Floor Statements

Senator Stevens, I would like to speak with you for a moment about the recent vote on Senator Harkin's Byrne Grant Program amendment. While I agree with you that it is vitally important that this Omnibus Appropriations bill adheres to principles of fiscal responsibility, I must stress that the continuation of the Byrne Formula Grants is absolutely critical to local law enforcement, especially in rural States like Iowa. I voted on the procedural motion to table the Harkin amendment, because of our need for fiscal responsibility. However, I would not have done so, if you had not made a personal commitment to me that the funds for the Byrne Formula Grants would be fully restored in conference. Because the availability of these funds makes such a difference to Iowa, I want to once again get an assurance from you that when we take the final vote on this bill the full funding for the Byrne Grants will be included in the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment by my colleague from Rhode Island. While I understand his desire to address the problem of unemployment, I would suggest this is neither the time nor the place to do so.

First, I would remind my colleagues that this amendment would increase mandatory spending in an appropriation bill, and therefore is subject to a 60-vote point of order.

Second, let's remember what we've already done to address this issue. Last year, Congress voted to provide more than $11 billion in federally funded benefits, and we voted earlier this month to provide an additional $7 billion on top of that. That's a total of $18 billion in federally funded unemployment benefits.

Third, I would suggest this amendment is based on a faulty premise. On one hand, my colleague seems to suggest unemployment is worse than ever before. On the other hand, he suggests this amendment is no more than we've done before.

I would suggest he is mistaken on both counts.

The truth is this amendment represents the greatest expansion of Federal unemployment benefits in history, and it is being proposed at a time when unemployment is well below historical recession levels.

Let's be clear about what this amendment does. It would provide a minimum of 26 weeks of federally funded unemployment benefits and a maximum of 33 weeks--at an additional cost of more than $6 billion.

The last--and only time--Congress provided up to 33 weeks of unemployment benefits was back in 1992 when the unemployment rate reached nearly 8 percent. Today, the unemployment rate is 6 percent.

Moreover, every other time Congress has provided federally funded unemployment benefits, they have been linked to the duration of State benefits. This amendment would provide between 26 and 33 weeks of Federal benefits without regard to the duration of State benefits. This is an unprecedented expansion of the unemployment program.

It violates the insurance principles inherent in the unemployment program by breaking the link between the time someone has worked to the time that person can collect unemployment benefits. This amendment would allow someone who worked as few as 20 weeks to collect as much as 33 weeks of federally funded benefits. This is neither the right time, the right place, nor the right way to change the unemployment program.

Unemployment has not risen to the historical level of previous recessions. Moreover, a uniform duration of benefits would violate every historical precedent.

I urge my colleagues to sustain the point of order and defeat this amendment.

Mr. President, today we have the ability to address a problem that has been neglected for the last 18 months. For 18 months farmers have been waiting for 2001, and now 2002 disaster assistance, but partisanship kept us from providing rural America with relief. Today, we will provide the remedy.

Today the Senate has the opportunity to address the issue of significant loss in the agriculture community due to natural disasters. In Iowa we have experienced both drought and flood during the last 2 years. For instance, last year the eastern side of the State--counties such as Clayton, Delaware, Jackson, Clinton, and Scott--had a disaster in 2002 due to flood. In 2001, the southern two tiers of counties in Iowa experienced drought. Turning back to 2002 again, one of Iowa's best production years ever, we saw counties such as Harrison, Mills, Adams and Cass turn up bone dry during critical states of the growing season.

Iowa had record yields in 2002, but we did not have uniformity in state-wide averages of precipitation or production and that has made the package we are debating today very important to many family farmers in my home State.

The agriculture assistance package I have worked on with Chairman Cochran and other Members provides $3.1 billion of assistance to areas and individuals with the greatest need. Our proposal will give assistance to farmers who live in ``primary'' designated disaster counties and to farmers who have had a 35 percent crop loss outside of those primary counties. We will be able to get checks to the farmers in the primary designated counties within 4 weeks after the President signs the bill. The farmers who can account for a 35 percent crop loss will need to go to their local FSA office and sign-up for assistance.

Our program also contains an additional $250 million for the Livestock Assistance Programs--LAP provides direct payments to eligible livestock producers who suffered grazing losses due to natural disaster--and offers a sense of the Senate that encourages the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide surplus dry milk supplies to pork producers to use as feed.

Some members of the Senate will try to make ``political hay'' out of this by opposing our proposal. They will say the need is greater than $3.1 billion and our assistance isn't focused, but the fact is the only way the House of Representatives and the White House are going to allow us to spend more on agriculture, after we have already spent over $180 billion on the other agriculture disaster we experienced last year, the 2002 farm bill, is if we ``find'' the money through offsets.

Those who choose to oppose this proposal will claim that their proposal was better for rural America, but what good is a proposal that can't pass? We tried it their way; I voted for emergency funding more than once, but the Senate leadership was unsuccessful in advancing any assistance to rural America. In fact, the last time I voted for emergency spending we couldn't even get it off the floor of the Senate. Doesn't it seem reasonable that we should actually vote on something that can actually pass? Isn't tangible assistance better than empty promises?

The assistance in our proposal will get to farmers months before the assistance in the Democratic alternative. Most farmers will get help within four weeks after the President signs the legislation, instead of waiting up to eight months under the alternative approach. Family farmers that carry significant debt, or those that have been

forced to arrange ``bridge loans'' because of the problems with farm bill payments need the assistance now to reduce their debt, not eight months from now when the debt has had plenty of time to build due to interest.

Chairman Stevens worked diligently to find an offset that would provide funds to address the current need. I appreciate the work of Chairman Stevens and thank him for his assistance. I would also like to thank Chairman Cochran for working with me and other members to fit this proposal to the need in rural America. Without Chairman Cochran's dedication to developing the best proposal possible for rural America we would not have such broad support.

Mr. President, family farmers need disaster assistance, not ``pie in the sky'' empty promises that can't make it past the House of Representatives or the White House. It was important to make sure farmers who need assistance receive help as quickly as possible, and we've done that. I encourage my colleagues to support family farmers and support the Cochran amendment.

I will yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Mississippi.

Yes.

Mr. President, I yield 1 minute of my 2 minutes to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. President, I yield myself the 1 minute remaining. At the end of the time being used up, I will make a motion to table. I will not do that yet.

But I want to reiterate what my colleague from Montana said; that this is a problem bigger than USAir and requires the time of our committee to work on it. The statistic the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee gave me is that there are about 125 companies in one shape or another that are working in unison to try to find a global solution. So taking care of the situation for US Airways ought to be taken care of in conjunction with the issues that other companies have before the Congress instead of using a rifleshot. This is within the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. Nothing has been said about those left, but the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee is trying to write an appropriations bill that would avoid the blue slip problem with the House of Representatives.

So this has a lot of problems. We have to deal with it in the committee.

Mr. President, I move to table this amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, first, I think all 100 Senators would agree, both from the standpoint of our needs for the future as well as what we have done in the past, that we all recognize the legitimacy of the Federal Government stepping in to compensate with Federal unemployment help when State programs have run out. There is no dispute about that.

There is a dispute over when and how much, and the plan we are being offered now would be a plan that has been put in place at other times but under much higher rates of unemployment.

I hope we do not have higher rates of unemployment, but sometime down the road we will, hopefully not now during this period of time, and it seems to me we ought to keep reserve to do what we have other times in the past when we have had higher rates of unemployment than we have right now, as opposed to triggering in programs that do much more for the unemployed than we normally do at 6-percent unemployment, let's say, as opposed to 7-percent unemployment.

If we were to go the route that is being proposed, then we would be doing more than we normally do at this rate of unemployment we have now. Surely, the people who are proposing what they are proposing today, as all of us would probably do if there is a higher rate of unemployment, would expect the Congress to respond to that. It is not a question of should we respond; it is a question of a measured response and when it triggers in.

I am not condemning people who say we ought to do more today beyond what States do, but they are responding in a way that we would normally respond when the unemployment situation would be much more negative than it is right now.

I think it is wrong for my colleagues to speak about this recession being different than other recessions, for two reasons. No. 1, the definition of a recession is two quarters of negative growth. We had three quarters of negative growth but that negative growth ended September 30, 2001. So we have had five quarters now of growth, about 2\1/2\ percent average.

Economists are predicting the quarter we are in now for 2003 would be about 3-percent growth, so I do not think it is fair to say we are in recession unless we have a Senator who is making his own definition of a recession--and he has that right--but I think we should be comparing apples with apples and not apples with oranges.

The second point I make is even if we were just coming out of a recession instead of being five quarters out of a recession--an official recession as defined by economists--I think we all need to remember that historically unemployment as a statistic is a lagging indicator. So one would expect other indicators of an improving economy to improve before the unemployment figure improved. Consequently, this has to be taken into consideration as help is given to unemployed people.

It is quite obvious that a number of my Democratic colleagues seem to think we can never spend enough on unemployment. So I want to review where we are so the record is straight.

Under the regular State unemployment program, workers are entitled to as much as 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. Under the temporary federally funded unemployment program enacted last March, those who exhaust their regular State benefits can receive up to 13 weeks of additional Federal benefits. In addition, workers in high unemployment States can receive yet another additional 13 weeks. That is a maximum of 26 weeks of Federal benefits.

So to some, it works out this way: Workers in every State can collect up to 39 weeks of benefits, 26 of those being State and 13 Federal. Workers in higher unemployment States can collect up to a whole year of unemployment benefits, which means 26 weeks State, 26 weeks Federal.

Last year, this temporary program was estimated to cost $11 billion. We are still responding, as we should in a bipartisan way, to this unemployment statistic still being relatively high but not as high as it has historically been. Earlier this month, in addition to what we did last March, Congress voted to extend these Federal benefits through May of 2003. This extension is estimated to cost $7 billion more. That happens to be a total of $18 billion in federally funded unemployment benefits. According to some of my Democratic colleagues, that still seems not to be enough.

Through this amendment, I think they are trying to spend an additional $6 billion. The amendment they offered today would change the current law to provide 26 weeks of federally funded benefits in every State, and 33 weeks in high unemployment States. The last time Congress provided 33 weeks of benefits, the unemployment rate was well over 7 percent. That is why I made the point. If we do this, what are we going to do if unemployment gets up to 7 percent, which I do not think anybody expects it to but suppose it did? The current unemployment rate is 6 percent.

Now there is something even more troubling. What I have said until now has been done by Congress in the past during certain times of high unemployment. More disturbing to me, this amendment changes current law to provide a uniform duration of benefits. Most States vary the duration of benefits based on the worker's actual employment history. Variable duration recognizes the insurance principles inherent in unemployment compensation by providing a shorter duration for workers who had a limited amount of work prior to qualifying for the benefits. These workers have paid less unemployment taxes and they have less attachment to the workforce.

Congress has never provided extended benefits without regard to the duration of State benefits. That is a very dramatic departure that this amendment holds for the future. A uniform duration means some workers will be able to collect more Federal benefits than they would State benefits. Moreover, a uniform duration means some workers will actually be able to collect benefits for a longer period of time than they actually worked.

Current law requires a minimum of 20 weeks of work to qualify for Federal benefit. Yet this amendment provides up to 33 weeks of benefits. These 33 weeks of Federal benefits could be paid in addition to as much as 39 weeks of State benefits. That happens to be a total of 72 weeks of benefits for someone who maybe only worked 20 weeks. This amendment represents the single largest expansion of Federal unemployment benefits in the entire history.

That brings me to an issue of how, if this were a legitimate approach to unemployment compensation, this ought to be handled by committees of appropriate jurisdiction, not be offered on the floor of the Senate to an appropriations bill. I am speaking because that appropriate committee is the Senate Finance Committee. We have jurisdiction over unemployment compensation. A departure in Federal responsibility is very important to consider as a committee--its impact, its costs. More important, if we are going to have this sort of an impact that is so different from what States have historically had, it ought to be considered by the committee of appropriate jurisdiction. We are dealing with something that is other than just simple extension of unemployment compensation.

Now, we may need to revisit this issue later this year, depending upon how the economy performs. But when we do that, we need to do it in a way that we take into full consideration that this amendment represents an unprecedented and, at least at this point with 6 percent unemployment compared to more than 7\1/2\percent unemployment when it has been used in the past, an unjustified expansion of the unemployment program.

I urge my colleagues not to vote for this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to have submitted an amendment dealing with the Total Information Awareness Program at the DOD. Many of my colleagues may know about this program designed to test technologies that collect information from public and private databases and try to find trends that could signal threats against the United States. Like many people, I have been concerned that this program could be used to invade the privacy of Americans by snooping around in our bank accounts, personal internet computers, phone records, and the like. In November of last year, I asked the DOD Inspector General to look into the purposes of TIA and to make sure that there are appropriate controls in place to ensure that it is used only for foreign intelligence purposes to protect us against terrorism and foreign threats, but not on Americans or for domestic crime fighting. I am told that the IG investigation is proceeding, and that the IG has ordered a formal audit of TIA.

This amendment limits the use of the TIA funds appropriated by Congress to foreign intelligence purposes. DOD will be required to tell Congress what it is doing regarding TIA, and keep us in the loop on developments. It also provides that TIA can't be used on U.S. citizens once it is up and running.

But the amendment allows development of TIA to continue for foreign terrorism purposes. So it is a great compromise in that it allows the development of TIA to help track international terrorism, but protects against abuses that could violate the privacy of our own people. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

I commit to working together with those concerned to address this issue through the Finance Committee, which is the appropriate jurisdiction for resolution of this matter.

I look forward to working with the Senator and his staff on this issue.

Mr. President, is it my understanding we have about 9 minutes left on our side?

I ask unanimous consent to have 3 minutes added to that.

Mr. President, I have listened to a lot of debate yesterday and today on these subjects about the economy and about tax bills and things such as that. I want to address the tax bill as well. I think it is very legitimate for people to raise concerns about the deficit because I think a deficit is part of a measure of whether or not there is fiscal responsibility in Government. It is obviously not the only measure because you cannot have deficits and maybe still be fiscally irresponsible. I would like to hear from my colleagues who are concerned about deficits when they express these at times when we are talking about tax cuts. I have not seen that same concern about deficits when they want to spend more money. I think we ought to demand a certain amount of consistency from people who are worried about deficits; that they are equally concerned about them at the time we might be cutting taxes as well as when we are spending money. I bet before a week is out there will be--from the very same people who are concerned about tax cuts being too much right now and raising the deficit--dozens of amendments offered to spend more money on the appropriation bills for 2003.

There is another thing I would like to make some comment on, because I have heard several members, particularly on the other side of the aisle, make reference to the fact that certain wealthy people have said they don't need tax cuts. Don't cut my taxes; I don't need the tax cut. I think it is very altruistic for people to say those things and probably mean them. But one of the things I hope we will consider as we are working at cutting taxes--particularly marginal tax rates--deals with the issue of whether or not you are a corporate executive of a Fortune 500-type company that says you don't need it because that individual might say he doesn't need a tax cut, as opposed to 80 percent of the benefits from the tax cuts, cutting the marginal tax rates from 39.8, 2 years ago, eventually down to 35 percent--85 percent of those benefits go to small business.

It happens that small business is a class of people that create about 80 percent of the jobs in America. A lot of small business people regularly are investing in their own business to create more jobs, to expand their business and, in the process, living throughout their lifetime relatively modestly in order to expand their business and be successful. We are talking about a jobs bill and marginal rate cuts, 80 percent of which are going to small entrepreneurs to create jobs, which ought to be something we would separate from the CEO who may make a lot more money and doesn't need a tax cut.

I want to speak generally about taxes and some reference to the tax bill of 2 years ago that the President's proposals are going to be building on, because I was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee when that bill passed. I had a good working relationship with my colleague, Senator Baucus, in getting that bill to the floor and to the President.

On June 7, 2001, President Bush signed tax relief legislation. For the first time in a generation, every income tax paying American received much needed tax relief. Unfortunately, in the period since Americans first started to receive their rebate checks, the effect of this legislation has been distorted. The distortion comes in the form of often-repeated bogus criticisms of the tax cut. This repetition has created what I will call three myths of the tax cut.

The first myth is that the bipartisan tax relief was a partisan Republican product. The second is that the bipartisan tax relief package is the primary source of our current budget problems. The third myth is that the tax relief favored the wealthy over low and middle income taxpayers.

Compare the first myth against the record. Often we hear the phrase Republican tax cut or partisan tax cut. In fact, the tax cut was bipartisan. Twelve Democratic Senators voted for the conference report. Senator Jeffords also voted for the conference report. That's over one- fourth of the Democratic Caucus.

Let's take a look at the second myth. How many time have we heard in debate or seen written in the media the charge that the bipartisan tax relief caused the current and projected deficits. Cold hard numbers tell a different story. Cold hard numbers from the Congressional Budget Office, the Office

of Management and Budget, and private sector sources reveal the truth.

Here is what the numbers say. You can check it out on the CBO Web site. According to CBO, for the current fiscal year, the tax cut represents barely 8 percent of the total change in the budget since last year. For instance, for the same period, increased appropriations outranked the tax cut by $6 billion. So, spending above baseline, together with lower projected revenues, accounted for 92 percent of the change in the budget picture. Let me repeat that. Bipartisan tax relief was a minimal, 8 percent factor, in the change in the budget situation.

Over the long term, the tax cut accounts for 33 percent of the change in the budget picture.

There is a third myth about the tax relief package. According to this myth, the tax relief package was a tax cut only for the wealthiest Americans. Most often this myth comes in the form of a statistic. The statistic is that 40 percent of the benefits of the tax cut went to the top 1 percent of taypayers?

Where did the statistic come from? Did it come from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation? The answer is no. The statistic cited by the media and the Democratic Leadership critics comes from a liberal think tank.

Once again, facts can be ugly things for harsh critics of the bipartisan tax relief package. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official non-partisan scorekeeper, the tax code is more progressive with the tax relief package. Joint Tax, concludes that the bipartisan tax relief returns to taxpayers, on a progressive basis, a small portion of the record level of Federal taxes.

Joint Tax's analysis shows that the largest reduction in tax burden went to taxpayers in the lower and middle income brackets. For instance, taxpayers with incomes between $10,000 and $20,000, will see their taxes reduced by almost 14 percent when the tax cut is fully in effect. Taypayers with over $200,000 will see their taxes reduced by barely 6 percent. This analysis shows that the third myth, like the first two, does not stand up when compared to the facts.

It is understandable that the largest tax relief package in a generation would spark continuous opposition from those that prefer record levels of Federal taxation. That is a good political debate that should play out. The terms of the debate, however, should be based on facts, not myths.

Now, I raise this point because we are about to embark on a new effort at aiding the recovery of the economy. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I am open to all ideas, Republican and Democrat, aimed at boosting investment and consumer demand. The Finance Committee will begin to examine these proposals in our usual bipartisan manner. When we examine these proposals, however, we will use facts, not myths as our guide.

Now, let's look at some facts about the President's proposal. These are facts developed by the Treasury Department. These facts tell the story about who benefits from the President's proposal.

I have five examples, and then I will yield the floor.

Example No. 1: A married couple with one child making $40,000 gets a tax cut of $732. That is a tax bill of $2,235 goes down to $1,503. For that married couple with one child making $40,000, that is a 33-percent tax cut.

Example No. 2: A married couple with two children making $40,000 will get a cut of $1,133; in other words, a reduction of their $1,178 tax bill down to only $45, and that is a 96-percent tax cut.

Example No. 3: A married couple with two children making $20,000 more, $60,000, will get a tax cut of $900, a reduction, then, from $3,750 down to $2,850. That married couple with two children gets a 24- percent tax cut.

Example No. 4: A married couple with two children making $75,000 gets a tax cut of $1,122, and that is from a $5,817 present tax bill reduced to $4,695, and that is a 19-percent tax cut.

Example No. 5, the last example: A married couple, both age 65, making $40,000, of which $2,000 might be dividends and $15,000 Social Security benefits, will get a tax cut of $380--their tax bill down from $930 down to $550--or a 41-percent tax cut.

I ask everybody to stick to the facts, use the facts, let the facts speak for themselves, and I think we will have a more intellectually honest debate.

I yield the floor, and since I do not see any colleagues wanting recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

If my colleague would withhold his request, I would like to speak on this issue.

I appreciate the efforts of the two Senators from Pennsylvania to help these underfunded airline pension plans, particularly as it relates to a company that is very important to the economy of their State. We are also in a situation where, as far as I know, the House Ways and Means Committee has not acted on this issue and, consequently, even if the Senate were to pass it the measure would be subject to a blue slip, meaning, under the Constitution, a revenue measure needs to start in the House of Representatives. So if we took action, what would that do? It could not become law.

The legislation the Senator has introduced would create, as a matter of substance, perverse disincentives for all plans that paid premiums to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The bill would permit a single airline to avoid the pension funding rules in the Internal Revenue Code, while every responsible plan sponsor funds its own plans. We will need to deal with this particular problem when we deal with the rest of the funding rules and the pension interest rate problem because that is a very real problem and several times we have tried to address it, just not successfully through the whole process. So we get to a point that one set of rules for one company harms the nation's pension laws applicable to the remaining plans.

I respectfully suggest that something this important would--surely ought to be referred to the Finance Committee and that we should deal with it under the regular rules of the committee, but particularly we need a solution that would be nation-wide, not dealing with just one company. So I express opposition to this effort.

I might modify it just a little bit, but understand that I am making this statement not having had a chance to think deeply on it. But it would be in relationship to the extent to which there should be a hearing just on this one company as opposed to a hearing on the pension problem generally and in the larger context because I did voice in my statement to the Senate that it seems to me that we do have to look into this area, and we have to look at it as a pension problem in a much broader context than just one company. Obviously, in that context, I have absolutely no opposition to looking at the problem of one company. But I also think it ought to be looked into only in the context of the others because of the extent to which it might lead to other companies making the same request.

In the context of what I stated, the answer to that is, I would agree.

Mr. President, I am happy we were able to get an extension of unemployment compensation earlier today so there is a seamless flow of checks from December 28 through the period of our new legislation. If we had not completed it today, and hopefully in the House tomorrow and with the President's signature on Thursday, there would have been a lapse of those checks. We could have gone back and made up the difference but there still would have been a period of time that unemployed people would not get checks. I know there was a lot of concern on the other side of the aisle that we were trying to pass this too quickly. I am glad they backed down and allowed us to move ahead.

During the debate that took the form of reserving the right to object, there were a number of statements made about what they wanted to do. I take the opportunity to clarify the record of what my Democratic colleagues were really talking about. A number of colleagues have made the statement that the unemployment extension we passed earlier today leaves out a million workers.

Under the regular State unemployment program--and this is under longstanding law--workers are entitled to as much as 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. Under the temporary federally funded unemployment program that Congress passed last March, which we are continuing now, those who exhaust their State regular unemployment benefits can receive up to 13 weeks of additional benefits. In addition, the program we passed last March provided up to 13 weeks of yet more benefits in extremely high unemployment States. In those high unemployment States, that means a maximum of 26 weeks of Federal benefits on top of the usual 26 weeks of State benefits. I repeat, workers in every State can collect 39 weeks of benefits--26 weeks State, plus 13 weeks Federal. And workers in high unemployment States can collect 52 weeks of benefits--26 weeks of State benefits and 13 weeks Federal, plus an additional 13 weeks for unemployed people in the high unemployment States.

As we discussed, the bill we passed earlier today would allow more than 2 million workers to collect extended benefits through May of this year. According to some of my Democratic colleagues, that is not enough. They want to let workers who have collected 26 weeks of regular State benefits plus 13 weeks of federally funded benefits collect an additional 13 weeks of benefits, for a total of 52 weeks of benefits for everyone, every place, regardless of the unemployment rate of a particular State. In other words, the agreement we reached last March to provide up to 9 months of benefits in every State, and 12 months of benefits in high unemployment States, is no longer good enough as indicated by the debate of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle earlier this afternoon. They want 12 months of benefits for everyone in every State regardless of whether unemployment is going up or going down.

They claim extending last year's agreement leaves out a million workers. I respectfully disagree. Their proposal goes well beyond anything Congress has ever done. It provides 12 months of federally funded benefits to all workers in every State. While the national unemployment rate is higher than it was at this time last year, the unemployment rate in 20 States is now lower than it was a year ago.

Under current law, no one can receive more in federally funded benefits than they received in State benefits. In other words, those who collect 26 weeks of State benefits could also collect 26 weeks of federally funded benefits; but in those States that might have only 20 weeks of State benefits, then there would only be 20 weeks of federally funded benefits under current law. So there is a link between what we give in Federal benefits and State benefits. This link is designed to give States the ability to honor their unemployment program.

Although we have not seen the latest version, the Democratic proposal would break this link. By breaking the link, it would pay federally funded benefits without regard to the 26 week level of State benefits. This represents a very historic and unprecedented expansion of the unemployment program.

While we may need to revisit the issue of unemployment benefits later this year, it seems to me that we should carefully review this proposal before final action. In the meantime, we have had an opportunity to make sure that there is a seamless flow of checks from December 28, now, to those 750,000 unemployed people who would otherwise have had a lapse in receiving unemployment compensation, plus probably 2.5 million people connected with those respective families. And, for people on the other side of the aisle who think they have legitimacy and want to discuss these additional issues, the institution of the Senate is very prone towards hearing any idea that Senators want presented, having an environment or a forum for the presentation of that. So we probably will be forced to, and maybe ought to, review what the Democrats propose today. But we should not do it in an environment as we had today. If it had been adopted today, I am sure the House of Representatives would not have accepted it and, obviously, if we had gone to conference to work out the differences, no bill would have been presented to the President of the United States by Thursday--for his signature in time, then, to keep a seamless flow of unemployment checks.

So I am glad we were able to work this out. Obviously, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I have to be open to discussion of any issues dealing with unemployment. I look forward to those discussions but in an environment that does not stall the flow of checks for people who are deserving of them, and that is those people who would have otherwise been cut off on December 28.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I will again suggest the absence of a quorum, but I ask the time be evenly charged against each side.

I now suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the goal of the farm bill was to improve the economic condition of America's farmers over the next few years. However one of the many shortcomings of the new law is that it fails to protect family farmers and independent livestock producers from vertical integration in the livestock industry.

In recent years, family farmers from across Iowa have contacted me to express their fears about the threat they fell from concentration in the livestock industry. They fear that if the trend toward increased concentration continues, they may be unable to compete effectively and will not be able to get a fair price for their livestock in the marketplace.

The bill I am introducing would prevent meat packers from assuming complete control of the meat supply by preventing packers from owning livestock.

This bill would make it unlawful for a packer to own or feed livestock intended for slaughter. Single pack entities and packs too small to participate in the Mandatory Price Reporting program would be excluded from the limitation. In addition, farmer cooperatives in which the members own, feed, or control the livestock themselves would be exempt under this new bill.

We have tightened down the limitations in this new version of the packer ban. The last version provided an exemption to plants that killed less than 2 percent of the Nation's livestock, per commodity. That meant plants that killed less than 1.9 million pigs or approximately 725,000 cattle were excluded under the old version. We have changed the standard to be consistent with the Mandatory Price Reporting law and other legislation I've introduced. That means the new limit will be 125,000 for cattle and 100,000 for swine.

It's also important to realize that this is not the original version I co-sponsored with Senator Johnson. Instead, this is the version I successfully offered on the floor during the debate on the farm bill that removed the word ``control'' so that the packers couldn't attack us with a red-herring argument.

It's important for our colleagues to remember that family farmers ultimately derive their income from the agricultural marketplace, not the farm bill. Family farmers have unfortunately been in a position of weakness in selling their product to large processors and in buying their inputs from large suppliers.

Today, the position of the family has become weaker as consolidation in agribusiness has reached all time highs. Farmers have fewer buyers and suppliers than ever before. The result is an increasing loss of family farms and the smallest farm share of the consumer dollar in history.

One hundred years ago, this Nation reacted appropriately to citizen concerns about large, powerful companies by establishing rules constraining such businesses when they achieved a level of market power that harmed, or risked harming, the public interest, trade and commerce. The United State Congress enacted the first competition laws in the world to make commerce more free and fair. These competition laws include the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, Federal Trade Commission Act and Packers & Stockyards Act.

Since that time, many countries in the world have followed this U.S. example to constrain undue market power in their domestic economies.

Unfortunately, competition policy has been severely weakened in this country, especially in agriculture, due to Federal case law, underfunded enforcement, and unfounded reliance on efficiency claims. The result has been a significant degradation of the domestic agricultural market infrastructure. The current situation reflects a tremendous mis-allocation of resources across the food chain. Congress must strengthen competition policy within the farm sector to reclaim a properly operating marketplace.

While this legislation does not accomplish all that we need to do in this area, it's an important first step toward remedying the biggest problem facing farmers today, the problem of concentration.

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

There being no object, the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Mr. President, I rise today in support of extending the temporary extended unemployment compensation program.

In March of last year, Congress enacted the ``Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002.'' This Act created a temporary program to provide additional unemployment benefits to workers in every State.

Specifically, this program provided up to 13 weeks of federally funded employment benefits for workers who become unemployed and exhaust their regular State unemployment benefits. In addition, the program provided up to 13 weeks of additional benefits in high unemployment States--that's a maximum of 26 weeks.

When this extended benefit program was originally enacted last year, it was scheduled to expire at the end of 2002.

Unfortunately, the economy has not performed as well as we all hoped and the unemployment rate in many States continued to rise throughout last year.

As my colleagues may recall, the Senate agreed to a unanimous consent request last year to extend the deadline. Unfortunately, the 107th Congress adjourned before reaching a final agreement on the extension.

So, we are here again today seeking unanimous consent to extend the temporary extended unemployment compensation program.

This agreement which has been cosponsored by Senators Fitzgerald, Specter, Collins, Gregg, Nickles, and Clinton would provide a 5-month extension of the program through the end of May. This agreement has been reached in consultation with the House Leadership.

I believe a 5-month extension is an appropriate timeframe to see how the economy will perform this year, as well as give Congress the opportunity to consider further economic stimulus legislation.

Our goal should be make sure that everyone who wants a job gets a paycheck, instead of just an unemployment check.

I also believe it is important to point out that although the program expired last week, if we can get this measure through the House and onto the President's desk by Thursday, no one will miss a check.

Unemployment benefits are the bridges that help people get from one job to another. These benefits are not huge, but they're certainly better than nothing for those who are out of work and desperately looking for jobs. People have to put food on the table. They have to heat their homes. They have to buy their kids clothes, shoes and school supplies. Their needs are immediate, and they need immediate relief.

While Congress is approving unemployment benefits, we need to do everything in our power to create jobs. I don't mean just any jobs, but quality opportunities that pay enough income to sustain families and build careers. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the President on creating jobs. Americans are the world's greatest workforce. Folks need and deserve

to use their abilities and skills to the fullest.

According to the Department of Labor, more than 780,000 individuals were collecting extended benefits in mid-December. If we act now to extend this program, workers who qualified before December 28th will be able to continue receiving their weekly benefit check without interruption.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. President, the Fair Contracts for Growers Act of 2003 would simply give farmers a choice of venues to resolve disputes associated with agricultural contracts. This legislation would not prohibit arbitration. Instead, it would ensure that the decision to arbitrate is truly voluntary and that the rights and remedies provided for by our judicial system are not waived under coercion.

I certainly recognize that arbitration has its benefits. In certain cases, it can be less costly than other dispute settlement means. In certain other cases, it can remove some of the workload from our nation's overburdened court system. For these reasons, arbitration must be an option--but it should be no more than an option.

Mandatory arbitration clauses are used in a growing number of agricultural contracts between individual farmers and processors. These provisions limit a farmer's ability to resolve a dispute with the company, even when a violation of Federal and State law is suspected. Rather than having the option to pursue a claim in court, disputes are required to go through an arbitration process that puts the farmer

at a severe disadvantage. Such disputes often involve instances of discrimination, fraud, or negligent misrepresentation. Such disputes often involve instances of discrimination, fraud, or negligent misrepresentation. The effect of these violations for the individual farmer can be bankruptcy and financial ruin, and mandatory arbitration clauses make it impossible for farmers to seek redress in court.

When a farmer chooses arbitration, the farmer is waving rights to access to the courts and the constitutional right to a jury trial. Certain standardized court rules are also waived, such as the right to discovery. This is important because the farmer must prove his case, the company has the relevant information, and the farmer can not prevail unless he can compel disclosure of relevant information.

Examples of farmers' concerns that have gone unaddressed due to limitations on dispute resolution options include; mis-weighed animals, bad feed cases, wrongful termination of contracts, diseased swine or birds provided by the company, fraud and misrepresentation to induce a grower to enter a contract, and retaliation by companies against farmers who join producer associations.

During consideration of the Farm Bill, the Senate passed, by a vote of 64-31, the Feingold-Grassley amendment to give farmers a choice of venues to resolve disputes associated with agricultural contracts.

During the last session of Congress, 66 Senators cosponsored S. 1140, the Motor Vehicle Franchise Contract Arbitration Fairness Act of 2001, to provide similar protection from mandatory arbitration clauses in franchise agreements between auto dealers and manufacturers. This legislation was enacted at the end of the last session. It is my hope that we will be able to move this legislation in an equally efficient fashion.

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