Volume 146, No. 9 covering the 2nd Session of the 106th Congress (1999 - 2000) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE ADMINISTRATION'S FARM ASSISTANCE PROPOSAL” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Senate section on pages S346-S348 on Feb. 7, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE ADMINISTRATION'S FARM ASSISTANCE PROPOSAL
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to discuss the recent farmer assistance package outlined in the President's budget proposal. It is often the case that these proposals are complicated and difficult to explain. But this proposal can actually be explained with one word. That word is ``awful.'' The administration's proposal is simply an awful idea.
I am not one to usually criticize anybody who brings ideas to the table that in any way will assist American farmers, but in this instance I believe I must call it what it really is--an awful proposal. In fact, I am embarrassed by the administration's proposals. I can think of all the Democratic Senators who have been on this floor over the last year--the last 12 months--who have chastised Republicans for not doing enough to help farmers, and doing it in the right way, being embarrassed by the paltry sum of money the President has included and, more importantly, the complicated formula by which they arrive at this assistance.
Just recently, we had the Vice President in Iowa stumping for political support in the famous Iowa caucuses. He told my fellow farmers he supports a ``sound, sensible farm policy.'' Those are his words. If this is what the administration means by ``sensible,'' they should have saved the effort put into this meaningless gesture and left it to individuals who actually know what is going on in rural Iowa and rural America.
While our Nation has enjoyed one of the longest periods of economic growth in our history, the agricultural industry has not fared as well in recent years. Just last year, prices of all kinds of livestock and grain commodities were at their lowest levels since the 1970s, and the outlook for next year is mixed at best. According to the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute located at Iowa State University, prices for corn are expected to hover around $2 a bushel this year and soybean prices will average near $4.50 a bushel. Prices have improved somewhat from last year but not significantly, and obviously it is still, at these prices, a losing proposition; in other words, a nonprofitable situation for farmers.
Last year, we in the Congress provided $8.7 billion in economic relief and disaster payments, simply keeping our promise we made to the farmers of America under the 1996 farm program of having an adequate safety net for farmers. We were just keeping our promise with that $8.7 billion. That was divided into three or four different parts. The largest part was the Market Loss Assistance Program payments, and these alone were $5.5 billion.
The administration's proposal is for $600 million compared to that
$5.5 billion. It obviously believes that payments to farmers under the supplemental income assistance program will satisfy rural America's needs in this year of continuing low prices. The proposal definitely shows me and should show every farmer that the administration does not really care what happens to the family farmer. I could speak for hours about its shortcomings, but let me try to boil it down to three major points. Democratic Senators, speaking on the floor of this body last week, condemned this same proposal. I say this so people won't consider this a partisan shot. I associate myself with the remarks of some of those Senators who considered this to be a paltry and complicated approach to helping farmers and the Congress keep its promise to the American farmers made under the 1996 bill, that we would maintain a safety net for our farmers.
On the administration's approach, first, it attempts to establish a countercyclical program. The proposal seemingly is based on a system that pays out when the per acre national gross revenue for a crop falls below a set percentage of the 5-year average of the crop's per acre national gross revenue. The significant shortcoming of the administration proposal is that a program based on national revenue will not capture all regional disasters.
As an example from my own State of Iowa, everybody remembers the 500-
year flood of 1993. It was a disastrous year for the vast majority of my State. Experts described this 500-year flood as something that is never going to occur again. But production throughout the rest of the Nation during the time that it was ruined in Iowa was strong enough that, under the President's proposal, no payment would have been made to Iowans in need of assistance. Iowans would have been left with absolutely no assistance in the midst of one of the worst natural disasters in decades.
I also draw awareness to the administration's belief that this grand plan assists small- and medium-sized producers. It does harm to these classes of farmers who, particularly, the other side of the aisle thinks we ought to have so much concern for--and we ought to have. The fact that their administration doesn't give concern to the small- or medium-sized farmer in their plan ought to be an embarrassment to my Democrat colleagues.
Well, if the payment was actually triggered and the farmer wasn't drawing more than a $30,000 Agricultural Market Transition payment, the individual would be subject to the $30,000 combined payment cap. This means that the sum of regular AMTA payments plus the payments under the supplemental income assistance program could not exceed $30,000. In my opinion, this program actually hurts the small farmer and mortally wounds the medium-sized farmer. If we want to guarantee the failure of the medium-sized farmer in the Nation, the farmer who is big enough that he doesn't have time to have nonfarm income but not big enough to weather all the natural disasters that one can have or 3 years of low prices, the President's program is the best way to accomplish the failure of the medium-sized farmer in our Nation.
It is simple math that brings me to this point. A farmer with a corn base of 600 acres would receive an AMTA payment of approximately
$19,800 this year. But if the market crashed and he qualified for the maximum amount of assistance under the administration's proposal, he would only receive an additional $10,200. Regardless of how much money a farmer has lost, the most he could hope to receive is $10,200.
In comparison, the same farmer would have received $19,000 in economic assistance last year due to the Market Loss Assistance payment Congress voted late last year. The administration's approach is $9,600 less for that farmer than he could have received under Congress' approach last year. If we were to revisit historic lows this summer, which could trigger the SIAP-type payment that the President is proposing, the small- and medium-sized producers could not receive more than that $30,000 cap. Due to this cap, the administration's approach ultimately limits potential assistance to small- and medium-sized producers.
Some people might think I am comparing apples and oranges when I talk about the two packages, but in the end, the important factor is how much aid are we willing to provide to the farmer. The administration has said that assistance wouldn't be paid to the largest producers. But at the end of the day, it is not just the larger growers who will be left out in the cold, it is going to be pretty darn cold for everyone in the middle and chilly for the smaller producers as well.
This proposal reminds me of what a number of Iowa pork producers called the ``4-H'' payments. Remember SHOP 1 and SHOP 2 payments to the pork producers last year? Those payments didn't amount to much either. The administration billed that as a significant measure to help pork producers facing abysmal prices, a 60-year low in hog prices last year. Yet today the number of pork producers has dropped by 3,000, since we experienced these historic lows.
Ultimately, the largest producers will still have $40,000 due to the AMTA cap, and the smaller guys will have a $30,000 cap, a $10,000 bonus to the larger farmer the President says he does not want to help, compared to what the small- and medium-sized farmer gets. Does it really matter what the assistance is called? Was that the administration's goal, of hurting the smaller and medium-sized farmers?
My final point is this: Who is the administration really then trying to help? It is true that farmers with 450 acres or less in corn base could possibly double their AMTA payment. That is the same approach Congress used last year under the administration's proposal. In fact, this is probably a great deal for all those producers with 100 acres or less. But the fact is that a person who is farming 450 acres or less is probably, to make ends meet, also engaged in some occupation other than farming.
I am not saying that most farmers don't have jobs off the farm. In today's economy, more and more farmers are taking jobs off the farm just to help pay the bills. But as I see it, the medium-sized producer, the producers with 500 to 1,000 acres, are almost entirely dependent upon the profitability of their crops. If they don't receive much-needed assistance, they are probably going to have a hard time staying on the farm, and the administration's proposal does almost nothing to help these individuals.
Now, as I indicated earlier, this is by no means a complete list of all the problems with the administration's approach, but these are a few of the issues that I expect Congress will have to consider. The fact is that if the administration really wants to help farmers, it will immediately announce it will block any efforts to waive the Clean Air Act's oxygenated requirements by the Environmental Protection Agency. If the President would do just this, ethanol can replace MTBE, which is poisoning the ground water now, and it would increase farm income by $1 billion per year--it would do it from the marketplace, not from the Federal Treasury--and create 13,000 new jobs in America in the process.
The Senate may not be able to unilaterally agree upon exactly what should be done to assist family farmers this year, but I think we can probably agree that the administration's proposal is off base and, most frankly, out of touch with real America. It does not accomplish the goals that they want to accomplish of saving the small and medium-sized farmers and not helping the well-off farmer.
So I look forward to working with my constituents, various agricultural groups, commodity groups, and my colleagues in Congress to give family farmers the economic security that they deserve.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Wyoming for his graciousness. I will take 3 minutes at the most. I appreciate him giving me some Republican time for this.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator is recognized for 3 minutes.
____________________
Alerts Sign-up