Insurance Industry Competition Act of 2007

Mr. President, today I am introducing the ``Competitive and Fair Agricultural Markets Act of 2007.'' Cosponsors joining me in introducing this legislation are: Senators Enzi, Feingold, Thomas, Dorgan, Baucus and McCaskill. This legislation seeks to level the playing field for agricultural producers by strengthening and clarifying the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 and the Agricultural Fair Practices Act of 1967 and strengthening enforcement of both laws by USDA. I intend to use this legislation as the basis for developing a proposed competition title in the new farm bill this year.

Consolidation is happening in all sectors of agriculture and having a negative effect on producers and consumers across the Nation. Consolidation in itself is not a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act, but when some entities become larger and more powerful that makes enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act absolutely critical for independent livestock and poultry

producers. The statistics speak for themselves. For example, today, only four firms control 84 percent of the procurement of cattle and 64 percent of the procurement of hogs. Economists have stated that when four firms control over 40 percent of the industry, marketplace competitiveness begins to decline. Taken together with fewer buyers of livestock, highly integrated firms can exert tremendous power over the industry.

The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, GIPSA, at USDA has the responsibility to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act. This Act is critical, and protects livestock producers from unfair, unjustly discriminatory and anti-competitive practices in the marketplace. For years I have had my doubts about whether USDA was serious about enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act. In 2005, I requested an audit by USDA's Inspector General to investigate USDA's oversight, and enforcement of the law. Last year, the Inspector General confirmed the concerns I had and uncovered even more systemic problems. The report described widespread inaction, management of the agency actively blocking employees from conducting investigations into anti- competitive behavior and a scheme to cover up the lack of enforcement by inflating the reported number of investigations conducted.

That is why today, the legislation I introduce will reorganize the structure in how USDA enforces the Packers and Stockyards Act and create an office of special counsel on competition matters. The special counsel would be appointed by the President with advice and consent from the U.S. Senate. Some would argue that Senate advice and consent is not needed. However, for over five years, GIPSA failed to move competition investigations forward and no one above the level of deputy administrator at GIPSA seemed to have any idea that any problems were going on, despite the fact I was sending letters to the Secretary of Agriculture pointing out that USDA was failing to enforce the law.

In the past year, GIPSA has worked in good faith to improve its enforcement activities. However, GIPSA only investigates potential violations of the law, they do not litigate and follow-through with the investigation to the end. Litigating cases is reserved only for USDA's Office of General Counsel, OGC, unless they refer it to the Department of Justice.

USDA's Office of General Counsel has not been active on cases involving anti-competitive practices in recent years since GIPSA was not referring cases to them. To be sure, only two cases involving anti- competitive practices were referred to OGC in 5 years. But there are concerns that OGC is not as committed to enforcing competition investigations as they should be. This lack of commitment was clearly evident last year in testimony provided by OGC Assistant General Counsel in the Trade Practices Division at a hearing by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

Concerns about OGC's attitude toward enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act are not new. USDA's Inspector General stated in its 1997 audit that Packers and Stockyards program officials were concerned that OGC did not want to litigate competition cases ``because they are complicated and time consuming'' and OGC had ``limited expertise'' with them. In 2000, the Government Accountability Office found ``disagreements'' between OGC and GIPSA regarding the interpretation of the Act's competition provisions. By combining investigation and prosecution activities into the proposed special counsel office, designated to handle competition issues, it reduces the ability for investigations to be batted back and forth within USDA.

This legislation also makes many important clarifications to the Packers and Stockyards Act. The Packers and Stockyards Act prohibits unfair, unjustly discriminatory and anti-competitive practices, but some courts have ruled that producers need to prove an impact on competition in the market in order to prevail in such cases involving unfair or deceptive practices. For example, the United States Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a poultry grower operation failed to prove how its case involving an unfair termination of its contract adversely affected competition. The court indicated that the grower had to prove that their unfair treatment affected competition in the relevant market. That is very difficult to prove and was never the intent of the Packers and Stockyards Act.

This legislation also modifies the Packers and Stockyards Act so that poultry growers have the same enforcement protections by USDA as livestock. Currently, it is unlawful for a livestock packer or live poultry dealer to engage in any unfair, unjustly discriminatory or deceptive practice, but USDA does not have the authority to enforce violations because the enforcement section of the law is absent of any reference to poultry. This important statutory change is long overdue. In addition, to better reflect the integrated nature of the poultry industry, this legislation also ensures that protections under the law extend to all poultry growers, such as breeder hen and pullet operations, not just those who raise broilers.

The Agricultural Fair Practices Act of 1967 was passed by Congress to ensure that producers are allowed to join together as an association to strengthen their position in the marketplace without being discriminated against by handlers. Unfortunately, this act was passed with a clause that essentially abolishes the actual intent of the law. The act states that ``nothing in this Act shall prevent handlers and producers from selecting their customers'' and it also states that it does not ``require a handler to deal with an association of producers.'' This clause in effect allows handlers to think of any reason possible to not do business with certain producers, as long as the stated reason is not because they belong to an association.

I propose to expand the Agricultural Fair Practices Act to provide new needed protections for agricultural contracts. As I have mentioned earlier, consolidation in all sectors of agriculture is reducing the number of buyers of commodities and for the very few who are left, many require contracts to conduct business. With so few buyers, it increases the chances that some firms will force unfair contracts upon producers. As a result, some producers have little or no choice but to contract with a firm with questionable practices or face leaving the industry they have known for their whole lives.

This amendment to the Agricultural Fair Practices Act requires that the contract spell out in clear language what is required by the producer. This legislation prohibits confidentiality clauses, ensuring producers the ability to share the contract with family members or a lawyer to help them make an informed decision on whether or not to sign it. This legislation also prevents companies from prematurely terminating contracts without notice when producers have made large capital investments as a condition of signing the contract. And it only allows mandatory arbitration after a dispute arises and both parties agree to it in writing. Producers should not be forced to sign contracts with arbitration clauses thereby preventing them from seeking legal remedy in the courts.

Mr. President, producers deserve to have a fair and evenhanded market in which to conduct business. This legislation won't be able to turn back the clock, but it will strengthen laws and enforcement of them so that markets operate more fairly.

Mr. President, I am honored to join with the distinguished senior Senator from Oregon, Senator Smith, to introduce the Safe Babies Act of 2007.

It is a tragic fact that America's child welfare system is failing our most vulnerable. From birth to age five, children develop their social, emotional, cognitive and moral capacities more rapidly than at any other time in life. Early experiences and relationships are absolutely critical to future development; they set the stage for how well individuals learn, think, control their emotions, and relate to others.

This critical period is a time of tremendous promise, but also a time of great vulnerability. Unfortunately, infants and toddlers are disproportionately affected by child abuse and neglect. Children between birth and age three are twice as likely as older children to become victims of maltreatment, and are three times more likely to be placed in foster care. Abuse and neglect during this significant period can lead to perilous developmental outcomes, including school failure, delinquency and crime, substance abuse, and mental health problems.

Yet the current child welfare system does a particularly poor job of serving infants and toddlers. Once in foster care, infants and toddlers are more likely to be abused. And they stay in foster care longer than older children. More than 40 percent of infants and toddlers involved in a maltreatment investigation are developmentally delayed, yet only 10 percent of these young people currently receive treatment for developmental problems.

A Federal review of 19 States' performance on child welfare outcomes found that all of the States received failing grades on outcomes related to providing adequate physical and mental health services.

Without intervention, we put our future generation at risk and perpetuate the cycle of maltreatment. But we can alter these developmental outcomes by ensuring that children are in safe, permanent homes and have access to necessary mental and physical health care. The Safe Babies Act authorizes funding for juvenile courts to create Court Teams for the integrated handling of infant and toddler abuse and neglect cases. By bringing together the legal, child welfare, and children's services communities, we can promote the health and well- being of our babies and toddlers.

First, this bill establishes a National Court Teams Resource Center. This Resource Center would provide grants and technical assistance to juvenile courts for the creation of local Court Teams to better handle infant and toddler abuse and neglect cases. Few judges have all the necessary knowledge about early childhood development and they frequently lack resources in the community for services necessary for young children. They are often frustrated by the piecemeal provision of services and the overburdened child welfare system. To adequately serve children, they need the expertise of child welfare workers, Guardians Ad Litem, Court Appointed Special Advocates, substance abuse treatment providers and mental health care providers. Court Teams bring together this expertise. Through monthly case reviews, judges can coordinate efforts by all members of the team to ensure efficient and effective provision of services. The goal of these courts is to prevent multiple placements for infants and toddlers in foster care, secure needed services, and find a permanent home for these children as quickly as possible.

Court Teams work with families in an effort to reunite children with their parents. By bringing together multiple service providers, they can facilitate opportunities for parents to learn to create a safe and nurturing home environment. Court Teams ensure support for future reunification only when the

parent is ready and able to step up to provide an appropriate and safe environment. We know from research that each visit between a child and birth parent triples the likelihood of achieving permanence. Through the Court Teams, judges are able to coordinate education and supervision so parents can visit their children and continue to nurture a loving bond.

Although reunification with parents is the ultimate goal, when that is not possible, Court Teams are also focusing on Plan B. By conducting concurrent planning, Court Teams are more likely to find an appropriate placement that will lead to permanency and minimize disruptions. By supporting training for foster parents and newly reunified biological parents, we can prevent children from being bounced around in the foster care system.

Court Teams are also able to coordinate services for children. Judges and child welfare services are able to collaborate to include necessary medical and developmental interventions. By improving access to mental health and substance abuse treatment for parents and children, Court Teams make sure children are able to access needed services and increase the chances of successful, healthy development.

Finally, Court Teams provide services and supports for families to preserve and stabilize homes for children. Judges are able to use court oversight to ensure compliance, facilitate visits with caregivers to promote positive attachments, and make sure that children are in safe environments after placement.

The Safe Babies Act will make an important impact in the way we treat infants and toddlers in the court system. By facilitating involvement from all parties, Court Teams are better equipped to ensure that young children have the community support and services they need. Early evaluation research in the Miami/Dade County court project finds a high rate of permanency for children in the court and increased quality of parent-child interaction. By finding permanent homes, children were able to escape the limbo of the foster care system. More importantly, the court was successful in preventing any future recurrence of abuse or neglect.

Together we can work to protect the safety and well-being of our infants and toddlers. With this legislation, we have the opportunity to ensure that children are placed quickly in safe and loving homes. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that this legislation is passed and signed into law.

Mr. President, as you may have heard, today we are launching the Partnership for Play Every Day and it has been spearheaded by three terrific organizations: the YMCA, the National Recreation and Park Association, and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. Together, they have 350 years of experience in helping our kids to be physically active or, to use the old-fashioned word, ``to play.''

More than a century ago, these groups came together to support the Playground Movement, which took kids out of factories and coal mines, and gave them parks and playgrounds where they could be children again.

Well, today we face a different challenge. As we confront an epidemic of childhood obesity, as many new elementary schools are built without playgrounds, as recess and PE are phased out of so many of our schools, we need a 21st century Playground Movement. And that's what we are launching this morning.

On a personal note, I have been a lifelong admirer of the YMCA. When I was in my early 20s and aspiring to join the Navy as a fighter pilot, they told me: First you've got to learn how to swim. So what did I do? I signed up at the Y in downtown Des Moines for swimming lessons.

Well, the Y was there for me, just as the Y is there for millions of American families, giving them the facilities and tools to stay fit and healthy.

You know, there is something fundamentally wrong when kids spend their free time parked in front of the TV instead of playing in parks.

I mentioned the childhood obesity epidemic. ``Epidemic'' is not my word. That's what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call it. Today, nearly 15 percent of American children and teenagers are obese. A quarter of the children between the ages of 5 and 10 already show the early warning signs of heart disease. Cases of adult-onset diabetes in children--which used to be almost unheard of--have exploded tenfold in the last two decades.

Add it all up, and experts say there is a very real prospect that today's kids could be the first generation in American history to have a shorter lifespan than their parent's generation.

And that is unacceptable. We are not going to let that happen. And that is why we have set the goal of ensuring that every child in America gets 60 minutes of play and physical activity every day.

Hand in hand with this important new initiative, today I am honored to introduce with Senator Hillary Clinton a bill called the PLAY Every Day Act. That first word, PLAY, is an acronym for ``Promoting Lifelong Active Communities.''

The PLAY Every Day Act will help to promote the national physical- activity standards for both children and adults.

To that end, the legislation will do two things:

One, it will mandate the development of a well-validated assessment tool called the ``community play index,'' to identify barriers preventing young people from being physically active in a given community.

And two, it will help local coalitions to use this ``community play index'' as they craft plans to promote physical activity and wellness in their communities.

My vision is to have every community in America focused on promoting

health and preventing disease--instead of just dealing with the bad consequences of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

By the way, I am grateful to the good corporate citizens that are joining in the Partnership for Play Every Day, including PepsiCo, Toyota, Kellogg Company, General Mills, PlayCore, and Landscape Structures. Your support of this legislation and new initiative is going to be critical to the Partnership's success.

So, again, I salute all the players in this new Partnership. Together, we can build a better, healthier future for America's children.

Madam President, I rise today in opposition to the Dorgan-Grassley amendment before us. But before I explain why, I do want to say I have tremendous respect for my colleagues from North Dakota and Iowa. They are hard-working men who are interested in working hard to get things done. I very much appreciate that. I hope they can see the success they have already had from the hard work they have put in since 2001 and what has come to fruition--the underlying bill that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

We worked very hard on that bill in the Senate Agriculture Committee. We came out with a very balanced bill. It is a bill that, frankly, has more reform, more substantive reform than any farm bill we have ever done. I hope those two Senators--as I said, I have tremendous respect for them and the hard work they bring to this body--I hope they do recognize the success they have had since 2001 in moving forward in reform.

I also come to the floor here to oppose this amendment because, unfortunately, it is going to probably have some very dire unintended consequences from the remaining part of this amendment that is not included in the underlying bill.

I just have to answer a couple of the questions my colleagues have brought forward.

The Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, mentioned land values. I have approached almost every Member in this body to discuss the farm bill. It is critically important to a small rural agricultural State such as the one I represent, Arkansas. Agriculture is the basis of our economy. In my discussions with Senator Grassley, he mentioned his concern about land values. I went back to do my research, and I found a study done by Iowa State University that gives us six reasons why those land values are out of whack, and not one of those top six reasons is farm payments. So I have a little concern in terms of blaming land values on farm payments. There are multiple things there that we can see that would cause concern.

I also would like to touch on a few of the realities for the hard- working men and women who produce our food in this country, to respond to some of the other criticisms I have heard and dispel a few of those misrepresentations of farming that are out there.

The most often used--and it was used by my colleague here today--the most used misrepresentation I encounter is the argument that a disproportionate share of farm payments go to the top 10 percent of farms in terms of size. I have heard it reported at 75 percent of the payment, 80 percent--sometimes they even use the number 90 percent. Honestly, it seems to change depending on the day or the source, and that is why I thought I would bring a few charts of my own to clarify the issue and set the record straight.

My first chart includes excerpts from a speech by the famed agricultural economist from Kansas State University, Barry Flinchbaug. Here is what he has to say about the distribution of farm payments according to farm size: These programs are designed for the medium-size farmers. They have done what they were supposed to do. We have 2.1 million farms. Small farms make up 84 percent of that, ``small'' being defined as gross sales of less than $100,000. They produce 21 percent of the food supply, but they receive 30\1/2\ percent of the payments. Medium-sized farmers, on the other hand, make up 12.2 percent of the farms, and they produce 28 percent of the domestically grown food supply, and they receive 42.7 percent of the payments. Big farms with sales of more than $500,000 make up more than 3.8 percent of the farmers. They produce half of the food supply, and they receive 27 percent of the payments.

I think if we just look at this we will realize those that are producing 78 percent of the commodities are only getting 58 percent of the payments.

My second chart brings this point home a little bit more and certainly in living Technicolor. As you can see, my source here is the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. We are pleased to bring this. I know the pie chart Senator Grassley used probably uses the definition of a farmer which even Senator Lugar earlier--I think today or even yesterday, perhaps--agreed is completely out of whack. If we are going to include an FHA student who earns $1,000 or more selling a calf as a farmer, then we have a problem in terms of the definition of a farmer. Unfortunately, that puts us out of whack in some of the statistical dealings that we have to get a good, clear picture of what we are up against.

I am going to go into some details on this chart, but I will first point out that the chart shows farmers today receive a portion of farm bill benefits that closely matches their percentage of total production. As you can see here by the red line, which indicates the percentage of Government payment, and the green line, which represents the percentage of production, they are almost identical in many ways. In fact, you will see the only discrepancy that exists is that the farmer who produces 78 percent of the products, combining the nonfamily farmers and the large family farms, receives only 58 percent of the total farm program.

Now, remember, those are family farmers who are producing not just food source but a safe and abundant and affordable food supply and fiber, not to mention the fact that they are doing it in an environmentally responsible way, respectful to all of the different regulations that we impose. Other countries do not do that.

I will be the first to say I think that is a good deal. I think in this country, to be able to be reassured that we are going to get a safe food supply, that it is going to be done with respect to the environment, that it is going to be done with respect to water and water resources and clean water and clean air, all of those things, that is very reasonable. It is a good investment. It is a good return on that dollar.

When you see, in that blue line--and that represents the percentage of farmers in a certain category, the percentage of farmers that accounts for the 78 percent of that production in this country, who are, in fact, that mythical and demonized 10 percent of the farmers our critics like to refer to.

So if 10 percent are producing 78 percent of the food source that we take for granted so often, then why should we not want our program to follow the crops? As you can clearly see, 10 percent receive only 58 percent of the total farm program payment. I think all of these numbers and certainly the charts make this point very well.

The bottom line is, the payments follow production. That is what we want to see. We want to see an efficiency in that what we are striving to do--and that is to provide a domestically produced, safe, abundant and affordable supply of food and fiber--is done.

That is what the insurance of our farm program is there for. And this reflects the fact that is exactly what those dollars are doing. They are a good investment, and they are returning on that investment to the American people.

Now, the other issue that was brought up in terms of my colleagues about the marketing loan cap, I am still a little bit confused on what the Dorgan-Grassley proposal does in terms of doubling those payments. I am not sure if that means they are capped at $250,000 or if it is at $500,000 if your wife or spouse is considered actively engaged in farming. But I think many of us have asked those questions, and we are still a little bit confused.

But when we talk about the cap, I would simply remind my colleagues, the current law marketing loan is uncapped. The President's proposal is uncapped. And the reason is, because we understand that in some of our crops they cannot use the disaster assistance, which we have plussed up about $5 billion, the crop insurance program is not as detailed to their needs and concerns because, quite frankly, it is hard to find a reasonable crop insurance plan that will, at a reasonable cost, protect you against the kind of risks that you have.

So that marketing loan is key. It is key because it allows them to remain competitive. So when they hit those troubled shoals they can use that marketing loan to buy themselves time in the marketplace to be able to market their crops.

We have found in years past that when we tried to cap the marketing loan, what happens is particularly farmers in my area who do have difficult times with crop insurance and have a very difficult time being able to access disaster assistance end up forfeiting their crops. So it goes to Government forfeiture and then the Government gets left holding the bag. The taxpayer gets left holding the bag. That is not what we want to see happen. We want these farmers to use the market, and we want to provide them the kind of tools that allow them to use the market, and that is what the marketing loan does, particularly for growers of southern commodities.

So it is not capped in underlying or existing law. It is not capped in the President's proposal. I think that is because people realize that Government forfeiture of those crops is unreasonable.

I feel as if I have come down here and spoken so many times. I have addressed the issue, particularly, of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment and the overall farm bill numerous times recently because I believe so strongly that the reforms already incorporated in the underlying bill are more significant than any reform effort that we have ever undertaken in farm policy.

We have made huge strides. I think both of these gentlemen will recognize that. They certainly have to me in some circumstances. But as a consequence of enacting the provisions of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment, it is going to be devastating to some.

The amendments that are not already included in the underlying bill that are in this amendment would be devastating to the hard-working farm families, particularly in my State but in other Southern States where we grew those commodities that are grown in the controlled environment, which results most devastatingly in the outsourcing of a significant amount of America's agricultural production. Eighty-five percent of the rice that is consumed is grown in this country. Over half of that is grown in my State of Arkansas. If we outsource those jobs in rural America, if we outsource the production of that unbelievable staple commodity, it is not going to go somewhere else in this country. It is going go to our two biggest competitors more than likely. It is going to go to Vietnam and Thailand.

When you look at the lack of restriction and the techniques that are used in their growing processes, you are going to realize it is not something we want to do, to outsource what we already have, and that is, a safe production of a staple food source, not just for us but also in terms of what we do globally.

Let me reiterate what outsourcing would mean. It means importing rice from those places like I mentioned, where there is no environmental regulation between sewer water or regular water on crops that are grown there. Is that what American families want? Is that what American mothers want in terms of looking at what they are going to do when they serve that rice cereal to that new infant who is just learning to eat solid foods?

Are they going to want to be reassured that what they are dealing with is a domestic product that has been regulated in how it was grown by American standards? Are they going to want to give that up and just look to the consequences of what might happen in terms of imported commodities?

I would argue that is a price far too high for us to pay. I think the American people are very serious about wanting a safe and affordable food supply. We should be very grateful for the wonderful bounty that our farmers and ranchers provide this Nation. We should support them with a modest safety net so they can continue to provide this Nation and the world with this incredible safe, abundant, affordable supply of food and fiber on the globe.

It is disappointing to me that some in the Chamber and those in the media and special interest groups would take this for granted. You know, if we look at what this costs us, the investment it makes, 15 percent of this bill is in the commodity's title. One-half of 1 percent of the entire budget goes to this insurance policy of assuring America's families they are going to get a safe food supply.

It is also disappointing that some in this Chamber would speak about the dangers of poisoned food entering the country and jobs leaving the country and not make the connection to this vital piece of legislation providing this great country of ours with both safe food and jobs in rural America.

Now, I know agricultural policy is not the most glamorous issue to some Members. I know I probably bored some of my colleagues to tears discussing the intricacies of this farm bill, and the ramifications of this amendment particularly. So if my colleagues take nothing else away from my remarks today----

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

If the Senators take nothing else away from my remarks today, please hear this: We have included the most significant reform in farm program history in the underlying bill. In the great balance and the productive piece that we produced out of the Senate Agriculture Committee that was passed by unanimous consent, not one dissenting vote, and I challenge anyone to say that is not the case, that this is not the most significant reform that we have ever provided in a farm bill. It is.

We also were very cautious not to get so close to the line that we end up outsourcing our food supply. I think that is very important to America's families across this great country. No American wants our country to rely on foreign sources of food like we do foreign sources of oil. We did not get there overnight, but we are there.

We depend on foreign oil right now. And, unfortunately, if this happens, we are going to see 10 to 15 years from now that we are becoming dependent on foreign countries for our food source. If we do not have the courage to inform the American people of that fact, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

I urge each of you and your staffs to take a moment and look at this bill and the reforms that we have made. They are significant, and they should be enough for critics of farm policy, who, I suggest to you, will never be satisfied. Those who condemn us, those who condemn us for not taking the extra amount in terms of the reform that Senators Grassley and Dorgan want to take, will never be happy with any amount of reform. They will only be happy when we eliminate the safety net that we provide farmers, but in a slightly different way.

A vote against the Dorgan-Grassley amendment is still a vote for the most significant farm program reform in the history of our country.

I would like to take a moment and walk through the reforms included in the bill. I will wait for a later moment to do that. I certainly want to encourage my colleagues to vote against the Dorgan-Grassley amendment.

First of all, I want to correct something. Senator Grassley had some concerns about my comments earlier, and they may have been misinterpreted. Senator Grassley is a champion for his farmers, no question about it. I have no doubt about that. I didn't say it would eliminate the subsidy program. What I said the amendment would do is eliminate our ability as farmers in southern States in terms of being able to mitigate our risks without that marketing loan, uncapped as it is in current law. I wanted to make sure he knows.

Madam President, I want to take a few minutes to walk through some of the reforms in this bill that people should be proud of. Over the past 5 years, I ever consistently heard press accounts unfairly characterizing farm programs. All too often, the accounts are very misleading--and that is a nice

way of saying it. However, as members of those States, we rely on a strong farm safety net. I paid close attention to that criticism. I have taken it personally because I believe it unfairly calls into question the character and integrity of my farmers, the hard-working farm families I am proud to represent in the Senate. Largely because they are hard working, they are salt-of-the-Earth people, and they go by the rules. The fact is, they may farm something different, and they may farm a little differently than others, but they are still the hard- working farm families of this country.

We have eliminated today in the underlying Senate Agriculture Committee bill some of the often cited loopholes, the so-called three- entity rule, and banned the use of generic certificates, which producers use to make their entire crop eligible for the marketing loan cap in less transparent ways. We have been asked to be transparent, and that is what we have done.

For reformers, the underlying bill also creates direct attribution of program benefits to a ``warm body'' by requiring the Secretary to track payments to a natural person regardless of the nature of the farming operation earning these payments.

Folks also wanted to dramatically lower the overall level that an individual farmer can receive. That is what we have done.

I thank you for the opportunity to be here and represent those great farmers. I want to say to all of my colleagues that a vote against the Dorgan-Grassley amendment is still a vote for the most significant reform in the history of our farm bill.

Madam President, I think the issue is as to what time those votes will take place. As I understand the unanimous consent request, it is following the debate on the Grassley-Dorgan amendment that we go to votes on the two Alexander amendments.

At whatever time that might be.

Reserving the right to object, so we can give our colleagues further information about where we are going, is it the chairman's intention to move ahead then with debate on additional amendments, hopefully maybe the Coburn amendments and the Sessions amendment that might be voted on tonight, along with the Gregg amendment?

I have no objection.

I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas, Mrs. Lincoln.

Madam President, earlier the Senator from Iowa, Chairman Harkin, announced a unanimous consent on two votes on amendments of Senator Alexander following the debate on this particular amendment.

I ask unanimous consent, as we have agreed, that after the two Alexander votes, that Gregg amendment No. 3673 come up for a vote, and that prior thereto there be 15 minutes of debate equally divided.

I would add to that, that the Gregg vote on amendment No. 3673 requires a 60-vote margin.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions.

Earlier, I asked unanimous consent to include the Gregg amendment to be voted on following the two Alexander amendments. In my request, I asked for 15 minutes of debate equally divided. I now ask unanimous consent that 15 minutes be withdrawn.

I yield to the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, 5 minutes.

I yield 5 minutes to my colleague from Georgia, Senator Isakson.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia for stepping up and making a lot of common sense in their comments. All of us are appreciative of the work Senator Dorgan and Senator Grassley have done over the years in this body. They have both been very supportive of agriculture. I particularly am appreciative of that as the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. I have been to Iowa. I know the kind of farming they do there. It is different from the way we farm Georgia. I have been to North Dakota. I have seen the way their farms operate in North Dakota. It is different from the way we operate in the Southeast. There are reasons why policies have to be different for different sections of the country.

I wish to talk for a minute about this claim that all these farmers getting payments are big farmers. The proponents of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment claim that 10 percent of the farmers are getting 70 to 80 percent of the program payments. They characterize these farmers as megafarmers and corporate farmers. Both Senator Grassley and Senator Dorgan talk about megafarmers and corporate farmers as opposed to family farmers they want to assist with farm programs. I wish to explain that the farmers in the States of all my colleagues fall within this 10-percent category, and they are ordinary farmers with average size operations. They have families to support, and they are a vital component of rural communities. Most of all, those 10 percent feed this country.

I wish to make it clear, particularly to those who are considering supporting Dorgan-Grassley, why an overwhelming majority of the farmers in your State would fit within the category of being in the top 10 percent of payment recipients. In order to compare apples to apples, I asked USDA to provide me with the attribution data for the 2005 direct payments. I asked for the data in an attributable form because I wanted the information to reflect what the universe of payees would look like based upon the committee-supported bill which requires direct attribution. The data from USDA is pretty interesting. It provides clarity as to the size of farming operations that comprise the top recipients.

In 2005, if a farmer received 1 penny more than $10,000 in direct payments, they would have been considered to fit within the largest 12 percent of producer recipients, exactly the category Senator Grassley referred to. Some of you might ask: How many acres does a farmer have to farm to reach $10,000? Critics consider them to be megafarmers, but the facts do not support this claim and here is why.

According to the USDA attribution data, direct payments average $23.02 per acre nationally, which means if a farmer has 511 base acres, they reach the $10,000 level. Now, I will be honest with you. Maybe it is a good bit different in the Southeast from the way it is in the Midwest. But if you try to farm 500 acres in the Southeast and feed a family of four, you simply cannot do it. In areas where covered commodities are produced, there are few farmers who would consider themselves anything but a small farmer with this amount of acreage. Yet the critics are not interested in telling you these small farmers fit within the category Senator Grassley referenced on the floor recently, when he claimed we have 10 percent of the large farmers in America getting 70 percent to 80 percent of all the money.

To better understand how so many typical farmers fall within this small percentage of payment beneficiaries, you must understand the entire universe of program participants. If one operator rents seven separate tracts from seven separate landowners, on a 75 percent-25 percent crop share arrangement, we end up with eight individuals receiving program benefits--one operator and seven landowners.

Each of these eight individuals counts as a program recipient. But since the operator is on a 75-25 percent crop share arrangement, he or she ends up with 75 percent of the acres and production, while all seven landowners account for 25 percent of the acres and production on their respective farm. Or another way to look at it, the individual operator accounts for 75 percent of the program payments but only 12 percent of the universe of individuals represented in that scenario. I fail to see why this is being represented as inappropriate or unfair. It is only logical that the operator, as a program recipient, who accounts for 75 percent of the acres and production, receives more than any of the other seven individual landowners, who each account for only 25 percent of the acres and production on their respective farm. This simply reflects the one individual operator receives payments in a higher proportion than the other seven individuals due to his level of production and risk.

Now, there has been conversation and statements made tonight about the fact we did not make real reforms.

Let me tell you where the heart of the difference is between the Grassley-Dorgan proposal and the underlying bill. The heart of the difference is in what we call the definition of an ``actively engaged farmer.''

Under current law and under the language in the base bill, individuals or entities must furnish a significant contribution of capital or equipment or land and personal labor or active personal management in order to be actively engaged in farming. So a farmer who qualifies for payments must put at risk money, he must furnish land, he must furnish equipment or he has to be

directly involved in the management of the operation.

Under the Grassley-Dorgan amendment, that definition is changed so that for an individual to be considered actively engaged in farming, they must furnish a significant contribution of capital or equipment or land and personal labor and active personal management.

So what that means is any young farmer--as Senator Grassley referred to--who has a difficult time getting into the farming business, if he wants to come in and start farming, that young farmer, in order to qualify for payments--remember, this is the person who is going to be out there driving the tractor; this is the person who is going to be getting dirt under his or her fingernails--they have to come up with money, they have to come up with equipment or he has to come up with land, and he has to be the guy who is making all the decisions on the ground out there. He cannot have anybody helping him with it, so to speak, who gets payments that help that young man along.

Which young farmer in America today can step right out of school, step right out of high school or college, for that matter, who has the ability to come up with capital, who can come up with the $250,000 combine, who can come up with a $150,000 tractor, who can come up with even a used planter that is going to cost several thousand dollars? Who has the ability to do that?

Well, the arrangement we have that is available to a young farmer under the base bill and under current law is that when a young man or a young woman wants to get involved in farming--a lot of the time it is with their family, sometimes it is without--they have the ability now to enter into a crop share or a landlord-tenant arrangement with a landowner who oftentimes is in the retiring years of wanting to slow down his farming operation or maybe completely get out of it and let someone else get into it. But if he has land, he has equipment he is willing to put into a partnership, a landlord-tenant arrangement, then that young farmer has an opportunity today he simply would not have if the Dorgan-Grassley amendment passes.

It is pure and simple. So when we say we are going to be taking care of young farmers by putting a $250,000 cap on the payment limits any farmer can receive and, thereby, we are going to allow young farmers to come into an agricultural operation, we are kidding ourselves, and we are not being straightforward because that simply is not giving that young farmer any additional advantage.

Now, there has been conversation about abuses of the program and that a lot of people who are not farmers--who may live in Los Angeles or may live in Washington or may live in New York--are getting payments. That is true.

This is my third farm bill. I have tried in every farm bill to try to make sure that young man whom we talked about who is getting dirt under his fingernails, whether it is a young farmer or an older farmer, is the one who gets the benefit--I emphasize that, the benefit--of these safety net programs.

We have sought to do that again. We have modified the language in this bill. For example, Senator Dorgan has referred to what we commonly call the ``cowboy starter kit,'' where we have base acres on a piece of farmland that all of a sudden is turned into a subdivision or into a development of some sort, and payments are made on those base acres.

Well, we have taken those base acres out of eligibility for farm payments with language we have directly put into the bill because what we say is that in order for base acres to qualify, a farmer has ``to use the land on the farm, in a quantity equal to the attributable base acres for the farm and any base acres for peanuts for the farm under part III, for an agricultural or conserving use, and not for a nonagricultural commercial, industrial, or residential use. . . .''

So when we talk about the ability of somebody to own base acres and to take that land and develop it or maybe carve a 10-acre tract out of there and still get payments on those base acres, you are not going to be able to do that under this farm bill.

We went a little bit further because in the committee I had a dialog with Senator Nelson and Senator Salazar relative to an amendment which they had designed to prevent commodity program payments on land that is no longer a farming operation or used in conjunction with a farming operation. We have agreed to accept some additional language relative to the amendment they proposed and we took in the committee.

The amendment requires the Secretary to reduce base acres for covered commodities for land that has been developed for commercial or industrial use, unless the producer demonstrates that the land remains devoted exclusively to agricultural production, or for land that has been subdivided and developed for multiple residential units or other nonfarming uses, unless the producer demonstrates the land remains devoted exclusively to agricultural production.

So we are taking the ability away from a commercial developer to ever get any farm payments. I do not know who these particular individuals are who have been referred to as the examples of who ought not to get payments who have gotten payments, but I do recognize there have been abuses, and we have sought to correct that. We have sought to correct that, and we are going to make sure any payments that go on base acres under the bill go to a farmer or an individual who is using that land for agricultural purposes and not for any commercial development or residential development purposes.

Are we going to cure all the problems? Look, I wish I thought we could. I know with any program that is of this size there is going to be some abuse somewhere along the way. We do not have a Federal program in place today that is not being abused and that you cannot single out 1 or 2 or 10 individuals, particularly where we have an expenditure of billions and billions of dollars. But we are certainly doing our best to address the issue, to try to correct the abuses that have taken place.

In this particular instance, we truly have made real reforms that I think are going to close every loophole we know is out there today when it comes to making sure payments go to folks who deserve the payments and that the payments are at a level that is reasonable when it comes to making sure we have a close watch on the taxpayer dollar.

I wish to close this portion of my comments by saying we will detail, as Senator Lincoln said earlier, some of the specific reforms. But I will highlight one.

I was involved in the writing of the 1996 farm bill, as was Senator Grassley, as was Senator Lincoln. In that farm bill, which was enacted 5 years ago, we had a payment limit cap of $450,000. In the last 5 years, from 2002 to the language that is included in the base bill we are talking about today, we have reduced that $450,000 down to $100,000. Now, that is a $350,000 reform. Senator Grassley takes it up to $250,000, but that is not apples and apples. But the fact is, we have made real reforms in the dollar amount that folks are eligible to receive from $450,000 down to $100,000.

We have also made other significant changes, such as elimination of three entity, as well as the requiring of attribution to every farmer in America who is going to be receiving payments under this farm bill.

With that, I will reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending second-degree amendment to Gregg amendment No. 3673 be withdrawn.

Certainly, Mr. President. That is fine.

Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Pryor.

How much time remains?

How much on the other side?

Madam President, I yield half of the 5 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas, Mrs. Lincoln.

Madam President, how much time remains on our side?

Senator Grassley said a little earlier that the payment limit provision increased the land prices or contributed to the increase in land prices in his State. I simply say that I understand they have risen 64 percent from 2000. I remember very well, in 2002, when we were drafting the farm bill, the price of corn was $1.90 a bushel. Today, the price is $3.16 a bushel in Iowa, and in Texas it is about $3.85 a bushel. It is pretty easy to see why the price of land in the midwestern part of the United States increased. It has nothing to do with payment limits and everything to do with crops.

By contrast, in the mid-1950s, cotton was selling at 55 cents a pound. Today, a pound of cotton is selling somewhere in the range of 62 cents, and it is up. That is a pretty drastic contrast.

My colleagues have said it is their position that farmers simply get too much money, and we need to cap payments. I think it is interesting to note that we tried to put a cap on conservation payments, and we were stymied from doing it in the committee.

There is nothing in the Grassley-Dorgan amendment to put any payment limit on the conservation payments that are made. The conservation payments that are made, I daresay, are virtually all of the payments to which the Senator from North Dakota referred. I urge colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 minutes to respond to the Senator from Iowa who referred to me in his comments.

Mr. President, I find it extremely unique that the Senator from Iowa would take the position that he needs a program to be authorized but that we should not vote against it on the basis of it spending money because he doesn't ever expect to fund it. That, on the face of it, does not pass the laugh test. If you are authorizing a program, creating a program, you expect at some point to fund the program and spend money on the program. That is a totally disingenuous argument, in my humble opinion, to make that representation.

I suggest if the Senator from Iowa believes the stress program is an important program, that is fine. We will have a vote. I happen to think the stress program is a reflection of a farm bill that has gone wild in the area of spending money--American taxpayers' money. The American taxpayers are the ones who are going to be under stress.

There are a lot of industries in this country that have stress. The American farmer today is doing pretty well, as was acknowledged by the Senator from Iowa. In fact, they had a 44-percent increase in farm income just this last year. That is pretty good.

Stress may be there. I do not deny that farming is an intense and difficult process. I used to work on a farm. There can be a lot of stress in farming. But I don't think we need to set up a special program with the Federal Government to create a network and a concept for stress, and then we will authorize it, and then we will fund it. This authorization is open ended, which means any amount of money can be put in this bill in later years to fund it.

There are a lot of industries which have stress. We do not create a stress program for the capital markets industry which today is suffering from a meltdown. Are we going to have a stress program for Bear Stearns? We don't create a stress program for all the companies in this country that have basically been under stress by foreign competition. Do we have a stress program for those? Do we have a stress program for the person who runs the local restaurant? Do we have a stress program for the person who runs a local gas station? All of these are entrepreneurial undertakings, and entrepreneurship involves stress, but we don't need to create a stress network to address it.

This is a creation of an earmark, pure and simple, in a bill filled with earmarks. And it seems to me, adding a new program--remember, there are 51 new discretionary programs put into this bill--51, and this is just 1 of them.

I recognize the Senator from Iowa is totally committed to the farmers, and there is probably nobody in this Congress who has done more for the farm community than the Senator from Iowa--both Senators from Iowa, but certainly the Republican Senator from Iowa has done an immense amount.

This is a bridge too far; this is a farm tractor too far. The simple fact is, we do not need a stress program for farmers, and we do not need an authorization which is open ended and which will be funded. There is no question, you do not put an authorization in unless it gets funded.

I have serious reservations about this from, first, the concept of creating the program and, second, the concept of funding the program. I have expressed my reservation. I offered an amendment. We will vote on it. I presume we will lose because we always lose these votes. But as a practical matter, the American people should know this program, in my humble opinion, is not of value and is inappropriate in this context.

Mr. President, that is the stress program; correct?

I think we just had our 2 minutes of debate. I suggest both sides yield back time and go to a vote.

I ask for the yeas and nays, Mr. President.

Mr. President, this is a new program. It is a new mandatory program. It is $15 million. It is not a lot of money but I think it would be nice if the Senate would make a statement once in a while it is going to be fiscally responsible.

This asparagus program is not needed. It is the result of a 1990s trade agreement, the claim is made, but that is 20 years ago almost that agreement was reached. What has happened is the American consumer has benefited from that agreement and now, because the American consumer has benefited from the agreement, we basically want to raise taxes on the American consumer to make them pay because they didn't pay at the shop when they bought the asparagus.

It makes no sense at all. This is a brand-new $15 million program in this bill for asparagus. The bill is replete with these types of programs. I think we ought to make a statement, at least for once, that we are going to be fiscally responsible. I hope people will vote for the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I appreciate the courtesy of the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. I will speak on our amendment dealing with how we get more doctors to be able to care for women in rural communities. We have a real crisis in rural America today. There is a significant shortage of doctors who deliver babies. This is purely a function of one fact, and that is that the trial lawyer bar has been so aggressive in pursuing doctors who deliver babies with lawsuits, they have essentially created a cost of liability insurance for doctors who deliver babies--OB/GYNs--that is so high that a doctor practicing in a rural community who is there to help women having children, deliver those babies safely, that type of doctor cannot make ends meet. That sounds unusual, but that is a fact.

In order for a doctor to generate enough income to simply pay the liability insurance, which is generated by the large number of lawsuits filed against doctors in this country by the trial bar, it is necessary for an OB/GYN--a doctor who delivers babies--to have a very large basically urban or suburban clientele. When you get into rural America and you don't have a lot of people per square mile, where you have people who work on farms and those farms take up a fair amount of acreage, then you don't have the population base necessary for these doctors to practice and generate enough income to pay the liability insurance.

What we are proposing in this amendment is a very narrow proposal. It doesn't say that doctors who are incompetent, or doctors who, unfortunately, make a mistake won't be sued. It doesn't say that at all. It simply says that in the area of rural America where we need to attract doctors so women have adequate health care, especially if they are having children, in those parts of the country--from the standpoint of population, a small part of the country--we are going to have a special consideration that allows doctors to be able to afford their liability insurance.

We are going to follow what has happened in the law that has been set up in Texas and California, two States which have confronted this issue of liability insurance for doctors and have come up with a plan that has alleviated the cost of the insurance so doctors are able to practice in those States. It essentially says that in the area of economic recovery, you can recover every expenditure, every loss you had, if you were injured as a result of malpractice on the part of a doctor delivering a baby in a rural area.

But in the area of pain and suffering, where so much of the huge awards occur, and where you have had these real decisions that have been in the numbers that are multiple millions, that won't happen any longer. We are going to limit recovery in the pain and suffering area to what has been the standard in Texas and California, which is $750,000 per incident. The practical effect of this is very simple. It will mean doctors who wish to practice in rural America, who wish to deliver

babies for farm families and for other families who live in rural America will be able to pursue those practices and still make a living, something they cannot do in many parts of this country today, so women in these communities will not have to drive for miles and miles to get adequate health care, especially when they are having children.

I know in my State of New Hampshire, if you get north of the White Mountains, one of the prettiest parts of this world, we have a very difficult time attracting obstetricians. In fact, right now, I don't think there is anybody practicing obstetrics up there because of the fact the population base is so small it cannot support those practices at a level that allows doctors in that region to be able to pay their malpractice insurance. So women in that part of New Hampshire often have to drive all the way to Hanover, NH, to Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which is a superb hospital, or down to Laconia, which has a superb hospital. But they literally have to drive through the mountains 2 to 3 hours to get to those facilities. It can be extremely difficult in the middle of winter to drive those roads. In the summer, obviously, it is not fair to ask people to drive those long distances.

This is a very significant issue for rural America and for farm families in America. That is why I have offered it on the farm bill.

The other side of the aisle, for whatever reason--I know the reason, we all know the reason, the trial bar--has decided to resist this amendment aggressively. They have demanded we have 60 votes before we can adopt this amendment. They have basically said: We don't care that women in America who live in rural America are not able to get adequate health care. What we care about is the trial lawyer bar, and that is unfortunate. But that is a reflection of the politics of our time.

The single largest contributing group to the Democratic Party today is the Trial Lawyers Association. Those trial lawyers contribute to the Democratic Party for a reason: They want them to support their agenda. There is a simpatico there. Their agenda is supported essentially by the Democratic leadership in this Congress and in prior Congresses. The trial bar agenda includes not allowing any opening on the issue of limiting liability relative to doctors--any opening. Even something as reasonable as this which is so needed from the standpoint of health care policy, which is so needed from the standpoint of good care of children and mothers in a prenatal state, so needed in the basic fairness for American citizens is resisted, not because it is not a good idea but because they see it as an opening, a slight crack in that door of their ability to bring these massive lawsuits for other people who practice obstetrics across the country or for basically against the medical community generally. They do not want any crack in that door to occur, even if the crack in the door is meant to give American women who live in rural communities, whose families work on farms, the opportunity to be assured decent health care, especially when they are in the process of having and raising a child.

It truly is unfortunate we have reached that point in this Congress where very reasonable public policy, which is to make it possible for more doctors to practice in rural America, is resisted in a knee-jerk way which has no relationship to making our country stronger, our people more healthy, and especially giving people who work in farm America a better opportunity to live a quality life, especially if they are having children.

This is not an attempt in any way to limit the ability of women who are having children and find there is some negligent event occurring as a result of a doctor's care to get a recovery. This amendment does not have that impact. Recovery is in here. It tracks what happens if you live in Texas. It tracks pretty much what happens if you live in California. So it is not an attempt to do some draconian effort to basically shut down lawsuits against doctors who may practice and make mistakes in rural America. Just the opposite. It leaves those lawsuits on the table. It makes them possible. It gives adequate and fair recovery that is allowed for people in two of our most popular States.

What it does do and what it is almost guaranteed to do is to bring more doctors into rural America.

It is interesting to look at the Texas experience because prior to Texas passing its law, which basically tracks this language, they had a very serious, basically a crisis in the area of having OB/GYNs practice in Texas. Now they have a massive backlog of OB/GYNs who want to move to Texas to practice. They actually have the opposite situation. They now have a situation where doctors see Texas as a good place to practice. So health care, for women especially of childbearing age, is improving dramatically because there are a lot more doctors available.

Their biggest problem right now is making sure the doctors who want to come into their State have the quality and ability to do the job right. So they have a big backlog now. That is a complete shift from what happened during the period prior to their passing the law. That applies to everybody, but in the OB/GYN area, they lost 14 doctors, 14 obstetricians during the period 2003, but since they passed their law, they have gained almost 200 obstetricians in the State. That is a big difference. That means a lot of people are seeing doctors who were not able to see them before.

We ought to give that same opportunity to rural America, generally, and especially to farm families. That is why I have offered this amendment.

It is not a big amendment in the sense of dramatic health care changes for the world or for the United States, generally, but it is a big amendment if you are a woman whose family works on a farm and you want to have a child because--hopefully, if this amendment is adopted-- you are going to be able to see a doctor without having to drive 4 or 5 hours maybe through a snowstorm, and that is important. It is important to that person, and it should be something we would do as a matter of decency and fairness and especially as a matter of good public policy relative to health care in this country.

I hope people will support this amendment. I understand the other side of the aisle wants to debate a little while longer. That is fine. I understand they want 60 votes. That seems highly inappropriate to me, but that was the agreement that was reached between the leadership.

As I said, I am not trying to stop this bill. It does seem to me there ought to be 60 Members of the Senate to stand up and say enough is enough; we have done enough kowtowing to trial lawyers on this issue. It is time to do something for the women who live and work in rural America and make sure they have adequate access to health care, especially to doctors who can care for them in those important and special years when they are having children.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added as original cosponsors to amendment No. 3673: Senator Alexander, Senator Allard, Senator Cornyn, Senator Corker, Senator Dole, Senator Hutchison, and Senator Voinovich.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record letters of support representing the following groups: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Dermatology Association, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, the American Urological Association, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the National Association of Spine Specialists, and the College of American Pathologists.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and yield to the Senator from Colorado on my time.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Biden), the Senator New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama) are necessarily absent.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Gregg amendment No. 3673. He has entitled this amendment the Healthy Mothers and Healthy Babies Rural Access to Care Act. The reason it is called ``rural access to care'' is so he can fit it into the farm bill because it doesn't have much, if anything, to do with the farm bill. It is a bill related to medical malpractice. It is an issue which Senator Gregg dutifully brings before the Senate as often as possible. I respect him for his point of view. I disagree with his point of view. But I think it must be clear to those who are following the debate what is involved in this bill and this amendment.

This is a farm bill that comes up once every 5 years. Senators Harkin and Chambliss have worked hard to put together a bill dealing with farmers and ranchers, nutrition programs, so many other items. Some on the Republican side of the aisle have insisted that is not enough. They want to bring in a lot of unrelated issues and debate them on the farm bill. They were given permission to do so, and Senator Gregg has done just that.

This amendment is important to understand. What Senator Gregg is saying is, there is one class of people in America who will be limited if they are victims of medical malpractice. This class of people in America who will be limited in recovering for the damages sustained by them and their family, this class of people that will be limited are the women of America. Women of America will be the only ones limited in recovering in court if they or their children are injured in childbirth. What is the justice in that? No limitations on men for prostate surgery but limitations on women delivering babies? I don't understand his logic, and I don't think anyone, particularly if they happen to be a woman, can understand why he decided to single out women in America and restrict their recovery in court if they are innocent victims of medical malpractice. That is what he does.

The Senator argues that we have to address the high cost of medical liability insurance and the risk of being sued. That is the reason he wants to limit the right of women in America to go into a courtroom and argue they were either hurt or their children were hurt or killed in the course of childbirth.

He claims his amendment will help ensure that rural women don't have to drive long distances to see a ``baby doctor.'' But it is interesting, this amendment is patterned after a Texas law that did not bring more baby doctors to rural areas. I am sure the Senator from Texas, who will speak after me, will address this.

In 2003, Texas passed its law. At the time it passed, there were 152 counties in that State without an obstetrician, no doctor to deliver a baby. Today, 4 years after the passage of this Texas law limiting the right of recovery for women who were injured as a result of malpractice, the number has not changed. In Texas, 152 counties still have no obstetrician.

The fact that some counties don't have an obstetrician may not be as much about medical malpractice premiums as it is about population. According to the American Medical Association, the number of OB/GYNs nationwide has risen from around 39,000 in the year 2000 to over 41,000 in 2004. So there are more obstetricians practicing. But that hasn't changed the circumstances in rural Texas because the doctors who are practicing medicine involving the delivery of babies are practicing in cities and suburbs. The Gregg amendment doesn't even address that reality.

Supporters of proposals such as the Gregg amendment like to argue that escalating malpractice premiums justify their effort to limit the right of patients who have been injured to seek compensation. We have had this argument before over several years. There is no doubt about it--and I don't argue--medical malpractice premiums went up dramatically. But as so many States have addressed this issue, we have seen a change.

During the third quarter of 2003, malpractice premiums were 28 percent higher than the year before. But by 2004, malpractice premiums increased only 6 percent. In 2005, they did not increase at all. In 2006, they actually dropped 1 percent. In 2007, they dropped 3 percent. Malpractice premiums are going down. Yet Senator Gregg or another of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle dutifully offers this amendment or some variation of it every year without acknowledging the real changes taking place.

Despite all the talk about frivolous lawsuits being filed against medical professionals, medical malpractice payments by insurance companies have remained steady when adjusted for medical inflation. And the number of paid medical malpractice claims per physician in America has actually declined. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the number of paid malpractice claims for every 1,000 physicians decreased from 25.2 in 1991 to 18.8 in 2003.

Malpractice premiums are going down. The number of claims being filed per physician is declining. The number of paid malpractice claims is going down significantly.

But even if malpractice premiums were still going up--which is not the case--the Gregg amendment does not require insurance companies to lower them. The Gregg amendment says: We will deny to women the opportunity to recover in court for injuries to them or their babies, and we are hoping the insurance companies will show mercy and reduce premiums as a result. There is no linkage between the Gregg amendment and actually bringing down malpractice premiums.

This amendment limits the damages that can be recovered by victims. Keep in mind, these are victims who have legitimate claims in court. They are the ones Senator Gregg would deny recovery for the actual damages they have incurred.

Now, I will concede he allows some damages to be incurred--medical bills and the like. But he will even, I think, acknowledge there is a limitation on noneconomic damages of, I think--I read quickly through this--I think in this year's version it is $250,000.

Now, if we want to turn this farm bill into a discussion on health care, the issue we should be focusing on is one I think we all agree has to be taken seriously. It is patient safety, medical errors. Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has called medical errors by doctors and hospitals ``a national problem of epidemic proportions.''

Senator Gregg's amendment does not address this. He does not address one of the causes of injuries to innocent patients who go to a doctor for what are supposed to be routine medical procedures and have a very bad result. He does not address the medical errors that trigger medical malpractice lawsuits.

A far-reaching study of the extent and cost of medical errors in our hospitals was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003. The authors of the study analyzed 7.45 million records from about 20 percent of U.S. hospitals.

They found that injuries in U.S. hospitals in the year 2000--just 1 year--led to approximately 32,600 deaths, 2.4 million extra days of patient hospitalization, and additional costs of 9.3 billion. That did not include adverse drug reactions or malfunctioning medical devices.

The authors concluded that medical injuries in hospitals ``pose a significant threat to patients and incur substantial costs to society.''

What does the Gregg amendment do about patient safety and medical errors? Nothing.

Here is what it does. It applies an arbitrary one-size-fits-all cap on noneconomic damages in malpractice cases won by the patients. What are noneconomic damages? Pain and suffering, disfigurement, physical impairment, and scarring. How do you put a price on that?

If a person is going to be incontinent for the rest of their life, if they are scarred in the face or another part of their body, if they are in pain and unable to function, is that worth something? In the mind of Senator Gregg, it is only worth $250,000--no matter what. That is it. If your pain is going to be with you for a year, 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years--the same amount, $250,000.

It would reduce the statute of limitations within which an injured patient can bring a lawsuit. It is more restrictive than the majority of the States in the Union, cutting off claims for injuries or diseases. If you do not file the claim on time, Senator Gregg says: Sorry. Bad luck. Sorry that this poor woman is not going to have a chance to recover, but that is the price she is going to have to pay for his reform.

It would allow a reduction of damage awards because of other health or accident insurance the patient might have. Imagine for a minute that you have been wise enough, thoughtful enough, to buy health insurance to cover yourself and your family. Your wife goes in to deliver a baby. The doctor makes a serious error. The wife is injured. The baby is injured, and the baby dies.

Now there are medical bills. Well, it turns out you had health insurance. According to Senator Gregg, we should give to the offending doctor or hospital credit for your wisdom in buying health insurance. In other words, they do not pay for the medical bills if you paid for them yourself through your own health insurance. Does that make sense? Is that fair that the hospital or doctor guilty of malpractice would profit because the victim had health insurance?

His amendment makes it harder for patients to pursue punitive damages, and it would limit how much can be awarded--even when a wrongdoer is found to have acted with malicious intent.

His amendment would allow insurers to string out damage payments over a long period of time, meaning the insurers could keep the interest on that money for themselves.

It would preempt State laws on lots of issues, including whether patients' insurance coverage affects payments, how soon victims are compensated, and, of course, statutes of limitations.

The amendment only applies to lawsuits involving OB/GYNs in rural areas. Women living in rural areas are the ones on whom Senator Gregg has focused. They are the only group of Americans he wants to deny an opportunity in court for full compensation for their damages. I am sure the women of America will be grateful. I do not think, if they read this bill closely, they will believe it is fair or just. I do not.

Why would we want to treat rural mothers differently than those living in the suburbs or cities? This amendment is the wrong solution to the wrong problem on the wrong bill. Congress should not decide what injured patients should receive. We have a system called a justice system. We have judges, and we take an average group of people in America--your neighbors and friends--11 or 12, and they sit in the jury box to listen to the deliberations and decide what is fair.

I think that system has worked pretty well. And over the years, we have said we will allow the States to write the laws about how these lawsuits will be conducted. Over the years, there have been problems with malpractice premiums, problems with patient safety, and the States have responded to it, including my State of Illinois, by changing State law. I believe the majority of States have already changed their malpractice statutes.

That is the proper and appropriate way to approach this issue. Senator Gregg wants to federalize this. He wants to make it a Federal matter. He wants Congress to preempt the decisions of the States, and he wants his law to preempt the decisions of a jury. He believes his wisdom on what a person should be entitled to recover in a lawsuit should be trumping the wisdom of a judge and a jury.

I guess I have more trust in those judges and juries. They do not always come in and award for the plaintiff. Before I came to Congress, I used to handle these lawsuits. I spent a number of years defending doctors and hospitals, and a number of years suing them for medical malpractice.

They talk about frivolous lawsuits. I want to tell you, we fought long and hard before we took a case in my office involving medical malpractice. They are complicated and expensive and went on for a long time. I was not going to take a case that I did not think I could win. It was not fair to the doctor. It was not fair to the plaintiff. It sure was not fair to my family and my law practice. So we did not file anything we knew to be frivolous, just to make noise. We made a point of not doing that.

In this situation, for Senator Gregg to decide that a class of Americans--women in rural areas--are going to be denied their recovery in court, they are going to be treated differently--well, certainly this is a worthy topic for the Judiciary Committee and others to debate at some time about patient errors and medical safety, about malpractice and premiums. But to do it on a farm bill?

We just had a debate earlier about how much money we are going to give to people who grow asparagus. Yes, that was one of the amendments. Now we switch from that issue to a question about whether a mother who is giving birth to a child--where the doctor does not show up on time or does the wrong thing and the child is injured or dies--whether that mother can go to a court and receive compensation.

I think this is an amendment that should be defeated. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this amendment--to join me in supporting the basic concept that the States have been the source of statutory regulation of medical malpractice claims, to join me in saying it is not fair to pick out one class of people in America--in this case women living in rural areas--and to say they cannot have their day in court, to join me in saying we should be working together to reduce medical errors and make it safer to go to a hospital, make it safer to go to a doctor.

I respect the medical profession. I cannot tell you how many times in my life I have relied on a doctor or a hospital for care for a member of my family and was thanking God every moment that they were as good as they are, doing as much work as they do, having studied as hard as they did. But, please, this is a piece of legislation proposed by Senator Gregg which has not been thought through. It is not fair. It is not fair to the women who would be discriminated against by this legislation. It certainly is not fair to their families if a tragic consequence of medical malpractice means that a baby or a mother is going to be disfigured, face pain and suffering for a lifetime, to say that no matter how long it goes, no matter what happens, we cannot allow them more than $250,000.

That, to me, is unreasonable. It is unfair. And it has no place on this bill. I urge my colleagues to defeat the Gregg amendment.

Mr. President, today, we are introducing legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration broad authority to regulate tobacco products. Congress cannot in good conscience allow the Federal agency most responsible for protecting the public health to remain powerless to deal with the enormous risks of tobacco, the most deadly of all consumer products. Health experts believe this legislation is the most important action Congress could take to protect children from this deadly addiction.

This is a bipartisan, bicameral initiative. The bill that Senator Cornyn and I are introducing already has over 25 cosponsors. Congressman Waxman and Davis will introduce identical legislation in the House. Our bill has the support of a broad coalition of public health organizations led by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association. They all recognize the importance of enacting this bill this year.

The legislation we are introducing today is well known. It is the same bill that passed the Senate in 2004, and that we introduced in the last Congress. However, in this new Congress, the likelihood of passage is greatly enhanced. Last November's election swept away many of the barriers to passage from prior years. We believe 2007 is the year that legislation empowering the FDA to regulate tobacco products will finally become law.

We intend to move forward on the legislation quickly. I have already scheduled a hearing in the HELP Committee for February 27, and a markup is planned soon thereafter.

The stakes are vast. Four thousand children have their first cigarette every day, and one thousand become daily smokers. More than one-third of them will die prematurely from tobacco-induced diseases. Cigarettes kill well over 400,000 Americans each year. That is more lives lost than from automobile accidents, alcohol abuse, illegal drugs, AIDS, murder, and suicide combined. Congress's response to a public health problem of this magnitude is long overdue.

Regulating the conduct of tobacco companies is as necessary today as it has been in years past. The facts presented in the Federal Government's landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry demonstrate that the misconduct is substantial and ongoing. The decision of the court states: ``The evidence in this case clearly establishes that Defendants have not ceased engaging in unlawful activity . . . Defendants continue to engage in conduct that is materially indistinguishable from their previous actions, activity that continues to this day.''

We must deal firmly with tobacco company marketing practices that target children and mislead the public. The Food and Drug Administration needs broad authority to regulate the sale, distribution, and advertising of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.

The tobacco industry currently spends over $15 billion a year to promote its products. Much of that money is spent in ways designed to tempt children to start smoking, before they are mature enough to appreciate the enormity of the health risk. The industry knows that nearly 90 percent of smokers begin as children and are addicted by the time they reach adulthood.

Documents obtained from tobacco companies prove, in the companies' own words, the magnitude of the industry's efforts to trap children into dependency on their deadly product. Studies by the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control show the substantial role of industry

advertising in decisions by young people to use tobacco products.

If we are serious about reducing youth smoking, FDA must have the power to prevent industry advertising designed to appeal to children wherever it will be seen by children. This legislation will give FDA the authority to stop tobacco advertising that glamorizes smoking to kids. It grants FDA full authority to regulate tobacco advertising ``consistent with and to the full extent permitted by the First Amendment.''

FDA authority must also extend to the sale of tobacco products. Nearly every State makes it illegal to sell cigarettes to children under 18, but surveys show that those laws are rarely enforced and frequently violated. FDA must have the power to limit the sale of cigarettes to face-to-face transactions in which the age of the purchaser can be verified by identification. This means an end to self- service displays and vending machine sales. There must also be serious enforcement efforts with real penalties for those caught selling tobacco products to children. This is the only way to ensure that children under 18 are not able to buy cigarettes.

The FDA conducted the longest rulemaking proceeding in its history, studying which regulations would most effectively reduce the number of children who smoke. Seven hundred thousand public comments were received in the course of that rulemaking. At the conclusion of its proceeding, the agency promulgated rules on the manner in which cigarettes are advertised and sold. Due to litigation, most of those regulations were never implemented. If we are serious about curbing youth smoking as much as possible, as soon as possible; it makes no sense to require FDA to reinvent the wheel by conducting a new multi- year rulemaking process on the same issues. This legislation will give the youth access and advertising restrictions already developed by FDA the immediate force of law, as if they had been issued under the new statute.

The legislation also provides for stronger warnings on all cigarette and smokeless tobacco packages, and in all print advertisements. These warnings will be more explicit in their description of the medical problems which can result from tobacco use. The FDA is given the authority to change the text of these warning labels periodically, to keep their impact strong.

The nicotine in cigarettes is highly addictive. Medical experts say that it is as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Yet for decades, tobacco companies vehemently denied the addictiveness of their products. No one can forget the parade of tobacco executives who testified under oath before Congress that smoking cigarettes is not addictive. Overwhelming evidence in industry documents obtained through the discovery process proves that the companies not only knew of this addictiveness for decades, but actually relied on it as the basis for their marketing strategy. As we now know, cigarette manufacturers chemically manipulated the nicotine in their products to make it even more addictive.

A newly released analysis by the Harvard School of Public Health demonstrates that cigarette manufacturers are still manipulating nicotine levels. Between 1998 and 2005, they significantly increased the nicotine yield from major brand name cigarettes. The average increase in nicotine yield over the period was 11 percent.

The tobacco industry has a long, dishonorable history of providing misleading information about the health consequences of smoking. These companies have repeatedly sought to characterize their products as far less hazardous than they are. They made minor innovations in product design seem far more significant for the health of the user than they actually were. It is essential that FDA have clear and unambiguous authority to prevent such misrepresentations in the future. The largest disinformation campaign in the history of the corporate world must end.

Given the addictiveness of tobacco products, it is essential that the FDA regulate them for the protection of the public. Over 40 million Americans are currently addicted to cigarettes. No responsible public health official believes that cigarettes should be banned. A ban would leave 40 million people without a way to satisfy their drug dependency. FDA should be able to take the necessary steps to help addicted smokers overcome their addiction, and to make the product less toxic for smokers who are unable or unwilling to stop. To do so, FDA must have the authority to reduce or remove hazardous ingredients from cigarettes, to the extent that it becomes scientifically feasible. The inherent risk in smoking should not be unnecessarily compounded.

Recent statements by several tobacco companies make clear that they plan to develop what they characterize as ``reduced risk'' cigarettes. Some are already on the market making unsubstantiated claims. This legislation will require manufacturers to submit such ``reduced risk'' products to the FDA for analysis before they can be marketed. No health-related claims will be permitted until they have been verified to the FDA's satisfaction. These safeguards are essential to prevent deceptive industry marketing campaigns, which could lull the public into a false sense of health safety.

Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in America. Congress must vest FDA not only with the responsibility for regulating tobacco products, but with full authority to do the job effectively.

This legislation will give the FDA the legal authority it needs to reduce youth smoking by preventing tobacco advertising which targets children, to prevent the sale of tobacco products to minors, to help smokers overcome their addiction, to make tobacco products less toxic for those who continue to use them, and to prevent the tobacco industry from misleading the public about the dangers of smoking.

Enacting this bill this year is the right thing to do for America's children. They are depending on us. By passing this legislation, we can help them live longer, healthier lives.

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

Mr. President, it is a privilege to join Senator Bond in introducing ``The Arthritis Prevention, Control and Cure Act.''

Our goal in this important initiative is to provide a strong federal response to arthritis. Early diagnosis, treatment, and appropriate management of arthritis can control its symptoms, improve the quality of life of patients, and Federal action will improve the lives of the family members and caregivers of those affected by the disease.

Arthritis exits in more than a hundred different forms. It's one of the most devastating diseases impairing the health of the American people. It's second only to heart disease as a cause of work disability. It undermines everyday activities such as walking, dressing and bathing for more than seven million Americans.

One out of very five adults in the United States suffers from some form of arthritis. The number of patients in the U.S. with arthritis will keep growing as the number of older Americans continues to increase dramatically in the next few decades. Today, 8.7 million adults, ages 18 through 44, have arthritis and millions of others are at risk of developing the disease.

In fact, arthritis is one of the most prevalent chronic illnesses and the

leading cause of disability among Americans over age 15. More than 40 percent of adults with arthritis are limited in their activities because of their arthritis. By 2030, nearly 25 percent of the projected United States adult population will have arthritis and these numbers don't account for the current trends in obesity, which may contribute to future cases of the disease.

It is an illness that affects all types of people in the U.S., not just older Americans. Arthritis knows no boundaries. Men, women and children are all afflicted with the disease. According to the Arthritis Foundation, 24 million women and 17 million men have been diagnosed with arthritis by their doctors. Women are still disproportionately affected by the disease.

Nearly 3 out of every 1,000 American children are affected by arthritis. The devastating effects of pediatric arthritis justifies greater investment by the federal government in research and to identify more effective treatments.

Special concerns are raised by juvenile arthritis because of its impact on family relationships, school life, dating, sports and other aspects active, growing youths. Teens and young adults entering the workforce face even greater challenges.

Arthritis an other rheumatic diseases cost our economy $128 billion annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2003, the cost was equivalent to 1.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. $80 million of that amount were direct costs for medical care and $47 million were indirect costs for lost earnings. National medical costs attributed to arthritis grew by 24 percent between 1997 and 2003, with an increase attributed to the growing number of people affected with the disease.

In 1975, Congress enacted the National Arthritis Act to encourage basic and clinical research, establish Multipurpose Arthritis Centers and expand clinical knowledge of the illness. The act was successful in implementing and continued funding of research and has led to important advances in the control, treatment and prevention of the illness.

Early diagnosis, treatment and management can control symptoms and improve the quality of life. Weight control and exercise can help lower risks. Patient education, training and self-management also contribute to greater control of these diseases. Innovative and increasingly effective drug therapies, joint replacements, and other therapeutic alternatives are being developed.

Despite much research identifying effective interventions, many of them are not being used well enough and the inevitable result is unnecessary loss of life, poorer health and poorer quality of life.

Our legislation will expand the effort to find new ways to prevent, treat and care for patients with arthritis and related rheumatic diseases.

It will enhance the National Arthritis Action Plan by providing additional support to federal, state and private efforts to prevent and manage arthritis. It will establish a National Arthritis Education and Outreach Campaign to inform the health care profession and the public about the most successful self-management strategies for controlling the illness.

With greater coordination and intensification of federal research, this bill will organize a National Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases Summit to look at the challenges and opportunities related to these efforts.

In addition, the bill will provide greater attention to juvenile arthritis research by offering planning grants for research specific to juveniles and by prioritizing the activities that create better understanding of the incidence and outcomes associated with juvenile arthritis.

Finally the bill contains incentives to encourage health professionals to enter the field of pediatric rheumatology by education loan repayment and career development awards.

I urge my colleagues to support this public health initiative to reduce the pain and disability of arthritis. Early diagnosis, effective treatment and greater investment in research and prevention can help us wage a stronger battle against one of the most widespread and devastating conditions affecting our Nation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the third in a series of bills intended to support American companies and American workers. Earlier this week, I introduced a resolution which would set some minimum standards for future trade agreements into which our country enters, and legislation which would strengthen the Buy American Act. Today I am introducing legislation that would help workers who have lost their manufacturing or service sector jobs to be retrained for jobs in high-demand health care fields. I am pleased that my colleague, Senator Mikulski, is cosponsoring this important legislation and I look forward to working with her to advance it during the 110th Congress.

According to statistics from the Department of Labor, Wisconsin has lost over 90,000 manufacturing jobs between January 2000 and November 2006. Nationally, the country has lost around 3 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001, yet the administration has continued to support policies that lead to the outsourcing of American jobs. I continue to be deeply troubled by the Bush Administration's contention that the outsourcing of American service sector and other jobs is good for the economy. I am concerned about the message that this policy sends to Wisconsinites and all Americans who are currently employed in these sectors.

There is something of a silver lining to the looming cloud of manufacturing and other jobs loss: the country's workforce development system.

In spite of stretched resources and long waiting lists for services, our workforce development boards are making a tremendous effort to retrain laid-off workers and other job seekers for new jobs. And this effort is clearly evident in Wisconsin, where my State's workforce development boards--despite shoestring budgets--are leading the way in finding innovative solutions to retraining workers for new careers.

I strongly support the work of these agencies, and have urged the Administration and Senate appropriators to provide adequate funding for the job training programs authorized by the Workforce Investment Act. I look forward to the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act this year and I will continue to work to ensure that the workforce development boards in my state and across our country receive the resources that they need to help job seekers get the training they need to be successful.

I am committed to finding resources to retrain those who have been laid off from the manufacturing and service sectors and who wish to find new jobs in high-demand fields such as health care.

As most of my colleagues know all too well, we are facing a significant shortage of health care workers. Congress has made some progress in addressing the nursing shortage, but we need to expand our efforts. Shortages of health professionals pose a real threat to the health of our communities by impacting access to timely, high-quality health care. Studies have shown that shortages of nurses in our hospitals and health facilities increase medical errors, which directly affects patient health.

As our population ages, and the baby-boomers need more health care, our need for all types of health professionals is only going to increase. This is particularly true for the field of long-term care. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we are going to need an additional 1.4 million nursing aides, home health aides, and other health professionals in long-term care before the year 2014. In total, there will be almost 1.7 million job openings in health care support occupations through 2012.

As our demand for health care workers grows, so does the number of jobs available within this sector. According to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the surging job growth in health care will translate into a real need for workers, and real opportunity. In Wisconsin alone, there will be an additional 61,910 health care positions by 2014. This represents a 27 percent increase in jobs in health care by 2014.

Workforce development agencies in my home State of Wisconsin are already working to support displaced workers in their communities by training them for health care jobs, since there is a real need for workers in these fields. These agencies are helping communities get and maintain access to high-quality health care by ensuring that there are enough health care workers to care for their communities.

As the executive director of one of the workforce development boards in my State put it, ``[t]here are simply not many good quality jobs to replace manufacturing jobs lost to rural communities. The medical professions, by offering a `living wage' and good benefits, provide an excellent alternative to manufacturing for sustaining a higher, family- oriented standard of living.''

I believe we should support our communities in these efforts by providing them with the resources they need to establish, sustain, or expand these important programs. For that reason, today I am introducing the Community-Based Health Care Retraining Act. This bill would amend the Workforce Investment Act to authorize a demonstration project to provide grants to community-based coalitions, led by local workforce development boards, to create programs to retrain unemployed workers who wish to obtain new jobs in the health care professions. My bill would authorize a total of $25 million for grants between $100,000 and $500,000, and, in the interest of fiscal responsibility, my legislation is fully offset.

This bill will help provide communities with the resources they need to run retraining programs for the health professions. The funds could be used for a variety of purposes, from increasing the capacity of our schools and training facilities, to providing financial and social support for workers who are in retraining programs. This bill allows for flexibility in the use of grant funds because I believe that communities know best about the resources they need to run an efficient program.

This bill represents a nexus in my efforts to support workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas and to ensure that all Americans have access to the high-quality health care that they deserve. By providing targeted assistance to train laid-off workers who wish to obtain new jobs in the health care sector, we can both help unemployed Americans and improve the availability and quality of health care that is available in our communities.

I am pleased that this bill is supported by a variety of organizations that are committed to providing high-quality job training and health care services, including: the Wisconsin Association of Job Training Executives, the Wisconsin Hospital Association, Madison Area Technical College, the Northwest Wisconsin Concentrated Employment Program, the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin, the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, the Healthcare Workforce Network, the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board, Sauk County Development Corporation, the American Osteopathic Society, Umos, the Fox Valley Workforce Development Board, and the West Central Wisconsin Workforce Development Board.

In order to ensure that our workers are able to compete in the new economy, we must ensure that they have the tools they need to be trained or retrained for high-demand jobs such as those in the health care field. My bill is a small step toward providing the resources necessary to achieve this goal. I will continue to work to strengthen the American manufacturing sector and to support those workers who have been displaced due to bad trade agreements and other policies that have led to the loss of American jobs.

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

Mr. President, today I introduce the Wartime Treatment Study Act. This bill would create two fact-finding commissions: one commission to review the U.S. government's treatment of German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans during World War II, and another commission to review the U.S. government's treatment of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II. This bill is long overdue.

I am very pleased that my colleagues Senators Grassley, Kennedy, Lieberman and Inouye have joined me as cosponsors of this important bill. I thank them for their support. And I thank Congressman Wexler, who has been the unflagging champion of this legislation in the House of Representatives.

The victory of America and its allies in the Second World War was a triumph for freedom, justice, and human rights. The courage displayed by so many Americans, of all ethnic origins, should be a source of great pride for all Americans.

But, at the same time that so many brave Americans fought for freedom in

Europe and the Pacific, the U.S. government was curtailing the freedom of people here at home. While, it is, of course, the right of every nation to protect itself during wartime, the U.S. Government must respect the basic freedoms for which so many Americans have given their lives to defend. War tests our principles and our values. And as our Nation's recent experience has shown, it is during times of war and conflict, when our fears are high and our principles are tested most, that we must be even more vigilant to guard against violations of the basic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Many Americans are aware that during World War II, under the authority of Executive Order 9066, our government forced more than 100,000 ethnic Japanese from their homes and ultimately into internment camps. Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes, their livelihoods, and their communities and were held behind barbed wire and military guard by their own government. Through the work of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, created by Congress in 1980, this shameful event finally received the official acknowledgement and condemnation it deserved. Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, people of Japanese ancestry who were subjected to relocation or internment later received an apology and reparations on behalf of the people of the United States.

February 19, 2007, is the ``Day of Remembrance,'' the 65th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. On this day, we should remember the freedoms all of these individuals were forced to give up, and resolve never to make these mistakes again.

While I commend our government for finally recognizing and apologizing for the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, I believe that it is time that the government also acknowledge the mistreatment experienced by many German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans, as well as Jewish refugees.

The Wartime Treatment Study Act would create two independent, fact- finding commissions to review this unfortunate history, so that Americans can understand why it happened and work to ensure that it never happens again. One commission will review the treatment by the U.S. government of German Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans, as well as European Latin Americans, during World War II.

I believe that most Americans are unaware that, as was the case with Japanese Americans, approximately 11,000 ethnic Germans, 3,200 ethnic Italians, and scores of Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians or other European Americans living in America were taken from their homes and placed in internment camps during World War II. We must learn from this history and explore why we turned on our fellow Americans and failed to protect their basic freedoms.

A second commission created by this bill will review the treatment by the U.S. government of Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution and genocide. We must review the facts here as well and determine how restrictive immigration policies failed to provide adequate safe harbor to Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of Nazi Germany. It is a horrible truth that the United States turned away thousands of refugees, delivering many refugees to their deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime.

As I mentioned earlier, there has been a measure of justice for Japanese Americans who were denied their liberty and property. It is now time for the U.S. government to complete the accounting of this period in our nation's history. It is time to create independent, fact- finding commissions to conduct a full and through review of the treatment of all European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees during World War II.

Up to this point, there has been no justice for the thousands of German Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans who were branded ``enemy aliens'' and then taken from their homes, subjected to curfews, limited in their travel, deprived of their personal property, and, in the worst cases, placed in internment camps.

There has been no justice for Latin Americans of European descent who were shipped to the United States and sometimes repatriated or deported to hostile, war-torn European Axis powers, often in exchange for Americans being held in those countries.

Finally, there has been no justice for the thousands of Jews, like those aboard the German vessel the St. Louis, who sought refuge from hostile Nazi treatment but were callously turned away at America's shores.

The injustices to European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees occurred more than fifty years ago. Americans can learn from these tragedies now, while the people who survived these injustices are still with us, and are still here to teach us. We cannot put this off any longer. If we wait, the people who were affected will no longer be here to know that Congress has at last recognized their sacrifice and resolved to learn from the mistakes of the past.

We should never allow this part of our Nation's history to repeat itself. And, while we should be proud of our Nation's triumph in World War II, we should not let that justifiable pride blind us to the treatment of some Americans by their own government.

As the Day of Remembrance approaches, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Wartime Treatment Study Act, and to allow this bill to become law as soon as possible. I have been seeking to enact this legislation for six years. It is time for a full accounting of this tragic chapter in our Nation's history.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Wartime Treatment Study Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Gregg amendment No. 3672.

This amendment irresponsibly strips $15 million in funding for an asparagus market loss program to help asparagus producers who have lost a significant amount of their market share because of the Andean Trade Preference Act.

Thanks to the great work of Senator Stabenow, along with Senators Harkin and Chambliss, the Senate Ag Committee approved this important funding to help assist asparagus producers in California, Michigan, and Washington who have lost significant market share as a result of the Andean Trade Preference Act.

The U.S. asparagus industry was and continues to be hurt by the Andean Trade Preference Act's, ATPA, extended duty-free status to imports of fresh Peruvian asparagus. The ATPA eliminated U.S. tariffs on Peruvian asparagus imports beginning in 1990.

Unlike most free-trade agreements, the ATPA provided no transition period to allow domestic asparagus producers to prepare or adapt to a market that would be flooded with an unlimited quantity of zero tariff asparagus from Peru.

Following the enactment of ATPA, imports of processed asparagus products surged 2400 percent from 500,000 pounds in 1990 to over 12 million pounds in 2006.

As a result, domestic asparagus acreage has dropped 54 percent from 90,000 acres in 1991 to under 49,000 acres today.

Michigan has lost 20 percent of its asparagus acreage.

Washington State's asparagus acreage decreased from 31,000 acres in 1991 to 9,300 acres in 2006, and producers in the State have seen the value of their crop drop from $200 million in 1990 to $75 million today.

And farmers in my State of California have lost nearly half of their asparagus acreage since 1990, dropping from 36,000 acres before the ATPA, to 22,500 acres today.

Many of my colleagues may be asking what the market loss program will provide to asparagus producers. This asparagus program is modeled after a 2002 program for onion and apple producers that provided $94 million in assistance when the apple and onion markets were flooded with cheap Chinese imports.

Market loss funds will be used to offset costs to domestic asparagus producers to plant new acreage and invest in more efficient planting and harvesting equipment.

I find it particularly interesting that Senator Gregg has put forward an antimarket loss program amendment that would help farmers in my State. As a result of the 2002 farm bill, apple producers in his State of New Hampshire received more than $1 million in assistance.

Where was Senator Gregg and his amendment to strike when the Senate approved a market loss program for apple and onion producers as part of the 2002 farm bill?

I urge the Senate to reject this amendment.

The amount in funding for the market loss program is a small percentage of the losses incurred as a result of the ATPA and will go a long way toward maintaining domestic asparagus production and helping our producers who have lost thousands of acres.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have 10 minutes from the opposition's time.

Mr. President, I was listening to this debate and was looking forward to these amendments on the farm bill, and all of a sudden I am hearing about pregnant women, and having babies, and suing doctors, and I am thinking: What bill are we on? Why on Earth do we have an attack on women in this farm bill? And it is an attack on women in rural areas when you say we are going to have tort reform and we are aiming it at the women in rural America because we don't like the fact that they may sue if there is malpractice.

Men often say, well, they are doing things to help women. Watch out when that happens. Men come to this floor and say: Oh, we are going to take care of the women. This doesn't take care of women. This puts them at risk. And they say: Oh, many more doctors will come to work in the rural areas if we limit liability.

But look at Texas. What my friend from Colorado mentioned about Texas is untrue. We have the statistics. There are no more doctors in rural Texas after they passed this bill. What has happened is that women have had their rights taken away from them.

Now, again, my friends on the Republican side couch this as an attack on the trial lawyers. Oh, the trial lawyers are evil, and all that. Watch out when people say lawyers are evil because when they are in trouble, the first thing they do is call the best lawyer in town. I have seen it myself, right here in the Senate. So watch out when you see a blanket attack on all lawyers. I have to tell you, when a Member on the other side gets in trouble, the first thing they do is call the best lawyer in town, but they want to take away the rights of women to sue in a tragic situation.

There are numerous examples that I can talk about, but one example came to my attention for these purposes, just to show people on both sides of the aisle some of the terrible things that do happen in these childbirths.

I am a grandmother, twice, and I have to tell you that in both cases--and even when I became a mom, twice--all very difficult; premature births, problems, long labors, concerns, breach babies. These are hard and difficult things. And OB/GYNs are my heroes. They are my heroes. Doctors are my heroes. But doctors make, sometimes, terrible errors, and they have to be held accountable or they will just go on and do it again and again.

Now, why would we, on a farm bill, attack the women of rural America and take away their rights? Let's talk about this particular case of Donna Harnett. She happened to be in Chicago. Her doctor decided her labor was not progressing quickly enough, so he prescribed a drug to help induce more contractions. Later, when her labor was not progressing, her doctor broke her water, found it was abnormal, and rather than consider a C-section, the doctor decided to continue to administer the drugs in hopes that the labor would progress.

Six hours later she had not delivered. Her son's fetal monitoring system began alarming, indicating the baby was in serious respiratory distress. The doctor finally decided, after all those hours, it was time to perform an emergency C-section, but it was another hour before Donna was taken into the operating room. During that time, the doctor failed to administer oxygen or an IV to help the baby breathe. After the baby was born, he remained in intensive care for 3 weeks, and she later learned he had suffered substantial brain damage and cerebral palsy as a direct result of the doctor's failure to respond to indications of serious oxygen deprivation and delivery in a timely manner.

In addition to all that, her doctor told her not to have any more children because she had a problem with her DNA, indicating the fact that the child was disabled was in her DNA. And, he said: Any of your future children would similarly have mental and physical disabilities.

Clearly, he was protecting himself in that situation and putting the blame on her. Since then, Donna has given birth to three healthy sons.

She sued the doctor responsible for Martin's delivery, and she received a settlement. That settlement is helping her cover the costs associated with Martin's care that are not covered by health insurance, such as the used wheelchair-accessible van she purchased for $50,000 and the $100,000 she spent renovating her home to make it accessible for her loving son. Martin is now 11. He will be at risk for health complications, including a terrifying incident in August when he almost bled to death because his trachea tube had rubbed a hole through an artery. But he survived, and he is able to laugh and to love and to attend school in his community.

Now, how would she be able to afford to take care of Martin if she wasn't able to have justice? Donna said:

If there had been caps on the recovery system when my son

was injured, it would have torn our family apart and Martin

would be in an institution. Instead, he is able to live at

home with us where we can take care of him and make sure he

is happy.

Why on Earth do Senators in this body want to tell a woman like that: Too bad, no help, sorry. It is wrong. I have seen it in my own State. It is wrong. It tears families apart. Everyone here says: Oh, we are so family friendly. We have family values. Well, I would like to think we have family values that extend to a woman such as

Donna, to a mother such as Donna, to a loving family such as her family, who, yes, wanted to buy a van so it was possible for her to take her son in and to give her son a decent life.

You know, I don't want to be a party to a Senate that would tell a woman such as Donna that she is just going to have to suffer for the mistakes of a physician. And let me be clear: I am a fan of physicians. I trust doctors. But, yes, they make mistakes. And when they make mistakes, they have to be held accountable, just as we all do if we are driving and we make a mistake. To put a cap on this and tell a woman such as Donna: Sorry, your son is your problem, when, in fact, the problem was created by medical malpractice, is an outrage--an outrage.

Anyone who votes for this amendment is saying to the women in rural America: You don't matter. So they can couch it as an attack on trial lawyers, they can do that all they want, but it is about the woman, the mom, who has been mistreated in this fashion.

If we want to deal with issues such as malpractice insurance, count me in. If we want to make sure some made-up case is thrown out of court, I am with you. And, by the way, there are already laws to cover that. But don't come here and say how wonderful you are being to the women of rural America by imposing a cap on what they could collect when they are damaged, when they are made sterile by a mistake, when a child gets brain damage because of a mistake, because of a mixup. That is not right.

And don't say: Oh, it is worth doing because you will get more doctors to come into rural America. It isn't happening. The Texas statistics are there, and I will share them with you. In 2003, when Texas passed its law, 152 Texas counties had no obstetrician. Today, 4 years after passage, the number hasn't budged, with 102 Texas counties having no obstetrician. The fact that some rural counties lack OB/GYNs is not a function of malpractice premiums. It is a function of population. The doctors practice where the patients are. So anyone who stands up here and says: Oh, this is great because so many more doctors will come into rural America, the facts don't show that.

I can tell you because now that I am of the age of a grandmother, where I see so many of these births with my friends' kids, I can tell you that these births are complicated. We want the best people taking care of our women, whether they are in rural America or urban America or wherever they are. And if there is a tragic mistake, such as the one I related to you--a doctor just ignoring what is happening to the patient, refusing to do a cesarean, depriving the child of oxygen, and then turning around and telling the mother: Oh, it is your fault, it is in your DNA, it wasn't anything I did--and then going and telling a jury, well, even if you find in favor of this woman, you cap what she can get--You are consigning that family to a life of tragedy, because the mother in the case I talked about wouldn't be able to have the people in her home to help her with her son. And she had three other healthy babies. How dare that physician try to pin his malpractice on her, tell her she better not have any more kids. She had three more healthy kids.

So I stand here, Mr. President, as a Senator but also as a mom, having had two extremely difficult births, where the doctors I had, the same practice for both my kids, were wise, they were strong, they were smart, and they handled it right. Having seen my own family experience difficult births, I can tell you that you want the best handling it. You don't want to put a cap on damages so that people who are less than the best can go into this area and think: Well, I am protected. If I make 10 mistakes, I can afford it because there is a cap on it. So big deal. Disaster.

And to do this on the farm bill, it borders on the humorous, if it wasn't so serious. Maybe we want to have an amendment about birthing calves on the farm bill or something like that. But what are we doing here? Taking an amendment that doesn't belong here and saying rural women are going to be picked on. That is what they are doing. I am just in disbelief that this is even before us. I hope we have a very strong ``no'' vote and put this baby to bed, because this comes up again and again.

As I say, in my own State, I have met with parents who are just at their wits' end because of this travesty and they have a one-size-fits- all cap. I have met with parents whose child was born, there was malpractice, and the child is blind, the child is deaf, the child is sitting in a wheelchair. The mother and the father love that child. They are driven into poverty because the insurance will cover just so much.

We say we are for families? How can we say we are for families and mean it and then tell the women of rural America: Too bad, you cannot get what you deserve if a doctor makes a tragic--indeed, an unbelievably tragic--mistake. You have to care for a child for the rest of that child's life in the most loving way you can, but we are going to put a cap on what you are going to be able to spend on that child.

This is not the America I know. This is not a farm bill that should be turned into tort reform, some ideological quest by some of our colleagues. This is not an attack on lawyers; this is an attack on women.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak against this amendment, and I am looking forward to voting against it.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided until we go to the next speaker.