go to their constituents and say see, i voted no and yet at the same time wonderfully they lost and they didn't actually have to stand up and stop what was happening. and so that is an outcome i believe that there are some on this side of the aisle who desire. now, i do feel obliged to rise in defense of my colleagues, the republicans. because the senior senator from arizona has impugned the republicans by claiming repeatedly that it is only a minority of republicans who are opposed to raising the debt ceiling on just 50 votes. and he has repeatedly suggested on the floor of the senate that, in fact, it may be a small minority, that the overwhelming majority of republicans, the senior senator from arizona sa said, stand with harry reid in wanting to be able to raise the debt ceiling on 50 votes. let me suggest to the senior senator from arizona that,

number one, in saying that, he is impugning all 45 republicans in this body. but, number two, it has been suggested that those of us who are fighting to defend liberty, fighting to turn around the out-of-control spending and out-of-control debt in this country, fighting to defend the constitution, it has been suggested that we are whacko birds. well, if that is the case, i will suggest to my friend from arizona, there may be more whacko birds in the senate than is suspected. indeed, i would encourage my friend, the senior senator from arizona, that if he were to circulate to republicans a simple statement that said, "we, the undersigned republican senators, hereby state that we support giving harry reid and the democrats the ability to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes instead of 60," i believe

he will find his representation to this body that it is only a minority of republicans that oppose that is not accurate. this issue gets obscured by the procedural complexities and that's not by accident. washington is very good at speaking doublespeak that make the citizens' eyes glaze over. but at its heart, it's very, very simple. majority leader reid and the democrats want to raise the debt ceiling. they have stated they want to raise the debt ceiling. and they want to do so consistent with president obama's instructions to do so without debate -- because he doesn't want to debate this issue -- without conditions, without anything to fix our out-of-control spending, our out-of-control debt, simply give him an additional blank credit card because going from $10 trillion to $17 trillion has not been enough.

that is the desire of the democrats and it is candid. we could go to conference right now today if the democrats would simply say, we won't raise the debt ceiling with just using 50 votes. we will debate it on the floor with a 60-vote threshold and actually be forced to find some bipartisan agreement. but that's not what the majority wants to do. and those who are arguing that republicans should accede to that demand are arguing that all of us who have told our constituents, "we're going to fight to solve this economic problem, we're going to fight to stop this out-of-control spending, we're going to fight to stop bankrupting our kids," that those promises are hollow. those are just what we tell constituents at home. that's not actually what we do on the floor of the senate. i would note, indeed, that when the senior senator from arizona

said it is only a small minority that believes this on the republican side, if my friend, the senior senator, is able to produce a written letter with a signature of a majority of republicans, i will offer here and now to go to a home game of my houston astros wearing an arizona diamondback hat. and i can guarantee in houston, that will not be well received. but yet i stand in complete comfort that i will not find myself in that situation because i don't believe it's right that a majority of the republicans in this body have given up the fight on spending, have given up the fight on reining in out-of-control washington bipartisan spending, deficits and debt. i believe we are seeing leadership in this body stand together to fix the problem. that is what the american people want. so let me say this, in closing.

it's easy to get confused by all of the procedural discussions back and forth. this issue is about one issue alone -- should majority leader harry reid be able to raise the debt limit an unlimited amount with just 50 votes? or should it require 60? if it requires 60, there will have to be some positive steps made to fix the problem. if it's just 50rbg the majority leader has the -- if it's just 50, the majority leader has the votes right now today to write a blank check for the federal debt. that's the issue. and i think the american people are not conflicted in the answer to that issue. the american people want us to fix the problem and stop digging the debt hole deeper and deeper, stop putting our kids and grandkids on the path to greece. and i am proud that so many senators are standing here

working very hard to honor our commitments to our constituents because that's exactly what our job is. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president, i thank my friend and my colleag colleague, the senator from texas, for his remarks and i speak briefly just to respond to a couple of points that have come up today. first of all, it's important for us to remember that although the rules of our body might allow for a conference committee to meet in public and although that may have happened in the past from time to time, it's not the norm. in asking around to some senior staff members who have been here longer than i have, it typically hasn't happened in recent years. in fact, it's become relatively rare in recent years. so to suggest that it necessarily is an open process because it has the capacity to be made into an open process, those are not the same things. and typically we can

legitimately expect for this to be a backroom, closed-door process. now, that's not the end of the world. we, of course, need conference committees. they do valuable, important work. we're not disputing that. we're not disputing the fact that sometimes it's important for conference committees to meet in order to attempt to reconcile competing versions of the same legislation, one passed in the house and one passed in the senate. but what we're talking about here is a very limited request, to limit the scope of their work so as to exclude the possibility of a debt limit increase without the 60-vote threshold. it's also important to remember that although this is the procedure that the majority has chosen to use in order to try to get to a conference committee, it's not the only way. in fact, it's possible to do this without unanimous consent. it's possible to do this witho without, in other words, all of us being willing to do it, all of us by withholding our objection, effectively voting to do that. if, as has been suggested, the

other body does, in fact, want to go to conference, the other body could take the budget that we passed, could slap their amendments on top of it, could even replace most or even all of our budget with theirs, send it back over. and at that point, it's my understanding we could could go to conference without the need for a unanimous consent. so there are other ways. this is just the way that the majority has chosen to go. the majority has every right to do that and we have every right to object. that, we do. and that we will continue to do until such time as it either becomes unnecessary or until such time as the majority agrees to modify the request along the lines that we've specified. so as to permit and ensure any debt limit discussions and votes would take place subsequent to the normal order and subject to a 60-vote threshold. thank you, madam president. i don't have. -- i yield the floor.

mrs. feinstein: mr. president? madam president, excuse me. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: thank you, madam president. i believe pursuant to a unanimous consent agreement by the chairman of the agriculture committee that i am next up to be able to speak on an amendme amendment. but for just a brief moment, madam president, i want to reflect on what i've heard and the lens through which i see it. i've been here for 20 years. when i came to the senate, it was not this way. the rules of the senate were observed, a small minority never tried to subvert the will of the majority. i think senator mccain said it well -- we stand on the floor, we advocate for our views, we either win or lose, the dye is cast. but we have an opportunity for full deliberation. it's one thing to have a minority have their rights. it's another thing to have a minority of the minority

absolutely try and handcuff a committee of the united states senate. and i believe that is the wrong thing. because what is happening here sets a precedent for future answers, and there is no reason not to have a conference committee. i think the senator from utah knows full well that these conference committees are open to the public, they're open to the press, they're often long, they can be laborious but it's a way of reconciling the differences between the house and the senate. so to handcuff this budget committee and say it can do this but it cannot do that is not the right thing to do. so i hope that the credibility of the minority of the minority running this body diminishes with this debate. so let me now go to an amendment senator mccain and i introduced to eliminate taxpayer subsidies for tobacco production

in the farm bill of america. it's number 923. i won't call it up because i understand an agreement is -- i'm just told by the chairman of the committee that i can call up the amendment. and to this end, i would call up amendment number 923. the presiding officer: is there objection? the clerk will report the amendment. mrs. feinstein: i ask the reading of the amendment be vitiated and i will proceed with my remarks. the presiding officer: the clerk will simply report the amendment first. the clerk: the senator from california, mrs. feinstein, proposes an amendment numbered 923. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator is recognized. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much. i want to thank the chairman. she made a commitment to hold a vote on this amendment on monday evening and she has sought mightily to keep her word and i

very much appreciate that. madam president, this amendment is, to my view, about commonsense. tobacco is not just another cr crop. it causes 443,000 deaths each year. it is the leading cause of preventable death in america. the c.d.c. estimates that tobacco costs the american economy more than $200 billion each year in health care expenses and lost productivity. a recent study estimates that annual smoking attributable expenditures add $22 billion each year to medicaid's bottom line. in other words, medicaid costs $22 billion more because of tobacco. in 2004 congress approved nearly $10 billion, $9.6 billion, to be

act, in payments over the next ten years to tobacco farmers and quota holders in exchange for ending the tobacco program. in addition to this $10 billion, tobacco farmers also received more than $276 million in tobacco -- in taxpayer funded crop insurance subsidies since 2004. and that's what we are trying to change. unlike crop insurance indemnities, the tobacco insurance subsidy is not based on losses. the government pays premium support subsidies year in, year out, regardless of losses. in 2012, farmers received $37.4 million in subsidies. in 2011, $33 million. in 2010, $37.1 million.

in 2009, $40.1 million. if you add this up, there's $147 million in subsidies given despite the big tobacco buyout of $10 billion in subsidies to crop insurance. if you look at our $642 billion deficit, why would the government continue to subsidize crop insurance for tobacco? now, that's not to say tobacco farmers shouldn't have access to crop insurance. insurance is an important risk management tool for any busine business. and our amendment allows tobacco farmers to continue to purchase crop insurance. the amendment is specific. it eliminates the government's contribution to the annual cost of tobacco insurance premiums but it does not impact the ability for crop insurance companies to sell these

products. farmers can manage weather and market risk without the mandatory taxpayer premium support. now, some may say, well, market rate insurance isn't feasible for farmers. i challenge that notion. carrot farmers don't have access to any crop insurance. federally subsidized or otherwise. neither do spinach farmers, broccoli farmers, or artichoke farmers. the list of crops with no insurance support goes on. cauliflower, celery, eggplant, cut flowers, kiwi, couple quats, melon, raspberries and pomegranates, just to name a few. farming without government-subsidized crop insurance is possible, contrary to what some would have you believe. and i also want to remind my colleagues that tobacco farmers have done quite well by the government. in 2014, north carolina tobacco

farmers and quota owners will have received $3.9 billion in buyout payments. in other words, they have taken this money to buy out, be bought out. kentucky quota owners and farmers will have received $2.4 billion from the government. quota holders and farmers in tennessee, south carolina, virginia and georgia will each have received more than $600 million in buyout payments by the end of next year. evenly divided among the thousands of tobacco quota holders and farmers nationwide, the nearly $10 billion buyout has provided very generous support. now, we need to remember this is not a struggling industry, contrary to what some would have you believe. a 2012 university of illinois

study found that productivity on kentucky tobacco farms increased by 44% in the last ten years. at the same time, tobacco farmers are seeing some of their best paydays since the 2004 buyout began. tobacco is fetching nearly $2 a pound for some farmers, and the 2012 crop was valued at $1.579 billion. to return to the question at hand, should taxpayers continue to subsidize tobacco production? i believe the answer is no. tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the united states. as i said, it kills 443,000 people each year. it costs $200 billion in health care and reduced productivity.

i'm not alone. this amendment is supported by the american cancer society, the american heart association, the american lung association, the campaign for tobacco-free kids, the american public health association, environmental working group, doctors for america and physicians for responsible medicine and taxpayers for common sense. now, some would have you believe well, this is really going to affect the small tobacco farmer. let's take a look at it. there are 16,228 farms that grow tobacco nationwide. well, i won't get into that. the industry is concentrated. a small number of large farms produce the vast majority of the crop. 2% of the farms produce 50% of the annual tobacco crop.

10%, 75% of the annual tobacco crop. 20% of farms that grow tobacco are smaller than 50 acres. 80% of farms that grow tobacco are larger than 50 acres. the bottom line is that most tobacco farmers are not relying on tobacco as their primary crop. thus, it's not surprising that only 4,495 -- that's 72% of farms -- have tobacco sales of more than $50,000 a year. a fair assessment shows that about 5% of tobacco farmers, 908, do fall into the category of small farmers that rely on tobacco as their primary farm income. now, the buyout expires, i believe, at the end of 2014.

my point is nearly $10 billion of taxpayer funds are in the process of being expended to buy out tobacco farmers. why should we then subsidize crop insurance? so i very much hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting what i think is commonsense reform. we have to say no to tobacco in america, and i think most of us think that we made really great progress. young people smoke less, older people smoke less, you don't smoke in public places. all of these things have had a big impact. i think by eliminating this subsidy on crop insurance, it also can have a constructive impact, so i urge an aye vote, and i don't see anyone else on the floor willing to speak at

this time, so i note -- oh, i do. i see senator blumenthal, and i will yield the floor. mr. blumenthal: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president, and i thank the senator from california for her excellent work on the amendment that she is offering which takes to another level the fight against tobacco addiction that has so plagued this country. she has been such a champion of the victims of nicotine and tobacco addiction, and her work certainly has been a model for many of us who have been involved in this fight. i rise today to introduce the military crime victims act, military crime victims rights act of 2013. there are 26,000 victims of

sexual assault in the military every year. at least last year there were that number estimated, but only a fraction, some 3,000-plus, were reported. this measure encourages more accurate and complete reporting of all crimes by guaranteeing all victims of crimes in the military the basic rights that victims have in civilian courts under current law. these rights are not a matter of discretion. they are legal rights that victims of crime in our federal courts enjoy, and my proposal is essentially to apply those same rights, guarantee them in the military code of justice. the uniform code of military justice fails to afford these

basic rights. they are rights of decency and fairness to crime victims. and it requires many of these victims to endure humiliating and insulting obstacles in their quest for justice, and so it naturally discourages them from coming forward and reporting these acts, most especially the acts of sexual assault. these rights that i believe should be applied in -- under the rode, the uniform code of military justice, are, for example, the right to protection from the accused, notice and opportunity to speak at trial, the right against unreasonable delay in trial proceedings. those are just a few of the rights that would be guaranteed. they are standards of decency and fairness that are essential

to effective prosecution and the goals of good order and discipline in the military. these fundamental rights are well established in the civilian courts and well esteemed by prosecutors and defendants as well as the victims because they enable the justice system to function more fairly and effectively. few would imagine going into a civilian court in a criminal trial without the statutory right to be protected from the accused, protected against physical threat or intimidation. few would imagine going into a civilian court and being denied the right to appear and to speak when one's history, one's personal and sexual history is an issue in the trial. few would imagine the denial of

a right to be heard in the course of sentencing. few would imagine unreasonable delay and permission for the accused to actually leave the country and be unavailable for the trial and thereby have that unreasonable delay. and yet in the military courts, these events are routine and accepted. this bill would correct that failing. there is no reason that military sexual assault victims should be given less respect or fewer rights than civilian victims of the same offense. the key to deterring crime is prosecuting and punishing it effectively, which requires reporting by victims. more than reporting it, requires

cooperation. we know for a fact that victims denied rights and respect will simply not report sexual assaults. in the military, they fear retaliation and discouragement of many kinds in reporting serious crimes of all kinds. if sexual assault isn't reported, it can't be prosecuted, and if it's not prosecuted, it certainly can't be punished or deterred. i became involved in this issue of victims' rights in the military because of a constituent who came forward to me and i became involved in her case because she was denied basic justice. her case was delayed. she was a victim of sexual assault in the apartment of an officer stationed in rhode island. she never had the opportunity to

speak in court in a timely way. her credibility was directly put at issue, and she had no opportunity to rebut in effect the charges brought against her. so often, the victim is the one on trial. so often, she or he is forced to relive that brutal, vicious predatory act of criminal conduct simply to bring charges and seek justice, and she is seeking justice not only on her own behalf but on behalf of the nation because the history and it's clearly the experience that's proven by solid evidence is that a sexual offender repeats that offense.

the rate of recidivism is higher for sexual offenses than any other kind of crime. so last year, i requested that the department of defense investigate both their failure to afford victims the right to be heard during public proceedings and victims' rights to be free from unreasonable delay and the lack of remedies available to victims. the report that i received as a result of that request explained in february that the department of defense does not include the full list of crime victims' rights in its directive because it references a repeal statute, one from 1990, rather than the more recent one passed by congress, the united states justice for all act of 2004. that's why still today military service -- our military service, each of them, is operating on

out-of-date and inadequate victim protection. the reason is not military necessity. it is simply ignoring the law that exists right now in spirit, if not in letter. my bill would correct the letter of the law to guarantee these rights. i appreciate the investigation conducted by the department of defense general counsel robert taylor and the military's commitment to revising their out-of-date directives and instructions, but we need a statutory remedy now so that people whose rights are violated will have a remedy, so they will have a recourse and relief when their rights are violated. this victims' bill of rights has proved feasible and effective in the civilian justice proceedings involving the very same offenses. the rights are not novel or

untested. they are well established and esteemed. so i ask today for support from my colleagues in passing this measure. it's a basic commonsense measure. it requires a military judge just like their civilian counterparts to take up and decide any motion asserting a victim's rights right away. it requires an ombudsman within the department of defense just like the ombudsman for crime victims' rights in the department of defense. it requires training for judge advocate generals and other personnel to assist them in responding more effectively to victims' rights and requires trial counsel in a military case to advise the victim he or she can seek their own attorney with

respect to these rights. we have an obligation to stand up for those who stand up for us and defend us, and i refuse to disappoint them. i look forward to working on enacting this proposal with my colleagues in the senate armed services committee, the department of defense, and the united states military. and i would welcome the views of the response systems panel established by congress when they have views that they wish to impart. we have the best and strongest military force in the history of the world, in the history of our nation. our men and women in uniform deserve a military justice system worthy of their excellence. i thank you and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan.

ms. stabenow: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the time between -- until 1:00 be equally divided between proponents and opponents of the feinstein-mccain amendment, 923, and following the confirmation vote this afternoon that the resumption of illegal immigration, the -- of legislative session, there be two minutes prior to the vote and the amendment be subject to a 60 affirmative vote threshold. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. stabenow: just one more comment. i see a colleague wishing to speak on the floor. i just want to thank everyone as we are working through the farm bill, we are making progress, we are moving forward and looking forward to continuing to put in place the final path to passage of the bill. thank you.

mr. toomey: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: madam president, i rise to make a unanimous consent request. thank you, madam president. we -- we've been following in the news an extraordinary horror story, and it's the story of kermit gosnell's really unspeakable crimes that were committed over a long period of time, maybe as much as two decades, at the women's medical society in philadelphia, pennsylvania. we suspect that there were literally hundreds of late-term and very late-term abortions that were conducted there, and we now know from his conviction

in a criminal trial that there were babies born alive, probably many, who were then murdered when scissors were used to sever their spinal cords after they were born alive in a failed abortion attempt. further, we know that kermit gosnell and some of his colleagues kept aborted fetuses in bags and bottles, discarded them, left them on shelves. it's just unbelievable what was happening at this place for years and years. in fact, the crimes were discovered by accident. police raided offices to seize evidence of illegal sales of prescription drugs, and it was only during that raid for illegal prescription drug sales that they discovered the evidence of these atrocities. to my view and the view of many of my colleagues, we need to do

a lot more to make sure that the laws which were blatantly being violated by kermit gosnell, are better enforced and we need to do that through proper due diligence and discovery of where they're being violated. just about two weeks ago, kermit gosnell was convicted, he was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for killing three infants. he was convicted of one count of third-degree murder in the overdose death of a woman. there were 21 counts of abortion of an unborn child of 24 weeks or more. and he was convicted of 208 counts of violation of informed consent. madam president, we have a resolution, senate resolution 133, and it points to these atrocities that were committed

and it simply calls on congress and the states to investigate and correct the abusive, the unsanitary and the blatantly illegal abortion practices that certainly were conducted here at the women's medical society in philadelphia, and similar such practices that may be occurring in other places. so i ask unanimous consent the help committee be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 133, that the senate proceed to its consideration, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table and no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. chairman? -- madam chairman? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: reserving the right to object, and i will object but i want to first discuss the resolution that now for the third time essentially has been brought to this body,

and i'm here to speak and object for a third time, but not from out of disagreement with the basic goal that has been well articulated by my friend from pennsylvania. and i think i'm quoting him directly from his remarks just now in saying that goal is to do a lot more to assure that the laws violated by kermit gosnell are vigorously enforced. i am here to say yes, let us condemn the kinds of practices that resulted in that conviction of kermit gosnell and his sentence, in effect, to life in prison. let us do more to assure that laws are vigorously enforced that protect innocent patients in any setting, whether it's a doctor's office or a hospital, or a nursing home, whether it's by a nurse or a doctor or

another kind of caregiver, or by a vicious, conscienceless practitioner like kermit gosnell. let us stop this kind of despicable medical conduct, even if it may be only a tiny fraction of all the care giving that occurs in the united states, by an even tinier fraction of a great and noble profession, by extraordinarily experienced and expert members of our medical profession. we need to talk about all of the kinds of malpractice and criminal misconduct that can cause death or injury or the threat of death or injury, and we ought to be equally outraged by the doctors and the nurses in states like, for example,

hospitals and nursing homes in both new jersey and pennsylvania in 2006, sentenced to multiple life sentences for killing at least 29 patients by intentionally overdosing them with medication. there was simply no justification for those actions, and they are equally heinous and unforgivable as the crimes that resulted in the conviction of kermit gosnell. we need to talk about the nurse who was charged with killing ten patients in a hospital in texas by injecting them with a medication to stop their breathing. she pleaded no contest and now is serving life in prison. i want this body to adopt a resolution that addresses those kinds of lapses in basic decency

and ethics and morality as well as law. we ought to be talking about the doctor who worked in hospitals in seven states -- new hampshire, kansas, maryland, pennsylvania, michigan, new york, and georgia -- and exposed almost 8,000 patients to hepatitis c. he knowingly injected patients with his own infected blood and exposed them to life-threatening disease. and the resolution that i am going to ask this body to adopt speaks to those violations of trust and decency and law. in this place i've talked about other similar violations, the oklahoma dentist who exposed as many as 7,000 patients to h.i.v. and hepatitis b and c through unsanitary practices. in nevada, the practitioners at an endoscopy center that exposed

40,000 patients to hepatitis c through their unsanitary practices, went on for years. my resolution speaks to those basic violations of trust and morality. kermit gosnell's case has run its course. our criminal justice system has done its work. i have a resolution and i ask unanimous consent that it be adopted, i ask unanimous consent that the help committee be discharged from further consideration of s. resolution 134 and the senate proceed to its consideration and that the resolution be agreed to, the blumenthal amendment to the preamble which is at the desk be agreed to, the preamble as amended be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. i object to the resolution offered by my colleague from

pennsylvania, and ask him and my colleagues to join me in support of this alternative resolution. the presiding officer: objection is heard. is there objection to the request from the senator from connecticut? mr. toomey: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: reserving the right to object, i think the senator from connecticut makes a number of important observations, raises a number of very important issues, and i think there's an opportunity for the two of us to work together to address some of these things. however, my reading of the actual resolution for which he is requesting unanimous consent in my view equates outcomes, including deaths, but outcomes resulting from malpractice and unsanitary conditions and other

completely indefensible practices, equates those with the serial premeditated intentional murder of babies. and i don't think those things ought to be equated because i think they are of a very different nature. furthermore, the resolution of the senator from connecticut, it's my understanding does not call for the investigations that i think are necessary to determine how widespread these practices are, under what circumstances they're occurring, and what more can be done to prevent them. and so for those reasons, madam president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: does the senator from connecticut have anything further, the senator from pennsylvania? i don't want to interrupt their discussion. mr. blumenthal: i am done, madam president. i appreciate the senator from

tennessee's inquiry. thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: thanks. madam president, being a majority leader is not an easy job whether you're a republican or a democrat and some good things have been happening in the senate recently and i think we should credit both the majority leader and the republican leader with helping to make that happen. over the last few weeks we've seen the water resources bill come to the floor, and the majority leader allowed senator boxer, senator vitter to manage the amendment process, to handle the necessary arguments that always occur about what they will be and we came to a conclusion and passed a bill. a bill that went through committee, went through the floor, a very important bill, really, because it deals with locks, dams, ports in the united states, we want to make sure that as the panama canal is widened and deepened that the ports in the united states are deep enough to receive the bigger ships.

and that the locks and the dams are in good enough shape so commerce can move through the company and jobs created. that's an important piece of legislation. and now we're on the farm bill. and we see the senator from mississippi and the senator from michigan managing a bill. there is plenty of opportunity for amendments so far as i have been able to tell, and -- and -- and that has been very helpful. at the same time, we have coming out of the judiciary committee after several days of intense work a bill on immigration. probably the four most important words that could be said about the immigration debate is that we are all americans, and americans know that we must have a legal immigration system if we want to be able to say we're all americans. we want one, and we don't have an enforceable legal system today. all of us know that. none of us like the scenario, i don't think. all of us know that the

president and the congress are the only ones who can fix it. this is not something we can dump on the mayors or the state legislatures. so i think we -- many of us haven't formed a final opinion about this legislation that is coming forward, but i for one respect the fact that it's moved -- it has four principal republican sponsors and four principal democratic sponsors and it's moved through the committee and voices have been heard and it's coming to the floor, and again the majority leader has indicated and the republican leader has agreed that when it comes to the floor, there will be a full and open debate so the american people can see it and watch us come to a result. all those are good things. and in addition, so that we might do that, there are a number of nominations about which we're likely to disagree that will be after that so as not to interveer with the immigration debate. which brings me to my final point. i would hope that the fact that

with occasional interruptions for debate over whether we're going to go to a budget or not, which i hope gets resolved, we're on a pretty good path right now, and i hope the majority and the minority leaders can -- can see that. we're moving this afternoon to a vote on a -- a federal appellate judge for the d.c. circuit, a major objective of the democratic side has been to get another judge on that circuit, and the president has nominated a person, mr. srinivasan, who by every account is an exceptional attorney. he came out of the committee with an 18-0 vote, has widespread respective support, and the only glitch in the process was that the majority leader felt it necessary to file a cloture motion this week even though the republican leader had -- had agreed that we would

have an up-or-down vote on the monday we get back, and every indication is that almost everyone would vote for that judge. now that's been resolved and so we're going to vote this afternoon at 2:00, and i know better than to predict how the senate will vote. i am going to vote for mr. srinivasan. i suspect he will be easily confirmed. but in all of this, the majority leader has felt it necessary to suggest that somehow there is a problem with the president's nominations being considered by the united states senate, and i think it's important that someone other than the republican leader, because it's his job really to defend our side, to lay out what the facts are. and i hope i can do that with some credibility because i have worked with my democratic colleagues in the beginning of the last congress, at the beginning of this congress to make it easier for this president and future presidents to have their nominations

considered. we have changed the rules to make it easier. just a few months ago, in a long discussion that involved senators from both sides in a debate on the floor, we made a number of changes to make it easier for a president to have his nominations considered. one of the examples adopted two years ago was the expedited nominations where a nomination simply comes to the desk. if a single senator doesn't want it sent to the committee, it just sits there until all the paper is in and then the majority leader will just move it on. within the next few days, there will be a number of those that come out of the health, education and labor pensions committee. that speeds things up. we removed about 160 nominations. they are not subject anymore to senate advice and consent. the president may just go ahead and appoint those persons. we have gotten rid of the secret

hold which was used for a long time to hold up nominees or even to block them because no one knew who was doing that. earlier this year, we changed the rules so that when a district judge comes up that there can be a long debate after the district judge comes to the floor, and as a result, things are moving along very well. so i -- i would like to say that there is not a problem with the president's nominations being considered in a timely fashion by the united states senate. there is no problem. there is the responsibility for advice and consent. most of our founders did not want a king. they created a congress and a bill of rights and they said here is an advise and consent.

so we have about a thousand people that the president will nominate that we are supposed to consider. we should do that well. that's our job to do, and it's our check on a runaway executive. i used to -- when i first came here, senator byrd made wonderful speeches about that. senator kennedy from the back row with that big, booming voice, i remember his speeches about president george w. bush's recess appointments and how offended he was by those because they offended the constitution. and senator byrd, as i mentioned, was very eloquent, going all the way back to president reagan's days. so we have always jealously defended the people's right to have an elected group of representatives to check the executive, and we need to use that in a responsible way. so it's important to have an accurate report on just how well president obama is being treated by the united states senate in terms of his nominations. now, i just noted that we have

changed the rules to make it easier. i did not even say that we have even made it easier for the nominees. we set up a working process to make it. i like to call it the immigrant until nominated syndrome. you pick some well-respected person from the midwest and send him or her nomination to the senate, and all of a sudden it's as if they were a criminal of some kind. that's because there were so many conflicting -- so many conflicting forms to fill out that it was easy to make a mistake and look like you were misleading the senate. well, we have tried to simplify that. isthis president is the first beneficiary of that. so this president is the first beneficiary of consecutive congresses who have changed the rules to reduce the number of presidential nominees subjected to advise and consent, expedited a number of others and made it easier, easier and quicker for

the president to have his nominations considered. this president is the first to benefit from that. and so what are the results? and the majority leader suggested that there was delay and obstruction. that word just comes out automatically sometimes when people wake up in the morning on that side of the aisle, but let's look at the facts. i asked the congressional research service to take a look at the "washington post" article that wrote earlier this year. now, these are not republican people i'm asking. this is the congressional research service. how is possible being treated in terms of the senate nominees? according to the congressional research service, as of may 16, 2013, that's last week, president obama's cabinet nominees were still on average moving from announcement to confirmation faster than those of president george w. bush or president clinton.

president obama's nominees were moving from announcement to confirmation at that time last week, 50 days. george w. bush averaged 52 days. president clinton averaged 55 days. let me say that again. president obama's cabinet nominees are moving ahead in the senate more rapidly than those of his two predecessors. one of them president george w. bush, one of them president clinton. so there is no delay there that's unusual. it's not unprecedented, madam president, for some second term nominations to take much longer to move from announcement to confirmation than the average. president clinton's nominee for secretary of labor alexis herman took 135 days. president george w. bush's nominee for attorney general alberto gonzalez took 85 days. i remember the case of one especially distinguished nominee

for the secretary of education by president george h.w. bush, a former governor of tennessee, his name was alexander. his nomination took 88 days from announcement to confirmation. and president reagan's nominee for attorney general ed meese took nearly a year. now, that's an unusual case but it's not so unusual for second term nominees to take a little while, for the senate to perform advise and consent. and as the congressional research service and "the washington post" have reported in their own analysis, president obama's cabinet nominees are being better treated than either president bush's or president clinton's in terms of the time it takes to confirm them from announcement to confirmation. now, one last thing. what about judges? sometimes i have heard senators on that side and senators on this side get up and give

conflicting information about whether judges are being considered rapidly. here's what the congressional research service says about the judicial nomination process. if mr. srinivasan is confirmed today, as i expect he will be, president obama will have had 20 judges qirbled at this point in his second term -- confirmed at this point in his second term, including six circuit judges and 14 district court judges. at this point in his second term, president george w. bush had four. 20 for president obama, four for president george w. bush. no unusual delay there. apparently, president obama's nominations are being treated -- considered more rapidly than those of president bush. and to be specific, let's go to the district court nominations. now, we know with all the talk of a filibuster that in the history of the senate, there has never been a nominee for district federal court judge

ever be denied his seat by a filibuster after that nomination came to the floor, so that needs to be said, too. but right now, there are five pending district judge nominations that have been reported from committee that haven't been -- haven't been confirmed. there have been 33 nominations this year. 14 already are confirmed. five are reported from committee, as i said, and await floor action. they were reported in may, march -- may, april, and three of them in march. so there is no big backlog. there are five. they were reported in the last few weeks, so no excessive delay there. and finally on circuit court nominations, i mentioned that we are likely to confirm one of the three that are today pending, mr. srinivasan. 12 nominations of federal circuit court judges have been received this year. six will have been confirmed

after this afternoon. that leaves two, two circuit court judges who have been nominated by the president and await floor confirmed. and on that one the majority leader indicated mr. srinivasan who has such wide support on both sides of the aisle had been waiting forever. well, he has waited a little while. president obama nominated him on

june 11, 2012. but why did he wait? madam president, he had no hearing. who is in charge of setting hearings? the democratic majority is setting hearings. republicans can't call a hearing in the judiciary committee. so their nominee, mr. srinivasan, sat there all of last year after june 11 without a hearing. there may have been delay, but that was self-inflicted delay. and what about this year? mr. srinivasan, here's the time line. he was nominated again on january 4 by the president. his hearing was april 10. i don't know where they had to go from january to april to have a hearing, but, again, that's solely within the control of the democratic majority. he returned his questions that we all have to if we're nominated for a executive position on may 6. that's this month. the committee considered his nomination may 16. that's last week.

they approved it 18-0, that's all democrats, all republicans voting yes. he came to the calendar of the senate on may 20. that's on monday. a senator: will the senator yield? the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, srikanth srinivasan of virginia to be united states circuit judge for the district of columbia circuit. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be 60 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form. mr. alexander: thank you. i will conclude so those expecting to do that but these are timely remarks. so mr. srinivasan, nominated june 11 of 2012, no hearing by the democratic majority in the executive committee. i wonder why. nominated january no hearing

until april 10. if there is any delay,this there is no fault on the republican side. may 6, questions returned. no nominee is considered by the committee until his questions come back. marked up may 16, last week, 18-0, unanimous, came to the floor on monday, and the republican leader moved yesterday to ask unanimous consent that we consider an up-or-down vote for mr. srinivasan when we return after a week, which means he would have been fully considered then to which the majority leader put down a cloture motion. now he's removed the cloture motion but there was no need for the cloture motion. the only suggestion may be that he wanted it to look like there is a delay over here. there is no delay over here. the president's nominees are being better treated than the last two presidents. there is no backlog of judicial nominees. mr. srinivasan has broad support. we are ready to vote for him up or down and i think it's time we

got away from this idea of manufacturing a crisis about nominations when in fact we've made it he'dier rk -- easier for any president to offer nominations and the majority leader and the republican leader agreed at the beginning of this year when we did that that that was the end of the rule changes for the congress in this congress. i thank the president and i yield the floor. mr. burr: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for five minutes on the feinstein amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burr: i thank the president. let me first say about senator alexander's comments, what you see is why this is a former university president, a governor, a secretary of education, a candidate for president, and now some would call him a senator, i think you'd call him a statesman because he tries to lay it out in a way we can all understand

it with facts and not hyperbole, and this is an opportunity for us on both sides to step back from the brink and to actually do the people's business, to get something done, to solve big problems. madam president, i came to the floor to talk on the feinstein amendment knowing that it's not up for an hour and i will be very brief to my colleague from virginia, because i know he wants to talk about judges. primarily because there is some misinformation that's been stated. now, let me recap the tobacco industry in a very brief summary. tobacco, like many agricultural products for years received a price support system that the federal government, the congress of the united states, put in place and a number of years ago, members of congress said for obvious reasons the federal government probably shouldn't have a price support on something that we consider not to be best for people

health. and at that time farmers reluck thraint listened to members of congress that said the international market should be open to you, and we should do our best to make it unlimited. and we did. and at that time we eliminate the price support system. senator feinstein came to the floor and i don't think she did this intentionally. she said that it cost the american taxpayer $10 billion. in fact, there wasn't one dime of american taxpayer money that went to the tobacco buyout. 100% of the cost of that elimination of that program was absorbed by the tobacco companies. so yes, if the purchase of a pack of cigarettes and the profit that goes to a tobacco company and the dollar and one cents in federal taxes that they pay per pack of cigarettes is the american taxpayer paying the

price of the buyout, she's right. i'm not sure you can make that connection. but i want to state for my colleagues the federal treasury did not pay $10 billion to buy out tobacco farmers. it was the companies, the ones that understand that they've got to have a viable, abundant source of product. 60% of what we grow in the united states is shipped for export. it doesn't go to the domestic market. now, let me say to my colleagues if the intention of is to be punitive to this product, for gosh sakes, come to the floor, change your amendment, vote up or down whether tobacco is going to be legal or not. if the purpose here is to suggest that we're going to save taxpayer money, well, let me suggest that if you put every tobacco farmer out of business, and this is the commodity that achieves actually our best balance of trade in agricultural

products, you'd make a real long-term mistake. the only thing this commodity, this agricultural commodity asks is let us participate in the federal crop insurance program. without that protection, it is impossible for my neighbor, your neighbor, the backbone of a community, a farmer, to go to a bank and say can you lend me enough money to plant my crop this year and if mother nature's good and i work hard, i'm going to be able to sell this product, i'm going to be able to pay you back and be able to make a profit to feed my family. without that assurance, of a safety net, they would never get the bank to loan the money. this is about availability of capital, this one clause. why in the world would we pick out one commodity out of the entire ag industry and say everybody else can participate in the crop insurance program but you can't.

is insane. so, madam president, let me say to my colleague from california, senator feinstein, i don't think this was intentional. i think she got bad staff information or she just made a gaffe. to my colleagues, let me encourage you, vote against this amendment, don't do this to a piece of the ag community that is profitable, that works hard, but more importantly contributes a lot to the backbone of this country. i thank the president and i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: madam president, i rise to support the nomination of srikanth srinivasan to be on the court of appeals for the d.c. be circuit. i wanted to speak a little bit about sri's significant qualifications. i'm going to discount the fact he was born and raised in kansas like i was. i won't take that with into account and discount the fact

that he lives in virginia now like i do and focus on other qualifications because he's got them by the boatload. senior citizen ri has -- sri has a wonderful background that equips him for this most important judicial position and this position has been vacant since june of 2008. he was an underdwrad and law degree and business degree m.b.a. at stanford after he grew up in lawrence, kansas. like many law graduates his next step was to work as a clerkship with appellate judges. he worked first for a wonderful virginia jurist, j. mar i have wilkinson, headquartered in richmond. he's well known as a superb legal scholar and judge. after he completed that clerkship he had the honor of being selected to work for justice sandra day o'connor, a tremendous honor for a young lawyer and i talked at length with mr. srinivasan and the fact he learned a great deal from

both judges about judicial temperament and the important aspects to be a good judge. sri had the expertise developed in prieive private practice of melvenye and myers, had headedded by bill coleman, one of the lawyers who worked on the brown versus board of education case in the 1950's. sri eventually became the leader of the appellate practice there, in that capacity doing good work, he's been a teacher at harvard law school but probably most specific to the needs of the d.c. circuit, sri has had a long career working in the solicitor general's office, the key legal office of the united states charged with representing the united states on important matters before the supreme court and the federal appellate courts. he's worked in two stints in the solicitor general's office, having worked both under the solicitor general's office during president bush, president bush 43's tenure and

again returning to work as the principal deputy solicitor general under president obama. in -- in that capacity, he has had extensive arguments, more than 20 arguments before the united states supreme court, and numerous appellate court arguments in the federal appellate courts, including the d.c. circuit court for which he is nominated. srikanth srinivasan enjoys broad support, numerous of the officials in the solicitor general's office under both republican and democratic administrations have weighed in on behalf of his candidacy. the american bar association that looks at candidates and scrutinizes their qualifications has given him the most qualified award, their highest recommendation, and he comes with significant support in this body and others with whom he has practiced. the area that i probably spent most time with him on, madam president, as i was interviewing him is the whole notion of

judicial temperament. these are important positions. under the constitution, we grant them to people for life. you can have all the intellectual qualification, but if you don't have the life experience to enable you to understand situations and pass judgment on matters important to people and if you don't have the temperament to work in a collegial body, the circuit court says you know here cases generally in panels of three and then occasionally you hear cases and bank the entire list of the circuit court judges for the d.c. circuit would sit together. it's not enough to be a scholar. you have to be a good listener, you have to be a good colleague. srikanth srinivasan has a very very -- his career is a track record to his dedication and his ambition, but his temperament is a real tribute to his humility, to his ability to listen, not only to litigants but to other judges, and i think these credentials, both his former credentials, his work experience and his temperament would make him an excellent choice. for that reason, i'm proud to

stand up as one of his home state senators. i'm proud to acknowledge the judiciary committee's unanimous vote in his behalf, and i urge my colleagues today as we move to the vote to support his nomination. none of us will be disappointed in his work as a d.c. circuit judge. thank you, madam clerk. i yield the floor back. mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i voted for this nominee out of committee. i voted for this nominee on the floor of the united states senate. he is supremely qualified for this position. i come to the floor not to repeat what a lot of other people have said about this nominee but the process that was connected with arranging the vote for this nominee. basically, i want to speak about the needless shenanigans that have gone on before we get to this point where we vote at 2:00. today's nominee for the d.c.

circuit was voted out of committee one week ago on may 16. a unanimous vote of 18-0. he was placed on the executive calendar three days ago, on monday, may 20. one day later, on may 21, the republicans cleared this nominee to have an up-or-down vote when we return from the memorial day recess. but the majority leader was not content with -- to take a yes for an answer. one day after this nominee was placed on the executive calendar and after republicans agreed to an up-or-down vote, the majority leader chose to file cloture. why file cloture? why would the majority leader do that on a nominee that the minority party, the republicans,

were ready and will to vote on, backed up by the fact that every republican on the committee voted for this nominee. there is only one plausible answer. that is part of the -- of the majority's attempt to create a mere appearance of obstruction where no obstruction ever existed. it's pure nonsense. it is a transparent attempt to manufacture a crisis, a crisis that doesn't exist. the fact of the matter is that there is no obstruction and particularly no obstruction on this nominee, and the other side knew it before they filed cloture. this morning in his opening remarks, the majority leader tried to argue that he has had to file cloture 58 times. but what the majority leader did

this week illustrates precisely what the majority leader is trying to do, and that happens to fit into the majority's play book, the playbook of the democrat majority. file cloture for no apparent reason, none whatsoever, and then immediately turn around and claim see, we had to file cloture. the fact of the matter is that we're confirming the president's nominee, all nominees at a near record pace. after today, the senate will have confirmed 193 lower court nominees. we have defeated only two. that's 193-2, which happens to be in baseball a .990 batting average, and anybody would agree

that that's an outstanding record. who can complain about 99%? after today, this year alone, the first year of the president's second term, the senate will have confirmed 22 judicial nominees. now, let's compare that when there was a democrat congress and the previous president in the first year of his second term, that of president bush. so in this same period of time in 2005, the senate had only confirmed four nominees. so that's a record of 22 the first year of this president's second term compared to only four for the first year of president bush's second term. if we were treating the president in the same way the senate democrats treated president bush in 2005, we wouldn't be confirming 22

nominees. we would be confirming only four. but we have these needless shenanigans going on anyway. based on that record, what can the president or the senate democrats possibly complain about? the bottom line is that they can't complain or at least shouldn't complain, and that's based not upon rhetoric but based on that record of 22 so far this year and 197 versus only two disapprovals. and, of course, because the record is so good, the other side needs to manufacture a crisis. that's why the other side filed cloture on this nomination one day, just one day after it appeared on the executive calendar. yesterday, when the majority leader was pressed on why he chose to file cloture one single day after his nomination

appeared on the executive calendar, he pointed to the fact that the nominee was first nominated in the year 2012, but apparently what the majority leader has been unaware of, that the chairman of the committee, the judiciary committee, made no effort, no effort to schedule a hearing on this nominee until late last year. apparently, the majority leader was unaware that by january of this year, we learned the nominee was potentially involved in the quid pro quo of mr. perez, the president's nominee for labor secretary, orchestrated between the department of justice and the city of st. paul. you may remember i spoke on this issue last week regarding the deal mr. perez struck where he agreed the department would decline two false claims cases in exchange for the city of st.

paul withdrawing a case from the supreme court. i'm not going to go into those details again, but that is a very serious issue. the department as it turns out, mr. perez in particular, bartered away a case worth about $200 million of taxpayer dollars to come back in to the federal treasury under the false claims act. having that case withdrawn is a pretty serious matter. as it turns out, the nominee before us today happened to be the lawyer in the solicitor general's office who handled the case for mr. perez, desperately wanted it withdrawn from the supreme court. so as you would expect any member of the senate, particularly the responsibility of the minority, our side needed to know what the nominee knew about the quid pro quo and what mr. perez told the committee about that deal.

we needed the documents about this issue and we needed to speak with the witnesses involved, but the department was desperate to keep those documents from congress. they were desperate to keep the witnesses from being involved and interviewed. the bottom line is that the department of justice dragged its feet for months. now, if the department of justice had turned over those documents and made witnesses available way back when we asked for them, the hearing for this nominee would have been one of the first that we had this year, but instead the department of justice chose to try their best to keep congress from getting to the bottom of that quid pro quo, and frankly mr. perez' involvement in that matter. so if, if the majority wishes to complain about the nominee

having his hearing in april rather than february, they should just pick up the phone and call those in charge at the department of justice how come you didn't give congress that information that they needed? so it wasn't the senate republicans who withheld the documents. it was this department of justice. it wasn't senate republicans who held up the nominee's hearing. it was the department of justice. the bottom line is that the senate is processing the president's nominees exceptionally fairly. i don't repeat those statistics because i have gone through them this speech and many speeches. this president is being treated much more fairly than senate democrats treated president bush's in 2005. the fact of the matter is this

this -- filing cloture on this nominee that probably will pass unanimously was nothing but a transparent attempt to create the appearance of obstruction. as i said, i intend to support this nominee just as i did in committee, and i encourage my colleagues to support the nomination as well. but as we move forward on these nominees, i wish we could stop these needless shenanigans. i wish the other side would stop shedding those crocodile tears that the statistics of approval by this senate of judicial nominees of 197-2 is no justification for any crocodile tears whatsoever. i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: madam president, i ask the proceedings under the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coons: madam president, today this body will have the chance to vote on the nomination of the highly qualified sri srinivasan for the d.c. circuit court of appeals. i'm a member of the judiciary committee and have had the honor, the privilege of chairing mr. srinivasan's confirmation hearing, and i can say without question he has the background,

the skills and perhaps most importantly the temperament to serve as a circuit court judge. he's one of the singly most qualified judicial nominees i've seen in my years in this body, and he deserves better than the games that have been played with this confirmation. he already has bipartisan support. now let's work together and give him a strong bipartisan vote. the constitution of the united states gives the senate the responsibility to advise and consent to the president's nominations for important posts like the bench of the d.c. circuit court of appeals, and it's certainly our responsibility to review and vet candidates, nominees who come over from the president. we should not simply serve as a rubber stamp, but neither should we be a firewall, unreasonably blocking qualified nominees from service at the highest levels of our government. our nation's court should be

above politics, and when the president submits a highly qualified candidate of good character and sound legal mind, as mr. srinivasan most certainly is, then absent exceptional circumstances, that candidate should be entitled to a vote. to this point in president obama's administration, nearly 1,600 days in, the senate has failed to live up to its responsibility and to confirm any nominee to the d.c. circuit court of appeals. the d.c. circuit court of appeals is often called the second most important in the nation because like the supreme court it handles cases that impact americans all over the country from all walks of life. it regularly hears cases that range very broadly from terrorism and detention to the scope of federal agency power, and yet it is today critically understaffed. the d.c. circuit court of appeals has not seen a nominee confirmed since president george w. bush's fourth nominee to that

court was confirmed in 2006 seven years ago. republicans in this chamber filibustered president obama's nominee kaitlyn halligan, until she ultimately, after hundreds and hundreds of days of waiting across several congresses, she ultimately gave up and withdrew. her opponent said that the caseload of the d.c. circuit was too low, that it did not deserve another judge, but such concerns about caseload didn't prevent the republican-led senate from confirming two nominees to the tenth seat on the d.c. circuit and one to the 11th. mr. srinivasan stands nominated not for the tenth or the 11th seat on the d.c. circuit, but for the eighth. madam president, we need to confirm mr. srinivasan and we need to act quickly on the president's next nominee for that court and the one after that. we have a chance, i believe, to

start fresh with mr. srinivasan who would serve equally well and ably on the d.c. circuit court of appeals, as might ms. halligan. mr. srinivasan has a razor-sharp legal mind. he served in the solicitor general's office for both republican and democratic administrations and has earned the bipartisan support of his colleagues. 12 former solicitors general, 12 former solicitors general and principal deputy solicitors general wrote a letter supporting his nomination, six democrats, six republicans. the letter which is signed by conservative legal i will unanimous nightmaries such -- i will unanimous nightmaries such as paul clement note that mr. srinivasan is one of the best appellate lawyers in the country. they comment further in the letter he has an unsurpassed work ethic and he is extremely well prepared to take on the intellectual rigors of serving as a judge in the d.c. circuit. my point then, madam president,

a simple one is this -- sri is a capable, in fact a highly accomplished attorney with the character and the demeanor to serve admirably on this bench which has sat without a nominee from the obama administration for the entire time that our current president has served. sri srinivasan has earned bipartisan support. now today let's gym h.i.v. the bipartisan vote. thank you, and with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: i ask the proceedings under the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coons: madam president, i

ask that any time during quorum calls leading up to the vote be charged equally to both sides. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coons: thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. moran: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: thank you. i would ask the quorum call be eliminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm certainly recognize the providing advice and consent to president natural yeast nominees is one of the most important responsibilities as members of the united states senate and it's a responsibility i expect and believe all of us take very seriously. on a number of occasions i've had the opportunity to meet sri srinivasan who president obama has now nominated to fill a vacancy on the u.s. court of appeals for the district court, the district of columbia circuit. i have found sri to be a highly

qualified candidate who has a distinguished career in the private sector and in the departments of justice, both in republican and democrat, president bush and president obama, administrations. i announce my support for his confirmation in advance of the judiciary committee, realizing the same -- realizing the same circumstance that i realize which is we have a very highly qualified individual of integrity who has been nominated by the president and deserves confirmation and, of course, the judiciary committee unanimously supported that nomination don firm him. sri is a fellow kansan and is one of our state's most accomplished legal minds. he was born in india and moved with his parents to lawrence, kansas where he graduated valedictorian from lawrence high school in 1985. like most kansans he enjoyed basketball and at one poitd was the guard on the high school basketball team playing

alongside one of our state's most famous athletes, danny manning. after high school went to stanford university earning a bachelor's degree, an m.b.a. and a lautenberg law degree. he served with justice sandra day o'connor and later worked in the solicitor general's office under president george w. bush. he became the principal deputy slitdor general in 2011. he has awrgdz two dozen cases and his nomination is supported by 12 solicitor generals, evenly split among political parties. he would be the first south asian to serve on a federal court. i want to indicate how proud kansans are of sri and his success, his accomplishments and i'm pleased to support his nomination. he is one of our nation's leading appellate lawyers and i believe will serve our nation

well on the u.s. circuit court of appeals for the d.c. circuit. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, the u.s. court of appeals for the d.c. circuit has primary responsibility to review administrative actions taken by countless federal departments and agencies. the court's decisions including its recent invalidation of president obama's unconstitutional recess appointments often have significant political implications. as a result, this body, the united states senate, has a long-standing practice and tradition of scrutinizing nominees to the d.c. circuit very carefully. and when evaluating those nominees we have also carefully considered the need for additional judges on that court. now, in july, 2006, president bush nominated an eminently

qualified individual, peter ciezler to still phil a seed. i know peter keisler. he's among the finest attorneys i've ever worked with. most would agree he's one of the finest attorneys in the entire country and he's one who happened to have enjoyed bipartisan support throughout the legal profession at the time of his nomination. nevertheless democratic senators blocked mr. keisler's nomination and his nomination simply languished in the judiciary committee. at the time a number of my democratic colleagues signed a letter arguing that a nominee to the d.c. circuit -- quote -- "should under no circumstances be qrd much less confirmed before we first address the very need for that judgeship" -- close quote. those senators argued that the d.c. circuit's modest caseload did not justify the confirmation

of any additional judge to that court. now, more than six years have elapsed from that moment but the d.c. circuit's caseload remains just as minimal as it was back then. the court's caseload has actually decreased since the time democrats blocked mr. keisler. the total number of appeals filed is down over 13% and the total number of appeals pending is down over 10%. with just 359 pending appeals per panel, the d.c. circuit's average workload is less than half of other federal appellate courts. now, some have sought to make much of the fact that since 2006, two of the court's judges have taken senior status leaving only seven active judges on the d.c. circuit, factoring out the senior status judges but the court's caseload has declined so much in recent years that even filings per active nonsenior

sitting judge are roughly the same as they were back then. of course, this doesn't account for the six senior judges on the d.c. circuit who continue to hear appeals and author opinions. their contributions are such that the actual work for each active nonsenior judge has declined and the caseload burden for the d.c. circuit judges is less than it was when the democrats blocked mr. keisler on the basis of declining caseload in the d.c. circuit. indeed, the average filings per panel, perhaps the truest measure of actual workload per judge, is down almost 6% since the time democrats blocked mr. keisler. and those who work at the court suggest that in reality the workload isn't any different today than it was back at the time that the democrats blocked mr. keisler's nomination to that court. much like mr. keisler, the nominee before us today,

mr. srinivasan, is exceptionally qualified, and i'm pleased to say that he enjoys broad bipartisan support from throughout the legal profession. i will vote to confirm mr. srinivasan. i don't believe in partisan retribution and bhoap hope the senate whether controlled by democrats or republicans in the future will rise above such past differences and disputes. the the d.c. circuit is one area in which we share common ground. both democrats and republicans have argued repeatedly that the d.c. circuit has too many authorized judgeships. indeed, while other federal circuit court judges -- other federal circuit courts throughout the country struggle to keep up with rising caseloads, in each of the last several years, the d.c. circuit has canceled regularly scheduled argument dates due to a lack of

pending cases. for these reasons, i'm an original cosponsor of s. 699, the court efficiency act, which was introduced last month. the bill does not directly impact today's nominee but it will re-allocate unneeded judgeships from the d.c. circuit to other federal appellate courts whose caseloads are many times higher than that of the d.c. circuit. especially after we have confirmed mr. srinivasan, i hope that members on both sides of the aisle will join me in ensuring that these unnecessary d.c. circuit judgeships are re-allocated to courts that need those judge slots. i certainly hope that neither the white house nor my democratic colleagues will instead decide to play politics and seek without any legitimate justification to pack the d.c. circuit with unneeded judges simply in order to advance a partisan agenda. now, importantly, it was stated earlier in debate that we should

stop playing games with this nomination. we agree. in fact, we couldn't agree more. unfortunately, the only game played was by the majority leader in manufacturing a false impression. by filing cloture one day after the nominee was listed on the executive calendar and after senate republicans agreed to a vote. it's also been suggested that senate republicans have somehow refused to fill this seat or any other on the d.c. circuit since 2006. apparently, this is representative of a memory lapse or perhaps they want to rewrite history. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, what is the parliament situation?

the presiding officer: the nomination of sri srinivasan to the d.c. circuit court. mr. leahy: thank you. this is the -- i'm glad to hear what my friend from utah says about voting for this nominee because i think this is the second time this year the majority leader had to file cloture on one of president obama's well-qualified nominees to the d.c. circuit. sri srinivasan is not a nominee that will require cloture and i am glad he is not going to need to now that cooler heads prevail, but neither was kaitlyn halligan. kaitlyn halligan, sri srinivasan has had an exemplary legal career. he has the support of legal specialists across the spectrum. the judiciary committee reported him unanimously by an 18-0 vote.

that means every single republican on the committee had the chance to view the nominee's record, ask him questions to support it, but regrettably even after the unwarranted filibuster of caitlin halligan, even after the delay of srikanth srinivasan, senate republicans are demanding a filibuster to a wholesale number of nominations to the d.c. circuit by introducing a legislative proposal to strip three judgeships from the d.c. circuit. now, i have listened to a lot of the debate here, and i'm almost tempted to suggest they amend the bill to make it effective whenever the next republican president is elected. i point out that he had no

concerns with supporting president bush's four senate confirmed nominees to the d.c. circuit. they did this even though the previous president, a democrat, they said we had too many judges there, but as soon as a republican came in, they suddenly found a need and did confirm four judges to the d.c. circuit, with a lot of democratic votes, i might say. now, those nominees filled the very vacancies for the ninth, tenth, even 11th judgeships on the court that senate republicans are demanding to be eliminated. in other words, they are okay with a republican president but not okay with a democratic president. maybe they are suggesting people work harder and more effectively if there is a democrat in the white house than a republican, but i suspect that they may have a different motive.

but even on its own terms, this has nothing to do with caseload. it has everything to do with who is president. contrary to what senate republicans are arguing, the d.c. circuit does not even have the lowest caseload in the country. the circuit with the lowest number of pending appeals for active judge is currently the eighth circuit. the senate recently confirmed a nominee from iowa supported by the ranking republican on the senate judiciary committee. so i think it depends more on politics than on judicial independence, and that is really not a path to follow, mr. president. the federal courts have been too politicized as it is. there have been more filibusters

and more blocking of judges, nominees by president obama than nominees by any president of either party in the past. it makes me wonder what is different about this president from all these other presidents that he is given such a more difficult time. even the blocking, the filibustering of judges supported by republican senators in their home states. and this kind of political falderal with our federal judiciary has caused a price. the federal judiciary is losing a sense of independence they had before because it seemed to be politically manipulated even though virtually every federal judge that i have met, almost every federal judge i've met

nominated by the republican or democratic president has shown independence, but the republicans view otherwise, especially when they see a record number of judicial emergency vacancies. when nominees have been made and even nominees that get through the judiciary committee virtually unanimously didn't have to wait for months and months, even a year, to finally get a vote, and then only after we have either had a cloture vote or a threat of a cloture vote. i recall for the first couple of years of -- actually, less than that. the first 20 months of president bush's term, i was chairman of the senate judiciary committee. we put through 100 of his nominees. and the other 30 months or so

with republicans in charge, they did better. they put through 101. my point being, of course, that we actually moved his judges faster even than republicans did when they were in the majority. but now the one that is demonstrated there is broken down. now the rules that work for a republican president we're told cannot apply for a democratic president, especially this president. the arguments made to eliminate three seats on the d.c. circuit are not based in reality on the caseload. if we do make misleading comparisons to the other circuits, the arguments ultimately do not withstand scrutiny since other circuits, and there are, have caseloads that are lower than d.c. circuit, and most do not have

the complexity of the cases that come to the d.c. circuit. so the d.c. circuit's need for judges will not be met by sri srinivasan alone. we must work hard to fill the three additional vacancies currently on that court so the d.c. circuit can have its full complement of judges to decide some of the most important cases to the american people. some have called the d.c. circuit a court second only to the supreme court in its importance. mr. president, let's not politicize it. let's not say that here is this rule that applies to the republican president, we want an entirely different one if it's a democratic president. that doesn't do the court any good, it doesn't do the country any good, and it actually is beneath this great body, the united states senate.

mr. president, i understand we have a vote scheduled for 2:00. the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. leahy: mr. president, i would suggest a -- i do not see anybody else seeking recognition. i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. leahy: i yield back the rest of my time. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not, the ayes are 57, the nays are 0, and the no, ma'am is confirmed. 97. under the previous -- mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. the senate will be in order. mr. reid: madam president, i've spoken to the managers of the bill and they have one vote scheduled right now and they expect -- they hope they can have a couple more today, maybe even three today.

but they're not sure -- it will have to be done by consent so they feel confident they can get that done. we'll have to wait and see. so when this vote's over, we should have in the near future an idea what we're going to finish today. but it shouldn't -- and if we're here, we have a few more votes. it shouldn't be past 5:00. but we'll -- we'll see. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate will resume legislative session. under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally -- mr. reid: madam president? sorry about that. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i'm having trouble hearing you. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. reid: we are going to finish today at some time, hopefully soon, and a decision is being made as to what we're going to do when we get back. the managers of this bill are trying to come up with a finite list of amendments. they hope to be able to do that today.

and then we will make a decision whether we're going to move to immigration when we get back or wait a week. and i've spoken to the gang of eight today and they're going to give me some indication of what they want to do. i've also spoken to the manager -- the -- i'm sorry, the chairman of the committee and that decision should be made very soon. so we're going to -- we'll have a vote on the monday we get back. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to amendment 923, offered by the senator from california, mrs. feinstein. the senate will be in order. mrs. feinstein feinstein: thanky much, madam president. this amendment is offered on behalf of senator mccain and myself. ladies and gentlemen, tobacco is not just another crop. it is the cause -- largest preventable cause of cancer deaths in this country. exactly 443,000 people die every

year. it costs medicaid an additional $22 billion. in 2004, a special assessment of $9.6 billion was authorized to buy out tobacco farms in the united states. that has one more year to run. we subsidize tobacco crop insurance. we should not, this country should become tobacco free. it will save lives. i urge you to support this amendment. mr. burr: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: madam president, i speak in opposition to the amendment and let me just say to my dear friend from california, who i really respect, the tobacco buyout was not paid by taxpayers. it was paid by the tobacco companies. it happened several years ago. and the only program that tobacco farmers participate in today is crop insurance.

like every other agricultural product in america. without that safety net, those farmers can't go to the bank and get capital to plant their crops. and though i think we can all agree that tobacco is not healthy for you, some americans make the decision to do it because it's legal. eliminate the american tobacco farmer and you will replace them with tobacco grown in zimbabwe and brazil, around the world. if -- if we want to outlaw tobacco, let's have that vote. but don't walk away and believe that a vote eliminating crop insurance is going to change the health care of the american people as it relates to this product. i urge my colleagues vote against this. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: all time has expired. a senator: madam president, i would ask for one minute worth of time. the presiding officer: is there objection? mrs. feinstein: and i would ask for one minute to respond to senator burr, if i may.

the presiding officer: is there objection? to the request as modified? without objection. the senator from north dakota. mrs. hagan: madam president, i, too, rise to express strong opposition to the ality. this amendment would prevent our tobacco growers from being eligible for federal crop insurance. this amendment would do significant harm to the small tobacco farmers in north carolina and in other parts of the country. there are 2,000 farmers in north carolina that would be affected, and it would be devastating to them and their families. without access to crop insuran insurance, they wouldn't be able to borrow money from the banks, to receive financing. it does nothing to alter the amount of tobacco used in our country. a demand will be filled by foreign imports, probably from brazil and other countries. it would put our american farmers out of work. for all of these reasons, i urge my colleagues to vote "no" on this amendment. mrs. feinstein: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: we are not talking about eliminating crop insurance.

there are plenty of crops that don't have crop insurance. but this crop does. we're talking about limb mating the federal subsidy -- we're talking about eliminating the federal subsidy which amounts to $30 million-plus a year from crop insurance. with respect to what my distinguished friend and colleague on the other side of the aisle, i misspoke once tod today. this is an assessment from the tobacco industry, and i thought i straightened that out. but the assessment that paid for the buyout of $9.6 billion, i'm speaking of. but this is a federal subsidy on crop insurance. you can still get crop insurance but it won't be federally subsidized. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the question is on the amendment. a senator: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. there is. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote: vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senators wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? on this vote, the ayes are 44, and the nays are 52. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. ms. stabenow: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: madam president, at this point i would ask unanimous consent that the following first-degree amendments be in order to be called up: hagan 1031 and durbin-coburn 953 and that we have five minutes of debate opbd hagan amendment -- on the hagan amendment, that there be ten minutes allotted to senators durbin and coburn for their amendment, and that i would reserve five minutes that i would control on their amendment, that the time until

3:15 -- that we have a vote then at 3:15, and that when we vote in relation to the amendments we proceed to the vote in the order listed that, no second-degree amendments be in order to either amendment. prior to the votes there will be two minutes equally divided between the votes and then finally upon disposition, senator merkley will be recognized. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. cochran: madam president, we have no objection. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from north carolina. mrs. hagan: i ask unanimous consent to call up amendment number 1031. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from north carolina, mrs. hagan, proposes amendment numbered 1031. mrs. hagan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. hagan: madam president, i rise today to offer an amendment to make sure we are doing all we can to prevent fraud and abuse in the federal crop insurance

program. the issue of fraud in this program hit home for me in march of this year when the justice department announced a $100 million crop insurance fraud case in eastern north carolina, the largest ever of its kind. 41 defendants were found guilty and many are serving prison time for profiting from false claims for losses of soybeans, wheat, tobacco, and corn. following this incident, i have regularly had farmers come up to me and tell me they're nervous, they're nervous that the actions of a few bad actors will lead the federal government to cease providing crop insurance assistance. in these difficult budget times, these are valid concerns. for federal assistance to continue, the integrity of these programs must be rock solid. crop insurance fraud not only harms the integrity of federal safety net programs and increases the cost to taxpayers, it also drives up the cost of the insurance programs for our

honest, law abiding farmers. the amendment that i'm offering would provide additional tools to the risk management agency to analyze and combat fraud, waste and abuse. the risk management agency can expand the sampling requirements to test for and address the concerns with these improper program payments. this is in accordance with the federal improper payments information act, the elimination recovery act as recommended by the officer of the inspector general. the risk management agency can increase the number of reviews of the approved insurance providers conducted each year. currently we're able to review only about one-third of these providers due to our resource constraints. it also will provide additional support to data mining activities to detect the fraud and abuse in the program and develop proactive underwriting and loss adjustment applications to minimize the scope for such

activities to occur. the farm bill before us now includes extensive reforms and creates a host of new safety net programs as the complexity of these programs grow, the resources needed to oversee these programs are actually shrinking. this amendment will provide the resources necessary to proactively detect and combat fraud and abuse. funding for this amendment will come out of the general savings contained in the underlying bill. the cost of this amendment is minimal, and i believe this investment will generate substantial savings for taxpayers, expanding our efforts to tackle the fraud and abuse in the crop insurance program. protecting the integrity of these programs is critical to ensuring the safety net programs are available for the vast majority of our farmers who are honest and to avoid undermining public confidence in these programs. madam president, i urge my colleagues to support this

amendment. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: madam president, through no one's fault but my own, i got here a couple minutes late for the last amendment, vote on the feinstein amendment. i would have voted "aye" had i gotten here on time. and i ask unanimous consent that what i just said be placed in the record immediately following the feinstein amendment. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. cochran: madam president? the presiding officer: senator. mr. cochran: i support the amendment offered by the senator from north carolina, mrs. hagan. 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 important -- improper payments through better controls and reviews of policies.

all of these will result in saving taxpayer money and ensure program integrity in the long run. i urge approval of the amendment. the presiding officer: who yields time? the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president, how much time is remaining for the durbin-coburn or coburn-durbin amendment? the presiding officer: 10 minutes. mr. durbin: would you please notify me when i've used two minutes. the presiding officer: yes. mr. durbin: the coburn-durbin amendment says this. we have a crop insurance program in america. if you're a farmer, you can buy crop insurance because you can have a flood, or the market price can fall to nothing. but it isn't really insurance like we understand insurance, not like fire insurance or auto insurance because you see, the farmers don't pay enough in premiums to cover the actual losses paid out by crop

insurance. in fact, the farmers' contribution to crop insurance is only 38% of the actual premium cost. who pays the rest? hold up your hand, america. all the taxpayers in this country subsidize crop insurance. 62%. what did it cost us last year? over $7 billion. and then an additional billion dollars to administer the program. here's what this amendment says. we stand behind crop insurance. we believe in crop insurance. but for that tiny 1% of farmers across america making over $750,000 a year, their federal subsidy will be cut from 62% on average to 47%. let me tell you, they can afford it. and we will save over the span of ten years a billion dollars. a billion dollars that we can better spend either to reduce our debt or on critical programs for this country. i want farmers to have crop

insurance but i want those doing so well in this system they get hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal subsidy to show a little bit of sacrifice on their part. keep this program sound, keep it fair, the durbin-coburn amendment moves in that direction. i urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment and i yield to my friend from oklahoma. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: 44% -- 4% of the farmers in this country receive 33% of the benefits from crop insurance. i don't think it would be said any better than senator durbin has said it. the point being is what we ought to do is make sure there's a safety net, the crop insurance is the way to do that, but we ought -- like we're on every other program we're going to eventually ask those who have more to participate more. and what this is about is actually asking those who -- the top five, as a matter of fact, the top five farmers in

the country actually have their location and how much they get, the number-one farmer in the country gets 1.9le million dollars worth of subsidies a year. all we're going to do is cut his subsidy to $1.6 million. his income is far in excess of $750,000. the number-two farmer in the year is from washington state, we're going to cut his subsidy from $1.7 million to $1.4 million and, of course, he made far more than that in the last year and the previous years. the number three, minnesota, we're just going to cut from $1.6 million to $1.4 million. still going to subsidy $1.4 million for one individual who is going to make in excess of $2 million this year. so all we're asking is to appropriately limit the benefits that are coming from borrowed money against our children's future for the very wealthy in this country. and i'll reserve the balance of my time.

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: while i very much appreciate senator durbin and senator coburn's amendments, i would urge my colleagues to oppose this. first of all, by saying that crop insurance is insurance, and the farmer gets a bill, not a check. they get a bill. and the question is whether or not we're going to provide a discount so it's an affordable policy. we've ended subsidies through direct payments, we want them to move to a voluntary system of crop insurance. they get a bill, it's got to be a bill that they can afford to be able to provide the coverage, and then there is no payout unless you have a loss. unless there is a flood or some other kind of loss, droughts, whatever has happened, it's insurance. there are several reasons why this is not the same vote that the senate took last year on this amendment. with the historic agreement to

attach conservation compliance to crop insurance, potentially reducing the acres of numbers of producers can covered by crop insurance will only reduce the environmental benefits, and could lead to draining wetlands or plowing up highly erodable lands. let me say this another way. of course crop insurance support goes to the most -- the most goes to the largest farmers because they have the most land to insure. that's just by definition like any large -- the larger the insurance policy the more you're trying to cover. the question is and the reason conservationists and virltz have comes together, they want those large tracts to be conservation complient. there is even more environmental impact on the large tracts than there are on the small tracts which is why we saw this historic agreement between 30-some different farm groups and environmental and conservation groups to say we'll

support crop insurance but you have to do conservation compliance on all of the land. limiting crop insurance support to producers will cause producers with large pieces of land to leave the insurance system, losing the conservation benefits and possibly increasing the cost, again, to smaller providers. if everybody is not in, the costs go up for who is in. in fact, we know if we take the largest purchasers out, it's estimated that we could see premiums nearly go up nearly 40% for those that are currently in the system. and we are more likely to go back to ad hoc disaster assistance. and in the drought of 2012 one of the worst on record for u.s. farmers, there were no calls for our crops to receive ad hoc disaster assistance. the corn and wheat and soybean growers and others across the country were able to survive. why? because of crop insurance.

and it worked. so i would just urge colleagues to take a second look at this. we are talking about preserving an historic agreement that came together around conservation compliance and we want to make sure all of the land that is in crop insurance is covered and we're protecting our soil and our water. so i would ask for a no vote on the amendment. mr. cochran: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: the number-one person that cares about the environmental quality of their land is the farmer. and the bigger the farmer, the more they care. the number-four farmer as far as crop insurance in the country farms 105,000 acres. the average farmer in oklahoma is 160 acres. we're not talking about small. they'll make an economic decision and if a 15% bump in their premium will cause them to go out, they'll go out but they won't go out because it's too much of a sweetheart deal.

we're still going to pay almost half of their crop insurance bill. 50%. anybody else have that kind of deal going? nobody has that kind of deal going. so what we're saying is let's save some money, let's ask those that actually are more well endowed with benefits and profits to pay a fairer share of what they should be based on the benefit they get. the one thing that the chairwoman didn't say is these are the guys that collect the big bucks when there is one. they do pay a portion of it, but their payouts are ten times higher than the average farmer, hundreds of times higher than the average farmer. they'll make an economic decision and they're not going to walk away from this because it's still even at 48% is too sweet of a deal for them ever to walk away. there is no study that says they'll walk away and wait and see senator durbin and i will come down and offer mia culpas if if they have walked away on

the senate floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: i appreciate the confidence the senator from oklahoma has about what business decisions will be made. they will be walking away from conservation compliance if they are not required to do that. if this agreement falls apart, and it is an agreement that was delicately put together which -- between over 30 different farm organizations and conservation and environmental folks to work together to support crop insurance, but to require environmental compliance, you know, they may or may not make decisions about crop insurance. i do know that if they do leave that the folks in the program which are small and medium sized programs, a matter of economics, like any other kind of insurance, they'll see their costs go. we do know that. but we also have this broader question that relates to the large farmers that you're talking about where the benefit

to having comprehensive conservation compliance for our country is a benefit that we want to make sure that we keep intact. and it will -- it is undermined with the passage of this amendment. the presiding officer: let me check, senator. senators durbin and coburn have five minutes remaining. senator hagan has one minute remaining. and senator stabenow has one minute remaining. mr. coburn: i'd just make the point, the large farmers i know in oklahoma, they really don't want the government telling them what kind of agreement they're going to have with their crop insurance and environmental things. we have a ton of rules already. what i do know is there's nobody in oklahoma that cares more about the environment than our farmers. and so i would disagree that there's a disconnect if you

limit the crop insurance subsidy to the very large farmers in oklahoma that they're not going to do what's in the best interests of the environment because it's the benefit of their own economic well-being. we understand a deal was cut to get where you are on the bill. we're not trying to disturb that. we don't want to disturb that. but our purpose is to -- we can't continue down where we're subsidying the very well heeled in this country to the same level that we try to protect those that are marginal. and we just can't do it. and, you know, we could have made this a whole lot different. we could have lowered it even lower. we didn't do that. you know, the average -- median family income in this country is less than $60,000. we're talking about almost 15 times more than the average family in this country makes, and saying if you make more than that, maybe you could take a little trim off the subsidy of your crop insurance.

that's not an unfair question. i yield to my colleague from illinois. mr. durbin: i thank the senator from oklahoma. let's get it straight. every farmer buying crop insurance gets a subsidy. the question is how big is the subsidy? is it 62% of the actual premium cost? that's what they're all receiving now. or is it going to end up being 47% or 48% which is what we're suggesting for 1% of the farmers, the wealthiest farmers. how many are we talking about? there are roughly two million farmers in america. the people we're talking about, 20,000. 20,000 farmers would be affected by our amendment. you would think we're about to destroy agriculture in america. there are two million farmers all of them get a subsidy. what senator coburn and i say, let's nick the subsidy for the wealthiest and what we hear is that's just too much to ask. it's too much sacrifice. i don't think so. in one example in illinois -- i won't read the example from other midwestern states -- in

illinois a corn and soybean grower received $740,000 in premium subsidies to cover the crops he planted in my state in 18 counties. 102 counties in illinois. this is a big deal, this farmer. we would cut his subsidy from $740,000 to $639,000. do you think he'll notice? do you think he'll stop buying crop insurance on what he's planted in 18 counties? i don't think so. at a time we're asking sacrifice from people in head start programs across america, can we be asking a little bit of sacrifice from 20,000 of the wealthiest farmers out of two million? i don't think so it's too much to ask. madam president, i ask that the amendment be called for consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from illinois mr. durbin for himself and mr. coburn proposes an amendment numbered 953. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan.

ms. stabenow: madam president, if i might, it was my understanding that the consent was for the hagan amendment and then -- and then the durbin-coburn amendment. so if we could proceed in that order. the presiding officer: that is the order on which they will be voted. ms. stabenow: thank you. mr. coburn: i ask for the yeas and nays on our amendment and yield back our time. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. yeas and nays are ordered. mr. stabenow: i ask for yeas and nays on the hagan amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are so ordered. ms. stabenow: we would yield back all time. the presiding officer: if all time is yielded back, the question is on amendment 1031. the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: anyone wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 94, the nays zero. the amendment is agreed to. order. under the -- under the previous order, there will be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to amendment numbered 953 offered by the senator from illinois, mr. durbin. who yields time? mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president, i'm cosponsoring this amendment

which says that the wealthiest 20,000 farmers in america will pay slightly more for their crop insurance so the program will be a sound program for all farmers. i urge my colleagues in the name of deficit reduction and making this a good program, vote yes on the durbin-coburn amendment. ms. stabenow: madam president, i would urge a no vote for a number of reasons, but let me simply say the problem with increasing crop insurance premiums by about 40%, which is what this does, is we are going to reduce participation in crop insurance, reduce coverage and drive up premiums, and most importantly for me, we have a historic agreement to tie crop insurance to conservation compliance, and this would undermine that effort. i would urge a no vote. and before proceeding, madam president, i want to thank everyone for their good work up to this point and announce there will be no further votes. the next vote will be 5:30 on the monday that we return, and we will proceed and complete the bill. thank you.

the presiding officer: the question is on amendment 953. the yeas and nays have been ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or to change their vote? there being now, on the amendment, the votes are 59 in favor, 33 against. the amendment is agreed to. . a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and my amendment number 978 be called up.

a senator: i object to the request. the presiding officer: an objection is heard. mr. merkley: mr. president, i regret that we've heard an objection on pulling up this amendment. many may not understand that to pull up an amendment to be considered here in the senate, it takes unanimous consent. all 100 senators have to agree. my colleague has just objected, making it impossible to consider an amendment that should be debated here on the floor of the house, because this amendment is about good policy and good process. not so long ago in the continuing resolution a provision was slipped in by the house of representatives, and because this was a must-pass bill under tight time constraints, it also slipped through the u.s. senate with no debate. and what did this legislation do? this legislation, the monsanto protection act, this legislation

does something that i think most would find astounding. it allows the unrestricted sale and planning of new variants of genetically modified seeds that a court has ruled have not been properly examined for their effect on other farmers, the environment, and human health. now obviously this raises a lot of concerns about the impact on farmers and the impact on human health. but there's even more. the fact that the act instructs seed producers to ignore a ruling of the court is equally troubling. it raises profound questions about the constitutional separation of powers and the ability of our courts to hold agencies accountable to the law and their responsibilities. i can tell you that this process and this policy has provoked outrage across the country. when i held town halls out in oregon after this happened,

every town hall, it was raised by farmers concern that this would endanger the crops they're growing and hope to export overseas. and i received over 2,200 letters on this topic. so i do hope -- i am -- i'm hopeful that when we come back next week we can have a full debate on this amendment, that it won't be objected to and that certainly there will be no opportunity of any kind for this policy to be extended because it hurts a process of holding our departments accountable for enforcing the law and it provides a policy of overriding a court order designed to protect other farmers, to protect the environment and to protect human health. and that's absolutely unacceptable. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from missouri. mr. blunt: i want to respond to my friend mr. merkley. this act which i would think would more properly be called the farmer assurance act was passed by both the house and senate and signed into law by president obama in march of 2013, march of this year. many have claimed twhas never publicly debate -- it was never publicly debated and slipped into the bill by the house of representatives, as my good friend said on the floor just a minute ago and passed the senate without debate. this was a big bill. i will admit that. there was lots of debate. while that certainly would be i'm sure what mr. merkley believes happened, i don't think the facts would bear that out. in fact, this language originated, as he said, and was passed by the house. after it was debated in committee and it was posted for several months. this was not mystery language.

on june 6, 2012, the house publicly posted their resolution that included this in the ag appropriations bill. it was available on the house web site from that point on. section 733 of the house bill is identical to the farmer assurance language included in the final fy 2013 appropriations bill that was passed by the congress. on june 19, 2012, the house ag appropriations bill was passed out of committee. that bill included this exact language. this is june 19, 2012, mr. president. the continuing resolution actually on the ag f.d.a., the agriculture food and drug administration rural development bill, included a coming together of these two bills, the c.r.,

the continuing resolution, including items in the senate bill that dealt principally with agricultural research that the house didn't have. and there were provisions in the house version like this one that the senate accepted. the language was publicly available and posted as part of the agreed-to appropriations bill for nine days before the vote. a week before the vote senator tester filed an amendment which is exactly like the amendment we just heard about today, because it would have struck this provision on that same day senator tester spoke at length on the floor about his amendment. this is a week before the continuing resolution is passed. i don't mind having a debate about the provisions. i do mind the idea that somehow nobody knew about this. now i can't watch the debate for every member of the senate and say here's what you should have

been paying attention to that one of our colleagues said. it was fairly substantial and took some time. it was a week before we voted. by the way, nobody in the senate proposed this provision. nobody put it in the house bill, as some have contended, but i do think this provision, as it turns out, this policy protects farm families. that's why it was supported by the american farm bureau, the american council of farm cooperate alternatives, american soybean association, association of wheat growers, congressional hunger center, national corn growers association and others. many have incorrectly claimed that this language gives priority to the needs of a small number of businesses, over the rights or needs of the american consumers. i don't think that's true either. this provision doesn't protect any seed company, monsanto or pioneer seed or even the u.s.

department of agriculture. who it would help would be the family who planted a crop that was legal to plant. now, my mom and dad were dairy farmers. the one thing i do know about the farming cycle is once you made a decision to plant a crop, it office usually too late to -- plant a crop, it's usually too late to plant another one. and there are times when it is absolutely too late to plant another crop. what does your family do that year when the crop that the government told you you could plant, some federal judge decides you can't plant it, only to have maybe another -- and there are cases where this have happened -- other judges later said the first federal judge was wrong and those crops were legal to be planted, legal to be harvested. both challenges, by the way, were about what environmental impact this might have if something happened to one property or another. never a question in those two cases about the safety of the

food. but this provision, mr. president, allows the secretary of agriculture to create a way for those farm families to sell that crop, but it doesn't require the secretary to do that. now remember, the u.s. department of agriculture has already said this is a crop that we've deregulated. it's heavily regulated, these kinds of crops until the secretary of agriculture says it's not. when the secretary of agriculture says it's not, these -- anybody can plant these crops that wants to. that gives the farmers and their families the assurance that a legally planted crop is likely to be able to be harvested. in addition, the authority granted to the usda in this language was only temporary. it was in the house bill. it lasted until september 30 of this year. the secretary of agriculture said he already had the authority. it didn't seem like to me a return for ag research and other

things we had in our bill that repeating the authority the secretary of agriculture said he had and had used was a bad thing. it basically tells the secretary of agriculture that if you agree with the court, by the way, and don't think you did your job and you don't intend to appeal the case, you don't have to do anything that allows a crop to be harvested. but if you still think you were right and you're going to appeal that case, you have the authority, if you want to use it, to figure out how to let that crop be harvested. for that year and that time. usda can determine at any time that a biocrop should not be approved, and usda can pull its approval on a crop that it has approved. f.d.a. also has to approve the food value of these things before they can go into food. this language, mr. president, doesn't require usda to approve

biotech crops. it doesn't prevent individuals from suing the government over a biotech crop approval. ultimately this language simply codifies the authority the secretary believes he had. as recently as may 9 of this year secretary vilsack testified before the ag appropriations subcommittee and said this language, according to secretary vilsack, this language -- quote -- "doesn't necessarily do anything i can't already do. we are going to make those decisions based on science and based on the law, which is the way they ought to be made." unfortunately, if you took a genetic search of the internet -- if you took a quick search of the internet, you wouldn't find out these facts. we have the advantage that we can search actually pwhat -- what the law said. these provisions protect farm families and their livelihoods. that is why they're supported by groups i mentioned and some i

haven't. the american farm bureau, national council of farm cooperatives, the national association of wheat growers, the congressional hunger center, the national corn growers association, the national cotton council, the american sugar beet growers association, ag retailers, biotech industry association, the american seed trade association and many other groups. facts are stubborn things, and the law here is easy to find and read, and it doesn't say anything about protecting anybody because, frankly, you can't sue these companies anyway. they sold you a legal product. the only people protected here are the people who have put the seeds in the ground, and you can't put those seeds in the ground in august or september and expect to harvest a crop that year. with that, i would yield the floor.

ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to take just a few moments to thank colleagues for their work this week, to thank my partner, senator cochran, and both of our staffs who have been working very hard to complete the process of this very, very important jobs bill called the farm bill. and let me just take a moment and remind everyone we are talking about 16 million jobs in america that come because of agriculture, because of what we do in the food industry altogether. it's incredibly important that we complete this work. i'm very confident that when we come back into session in another week that we will complete our process and i want to thank our majority leader and the republican leader for their supporting us moving through this process and certainly our

majority leader, senator reid, has been incredibly supportive and working with us and giving us the time to come directly from committee to the floor of the united states senate and to work with colleagues through amendments on both sides of the aisle to get this done. we are doing this the way we've always done it, which is in a bipartisan fashion, working through both democratic and republican amendments and at the end of this, we will have produced what i believe is the most reform-minded farm bill in decades. let me remind our colleagues that we have before us a bill that is different than anything i can think of, actually, in terms of deficit reduction. we have a bill that is over $24 billion in spending cuts put forward by our committee, supported by the communities that are affected, $24 billion in deficit reduction which is

much more than we would be required to do against if -- if we just went with across-the-board cuts that have been so debated called the sequester. the agriculture department and the farm bill has a responsibility for $6 billion in deficit reduction through the sequester. we have added to that to add four times that amount in deficit reduction. but we're doing it in a smart, focused way, making tough decisions, setting priorities, eliminating subsidies that don't make sense anymore and strengthening risk management market oriented programs. we'll debate some more something called crop insurance which i remind my colleagues does not create someone getting a check. they get a bill. they pay for crop insurance. we do it in a partnership

between the federal government and farmers to help them to be able to have affordable risk management. that's what we strengthen in this bill. we're told by farmers all across the country that the most important risk management tool for them is insurance. crop insurance that's affordable. we have also in this legislation done something that is historic, which is to, as we've moved from subsidies to insurance, tying conservation compliance to the purchase of insurance, which is a very, very important policy and we have many groups, over 30 groups that have come together and i want to commend all of the commodity groups and the farm bureau and the farmers' union and all those who have come together along with firlz and conservation -- environmentalists and conservation organizations to put a real priority on both a strong risk management system called crop insurance, and a strong conservation policy

called conservation compliance. and so this is a very important part of our bill as we look to savings. frankly, we've looked at savings, mr. president, in every single part of this bill. really, we have 12 different bills all put together called titles, in this thing we call a farm bill, and we've looked at savings in each area of the bill. we have, for instance, taken a look, a hard look at our conservation programs and decided that instead of 23 different kinds of programs, we actually could consolidate and streamline down to 13, put them in four different buckets of activities with a lot of flexibility working with community groups, grassroots groups on conservation and that we could save money, which we've done. we listened to mayors and rural communities around michigan around around the country, and those that represent townships

and counties who said make sure you continue to have a strong rural development, economic development presence. once you get outside the cities in michigan or around the country, every community is partnering with rural development for business loans, water and sewer projects, transportation, fire trucks and police trucks and housing and all those efforts working through rural development, but we heard from our local officials that it was complicated. we currently in law have 11 different definitions of "rural." made no sense. they said could you please just give us one. and so we looked through all of the different programs, streamlined it down and have one definition so it's easier to work with, less paperwork, and makes much more sense. we have continued to strengthen the part of our agricultural economy called specialty crops, near and dear to me in michigan. fresh fruits and vegetables and

all the other areas that are very important to many states, including mine. the organic community, a fast-growing part of agriculture. we strengthen that as well. we have looked from mississippi to michigan and california to delaware and everything in between to be able to make sure this is a bill that works for all parts of agriculture, and i'm pleased to say that we have been able to do that. we have also made sure that the energy title is strong. both in supporting farmers and ranchers who want would be focused on energy efficiency on the farm or the ranch, and also we have expanded efforts beyond our traditional biofuel efforts to something that is near and dear to my heart which is called biobased manufacturing. we have very exciting opportunities in america. i know that our presiding officer is passionate about

manufacturing, as i am, and we now have the opportunity through working with our agricultural groups to create ways to replace petroleum and plastics and other types of materials that we have today, synthetic fibers and so on, with agricultural by-products. we are actually seeing if you buy many of our great american automobiles, you are sitting on foam that is actually made from soybean oil instead of petroleum oil so you're sitting on soybeans in the seats, mr. president. and we have many parts of the interior of the automobiles that you are now buying actually have some kind of agricultural by-product whether it is wheat chaff or corn husks or soybean oil, and we know that we can use these enough opportunities to not only create markets but create situations that are much

better for our environment and that create jobs. so this is a new, exciting part of what we are doing to expand opportunities through the energy title as well. we also are very pleased and proud with the efforts around nutrition for folks in this country who through no fault of their own have found themselves hit hard by the economy making sure that they continue to have the support that they need around food assistance, is absolutely critical. and i'm pleased that we have stood together in opposing very damaging amendments to the supplemental nutrition assistance program, because it's -- as crop insurance is important for our farmers when they have disaster, food assistance is important for our families when they have a disaster. and i think that reflects the best about us as americans to make sure that we are providing that assistance.

we also are making sure that we are doing more around farmers' markets and fresh fruits and vegetables in schools, making local food hubs a possibility so that we have local farmers being able to come together and being able to market their products as well. so there are many, many pieces in this farm bill that all relate back to jobs, all relate back to reforms that we've put in place, and relate to making sure that we have the continuation of the safest, most affordable food supply in the world here in america. when we go home tonight if you sit down to have some supper, thank a farmer. and we all understand this is the riskiest business in the world and the job of the farm bill is to provide support and risk management tools for our growers when they need them, but also to be great stewards of

taxpayer dollars and to do what is right for rural communities across america and for families that need some temporary help as well. there are many, many pieces. i haven't even mentioned all of them, mr. president, but i did want to remind people why we take the time on the floor to work through these issues and these amendments. we have more work to do, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel. we'll be putting together a list for final votes on amendments as we go into -- when we come back into session, and we're looking forward to doing that and to completing this effort, again, -- and i would remind colleagues we did this last year. the house did not do their job. they did in committee on a bipartisan basis, not on the floor. we did our job. last time around, i remember doing 73 different votes on this particular bill. we wrapped in almost every single one of those amendments that was passed into the bill

that we presented to the senate this time. we are continuing to work together on other amendments as well, but it will be time when we get back to bring this to closure, and to once again demonstrate that the united states senate can work together in a bipartisan basis to do the right thing for the families and the businesses and the farmers and the ranchers that we represent. 16 million people in this country are counting on us to get our job done, and i'm sure that we will. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. cochran: mr. president, i'm pleased to join my distinguished colleague from michigan in predicting that we are moving in the right direction, and we've covered a lot of important issues during the debate over the last couple of days, taken up a good many amendments, had record votes, a free and full discussion of a lot of issues

that are affected by this legislation. and i must say that it's been a remarkable performance in terms of the subjects that have been covered, amendments disposed of, and true progress 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, 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's a step toward strengthening our economy, not just in rural america but throughout the country. in municipalities as well. so i think everybody ought to

recognize what a strong leader our committee chairman has become and demonstrated in her performance as chairman of our committee. she's done an excellent job. i commend her and all of our colleagues on the committee for helping shape this product so that a 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 suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: i rise today to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in condemning the international -- the internal revenue service for singleling out dozens of nonprofit organizations for no cause other than their political leanings. this is not an issue of democrat versus republican. indeed, the actions of the i.r.s. have brought rare bipartisan accord, including here on this floor. there are lessons for all of us in this scandal. one is that government that's too big, too powerful and all encompassing has become too big and oversteps its bounds. sometimes it tramples on the rights of the people it's supposed to serve. we have an i.r.s. that targeted groups of americans, threatening them with the force of law and imprisonment for no other reason than they had certain political affiliations. mr. portman: we know now that the i.r.s. selected these groups by zeroing in on certain words

and certain phrases. and what were those words and phrases that elicited such concern in the halls of the i.r.s.? words like patriot. words like we, the people. it seems to me we can draw only one of two conclusions from the actions of the i.r.s. either some intentionally attempted to use the power of the federal government to target and cripple their political enemies. or they lacked the competence to oversee a bureaucracy that has grown too big not to fail. one thing is for sure, though -- the reputation of the i.r.s. has been tarnished in ways that will take time to repair. and it's imperative that we restore the trust that has been lost between the american people and our government. that work begins by getting to the bottom of what happened. we've got lots of questions that need answers. did the i.r.s. officials act on their own or did they have discretion from their superiors? how high up does the scandal go? what did the white house know and when did they know it?

the scandal comes as washington is preparing to hand over even more power and authority to the internal revenue service. it would be the i.r.s. that enforces the mandates of the new health care law. it will be the i.r.s. that will have control over some of our most private, personal decisions. it's not too late to change course but if we insist on placing the blame for i.r.s.'s actions on a few low-level staffers without looking at the root cause of the abuse, corruption, or a government that, as the president's former senior advisor, david axlerod, recently admitted, has become too vast to manage and oversee, then we will continue to witness scandals like this one. big government comes with big problems. big scandals, and sometimes big dangers for our liberties. the tea party and organizations like it have been arguing that position since they were found founded. and while i know there are some in this chamber who will not like hearing this, it turns out the tea party's fears were

justified here. mr. president, we need more than just an audit of what happened at the i.r.s. we've given the i.r.s. every opportunity to deal with this issue internally. more than a year ago, senator hatch and i sent a letter to the i.r.s. expressing our concern about the targeting of conservative groups. we received a response, assuring us that our concerns were unfounded. everything was okay. we now know that that response was false. perhaps intentionally misleadi misleading. tuesday, former commissioner steven miller appeared before the finance committee on which i serve. during that hearing, he claimed that while he had dispatched a team investigate our concerns a month before he responded to our letter -- in response to our letter, his response to the letter was sent without input from the team. in other words, he sent a team to investigate this. a month went by. then he responded to our letter but without the information that they had given him.

he claims he did learn that targeting had occurred but he learned that a week after misinforming us that everything was fine. he said when he heard, he was outraged, and yet he never corrected the record. choosing instead to follow the false response that he had sent us. he allowed it to stand. so, mr. president, at the very least, we have a situation where the i.r.s., knowing what had happened a week after sent us a response saying everything was fine, refused to correct the record. i believed them at the time, as did others on the committee, and unfortunately we were misinformed. yesterday lois learner, the head of the i.r.s.'s tax-exempt enforcement division, declined to answer questions about the scandal, deciding instead to invoke fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination. this is not a way to get to the bottom of it. despite all this, the i.r.s.

asked us to trust them when they tell us that the scandal was simply the result of a few misguided low-level employees and that no senior officials were involved. with all due respect, mr. president, i think members of my committee and certainly i am done taking the i.r.s.'s word for it. we need an in-depth investigation, one that fully documents the what, when, and who of the scandal. only when we get to the bottom of this incident can we begin to rebuild the bridge of trust between us as citizens and our federal government near washington, d.c. -- federal government here in washington, d.c. mr. president, i yield back my time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today to talk a little bit about the farm bill before this

senate. notwithstanding all the rhetoric that we have had around the budget over the last four years, the senate agriculture committ committee -- [inaudible] the senate or the house who passed a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan. we did it together, democrats and republicans working together on the committee with the various constituencies around the united states of america. and that bill ultimately passed the senate in a broad bipartisan vote right here on this floor. the house of representatives was unable, for whatever reason, to enact a version of the farm bill over there which was an incredible disservice to rural america. farmers in my state, ranchers in my state, the state of colorado, face an unprecedented drought throughout this entire period and throughout the summer of 2012, when i was traveling the state, no one was talking about

the presidential election, particularly in these rural areas, which was on the mind of everybody here in washington. what they wanted to know is, why a farm bill hadn't been passed, and for good reason. because the senate had passed a bill that was supported by both republicans and democrats by -- by producers of all types across the country, and it was a good piece of legislation. well, now fast forward, mr. president, to this week when the senate ag committee once again passed a bipartisan bill with meaningful deficit reduction. and i want to thank chairwoman stabenow from michigan and the ranking member, senator thad cochran, for their leadership on this bill. this bill has now gone through two different ranking members on the republican side, has been supported in a bipartisan way, as i said earlier. and this farm bill, like the last version we passed, reflects the values and the process that we want to see in other areas of

our budget. we identify priorities in this bill. we streamline duplication in this bill. we break away from old, inefficient ways of doing business in this farm bill. we eliminate direct payments. and one of the most significant reforms we've seen in a farm bill in a very long time. these payments are issued to farmers regardless of economic need or market signals. we do away with that abuse. this bill prioritizes what is working for producers and it strengthens crop insurance as a result, which is what my farmers have said is the most important thing to them. mr. president, i've spoken on this floor before about colorado's battle against historic drought conditions. some farmers lost over half their corn yields in 2012 alone. it's -- it's hard to imagine when you think about it, any business losing half of its production in one year but that's what happened to

colorado's corn growers. crop insurance is what's keeping farmers and rural economies in business in this country and that's why this should be a priority. it's why this bill should have been passed two years ago when it first came to the floor of the senate. and it's why we should pass it next month. beyond crop insurance, another key highlight of this bill for those of us from colorado is conservation. the title carries over the reforms from last year's bill and this year's bill includes a provision to ensure that recipients of government-supported crop insurance comply with basic conservation requirements. this measure is the result of a historic agreement between the commodity groups and the conservation groups in this country. it's supported by a wide variety of stakeholders, from the farm bureau to the national wildlife federation. this revamped conservation title is huge for rural america and for my state. it's critical for farming and ranching families looking to

keep their land in agriculture generation to generation. it's incredibly important for our hunters and sportsmen. and it's fortunate for anybody in this country, which is most of us who care about the long-term health of our soil, our air and ou our water. these conservation measures help us improve the efficiency of production agriculture and improve the quality of the environment in farm country. we recognize at home that keeping these landscapes in their historical undeveloped state is an economic driver for our entire state and for our entire region. for tourism, for wildlife habitat. as i've traveled colorado over the last several years, farmers and ranchers constantly were talking to me about the importance of conservation. they highlighted in particular conservation easements which provide department of agriculture assistance to help landowners who are interested in

voluntarily conserving the farming and ranching heritage of their land. and i wanted to spend a few minutes sharing stories that coloradans have shared with me. this is a photo, mr. presiden mr. president -- you don't have this as much in delaware. i know you have other things. but here is a photo of a ranch in colorado, the music meadows ranch. it's outside of west cliff, colorado, elevation 9,000 feet. i have a version of this picture in my office here in washington. it's 4,000 acres. the rancher's name is ellen ganchow, and it's some of the finest grass beef -- grass fed beef in the country are raised by ellen and her family at this ranch. thanks to the grassland reserve program, ellen's ranch now has a permanent conservation easement. it provides wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, cog horn antd lope, and mountain lion and

antelope. they are prized by sports men and contribute millions of dollars to our state's economy. and she's been able to continue to have her family ranch. thanks to an amendment adopted by the ag committee this year, we'll see even more of these easements happen on high-priority landscapes like the music meadows ranch. and i want to thank the chairwoman, chairman stabenow, and senator cochran for working so hard with me to get that amendment approved. private lands conservation like this one, this type, aided by the farm bill, is absolutely critical for so many reasons. it is poorly understood i think in the east but it is an incredibly important tool for those of us in the west to keep our family farms and ranches -- family farms and ranches and to provide the habitat that's needed for our sportsmen and for tourism. here's another example of why this bill is so crucial for our sportsmen and our outdoor recreation economy.

this is a photo taken of a friend, john gayle, hunting pheasants in yuma county, colorado. the conservation reserve program, c.r.p., provides important habitat for pheasants and all other upland birds all across country. the land surrounding this photo is all c.r.p. land. everything you can see and far beyond that. and it's enabled this -- this pheasant hunting to happen in our state. the c.r.p. program protects habitats in addition to holding in place highly erodable soil, something we have a lot of history with in the -- in colorado. like the soil in bakka county, colorado, where over 250,000 acres are enrolled in c.r.p. bakka county was absolutely devastated by the dust bowl of the 1930's, as chronicled in tim eagen's "the worst hard time," and other books. thanks to c.r.p., bakka county has weathered recent droughts

much better than it otherwise would have. mr. president, healthy grasslands, open landscapes and abundant wildlife are a fundamental part of what it is to be in the west. and we need to preserve these grasslands, these open spaces and these species, and that's what this title does, the conservation title of the farm bill, and i strongly support this new conservation title as reported out of the committee in a bipartisan vote. i know some are going to try to amend this bipartisan consensus, and one of the great things about serving on the agriculture committee is there is so little partisanship. the differences that we have are not republican versus democrat. we have some differences, but they tend to be regional and understandable, but we have a way and a process in the leadership to actually work through it together. it would be nice if we did more of that around here.

and i'm worried that there are going to be some amendments that are going to come forward, among other things, in the name of deficit reduction, which as i mentioned earlier is already reflected by this committee's work, unlike every other committee in the united states congress. the lee amendments 1017 and 1018, i appreciate his efforts, my neighbor from utah's efforts at deficit reduction, but these amendments repeal the important programs i have been talking about here on which our farmers and ranchers rely. they keep our soil on the ground and not in our wind and air. lee number 1017 repeals the c.r.p. program i spoke about earlier. and i have been on this floor many times to talk about cutting our deficit, and i'm glad to have been part of a process that's actually led to deficit reduction. we need to put the entire budget under a microscope, including

agriculture, to cut waste and eliminate redundancies. and let me say again, including agriculture, and we have, the bill we have on this floor makes those cuts $24 billion in all, some $6 billion of these cuts come from conservation and not all of those cuts are cuts that i like, but i agreed to them in the package that we were moving forward. we made difficult compromises at the committee level, and now we have a more efficient conservation title as a result that won support from both sides of the aisle. over 650 conservation groups support the conservation title before us, and i would urge my colleagues to support it and to oppose amendments that would weaken the title and undermine the good work of republicans and democrats on the committee. thank you, mr. president. with that, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president, i rise today to discuss some of the amendments that i have offered to the 2013 farm bill. first of all, let me start by thanking the chairwoman and the ranking member for their leadership in listening to the voices of the members of the agriculture committee when it comes to reauthorizing the farm bill which is set to expire at the end of september. we vice president been able to agree on all aspects of the farm bill. our chairwoman and ranking member, however, should be recognized for their tireless work in getting a farm bill done this year. one way or the other, we do need to move this process forward. we came close last year when the senate passed a farm bill, but we were unable to get the house to move it, and i'm hoping this year we can complete that process and get a bill that's actually able to put on the president's desk and be able to give the producers around this country the certainty that they need when it comes to planting and to make decisions about the future of their farming

operations. mr. president, while this bill is commonly called a farm bill, the majority of the spending in this bill is not for agricultural producers. the nutrition title of this bill which is primarily food stamps or what we refer to as snap or supplemental assistance program accounts for 77% of the spending in the farm bill programs over the next ten years. let me repeat that. 77% of all spending in this farm bill doesn't have anything to do with production agriculture but is in what we refer to as the nutrition title of the farm bill. it's important that we subject all areas of federal spending close examination, and that includes the nutrition title of the farm bill. it shouldn't be any exception. i have recently introduced legislation that would reform several components of the nutrition title and save more than $30 billion from the $760 billion nutrition title, and that's a ten-year number. these commonsense reforms to snap generate significant savings without altering

benefits to needy families. the snap program is exceedingly complex. we should be vigilant to ensure that taxpayers' money is indeed going to help lift those in need out of poverty instead of going to ineffective programs that are mired in bureaucracy. i have offered several parts of this reform package as amendments to the farm bill currently on the floor. my amendment 991, which i hope to have an opportunity to get voted on after we return following next week, reforms the nutrition, education and obesity prevention grant program. while well intended, the current structure of this program funnels 52% of the funding to only four states. this is an inequitable use of funds that should be spent more equitably among program participants. my amendment restructures these grants so that the states can receive up to $5 per snap enrollee indexed for inflation. $5 is the median value of what is currently being spent on this education program per capita

across all the states. this amendment in no way limits the capacity of the states to leverage those federal dollars with their own funding to deliver more nutrition education services. by reforming these grants, all recipients of snap benefits will have more access -- more equal access, i should say, to nutrition education and obesity prevention resources that help them to make healthy choices when shopping on a budget. mr. president, this amendment will save $2 billion, $2 billion over the next ten years without impacting snap's benefits for those in need. again, i want to stress this, that reforming this program does not affect the true mission of the snap program which is providing food assistance to needy families. nothing in this amendment changes eligibility requirements for snap benefits. even after this nutrition education program is reformed, approximately $250 million a year will still be available to

the states for these education programs. the priority of the snap program should be providing food assistance to needy families while they work to get back on their feet. unfortunately, the nutrition education and obesity grant program has become so partial to just a few large states that these states are expanding the use of these grants to fund lobbying campaigns instead of reaching out to educate snap families on making healthy choices while shopping on a budget. clearly, clearly, mr. president, this program is in need of reform. making commonsense changes to the snap program shows the american people that we are holding each federal program up to the light, making sure that the taxpayers' money is being spent for the public good. again, these are largely administrative changes to the snap program that do not impact snap benefits for those who are truly in need of food assistance. a $2 billion cut represents less than .5% of what the federal

government will spend on snap over the next ten years. i ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me today in telling the american people that we're committed to program integrity and equality among snap beneficiaries. i look forward in the course of the next weeks when we get back on this bill to engaging my colleagues in a fair and open debate about how we can improve all farm bill programs that strengthen the stability and safety of our nation's food supply for the next five years and beyond. mr. president, this is a commonsense amendment that saves us a couple of billion dollars that we can add to the savings in this bill in a time when we have got rising deficits and debt, budgetary constraints that we're operating with, and i would hope that we would be able to come together in the interest of reform, reform that actually targets programs' administrative costs that does not impact benefits that are so needed for people who are -- who truly do need food assistance. so i will -- i will hope to get

that amendment voted on, mr. president, when we return to the bill. the second amendment i wanted to mention today is another one that i have filed, and that has -- that deals with the commodity title of the farm bill. last year, this body passed a farm bill by a vote of 64-35. a farm bill that most of us believed offered a level of reform that we could support and defend to the american taxpayer. mr. president, several of my colleagues and i pointed out in the ag committee debate, we have deep concerns regarding what we believe is a step backwards in the commodity title of this bill with the creation of the adverse market payments or what we call now the a.m.p. program. this program takes us a step back from last year's farm bill by re-creating a program with countercyclical payments and fixed target prices, a program that the senate farm bill completely eliminated last year. mr. president, our concern is

not the -- i should say our concerns are not crop specific but they are policy specific. most ag committee members were told by our producers that they don't need an additional commodity title program and that a sound crop insurance program is a much higher priority. my amendment number 1092 is a response to the wishes of most of the farmers in the united states. it simply strikes the newly created and unneeded adverse market payments or a.m.p. program and places peanuts and rice back into the a.r.p. program. to put it simply, this amendment restores the reform-minded market-oriented title included in the farm bill that we passed in the senate last year. mr. president, this amendment also saves taxpayers more than $3 billion relative to the bill that is on the floor today. high target prices are an outdated concept from past farm bills. they distort planning decisions. they raise trade compliance

issues, and they are not an effective use of limited taxpayer dollars. now, while i appreciate the work that our chairwoman and ranking member have put into this farm bill, i believe the inclusion of target prices is a step backward from a market-oriented farm policy that is anchored by a strong crop insurance program. i urge my colleagues, mr. president, again to support this amendment that recaptures the level of reform that we achieved in last year's farm bill and at the same time saves more than $3 billion over the bill that is on the floor today. and so, mr. president, both of these amendments have been filed. i hope that as the debate moves forward, we could get these amendments up and voted on. if we're really serious about moving farm policy in this country in a direction of reform, a farm policy that is market oriented, a farm policy that's about the future and not the past, then this commodity

title amendment makes all the sense in the world and again saves $3 billion over the bill that's on the floor today, and i would simply say with regard to the nutrition title amendment that that, too, mr. president, saves a couple of billion dollars, makes reforms that i think create greater efficiency in the food stamp program and help address what i think is a very serious need that we all need to be aware and conscious of in this particular time that we're in, and that is the out-of-control spending, the out-of-control debt that we're handing on to -- passing on to our children and our grandchildren and future generations, passing a farm bill to achieve the highest level possible of additional savings to me seems to be a very high priority, and both of these amendments address that particular objective. mr. president, i look forward to getting these amendments hopefully voted on when we return. with that, i yield the floor and i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: