Agricultural Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I come to the floor for the third time to express my opposition to the farm bill--obviously not in total, but to certain provisions of it, particularly provisions I had a hand in writing--and to set the record straight, once again.

I come here because several of my colleagues have approached me indicating confusion on whether the payment limits provisions I fought for are in this bill or not in this bill. People are going to tell colleagues there are payment limitations in this bill, but I am here to set the record straight with facts. They don't accomplish what I tried to accomplish, and they are even much more liberal than in existing law in regard to my amendment.

My original payment limit provisions included a $50,000 individual/$100,000 married couple cap for the shallow loss programs shown as Price Loss Coverage--PLC--and the Agricultural Risk Coverage--ARC--programs. In this bill farmers will have to pick one of those programs for the next 5 years.

The conference report allows individual farmers to get $125,000 and married couples to get $250,000 from the PLC and the ARC programs.

This is where this has really exploded because what I just referenced is a 150-percent increase over what my limits allowed--the limits that passed the Senate without discussion and limits adopted in the House of Representatives on a 230-to-194 vote. That is just a plain, simple fact--a 150-percent increase over what my limits allowed. The conference report allows the PLC and ARC programs to pay out 150 percent more than my limits did.

This intentional change by the conference committee allows each farmer to get significantly more from these new countercyclical programs that are not even World Trade Organization--or, as we say around here, WTO--compliant.

Another way of looking at this, under the 2008 farm bill, an individual farmer could only get $65,000 from the countercyclical program. Under this bill, they can get $125,000 from the countercyclical program. That means they almost doubled what the countercyclical program will pay out compared to current law.

Furthermore, some university analysis has already shown the high target prices for certain crops in this bill will likely have a 70- to 80-percent chance of triggering payments through the PLC program any given year of this farm bill.

So, I say to my colleagues, please don't buy what my opponents are selling on this issue, or at least trying to sell. My payment limits are not in this bill. The result of that is going to be a countercyclical program that will be much more market-distorting than the current ones for a few crops. How can it not be more distorting? The PLC program is designed to trigger more often and pay out larger amounts than the old countercyclical program for certain crops in the 2008 farm bill.

That is just a plain, simple fact. I am sorry if proponents are having a tough time acknowledging that publicly, but that is what this bill actually does. Their bill does lots of things, but brilliantly reforming Title I is not one of them.

I am sure we have been told that this bill reforms. It is like some of the opponents of payment limits still thinking this is 1975 or some year back then. Back then, the national debt was still measured in billions and the WTO didn't even exist. Unfortunately for them, things are very different today. Recently, the WTO declared our cotton program noncompliant, and we happen to have a $17 trillion national debt. But worse than this, I say to my colleagues, is the fact that these amendments were adopted on the floor of the Senate, and they were adopted in the House of Representatives by a 230-to-194 vote. They should not have even been subject to negotiations.

The moral authority of the people of the United States was behind what both Houses did. Because we have a $17 trillion national debt, we ought to be able to save this $387 million that this amendment would have saved. It had the moral authority of a majority of the House and the Senate, which moral authority should not have been overridden by a handful of people sitting in conference.

I stress this latter point for one simple reason: Rule XXVIII of the Senate says if things are the same in both Houses, they should not be conferenceable. I say this to my friends, not that this bill is going to go down to defeat and we start over again and maybe accomplish what I want to accomplish, but to make sure other conferences do not abuse the Senate rule like this conference abused the Senate rule; and also to tell my colleagues here that, both working with what rules maybe we can get through the U.S. Department of Agriculture or on some other piece of legislation, I intend to pursue these goals that I sought, and I intend to keep reminding my colleagues of Senate rules being violated by conferees that should not have been violated.

I yield the floor.

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