A bill to amend the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921, to make it unlawful for a packer to own, feed, or control livestock intended for slaughter.

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor to talk about important and bipartisan legislation that I am introducing today, along with Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. It is about the Corps of Engineers, and it is intended, and will once passed, to make a real impact in terms of lessening the delays, the bureaucracy, and the hurdles all of us must go through in terms of seeing important Corps of Engineers projects through to fruition. It is called the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Flood Control and Navigation Project Pilot Program.

Let us get right to the heart of the matter. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a broken bureaucracy. In several significant respects, it is simply a badly broken bureaucracy. Let me say upfront that there are many smart, qualified people who work there. They are dedicated. They work long, hard hours in so many cases, and I applaud their efforts. But the overall structure and the overall bureaucracy within which we all must work to get important Corps of Engineers work done is simply broken.

It takes, on average, about 6 years--6 years--for the Corps not to do a project but to perform a preliminary study that might lead to an important flood control or navigation project. Then, when we actually talk about the engineering work, the construction work, it takes at least 20 years, on average, to accomplish any meaningful project. That is simply too long.

There are many reasons for this, and let me say at the outset that not all those are the Corps of Engineers' fault. We in Congress, the public, the country put so many demands and burdens on them that they are simply swamped. They have a backlog that, to some extent, is unavoidable, and that backlog for active projects--not projects being studied or considered but the backlog for active approved projects--is currently $59.6 billion. But even considering that--even considering that avalanche of demands and that backlog--the Corps of Engineers' bureaucracy is broken, and it adds to those problems and magnifies them enormously by extending the time and the cost of any given project.

Of course, when projects get extended in time and are delayed, when costs grow over time. Then the initial problem--the backlog, that initial avalanche of demands--explodes and is multiplied tenfold. This is the situation Senator Nelson and I are trying to address in a focused, proactive, positive way.

Our bill would do one thing to address this. It would establish a pilot program whereby the Corps of Engineers selects certain significant flood control and/or navigation projects and moves project management authority, responsibility for those projects, from the Corps of Engineers down to the State and/or local sponsors. What do I mean by that? Every project we are talking about, every Corps project, whether it is a flood control project or a navigation project, the Corps of Engineers doesn't do it alone. They have partners. On the governmental side, they specifically have State and/or local partners who almost always pay a significant cost share of the project--usually about 35 percent. So those entities are already involved in a very meaningful way in these projects.

Our pilot program would tell the Corps to take certain select projects which have been delayed, which are sitting on the shelf, with costs and timelines growing, and move the project manager responsibility out of the Corps of Engineers down to the State and local sponsors. The States and localities are the folks on the ground who have even more of a vested interest and a need to actually get this work done. They have the desire to cut through delays and the bureaucracy to get it done in a more aggressive way. So I am absolutely convinced, if we can move this responsibility in a careful, thoughtful way down to the State and local sponsors, in virtually all cases that will cut delays, that will cut timeframes, and in doing so it will significantly cut costs.

Again, this is not a radical idea. For one thing, these State and local entities I am talking about are already intimately involved in these projects. They already have significant capacity to be proactively involved in these projects and they already have a stake in the game--in most cases paying 35 percent of the project cost.

Secondly, the actual design, engineering and construction work is not done by any of these entities anyway. In almost all cases, the huge majority, or 100 percent, of that work--design, engineering, construction--is done by private business hired by the Corps, hired by the State and locals to get this done. That will remain the same. So the professionals doing the design, engineering, and construction work will remain the same. That is not changing at all.

Third, the reason this idea is not a radical concept but is actually a proven model is that what I am describing is more or less exactly what we do for Federal highway projects. It just so happens we are debating a highway bill on the Senate floor, and that is a useful model to look to in this context. When we do highway projects, we have a Federal Highway Administration and we have significant Federal funds that go to these highway projects, but the Federal agency--in that case the Federal Highway Administration--is not the lead project manager, is not intimately involved day to day, week to week, and year to year in moving those projects along. Quite to the contrary, they are shipped and the dollars are shipped to the States and locals. In the huge majority of cases, the States and/or locals are the lead project manager entity taking control and leading the way.

So that is a proven model. That model works better compared to the way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers works; that is, broad brush, exactly the model we are adopting. It will save time, and in doing so it will save significant money.

To ensure the Corps does not feel threatened by this, built into the bill, Senator Nelson and I have identified an offset. So even though these projects that will be included in the pilot program have money that has been allocated for them, we have an offset so that amount of money can be spent on those projects without diminishing what will remain as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' budget.

In fact, the Corps itself faces a win-win with this situation. They will get rid of some of their responsibility and some of their work, but there will not be any Federal U.S. Army Corps of Engineers money that will leave them alone with that responsibility and with that work. Quite honestly, the Corps welcomes this, particularly in light of their backlog and particularly in light of the avalanche of demands that are placed on them.

For all these reasons, I hope all our colleagues in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, will look carefully at this legislation and join Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and myself. This is something that needs to be done, because as I said at the beginning, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, unfortunately, is a badly broken bureaucracy in many respects. It needs to be fixed. We need to respond to these flood control and navigation needs on a real-time basis, not with 20, 30 years' delay. We can't continue to compete in a global economy with this sort of delay for vital navigation or vital flood control projects. We need to cut through the bureaucracy and do a lot more with less. This legislation will help us get there.

I invite, and Senator Bill Nelson invites, all of our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to look at this legislation. We invite all of our colleagues to join us in this very important reform of the Corps of Engineers.

In closing, let me also say that independent of this legislation, I am also pursuing a GAO audit of the Corps. I have already requested that in writing and have received assurances that audit will happen. I think that will be an additional and very helpful and necessary tool for us to see how the Corps does or doesn't effectively do its business and to make other needed reforms in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' bureaucracy.

I look forward to pursuing that audit, getting the results of that, and seeing

where that leads in terms of other necessary Corps reforms in the near future.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation designed to help family farmers across this nation have a more level playing field when it comes to livestock markets. The bill would prohibit meat packers from owning livestock. The ownership of livestock by packers compromises the marketplace and hinders the ability of the farmer to receive a fair price. It is simple, as one meat-packing executive once told me, packers own livestock so that when prices are high, they slaughter their own livestock. When prices are low, they buy from farmers.

I would love to say opportunities for independent producers have gotten better since the last time we debated this bill during the 2008 Farm Bill. But that simply isn't the case. We are to the point where most farmers have to deliver their livestock to one of a few very large packers. Farmers' bargaining power is diminished by the sheer size and economic position of the packers. But beyond that, farmers have to compete with the livestock owned by the packing plant itself. The packer ban would make sure the forces of the marketplace work for the benefit of the farmer as much as it does for the slaughterhouse.

I am sure there will be folks in the packing industry that point out that farmers are doing okay right now, and that's great that farmers are experiencing a good period. I am pleased anytime the hard work of livestock farmers results in a good price. But I don't want my colleagues here in the Senate to be lulled to sleep and think just because prices are good right now means we don't have competition issues in the livestock industry that need to be addressed. This is about ensuring farmers are able to get fair prices for years to come. We need to work today, and implement this reform, to ensure the next generation of independent farmers has an opportunity to raise livestock and receive fair prices as a result of their hard work.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation designed to help family farmers across this nation have a more level playing field when it comes to livestock markets. The bill would prohibit meat packers from owning livestock. The ownership of livestock by packers compromises the marketplace and hinders the ability of the farmer to receive a fair price. It is simple, as one meat-packing executive once told me, packers own livestock so that when prices are high, they slaughter their own livestock. When prices are low, they buy from farmers.

I would love to say opportunities for independent producers have gotten better since the last time we debated this bill during the 2008 Farm Bill. But that simply isn't the case. We are to the point where most farmers have to deliver their livestock to one of a few very large packers. Farmers' bargaining power is diminished by the sheer size and economic position of the packers. But beyond that, farmers have to compete with the livestock owned by the packing plant itself. The packer ban would make sure the forces of the marketplace work for the benefit of the farmer as much as it does for the slaughterhouse.

I am sure there will be folks in the packing industry that point out that farmers are doing okay right now, and that's great that farmers are experiencing a good period. I am pleased anytime the hard work of livestock farmers results in a good price. But I don't want my colleagues here in the Senate to be lulled to sleep and think just because prices are good right now means we don't have competition issues in the livestock industry that need to be addressed. This is about ensuring farmers are able to get fair prices for years to come. We need to work today, and implement this reform, to ensure the next generation of independent farmers has an opportunity to raise livestock and receive fair prices as a result of their hard work.

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