Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am pleased to join the distinguished Senator from Illinois, Mr. Kirk, in submitting a resolution celebrating the 50th anniversary of Loyola University of Chicago's historic season as National Collegiate Athletics Association men's basketball champions. The season is also remembered for the historic matchup with Mississippi State University in the NCAA Tournament, which helped end racial segregation in college athletics.

The Mississippi State and Loyola teams, along with their coaches and school administrators, led with courage and sportsmanship and a love of the game of basketball. That contest a half century ago helped to move my State and our Nation forward in addressing the inequalities of our society.

I appreciate the legacy and inspiring example of these teams, and am pleased to cosponsor the resolution introduced today by Senators Kirk, Durbin, and Wicker.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the Clarion Ledger newspaper article from March 18, 2013, titled, ``As March Madness nears, so does 50th anniversary of MSU's `Game of Change'.''

As March Madness nears, so does 50th anniversary of MSU's ``Game of

Change''

(By Jerry Mitchell)

Loyola captain Jerry Harkness shakes hands with MSU captain Joe Dan Gold before the historic 1963 game.

As March Madness nears, so does the 50th anniversary of the ``Game of Change,'' where the all-white Mississippi State University basketball team dodged a judge's injunction and the governor's wrath to play the integrated Loyola University of Chicago.

Those across the nation know more about Texas Western's 1966 defeat of Kentucky, becoming the first champion with five African-American starters (depicted in the 2006 film, Glory Road).

While that game, once and for all, settled the question of race on the court, MSU's game against Loyola also played a critical role. The blog, The '60s at 50, quotes from the March 25 edition of Sports Illustrated:

``Literally out of hiding to play Loyola the night before had come Mississippi State, the team that saddened the hearts of segregationists everywhere by agreeing--eagerly--to participate in a tournament open to Negroes. On the eve of his team's departure from Starkville, Coach Babe McCarthy got word that a sheriff was out with a court order that could keep the team in Mississippi. Like Little Eva skipping across the ice ahead of the bloodhounds, McCarthy skipped into Tennessee. University President Dr. D.W. Colvard vanished, too. Early Thursday morning an assistant coach verified that the coast was clear at the airport, hustled the team into a plane and away it flew on a modern underground railroad in reverse.''

McCarthy had faced a series of frustrations as MSU's basketball coach. His teams had dominated nationally, winning the SEC championship in 1959, 1961 and 1962--only to watch Kentucky represent the league in the postseason because Mississippi authorities prevented them from playing any integrated teams.

Former Clarion-Ledger sportswriter Kyle Veazey (currently with The Commercial Appeal) has penned a new book on the subject, Champions for Change: How the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Their Bold Coach Defied Segregation.

He was stunned to find out no one had written the story and decided to write it himself.

When the question of playing an integrated team arose in 1959, MSU's president at the time, Ben Hilbun, received mail 3-to-1 in favor of keeping the team at home.

Four years later, the mail ran 3-to-1 in favor of playing, Veazey said. ``Sports helped personalize the integration issue when it was so often being characterized by polarizing figures.''

He suspects the 1959 and 1962 teams could have won the national championship if permitted to go.

In the 1962-1963 season, the Loyola team, with four African-American starters, faced its own difficulties, encountering vitriol and jeering from some fans during games in the South.

Before leaving for the big game in March 1963, Loyola players received hate mail from the Ku Klux Klan, according to ESPN.

Photographers snapped the legendary picture of Loyola captain Jerry Harkness and MSU captain Joe Dan Gold shaking hands at half court. (Harkness told USA TODAY he decided to play basketball his senior year after a visitor to the Harlem gym urged him to play. That visitor? Baseball legend Jackie Robinson.)

Loyola defeated MSU 61-51 on the way to winning the national championship in a game watched in person by a little-known boxer named Cassius Clay.

Throngs of MSU fans surrounded their team arriving at the airport, and a survey afterward found that Mississippians overwhelming favored letting MSU play the game.

Sports began to change hearts in a way that laws couldn't, Veazey said. ``It was an example of Mississippi doing something right when it was doing so many other things wrong. It showed Mississippians that progress could happen, that men like Babe McCarthy and (MSU President) Dean Colvard could be courageous--and successful.''

Madam President, I am pleased to join the distinguished Senator from Michigan in urging approval of this bill by the Senate. It has been a pleasure working with her and other members of the Agriculture Committee to produce a farm bill that meets the needs of those involved in agriculture production and the consumers of the crops produced by American farmers and ranchers.

This farm bil1 will also encourage and reward protection of water, soil and forestry resources.

The bill also authorizes and improves Federal nutrition programs administered by the Department of Agriculture. It contains reforms to the nutrition title to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

This bill deserves the support of the Senate.

The Senate debate on the farm bill has included votes on a number of amendments over the last 2 weeks. American agricultural producers deserve the certainty that comes with a strong 5 year farm bill. I am pleased that we have come up with a bill that will meet that need.

This legislation will provide farmers in all regions of the country with a robust and workable safety net, while also reducing by $24 billion the cost of the programs authorized by current law.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senate for passing this very important farm bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013.

I especially thank my colleagues Debbie Stabenow and Pat Roberts and their staff members for the hard work they devoted to this effort. Their bill, when it was begun, passed the Senate last year. Their legislation became the starting point for our work this year on the bill.

The chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Stabenow, and her staff director, Chris Adamo, have been outstanding leaders in this effort. I would at this opportunity thank them and all of the members of their staff for their hard work in developing a strategy and developing language of a bill that could enjoy such broad support.

Members of our committee staff and my personal office staff have worked very hard too in this effort. I would like to thank them for their contributions. I appreciate their hard work. They include my staff director, T. A. Hawks, Nona McCoy, Kevin Batteh, Darrell Dixon, Adam Telle, Daniel Ulmer, Ben Mosely, Taylor Nicholas, Julian Baer, Andrew Vlasaty, Chris Gallegos, Steven Wall, Keith Coble, Anne Hazlett, James Glueck, and Sarah Margaret Hewes. The staff members have done an outstanding job, and

I am very pleased they have been members of our team. For all of them and especially for the Senators and the support we have received today, we appreciate the support very much.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join the distinguished Senator from Michigan in urging the Senate to move forward with this compromise bill that has been developed by the Committee on Agriculture and is now before the Senate for a cloture vote. We need to pass this bill. It provides a framework to help farmers and ranchers in all regions of the country manage their risks more effectively. It consolidates 23 conservation programs into 13. It contains improvements to nutrition programs. It addresses fraud and abuse. It also reduces the cost of covered programs by $24 billion.

This bill reflects a real sense of fiscal responsibility but still provides a strong safety net for producers. I thank and congratulate the distinguished Senator from Michigan, the chair of our committee, for her hard work and her strong leadership. She has managed the legislation with skill and a commitment to meet the needs of agriculture producers as well as American consumers.

I urge the Senate to approve the motion to invoke cloture.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, we have no objection.

Madam President, I support the amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina. This amendment would provide additional support for data-mining activities to detect fraud. It would develop proactive underwriting and loss adjustment applications to minimize the scope for such activities to occur. It would help reduce improper payments through better controls and reviews of policies. All of these will result in saving taxpayer money and ensuring program integrity in the long run.

I urge approval of the amendment.

Mr. President, I object to the request.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my distinguished colleague from Michigan in predicting that we are moving in the right direction. We have covered a lot of important issues during the debate over the last couple of days and taken up a good many amendments. We have had recorded votes and free and full discussion of a lot of issues that are affected by this legislation, and I must say it has been a remarkable performance in terms of the subjects that have been covered and amendments disposed of. True progress has been made in developing what I think can be a very important contribution toward a legal framework and support structure to help enable American farmers to compete in the international marketplace and to sustain the jobs that flow from these important activities throughout the United States.

At a time when, in some places, jobs are hard to find, this is a job creator and it is a step toward strengthening our economy not just in rural America but throughout the country--in municipalities as well.

I hope everybody recognizes what a strong leader our committee chairman

has become, as she has demonstrated in her performance as chairman of our committee. She has done an excellent job. I commend her and all of our colleagues on the committee for helping shape this product so it can be adopted by the Senate and signed into law by the President. I look forward to that day and to celebrating and helping salute those who have been responsible for this good work.

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

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this amendment is being portrayed as a reform of sugar policy, but it is far more harmful than that. These proposed changes would undermine the policy of our domestic industry by transferring American sugar-producing jobs to other countries. Those producers are less efficient and heavily subsidized.

U.S. sugar policy has operated at zero cost to taxpayers for the past decade and has provided American consumers dependable supplies of safe high-quality sugar at low prices.

I urge Senators to oppose the amendment.

Mr. President, today I pay tribute to the men and women of our Armed Forces who have given their lives in defense of the United States. Memorial Day has, since its inception in the years immediately after the end of the Civil War, been a special time for us to remember and honor all Americans who have died in military service. Nearly 150 years after the first ``Decoration Day'' was observed, it remains important that we as citizens of this great Nation take time to reflect on the brave servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

As I have noted, Memorial Day grew out of a practice started in April 1866 in Columbus, MS, with the decoration of the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers alike. The tradition of honoring both those who fell on both sides of that conflict evolved into our modern observance of this sacred day.

Today, tens of thousands of American men and women continue to put their lives on the line to preserve and perpetuate the freedoms and liberties established with the birth of our Nation. The freedoms we enjoy in this country have often been paid for with the lives of these servicemembers. Their selfless example of service, whether made at Bunker Hill, Vicksburg, Iwo Jima, Inchon or the remotest regions of Afghanistan, inspires us to sacrifice and work for the good of our Nation.

This Memorial Day, Mississippians will again honor all brave fallen warriors, including the men and women from our State who have recently died in the service of our nation in Afghanistan and around the world.

For the Record, I offer the names of three brave heroes with roots in Mississippi, who have fallen since the nation commemorated Memorial Day last year. They are:

SSG Ricardo Seija, 31, of Tampa, FL, who died July 9, 2012

SFC Coater B. DeBose, 55, of State Line, MS, died Aug. 19,

2012

Specialist Patricia L. Horne, 20, of Greenwood, MS, died

Aug. 24, 2012

We mourn their loss and honor them for their courage, dedication and sacrifice, and resolve that their lives were not given in vain.

This Memorial Day, the people of my State and throughout our great Nation will rightly set aside their day-to-day tasks to remember and say a prayer of thanksgiving for those who have laid down their lives for their country. We will also think of their families who share most acutely in their loss. I join them in saying thank you to those who made these great sacrifices.

Madam President, I am pleased to congratulate my friend from North Dakota for his statement and his discussion of the content of this farm bill. He was one of the active members of our committee who participated in the markup sessions, attended the hearings in preparation for writing a farm bill, and helped to shape the consensus that is reflected in the final work product. Senator Hoeven is a very valuable member of our committee, and I commend and thank my colleague from North Dakota for his contributions to this process.

He very accurately describes that this is a consensus product. It is not a partisan bill; it is not meant to make anybody or any section or any commodity group look good or feel good because of favors done in this bill. This is truly to serve the interests of our good and great country and help improve our trading opportunities in agricultural commodities that are produced on our farms throughout the United States.

I think it is going to serve the interests of not only agriculture but the American citizen and, broadly speaking, much of this success is due to the contributions made by the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. President, we appreciate the comments of the distinguished Senator from North Dakota. Also, it is a pleasure to welcome her as a new member of our committee. She took an active part in the development of this bill, and we appreciate her contributions.

I see no other Senators seeking recognition at this time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am flattered by the kind remarks of the distinguished Senator from Michigan and am pleased and honored to serve with her on the Senate Agriculture Committee. She chairs that committee with a sense of responsibility for the subject matter, which is very important to our Nation's farmers and all consumers in America as well, but also to the fellow members of our committee--Republicans and Democrats--who serve on the committee and who have worked together to put a bill before the Senate that continues to authorize programs of the Federal Government that benefit landowners and those who work to conserve the resources of soil and water that help nurture our great agricultural sector that produces a bountiful amount of fruits and vegetables and marketable commodities that are sold in international trade at competitive prices.

It is a great success story. I am tempted to say a great American success story because it truly is. It is the backbone of our Nation's economy. So it is serious business at the same time it provides jobs, food to eat, grain to harvest, to export, and cotton and the fibers that come from it that clothe and dress millions of people in our Nation and around the world. So bringing this bill to the floor is a point of achievement, and with gratitude we point out the leadership of the distinguished chairman.

We have enjoyed her strong leadership and her keen sense of awareness of how to manage legislation such as this and present it to the Senate, as she has just done, and that is quite impressive. We are very fortunate to have her serving in this capacity.

We have recommended a bill that contains some major reforms of the farm programs that come within the jurisdiction of our committee. For example, the bill reduces authorized spending by $24 billion. It includes $6 billion in sequestration cuts. These represent real savings. We know we have been confronting a deficit crisis, a fiscal policy management crisis, and this bill does its part.

With the authority it has over the law governing the subject matter, we have moved to eliminate direct payments to farmers, which has amounted in the past to $40 billion. There are reforms in this legislation of the crop insurance title. The bill recommends adoption of reforms that limit payments to producers. Conservation programs have been streamlined in this legislation and consolidated.

The committee has crafted reforms in the nutrition title to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. These are big challenges, and these challenges have been met with a recognition that there are people who need the support of programs such as this--schoolchildren who are attending school and getting the benefit of a reduced price and, in some cases, free meals at school. This has made major contributions to the quality of work and the degree and level of education that children are able to absorb and benefit from, and it is tied to these programs.

The committee has dealt with conservation, as I have mentioned, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and throughout the bill we see reflected a broad bipartisan level of support and an approach that accommodates interests represented by all the members of our committee. So I think we have produced, with the leadership of the chairman, a responsible but fair bill, and I am pleased to recommend to the Senate that it should approve the bill. It deserves our support.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I am pleased to join the distinguished chairman.

I urge Senators who do have amendments to come to the floor and offer those amendments so we can proceed to complete action on this bill in a reasonable amount of time. We don't want to cut everybody off. Everybody has a right to be heard on whatever subject they wish to bring before the Senate.

We do have some Senators whom we know have amendments that are relevant to the issue before us. We are hopeful we can consider all of them and give them the kind of attention they deserve.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Nona McCoy and Kevin Batteh, who have been detailed to my staff, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the farm bill debate.

Mr. President, on January 1, 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began implementing a final rule to prohibit compounding pharmacies that prepare medications used in implanted infusion pumps from billing Medicare directly for these services. This reverses a policy that has been permissible in several States for over 20 years. Since the proposed change in May 2011, I have worked with Senator Wicker and other Members of Congress to delay this change until its effects have been fully considered.

During the public comment period for this rule, pharmacies, physicians, and patients overwhelmingly opposed this policy change. In Mississippi, the State board of pharmacy prohibits pharmacies from selling compounded pain medications to physicians, resulting in decreased access to effective treatments for chronic pain disorders. States across the nation are coming to realize the negative implications of this policy change.

With this final rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not fully taken into account patient impact or State regulations. In addition, pharmacies that bill Medicare must comply with Federal accreditation rules, further enhancing patient safety. We should protect patient access to effective treatments rather than hinder it. This bill would allow compounding pharmacies to continue to bill Medicare directly for their services in the interest of helping patients receive the quality care they deserve.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join the junior Senator from Virginia in introducing the American Battlefield Protection Program Amendments Act. I doubt there has been a more defining period in this country's history than the Civil War. The scars left by that conflict were deep and slow to heal. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the first major Civil War battle in the western theater and with Memorial Day approaching, the preservation of historic battlefields reminds Americans of those who have fought and died for freedom. Stressing preservation, commemoration, and education, the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program, for almost 15 years, has partnered with neighboring communities to promote resource protection and heritage tourism. By bringing together local, State, and national stakeholders to preserve America's most historically significant Civil War battlefields, the program has built a consensus to protect 19,000 acres of hallowed ground in 16 states. In my state, more than 3,300 acres of related Civil War battles have been protected. Among the many other battlefields that have benefited from this program are: Antietam, Maryland; Averasboro, North Carolina; Chancellorsville, Virginia; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Mill Springs, Kentucky; and Prairie Grove, Arkansas. I am pleased that this legislation will extend program eligibility to Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields. This is an appropriate time for the Congress to embrace this legislation and to preserve and discover our history, our culture and our individual stories. By highlighting the history and cultural significance of these battle sites, we can help maintain our sense of place as Americans. With it, we can be more aware of our history and reflect upon how we have become who we are as individuals and who we are collectively as Americans. It is an investment in the preservation of our history and culture, which is well spent.

Mr. President, on January 1, 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began implementing a final rule to prohibit compounding pharmacies that prepare medications used in implanted infusion pumps from billing Medicare directly for these services. This reverses a policy that has been permissible in several States for over 20 years. Since the proposed change in May 2011, I have worked with Senator Wicker and other Members of Congress to delay this change until its effects have been fully considered.

During the public comment period for this rule, pharmacies, physicians, and patients overwhelmingly opposed this policy change. In Mississippi, the State board of pharmacy prohibits pharmacies from selling compounded pain medications to physicians, resulting in decreased access to effective treatments for chronic pain disorders. States across the nation are coming to realize the negative implications of this policy change.

With this final rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not fully taken into account patient impact or State regulations. In addition, pharmacies that bill Medicare must comply with Federal accreditation rules, further enhancing patient safety. We should protect patient access to effective treatments rather than hinder it. This bill would allow compounding pharmacies to continue to bill Medicare directly for their services in the interest of helping patients receive the quality care they deserve.