8.6 million from the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) to pay for CRP and WRP technical assistance.

Although the 2002 farm bill clearly intended USDA to use CCC funds to pay for CRP and WRP technical assistance, USDA continues to ignore Congress's intent. The plain language of the statute and the legislative history, including a relevant colloquy, support this interpretation of the farm bill, and the General Accounting Office (GAO) concurred in a recent memo. I ask unanimous consent the GAO's memo be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Our legislation would override USDA's decision and prevent funds from working lands incentive programs like EQIP and WHIP from being diverted to pay for the technical assistance costs of CRP. The House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation has already approved similar legislation, H.R. 1907, requiring each program to pay for its own technical assistance needs. Our legislation parallels that effort, by requiring CRP to pay for its own technical assistance needs. Simply put, our amendment would require the Administration to honor the 2002 Farm Bill and mandate that technical assistance for each program is derived from funds provided for that program.

By providing more than $6.5 billion for working lands programs like EQIP and WHIP in the 2002 farm bill, Congress dramatically increased funds to help farmers manage working lands to produce food and fiber and simultaneously enhance water quality and wildlife habitat. For example, EQIP helps share the cost of a broad range of land management practices that help the environment, include more efficient use of fertilizers and pesticides, and innovative technologies to store and reuse animal waste. In combination, these working lands programs will provide farmers the tools and incentives they need to help meet our major environmental challenges.

Full funding for working lands incentive programs like EQIP and WHIP is vital to helping farmers and ranchers improve their farm management and meeting America's most pressing environmental challenges. Because 70 percent of the American landscape is private land, farming dramatically affects the health of America's rivers, lakes and bays and the fate of America's rare species. Most rare species depend upon private lands for their survival, and many will become extinct without help from private landowners. When farmers and ranchers take steps to help improve air and water quality or assist rare species, they can face new costs, new risks, or loss of income. Conservation programs help share these costs, underwrite these risks, or offset these losses of income. Unless Congress provides adequate resources for these programs, there is little reason to hope that our farmers and ranchers will be able to help to meet these environmental challenges.

In addition, USDA conservation programs promote regional equity in farm spending. More than 90 percent of USDA spending flows to a handful of large farmers in 15 midwestern and southern States. As a result, many farmers and ranchers who are not eligible for traditional subsidies--including dairy farmers, ranchers, and fruit and vegetable farmers--rely upon conservation programs to boost farm and ranch income and to ease the cost of environmental compliance. Unlike commodity subsidies, conservation payments flow to all farmers and all regions. But the farmers and ranchers who depend upon these programs--farmers and ranchers who already receive a disproportionately small share of USDA funds--have faced a disproportionately large cut in spending this year.

It is time for Congress and the administration to honor the intent of the 2002 farm bill, by fully funding working lands conservation programs. The failure to adequately fund these working lands conservation programs is having a dramatic impact on both farmers and the farm economy and could become worse in future years if Congress does not address this matter. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. President, I am pleased to support the passage of S. 2856, legislation that will restore the conservation funding commitment Congress and the administration made to farmers and ranchers in the 2002 farm bill. I applaud the leadership of Agriculture Committee Chairman Cochran and Ranking Member Harkin for their leadership to correct the shortfall in conservation technical assistance funding. For the last 2 years I have worked to correct this problem and am pleased to join my colleagues in this effort.

Despite historic funding conservation levels in the 2002 farm bill, family farmers and ranchers offering to restore wetlands, or offering to change the way they farm to improve air and water quality continue to be rejected when they seek USDA conservation assistance. Producers are being turned away due to the Department of Agriculture's decision to divert over $200 million from working lands conservation programs to pay for the cost of administering the Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, and the Wetlands Reserve Program, WRP, over the last 2 years. In particular, USDA diverted significant funds from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, the Farmland and Ranchland Protection Program, FRPP, the Grasslands Reserve Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, WHIP, to pay for CRP and WRP technical assistance.

The 2002 farm bill clearly intended USDA to use mandatory funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation, CCC, to pay for conservation technical assistance. The plain language of the statute, the General Accounting Office, and every Member of Congress who had a hand in writing the farm bill support this interpretation of the farm bill.

Our legislation would override USDA's decision and prevent funds from working lands incentive programs like EQIP and WHIP from being used to pay for the technical assistance costs of CRP. The House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation has already approved similar legislation, H.R. 1907, requiring each program to pay for its own technical assistance needs. Our legislation parallels that effort. Simply put our amendment would require the administration to honor the 2002 farm bill and mandate that technical assistance for each program is derived from funds provided for that program.

By providing more than $6.5 billion for working lands programs like EQIP and WHIP in the 2002 farm bill, Congress dramatically increased funds to help farmers manage working lands to produce food and fiber and simultaneously enhance water quality and wildlife habitat. For example, EQIP helps share the cost of a broad range of land management practices that help the environment, include more efficient use of fertilizers and pesticides, and innovative technologies to store and reuse animal waste. In combination, these working lands programs will provide farmers the tools and incentives they need to help meet our major environmental challenges.

Full funding for working lands incentive programs like EQIP and WHIP is vital not only in helping farmers and ranchers improve their farm management, but also in meeting America's most pressing environmental challenges. Because 70 percent of the American landscape is private land, farming dramatically affects the health of America's rivers, lakes and bays and the fate of America's rare species. Most rare species depend upon private lands for the survival, and many will become extinct without help from private landowners. When farmers and ranchers take steps to help improve air and water quality or assist rare species, they can face new costs, new risks, or loss of income. Conservation programs help share these costs, underwrite these risks, or offset these losses of income. Unless Congress provides adequate resources for these programs, there is little reason to hope that our farmers and ranchers will be able to help to meet these environmental challenges.

In addition, USDA conservation programs promote regional equity in farm spending. More than 90 percent of USDA spending flows to a handful of large farmers in 15 mid-western and southern States. As a result, many farmers and ranchers who are not eligible for traditional subsidies, including dairy farmers, ranchers, and fruit and vegetable farmers, rely upon conservation programs to boost farm and ranch income and to ease the cost of environmental compliance. Unlike commodity subsidies, conservation payments flow to all farmers and all regions. But, the farmers and ranchers who depend upon these programs, farmers, and ranchers who already receive a disproportionately small share of USDA funds, have faced a disproportionately large cut in spending.

By passing this legislation Congress and the administration will correct the shortfall in conservation technical assistance funding by directing USDA to use CCC funds to provide technical assistance to USDA conservation program. This legislation restores the clear intent of the authors of the 2002 farm bill relating to the payment of conservation technical assistance.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senators Inouye, Domenici and Stabenow in submitting a Senate Resolution urging settlement of the 8-year old Indian trust funds lawsuit, and by Senators Inouye and Domenici in introducing a bill that I hope and believe will accomplish that goal, the ``Indian Money Claims Satisfaction Act of 2003''.

The saga of Cobell v. Norton did not start in 1996 with the filing of the lawsuit, it began long before any of us were born. In 1887 Congress enacted the General Allotment Act to break up the tribal landmass and teach Indians to be ``civilized''.

The legacy of that failed policy is still with us in the form of horribly fractionated Indian lands and the class action case filed in 1996 that is still ongoing.

The remedy the plaintiffs in the Cobell case are seeking is an accounting by the United States of funds that are or should be in the hundreds of thousands of individual Indian money accounts (IIMs) managed and maintained by the Federal Government.

Eight long years have passed without an accounting, and without a single penny being paid to an account holder. Last month, Judge Lamberth issued a 400-page decision and order that guarantees at least 5 more years of litigation, hundreds of millions and maybe billions more spent, with no end in sight to the lawsuit.

Those who insist that a decision by the Judge would mean the beginning of the end of this case are wrong: with likely appeals, Congressional squabbling over money spent on this effort, and additional lawsuits aimed at securing money damages, this case is just beginning.

The U.S. claims that pennies on the dollar are owed the plaintiffs but, without billions more spent on accounting activity, it cannot say for sure how much is in the accounts or should be in the accounts.

Preliminary cost estimates from the Interior Department suggest that it will take $10 billion or more to comply with Judge Lamberth's order on historic accounting. This money will be spent year after year through Fiscal Year 2008 at least.

I believe this money is better spent on re-constituting the Indian land base and building a forward-looking, state-of-the-art trust management system, and providing more dollars to Indian health care and education, which we know are underfunded.

The plaintiffs claim more than $175 billion dollars should be in these accounts, a number the Department has vigorously contested.

Today I am introducing a bill that I believe will end this lawsuit in a way to provide justice to individual Indian account holders and restore some sense of normalcy to the Interior Department.

Just as the Indian Claims Commission, the Trust Resolution Corporation,

and the Volcker Committee on Swiss Bank Accounts helped resolve cases of highly complex, historical-based litigation, the bill I am introducing will establish a 9-member, expert-filled ``Indian Money Claims Satisfaction Task Force'' to develop alternative methodologies to arrive at account balances.

The bill also establishes the ``Indian Money Claims Tribunal'' to provide binding arbitration for any IIM holder that contests the account balance provided by the Task Force.

I look forward to the swift enactment of this bill and with it, an honorable conclusion to this sad and destructive chapter of Federal- Indian relations.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.