Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 9:30 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a roundtable entitled ``Medicare Physician Payment Policy: Lessons from the Private Sector.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 10 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``The Law of the Sea Convention (Treaty Doc. 103 39): Perspectives from the U.S. Military.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``The Law of the Sea Convention (Treaty Doc. 103 39).''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, in room SD 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:15 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``New Tax Burdens on Tribal Self-Determination.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 14, 2012, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Curbing Waste and Fraud in Medicaid.''

Mr. President, first of all, I strongly oppose this amendment and urge my colleagues to vote to table it.

I would agree with the Senator from Kentucky that nobody who wins the lottery should get food assistance, and we outright ban it in this bill. We outright ban a number of areas where there has been waste, fraud, and abuse. This bill does more on accountability on food assistance than we have seen in many years. But it also doesn't do what this amendment does, which is block grant funding, cut it, send it back to the States with no requirement it be used for people who truly need it.

I can tell you, coming from Michigan, I have people who have never before in their lives needed help with food assistance. They are mortified; they have paid taxes their whole life and they have never asked for help, but now that the plant has closed, they need some temporary help. Those folks are, on average, getting help for 10 months or less, and they deserve every dollar we can help them with.

I want to make sure that every single dollar goes where it should go. Waste, fraud, and abuse we tackle. But for somebody in this great country who has paid their taxes all their lives and worked all their lives and now needs help to put food on the table for the balance of the month, they need to know we are going to provide a little bit of temporary help.

This amendment is outrageous and would go completely against the commitment we as a country have made to help those who truly need it. I urge we vote yes to table this amendment.

Would the leader be willing to yield for a question?

Thank you very much. To emphasize what the leader indicated earlier, isn't it true that while we are moving forward step by step--before we get a larger universal agreement--as he has said, the leader is open to work with me, Senator Roberts, and Members on both sides of the aisle to get a larger list in the range in which the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma has talked about and certainly a list which we would begin to move through?

But while we are doing that, rather than just biding time on the floor, this gives Members an opportunity to debate on issues they care deeply about and continue to move forward.

In fact, is it the leader's desire that we do this and that we are in the process of putting together that larger universe of amendments?

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

Madam President, first, let me thank all of our colleagues who are working with us as we move forward in putting together a package of amendments to be voted on here in the Senate. I want to thank everyone--of course my ranking member, Senator Roberts, but also people on both sides who are working together in good faith as we move through this process.

This morning, we did have two votes, and in the next little while we will have two more. And I do want to speak to one of those but also to just indicate again to all of our colleagues how important it is to farmers and ranchers, families, and rural communities across America that we come together and pass this farm bill.

Sixteen million people have jobs related to agriculture. I am not sure there is any one single piece of legislation we have had in front of us that actually impacted 16 million people like this one. Of course, we are very proud of the way we have come together in a bipartisan way to propose something that actually cuts the deficit by over $23 billion and creates real reforms that taxpayers and farmers have asked for, while strengthening our risk-management tools for agriculture, conservation, other jobs efforts, certainly rural development, alternative energy, and certainly our support for families with their own personal disaster when it comes to putting food on the table during an economic downturn for them.

I want to specifically take a moment, though, to speak and urge my colleagues to vote yes on a motion to table Coburn amendment No. 2353, which would repeal two of the most successful conservation programs in the history of our country, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which we all call EQIP, and the Conservation Stewardship Program.

EQIP is on the front lines of production agriculture, helping farmers comply with regulatory pressures, and it has been very effective. It is the cornerstone of our country's commitment to voluntary, incentive- based conservation--voluntary--working with farmers, working with ranchers in a voluntary way, to partner with them to be able to provide ways to tackle environmental issues we all care about.

I would underscore the fact that what we call the farm bill is actually the largest investment we as a country make in conservation of land, air, and water on working lands--lands that are owned by the private sector, partnering, because we all have a stake in runoff and clean water issues and erosion issues and all of the other things that relate to protecting our wildlife and our wetlands for not only habitats but also for our hunters and fishermen and all of the other issues around which we celebrate what we have been able to do around conservation in this country.

EQIP really is a cornerstone of our commitment to a voluntary incentive-based conservation program. It provides a cost share to farmers to implement practices that have been absolutely proven to work to benefit our country's soil, air, and water resources.

This last year the Environmental Quality Incentive Program entered into 38,000 contracts with farmers and ranchers all across America, covering 13 million acres of land. EQIP has a number of incredible stories across the country--in Louisiana, helping farmers recover from Hurricane Katrina; in Oklahoma, helping producers implement best management practices to reduce sediment in the Mission Creek, improving water quality, helping restore fish populations. In Michigan, they have helped farmers struggling with bovine TB protect their herds and livelihoods.

So this is one of two critical conservation programs that would be repealed by this amendment. The other one is the Conservation Stewardship Program. This encourages higher levels of conservation across agricultural operations as well as the adoption of new and emerging conservation practices. CSP encourages producers to address resource concerns by undertaking additional conservation activities and improving and maintaining their current activities. And they focus on seven resource concerns as well as energy--soil quality, soil erosion, water quality, water quantity, air quality, plant resources, and animal resources--all things important not only for our farmers and ranchers but to all of us--every community, every State, all of us in the country.

This program is extremely popular. It has been very successful. This year producers enrolled 12 million acres in the program, and this brings the total to 49 million acres across the country that now have conservation practices as a result of the CSP. It provides conservation bankers with more acres than any other conservation program in the country. I strongly urge we table this amendment. I ask for a ``yes'' vote in tabling the amendment.

I would like to talk a little bit more about what we have done in a positive way in the conservation title. One of the areas of this bill I am most proud of is the work that has been done with conservation and environmental groups all across the country--in fact, we have 643 conservation and environmental groups that have said this is the right approach.

In tough economic times, when we know we do not have additional dollars, we took a look at every single page, every single program. There are 23 different programs in conservation. Every time somebody had a good idea, a program got added rather than looking at duplication, redundancy, how we can streamline and make it better for farmers, communities, better for ranchers, make it simpler and more understandable. So we decided to go back and do what every taxpayer and every citizen has asked us to do; that is, streamline, make more accountability, cut the paperwork, make things work better.

We do support flexibility. We support locally led ground-up voluntary efforts.

We increase transparency and accountability, we streamline, consolidate programs, help farmers comply with regulatory pressures, and we basically have come together. We have taken 23 different programs down to 13 and put them in three different areas and created a lot of flexibility. We want to stretch the dollars even further in four areas: working lands, easements, conservation reserve programs, and regional partnerships, which are so important to so many of us.

All across the country family farms are passed down to children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Our rapidly growing population demands our farmers and ranchers double their production over the next few decades and use fewer acres to do it, so innovation in farming is absolutely critical. But no amount of technology can make up for degraded soil or polluted water.

The farm bill's conservation programs help our producers meet their challenges and the country's challenges, ensuring that we have a safe, abundant food supply, clean water, and thriving wildlife populations for many generations to come.

It is wonderful to see the partnerships that are going on all across Michigan, all across the country. Many farmers take advantage of these voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs. In our Great Lakes region alone--I would say not only Michigan but our Presiding Officer from Minnesota certainly cares as well. We championed together so many times on the Great Lakes initiative. But in the Great Lakes region alone farmers use one form of conservation on 95 percent of the acres. On 95 percent of the acres we have conservation going on.

As we look at streamlining from 23 to 13 programs, making them more flexible and so on, we actually have been able to achieve savings of $6 billion while maintaining conservation functions, and I would argue strengthening their effectiveness as well while cutting the dollars. Nationally, there are 357 million acres of cropland, 406 million acres of forest land, 119 million acres of pasture land, and 409 million acres of rangeland under private ownership in the United States. That is a lot of land, and all of that is impacted by what we do in the conservation title of the farm bill.

We also know the challenges my farmers face in Michigan are different than those in Kansas or Oklahoma or Minnesota or Montana. We have built in enough flexibility in this new title, modernizing it, reforming it, creating flexibility to be able to meet very different needs across the country. I will briefly go through each area. We are focusing, as I said, on four different areas.

Working lands, where we have two programs that are proposed to be eliminated right now, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which I spoke about, and CSP is in the working lands title. We also include the conservation innovation grants, which are geared to projects that offer new approaches to providing producers environmental and production benefits. Again, we look for ways to support efforts that have not been receiving ongoing funding through the past bill to be able to continue and have greater flexibility in a number of different programs.

One is critical, I believe, for America's sportsmen and sportswomen; that is, access to good recreational land. I know that is very important to my State of Michigan, very important to my family.

The Voluntary Public Access and Wildlife Incentives Program encourages farmers to open their land for recreational uses--hunting, fishing, bird-watching. Right now, 26 States are taking advantage of the program, and we continue that in the bill, which is very important.

Our second area is on easements. There are three existing conservation easement programs. We are putting them into one to protect our lands from development and keep them devoted to agricultural use as well as to keep the land for grazing. Wetland easements restore, protect, and enhance wetlands which are important to water quality, quantity, and wildlife habitat in many areas also.

We are focusing on long-term land protection. Over the last 20 years the Wetlands Reserve Program helped more than 11,000 private landowners voluntarily restore, protect, and enhance wetlands and wildlife habitat. So we are very pleased all of this is in the bill as well.

The Conservation Reserve Program has been very successful. From 2006 to 2010 the USDA estimates the Conservation Reserve Program was responsible for reducing 1.09 billion tons of sediment, 3.1 billion metric tons of nitrogen, and 613 million pounds of phosphorus from going into our waters--that is an accomplishment--from going into our Great Lakes, into our oceans, into our rivers, into our streams. These are the main contributors to many of the water quality issues we face as a country.

During the same time period, USDA estimates the Conservation Reserve Program contributed 284 million metric tons of greenhouse gas reduction. It is reducing CO2. I would say it is equivalent to taking 55 million cars off the road for a year. Coming from the car State, I appreciate CRP doing that. We want to be able to continue to drive our automobiles, and we are proud of what we are doing around automobiles, but can you imagine that this program alone has taken enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to equate to 55 million cars being taken off the roads?

As of 2011, CRP was enrolling just under the acreage cap of 32 million. Over the next couple of years, over 15 million acres are set to expire. We recognize not all of those will be reenrolled, but we want to make sure there is adequate room to reenroll the most sensitive acres.

As an example of the effectiveness of CRP, last year parts of Oklahoma--I have a special affinity for Oklahoma. My mother was born in Oklahoma. My grandparents' family has lived there all their lives. I am very familiar with that State. Parts of Oklahoma experienced drought worse than the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. But we did not see dust storms like the 1930s because the voluntary conservation efforts--of the CRP in particular--worked to reduce soil erosion and keep the soil where it was supposed to be, which is on the ground.

There are huge successes we have seen because our country has made an investment in protecting our precious land and water and air. We also have established a new program called the Regional Conservation Partnerships Program which consolidates four very effective regional partnerships into one. I am very pleased we have been able to do this. There is great significance for Members in all parts of the country. We consolidate the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative, the Agricultural Water Enhancement Program, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative, and the Great Lakes Water Erosion Sediment Program. This exemplifies many of the principles of this title.

We focus on conservation efforts that are locally led, that are voluntary, and we create more flexibility and transparency for reporting as well as making sure we have adequate resources. When we were talking to producers and a variety of partner organizations, nonprofits--again, hunters, fishermen, other organizations--they were very excited about this new regional partnership title as a section. We appreciate all of the input and the support we have received to be able to make this effective.

Let me just say in conclusion that we have a conservation title that is supported in terms of its approach by almost 650 different conservation and environmental groups all across America in every 1 of the 50 States. They have sent a strong message. They worked with us. They know times are tight. They knew we had to create savings, we had to reduce dollars, but we had to make sure we had enough flexibility to do the job people across our country want to see done in protecting our lands, our water, and our air.

This has been achieved with a tremendous amount of hard work on the part of many people. I am grateful for the work of our committee and many others. I appreciate our subcommittee chairman Michael Bennet, who has been deeply involved in this as well, and the Presiding Officer from Minnesota as well. We have many people who feel very strongly. Our chairman of the Finance Committee who was on the Senate floor earlier speaking about this is another true champion around conservation. There were so many people in our committee.

I could go on and on about this, and on both sides of the aisle I might add, but if I start naming people I will probably get in trouble for missing someone. But we have strong people, strong advocates on both sides of the aisle.

I thank everybody for their wonderful work on this conservation title. I think it is an example of the great work that has been done in putting the bill together. Again, I urge colleagues to vote yes to table the Coburn amendment and the additional amendment I will talk about at another point that will be coming before us, and continue to work with us as we bring together the path forward to completing this very important bill that affects 16 million American jobs.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in a short while--I think this afternoon--we will officially be back on consideration of what is dubbed the farm bill--the Agricultural Reform, Food, and Jobs Act. This is something we do every 5 years to secure the safest, most affordable, reliable food supply in the world. We are very proud of what our farmers and ranchers do.

The largest investment in land and water conservation we make as a country on working lands is made through the farm bill--protecting our Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay, and supporting farmers who have environmental challenges and managing those on their lands. So these are very important investments.

We also make important investments in nutrition for families who need temporary help, as many families certainly have during this economic downturn, and many other exciting opportunities that create jobs.

The Presiding Officer, I know, cares very deeply about manufacturing, as do I. One of the areas in which we are growing the economy is by making things, growing things, and bringing those together in something called bio-based manufacturing, which I will be talking more about as we proceed, but the idea is to use agricultural products to offset chemicals, to offset oil and plastics. This is an exciting new opportunity for us. We expand upon that through opportunities in what we call the farm bill.

The bottom line is this is a jobs bill. There are 16 million people at work in this country--and there are not too many bills that come to the floor that have the number 16 million--that are in some way related to agriculture and food production. It may be processing, it may be production, it may be in the sales end, but 16 million people work in this country because of agriculture in some way, and so it is important we get this right.

We also have a major trade surplus in this country coming from agriculture. So we are producing it here and then we are selling it overseas. I certainly wish to make sure we are focusing on exporting our products, not our jobs. The shining star of that is in agriculture, where we have seen just in the last few years a 270-percent increase in agricultural exports. So this is a big deal for us and it is part of why this is a jobs bill and very important.

We also know we need to reform agricultural production policies. This bill is very much about cutting subsidies as well as creating jobs. So what are we doing? We have taken the view in this farm bill where rather than focusing on protecting individual programs that have been with us a long time, we have focused on principles: What is it we need to do to have a strong economy, to support our farmers? Whether it is a weather disaster, such as we have had in Michigan, or whether it is a disaster in markets and prices, we don't want our farmers losing their farms because of a disaster beyond their control. We all have a stake in that. There is nothing more risky, in terms of a business, than agriculture, where one is at the whim of the weather and other market forces. So we want to make sure we are there.

We also know that for too long we have paid government money to folks who didn't need it for crops they didn't grow. We are not going to do that anymore. This is a huge reform in public policy, where we are moving to risk-based management. We are focusing on what we need to do to cut the deficit and strengthen and consolidate and save dollars but also provide risk management. In fact, in this bill, we are reducing the deficit by $23 billion.

We have not had the opportunity to have in front of us a bill on the floor that cuts the deficit, with strong bipartisan support around policies that make sense and that we agree to. This is an area where we have come forward. In fact, I am very proud of the fact our Agriculture Committees--in the fall, when the deficit reduction effort was going on--came forward with a House-Senate bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction. In fact, if every committee had done that, we would have gotten to where we needed to go.

I wish to thank my friend and ranking member Senator Roberts for his strong leadership, as well as the chairman and ranking member in the House for their joint efforts in that way.

But when that didn't happen, we decided we would keep our commitment to deficit reduction and move forward on policies that would achieve that and we have done that with $23 billion in cuts. We do that by repealing what is called direct payments that go to a farmer regardless of what is happening, whether it is good times or bad.

In fact, we replace four different farm subsidies with a strengthening of crop insurance and additional risk-management efforts when there is a loss by the individual farmer, at the county. We focus on loss. As I indicated, we will support farmers for what they plant.

We strengthen payment limits in terms of where we focus precious taxpayer dollars, and we also took a scalpel as we looked at every part of the USDA programs. We looked for duplication, what made sense, what was outdated, and we eliminated 100 different programs and authorizations within this farm bill policy. Again, I don't know many committees that have come forward with that kind of elimination.

That doesn't mean we are eliminating the functions, the critical areas of supporting farmers and ranchers or conservation or expanding jobs through renewable energy or our nutrition efforts or so on--farm credit, other beginning farmers, and all the efforts we are involved in. We are just doing it in a more streamlined way. We are cutting paperwork.

In rural development, which affects every single community, every town, every village, every county outside our urban areas, we want to make sure a part-time mayor can actually figure out rural development and use the supports that are there to start businesses, to focus on water and sewer infrastructure or roads, that it is actually simple and available and doable from their standpoint. We have spent our time working together to come up with something that makes sense for taxpayers, for consumers of food, for those who care deeply in every region of our country about how we support farmers and ranchers and for those who care very deeply about our land and water and air resources on working lands and how we can work together to actually do that.

We are moving forward now to the next phase on our farm bill consideration. Senator Roberts and I are working closely together to tee up some amendments--both Democratic and Republican amendments--so we can begin the process of voting. We know there is a lot of work to do. Colleagues have a lot of ideas. Certainly, some of those ideas I will support, some I will not support, but the process of the Senate is to come forward and offer ideas, debate them, and vote.

So we are working hard, hopefully to tee up some votes this afternoon or tomorrow that would give us the opportunity to move forward. We know there is a lot more work to do. We have a lot of ideas that colleagues have, and we will continue to negotiate moving forward on a final set of amendments. But we think it is important to get started.

I wish to thank all our colleagues who came together on the motion to proceed. It was extraordinary. After a strong bipartisan vote in committee, we are very appreciative of the fact our colleagues are willing to give us the opportunity to get this done with such a strong bipartisan vote on the motion to proceed.

Also, before relinquishing the floor, I notice my colleague from South Dakota is here, and I wish to personally thank him for his leadership on this bill, with extremely important provisions in the bill, both on risk coverage. The proposal to support farmers who have a loss came from a very important proposal Senator Thune and Senator Sherrod Brown put forward, along with other colleagues, which is the foundation of what we are doing to work with crop insurance to support farmers. Also, Senator Thune has been pivotal in a very important part of conservation that ties what we call the sodsaver amendment to the protection of prairie sod, prairie land, to crop insurance. If someone is breaking up the sod, there would be a penalty on the crop insurance side. So it is an important way of bringing together accountability and crop insurance and protecting our native sod. This is something, among many other things, Senator Thune has been involved in and shown real leadership.

As I said, this has been a strong bipartisan effort. Again, I thank my colleague from Kansas who has been a partner in this effort.

I look forward to having the opportunity to bring all our amendments to the floor and to give people the opportunity to move forward in good faith. It is going to be critical that we move forward in good faith so we can begin to debate, to vote, and to get this bill done.

All the policies we have talked about actually end on September 30 of this year, with very disastrous results for farmers and ranchers if we don't get this done. They need economic certainty. The 16 million who work because of agriculture are counting on us to get this done so they can make their

decisions on what they are going to plant and how their business is going to work.

I am proud of the effort so far, our coming together and having folks join in this wonderful bipartisan effort to get to work.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first I want to thank our leader for his strong support and helping us bring this to the floor. We would not be here without the Senator from Nevada, our leader. Frankly, there are many demands, many things on his plate and our plate in the Senate. He understands 16 million jobs are affected by what happens in agriculture in this country. So I thank Senator Reid for his willingness to support us and continue to support us as we move forward to get this bill done.

I also want to thank my partner and my ranking member, the Senator from Kansas, for his continued leadership as we move the bill forward. We would have liked to have begun the unanimous consent agreement to move forward on six different amendments, not the universe of amendments. Certainly, anyone could come down and say: Why isn't my amendment part of the first six?

We wanted to get started as we worked with colleagues to bring up other amendments. So we have put forward something that involves, first of all, a technical amendment we need to do for the bill, a perfecting amendment, and then two Democratic colleagues' amendments and three Republican colleagues' amendments, including the Senator from Kentucky who just entered the objection, an important debate that involves an amendment he is involved in.

So our first step was to try to do this around unanimous consent. But understanding that we do have an objection, Senator Reid has offered us another path to do this by creating a way for us to at least have the debate on two of the issues we had put forward in the six amendments before us.

One involves the Sugar Program for our country, and we have a number of Members who have different amendments. We have one that will be in front of us. It is an opportunity for everyone to say their piece. I can tell you as someone who represents a lot of sugar beets that I care very deeply about this issue and certainly support the Sugar Program. But it is an important debate to have, and Members deserve to be heard on all sides.

The other relates to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Many Members have feelings on all sides about this, and so we think it is an important debate to have to give people an opportunity to give their opinions.

I certainly, as this goes forward tomorrow, will be doing that myself and certainly feel very strongly that what we have done in the bill on accountability and transparency to make sure every dollar goes for families who need it is very important. But we want Members to have an opportunity to be able to debate what is important policy for our country.

As we are moving forward on both of these amendments tomorrow, we will also be working, our staffs and ourselves, to come together on a larger package, a universe of amendments to offer to the body of the Senate to be able to move forward so we can come up with a finite number of amendments that will allow us to complete the bill.

Many amendments have been offered. We are going to spend our time going through those just as we did in committee where we worked across the aisle. We had 100 amendments and whittled that down to a point where we could come forward with agreed-upon amendments. We are going to do the same thing. We are going to put together a universe of amendments to move forward on the bill.

But while we are doing that, we will have an opportunity--we invite Members who care particularly about either of the issues that will be voted on tomorrow--the leader will move forward with a motion to table on those, but we want everyone to have an opportunity to come to the floor and be able to be heard on both of those issues.

So we are moving forward. We would have liked to have done it with a larger group of amendments that we could have started with while we continue through. Our goal is to allow as much opportunity for discussion and debate as possible. But, frankly, I have to say, before yielding to my friend from Kansas, our goal ultimately is to pass this bill.

I mean we have 16 million people who are counting on moving forward wanting certainty. Our farmers and ranchers want to know what is coming for them as they are in the planting season, going into harvest season in the fall. They need economic certainty. We need to make sure we have a policy going forward that makes sense and is put in place before September 30 of this year when these policies run out and very serious ramifications to the budget take place.

Frankly, I think all of us have said at one time or another that we want to

see deficit reduction. I do not know of another bill that has come before this body with $23 billion in deficit reduction, bipartisan, and a number that was agreed to in the fall with the House and the Senate.

We have an opportunity to tell the people we represent in the country that we meant it when we said deficit reduction. We meant it when we said reform. We meant it when we said we were going to work together to get things done. We have been doing that with a wonderful bipartisan vote in committee, with a very strong vote to proceed to this bill last week, and we know the hard part is getting through it and coming up with the list of amendments we intend to do.

We are asking for our colleagues to work with us on behalf of the people of this country who have the safest, most affordable food supply in the world because of a group of folks called farmers and ranchers who have the biggest risk in the country and go out every day to work hard to make sure we have the national security and the food security we need for our country.

They are looking to us to get this done, along with children and families across this country. We will do that. We will begin that process between now and tomorrow with a debate on two important issues.

I see my distinguished colleague and friend here, the ranking member. I also thank another distinguished colleague, the Senator from Iowa, who has made very significant contributions in this legislation on reforms--reforms he has been fighting for for years. We have stepped up to back him up and support him. We need to get this done--these reforms--and get this bill done. We are going to work hard to make sure we do that.

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

Madam President, I know my colleague from New Hampshire wishes to speak, but for the purpose of Members' understanding, I would like to let everyone know what is happening now.

We do have two amendments that will be voted on tomorrow morning. The majority leader has at his disposal the ability to have a motion to table, which he will exercise in the morning. But we want anyone interested in either of these two topics or amendments to come forward with the opportunity to debate tonight. Senator Shaheen has an amendment that I know is very important to her and many other Members, and we want everyone to have the opportunity this evening to do that.

There will be a vote. I am not sure of the time exactly, but I would think at this point it will be in the morning. So we want those who are interested in debating the Sugar Program or debating the question of whether to block grant the nutrition program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, to come forward to discuss and debate that this evening. There may be some time in the morning, but we will be moving forward on both of these amendments. So we want to let them know that if these are topics they are interested in, we would certainly welcome them coming to the floor.

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

Mr. President, I will take a few moments to speak about the two amendments we will be voting on with motions to table tomorrow and urge that my colleagues, in fact, do vote to table these amendments. I appreciate we have colleagues on both sides of the aisle who care about both of them, but I ask, in the interest of a strong agricultural policy and nutrition policy, that we not support the amendments that are in front of us. But I do appreciate the fact that we are beginning to talk about issues and amendments. This is very important.

We have many amendments and ideas that Members want to bring up. We are going to do our level best, within the framework we have to deal with in terms of procedure, to be able to bring up as many different topics and have as much opportunity for people to debate as possible because we want to move forward on this very important bill that we all know would reduce the deficit by over $23 billion. It has major reforms. Yet it will strengthen agricultural policy--nutrition policy, conservation policy--and maintain and support 16 million jobs. That is why we are here.

I wish to take a moment to talk about our American sugar policy. We grow a lot of sugar beets in Michigan. Our first sugar policy goes back to 1789 in this country. I don't think either one of us was here. The Presiding Officer certainly was not here. Nobody was here. But in 1789 we began the first sugar policy. Our modern policy can be traced back to the Sugar Acts of 1934, 1937, and 1948. Sugar is not similar to other commodities. Both sugarcane and sugar beets must be processed soon after harvest--which is a key factor for them--using costly processing machinery.

If farmers need to scale back production because of a sudden drop in price,

the processing plant shuts down and may never reopen. Because this processing is so capital intensive, it is imperative we give producers a stable marketplace so they do not experience a constant boom and bust, which is what we would see without the stability of the program we have today.

The current U.S. sugar policy has been run at zero cost to taxpayers for the last 10 years. Let me just say this again--zero; zero cost to the American taxpayer for the last 10 years. This policy helps defend 142,000 American jobs and $20 billion in economic activity every year: zero cost, 142,000 jobs, $20 billion in economic activity every year.

Two things come to mind. Even with our sugar policy, the United States interestingly is the second largest net importer of sugar behind only Russia. This is important because our policy has been viewed as a protectionist policy. Yet we are still an importer. We import sugar, the second highest only to Russia. What we are talking about is allowing a stable marketplace for American producers.

The price of sugar for consumers is among the lowest in the developed world. Despite many debates to the contrary, in the European Union prices are 30 percent higher than in the United States. When we look at the retail prices for countries such as France, Finland, Japan, Norway, and so on, U.S. sugar prices are actually very low. Again, zero cost to the taxpayer, and we are maintaining a stable price for our sugar beet growers and protection for our sugar beet and sugarcane growers. We are creating jobs and, at the same time, this is where we fall, with the blue line being the USA.

I know there are colleagues on both sides of the aisle who care about this. I argue our sugar policy is one that makes sense. It has made sense for the last 10 years at zero cost. I hope we will vote to continue to support this policy, which is a very important part to many regions of the country, an important part of the bill that is in front of us. This policy is supported by a host of corporations, including the American Sugar Alliance, the International Sugar Trade Coalition. We have the support of our country's two largest agricultural trade organizations--the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union. It has made sense. It has zero cost, and I am hopeful colleagues tomorrow will support continuing this program.

Let me talk about another amendment now that goes to a lot of discussion on the floor and that goes to the nutrition parts, which is the majority of the bill that is in front of us.

All across the country the recession has devastated families. Certainly, I can speak for Michigan, where we have people who paid taxes all their lives, they have worked very hard, they continue to work very hard, and never thought in their wildest dreams they would need help putting food on their tables for their children. They have had to do that during this recession, in a temporary way, to help them get through what, for them, has been an incredibly difficult time.

We know the No. 1 way to address that is jobs. We want to make sure, in fact, we are creating jobs, supporting the private sector entrepreneurial spirit to bring back manufacturing, making things, growing things, creating jobs. But we also know, as this has been slow to turn around for many families, that we have Americans who have needed some temporary help. That is what SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is all about.

The amendment tomorrow that we will be voting on would turn this program into an entire block grant, making it much less effective in responding to needs--frankly, block granting and then cutting over half the current levels of support and funding needed to maintain help for those who are currently receiving SNAP benefits. Reductions at that level could exceed the total amount of supplemental nutrition help projected to go to families in 29 of our smallest States and territories over the next 10 years. It is extremely dramatic and makes absolutely no sense. I hope we will join together in rejecting this approach.

One of the strongest features of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is that, in fact, it can respond quickly when we have a recession or economic conditions that warrant it, when we have a nationwide recession, when we have a plant closure in a community. We have seen way too many of those, although we are now celebrating the fact that we have plants opening and retooling and expanding. But we have gone through some very tough times with plant closures where families have needed some temporary help. The important thing about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is that it is timely, it is targeted, and it is temporary. Approximately half of all of those new families who have needed help are getting help for 10 months or less, so this is actually a temporary program.

We have seen over the years that families receiving supplemental nutrition assistance are much more likely to be working families. This is important. We are talking about working families who are working one job or one, two, or three part-time jobs and trying to hold it together for their families while working for minimum wage. By about the second or third week of the month, there is no food on the table for the children. So being able to help families who are working hard every day to be able to have that temporary help has been life and death, I would suggest, for many families. This is actually a great American value to have something like this for families who need it.

According to the CBO--the Congressional Budget Office--we know the number of families receiving supplemental nutrition assistance is actually going to go down over the next 10 years. It is going to go down because we are seeing the unemployment rate go down, and it tracks the same. In fact, in this bill we build in savings over the life of the farm bill because it is projected that the costs are going to go down--not by some arbitrary cuts but by actually having it go down because the costs go down. When people go back to work, they don't need the temporary help anymore. There are savings in this bill by the fact that the costs are going down because the unemployment rate is going down, and that is the most significant thing.

Turning supplemental nutrition assistance into a block grant won't make the program more efficient or more effective. Instead, we are likely to see States shifting dollars out of SNAP to look at other budget priorities in very tough times. If it is a block grant, they are not required to use it for food to help families. We all know that States are under tremendous pressure on all sides, so it is not even clear--it wouldn't be accountable in terms of where those dollars are going in terms of food assistance.

It is also harder to fight fraud and abuse across State lines with this kind of approach. The Department of Agriculture has been working hard to accomplish this. We have already reduced trafficking by three- quarters, 75 percent, over the last 15 years, and we want to be able to continue to do that as well.

So we know that nutrition assistance is a lifeline to the families who need it, but let me conclude by saying that I also want to make sure every single dollar goes to the families who need it. That is why this reform bill, this bill that cuts $23 billion on the deficit, also focuses on waste, fraud, and abuse in the nutrition title because we want to make sure every dollar goes to those families. It is to ensure that every family and every child who needs help receives help, and we want to make sure that not one dollar is abused in that process.

So what do we have in the underlying bill? Well, we have had at least two cases in Michigan where we have had lottery winners who, amazingly, continue to get food assistance, which is outrageous. We stopped that, period. Lottery winners would immediately lose assistance. And hopefully we wouldn't have to say that, but the way it has been set up, we have to make that very clear. It would end misuse by college students who are actually able to afford food and are living at home with their parents. Students going to school are not those who would be the focus of getting food assistance help, so we would end the misuse by college students. We would cut down on trafficking. We don't want folks taking their food assistance card and getting cash or doing something else with it that is illegal. We prevent liquor and

tobacco stores from becoming retailers because we want people going into the grocery store or farmers market and being able to get healthy food with their dollars. We also deal with a gap in standards that has resulted in overpayment of benefits as it relates to States. So we deal with what has been an effort by some States to go beyond legislative intent, and we address that in a very strategic way.

The bottom line is that we are making sure we increase the integrity in the food assistance program. We increase the integrity and the accountability because we want every single dollar to go for help for those families who worked all their lives, paid taxes, and now find themselves in a place where the plant closed or where they lost their jobs and need some help on a temporary basis to put food on the table.

Let me just share one more time where the dollars go in terms of children and adults. Nearly half of those who are getting help right now are children; 47 percent of those who get food help are children. Then we have those who live with children, who are another 24 percent, senior citizens are 8 percent, and disabled people are another 9 percent. So the vast majority we are talking about are children, families, parents caring for children, the disabled, or seniors.

The amendment we will be voting on tomorrow is an extreme amendment that would take away temporary help for families and children who need it. Rather than taking that approach, we take the approach of accountability. So as we look one more time at accountability, we can see we are tightening all of the areas where there has been abuse. We want every dollar to go where it should go, but at the same time we don't want to forget the children or the families of this country who are counting on us.

We have several different kinds of programs that relate to disasters in the farm bill. We have one called crop insurance where if there is a weather disaster or price disaster, we want to be there. We don't want any farmer to lose the farm because there are a few days of bad weather or some other kind of disaster beyond their control. It is called crop insurance, and we strengthened risk management tools in this bill.

Well, there is another kind of disaster assistance in this bill, and that is for families across this country. It is for children, it is for seniors, and it is for the disabled. It is called the nutrition title, and that is why it is there in case of a family disaster. We have too many middle-class families who are asking for help now. They are grateful, didn't want to ask, and mortified they have to ask, but they are in a situation where they need temporary help, and that is why it is here.

The good news is that with the unemployment rate going down, the assistance is going down. The budget will be going down through the life of this farm bill and the costs will be going down because people are going back to work. That is the way it should be.

I would urge tomorrow that we vote against what I consider to be a very extreme amendment that would cut and block grant the nutrition program and vote instead to support what we have done to increase the accountability and integrity of our food assistance programs.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 12, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Tax Reform: Impact on U.S. Energy Policy.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Equality At Work: The Employment Non-Discrimination Act'' on June 12, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 12, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 12, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, today the Senate will vote to move forward on the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act, also known as the farm bill. I hope my colleagues will vote to join us and begin the debate officially on this important jobs bill because it is so important to 16 million people who get their jobs from agriculture.

Our economy has seen some tough times, as we all know. Certainly we know that in Michigan. But agriculture has been one of the really bright spots. It is an underpinning of our economic recovery, and we want to keep it that way. If we fail to pass a new farm bill before the current one expires in September, it would cause widespread uncertainty and result in job losses in a very important part of our economy that is critical to keeping our recovery going.

Agriculture is one of the only parts of the economy, if not the only part, that has a trade surplus--$42.5 billion in 2011--the highest annual surplus on record. We know that for every $1 billion in exports, 8,400 people are working. So this is a jobs bill.

Thanks to the farm bill, tonight American families will sit down around the kitchen table and enjoy the bounty of the world's safest, most abundant, and most affordable food supply. I think it is too easy for all of us to take that for granted. The men and women who work hard from sunrise to sunset every day to put that food on our tables deserve the economic certainty this bill provides.

The farm bill before us today makes major reforms. We are cutting subsidies. We are ending direct payments. We cut the deficit by over $23 billion. As my friend and ranking member has said, this is voluntary. This is a real cut, as my budget chairman would say, and it is more than double what was

recommended in the Simpson-Bowles Commission. So this is serious. This is real. And we in agriculture--the first authorizing committee to recommend real deficit reduction cuts--are serious about making sure we are doing our part and that the families and ranchers and people involved in agriculture are doing their part as well. They are willing to do that. We have to have economic certainty because we are talking about creating jobs all across America, in rural areas and in urban areas.

This farm bill gives farmers new export opportunities so they can find new global markets for their goods and create jobs. This farm bill helps family farmers sell locally. We are tripling support for farmers markets, which are growing all over this country, and new food hubs to connect farms with schools and other community-based organizations.

This farm bill provides training and mentoring and access to capital for new and beginning farmers to get their operations off the ground. The bill really is about the future of agriculture in our country. As I have said so many times, this is not your father's farm bill. This is about the future.

We had three young farmers visiting with Senator Roberts and me yesterday, and I can tell my colleagues they were so impressive--I feel very confident about the future--but they were saying loudly and clearly that we need to get this done now so they can plan for themselves and their families.

We are also for the first time offering new support and opportunities for our veterans who are coming home. The majority of those who have served us in such a brave and honorable way in Iraq and Afghanistan come from small towns all across America, and they are now coming home. Many of them want the opportunity to stay at home, to be able to go into farming, to be able to have their roots back in their communities. We are setting up new support in this farm bill to support our veterans coming home.

The farm bill supports America's growing biomanufacturing businesses, where companies use agricultural products instead of petroleum to manufacture products for consumers. I am so excited about this because in my State of Michigan, we make things and grow things, and biomanufacturing is about bringing that together. As we move through this bill, I look forward to talking more about that.

This bill moves beyond corn-based ethanol into the next generation of biofuels that use agricultural waste products and nonfood crops for energy. This bill provides a new, innovative way to support agricultural research--the men and women who every day fight back against pests and diseases that threaten our food supply--with a new public-private research foundation to stretch every dollar and get the most results.

We extend rural development with a new priority for those proposing to maximize Federal, State, local, and private investment so that smalltown mayors--such as those who came before our committee--across the country can actually understand and use the programs. We are simplifying it. We are going from 11 different definitions of ``rural'' down to 1 so that it is simple and clear and so that smalltown mayors and local officials have better tools to use to support their communities.

Finally, let me say one more time that this bill is a jobs bill. Sixteen million people work in this country because of agriculture. We are creating jobs. We are cutting subsidies. We are reducing our deficit by over $23 billion. I hope our colleagues will join with us this morning in a very strong vote to move forward on this bill.

Can the Chair announce the time remaining on both sides?

Let me first yield, if I might--I know Senator Nelson also wishes to speak--7 minutes, if that is appropriate, to our distinguished budget leader.

In introducing the Senator from North Dakota, I wish to say that we would not have the thoughtful approach on the alternative in the commodity title that we have today--we know we are going to be working more to strengthen that as we move through the process, but we would not have the strong risk-based approach we have without the senior Senator from North Dakota, our budget chairman. We also would not have the energy title we have that creates jobs without his amendment and his hard work. Frankly, this is somebody whom I looked to on every page of the farm bill because of his wonderful expertise.

I have to say one more time that I am going to personally and, as a Senator and chair of the committee, greatly miss him when he leaves at the end of the year. I think I may be locking the door so he can't leave.

So I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. President, before turning to the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, I want, one more time, to say what a pleasure it has been--and continues to be--to work with the senior Senator from Kansas. This has been a partnership effort. It has been a strong bipartisan effort. And I look forward to continuing to have that be the case as we move to get this bill done.

Now I wish to yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Nebraska. And I thank Senator Nelson for his strong advocacy for rural development, for helping us make these true reforms. He has been a strong advocate for the reforms in the commodity title, moving us to a risk-based system. He has been a strong advocate for crop insurance and for conservation, EQIP--things that are important, I know, to Nebraska.

This is also someone whom we are going to dearly miss on the committee and in the Senate at the end of the year. I think I may put the Senator from Nebraska and the Senator from North Dakota in a room together, lock the door, and not let them leave, because they are both so invaluable.

I yield to the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that time be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. President, as we bring this time to a close, I just once again wished to thank my ranking member and friend Senator Roberts. I wish to thank all the members of the committee. We had some tough negotiations. We had a strong bipartisan vote. As with any farm bill, there are still improvements we can make, and we are committed to doing that as we move forward.

But, overall, what we see before us is a true reform bill, cutting over $23 billion from the deficit, the first authorizing committee to do that, cutting or consolidating about 100 different authorizations or programs. That, frankly, is unheard of. We have done that while strengthening the farm safety net, moving to a risk-based system, strengthening conservation. I am very proud that we have 643 different conservation groups supporting this bill. All together, we are moving forward on a strong agriculture, reform, food and jobs bill.

I hope colleagues will join us in a very strong vote to proceed to this bill.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following detailees: Maureen James, Marcus Graham, and Kevin Norton, be granted floor privileges for the duration of the consideration of S. 3240, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act.

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

Mr. President, today we have before us the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012. It is more commonly known as the farm bill. It is critically important for America's farmers and ranchers. But it might also be known as the conservation bill, as the food bill, and, even better, the kitchen table bill because this bill affects every one of us.

The Agriculture Committee is different from most other committees in Congress. Our committee room does not have a raised dais. Instead, we sit around a table just like families across the country do and just like farmers and ranchers do after a long day of work in the fields. To write this farm bill, we sat down around our table and we talked to each other and we listened to each other and we worked in a bipartisan way to craft a bill that creates jobs while cutting subsidies and reducing the deficit.

The result of that effort is what is before us in the Senate. It is a bill that affects every family across the country. The farm bill makes it possible for many families to come together around their own kitchen tables to enjoy the bounty of the world's safest, most abundant, and most affordable food supply.

We are also aware, especially in this very tough economy, that many of our neighbors, many of our friends, many of our family members are struggling to put food on their own tables. The farm bill is critically important to those families as well. As we begin our debate in the Senate on the farm bill, let us remember the families all across the country who are counting on us to get this right.

I want my colleagues to also remember that the farm bill is a jobs bill--16 million jobs. Sixteen million jobs in this country rely on the continued strength of American agriculture. They are the people doing the work it takes to put the food on our kitchen tables, not just those on the farm but those who manufacture, sell farm equipment, the people who ship the crops from one place to another, the people who have the farmers markets and local food hubs, the people who work in food processing and crop protection and crop fertility, not to mention the researchers and the scientists who worked hard every day to fight pests and diseases that threaten our food supply.

Throughout this recession, as those 16 million people can attest, agriculture has been one of the truly bright spots in our economy. That is why we made such an important effort, such an important bipartisan effort in this farm bill to support beginning farmers as well. We are giving them additional support for training, mentoring, and outreach to ensure the success of our next generation of farmers.

In addition, we are giving opportunities for U.S. veterans who are interested in pursuing a career in agriculture, and we are creating a military veterans agricultural liaison within the Department of Agriculture to educate veterans about farming and connecting them with beginning farmer training programs. I would also remind my colleagues that for those who have served and are serving us in Iraq and Afghanistan, the majority of them--over half of them--are coming from small towns and rural communities and they are coming home. One of the ways to provide opportunities for jobs is to support them coming back to their community by having the opportunity to go into agriculture.

One of the brightest spots in agriculture has been in exports. This chart shows the incredible growth of agricultural exports over the last number of years. In fact, total agricultural exports in 2011 alone reached $136 billion. It is a 270-percent increase just in the last 10 years, an explosion, as we reach out. American agriculture is looked to and depended upon to feed the families of the world.

Our trade surplus is $42.5 billion. Let me repeat that. We have a significant trade surplus in agriculture. We cannot say that in much of any other place in our economy. But in agriculture we are growing it here at home. The jobs are here at home, and we are exporting it overseas, which is what I would like to see in every one of our industries. It is one of the few areas where we have that kind of success.

We know that for every $1 billion in agricultural exports, we are creating 8,400 American jobs--8,400 American jobs for every $1 billion in exports. The investments we make in market development, in access for our agricultural products overseas, will continue to create jobs here at home.

As we were writing the farm bill, we also did something that families all cross the country are doing during these very hard times. We went through everything we are spending, everything we are spending money on, and we looked at how we could do more for less. We literally went through every page of farm policy and agriculture spending through USDA. This bill represents major reforms that will allow us to focus fewer resources on the things that create jobs and make the biggest difference. In other words, we are refocusing. We are cutting the things that are not important and refocusing on the things that are and the things that create jobs.

The Agriculture Reform Food and Jobs Act is about cutting subsidies and creating jobs in America. The reforms in this bill start on page 1 with the repeal of direct payments, countercyclical payments, and the Average Crop Revenue Election, which has been called the ACRE Program.

We are creating a new approach, a new program that only helps farmers when there is a loss and only for crops they have actually planted, and we are strengthening payment limits. We are ending more than 100 programs and authorizations that are no longer needed, and we are doing all of this in order to be able to cut the deficit by $23 billion.

The most fundamental reform in the Agriculture Reform Food and Jobs Act is the shift away from direct payments

and toward risk management for farmers. Throughout this process, we have been focused on principles, not programs, and the No. 1 principle is risk management. So we are repealing direct payments. We know farmers face unique risks unlike those in other businesses.

Let me stress that again. I do not know of any business that has the same kind of risks in market volatility, in weather volatility than our farmers and ranchers do. It is very fortunate we still have people who want to stay in that business, given all the risks, weather and market conditions, which are out of producers' control. They can have devastating effects. We know that. But the current system focused around direct and countercyclical payments does not focus on actual risk and it is no longer defensible or sustainable.

In this current fiscal and political environment, these programs actually jeopardize our ability to have a real safety net for farmers and the jobs that depend on them. That is why we are eliminating those programs and instead strengthening crop insurance as the centerpiece of risk management in the farm bill.

This is the No. 1 issue we heard from every farmer who has testified before the committee, whether it was in Michigan or in Kansas or across the country. Every region of the country we have heard the same thing loudly and clearly.

The basic foundation of support for producers is crop insurance. We are expanding crop insurance in the bill to include specialty crops and others as well. Because while we know crop insurance is the foundation, it does not work the same. It is not available for every commodity. That is a commitment we have made to expand crop insurance, including specialty crops, which are essentially the kinds of crops we are likely to find in the produce aisle of our supermarket or at the local farmers market: nuts, vegetables, fruits, and other products.

This is an extremely diverse group of crops, and the bill recognizes the unique crop insurance needs of specialty crop growers. We are also taking strides to help young and beginning farmers get started and succeed in farming. We have made revisions to crop insurance to better help those new farmers by reducing their crop insurance premiums and providing additional support when disasters strike.

Supplement crop insurance. This bill creates a simple market-oriented and risk-based program we are calling ARC, Agricultural Risk Coverage. ARC represents a significant and historic reform in agriculture policy. For years, Congress has struggled to balance the needs of different commodities, different programs. This is solved with the new ARC Program, which uses the market as a guide and treats every commodity the same.

The current system essentially amounts to an income transfer from the Federal Treasury to only certain people, certain farmers, because payments are made every year without regard to whether the farmer had a successful year or whether the individual is farming. I say ``certain people'' because many farmers do not qualify for the help today as well.

Direct and countercyclical payments are made using what is called base acres. That is the current system to determine the payments. Base acres were set using what was planted on the farms back in 1980s. So these base acres have little relevance to what is actually happening on many farms today. This change is also very important for new farmers. We have told beginning farmers this is a very important way to support them.

Our ARC, on the other hand, the program we have developed in this bill, uses only the acres a farmer actually plants. It is able to adapt to free market forces and the decisions made being made on the farm without interference from those business decisions a farmer makes. We want the marketplace making the decisions, not the government.

ARC is market oriented. Farmers only get help when the market moves in the opposite direction from historic price trends farmers use to plan their business and make planning decisions. The payment amount is based on actual historic numbers from the marketplace, not from the Halls of Congress.

Finally, too many current program payments are being made to people who do not actually farm or already have large incomes. The farm bill fixes this. Under current law, we say farm payments can only go to people who are actively engaged in farming. This requirement contained a loophole, however, known as the management loophole that lets a farm operation designate managers who are not actually farming, but because they are listed as managers, they can still get a payment from the government, and it can allow them to get around the payment limits.

That does not make any sense. Thanks to Senator Grassley, Senator Tim Johnson, who has legislation in this area--and Senator Grassley is a member of our committee who has been such a champion on this issue--we have eliminated that loophole and made sure the payments are going to people who are actually farming.

This farm bill also reforms the adjusted gross income eligibility requirement, lowers it substantially, eliminating any payment to millionaires. Current law includes two AGI calculations, one for farm income, one for nonfarm income, which is confusing and difficult to administer. It may allow some people to split their income in a way that they are eligible for payments they otherwise would not be eligible for. We close this loophole. We use a single, simple AGI calculation and restrict the eligibility to those who have less than $750,000 in AGI.

Finally, the farm bill caps payments at $50,000, less than half of what a farmer can currently receive. Coupled with closing the management loophole, the farm bill contains the tightest and strongest payment limit reforms ever, while maintaining and strengthening the farm safety net for farmers who really need it. And this is very important. This is not about eliminating options, it is about focusing on those who have the most risk and have the most need.

In dairy, we also reform our Nation's dairy policies, replacing the dairy programs with new, market-oriented programs that allow farmers to manage their own risk in a manner that works best for them. The dairy industry suffered serious hardship in 2009, as many of us know--and certainly the Presiding Officer knows we in Michigan have the same thing--when milk prices dropped substantially, wiping out many small and medium-sized dairies. Despite spending $1.3 billion that year, our current dairy programs weren't able to help many of the farmers in crisis. In some cases, dairy farms that had been passed down from generation to generation went bankrupt and, sadly, some farmers even took their own lives.

Dairy operations across the country are extremely diverse, and the dairy policies we are setting in this bill recognize that diversity. We created programs that can be customized by each dairy, and we allow individual dairies to determine whether to participate in the programs at all. Two programs will now comprise the dairy risk management system: the Dairy Production Margin Protection Program and the Dairy Market Stabilization Program.

The first provides support based on margin--that is, the difference between the milk price and the feed input costs. This is important because rising grain prices, coupled with dropping milk prices, can have a devastating impact on America's dairies. Producers will have to share in the program's costs--and this is important--but it will allow them to manage their risk on more of their production at higher protection levels. We are providing a discounted premium for the first 4 million pounds of milk marketed for each producer--which is somewhere around 200 to 250 cows--to make sure that small and medium-sized operations will be able to participate and that all farms will be eligible.

The second program, the Market Stabilization Program, sends clear market signals to producers that indicate when they are oversupplying the market. Dairy is a unique commodity in that it is produced 365 days a year, cows must be milked daily, the raw product requires further handling and processing, and there are significant regional differences in management and marketing. By temporarily reducing a participating operation's payment for milk marketed by a small percentage when there is too much supply, the

margin program removes the incentive for dairies to overproduce during times of low margins. The program also includes a suspension trigger based on world prices that ensures U.S. dairies are competitive in the global market.

Conservation. Throughout this farm bill, we took the same approach as a family sitting around the table would when they are trying to figure out cuts in their own budget. We went through every program, again looked at what was working, what wasn't, looked for duplication and waste, and we focused on principles, not programs. An excellent example of that really is conservation.

Farming is measured in generations. Farms are passed down from children to grandchildren. But a farm can only be successful if it has quality soil and clean water. One of the farmers who testified before our committee told us that conservation programs which ``enhance and protect our natural resource base is a crop insurance program for the nation.'' I would agree. With a growing global population, it is even more important than ever that we conserve water and conserve soil resources. Advances in technology and farm practices have helped our farmers be more productive than ever before, but no amount of technology can overcome degraded soils, poor water quality, or a lack of water.

The farm bill is actually our Nation's single biggest investment in land and water conservation on private lands in our country. As we went through every program, we focused on making them more flexible and easier to use. We have been able to focus 23 different programs into 13. We have reduced it to 13 and put them in 4 primary functions, with a lot more flexibility for the users.

The first function is working lands--giving farmers and ranchers the tools they need to be better stewards of the land. The Environmental Quality Incentive Program--or EQIP--is one of the most important conservation programs for working lands, providing technical and financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and private forest owners to help them conserve soil and water. This function also includes the Conservation Stewardship Program, which encourages higher levels of conservation and the adoption of emerging conservation technologies.

We also continued the conservation innovation grants and the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, which allows private landowners to get added benefits from their lands by opening them up to hunting, fishing, bird watching, and other kinds of outdoor recreation. We made these programs more flexible--and this is very important--and we added a focus on wildlife habitats and made them easier for farmers to take advantage of.

The second area is the Conservation Reserve Program--very important. It removes highly erodible land from production to benefit soil and water quality as well as wildlife habitat. Parts of the Southwest-- certainly my friend and colleague from Kansas knows this--have experienced record droughts this year. It is stunning what has happened, and it is the worst since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. But the soil, while it was dry, stayed on the ground because the Conservation Reserve Program was a part of that change protecting the soil and air. Our conservation efforts are actually working, and we are seeing changes even in the worst of times as it relates to the droughts.

CRP has also been critical in our efforts to rebuild wildlife populations and to reduce pollution in our streams, our rivers, and our lakes. We also continued an important transition incentives program to help older farmers transition their land to beginning farmers.

Third, we focused on regional partnerships. We consolidated four different programs into one that will provide competitive, merit-based grants to regional partnerships comprised of conservation groups, universities, farmers, ranchers, and private landowners to support improvements to soil health, water quality and quantity, and wildlife habitat. That is certainly important to me for the Great Lakes--and I know the Presiding Officer cares about that as well--but it is also critical for the Chesapeake Bay. And I want to thank our colleagues from the bay area, certainly Senator Cardin and Senator Casey, who are on the committee, but also Senator Warner and Members all across the bay who have been deeply involved in making sure we get this right. It is also there for other critical areas around the country that have large-scale regional challenges around conservation.

Finally, I am really proud of the work that was done around easements. Easements allow landowners to voluntarily enter into an agreement to preserve wetlands and farmland to protect against development and sprawl. This year, funding for both the Wetlands Reserve Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program were was out. So we streamlined and consolidated to establish an easement program with a permanent baseline going forward to protect agricultural lands from development.

This bill also includes a bipartisan sodsaver provision, and I wish to thank Senators Thune, Johanns, and Sherrod Brown for bringing it forward, authoring it, and working with us. This provision helps prevent the plowing up of native prairie. Sodsaver is aimed at protecting grasslands at high risk of being converted to cropland. This is not only good for conservation, it saves taxpayers $200 million over 10 years, and it is tied to crop insurance.

I should also say that while the conservation title in the farm bill is a big win for conservation of our environment, I am proud to say we have continued to link the commodity title, which I described earlier, to conservation.

In crop insurance, the sodsaver program creates a penalty if, in fact, someone is plowing up native prairie. They would lose part of their discount under crop insurance if they did that. So it is tied there, and that is very important.

I am very proud of the fact that we received support for our approach from 643 different conservation and environmental groups in all 50 States. I think that says loudly and clearly that it is possible to make smart cuts that increase flexibility without sacrificing effectiveness.

Another area in which we have made significant strides is nutrition and healthy foods. For too long our Nation's farm bill ignored the diversity of agriculture and the kinds of healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, that families in America want to put on their kitchen tables as well. We made significant progress on this front in the 2008 farm bill, with the first-ever specialty crops title, and we have continued the progress in the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act.

As I said earlier, as I go to every part of Michigan, I meet people who have worked all their lives, paid taxes, and never imagined they would be put in a position where they would need help putting food on the table for their families. Because of this recession, which has been way too long in Michigan--it is getting better, but we have been hit harder, deeper, and longer than anywhere--a lot of families have had to ask for temporary help. And when they need it, whether it is food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which used to be called food stamps and is now called SNAP, or whether it is help from a food bank, those families are grateful, and we should be there when they need that temporary help.

We all expect those programs to have integrity. And as someone whose State has been hit harder than anyone else's, I want to make absolutely sure these programs are in place for families who need it, and that means making absolutely sure every dollar goes to only the families who need it. That is why we are closing loopholes that allowed lottery winners--and, unbelievably, we have had at least two instances of this in Michigan, where someone won the lottery and was able to continue on food assistance. It is shameful that so many American children go to bed hungry at night and outrageous that people who have won millions of dollars in the lottery would be able to continue food assistance. So we made it absolutely clear that those individuals would be removed from SNAP immediately.

We are also cracking down on the trafficking of food assistance benefits. Right now, thanks to the efforts of the last farm bill, fraud is at an alltime low, but we can do even more. We are

giving additional resources to monitor and prevent benefit trafficking, as well as cracking down on liquor and tobacco stores that are currently allowed to participate in the program.

We are making sure that only people returning to school for career and technical training are eligible for food assistance, not college students who are currently at home or being supported by their parents.

Again, with so many families and so many children in need, we can't afford to divert funds in a way that just shouldn't be there.

We must also ensure that the standards Congress created for SNAP are followed by the States. We are eliminating a gap in standards that has allowed 16 States, including Michigan, to give just $1 to people in the form of energy assistance to help them automatically qualify for additional SNAP benefits. We know families in parts of the country with high energy bills are often those who are most food insecure, and that is why we created the link between food assistance and LIHEAP. But it is clear Congress never intended for State governments to use this in a way that could jeopardize additional assistance for families with the highest utility bills.

Just like with commodity programs, we need to make sure the work we are doing has integrity and is defensible in our current budget climate, and we do this in a very careful way to make sure we do not inadvertently hurt families who truly do have significant energy costs.

In addition to increasing accountability, we are building on the success of programs that reduce hunger and improve access to healthy fruits and vegetables. We increase assistance for food banks through the Emergency Food Assistance Program. In 2010 more than 5 million people visited a food bank, and as we recover from this recession, it is absolutely critical that these organizations have food in stock to help those in need.

We are streamlining the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides food to low-income individuals, to focus on seniors, and we are moving women and children into the WIC Program, where they can be better served.

We are continuing the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, which was authored originally by Senator Harkin when he was chairing the committee, and I was very proud to work with him on that. It provides free and healthy snacks to schools with a high number of low-income children, and it has been incredibly successful.

This bill triples our support for farmers markets and gives them resources to develop local infrastructure such as food hubs. And we are continuing an effort to give low-income seniors access to healthy fruits and vegetables at farmers markets and roadside stands.

We are increasing funding for innovative projects such as community gardens and urban greenhouse initiatives and protecting funding for programs that improve people's health.

I should say that all of these are done with small amounts of dollars, but they are very effective.

We are creating a national pilot modeled after Michigan's successful Double Up Food Bucks, which gives families relying on SNAP the opportunity to truly be able to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for their families. We are also authorizing the Healthy Food Financing Initiative to offer loans and grants to help address the problem of food deserts in underserved communities.

We increased funding for several organic programs, which, by the way, is the fastest growing segment of American agriculture. We increased support for organic research and extension, and we nearly doubled funding for the organic cost-share program that supports farmers.

This farm bill is a jobs bill, but it is also a food bill, and the 2012 farm bill goes a long way toward making sure every mom and dad can put healthy, nutritious food on the table for their children.

As we worked through the farm bill around our table in the Agriculture Committee, we focused on streamlining and consolidating programs to get the best possible results. I think that is what people want us to do. I certainly know that is what people in Michigan want us to do. We certainly see that in conservation, but we also approached this in every part of the farm bill.

In farm credit and rural development, we are streamlining the existing laws, removing unused provisions, and making authorizations more effective and the administration more effective so that when we have a part-time mayor who is trying to figure out rural development programs, they can actually do it and they actually use what have been extremely effective programs for rural communities.

In our research title, we eliminated dozens of unused or indefensible authorizations but continued the most important research components and functions, while streamlining operations, improving accountability in the use of Federal research funds, and creating an innovative, new research foundation that matches private dollars and leverages Federal research dollars to get more innovative food and agricultural research. And I wish to thank my friend from Kansas, Senator Roberts, for his important leadership in this as well.

We funded important energy programs, invested in specialty crops and organic farming, as I mentioned, and we have done all of this while saving the Federal taxpayers $23 billion. We did it around our table in the ag room, in a bipartisan fashion, working out differences and arriving at real solutions.

In the coming days, as we get to debate on the farm bill, we will talk more about specifics, and I will join my colleagues from the committee in further explaining various aspects of the bill, and we will continue to work with all of our colleagues to find additional solutions and to improve the bill so that our farm programs work best for all of our regions and all of our States.

While I will do everything I can to work out issues with our colleagues, I wish to stress the important balance we have struck in a bipartisan effort, the reforms we have undertaken, and the work we put into making real reforms without hurting families and without hurting farmers, who are so important to our economic recovery.

I am very proud of the work we have been able to accomplish--it has been a lot of hard work--and the way we saved American taxpayers $23 billion through these reforms. I would encourage colleagues to look closely at the work we have done in the bill, to find a way to support it, to help us send a strong message to all Americans that this Congress, this Senate can make tough, smart decisions that cut spending, invest in America, and that we can do it together.

Speaking of doing it together, I could not have done this without my friend and my partner, Senator Roberts, the ranking member from Kansas. This has been a long and difficult process, but frankly there is nobody I would rather have had sitting across the table from me as we worked out this bill. Too many people look at Washington and only see dysfunction and partisanship and divisiveness. Yet we on the Agriculture Committee have found a way to work together for the good of the country, for 16 million people who depend on agriculture for their livelihood. That couldn't have happened without Senator Roberts' leadership and support, and I thank him as we move forward on this bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, let me say thank you to the champion. We have just been hearing from the champion, not only in the Senate but in the Congress, on so many issues that have led to empowerment for women and equality for all people to have a chance to succeed in our economy. Certainly, whether it is preventive health for women or the Paycheck Fairness Act, I thank Senator Mikulski for leading the way and being the person we look to. I am proud to stand with Senator Mikulski on the floor of the Senate.

Since our founding, our country has been a destination for those who seek equal treatment and equal opportunity. Across the world, America is known as the land of opportunity. I am very proud we have that label. Our hard work and ingenuity built the country, brick by brick, city by city. My home State of Michigan was right in the middle of it-- building the tools, the vehicles that built our country and that, frankly, built the middle class of our country. Those looking for new opportunity, those with entrepreneurial spirit have always been welcome here in America.

People still make the journey to this country in search of a better life. We tell the world that everyone has equal opportunity, that if they put in just as much hard work as their neighbor, they will earn a decent living and be able to provide for their family. But that is only half true. Everyone can work hard, everyone can be successful, but for some reason it is acceptable that women do not need to be paid as much as men for the exact same work. This is unacceptable. That is what this legislation is all about.

Nationally, women make 77 cents for every $1 a man makes for the exact same job. In Michigan, the numbers are even worse. Women make 74 cents on every $1 for the exact same job. I received countless letters from constituents describing how this affects their lives and their families' lives. Teresa from Detroit is a single mom with two daughters. One daughter is in college. Teresa tries to help her out as much as she can, but she gets paid less than her male coworkers for doing the same work so it is tough.

Pamela from Romulus, MI, is the sole breadwinner in her house, supporting her husband who is a disabled Vietnam veteran and their children. She works at a corporation and took over a man's job. Then the company changed the title so they could pay her less.

Craig from Lowell wrote in to tell me his story. By the way, this is a common story in Michigan over the last number of years. He lost his job in 2008 because of the recession. His wife had to support their entire family of four. The family had to go on food assistance, something they never thought in their wildest dreams they would have to do because Craig's wife has been working at the same company for 23 years but has not gotten a raise in the last 4 years and makes several dollars an hour less than her male counterparts.

Melissa from Ann Arbor is the sole breadwinner in a family of four. She figured out if she were paid the same as her male colleagues, she would take home an extra $1,000 a month after taxes. She said that $1,000 would make her family more stable and let Melissa and her husband take her children on trips, give them new opportunities, allow them to be enrolled in sports and save for retirement--that extra $1000 a month.

Cheryl from Okemos has had to take a second job just to make as much as her male counterparts at her day job, and it has cut down on how much time she can spend with her family. She has a second job just so she can make as much as her colleagues who work one job--she has two jobs. The tradeoff for her is as a mom spending less time with her family. She is able to feed and clothe their children, but she says she is missing out on watching them grow up--also a very important value we talk about all the time on the floor of the Senate, in terms of values for families.

Linda from South Lyon wrote about her lifetime of being discriminated against just because she is a woman. Over her career she has consistently made less than men in the same industry with the same job description. One executive even told her he only hires women because they work harder and he can pay them less. They work harder, but he should not be able to pay them less.

Sandra from Marshall has worked as an engineer at the same company for 28 years. She has been rated as one of the company's best performers. Despite this, she has never risen to the level where she earns bonuses and a better pension--a level in her company that is dominated by men. She has countless people she has hired and trained and watched them pass her by. These stories are real.

Jennifer, from the west side of Michigan, is a university teacher and athletic coach. She was the head coach of a varsity women's team and taught six classes. She saw men in the same position make more money while they taught fewer classes. She watched them receive tenure with master's degrees while she was required to work toward a Ph.D. to be eligible for the

same tenure. She was denied tenure despite good performance evaluations. Yet a male assistant coach at the university was given tenure without a Ph.D. because he had a family. These are real stories.

This is about families, economic opportunities, and security for families. America is known as the land of opportunity, and people still make the journey to our great country in search of a better life. Everyone has an equal chance to work hard and everyone can be successful, but not everyone gets the same opportunity to be successful.

Women in Michigan make 74 cents for every dollar a man earns for the exact same job. There are so many families in Michigan struggling right now. It should not be harder on them just because the primary breadwinners are women. It is just not right.

Middle-class families need economic security, and that is why we need the Paycheck Fairness Act. We have made strides to move forward. This is not complicated. It is not rocket science. It is very simple. This is about equal pay for equal work. We talk the talk all the time. It is time to walk the walk and to pass this bill.

Mr. President, before speaking about moving forward on the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, I want to thank our leader. I also want to thank Senator Mikulski. Together we have brought forward the issue of equal pay for equal work, and we intend to focus on that until we make this truly the law of the land.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to allow us to proceed to the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, commonly known as the farm bill. I first want to thank my friend, colleague, and partner as we moved through the committee process, Senator Roberts. It has been terrific working with my ranking member and his staff. We worked in a truly bipartisan way. I think that is reflected in the fact that this bill came out of committee with a strong bipartisan vote of 16 Members and only 5 dissenting. We are looking forward to working with all of our colleagues on the floor of the Senate to have this same kind of strong bipartisan vote as we move through the process in the Senate.

There are 16 million people in this country who have a job that relies on the strength of American agriculture. The farm bill is a jobs bill. Over the last few years when our Nation's economy has seen some very rough times, agriculture has been one of the few bright spots. In fact, in Michigan, during our toughest times in manufacturing, agriculture was growing five times faster than any other part of our economy. Agriculture is one of the only parts of the economy with a trade surplus. I think it is, in fact, our No. 1 trade surplus with $42.5 billion in trade surplus.

We are growing it here, we are processing it here, developing it here, selling it overseas, but the jobs are here. This farm bill is all about keeping it that way. Last year our farmers exported $136 billion worth of goods, which is a 270-percent increase in the last 10 years. This is about jobs, and we want to continue our leadership not only in this country but internationally in agriculture through this important bill.

We also know our country is facing serious deficits. Last August the Senate passed the Budget Control Act by a vote of 74 to 26. That law created a deficit reduction committee, which we called the supercommittee. They set out a process to find significant savings, and I am very proud of the fact that the Agriculture Committee came together in the House and the Senate. The chairman and the ranking member in the House--along with me and the ranking member in the Senate--did some very tough negotiating and made tough decisions, worked long hours, and came up with a detailed deficit reduction plan. I wish we had that same kind of opportunity with every committee.

Unfortunately, in the end, the Agriculture Committee was the only committee that did that. We did our part, and we believe the work we did in the fall helped to not only build relationships that are important to allow us to work together, but also set up a foundation from which we have written what we call the farm bill, or the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act.

We have built into this bill a real deficit reduction of $23 billion. Let me emphasize that the Agriculture Committee passed a bipartisan bill that strengthens the economy and cuts the Federal deficit. This $23 billion is roughly 2 percent of what the Budget Control Act put in place in terms of sequestration next January of $1.2 trillion. We are roughly 2 percent of Federal outlays. In those efforts are agriculture production, conservation, and nutrition through the UFDA.

The UFDA is roughly 2 percent of Federal outlays. We are taking responsibility for 2 percent of the cuts, and this is more than is actually required in the Budget Control Act, and it is double what was recommended in Simpson-Bowles and the Gang of 6.

So agriculture is doing its fair share, and we are doing it in a responsible way that focuses on reform and strengthening those efforts to make sure we have a strong agricultural economy, strong conservation practices, and support for jobs through energy and other important nutrition efforts.

We end direct payments. That means no more paying farmers for crops they don't grow and no more payments for farmers when they are already doing very well. In fact, the biggest savings in the bill comes from eliminating direct payments and consolidating three other commodity subsidy programs. America's farmers know in order to lower the deficit we all need to do our fair share. Agriculture has stepped up and is willing to do that.

We also make sure millionaires no longer get payments from commodity programs. We tightened payment limits to half of what farmers currently are able to receive. We closed what is known as the managers' loophole that lets people get farm payments when they are not farming. Instead, we support a strong safety net based on crop insurance and risk.

If someone has a risk, if they have a loss, then it is critically important we stand with American agriculture. We have the safest and most affordable food supply in the world, and it is critically important that we have the risk management tools available for our Nation's farmers.

We heard over and over when Senator Roberts was in Michigan--and I am grateful he joined me. I was pleased to have joined him in Kansas. We heard the same issues in our hearings in DC and around the country that crop insurance was the most important tool for our producers.

Nobody wants to see a family farm--some passed down from generation to generation--go out of business because of a few days of bad weather or because of other changes in the markets beyond their control. I cannot think of a more high-risk venture, frankly, than agriculture.

This year in my State when it got very warm in February and March, the cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, peaches, and grapevines all thought it was spring and the blossoms came out. Then when the freeze and the snow came, we were literally wiped out of tart and sweet cherries, apples, peaches, and grapes. Everything across the board was devastated. I can't think of any other business that has to go through that kind of risk other than farmers.

So we put in place a strengthened program so more specialty crops and more fruit and vegetable growers can get access to crop insurance. We have new capacity to support expanded risk tools. We substituted that with a market-oriented, risk-based approach that

supports farmers in the bad times; so they will not get a government check in the good times but in the bad times when we need to make sure our farmers can survive and thrive.

This bill does not set a government price. It focuses on what is happening in the marketplace. The farmers are choosing what to plant from the market. We make sure no farmer goes off the cliff when a price drops immediately, and that crop insurance is there for them as well. Independent economists have said this is a fair system that is equitable to all regions and all commodities.

We have a very diverse country. We know we have colleagues that still have concerns, and we are certainly working with them to fine-tune this bill, but we also know moving to a risk-based system treats all regions fairly. It is the kind of reform people across the country, including taxpayers, are asking us to do.

This bill is much more than just a bill related to production agriculture--as important as production agriculture is. I am very proud of what we have been able to do on conservation. We have gone through every program, streamlined them, and increased flexibility. We have done what families and farmers across the country are doing, analyzing and stretching every dollar.

Frankly, we have a conservation title that does more with less. We have taken 23 programs, consolidated them into 13, and put them into four different areas with a lot of flexibility. We are maintaining our conservation tools and strengthening key priorities. There are certain areas that did not have any funding when this farm bill ends on September 30. We have been able to combine that into a larger effort, and we are now able to continue and strengthen conservation. That is why we have heard from 643 conservation groups in all 50 States that support the approach we have taken in this bill. We continue the important work done in the farm bill around nutrition and helping families who are most in need.

I have heard from so many people in Michigan in the last few years, with the huge recession we have gone through, who never imagined in their lives they would need help putting food on the table. They paid taxes all their lives and never thought they would have to ask somebody to help them and their children get through the month but are now in that situation. I am committed to making sure every single dollar goes to people who need it.

We are cracking down on trafficking. We have had at least two situations in Michigan where lottery winners somehow maintained food assistance. Obviously, that is crazy, and so that will not happen anymore under this bill.

Students who live at home with their parents and have been able to go through the loopholes to get food help, it is not right. That is not where it is intended. We address that as well. We have tightened a number of areas on accountability. We know there are areas where we can make sure there is accountability, there is transparency and, in fact, families in need know they can help feed their children during these tough economic times.

We are also recognizing the diversity of agriculture in America by strengthening support for fruits and vegetables and other specialty crops. We are making sure we are getting those healthy foods into schools, supporting organic farmers, farmers' markets, and food hubs locally. By the way, that also creates jobs.

We are continuing our work on energy and helping farmers save money on their bills while getting America off of foreign oil. We are opening opportunities for new innovative companies involved in biomanufacturing. This is an exciting area for me as we look at how we make and grow things in this country and bring those two together. I think that is why we have a middle class in America--because we make and grow things.

Biomanufacturing is the process of taking raw materials from agricultural products, whether it is soybean oil, corn byproducts, wheat husk, biomass materials, and using them to create products and replace chemicals and petroleum in plastics, for example, with biodegradable bio-based products, which is very important for our future in so many ways. That is what the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act is all about.

As we go further in this debate, I will have much more to say about all of the specifics in the titles. But let me just end with this before turning to my friend to speak.

The current farm bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act--the current farm bill expires this September 30, when farmers are getting ready for the harvest. If Congress cannot come together in a bipartisan way, as we did in the Agriculture Committee and as we did in the fall with the agricultural leaders, and pass this bill before then, it will create tremendous uncertainty and job losses in communities all across America, and it will have a serious impact on our economic recovery. I hope our colleagues will work with us, will join with us to make sure that does not happen.

We have received broad support for this legislation from 125 farm groups, healthy food groups, and other stakeholders. I am very grateful to 45 of our colleagues who, on a bipartisan basis in a letter to leadership, urged that this bill be taken up. It is clear there is broad support in Congress and across the country for the farm bill. So I urge my colleagues to let us begin the debate on this important jobs bill that affects 16 million people across this country.

Thank you.

I will use 7 minutes or so.

I thank the Senator.

Madam President, first let me thank the chairman of the Budget Committee, who I have to say is going to be sorely missed. In fact, I am not sure we are going to let him go. I think we are going to lock the doors to his office and not let him leave. He has been such an incredible valued Member of the Senate and a leader for our country on these issues.

It is absolutely true that what we are really debating is whether we go back to policies that put us in the huge deficit ditch in which we find ourselves or whether we continue to go forward as a country. We need to keep going forward and going forward even more quickly certainly. But in my State, we are seeing us begin to move forward, with manufacturing coming back and innovation opportunities, and we need to continue to push for that.

But let me stress as well what the chairman has said. We passed the Budget Control Act by 74 votes in the Senate--74 votes, a bipartisan vote--on August 2, 2011. It put in place the spending caps the chairman talked about. It laid out something that, frankly, in my time since being here starting in 2001, has been done differently and, frankly, has a stronger basis for it because instead of just having something passed by the House and the Senate, it was actually signed by the President. It is law. It has the force of law, and it is in a situation where it has even more impact than it would normally.

So, yes, we did not do the normal process. What we did was one better than the normal process, which is the Budget Control Act. It did pass. It did put in place the spending caps and set up, as you know, a deficit reduction commission and a requirement on cuts that will take place in January.

It is also true that what we do not have is a long-term plan. As the chairman has talked about over and over again, we have to come together on a long-term deficit reduction plan. So we agree on that. There are many people who have talked about that, worked on various proposals. The President has lead negotiations. Members in this body have. And certainly the chairman of the committee has continued to lead those efforts. And we need to get that done. But in terms of what we have on a budget resolution that puts in place limits or caps, that has been done.

Now, when we look at what is in front of us and the votes we are going to be having today, it is very simple in terms of values. The question is, Are you on the side of the middle class or on the side of millionaires in this country?

You know, folks in my State, the middle class, feel as though the system has been pretty much rigged against them. All they want is a fair shot. We have families in Michigan struggling to make ends meet, and they are struggling to send their kids to college. Over and over again, they look at what is going on here and scratch their heads. And why in the world would we continue to focus on things that help a privileged few, those who have had the most benefits in the last decade? Why do we continue to see policies like these budgets that, in fact, focus on more tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and ask middle-class families to sacrifice more and more? They shake their heads and say: What is going on here? You guys just do not get it, what is happening to the majority of families.

And what we are seeing once again is that rather than focusing on jobs and bringing the economy back on track, bringing jobs back to the United States, strengthening our ability to make things and grow things in this country, which has to happen if we are going to have a middle class and have an economy, what we see our colleagues on the other side of the aisle do is wanting to double student loan rates

and eliminate Medicare as we know it in order to give another round of tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. That makes absolutely no sense.

Instead of spending our time passing jobs bills that we need to pass, by the way, including the farm bill, which affects 16 million people in this country when we talk about rural communities and agriculture and food processing and all of our efforts on food policy across the country, instead of doing that, they want to spend their time focusing on something that will give more tax breaks to millionaires and ask middle-class families one more time--just one more time--to sacrifice.

Folks in my State are saying we have had enough of this. What we ought to be doing is our to-do list--stopping outsourcing and rewarding companies that bring jobs home; helping responsible homeowners refinance and take advantage of today's lower interest rates; cutting taxes for small businesses that are creating jobs and investing in their companies; continuing critical investments in clean energy manufacturing for the future; passing a farm bill for 16 million Americans whose jobs rely on agriculture and our rural economy; and we should focus on helping our veterans coming home from the war find good-paying jobs, thanking them for their service.

We have a lot to do. Instead, we are in the same old failed debate that got us in the hole, that got us to the situation where there was a crisis on Wall Street, that got us to the point where we lost millions and millions of jobs in the past. Are we going to go backward or forward? That is the question.

Right now, what are the differences when we look at the four different Republican plans? They are very similar. Here are three basic things that are the same. They all end Medicare as an insurance plan and increase costs by thousands of dollars for seniors in our country, which puts them back in a plan that is before 1964, where seniors would have to try to find private insurance. Of course, as we get older, we all spend more health care dollars; we need more health care, so costs will be higher. It is tougher for older people to find affordable insurance. That is why we created Medicare in 1965. They want to go back prior to that time.

Second, they allow student loan rates to double. All the plans would double the cost of that. I don't know about anybody else, but in Michigan, where we are transforming the economy and going to advanced manufacturing and new technology, we have folks in their forties and fifties going back to school, and we have young people going to college. They are not asking for more expense. The average student debt in Michigan is about $25,000. They are not asking to add to that anymore. All four of these proposals would do that--double the student loan interest rate.

By the way, these are loans where people are taking out the money, and they are responsible and they are paying it back. But they are asking for help to make sure they can afford to be able to have those loans, so they can dream big dreams and go to college and be successful. I thought that is what our country was all about. When I was growing up in the little town of Clare--my dad was sick when I was in high school--if I hadn't had help with tuition and fees and scholarship and loans, I would not have been able to go to college. The great thing about our country is that a red-headed, freckled-face girl in Clare, who folks didn't know--folks somewhere decided that maybe I ought to have a chance to go to college. Because of that, I have had tremendous opportunities in my life. We have a lot of young men and women working hard every day who deserve the same opportunity. People who lost a job and are going back to get training deserve the same opportunity.

All four of these plans end Medicare as an insurance plan, increase by thousands of dollars costs to seniors, double student loan rates, and all of it is to make sure that we give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. I know at least one or more of these plans adds $150,000, I believe, in average tax cuts. That is more than the average person in Michigan makes in a year--or the average person in America. We are saying to seniors, families, and students that we want you to pay more so we can give another tax cut to the folks who have already gotten the majority of the benefits in the last 10 years economically.

Let me stress one more time before ending, I think this goes to the values represented in these budgets. Do we want to say that retirees and older people in our country have the opportunity to live long lives? Social Security and Medicare are great American success stories. They literally brought a generation out of poverty to live in dignity, like my mom, who is almost 86, to a place where she is healthy and can play with her grandkids because she had the opportunity to be in a system called Medicare, and will be able to live longer. Those are good things, good values, not bad values.

All four of these budgets--the Paul budget would end Medicare in 2014; the Lee budget would end it in 2017; the Ryan budget in 2023; and the Toomey budget in 2023. I cannot imagine that Americans want to go back to that system where seniors cannot count on the ability to have their doctor and get their medicine and have the dignity of a long and healthy life.

Madam President, I urge our colleagues to vote no on every one of these resolutions which go backwards, and support our efforts to keep America going forward and focus on those things that will make our economic recovery even faster.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to congratulate the U.S. Department of Agriculture on 150 years of service to the people of America.

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln created the Bureau of Agriculture and with it, America's commitment to an abundant supply of food and fiber. Lincoln grew up on a farm, and he understood the long hours of hard work that men and women like his parents spent working the land. Farming in those days was a very different proposition--much of the work was done by hand or animal labor. He rightly called it the People's Department because 90 percent of Americans at the time worked, like his folks, on farms.

Lincoln created the USDA at a time of great change in agriculture. Machinery was being introduced that lessened the workload and made farming more efficient. Families were heading westward and expanding the frontier. It was only 5 days later that Lincoln signed another important law that would have a dramatic effect on the future of agriculture in this country: the Homestead Act. That same year, Lincoln would also sign the law creating the Transcontinental Railroad, as well as the Land Grant Colleges Act, which has special meaning for me as a Michigan State University graduate.

But here is the most amazing thing: he did all of this during some of the worst fighting of the Civil War.

When he put pen to paper to create the Bureau of Agriculture, there had already been more than 100,000 casualties in the Civil War. He created all of these institutions that would have a lasting impact on this great Nation at a time when many people wondered how long this Nation could survive.

Mr. President, 150 years ago, in his address to Congress, Lincoln said, ``Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us in honor or dishonor to the last generation.''

President Lincoln rose to the challenge. He saved the Union, and he created lasting institutions that are still with us and making a difference today.

If he could do all that in the middle of the Civil War, with enemy troops camped just across the river, what challenge can't we face today?

In the Agriculture Committee, we came together last month to pass, with an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, or the farm bill. This is a bill we pass every 5 years to renew America's agriculture policy and to continue the important work of the Department of Agriculture.

It is critical that we pass the farm bill before the current bill expires in September. We passed a very strong

bill out of committee, with real reforms that cut the deficit by $23 billion, and we did it in a bipartisan way.

We evaluated every program, eliminated duplication, and streamlined programs to save taxpayers money while getting better results on the ground, and we did it in a bipartisan way.

Change is never easy, but we came together because the farm bill is so important to the 16 million men and women whose jobs rely on American agriculture. They work hard every day producing the most affordable, healthy, and abundant supply of food, fiber, and energy in the world.

President Lincoln understood how important our food supply is--it feeds the Nation and can be the difference in times of war. The leadership and innovation of those 16 million Americans have made our Nation the world's leader in agriculture. With an ever-growing global population, our farmers are truly feeding the world. It is critical for our national security that we pass this farm bill to continue our leadership.

It has been 150 years since President Lincoln created America's commitment to agriculture, and we have come a long way since then. We have been through floods and famines, dust bowls and depressions. But we have also seen great advances as we have learned to overcome these challenges with better risk management, conservation practices, and a commitment to fighting hunger.

Passing the farm bill will continue this great American success story.

The 150th anniversary of USDA's creation is a great time to celebrate farmers and rural communities. It is also a strong reminder that we here in Congress need to do our jobs too and pass the farm bill soon. Our country's future depends on it.

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

Mr. President, I rise to express deep concern on behalf of families and students all across Michigan who are very upset at the vote earlier today where we did not get enough votes--the supermajority needed to be able to get beyond the filibuster that is going on on the floor by colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and therefore we can't actually get to the vote on the bill that would lower or maintain the lower student loan interest rates for students all across America and certainly in Michigan.

We know what will happen July 1 if we can't get beyond this. We actually have a majority of Members, 53 Members. I am very proud that all of our Members on this side of the aisle voted, in fact, to support the effort to maintain the low student loan interest rate. We didn't have the supermajority because it takes bipartisan votes to be able to get there and overcome the filibuster on the other side of the aisle. But we have enough votes, and we just want to vote. We have enough votes to be able to pass this bill, the Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act. We have enough votes, and we just need to have the opportunity to be able to vote.

What does this mean for middle-class families and students in Michigan and all across the country? We are at a time when middle-class families are struggling to make ends meet and no more so than in Michigan, where we have gone through the deepest recession for the last decade of anyplace in the country. We need to be making college more affordable for Michigan students and students across America and their parents, not less affordable. We ought to be doing what will actually add to what we have done to support lower interest rates, more access to student loans, not taking that away, which is what is happening right now on the floor of the Senate because of the filibuster.

Higher education costs are already rising. Michigan students are graduating with mountains of student debt while high school graduates are being priced out of the opportunity to be able to go to college. In fact, the average Michigan student is graduating with over $25,000 in student debt. That is a heck of a place to start when you come out of college and you are looking for a job and trying to get started in a professional life or trying to continue your professional life and at the same time support your family. That is a lot of money. And we should not be adding to that, because we are talking about additional debt on top of that $25,000 average if, in fact, we can't pass this bill.

We have right now more than 300,000 Michigan students--those who have borrowed money because they believe in themselves, they believe in the future, and they want to get the skills and the degrees they need to be able to go into the workplace, to be successful for themselves and their families--300,000 students who are going to see their Stafford student loan interest rate double if we don't pass this bill.

We need a sense of urgency, like every single family feels right now that finds themselves burdened by loans. They made the decision, and we have been supportive of that, making loans available and lowering the interest rate over the last several years so more people can go to college and be able to get the skills they need and be able to be successful in the workplace. We should be continuing to support that and doing even more to help them lower the cost, not allowing the student loan interest rate to double come July 1.

Folks in Michigan are scratching their heads right now. Let me share stories I have received. I have received a lot of input, a lot of stories from people not only throughout today but before today, but certainly folks who watched the vote this afternoon are horrified at what this means personally to them, for their children or for their families. We have received a number of e-mails to our office, and I am very thankful to people who are sharing their stories. I would like to share just a few of them on the floor of the Senate.

Liz from Traverse City wrote:

PLEASE, please don't let them raise the interest rates on

student loans. I have two sons at MSU and I'm a single mom. I

work a full time and 2 part-time jobs and they work, and

without the Federal loans they wouldn't be able to go to

college--even with the full MET I worked on all their lives.

So she put money into a Michigan program to be able to save money and put money aside. But this is somebody who is working one job and two part-time jobs on top of her full-time job, and her sons are working, and they still have student loans to be able to piece it together to be able to go to college.

She said:

Please help--our 3 person family is working very hard to

get through school.

And I would suggest that they are. And, Liz, thank you for caring about your sons and working as hard as you are working.

We need to make sure we don't add costs to Liz and her two sons in July. On top of everything they are doing to be able to create an opportunity for those two sons to be able to go to college, to be able to have a better life and a future for themselves, we shouldn't be adding costs to them.

Lars from Ann Arbor wrote:

As a student at the University of Michigan, I find it hard

to keep up with current events, but I try in earnest, and

this is an issue that affects me more than most others

at this time. I'm footing the bill for my college education

largely myself, as my mother and father--a high school art

teacher and GM retiree, respectively--do what they can to

help in the short term. I'd like you to work on behalf of

keeping the interest rates lower.

So Lars is going to the University of Michigan--a great university-- and he is footing most of his college bill himself. His mom, a teacher, and his dad, a GM retiree, are doing what they can to help, but he has to have student loans. Why on Earth would we be adding to his costs come July when he is working very hard, with the support of his family, to be able to create a great life with a great education from a great university?

Kasondra from Grand Blanc wrote:

I am not what they consider a `typical' student. I am a

single mom of two obtaining my bachelor's degree in Social

Work. As a student and as a mother, I am attempting to lift

myself and my family out of poverty by doing the right thing,

getting a college education. While it has been tough and

there are days I wished I could give up, I am pursuing my

dream, and I will be graduating with honors in one year. If

the rate increase happens, I cannot afford paying back my

student loans while raising two children. Please, do not

let the interest rate expire on July 1.

Kasondra, congratulations for all you are doing as a single mom of two, as you said, lifting your family out of poverty. We in Michigan are a tough bunch. We don't give up. But I know how hard it can be trying to hold it all together during these times, and I want to thank you for doing that. And you are absolutely right, it would really be outrageous to see the interest rate on your loans when you are graduating next year with honors--congratulations for that. But to be able to know that you are going to at least have the interest rate on your loans continue as they have been I know would be a relief and a help to you.

Angelica from Ypsilanti wrote:

My name is Angelica, I am a 40 year old mother of three who

has returned to school to finally get my degree. I have

recently been accepted at Eastern Michigan University and am

starting classes in June. Without affordable student loans I

would not be able to attend school. I want to make a positive

difference. Getting my degree will give me and my family a

better standard of living and get out of the terrible cycle

of poverty. This bill is critical to making the dream of

higher education a reality for Americans and ensuring our

workforce is prepared to compete in a 21st century global

economy.

Angelica, again, congratulations. As a mom of three, 40 years old, making the decision to go back to school, getting accepted, creating a plan for how you are going to be able to use student loans and be able to hold it all together financially as you are moving forward, it is really outrageous to think that there is a filibuster going on right now to stop us from voting on something that would help you.

We have the votes. This is not about whether we have the votes to maintain the low interest rate. We have the votes. We are being blocked procedurally from getting to the vote, and that is something that is very hard for me to understand.

Michael in Mount Pleasant wrote:

I am a student at Central Michigan University studying

Information Technology and I am also putting myself through

school by whatever means possible. The amount of student loan

debt I will have to pay after a 4-year degree casts a looming

shadow. We are always taught to look toward the future and to

jump at any opportunity that presents itself as an

opportunity to better oneself. We as students are now looking

at a future filled with uncertainty. Please do whatever it

takes to do what you know is right, and save our future from

an impending financial defeat.

Well, Michael, again working very hard, has a path, knows what he wants to do, puts a plan in place, like most students and most families, to figure out how he is going to be able to pay it both now in terms of the costs and paying back the student loans. And if we can't get a vote on this bill, we are pulling the rug out from under Michael.

Jennifer in Michigan wrote:

For me, it means I'll be very unlikely to finish grad

school. We say the US (especially Michigan) needs to invest

in technology, yet they want to do things like this that will

result in an uneducated society.

Jennifer, I am with you. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, at a time when we know we have to outeducate and outinnovate to be able to outcompete in a global economy. Doing things that add costs for middle-class families, working families, to add costs for loans? You are bearing the brunt. You are getting a loan. You are believing in yourself and your future. We ought to be doing everything we can to support that, not adding more costs.

That is unfortunately what will happen if we cannot get beyond this filibuster on the floor of the Senate, to have a real vote, a final vote. We have the votes. We are just being blocked from getting to the vote by the procedures of the Senate.

Kathryn in Michigan:

When I heard the interest for student loans is going to

double, my heart sank. How is this even possible? My daughter

is 21 years old, a psychology major at Western Michigan

University.

That is another great university in Michigan.

I am so very proud of her as any parent would be. With

interest rates set to double, how can these students possibly

even begin to think of paying these loans back? All this does

is discourage kids from going to college at all and once

again only the privileged will be allowed to succeed. Please

once again we need your help. There has to be a light at the

end of this dark tunnel for these kids and for our nation.

``There has to be a light at the end of this dark tunnel for these kids and for our nation.'' I could not agree more. We have to make sure the light they see is not from an oncoming train. We have to make sure the light they see is actually their way through the tunnel of debt that comes with college loans, and out into a future that is brighter for themselves, for their families. That is the hope, that is the promise of college education.

We have a responsibility to make sure we are doing everything possible to support the hopes and dreams, the hard work, the sacrifice that is going on in college after college, in home after home, where people are making tough decisions in order to give their kids a brighter future.

I was proud to help author the legislation in 2007 that cut the interest rate to where it is now, 3.4 percent. I was pleased to help lead the effort as well to reform the student loan program and expand college access. Those were good things to do--not bad things, good things. People have benefited. Three hundred thousand people in Michigan right now have benefited from that opportunity, the commitment we made to support young people, people going back to college, to have a brighter future through a college education.

Now is not the time to turn that around. The Stop The Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act is commonsense legislation. It does not add a dime to the deficit. It is fully paid for. It is something that needs to get done now so that there is certainty for families across Michigan and across the country. Education really is the road to opportunity in this great country and Michigan is home to world-class universities and community colleges. They are conducting cutting-edge high-tech research to help transform the economy. Our schools serve to open doors and create opportunities for thousands and thousands of graduates every year.

I am always honored when I have the opportunity to speak at a graduation, as I have done this year, and to see the pride and relief on the faces of students who have worked so hard--and their parents, their pride and the commitment they make to their children. I know how that feels as a parent sitting in the audience as your kids graduate and walk across that stage with their diploma.

This is ingrained in us as Americans. It is the foundation of who we are, to create an opportunity for people to go to school K 12 and then be able to have a chance to go on to college so they can have the best shot at success. That is what we have had as a foundation in terms of our values as a country. This is not the time to turn it back. We need to be making it easier, not harder, for students to achieve a college education which greatly improves their chances of getting a good-paying job and being successful in life.

We are at a moment where we had a vote today where it was very clear we have enough votes to pass this bill, to make sure that student loan rates do not double. We have enough votes to pass it. We just do not have support from across the aisle, we do not have the bipartisan votes we need to get to a supermajority to stop the filibuster. That is what is going on right now. We

need to vote. Folks do not have to agree with it. They can vote no on the final bill. Let us vote. On behalf of the people we represent, let us vote on the bill. On behalf of 300,000 students and their families in Michigan, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of others who are looking for the opportunity to go to college, to be able to work hard and take all the risks that come with that to be able to have a better life, I ask we simply allow a vote. Let us vote on this bill.

It is time to get on and let people know we get it, we understand what families are going through, we understand the squeeze middle-class families are going through on every front right now, and we will make sure that access to college, a higher education, is not just there for the wealthy and connected but that it is available to everybody because we are a stronger country because of that.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.