the offsets. we are paying for the johanns amendment. the baucus approach simply does not pay for it. and so what does it do? in the end, it hammers the next generation. it adds to the national debt. if we can't find $19 billion to solve this problem, how are we ever going to solve the problem of this massive deficit that we're passing on to our dinner and frandz children? -- and grandchildren? with that, mr. president, i ask my colleagues to support the johanns amendment, to oppose the baucus amendment. my hope is that we can get the votes necessary, pass this amendment, and move on to the next issues that we face. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor, and i note

the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. johanns: and i ask that the quorum call be equally charged to each side. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johanns: thank you. quorum call:

mr. johanns: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. a senator: mr. president, i'd ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. and i be allowed to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. chambliss: mr. president, as an original sponsor of s. 510, i'm disappointed i cannot support final passage of this bill. since the bill's introduction and markup process, there's been a strong bipartisan cooperation to craft legislation that strikes the right balance between industry practices and f.d.a. oversight to ensure the safest food supply possible in our great country. unfortunately, the senate will not have the opportunity to vote for s. 510 as it passed the "help" committee, nor will senators have the opportunity to offer amendments to improve the bill. compounding my concerns is the

uncertainty about the opportunity to have an open, transparent conference with our colleagues in the house of representatives at this late hour of the legislative session. instead we are faced with voting for s. 510 with new language that was added at the 11th hour which creates a loophole in the federal food safety system. the new language referred to as the tester amendment creates an exemption for small farms and business operations through an arbitrary size and distance threshold, neither of which has any basis in science or risk. for example, this new language would exempt a food facility or a farm if it has sales of $500,000 or less or sells half of its food to retailers or consumers in the same state or within 275 miles of its origin. it's extremely important to note

that s. 510 as originally introduced and passed by the "help" committee includes many provisions to protect the rights of farmers, and in particular the needs of small farmers. these small farm protections were essential in my decision to be an original cosponsor of the bill, and i fully support those provisions. specifically, the original s. 510 does not subject small entities that produce food for their own consumption or market the majority of their food directly to consumers to new record keeping requirements. also, the original bill makes no change in the definition of "facility" under the bioterrorism act of 2002 which requires certain facilities to register with f.d.a. thus, farms and restaurants remain exempted in s. 510. additionally, small businesses are given regulatory flexibility

throughout the original version of s. 510. for example, small processors are given additional time to comply with new food safety practices and guidelines created by the bill, and the f.d.a. may modify or exempt small processors based on risk. finally, regarding risk-based traceability, farms and small businesses that are not food facilities are not expected to create new records in the original version of s. 510. only during an active investigation of a foodborne illness outbreak and consultation with state and local officials, the f.d.a. may ask a farm to identify potential immediate recipients of food if it is necessary to protect public health or mitigate a foodborne illness outbreak. unfortunately, the new language before us tonight goes beyond small-farm protections.

my concern with the tester language is that it creates a loophole for small processing facilities by exempting them from haacp and traceability requirements for products entering the food supply in ways other than direct sales to consumers. i'm concerned that these arbitrarily exempted products would commingle with items that must follow risk-based preventive controls such as bagged shrads. in the case of a foodborne illness outbreak, this exemption will make f.d.a.'s job much harder to remove the tainted source from the food chain. this new language goes far beyond protecting small farms and establishes arbitrary factors in determining the safety of food, none of which are based on risk or sound science. i am opposing cloture and final passage of this bill because i

have been denied the opportunity to offer any amendments, especially to strike or improve the tester language. i would have liked my colleagues to have are had the opportunity to consider an amendment which would have limited the exemption only for products sold to qualified end users as defined in the tester language. such as direct sales to consumer, restaurants, or retail food establishments. without this limit, there is a significant chance that exempted products will be he could mingle -- co-mingled with regulated products, rendering the protections by s. 510 useless. the full implications of the tester amendment are unknown and i think it would be wise for the senate to take a closer look -- look at the potential impact before we pass this legislation. the senate should have had the opportunity to vote on s. 510 as it was passed by the "help" committee without this loophole.

all senators should have the opportunity to offer and consider amendments, but we do not. again, i also want to voice my concern regarding the opportunity to have an open, transparent conference with our colleagues in the house of representatives at this late hour of the legislative session. for these reasons i'm voting no on cloture and no on final passage of s. 510. i would also add, mr. president, that for the reasons that i have expressed here, virtually every processor -- food processor in the country has now come out and changed their opinion regarding their support of this bill and they're opposing the bill because of the extended loopholes that are provided by the tester amendment that are going to take the safest food supply in the world, which we have here in the united states of america, and we are now going to offer loopholes and exceptions in the chain from the

farm to the restaurant, from the farm to the grocery store, from the farm to the consumer's table. and we're going to render the potential for unsafe products to enter the market and f.d.a. is going to have no opportunity to regulate those. that's wrong. that's not what we started out to do with s. 510. senator did your baind i talked about this -- durbin and i talked about this -- now it's almost years ago when we initially started the process of reforming the food safety system in this country. and, unfortunately, we have gotten way away now from the original intention of this bill to a point to where it's not going to accomplish the results that we stated out seeking to accomplish. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. dodd: mr. president, i ask consent that monica anatolio, a detailee to the committee on

homeland security and government affairs be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dodd: i want to address the issue just talked about from my friend from georgia and that's the food and drug safety food modernization act. i want to thank my colleagues who have been involved to produce this bill which i'm hopeful that our colleagues will support. we just enjoyed a few days off to celebrate thanksgiving holidays. the centerpiece of which is a great meal with family and friends. and it's fitting in the wake of that we gather to deal with the issue of food safety. a bill that is intended to ensure the safety of food that we feed our families an loved ones each and every day in this country. one of the great things about being in this country is that every day we consume products with a sense of security that what we're ingesting or using is not going to cause us any great harm or put our lives in jeopardy. and so it's important,

particularly when you deal today with the processing of food that occurs, that that reassurance, that sense of security that all americans would like to have is going to be guaranteed to the maximum extent possible. never perfect, obviously, none of us can engage in casting or creating ideas or legislation that is designed to produce perfection, but we've come close with this bill to provide that sense of security that all americans deserve. before i speak about the substance of the bill, mr. president, i want to take a moment to highlight the collaborative process that are characterize the construction of this bill. the bill is a bipartisan effort on the parts of senators harkin, enzi, durbin, gregg, burr and myself along with 14 of our colleagues in this chamber and designed to strengthen the country's ability to address and prevent foodborne illnesses. i realize that the bipartisan road is not always easy to follow, but i can confidently say when we approach legislation in this manner, we often end up

with a better, stronger and more responsive law in the end. i think this bill is an example of just that. it wasn't always easile we had our differences, obviously, but we overcame in an effort to respond to an issue that impacts all americans regardless of political affiliation or economic circumstances and that's foodborne illnesses. this collaborative process is not limited to members an staff. i'm including outside advocates an organizations. an impressive range of constituent groups including the consumers union, the grocery manufacturers association have provided valuable input in support of this process. looking at the list of groups which support this bill, it says a great deal about the product itself. it says that we cannot afford to ignore the topic of food safety any longer. it says that our industry and consumers want to see good, consistent policy in place to help prevent and when they do occur address these illnesses.

we've all heard the statistics on average 76 million americans are sickened each year. 5,000 die each year because of foodborne illnesses. but these are not just numbs. these are the -- numbers. these are the lives of our fellow citizens from every region, economic group in the nation. as the recall of a half a billionation due to salmonella, it shows that foodborne illnesses can impact a significant portion of our population at any given time. according to the centers for disease control and prevention more than 1,800 people became ill due to these contaminated eggs. let us not forget in the most vulnerable of our populations suffer the most when stricken with foodborne illnesses, especially children. one such life significantly impacted the strain -- by a strain of e. coli was a constituent of mine in wilton, connecticut. she survived the contaminated lettuce she consumed but her life has been changed as a

result. mr. president, there's a lot in this bill that we could be proud of. i want to focus on one particular area that i have a concern with, been involved with in years and years, it is food allergies. long before i had a family of my own, i got involved in the issue. with the arrival of my first child grace, in 2001, we discovered she has serious food allergies. it's a great concern of her parents as it is for millions of people in this country. three million of fellow citizens have food allergies, life-threatening injuries ones and we are watching the numbers grow. those who keep the statistics from 1997 to 2007, the prevalence of food allergies among children increased by 18%. approximately three million children in the united states are suffer rg from one kind of food allergy or another. while food allergies were

considered relatively infrequent, they rank third in conic teeses in -- diseases in children under 18. peanuts are among the allergic foods that can have life-threatening injuries allergic reactions in children. this bill, what we have done is developed a food allergy guideline for preventing exposure to food aler agains and a -- allergans. it provides for food-based food allergy incentive grams to assist with the adoption of food allergy management in grades k through 12. my state of connecticut is one much eight that has done this on their own. 42 have not. this bill voluntary provides small apartments of grant money to states -- amounts of grant money to states to minimize the kind of dangers that occur to

children when they're exposed to food that can cause them life-threatening diseases and illnesses. the food and drug administration is responsible for regulating 80% of the nation's food supply. for too long the f.d.a. has lacked the resources and and authority to. this bill recognize that's we cannot underfund this critical agency and gives the f.d.a. the tools necessary to protect our food and our health. i will ask consent that the remainder of my remarks be included in the record. i want to talk about the comments that my good friend from georgia that just spoke, senator chambliss. this was a difficult bill to put together. i want to commend senator tester. putting this bill together required compromise, it's what we do in this chamber. had we not included the tester language in this bill, i think

we would have had a hard time passing the legislation. and the argument would have been, well, you included the small truck farmers who can't subject themselves to the rules that large food producers can. by adopting the modified tester language we made it possible for this bill to become law. i want to commend my fellow senator from montana for his work. i want to commend senator harkin, the chairman of the committee, for bringing this all together to the point despite all of the allegations that this body can't come to a common agreement on a matter as important as this one is wrong. we can when we work at it and we have done so with this bill and i urge my colleagues to be supportive of this important and historic piece of legislation. and, with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the vice president: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: i ask the call of the quorum be terminated. the vice president: the chair lays before the senate the certificate of election to fill the unexpired term of the state of illinois. the certificate, the chair is advised, is in the form suggested by the senate. if there is no objection, the reading of the certificate will be waived and it will be printed in full in the record. if the senator-elect will now present himself at the desk, the chair will administer the oath. the vice president: please place your right hand on the bible.

do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that you take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to enter, so help you god? the senator: i do. the vice president: congratulations, senator.

mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the vice president: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: mr. president, i ask further proceedings your honor the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: mr. president, in about 35 minutes we're going to be voting on cloture on the food safety and modernization bill, a bill that brings us forward almost 70 years, seven decades it's been since we've really modernized or changed our food inspection and safety system in

america. so we're taking that step tonight. hopefully we'll have a final vote on it by tomorrow. i just want to take a few minutes now before that vote to again lay out why this bill is so important, and why we need to invoke cloture tonight so we can have a final vote on this bill tomorrow. first of all, the statistics are, mr. president, that americans are getting sick and they're dying because of foodborne illnesses. you'd think in this day with modernization and stuff we wouldn't have this. 325,000 americans every year hospitalized, over 5,000 die, many of these kids. i've met them, with a group called safe tables are a priority. i've met some of these kids. they'll be damaged to liervetion i say to my friend from illinois, senator durbin, who's been such a leader on this bill. in fact i dare say to him, we wouldn't be here were it not for senator durbin's leadership in getting this bill started how many years ago -- i don't know.

mr. durbin: i would like to thank the senator from iowa for his leadership on this issue. the fact is that it was almost 18 years ago when i received a letter from a woman from chicago, her name nancy donnelly. her 6-year-old son alex died from e. coli from food that nancy literally prepared for him in their home and she wrote to me, a handwritten letter to me as a congressman from springfield, illinois, 200 miles away, saying we've got to do something about food casted. nancy lost her son but never lost her passion for this issue. as you said, formed the organization, safe tables a priority. which has been an effective voice with so many others to bring us to this moment. for the record, i have worked on this a long time. we wouldn't be on the floor tonight with this historic vote were it not for the senator from iowa, who has really led the effort. senator tom harkin has with the help of senator mike enzi and a number on the other side of the

aisle who have stepped up to make this a bipartisan thing. this is a reasonable approach to making our food safer in america. i thank the senator from iowa for awful his leadership on this issue and so many -- for all of his leadership on this issue and so many others. mr. harkin: the senator is being way too generous. i recognize the instigators of awful this the ones that started the ball rolling. senator durbin got us started on this many years. it has taken many years to put this all together. we've worked on this. we reported this out of our committee a year ago, without one dissenting vote, republican or democrat, and since that time we've been woring to get other peernlings not on the committee obviously, on board to get the way paved so we could have a bill that would be broadly supported. and this bill is very broadly supported. both by the industry and by the consumers. it's one of the few bills where, as a matter of fact, we have a

wide group of consumer and industry support, everything from the snack food association to the grocery manufacturers institute, to the consumers union, center for science in the public interest, the u.s. chamber of commerce, u.s. public interest research group. in my judgment you can get the chamber of -- anymore you can get them on the same bill, you know you have a bill that has broad support. this bill does. i want to thank my colleague, senator enzi, from wyoming, our ranking member on this our committee, for for all of his nuclear weapon getting this bill through and working on it diligently over the past yeemple i would be remiss if i didn't also thank senator judd and senator burr, also for being heavily involved in this bill and working through all of the compromises that a bill like this entaisms the food safety and modernization act enhances our food safety system in three

critical ways, madam president. in three critical ways. it improves the prevention of food safety problems. i always think this is key. we got to get in front of this, not just to sort of catch the food once it's contaminated and try to get it done. but to try to prevent it in the beginning. we had success in the meat and poultry industry some years ago with a preventive plan to look at where passage generals would enter the food -- pathogens would enter the food supply and stop it there. in the almost 25 years now, we've learned that to this. now we will have a better system of preventing food safety problems and foodborne pathogens. it improves the detection response to foodborne outbreaks. detect it earlier, stop it earlier, have a better response to what's happening. in other words, for example, in

the bill, we provide that retail verse to in some way notify customers if a food has been recalled. that could be a grocery store putting a sign on the shelf, for example, saying that this food has been recalled, maybe putting out notices in their supplements this they put out, in order to advise consumers that they may have purchased a food that has been recalled. and third ten hances our food defense capabilities. right now, how many people know that less than 2% -- about 1.5% of all of the food imported into america is ever inspected? well, this is going to increase. this is going to increase those inspections. it will also increase their defense capabilities in case we have a problem. for example, we have stronger trace-back authority so we can get to the source of where this happened in a better way than we

ever have been able to do in the past. as i mentioned earlier, it provides f.d.a. with mandatory recall authority. a lot of people are surprised that -- to know, consumers, are surprised to find out if there is a foodborne illness and an outbreak that the food and drug administration has no authority to even recall the foo food. well, you might say, the companies would recall it, and accident quite frankly, they do because they don't want to get sued, obviously. so then why -- why have a mandatory recall? well, you might have bad actors. you might have a company that's located offshore and maybe they've imported some bad food into this country and maybe they think they can just take a few bucks and run. well, we wouldn't have -- f.d.a. would not have the mandatory recall authority. now they have that to protect our consumers. as i said, it also requires retailers to notify consumers if they've sold food that has been

contaminated. now, again, madam president, the opponents of this bill have been putting a lot of rumors out there, things that are just -- since i've lived with this bill for so long, i'm surprised that people would be saying things like this. they -- one myth i read that said this bill would outlaw home gardens, you couldn't even have a home garden. i think that comes from glenn beck, if i'm not mistaken, but it's just factually incorrect. it has to deal with family farms n. fact, the bill states excomplicitly, and i quote, "produce standards shall not apply to produce that is produced by an individual for personal consumption." there's also an exemption for small farms and small faciliti facilities, especially as they sell their products on roadside stands and farmers' markets, things like that. then there's another rumor that

everyone who grows any food will now come under the jurisdiction of the department of homeland security. i heard this myth that homeland security agents now will be tromping through your farms and your pastures and your -- and your tomato patches. well, again, absolutely, totally, factually wrong. madam president, i'm proud to say this legislation comprehensively modernizes our food safety system. it does so without injury to farms and processors. otherwise, we wouldn't have all of the industry groups onboard if we were being -- had undue hardship on our processors and our farms. our food safety system will continue to fail americans unless u.s. modernizes its food safety laws and regulations. we should give the f.d.a. the authority it needs to cope with the growing varied risks that threaten today's moribund not and diverse food supply -- more abundant and diverse food supply and we need to act ask we need to act now. and we need to invoke cloture on

this bill in just a little over a half an hour. madam president, how much time do i have remaining? the presiding officer: 8 minutes, 10 seconds. mr. harkin: well, madam president, i know that my friend, tom coburn, senator coburn, was on the floor earlier and talking about the -- this bill. he has a substitute that he's going to offer. i have worked with senator coburn over the months. i know that -- i know that we have a basic philosophical difference of opinion about the role of government in this area. that be as it may, but we've worked hard, as i said, to build compromises in this bill between people that do have differences of opinions on this. now, again, like any bill, there may be some things in here that i don't particularly like, that i think we ought to do differently, but, you know, in the spirit of compromise, we don't get our way all the time around here, we have to give and take to get something done. and that's what this bill is. and so i say to my friend, senator coburn, i know that he has some problems with it but, quite frankly, his substitute --

and i want to say this very forthrightly -- his substitute kills our bill in its entirety. kills it in its entirety. and in place, what my friend oklahoma will offer would be a few studies to help improve collaboration between f.d.a. and usda and there's weaker language in there on -- on preventive contamination of food, which i think is so important, so to prevent it in the first place. the substitute would eliminate all of our prevention control provisions. it would eliminate the provisions that enhance coordination between state and federal laboratories. now, my friend from oklahoma -- and maybe later on we'll get into this debate a little bit later -- my friend has always been saying we need better coordination and he's right. hi said that earlier. he's absolutely right, we need better coordination between the f.d.a. and the u.s. department of agriculture and other agencies, and that is being done, being done in this bill. but at the same time, his substitute would eliminate the

provisions in our bill that enhance the coordination between state and federal laboratories. exactly what we need to do is to have better coordination. his substitute would eliminate the traceback provisions that are so important to find out where this is coming from, where a foodborne pathogen might be originating. it would eliminate the important foreign supplier verification provisions that we put in this bill, that if you're importing food from a foreign country, you have to verify that that food has met the same kind of inspection standards that we have in our own country. my friend from oklahoma's substitute would eliminate that provision. it would eliminate the requirement that we increase our inspection frequencies in this country. and it would eliminate f.d.a.'s ability to recall food, the mandatory recall provision we have, even when lifethreatening contamination is detected.

so for all those reasons, i hope that the substitute will not be adopted. as i said, i know that my friend has -- has some feelings about this bill. i understand that. but many of the things that senator coburn had brought up earlier, and in good faith i worked with him and his staff on, some of his ideas we incorporated in this bill. senator coburn, i would say this as a friend, has a keen eye a lot of time for -- for things that are duplicative or things that maybe sound good but don't do what you think they're going to do. he has a keen eye for that. i give him credit for that. and so a lot of those things we have looked at in the past that he has suggested and we have adopted those and put those in the bill. lastly, i would just say one thing on one of senator coburn's objections, is that the bill is not paid for. again, i think that's misguided. he knows my feelings on this. this is an authorization bill. any funding that would come for

this would have to be appropriated in the future. there would be absolutely no deficit increase at all. this is from the congressional budget office. from our bill, we asked them, what with would it do to increase the deficit. as you can see from 2010 to 2020, zero increase in the deficit

what's the job? to help reduce the number of foodborne illnesses in this country. i would say in closing, madam president, is this bill going to stop everyone from getting sick from eating food? no. no. this is not going to be 100% perfect. will it be better than what we have? you bet it will be. it's going to prevent a lot of foodborne illnesses that otherwise would happen in this country under the present system that we have. just think about it. we are operating under a food inspection and safety system in this country that was adopted 70 years ago. 70 years ago. think of how our food supply, the growing, the processing, the shipping, have all changed in that 70 years. we go to the grocery store in the wintertime and we buy fresh raspberries from chile or blueberries from argentina. we go to the store in the summertime and we buy produce made in this country from all over, that's all commingled and

shipped together, you don't know sometimes where it's coming from. so many different things that have happened in the last 70 years, yet our inspection system has not kept up with how our food is produced, how it's processed, how it's shipped and stored in this country. and we have not updated what we -- what we should do with imported foods, and we are getting more and more imported foods into this country. so for all those reasons, madam president, i happy to we will have a good, strong vote, a good, bipartisan vote on the cloture issue and that the other measures that are coming up, we have an amendment on taxes, if either one -- if either the johanns amendment or the baucus amendment is adopted, it will kill this bill. it will kill the bill. now, i happen to be one of those that think we have to change the 1099 provisions for small businesses, but not on this bill. we'll do that before the end of the year on some tax measure. but if it's adopted on this

bill, it will kill our food safety bill because the house will blueslip it because the constitution that says bills of revenue have to originate in the house, not in the senate. likewise, the earmark provision that senator coburn will be offering, we'll have a good debate on that too. again, if that's adopted, it will kill the bill. there's just no doubt about it. so we've worked hard for many years to get to this point. we have a good, bipartisan bill. we have a bill that we believe the house will sign and send on to the president and keep our people more safe. and so i happy to any extraneous amendments i hope that this body will reject. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. hark harkin: and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. a senator: i would ask that the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. mccaskill: madam president, i rise to talk about an amendment that we'll be voting on tomorrow concerning

earmarks. i have, since coming to the senate, decided that i'm not going to participate in what i think is a very flawed process. i don't think it's the right way to spend public money. i'm not going to quarrel that some of the projects that have been funded are meritorious. they are. in my state some of the projects that have received earmark funds are wonderful expenditures of public money, but it's the way in which the money is expended that is the problem. the way it's decided is the problem. it's the process. now, there have been a number of defenses of earmarking. and i want to spend a couple of minutes debunking the defenses of earmarking. i'll tell you my favorite one. we have somehow abdicating the power of the purse that is delineated in the constitution. give me a break.

we decide every dime of federal money. congress makes the decision on appropriations for every federal program. now, how is giving up a secretive process where no one is really sure how it's decided who gets how much money, how is getting rid of that somehow removing our constitutional authority to make spending decisions? it's like they want the american people to believe if we quit earmarking the appropriations process is going to go away. that we will no longer be past judgment of the president's budget. that we'll no longer have oversight of the federal money. it's silly. it's absurd. in some ways it's almost insulting. the constitutional powers to decide how federal money is spent will remain with the congress long after this bad

habit has been broken. and make no mistake about it it may not be this year. it may not be next year. but the american people are on to us. they now know and understand that earmarking is about who you are. it's about what committee you sit on. it's about who you know. if this is such a fair process, if this is something we should be proud of, then i want someone to come to this floor and explain to me how they decide who gets the money. i ask it at home all the time. i say if you know how they decide how they get the money, will you tell me because i'm a member of the senate and i don't know. in some committees the ranking member and the chairman of the subcommittee get more money than everybody else. in other committees they don't. where is that decided? in what room? is there a hearing? can i go and watch? when the money is split up,

who's in the room? who's on the phone? if we are brutally honest with the american people, we will tell them that's a process we just don't want them to see. an, yes, we are better, yes, we reformed and i'm proud that my party led the reforms on earmarking right after i came to the senate. and now your name is on your earmark. i'll tell you what's not public -- you know what people at home actually believe? they actually believe that the senators don't pick the winners and losers. they actually think there's some mysterious process -- i don't know where they think this occurs -- but what we don't know what are all the earmarks that senators say no to? senators say no to these earmarks. it's not a committee that says no to these earmarks. it's not a chairman. each individual senator decides winners and losers.

i don't think the losers know that. i think the losers think that that senator had nothing to do with them being a loser. now if we could make all that public, this would be a much less popular activity. because then all of a sudden the people who wanted a bridge in this part of the state would realize that the senator thought that the bridge on the other side of the state was more important. so we take credit for the earmarks we get, but we're not willing to own the fact that we've chosen winners and losers. and, finally, this notion that we're taking somehow the bureaucrats that -- the bure -- that the bureaucrats are going to disievment most of the money that's taken for earmarks comes out of programs that are grant programs and formula programs that are decided by population or decided by local people. it's not washington bureaucrats. there's a planning, a judgment of one person for a local planning process, a state planning process, and that's not

right way to spend money. i hope people vote for the coburn-mccaskill amendment tomorrow. we need to end earmarking. it's the wrong way to spend public money. and whether it happens tomorrow or whether it happens two or three years from now, make no mistake about it, the american people are tired of it. thank you, madam president, and i request the absence of a quorum. quorum call: the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. cardin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i would ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, the standing rules of the senate, hereby move to bring to a close debate on the harkin amendment to calendar number 247, s. 510, the food and drug administration food safety modernization act, signed by 19 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is is it the sense of the senate that debate on amendment number 4715 to s. 510, a bill to amend the federal

food, drug and cosmetic act with respect to the safety of the food supply, shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 69, the nays are 26. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. s mr. baucus: madam president, the senate's not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. baucus: madam president, the senate is not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. please take your conversations

outside. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senator from nebraska will be recognized to offer a motion to suspend the rules. the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: thank you, madam president. madam president, i move to suspend rule 22, including any germaneness requirements, for the purposes of proposing and considering amendment number 4702, and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. mr. baucus: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: madam president, pursuant to the previous order, i move to suspend the rules for the consideration of my amendment, which is at the desk. and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second?

there appears to be. under the previous order, the vote will first occur on the motion from the senator from nebraska. mr. baucus: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: madam president, i understand under the consent agreement, each side gets to speak for one minute. the presiding officer: that's correct. the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: madam president, thank you. if i might just take my minute to explain what's happening tonight. the first amendment we will vote on is the johanns amendment. it repeals the 1099 requirement in the health care law. this came before us in septemb september. many colleagues came to me and said, i don't like the pay-fors coming out of the health care law. this is paid for. it is paid for out of unobligated funds in the federal

system, if you will. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. please take your conversations outside. the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: thank you. the second amendment, the baucus amendment, simply is not paid for. so you will be adding to the federal deficit if you support the baucus amendment. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: madam president, the senator from nebraska and i both seek to repeal the provisions in the health reform act referring to 1099's so they're virtually identical -- they are identical in that respect. but actually we go further and give more relief to small business than does the senator from nebraska. we also -- and i might say the johanns amendment also gave the unelected director of the office of management and budget the power to slash $33 billion in appropriated spending entirely at his own discretion, taking away the responsibility of the congress.

i don't think that's a good idea. the johanns amendment, thus, puts at particular risk slower spending accounts -- the johanns amendment puts at risk, the international control, law enforcement funding, $39 billion worth of funding solely at the discretion of the o.m.b. director, taking that power away from the congress. i think that's a bad idea and i urge my colleagues to oppose the johanns amendment. the presiding officer: 24 seconds. mr. johanns: in reference to the senator from montana's argument -- a senator: madam president, could we have order, please. mr. roberts: madam president, could we have order, please. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. johanns: madam president, congress has allowed the administration to make similar decisions on rescinding funds in 1999, 2004, and twice in 2008 while our friends on the other side of the aisle were in control of congress.

that argument simply doesn't hold water. i urge my colleagues to support the paid-for amendment, the johanns amendment. the presiding officer: all time has expired. the question is on the motion from the senator from nebraska. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 61, the nays are 35. two-thirds of the senators voting not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. the presiding officer: the senator from montana.

mr. baucus: mr. president, can we have order? the presiding officer: please take your conversations outside the chamber. mr. baucus: mr. president, this next vote is very simple, plain and simply it repeals the 1099 provisions that all -- said to small business we're going to repeal. pure and simply repeals 1099 and i encourage us to vote to appeal, get this over with so we can move on to other business. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. the chamber will come to order. please halt your conversations. the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: mr. president, i want to say one thing, this adds

$19 to the federal deficit -- $19 billion to the federal deficit and i yield my time to judd gregg. mr. gregg: this is not the proper way to address this issue to add $19 billion to our deficit. that has to be paid by our children and small businesses affected by this 1099 proposal. let's do this the right way. let's do it the way that the senator from nebraska has suggested, paid for and it should be corrected that way, not by adding $19 billion to our debt. the presiding officer: all time is yielded back. the question is on the motion from the senator from montana. the yeas and nays having been ordered, the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 44, the nays are 53. two-thirds of the senate voting having not voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.

mr. coburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: the senate not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: mr. president, we have -- the presiding officer: please carry your conversations outside the chamber.

mr. coburn: mr. president, we have just invoked cloture on the food safety bill, and i think it's important for the american people to know what that means. the presiding officer: thank you. mr. coburn: what that means is, we're going to spend another $1.4 billion of their money. number two is we're going to raise the cost of food over the next year and, therefore, we're about $200 million to $300 million. we set $141 million per year in unfunded mandates if we pass this bill on to the states and we didn't fix the real problem with food safety in this country, according to the government accountability office.

i have two amendments. the other point i'd make is we went through this process over the last week and a half with no amendments being allowed. no amendments being allowed, which really violates the spirit of the senate. we could have finished this bill probably the week before thanksgiving had we had amendments allowed. the thing washington gets wrong, it's not their intent. it's not their well-meaning desire to fix problems that are in front of the country. what washington gets wrong is they think spending more money, setting up a ton more of regulations will fix problems. and it doesn't. what it does is raise costs. and so we're going to see a lot of small food manufacturers no longer making food.

we're going to raise the cost of our food, and, by the way, those are significant increases. if i could have my charts brought down to the floor, i would appreciate it. significant increases this year in food, and we're going to see that extended. but we're not going to fix the real issue. and food safety is on the mind of everybody in this kin because of the recent -- is on the mind of everybody in this country because of the recent 500 billion egg recall in this country. it is important to know that the head of the f.d.a., dr. margaret hammer, said had their rule been in existence, we wouldn't have had that problem with salmonella witwith eggs. they promulgated the finished rule around the time of the salmonella infection and contamination on the eggs.

the problem with that is that it took ten years to develop that rule. nobody has asked why it took ten years. nobody has did a hearing before we passed this rule to say, how did we -- how did we allow this to happen? but we took ten years. senator harkin has the right idea on food safety. he didn't get to proper this bill because he didn't get it through. we need one food safety organization, not three. we now have three. and we're going to exacerbate that problem with the bill that we just deemed cloture on. the intent of my colleagues is great, burkes as somebody trained in the art of medicine, what i see in this bill is different than what you see in this bill. seekers i see the problem is not lacking regulatory authority,

the problem is not holding the regulators in their expertise and carrying out of the authority that they have. and how do i know that for sure? because it wasn't a week the recall on the eggs on the salmonella care that we had two f.d.a. inspectors cross-connated farms in iowa. not even following their own regulations. this doesn't do anything for that. because the only thing that's going to fix the real problems with food safety in this country is us holding the regulators accountable, not giving them a whole bunch more regulations. and we haven't done that. we have failed to do that. and it's not just in food safety. the reason we have a $1.3 trillion disft because we don't hold agency accountable. we're going to have a debate in a minute on earmarks, and we're going to hear it put forward that the only way we can control

is to direct the money ourselves. that's just absolutely an untruth. the way you can direct where money gets spent had this country is having oversight on the agencies and them knowing you're going to look at every time on how they're spending the money, why, and make them justify t the fact is we're not looking because we've decided we'll divide -- we'll make take ours and we'll put our $15 billion over here and you, the administration, can take your money and put your money where you want it. that's the real debate on earmarks. there's nothing in our oath that says anything about our obles to our state -- our obligation to our state to bring money back to it. and the hidden little secret on earmarks is they're used as much as a political tool as they are to claim i'm doing something good for my state. i'd ask unanimous consent to waive the rules for the consideration of amendment 49 --

4696 and amendment 4697. the presiding officer: is there an objection? mr. durbin: mr. president, reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i would like to ask the senator from oklahoma if he could explain the nature of his unanimous consent request. i may not object, but i just didn't understand it. mr. coburn: i'm just bringing these up. i have to bring them up in the morning or evening. there are votes in the morning, so i'm bringing them up to be available for consideration under a suspension of the rules. mr. durbin: so it is my understanding the votes will still be tomorrow? mr. coburn: yes, they will. mr. durbin: -- on the two issues that you have pending? i do not object. the presiding officer: on the motions to suspend rather than on the amendments themselves.

is there an objection? without objection, so ordered. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma has the floor. mr. coburn: give me another minute, if you don't mind. i just want to show you the difference. one of the motions that we will vote on suspending the rules tomorrow is here's s. 510. it is 280 pages of new rules and new regulations. and here's the alternative, which is one-sixth of that. this one costs $1.4 billion in direct cost. $400 billion in food increase costs and $141 million in mandatory new spending, mandates to the states. this one does none of that. what does this bill do? this bill uses common sense to say what really controls our food safety. our food safety is controlled by

market forces more than anything. and if you look at our history on foodborne contamination, we're by far the safest in the world and our rates have been coming down since 1996789 over the last 14 years, our rates have come down because of foodborne illnesses. i'm not fighting against food safety. i'm fighting for common sense. and what we see in the bill we're going to vote on versus the alternative which i'm going to offer, one builds and grows the government, one raises the cost of government, ultimately will be taxed to pay for that. one raises the price of food and one puts unfunded mandates on the states. and i'm saying, we can accomplish exactly the same goal as my chairman, the senator from iowa, would like to accomplish, without 280 pages of new rules and regulations. and so what do we do?

we require the f.d.a. and usda to immediately establish a comprehensive plan to share their data. they have agreements, but they -- and they have agreements to share data, but they don't share the data. so we force them to do that. we require strategic plan for updating their health information technology systems with the government accountability office. for the last five years they've been significant it is their number-one problem. we require the f.d.a. to submit a plan to expeditiously approve new food safety technologies and new effectively communicate their technologies to the industry and consumers. we leverage the free market existing food safety activities by allowing the food accredit third-party inverkts and we provide a limited new authority without imposing new costs and additional regulatory burden. these new authorities intend to better leverage the free markets and focus resources on preventing foodborne illness and contamination. they include emergency access to

records, clarifying the haccp authority relating to high-risk foods and allowing the f.d.a. to develop strategic international relationships. what'll this little do? it'll fix the real problem: ineffective government. ineffective bureaucracies. and what we're going to do when we pass the food safety bill that's on the floor, we're tabooing agree to the government. we're going to create more barriers, raise the costs, and we're still going to have foodborne illnesses. so i'll end with that and move over to earmarks, and i know i have several colleagues that want to talk about it. and i am note going to spend a long time on it. we've debated it, and debated it. the fact is that this country did just fine for the first 200 years without the first earmark, and when anybody in the senate in the first 200 years of this country tried to earmark, they got shouted dow