Credit Card Rate Freeze Act of 2009

Floor Speech

CREDIT CARD RATE FREEZE ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - November 18, 2009)

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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I am very pleased to rise today to join the Senator from New Jersey to discuss the injustices committed against Hispanic farmers over the course of many years. I also thank Senator Menendez, the congressional Hispanic caucus, and my colleagues who have come to the floor to demonstrate their leadership on this issue.

For the reasons Senator Menendez laid out, it is long past time to call attention to this indefensible injustice and to lend our voices to a better way forward. As is well known, for years--decades--minority farmers were systematically discriminated against when they visited local USDA farm service agency offices all across this country. They were denied loans and farm program assistance because of their skin color, ethnicity, or gender. Senator Menendez did a good job describing the case.

I want to give some examples from my State, because in many cases, because of this discrimination, these farmers lost their livelihoods and their way of life. If we choose to let some of them make their case, and deny that chance to others, then we repeat these historic civil rights wrongs all over again.

Among the many letters I have received is a declaration from Mr. Gomez of Alamosa, CO, a former USDA employee who served his country for 30 years. In seven pages of excruciating detail, Mr. Gomez explains how he, as a loan officer, witnessed discrimination in granting of FSA loans. Reasons loans were denied were recorded as ``insufficient experience,'' or other subjective terms. As Mr. Gomez gained more responsibility, he was eventually in a position to review loan applications from around the region he supervised, and he became increasingly aware of a pattern of discrimination.

In another letter, Mr. Sandoval of Antonito, CO, tells of repeatedly being turned away from local loan offices and denied FSA loans on grounds that he did not have the ``character'' necessary. Mr. Sandoval explains how his inability to access credit through the USDA limited his ability to grow his farming operation and become a more successful farmer.

Another Mr. Sandoval of Commerce City, CO, writes:

This has been going on for so long that some farmers have lost their lives waiting for justice to prevail.

Mr. DeHerrera, also of Antonito, CO, writes:

In desperation, I approached [someone] at the ..... FSA to request a loan of approximately $80,000 so I could at least keep the farm from being foreclosed. ..... He told me very hatefully that they refused to approve either my loan or the loan of the Sandoval brothers.

He continues:

I am convinced [FSA] refused to approve the Sandoval's loan because both the buyer and the seller of the farmland to be purchased were Hispanic American farmers.

Reading through the many letters I have received from Hispanic farmers in Colorado and the meetings I have had all across my State and the letters from people all over the country, a pattern emerges--one of thinly veiled discrimination that starts by discouraging Hispanic farmers from applying for FSA loans in the first place. All too frequently, this discrimination resulted in the loss of a farm and the loss of a way of life.

I have had farmer after farmer say they had to get out of the business of farming, that they could not leave their farms to their children, which is the only dream they have in their life, because of the discrimination they suffered at the hands of our Federal Government.

President Obama's new Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, has repeatedly, much to his credit, emphasized his commitment to addressing the longstanding civil rights problems that have plagued the Department and to charting a new era. I commend the Secretary's commitment and the dedication the Obama administration has made to chart a new future for the USDA.

Yet that does not fix the wrongs of yesterday. Congress has taken some positive steps, and the administration has created a process for resolving the claims of some minority farmers, even dedicating significant funds toward this end. But a path to justice has not yet been charted for Hispanic farmers.

The best way America can send a message that our government will not discourage minorities from participating in public programs, will not discriminate against them, is proactively to pursue justice.

It is time the administration and Congress come together and do more than just acknowledge past wrong doing at the USDA. It is time to address that wrongdoing.

I will say that my predecessor in this job, Ken Salazar, our great Senator from Colorado, now our Interior Secretary, comes from a part of my State called the San Luis Valley. Ken Salazar's family settled that land long before Colorado was even a State. If you drive down there and visit San Luis, what you will see is an irrigation ditch that was dug before our State was even a State. Among the names of the people, the names of the farmers and the ranchers who were entitled to take water from that ditch because they had been there, and had been there to dig that ditch, is the name Salazar, the proud name Salazar. It is wrong, after generations of people have committed their lives and their families to agriculture in places such as Colorado and all across the country, that we have discriminated against them for decades and, when that discrimination is discovered because of some legal technicality or because they got the wrong judge, they find themselves unable to redress that discrimination.

I am very pleased to have the chance to be here today with Senator Menendez and other colleagues to call this to the attention of the administration and to say that we need to do more than just acknowledge this problem. It is time for us to help address the problem.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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