and they helped fund it. over the last three years -- count the last two congresses for the money is already appropriated -- in other words, it's there to spend -- count the amount of money that the senate appropriations committee has approved. we've increased funding for opioids already by542%. for those wor -- working on their math, that's five times more than we were doing two and a half years ago. and then the house of representatives has come along today and said we want to go even further than that. that's in the regular appropriations process. that's how we do our business here. for example, last year, as i mentioned, we fixed no child left behind. the president called it a christmas miracle. everybody's happy about it. it doesn't spend a penny. it reformed the education law. we spend the money in the appropriations process.

the -- every year we pass a defense authorization bill. it reforms everything that has to do with keeping us safe in the country, but we don't spend a penny. that's in the appropriations process. we have an energy bill. we're going to go to conference on. it doesn't spend a penny. that's in the appropriations process. so we are spending money on opioids. we are spending money on opioids. five times increase over two and a half years. in addition to policy that 200 groups support and that passed the senate 94-1. now, some say well, there should be more. you know, i agree. i would like to spend even more for opioids. i'd like to see a more significant amount of money for state grants to help with opioids because that's where thm line is.

but there are a lot of discussions going on about doing that. there's some discussion about doing that in the 21st century cures bill perhaps. we voted on it last year. republicans put through a bill in our so-called reconciliation process in which all by five republicans in the senate and the house voted for $750 each year for two years for opioids. $750 each year for opioids. that's $1.5 billion republicans voted for. the president vetoed it because it also repealed obamacare. we thought we were getting two good things: repeal obamacare and support opioids. the president of course disagreed with that. so this isn't all on democrats or republicans, because we've also voted for more money for opioids. but let's get out of the this hatfields and mccoy's posture

in this last week or ten days before the convention starts when we're dealing with the lives of so many americans. every senator who talked yesterday at the conference report had some story of someone from his or her state who had died from an opioid abuse. several from one family in several cases. everyone has that story. how can we dare go home next week without having passed a policy that everyone who understands the subject says will help in terms of prevention and state grants and treatment and a variety of other things, and when we've increased funding by five times over two and a half years, how can we dare go home without having passed that? can we continue to talk about even more funding? yeah, i'm ready to do that. i'd like to do it. i'd like to find a way to do it.

but that doesn't mean we stop doing what we can do now. so i'm on the floor today -- and let me just remind my friends on the other side of the aisle, this opioids conference is not a republican bill. it's filled with democratic priorities. senator whitehouse is the lead sponsor, the senator from rhode island. he's passionate about it. 44 democratic senators voted for his version of it. senator warren is the lead sponsor for reducing unused medication act. it's in the package. senator durbin led an amendment regarding the opioid action plan at the f.d.a. that's included. senator shaheen and nine other democratic senators led the national all schedules prescription electronic reauthorization which is included. congressman sarbanes has a bill on expanding access through coprescribing. senator casey introduced a plan of safe care improvement. that was included. senators brown, king and manchin

are cosponsors of a healthy babies act that was included. senators brown, king, casey and feinstein cosponsors of another provision. look, we all put this together. we all care about it. the people we work for all need our help. we should pass it. we should pass it. and to come up with a lame excuse that we're not funding it when in fact we are five times more over two and a half years, that's not the kind of thing that will gain respect for the united states senate. so i'm here today as someone who spends most of his time trying to get results in this body and often achieves results. i do that only because of relationships with democratic members as well as republican members. i told the national education association today to give patty murray a big hand for being the friend of the n.e.a. on fixing no child left behind because it would not have happened without her. and i would say that when we

pass the opioids conference, give a big hand to senator durbin and shaheen and congressman sarbanes and especially senator whitehouse, senator casey, senator warren because they've all made major contributions to this and they voted for the funding over the last two years. and i'm sure they will this year, which will go up at least five times. five times. so let's put the hatfields and mccoys back in kentucky and tennessee. let's say young women all over the country are terrified by the zika virus. let's spend $1 #.1 billion or make it available to the centers for disease control now to help and let's take this opioids conference report that we're on the verge of passing, that we're all for and let's do it and go home and let's add and let's add to the fixing no child left behind, the 21st century cures progress, the mental health progress, our work on opioids abuse and our work on zika. that would be what the american

people would expect of us, and i hope that by the end of next week we find a way to do it. i thank the president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, mr. president for recognizing me. i want to thank the chairman of the help committee here in the senate for, from tennessee who made a very passionate, i think,

argument on why we should be passing the bill that contains the zika funding but also for the opioid and heroin abuse overdose issue that we have in this country. he did mention the hatfields and mccoys more than a few time in reference to tennessee and kempt but we've got to throw west virginia in there because we have a good history with the hatfields and mccoys. i don't want like to see a feud over this either. this is health care, family and babies, this is families torn apart by this scourge of opioid and heroin abuse. i'd like to talk today about the comprehensive addiction and recovery act known as cara here and strongly urge my colleagues to lay down the feud and have common sense. i'm going to talk about why this is so, so very important. it's a comprehensive step forward. it's been worked on for years.

this is not just a fly-by-night bill. this is a very comprehensive bill that's a national response to the drug epidemic that we see just like a fire brushing across america. it expands prevention and education efforts and promotes resources for treatment and recovery. i say often that there's no one solution to this problem. there's a spectrum of solutions. and cara really addresses a spectrum of solutions. it helps law enforcement respond, provides resources for treatment alternatives to incarceration, which i know many senators here have been to see and visit drug court programs that have had successful graduations, that have gotten people back on their feet where they operate in west virginia and many other states. i was very pleased to see many of the elements of the senate-passed bill included in the final conference report. members on both sides of the aisle, the senator from tennessee talked about many of those members, have worked hard to create the realties and the

needs of those living with and impacted by addiction. the bill is just a commonsense response, so let's have a commonsense vote in response to a commonsense bill. for me, my personal passion here has been having to have the ability to craft several provisions that are included in this conference bill. one that would provide for safer, more effective pain management services to our veterans. too many of our veterans are having opioid abuse and opioid overdoses in conjunction with care at the v.a. another provision that would coprescribe nalaxone with senator kaine from virginia, a drug that reversed the effects of opioid abuse or overdose with prescription opioids. i know the provision that would increase access to important follow-up services, again, another bipartisan amendment to provide -- to prevent overprescribing.

also a provision that would improve acute pain prescribing practices. if you have acute pain, it's different than having constant pain. what are the prescribing protocols for that? we have too many stories of addiction that started with patients taking pain killers after suffering a minor injury or minor surgery. also provisions that would allow doctors to partially fill certain opioid prescriptions. senator warren from massachusetts, we worked together on this. this helps to limit the availability of unused pain killers. and lastly, a provision that i worked with with my colleague from west virginia on the house side, congressman jenkins, that would provide -- that would protect babies that are born exposed to opioids during pregnancy and get them the specialized care they need. we see it in lily's place in huntington. we need to have this across the country. in march we stood together. we stood together and passed this bill 94-1, broad bipartisan

support. and cara has had broad bipartisan support in the house as well. but not one single democrat signed the conference report. what changed? what happened? i don't know. they object out of the blue after they already voted for this to a new mandatory, which means a different type of funding out of the appropriations committee, was not added to the bill in conference. some apparently believe that without this funding cara is not worth passing. i strongly disagree for the reasons i'm going to line out. and this is not the view of the over 200 treatment organizations that are in favor of this conference report. groups like addiction policy forum, the american psychological association, the national association of counties, the national association of addiction treatment providers. these groups are calling for quick action on this conference report. they wrote a letter saying -- quote -- "the report is truly a

comprehensive response to the opioid epidemic which includes critical policy changes and new resources. new resources." the letter continued -- quote -- "as you know, 129 americans die each day as a result of a drug overdose. and this epidemic affects the public health and safety in every community across the country." not to mention the devastation, the devastation. and i've seen it in my own community to families all across this nation. this bill is the critical response that we need. as a member of the appropriations committee, we all worked hard to ensure that our states have the resources they need to fight -- to win this fight. and i will not stop in this fight. the appropriations bills we pass in our committee provide substantial new resources. under these bills, total funding to address heroin and opioid abuse will more than double the

2015 levels. you can see this. in 2015, it was $220 million. in 2016, we did a 46% increase to $321 million. in the bill that came out of the senate appropriations committee that was supported bipartisan, 46% increase, $470 million. those are significant resources that can help and will help in the treatment and gets money to our providers and to our states for block grants. let's look at what the, just the h.h.s. discretionary appropriations that we passed in the appropriations bills that passed bipartisan. in 2015, 41 million. in 2016, is 36 -- 136 million. this problem has been escalating in our country.

in 2017, a $262 million, a 93% increase. these are significant. it goes to problems that help with research, treatment, community health centers. this is a very significant rise. and then our last chart is the conference report that we are now considering now. it goes out of the senate, $78 million more, and the conference report comes back $181 million, 132% increase. again, the urgency of what we're seeing here is reflected in the real dollars that we're willing to spend, so don't listen to the argument that no money's being spent. it couldn't be further from the truth. this is what has been decided and agreed upon in a bipartisan way in the appropriations committee to deal with this very, very, very difficult problem. so i think that 94 members of

this body already voted for this $78 million. why in the world would we continue this feud i think that's created and doubling up in a political fashion and turn our backs on a 132% increase in this conference report? as i have shared on the floor several times before, this problem is particularly hard hitting in the state of west virginia, the state i represent. unfortunately, west virginia sadly leads the nation in drug-related overdose deaths, more than twice the national average. more than twice the national average. that means that i mentioned 129 americans die every day. that means there are people dying in west virginia in larger numbers per capita than any other state in the union. it also means we shouldn't be taking the time for partisan politics and delay the passage of a much-needed piece of

legislation. i say this all the time because i believe it to be true. i hope it's not. i believe we're in danger of losing an entire generation to this scourge if we don't act with force together and make sure that we not only fund our programs but we do the comprehensive approach to it that we see in this cara bill. i was on the floor yesterday talking about how we have witnessed senate democrats playing politics with critical funding for zika, and now we're seeing a repeat. i hope we do not go through this same scenario. let's just not play political games with the veteran, depending on the v.a.'s ability to help them treat their open ayotte addiction. or the newborn, born dependent on opioids. or the addict that is willing to seek treatment and needs the help that cara will provide. they do not deserve to be held hostage to a political

situation. i will proudly support the passage of the cara conference report, and i encourage all of my colleagues to do the same. i yield the floor, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: one of the great privileges i have serving in the united states senate is to stand up every day on behalf of montana agriculture. in fact, across the great state of montana, signs of our state's strong agriculture heritage are at virtually every turn. whether it's wheat and sugar beet fields to grazing cattle as well as sheep, it's truly impossible to miss the

expansiveness of our state's number-one economic driver, and that's agriculture. and agriculture is more than just an economic driver of our state. it is a way of life for thousands of montana families. it provides for a safe, reliable and affordable food supply, not only for our nation but for the world. it supports tens of thousands of jobs throughout the state. let me say that again. it supports tens of thousands of jobs in the state of montana, but over the past several weeks and months, i have heard directly from stakeholders in montana, from the montana farm bureau, from the montana grain growers association, from the montana sugar beet growers, from the montana retailers association, from the montana chamber of commerce, as well as

researchers at montana state university, my alma mater, a land grant university, and all demonstrated how their livelihoods would be negatively impacted if a single state on the east coast could be allowed to have such wide-ranging impacts on jobs in montana as well as the price we pay at the grocery store. because i believe a state like vermont and the junior senator from vermont should not dictate the laws that govern our food and affect the prices that montanans pay at the checkout line. defenders of vermont's fringe law and the ideology behind it ignore hardships and agricultural jobs. they ignore hardships on family incomes. they ignore scientific consensus, and they ignore existing transparency tools and the new ones created by this

bipartisan compromise legislation. montanans were clear that congress needed to act. while this bill is by no means perfect, its passage is important to be prevent increased costs for businesses and higher prices at the checkout stands for families. i've got to say i'm outraged the defenders of vermont's law ignore these hardships. in eastern be montana, sugar beets -- in eastern montana, sugar beets are grown using biotech and they are an economic driver for the state and they are the source of thousands of jobs. the sugar beet industry contributes about $70 million a year to the montana economy, as well as sugar factories in billings and sidney. shane strucker, the director of the montana sugar beets growers put it -- quote -- without biotechnology, the hundreds of jobs that montana sugar beet

industry supports would not exist. make no mistake, this vermont law is an attack on the heart of montana's way of life, it's an attack on montana farm and ranch operations, and i'm not going to stand for it. i will stand up for montana and continue to fight to ensure that montana's agricultural products are not unfairly and arbitrarily discriminated against. i am proud, as always, to stand with montana farmers, to stand with montana ranchers, to stand with montana agriculture, and i urge my colleagues to do the same. mr. president, i yield back my time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i rise today to talk about the tough situation in my home -- my home state of wyoming finds itself in and urge my colleagues to take a page from wyoming's book. last week, wyoming's governor proposed cutting $248 million

from the state budget because wyoming has seen a reduction in revenues. now, to my friends from urban states, $248 million might not sound like a lot of money, but that amounts to 8% of wyoming's budget. now, the downturn in energy, particularly in coal, reduced wyoming's revenue by last january to where the legislature when they met had to make 8% cuts. then new figures came out after the legislature was over requiring the governor to make the cuts to meet the new level of income that there is, which required him to make 8% cuts. now, around here, we don't make cuts. we make a reduction in the amount of increase, and we call that a cut. but the governor had a real

clever way of prioritizing. he asked every agency to give him a list of the project, the things that they're doing and suggest where they would take a 1% cut, 5% cut and a 10% cut. then all he had to do was compare the lists and if it wound up on all three, it wasn't that important. if it was only on the 1% one, maybe there was some value to that program. now, that's the chart that the legislature used when they made their 8% cuts. that didn't leave the cuts for the governor to make that would be easy, but the governor, while he acknowledged that he doesn't like the cuts, he did what he is supposed to do, and that's to lead the state. now, unfortunately, the federal government has failed to do the same. we all agreed to the budget control act in 2011 which called for average annual cuts that wound up the one time that we've done it of being 7% to 9%, but

you've got to remember that's from an increased baseline, not a total cut. and it happened in the fourth quarter of the year because we didn't get the spending bills done in time, which is the norm around here. but if you have to take a 2% cut in the last quarter of the year, you're making an 8% cut of the money that you have left. now, that's not far off from what wyoming faces, and we've got a lot more money and a lot more programs to work with to find those cuts at the federal level. in fact, we have 260 programs that i keep talking about that have expired that we spent $293.5 billion on. now, i talked about that enough a year ago that we got that down from 260 to 256, but now we're spending $310 billion on expired programs.

now, wyoming's annual budget is $1.5 billion. that's compared to the federal discretionary budget -- that's the one we get to make decisions on -- of 1,100,000,000,000. now, if wyoming could find a way to cut its budget, the federal government should be able to do the same. but instead of leading the way, people in this body and the house and the administration acted like the sky was falling after they agreed to the budget control act's cuts. as a result, while wyoming stays on firm financial footing, the united states has gone from owing $14 trillion -- that's 14,000 billion dollars in 2014 to owing $19 trillion, 19,000 billion, today, and we're on track to owe $29 billion by

2026. now, here's where one of the difficulties comes in. we are on 19 to our way to $20 trillion. if you were paying 1% interest on $20 trillion, that would be $200 billion a year. we're actually paying a little bit more than that already, but the norm for the federal government is 5%. if that $200 billion becomes five times that great, it becomes a thousand billion. and i just mentioned that we only get to make decisions on 1,100,000,000,000. actually, it's 1,070 billion. so after we pay interest, we would have $70 billion left to fund the military, education, commerce, roads, everything that the federal government does right now. so we have to reverse that course and address the federal government's insatiable appetite for spending, which is leading to america's mammoth national debt. i have several ideas on how we

can make reasonable but real progress on our debt. first, we need to take a page from wyoming's playbook. my home state has acknowledged how much money it has and is making targeted cuts to live within its means. unlike the federal government, they aren't trying to make the cuts hurt politically so that they can get the pressure from the people to spend more and more. let me explain. when we had the government shutdown because the spending bills weren't done last time, they shut down the national parks which incidentally raised money for the federal government, and then in jackson hole where the tetons are, beautiful mountains, they actually put up barriers so that people couldn't use the parking lot to take pictures of -- and they also put up signs that said you can't park along the road. i had to ask them where they got the money to do the barriers. i had to ask them why they did

the barriers to begin with. they said well, they didn't want people putting their garbage there because there would be nobody to pick up the garbage. i said that's easy. remove the garbage cans. there is no cost to that and nobody will have to pick up any garbage. well, that's the way the federal government does things. they even barricaded off the world war ii memorial down here. we laid off a bunch of people during that time, but when they came back to work, we paid them for the time they were off. so it really cost a lot to try and save a little bit of money. for not getting our work done on time. we should learn to cut the worst first, not the best first, but if you cut the best, you've got people complaining and they get the money reinstituted. governor meade is proposing smaller cuts for the department of corrections because that agency already saw its budget cut severely in march.

the department of family services faces a smaller cut because it serves the state's safety net. and the public defender's office isn't expected to see any cuts because they're already strapped for resources. the federal government should be doing the same thing and cutting the worst first. i'd argue we should focus on identifying and eliminating the wasteful spending that occurs here in d.c. before we look to important programs and services in our home states, but this isn't something we should guess at. like wyoming, we should require all government departments and agencies to list what they do best and what they do worst. oh, that's right. i've never seen one admit to anything that they do worst. so i would suggest that we do that prioritization system like wyoming went through, where every agent is asked to list all the programs they do and suggest which ones they would cut at 1%, which ones they would cut 59%,

and which -- at 5%, and which ones they would cut at 10%, or some other ratio of percents, so we could tell which ones they felt were really the most valuable to fund and force them to make those cuts be the first ones instead of the ones that we need the most. that way we can maintain what we do well and cut what we don't. we need to prioritize how we spend taxpayers' dollars just like wyoming. second, we need to implement my penny plan which cuts overall spending by 1%. that's one cent out of every dollar we spend, and it caps future spending so that the government lives within its means. if we did that, mr. president, within seven years we could balance the budget. wyoming is finding a way to cut 8%. why can't this body agree to cut 1%? each year until the income is the same or less than

expenditures? i'm pretty sure after the first year people would say, you know, that wouldn't too bad. we can live with that. and i think they'd suggest that we do 2 cents instead of 1 cent and get this done faster so that the next generation has the hope for the country that we have enjoyed. lastly, congress needs to thoroughly consider and review annual spending. the wyoming legislature reviews its spending bills on time because they have created incentives to encourage it and they use a two-year spending psych--cycle. congress should follow wyoming's lead by forcing timely consideration of regular appropriations bills, spending bills, and locking in that funding for two years instead of one. a biennial process would also allow more for proposed spending and eliminate duplication and waste.

and, again, ensuring that the elimination is of the worst first. mr. president, i'd like to make one point to differentiate the problem wyoming faces with the problem we face here. wyoming is facing spending cuts because of declining revenues from oil, gas, and coal, which provide 70% of the state's budget. those reductions are due to direct actions this administration has taken to make it harder to drill for oil and gas and to mine for coal. but at the federal level, we don't have a revenue problem. we have a spending problem. this year alone we've seen attempts to increase spending by tens of billions of dollars without offsets. mr. president, we cannot spend our way to prosperity. we definitely need to look at expired programs. i sit up nights woargs about our nation -- worrying about our

nation's $19 trillion debt and how it'll affect our children and grandchildren. we've run out of money and are living on what we borrow from other countries. if we don't get serious about cutting spending soon, the programs people enjoy and rely on won't just shrink, they'll disappear entirely. again, my example of what happens if we go to 5% interest for this country. it's long past time for us to apply a reasonable constraint on our spending. and if we need a blueprint of how to do it, we should look to my home state of wyoming. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. and i i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: snrp. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: mr. mcconnell: for all members of the senate, let me just sum where we are. there are three votes left to be cast. it's cleared on this side of the aisle to have all three of those votes momentarily.

or if there are objections to the consent that i'm about to offer, the three votes will occur at 10:20 tonight. but whether we do it now or whether we do it then, there are sri three vote -- there are three votes to finish the bill. this bill is the product of a negotiation between a top republican and a top democrat from the agriculture committee that will protect middle-class families from unnecessary and unfair higher food prices while also ensuring access to more information about the food that we all purchase. chairman roberts said this bipartisan bill will benefit consumers by greatly increasing the amount of food information at their fingerprints while avoiding devastating increases in the price of food. the ranking democrat on the agriculture committee, senator stabenow, noted that it will present a confusing -- it

recognizes the scientific consensus that biotechnology. tts result of bipartisan work to address an issue that could negatively harm consumers and producers. the amendments being bandied about threaten to derail this process and the end result will be a tax on food for middle-class families. so here's the deal, mr. president. we need to pass it today. we need the thousands take it up and pass -- we need the house to take it up and pass it. we need them to take it up and send it to the president. the only question is whether we do i in this the near future or whether we don't it at 10:20 tonight. tbhairg in mind, as i've said, we're prepared to vet on the sanders alternative to the roberts-stabenow compromise language and to finish up this bill now rather than waiting

until time expires at 10:20 tofnlttonight. a bipartisan majority voted to end debate on the bill. everyone has an opportunity to be heard. it's time to finish this bill. under the regular order, there'd be no further amendments on the bill. under the consent agreement i'm about to offer, the opponents would be able to vote on the sanders alternative. therefore, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that not with the standing rule 22, i ask unanimouaskthere be 20 minutes t coast will time left, further

that senators sanders or his d.c. allowed to offer amendment number 4948 to the motion to concur with further amendment, finally, that following the use or yielding back of thew time, the senate vote on the sanders amendment with a 60-affirmative vote threshold needed for adoption. following disposition of the sanders amendment, the respecting amendment be withdrawn and the senate vote on the motion to concur in the house amendment with further amendment with no further intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: reserving the right to object, the issue before this body is whether there is going to be an opportunity for amendments to be considered and voted upon. we've heard today that we have three republican amendments, three republican amendments that address a prohibition on federal labeling, that address criminal penalties, that address salmon.

we also have three democratic amendments that we would luke to have votes on. now once upon a time, it is now starts to seem like a fairy tale, this senate was known has a great deliberative body. well, great deliberative body entertains ideas, discusses them, and votes on them. and so in support and honoring the tradition of the senate to put amendments forward and have them debated and voted, we are offering an alternative. i would ask the majority leader to modify his motion and to do so in the following fashion: to ask for unanimous consent that the following amendments be the only amendments in order to the motion to concur with respect to senate s. 764 with amendments sanders 4948, leahy 4966, merkley 4969, s.a.s. 4972,

paul 4947, and murkowski 4954. that there be one hour for debate to run concurrently prior to votes in relation to amendments in the order listed, that all the amendments being subject to a 60-rote threshold for adoption, that upon disposition of the amendments, the all postcloture time be yield back with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: does the senator so modify his request? robert mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. roberts: mr. president, it's my understanding the gentleman has made a unanimous consent request for six amendments; is that correct? the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. roberts: mr. president, reserving the right to object, as i go over each of these amendments, each one would undo the carefully crafted compromise that has been put together by the distinguished ranking

member, senator stabenow, and myself, and so i must object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the objection is to the modification. is there objection to the original request? mr. merkley: mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. mcconnell: i believe everybody has objected. if not, i object. the presiding officer: objections heard in duplicate.

the presiding officer: the assistant democratic leader. mr. durbin: i suggest the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hoeven: every now and chance we have -- to support a bipartisan issue that tackles a tough issue in the face of stiff opposition. the biotechnology bill before us today is such legislation and i come to the floor to speak in support of its passage. this measure will avoid a patchwork of state labeling regulations and in doing so will

save families thousands of dollars a year, protect american jobs and provide consumers with accurate, transparent information about their food. this bipartisan solution is the product of the hard work of ag committee chairman pat roberts and ranking member debbie stabenow who have shown real leadership in putting this bill together and now working to get it passed. specifically, the roberts-stabenow biotechnology disclosure bill accomplishes three important objectives. first, it protects consumers by immediately ending the problem of having a patchwork of inconsistent state g.m.o. labeling programs that would increase prices. second, it ensures farmers and ranchers can continue to provide americans with an affordable, reliable and safe food supply. third, it creates a uniform national disclosure system that will provide consumers with more information about their food

products. this bill will ensure that the vermont g.m.o. labeling law which went into effect last week, july 1, does not end up costing america's families billions of dollars. food companies are already having to choose between one of three bad options for complying with the vermont law and laws from additional states that may follow vermont's lead. first, order new packaging for products going to each individual state with a labeling law. second, reformulate products so no labeling is required. or, third, stop selling to states with mandatory labeling laws. all of these options will increase the cost of food and could result in job losses in the ag economy. for millions of americans, the g.m.o. or bioengineered food labeling program created by vermont will impact the affordability of food without improving its safety. testimony provided by the usda

and f.d.a. said the use of foods with biotechnology are safe. just last week 107 nobel laureates signed a joint letter to greenpeace urging it to stop campaigning against biotechnology and g.m.o.'s, stating -- quote -- "the opposition to g.m.o.'s based on dogma contradictive to the data must be stopped. the real risk is if we don't, families will have a tougher time making ends meet. if families have to apply vermont's standards to products nationwide it will result in an estimated increase of over $1,050 a year per household. for families having a tough time paying bills this is in essence

a regressive tax and will hurt the poor more than those with substantial means. from a jobs perspective, the story isn't any better. it's been calculated if vermont's law is applied nationwide, it will cost over $80 billion a year to switch products over to non-g.m.o. supplies. those billions of dollars a year in additional costs will hurt an ag and food industry that creates over 17 million jobs nationwide. in my state of north dakota, 94,000 jobs and 38% of our state's economy rely on the ag and food economy. and this is a bad time to making it more expensive to do business in the ag sector. earlier this year an economist at the federal reserve bank in kansas testified net farm income in 2015 is more than 50% less than it was in 2015 and is

expected to go down again in 2016. state patchwork of food labeling laws will only make this situation worse as many farmers who rely on biotech crops to increase productivity will be deprived of a critical tool. i know how much farmers put on the line every year when they have to take on ought operating loan for crops that may or may not materialize. we shouldn't ask them to feed the nation with one hand tied behind their backs by taking away biotechnology. more than just overcoming the problems associated with having a patchwork of state regulations, i think it's important for americans to know that this legislation ensures consumers have consistent, accurate information about the bioengineered content of their food. this measure creates greater transparency for consumers by putting in place a new national bioengineered food disclosure

standard that will ensure products labeled as having been produced with biotechnology meet a uniform national standard. as i mentioned, foods produced through the aid of bioengineering are according to the f.d.a., e.p.a. and usda safe. however, many consumers do want to know if the food they're buying is produced using biotechnology which is why this legislation provides a national bioengineered food labeling standard. many of us who sit on the ag committee would have preferred a voluntary labeling standard. after all, as has been demonstrated by scientific experts, whether a food contains bioengineered material is not a food safety issue. yet there are many perspectives on this issue, and in the true spirit of compromise, senator roberts, senator stabenow deserve a great deal of credit for coming up with a legislative solution. this bill's national bioengineered food labeling standard will ensure that a consumer who buys a food product with text, symbol or electronic

link indicating bioengineered content in, say, north dakota, for example, is purchasing a product that is held to the same disclosure standards as food sold in another state, for example, new york or california. meanwhile this bill will provide regulatory flexibility to ensure farmers and ranchers can continue to produce affordable and reliable food for the nation. mr. president, we need a solution and this bill delivers that solution. it helps keep our nation's food affordable. it supports jobs. it provides consumers consistent information about bioengineered foods. i urge my colleagues to support this commonsense measure. thank you. with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i want to thank my colleague for once again

reinforcing why it's so important for us to get this compromise bill, this bipartisan bill, on agriculture biotech to the president's desk so that we can move on to take on other matters. and that's one of the matters i want to talk about now. again, i know that when you come on to c-span and you come into this chamber, sometimes people who are watching or may be in the gallery, it's hard to understand some of what we're talking about. so what i'm talking about is a bill that i hope that we vote on next week. it's a bill that in two separate measures went to the house with strong bipartisan support, or they were. now it's coming back in what we call a conference report, and we're one vote away from potentially sending this bill to the president's desk. it has two parts. i'm going to speak predominantly on the second part. but the first part had a to do with funding our veterans. i come from the state of north carolina. we have a population of ten million, ten percent of our state, nearly one million of our

citizens are veterans. we're very proud of our military tradition and we're certainly proud of those who have decided to call north carolina their home after their military service. as a matter of fact, i think everybody in the senate, democrats and republicans, have veterans as a priority. i firmly believe that. and that, i guess, is one of the reasons why i'm stunned that we've reached an impasse in moving forward and providing an appropriation that will let us increase funding to veterans. the bill that we seem not to be able to get consensus on, although we had consensus when we first sent it out of this chamber provides critical funding for veterans housing, for their disability compensation, for suicide hotlines, for treatment for ptsd and for opioid addiction treatment. for all the promises that we are not keeping today, we can help fulfill those promises by providing the desperately needed funding that the v.a. needs. but instead of working to get this funding done, we're at an

impasse now and i simply don't understand it. some may be genuine disagreements with the policy but in some respects it feels a little bit like scoring political points and i don't get it. what i want to talk about tonight is the other provision of the bill and that has to do with something that's desperately needed in our nation, and it's funding and taking seriously the threat of the zika virus. zika is here. and we're in mosquito season. i went hiking this weekend and i know mosquitoes are out in north carolina. in fact, they are all over the nation. we need to work quickly to get a vaccine. we need it desperately. we're told by the c.d.c. we could be 18 months away from having a vaccine for zika. what we need to do is make sure we're funding research efforts so we can win the fight against zika. but i'll tell you we can't do this without providing financial support. as i said before, the senate passed a bill earlier this year, and we sent it to the house.

now it's back over in the senate, and it's one vote away from going to the president's desk. the bill spends over $1 billion to fight zika in all of its forms. my democratic friends voted for this bill earlier in the spring at the same funding level we talked about. there is discussion about spending more, but it seems illogical we would spend nothing at all. that seems to be the position that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are taking right now. we stand ready as the republicans and the majority to provide this funding, but it appears as though because we've reached this political impasse, that we could put american health and safety at risk. now, again, we have a roll call vote from earlier this year where most of us, virtually all of us voted for $1.1 billion in funding. that funding i'll talk about a little later what it was directed towards, but we've got members who voted with us on that bill that are not willing

to vote now to send this to the president's desk. i'm going to submit for the record, mr. president, the list of people who voted for this bill the last time it was on the floor now voting against it. i'm not going to spend time today with limited time to go through each of the members, but it doesn't make sense to me when you have cases reported, five cases in colorado, yet we have someone opposing the bill. 24 cases in pennsylvania, yet now before updates supported it, now they are opposing it. 27 cases in virginia. 26 cases in maryland. 52 cases in california. 198 cases in new york. for a total of 671 cases that have been reported to date in the united states. most of these are travel related, but we have the threat of sexual transmission and now that we're in the height of mosquito season, we have the real threat of mosquitoes

infecting american citizens, and the threat is real. so, mr. president, without going through all the list, florida's another example. 162 cases reported already. it would seem to me that the senators from florida would want to get this funding to the president's desk so that we can start solving the problem. now, mr. president, again, members who now oppose this funding voted for it just a couple of months ago. and again, if you add up the number, that's 671 cases solely in the states where members now are opposing the bill and the cases are growing, we now seem to be engaged in this sort of political divide that really is this senate at its worst, and we're better than that. now, i know there are a lot of reasons that have been put forth to oppose it in this version where they weren't against it before. there are some that said it's

because we're not funding or we're preventing funding for certain organizations. it's not true. the funding can flow through medicaid to any organization that would provide health services that would be relevant to the disease. we also hear that some of our -- that the mosquito -- the way that you control the population of mosquitoes that can potentially carry the disease is to kill them, kill them where they breed. and right now, we think temporarily for this mosquito season, we should do whatever we can to make sure that we kill the potential source of the disease that's transmitted through these mosquitoes. and it can be done. in fact, it can be done with chemicals that the world health organization says is safe in so many other jurisdictions. all we're saying is during this mosquito season, before we get a vaccine, that we use this -- this chemical, this compound that can kill zika mosquitoes and prevent them from transmitting the disease. that doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to do.

for 180 days, allow us to try to dramatically reduce the threat to the population. these are just commonsense policies. the fact that we're having this discussion, the fact that we can't get it, the fact that time is running out and we have to get it done next week is ridiculous. we're well into the mosquito season. there is probably not anything listening to this or in this chamber now that has not been bitten by a mosquito already this year. let's do what we have to do to keep america safe. let's stop the partisan politics, let's get this bill to the president's desk, and then let's move on to the many other things the american people expect us to tackle while we remain in session. thank you, mr. president. ms. mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i yield my hour assigned to me to the democratic leader. the presiding officer: the senator has that right. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the assistant democratic leader. mr. durbin: mr. president, eventually this evening, we will be voting on g.m.o. labeling.

this, as i mentioned earlier, is the most politically contentious and divisive issue i can ever remember, and i have been in congress for a few years. whenever this comes up in our caucus, it is going to be a heated argument. it just evokes so many emotions, not just among the members of our caucus but certainly with the american people, and it gets down to some basic questions. if you're dealing with a food product that has bioengineered contents or genetically modified contents, there are several questions we need to ask. the first question is should the consumer know this? well, 92% of americans believe yes, they have a right to know if there is g.m.o. content in the food that they eat. that's what the polls show. 92%. that's an overwhelming number when you live with polls as long as most of us have.

and then you ask a question, delving into it, is that because g.m.o.-modified food is dangerous to a consumer? and i think the answer is very clear that the scientific analysis of g.m.o. food have not reached that conclusion. they believe, the national academy of sciences and others, that g.m.o. food by itself is not a danger to consumers. that is the scientific evidence. nevertheless, there is this strong public opinion that people want to know whether g.m.o.'s are part of the food that they're consuming. i have done some research on this, and i'm sure every member has tried to look at this very carefully, and the one article that has really stuck with me through the entire debate was published in the "new england journal of medicine" in august of 2015 last year. so it was about a year ago when two doctors, dr. phillip

landergan and dr. charles benbrook published this article in what is i think highly regarded as a nonpolitical professional medical journal, the "new england journal of medicine," and they go through an analysis of g.m.o. in foods. they acknowledge at the outset what i have already said, that there is no scientific evidence of danger if there is g.m.o. content in your food. but then they take it to a different level, an important level as far as i am concerned. is there any difference in the way that g.m.o. products, plants, are grown? the answer is yes, and it was designed to be different. this was inspired initially by monsanto, a company that has a major presence in my state. it was designed to create a seed corn that they made and sold that was resistant to an herbicide that's a weed killer,

roundup, glie -- glisophate. they were selling the weed corn and then encouraging the farmers who bought it to use the corn in their wheat fields, saying the herbicide would not hurt the corn, just the weeds. these doctors then analyzed what happened next. what happened was over time there were weeds becoming more and more resistant to roundup, stronger, thicker, bigger weeds. to put it in a different way, mother nature was not cooperating with monsanto. weeds were appearing that they didn't anticipate. so they decided to apply even more of this herbicide, this weed killer called roundup to see if that would control the problem, and it didn't. and so they had to add another weed killer, another herbicide,

24-d which has a long history in the united states, and then they started combining the two, hoping to stop the weeds with this new combination. the net result is these two doctors published in this article in the "new england journal of medicine" was a dramatic increase in this glyphosate, this roundup that was being applied across the world. roundup ready crops now account for 90% of soybeans and plants in the united states. they go on to say but widespread adoption of herbicide resistant crops has led to overreliance on herbicides and in particular glyphosate. in the united states, glyphosate use has increased by a factor of more than 250, from .4 of milligrams in 2004 to 115 milligrams in 2014. global use has increased by a

factor of more than ten. not surprisingly, glyphosate-resistant weeds have emerged and they are found today on nearly 100 million acres in 36 states. fields must now be treated with multiple herbicides, including 24-d, a component of the agent orange defoliant used in vietnam. e.p.a. anticipates that a three to be sevenfold increase in 24-d will be the result of these roundup-resistant weeds. is that important? i think it's very important. it's important because we know that if you apply large quantities of chemicals to our agricultural fields, you may produce and harvest a big crop, but there is an environmental risk. how much of a risk depends on the chemicals being provided or being used by the farmers. so if g.m. foods on your table are not a concern to your family because of scientific analysis,

there is another question. is the method that's being used to grow these roundup-resistant crops, these g.m.o. crops an environmental danger to anyone? well, these two doctors came to a conclusion that it is. the determination in 2015 that glyphosate is -- quote -- a probable human carcinogen. and 24-d a possible human carcinogen. because of the link between these chemicals and cancer, these two doctors have concluded that labeling is important, so consumers know that they are consuming products which on the table are no danger but may have used -- may have called for the use of more chemicals leading to more environmental danger, and they conclude that there should be labeling. so it's a different approach but it's one that i think is valid

and it comes from a totally nonpolitical source. the "new england journal of medicine." so the question then comes if we are going to have labeling, what kind of labeling? well, i mentioned earlier today and i want to repeat my hat's off to the campbell soup company. they have been around a long time, and they put out information in a press release back in january of this year announcing that they supported the enactment of federal legislation to establish a single mandatory labeling standard for foods derived from genetically modified organisms. they went on to say campbell's believes it's necessary for the federal government to find a national standard for labeling requirements to better inform consumers. i agree. i agree. they go on to say that the notion of every state setting a labeling standard is madness. it would be impossible for major food manufacturers to keep up

with the variety of different labeling requirements, and it isn't practical in a nation like ours for us to really accommodate that kind of labeling requirement. so campbell's has basically stepped forward and said we don't believe the g.m.o.'s in our product are any danger to consumers, and we are prepared to declare on our product in clear words whether or not they con taken genetically modified organisms. i think this is a responsible corporate answer to a vexing problem that we have faced for years, and i salute campbell's for trusting consumers and trusting their ability to convince consumers that the food they're selling is wholesome. i wish the food industry had followed the campbell's motto, but the bill we have before us does not. it provides three different opportunities to disclose on food products mandatory, disclose on food products

whether or not they contain genetically modified organisms. one is a simple declaration, g.m.o., non-g.m.o. the second is using something that will be developed by the united stated department of agriculture that consumers will come to learn is a signal, some sort of a sign or signal, a signal as to whether g.m.o. is included. it's the third approach that troubles me the most, and i've said this over and over again to the people in the food industry across america who support this approach. i call this the secret decoder ring approach. what it means is if you were a consumer, walking into a store, buying groceries for your family, you will be facing what's known as a q.r. i'm learning as it goes on what this means. it's one of those little boxes with scwibles in it which makes no sense to you as you look at it but can be read by a computer, and that reading would then signal whether or not you

receive additional information. i think that is deceptive, i think it's unnecessary, and i think campbell's has the right approach. using the q.r. codes, they literally expect consumers who want to know -- and 92% do want to know -- about g.m.o.'s to either use their cell phones on the products they're about to buy in the grocery store or turn to some reader in the grocery store that will tell them a page or two of information about the contents. i really believe that that is an attempt to obfuscate the situation. i think most consumers will rightly assume that if there's not a clear declaration on the product of non-g.m.o. that it contains g.m.o. i think the food industry is taking an approach which can't be defended with a straight face. can you really expect a busy consumer, a mother with children in her shopping cart to pull out

her phone and stop at every can of soup? and then read if there is a page or two of information about that product? that isn't fair to consumers. that's why major consumer organizations oppose this bill. and it's one of the major reasons that i oppose the bill as well. if there were a simple declaration -- g.m.o./non-g.m.o. -- if it were by symbol or straight acknowledgment of wording that everyone who is a seasoned consumer would come to understand, the -- that i thinkn honest approach. but to put it in a q.r. code and to say that we'll expect them to read on their cell phone what is in a product, i don't think is reasonable or honest in the way we approach this. let me say that i salute those who have taken up this battle. many of them have taken it up for many different reasons. it has been a vexing and contentious issue for a long period of time.

i do not support state labeling. we have to avoid that. i do support honest disclosures on food products so american consumers, who believe rightly that they have a right to know, have a way of finding that information in a way that's reasonable. i also want to add, it's my understanding that there is a two-year delay in terms of imposing this requirement. i don't know why two years would be necessary. it would seem to me, if kafn bell's can move on this more quickly, the rest of the food industry should be able as well. i thank the senator from oregon, who has been working so hard on this issue, and i yield the floor. mr. toomey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, it's my understanding that, either directly or indirectly, the senator from oregon controls the time but that he has agreed to yield up to ten minutes to me to make some comments, and i'd just like to confirm that,

mr. president. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i do not control the time. however, i was prepared to speak and my colleague requested to go first, and i asked him if he might keep his comments to a reasonable period. mr. toomey: mr. president, so i had the nature of the courtesy slightly wrong, but nevertheless the principle remains. i apreasht the cooperation -- i appreciate the cooperation from my colleague from oregon. i will keep my comments to ten minutes, especially if you will be kind enough to inform me when the ten minutes have expired. i want to speak about an epidemic that every one of us knows is rage something across every one of our states. it is absolutely the case in the commonwealth of pennsylvania, and it is the heroin and opioid epidemic. this is excruciating to so many families. i think at this point we all know people who have been victims of this epidemic.

i certainly do. and we have to be doing all that we can about this. i have the privilege of being the chairman of the help committee on the finance committee. in that capacity, i've tried to learn what i can about this epidemic. i have traveled all across pennsylvania hosting round table discussions, field hearings, getting as much input as i can. mr. president, what i've learned is that there's at least three things that we could be doing here in congress to at least help address this terrible epidemic of opioid and prescription drug abuse. none of them are a silver bullet that are going to end this epidemic, but they can help, and we need to be doing what we can to help. number one, we can reduce the diversion of these powerful prescription narcotics, and there are ways we can do that. number two, we can deal with overprescribing, because that's a problem. and, number three, we can

improve access to and the quality of treatment for people who are already addicted. mr. president, we've got an opportunity to make progress on all three of these really important areas if we will just approve the conference report on the comprehensive addiction and recovery act. we know it as cara, the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, that we will be voting on soon. let me run through quickly how this bill helps on all three of these areas. number one, i mentioned reducing the diversion of powerful narcotics. the government accountability office estimated that in a single year 170,000 medicare beneficiaries were doctor-shopping. that is to say, they were going to multiple doctors getting multiple prescriptions getting them all filled at multiple pharmacies and ending up with a commercial-scale quantity of these powerful, addictive narcotics. 170,000. that's a tiny percentage of medicare beneficiaries, but it is a big number.

wcialtion when medicaid -- well, when medicaid and when commercial insurers discovered that there are people in their plans that are doctor-shopping, they have a device to stop t it's called lock-in. what they do is when they discover a person is doctor-shopping, they require that person to get their prescription from a single doctor and a single pharmacy so that they can't continue the abuse. this tool does not exist in medicare. so i sat down with senators brown and senator portman and senator kaine and we wrote a bill that would give medicare the power that medicaid already has, that private insurers already use, that would allow medicare to lock in a patient to a single prescriber and a single pharmacy when they discover doctor-shopping. mr. president, this has broad, bipartisan support. the president called for this legislation in his budget. the pew charitable trust -- there's law enforcement support, doctors and seniors groups all support this. it will help stop fraud. it'll help coordinate care.

it'll reduce cost. but, most importantly, mr. president, it's a going to save lives. it's going to real estate duce - reduce the diverse of narcotics on the street. this bill that senator brown and myself and portman and kaine that we wroarkts it is in cara, this legislation. it is a good thing. secondly, i mentioned reducing yeefer prescribing. the center for disease control has found that we are in fact overprescribing opioids for many medical conditions and doctors don't always know about this when they are seeing a patient. they don't know that there's maybe another doctor providing maybe similar, maybe equivalent prescriptions. and so there is a mechanism, an electronic database system that would allow physicians to know what a patient has already been prescribed so that they wouldn't create an excessive or inappropriate prescription. tseit is called a prescription g monitoring program, or a pdmp, to provide that information, a

patient's history -- senator shaheen was the lead on the bill. i joined her on this, as did senator collins to provide assistance to states to make sure their prescription drug monitoring programs are operating within lines. this will end up making sure we have better care and diminish the incidents of these narcotics getting into the wrong hand. finally, mr. president, i mentioned that we need to improve access to and quality of treatment. the cara bill, this legislation, does that in a number of ways. it would establish a demonstration program for evidence-based treatment programs. it'lit will help individuals battling with addiction services. it expands access toal i naloxo, that is a drug that reverses the effects of an overdose and saves

lives. and it'll increase opioid drug disposal sites. so, mr. president, there is a lot here. this is very constructive. the bill has enormous, broad, bipartisan support. cara passed in the senate 94-1. it passed in the house 400-5. the conference report that we'll be considering here is substantively the same. as the bill that passed the senate. in fact, it's broader. it does more to help dealing with this terrible problem. it's got the support of all kinds of public health groups. it's got democrat and republican ideas. it's exactly the kind of thing we ought to be coming together and get done. i just want to urge my colleagues, let's -- let's don't play politics with this one. you know what? i know it is the political season. i know there is the temptation. it's happened with other pieces of legislation. but that one is too important for this. there is broad bipartisan support. this is constructive. it won't end the epidemic, blue it will save -- but it will save

individual liv lives and help the people that we represent. i hope that very soon we will approve this conference report and get this over to the house so that they can approve it and get to the president's desk. i'm sure the president will sign it. that's exactly what we need to do. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: i yield two hours to the junior senator from oregon, senator jeff merkley. the presiding officer: the senator has that right.

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, tonight we are discussing in this chamber an issue that's of concern to millions and millions of americans, and issue that goes to the heart of one of the most important concerns to a family, and that is the food that people put into their mouths, that we as adults or parents and that we provide to our children. and the real heart of the question is, does a citizen have a right to know what is in the food that they're putting into their own mouth or putting on the dinner table for their children? and the simple point that i will argue day and night is that a citizen does have that right. it's the right to information in a society about an issue related

to your family's health and related to the environment. how can you, as a consumer, make responsible choices related to both the health of your family and to the health of the environment if you do not have the information at the point that you are purchasing a product? this is why we have all kinds of information disclosure rules in america. for example, let's say you're considering buying fish and in the supermarket, if the fish is farm-raised, it has to say on the package that it is farm-raised. now, why is that in place? well, that rule is in place because people buying the fish often care a lot about whether it is a wild fish or whether it is a farmed fish.

and they care in part because it may differ in the quality of the food that they are putting in their body and because the way that farmed-fish are raised may raise concerns about the vierntle and they may want -- environment and they may want to exercise the choice of only buying wild fish. that's why it's on the label. why do we put onto the label the number of calories? this is an issue that citizens care about and folks often wonder how much is it going to add to my weight or how much am i going to need to exercise? and, by the way, how much sugar is in this product and how much fat is in this product and how much unsaturated fat and are there peanuts in this product? and we answer those questions because consumers care about these issues and they are related to the consumer's health, and that is the key -- consumer right to know.

and tonight we're addressing a specific issue, which is the right to know whether or not the ingredients in the food you're eating are genetically modified. has gene splicing occurred to change the makeup of the food that you are eating? well, just a little while ago the senator from illinois was sharing a study with this body from the "new england journal of medicine" in which two doctors looked very carefully at this question and they came away with a simple conclusion. it is reasonable, they found, for citizens to be concerned about the impact of consuming g.m.o. ingredients, and, therefore, it is reasonable for citizens to be able to have this information on the package. and they supported labeling. i know from other studies that i've examined that in areas

where glyphosate, a white killer tied to glyphosate resistant to crops such as sugar beets, crops such as corn, that we have results that show that the glyphosate actually ends up in samples of the rain water because it's disbursed in a spray. we have results that show that it ends up in the urine of people who live in these areas. and we know that various international bodies have said that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. so if it's showing up if your urine, as a parent, you might have concern about a probable carcinogen showing up in that fashion and what impact it might have on your health. now there are those here who say we can't find an established cancer cluster that is directly related, and so we're

comfortable making the decision for the men and women and children of america. we're comfortable denying them the right to know. and that is why this bill is labeled the dark act, deny americans the right to know. and i'm going to go through how it is that this act that is before us tonight which has been presented as a mandatory labeling bill is nothing of the such. it is in fact an effort to guarantee that citizens do not get a label that they can use. so let's talk about these various loopholes in this bill, these monsanto loopholes. monsanto loophole number one, you may wonder why do i call it a monsanto loophole? well, first, monsanto is the biggest producer of roundup. that is the commercial name for glyphosate. they sell it across the country,

and they sell it along with their seed for g.m.o. soybean and g.m.o. sugar beet and a g.m.o. corn. so they sell the plants to be raised that are tolerant to this weed killer, glyphosate and then they sell the glyphosate itself. and that has resulted in a massive, massive increase in the amount of weed killer applied across america. now, that has a variety of impacts that people are concerned about related to the environment. it has an impact because we start to see the emergence of super weeds, weeds that because they're exposed so often and there are random mutations they start to become resistant to glyphosate and so you have to apply more of it than you did before. or as pointed out in this article that my colleague from illinois was reading from a

little while ago, you have to start applying a different weed killer because of the emerging super weeds resistance to the weed killer roundup. also you have the evolution of super bugs. what is a superbug? the corn has been modified so that not only is it resistant to glyphosate or the weed killer but it also produces a pesticide inside the cell called b.t. corn. now, i think many citizens would want to know more about that. they would be a little bit concerned that there is a genetic code inside every cell of the corn plant that is designed to generate a pesticide within the cell of the corn. and then if they looked into it a little further, they find out that the insect that this is attempting to kill is also starting to evolve to be resistant to this pesticide. so not only are they concerned

about does this pesticide get generated inside the corn kernel since the d.n.a. grower of this pesticide is inside kwref cell. but -- every cell. what about the evolution of super bugs, bugs which now because they are reseufptant to the pesticide inside the corn are in a cornfield that a farmer has to start to apply other pesticides to the corn as well. and what happens when this pesticide runs off the cornfield? what happens when the weed killer, glyphosate, roundup runs off the cornfield or sugar beet field? this runoff puts weed killer into our rivers, streams and creeks and that has an impact on the biology of the stream. a key concern is the issue of the impact of this type of farming surrounding these particular genetic modifications

and its impact on our environment. well, in addition, we have another impact where it's heavily applied, it's killed the milkweed and the milkweed has been the primary food for monarch butterflies, so we see a huge crash in the midwest population of the monarch butterfly. well, that's a reasonable thing for people to be concerned about. just this weekend i was talking to some friends, and we were all relating that when we were kids, we saw monarch butterflies all the time, and this is in oregon. the population hasn't crashed equally everywhere but it certainly has diminished greatly even in my state of oregon. well, we're noting that our kids are not even sure what a monarch butterfly looks like. that's how much the population has decreased. in a very short period of time

we've had a very profound impact on the environment. that's a reasonable concern of individuals. well, here we have a bill that says we're going to label products as g.m.o. in order to address the citizen concern, except the bill doesn't actually do that. and it has a series of loopholes that serve monsanto and its various crops very, very well. so let's look at the first monsanto loophole, and that is the definition exempts most of the monsanto g.m.o. crop. so let's address that a little bit. what is the bill actually say? well, it starts with a definition, a definition of bioengineering that is not used anywhere else in the world. i'll read it. the term bioengineering and any similar term as determined by the secretary with respect to a food refers to a food that

contains genetic material -- those key words -- contains genetic material that has been modified through in vitro recombinant d.n.a. techniques. i'll go to the second part of the definition in a moment because it's really a second loophole squeezed in as well. so, that contain genetic material. now, isn't that clever? because you see, here is the way it works. when you take genetically modified corn and you make high-fructose corn syrup, the genetic material is stripped out. so what this definition does is says that g.m.o. high-fructose corn syrup used in products throughout america is magically no longer considered g.m.o. under the definition in this bill. and furthermore, the same thing with sugar beets. g.m.o. sugar beets produce

g.m.o. sugar except that under this definition, once again the genetic material is stripped out so the sugar is magically not a g.m.o. ingredient. and how about soybeans? the same issue. soybean oil does not contain the genetic material. so this definition used nowhere else in the world, was written specifically targeted to exempt the three big monsanto g.m.o. crops and the things that are made from that. we've looked across the country, and many, many people, many scientists, many groups have pointed out this shortcoming. the food and drug administration gave technical advice and made it very clear that this definition fails the test of covering these products, high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil. but here is another person from

outside of government. this definition leaves out a large number of foods derived from g.m.o.'s such as corn and soy oil, sugar beet sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, hfcs, that is because although these products are derived from or are g.m.o.'s, the level of d.n.a. in the products is very low and is generally not sufficient to be detected in d.n.a.-based assays. so here is what happens then. if we were to look at definitions around the world, everywhere in the world corn oil from g.m.o. corn would be a g.m.o. ingredient. that would be true whether you're talking about the two dozen-plus countries in the european union or you go down south to brazil or you go around the world to china. but under this definition, in

the u.s., magically this g.m.o. corn oil is no longer a g.m.o. ingredient. soybean oil covered if it comes from g.m.o. soybeans in the european countries, in brazil, in china, all around the world. not here in the united states. sugar from sugar beets, g.m.o. sugar beets, it is a g.m.o. ingredient in every undertaking around the world to provide labels except here in the united states of america under this bill. so this is a massive g.m.o. loophole. and that's not the only monsanto loophole in this bill. let's go to the second one. the second one is there's no requirement for g.m.o. label. you say wait, wait, wait. we've heard that this is a g.m.o. labeling bill. a mandatory g.m.o. labeling bill. let me say again, there is no

requirement in this bill to put a g.m.o. label on your product. this is the no label required, no g.m.o. label required bill. and so it's a little bit of false advertising or actually a lot of false advertising to call this a mandatory g.m.o. labeling bill. what the bill says is that there are a couple options that exist today that people can use voluntarily. and let me show you an example of that. this is mars product. it is the, on the present mars peanut m & m's, one of my particular favorites, and mars has said we want to make sure that our consumers know what's in the product. so they list all the traditional things, serving size and calories and the total fat,

cholesterol, the protein and the sodium. say but our consumers also want to know if there are g.m.o. ingredients. so they answer the question, partially produced with genetic engineering. it's a g.m.o. product. now we don't know from this label which ingredient is the one they're referring to, but to the consumer, that tells them the first important thing they want to know, and a consumer can look into the details elsewhere if they want to and explore it more thoroughly. that is integrity. that is honesty. that is responsiveness to consumer concerns. now why do i say responsiveness to consumer concerns? well, here's why. because across the country there have been surveys of whether or not individuals want to have a simple label on their product.

and the answer is rounding off slightly, nine out of ten americans want a simple label on the product. now here's something else that's kind of intriguing. this number is essentially the same whether you're republican or you're a democrat or you're an independent. think, here we are in a campaign year, a campaign year where the differences between americans are highlighted with great emotion and great passion and great determination that one side is right and the other side is wrong. but here we have an issue where democrats and republicans and independents all agree they want a simple label on the package. it's kind of exciting. it's kaoeufrpbld -- kind of exciting to have something

americans completely agree on. wouldn't it be wonderful to have congress say finally we found something we can all agree on and we're going to honor, we're going to honor the desire of our citizens of every political stripe to have a simple consumer label on the package. well, i would love to say that this senate, these 100 members of the senate, actually are honoring the perspective of their republican democratic and independent citizens, and that they are determined to make sure that any bill written honors this desire for a simple on-label indication of whether or not there are g.m.o. ingredients. i'd love to tell you that that was the case because wouldn't that be complimentary to this body of 100 senators, to this deliberative body, the u.s. senate, this chamber that i have been so honored to serve in and

affectionate towards since i was an intern here 40 years ago. but something destructive has happened in america. this chamber seems to no longer care about the opinions of consumers in america. they seem to care about one thing. is there a powerful special interest that i need to toe the line for, that i need to be obedient to, that i need to make sure isn't mad at me when the next election comes up? and so here we have that powerful special interest that doesn't want american citizens to know what is in the food product. that is monsanto and friends, powerful special interests versus 90% of american citizens. powerful special interests, 90% of american citizens, and this

chamber tonight is prepared to vote with that powerful special interest instead of the american people. now, that's not the way it's supposed to be in our country. in fact, the first three words of our constitution sum it up. we, the people. the whole idea was that contrary to europe where there was a powerful elite class and monarchies and kings and queens who made decisions for the people, here we are going to have a system of government that was responsive to the people. well, if we're going to be responsive to the people, tonight we will vote down this monsanto dark act, deny americans right to know act. unfortunately, i'm sorry to say and i'm sorry to feed the cynicism across the country that tonight instead you're going to see a majority vote with monsanto and against the people. our founders wrote those three

words, we, the people, in super sized font. they put it in really big font so you can read that part of the constitution from across the room. you have to get very close up to read the rest. they put those three words in super sized font to remind all of us, the citizens, the legislators, the president years and years later, decades later, centuries later that that's what our constitution is all about. jefferson summed this up. he said we can only claim to be a republican to the extent that the decisions that we make as a government reflect the will of the people. he said that will only happen if the people, each member of the citizenry has an equal voice. now, what he was basically conveying in a powerful way is

that in order to have a we, the people, government, that you could run a test. this jefferson test. he referred to it as the mother principle of our republic, that we were only a republic if our decisions reflected the will of the people, and that that would only happen if the people, each member of the citizenry has an equal voice. but today citizens no longer have an equal voice, because there is a couple court decisions that have created disproportionate voice, giving multimillionaires and billionaires a very powerful, loud voice and giving ordinary people a very tiny, quiet voice. the first of these decisions was buckley versus vallejo 40 years ago. the second was citizens united.

these two decisions turn our constitution on its head. they change it from we, the people, and they take that word people and they pluck it out of our constitution, and they change it to the powerful. we, the powerful. that's what those two court decisions do because they allow the very wealthy and they allow powerful corporations to spend unlimited sums in campaigns in america. and that spending corrupts this body so that when this body is making a choice between that powerful special interest and the people, it chooses the powerful special interest. that vote -- that type of vote is being held tonight, and you're going to see members of this body voting with that powerful special interest rather

than the people. so let's return to this monsanto loophole number two. essentially if this bill is a true labeling bill, it would do this. this is campbell's. now, campbell's, like mars, values its integrity with its customer, so it has put a simple label on its soup, partially produced with genetic engineering, and then it says for more information about g.m.o. ingredients, visit our web site, and it lists the web site. well, that's pretty cool. they're going the extra step. they're not only saying that, yes, there is g.m.o. ingredients, but we'll give you all the details at our web site. so the consumer in the store at the point of sale immediately has an answer to their question and they know where to go for more information. so mars and campbell's and so many other big companies, those

that value integrity and honesty with their customers, they're answering the question for the customers even though this is not at this point required by law. now, let me go back again to that mars label on peanut m & m's. partially produced with genetic engineering. campbell's, vargsly produced with genetic engineering. they chose the same phrase, even though there is no law that lays it out. why can't we just have a bill that says that if there are g.m.o. ingredients, you will put below your g.m.o. ingredients list, partially produced with genetic engineering. why can't we have that? that would be an honest labeling bill. now, this can be done voluntarily right now. under this bill that's coming up, it can still be done voluntarily, but the proponents of this bill aren't saying that it's a voluntary labeling bill. they're saying it's a mandatory labeling bill. well, this is simply not true. this is an option.

this is a voluntary option. another option is to put a symbol on the package, a symbol to be chosen by the u.s. department of agriculture. well, that would be a reasonable way to go. what if we said you either need to put in this phrase and maybe a web site to go to for more information or you need to put in a symbol. now, brazil uses a symbol. they use a t and a triangle. now, why do they use a t? it stands for transgender. it means the genes of one species have been plucked out and insert norwood another. it's another way of saying bioengineering. we could use brazil's approach, a t in a triangle. it's easy to see right at the bottom. we could take a b for bioengineering and put it in a circle. or we could proceed to put the word -- the letters g.m.o. in a rectangle. it doesn't really matter what the symbol is as long as it has some connection that an ordinary consumer knows it answers this

question. if the symbol is there it means it's partially produced with joirg. so the requirement for a phrase or a symbol, that would be a labeling bill. they are voluntary now and they are voluntary in this bill. so what is required if you don't voluntarily put this phrase or don't voluntarily put a symbol? well, here's what is required. all right. so i wonder if anyone in this chamber can look at this computer code, this box and tell me if there are g.m.o. ingredients in this product. well, humans aren't very good at reading these computer boxes, and so i'm safe to say that no one here tonight can look at this box and tell me if there are g.m.o. ingredients. it says scan here for more food information. what type of information would that be? no connection to g.m.o.'s. just any old food information.

it could be food information about the entire product line of this country. what old food do they produce? it could be information about the details of what type of tomato puree it has or what type of wheat flour or how much there is in it or maybe it's a repetition of the other list of how much sugar is there or glucose is there or so on and so forth, how much salt or how many calories. no one can look at this code and know that that has anything to do with saying that this is the g.m.o. product, and that's the idea. so i propose an amendment. the amendment simply says instead of saying stand here for more food information, say stand here for more g.m.o. food information. or alternatively, it could be

scan here for more information on g.m.o. ingredients of this product. but, see, that would actually be a label. that would be a g.m.o. label. that would actually be honestly labeling the product. and monsanto has determined that the products not be labeled. so if you're wondering perhaps what do you do with this code? it says scan it. well, most americans have never scanned something with -- with a smartphone. you can get an app, scan this, get a picture of this and it will take you to a web site. that's what they are talking about. okay. that's an obstacle course. it's an obstacle course because you have to have your phone with you, you have to have wireless service in the grocery store, you would have to have a digital plan on your phone, and most importantly, you would have to

be willing to take the enormous amount of time that it takes. now, if what's on a package is this, partially produced with joirg, i'd flip it over, i'd see it, one second, done. i know the answer. i can compare five prowkdz in five seconds. that's functional for a consumer shopping in a grocery store. maybe you have 20 things on your list. you spend five seconds comparing products, finding out if they have g.m.o. ingredients. that's 100 seconds. 20 things on your list, five options. but here, you would probably have to spend half an hour to go to five different web sites and scroll through all the information and try to find the answer. that's if you had a smartphone and you had an app for reading this and you wanted to spend your digital time doing that. no shopper, no shopper is going to make use of this in ordinary

shopping at a grocery store to make decisions, and that is the whole idea. set up an obstacle course to ensure that shoppers never find out if there's g.m.o. ingredients. not in any fashion that helps them at the point of sale. when i came to the floor, i said oh, people don't have to have a smartphone. we'll ask stores to set up a scanner. well, i found this interesting because when there wasn't a price on a product i was shopping for one christmas, i asked somebody working in the store, i said hey, what's the price on this product? they said oh, well, there is a scanner here in the store somewhere and you can scan the code on this and you can find out about the price. and then they weren't sure where the scanner was. and so they went and checked and found out where the scanner was. they helped me find the scanner. and then the scanner didn't work. they said we think there is another scanner somewhere in the store somewhere. and so they went and checked that out. it was on the far side of the

store. all of that because it shows you the ridiculousness of this whole scanning option, this whole obstacle course being set up. what really bothers me the most, what really bothers me is that for members here to present this as the mandatory g.m.o. labeling bill when they know darn well it doesn't require a g.m.o. label. that really bothers me. deception of the public. well, that's not the only problem with this bill. monsanto was very thorough in the number of loopholes they included, and here's a third one. the bill prohibits basic enforcement of its own provisions. i know you're thinking this cannot be true.

that unlike every other labeling requirement we have, which has penalties if you don't participate in it according to the rules, this law has no penalties? well, i'm story say that that is the case. there are no penalties in this bill. isn't that amazing? even if you ignore this bill completely, the u.s. department of agriculture doesn't have the power to tell you not to put your food -- not to sell your food to grocery stores. it doesn't have the power to tell you to recall your products from the grocery stores. it doesn't have the power to levy a fine on you. no, here's the only thing that comes close to being a penalty in this bill: it says the u.s. department of agriculture can audit to determine whether or not you're complying, and they can recallsd