produce half the world's steel, close to half the smelting, half the world's aluminum. it's infected the global market. it's made steel overcapacity a global problem. we know that china puts people to work because they can't afford to have hundreds -- to have tens of millions of young men unemployed in the countryside. they siewb -- they be subsidize their water, energy, land. they have dozens of government-owned enterprises. they -- that's very simple. we have an administration now finally willing to take action and defend our highly competitive steel industry and steel workers. i know what a competitive steel plant looks like. i was in cleveland, seven miles from my house only a week ago, that's the only steel mill in the world that can produce raw steel with one person hour --

with one person hour of labor. think of that. a ton of steel produced by one person hour. that tells you how productive our plants are. but against china cheating and subsidizing the components, we simply can't do that. the state of tennessee has been lucky perhaps to avoid this like yorkville, martins ferry, lorain, all cities in ohio, up and down the river. senator toomey said the same thing all as a result of the capacity. the thousands of steel workers in ohio who lost their jobs are constant reminders for my state that this trade enforcement action taken by the president was long overdue. we have to have steel in this country to defend ourselves. it's that simple. we won't have these critical sectors if our steel and aluminum producers can't keep

their doors open. this statute was congress's way of acknowledging their connection between trade and national security. imports can undermine national security. there should be ways for the president to take action when that's the case. the corker amendment fundamentally rejects that idea and hamstrings the president's ability to protect america's national security interest. even worse, the corker amendment would remove the 232 steel aluminum tariffs. why would any colleagues vote to let china off the hook? look at the bipartisan effort to pass the risk review modernization act. it passed down the hall i believe withle only two no votes. there's broad bipartisan support, also for ensuring the president take a tough stance with z.t.e., which he has not been wild about doing. when it comes to aluminum and steel, it's okay to let china off the hook makes no sense.

i know some of my colleagues who support this amendment will say they support the president's actions if they were targeted just at china. they think the corker amendment is necessary because the president applied these tariffs to our allies. but steel capacity is a global problem and needs a global solution. if we don't take a more comprehensive action, china will cheat their way into those other markets, ask a.k. steel, ask u.s. steel. they have all seen the tricks china uses to work around our antidumping and counter veiling duty laws. or look at the ambassador's recent report on china's interbt electrical property theft. he found that china was stealing with $50 billion of -- china -- i understand china. i don't even particularly fault them because they are acting in their national interest. maybe we should do the same thing because china is

determined to gain u.s. market share in technological advances. they'll stop at nothing to get. it i agree with we should work with our allies. they negotiated agreements with south korea, brazil, argentina and australia. some of my colleagues are concerned rightly about canada and mexico being covered by the tariffs. i share that concern, but gutting it is not the way to fix it. i encourage my colleagues to -- i spoke to ambassador lighthizer again, we are in a holding pattern until mexico's elections, but soon after that nafta talks will pick up. steel and aluminum tariffs will be part of the dialogue as they should be. canada and mexico has such close proximity to our market, they are targets for chinese. we have to guard against that

where the tariffs won't be effective. before my final remarks. i hope that -- canada and mexico is an important part of the north american steel supply chain and important to make sure that our efforts to address this are effective. the tariffs were effective yesterday. one steel company said that a company would start in september, in granite city, illinois, 800 steel workers would called back to work. the corker amendment would interfere with this. the corker amendment would permanently undermine a longstanding section of statute to make sure that the u.s. has the industries to defend itself. it would let bad actors like china off the hook and flood the markets with unfairly traded steel.

it threatens the improvements seen in our steel and aluminum industries since the tariffs were opposed. for all those, reasons, mr. president, i object. mr. corker: madam president. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: madam president, i don't even know where to start. the senator from ohio is a friend of mine. we came in together at the same time. he's written books on labor and trade, and i respect the fact that he knows a great deal about the topic the we served together on the banking committee, and i respect him. much of what he just said was focused on china. i've never heard of a trade policy where you have a country like china who is, in fact, dumping steel around the world because it's in their interest. i've never heard after trade policy where you punish your

friends in order to get at someone who's doing something to you. so we're punishing canada and mexico, we're fortunate to live in the neighborhood that we live in to have neighbors like we have. we're punishing our european allies who have been with us for centuries in order to get it -- to get at china. it makes no sense. as a matter of fact, i haven't heard a person who's gone to the white house to talk about what they are putting in place, trade policy, back -- come back over here and be able to articulate anything coherent about that policy. i haven't heard a single soul be able to explain to me why we would punish our allies in europe, our neighbors next door in order to get at china. 232 has nothing to do with china. that's absolutely not true. it has nothing to do with china. china is being punished by 201 and 301 and we're punishing our

allies by abusing a national security section called 232. so i don't know what to say. let me just -- let me fin shall one -- finish one who are thing before i yield, and i'll glad i will yield. people in our nation are being hurt today. people are being hurt. you saw the harley davidson issue. they are going to move some of the jobs overseas to avoid these tariffs. other companies are going to be doing the same. right now farmers are being hurt around our country. on july 1, a whole other sit of -- set of counter megses are coming in -- measures. on july sicks there will be another set of counter measures coming in. i want to be clear that the senator from ohio, my friend, won't allow us to vote. if he disagrees with this policy, he can vote against it. he's not even allowing us to vote on something that could

ease and stop the pain that's being inflicked our -- inflicted on our country by a trade policy that is not coherent, that is being made up on a daily basis, that has nothing to do whatsoever with what china is doing with steel and aluminum. i don't know what this body has become where you can't even vote on an issue that is current that is damaging farmers more than 20 farm bills could make up for. so, with that, i yield the floor to my friend from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: i thank my colleague from tennessee. i'll put aside how stunned i was to hear that my colleague from ohio suggests that maybe we want to emulate the communist managed economy of china as a good model for economic development. i -- that's just breathtaking to me. but i really want to stress the point that the senator from tennessee made, and that is the

fact that this amendment has nothing to do china. we can go on all day about how outrageous some chinese behavior is in the trade space, and it's true. there is some really bad behavior. by the way, we need to address that. we would be able to address the theft of intellectual property if our allies were working with us to address that outrageous behavior, but it's hard to get your allies to work with you when you are hitting them with tariffs and the excuse is national security. let me just put a little bit of scale to this. our colleague suggested how important it is that these industries survive. i completely agree. domestic producers produce 75% of all the steel we consume. we import about 25% of it. you know how much of that comes from china? about 2% of the 25%. we don't import steel from china is the reality. so we do import a little bit of

steel. the number one source is canada who buys more steel from us than we buy from them. so that's our national security threat. so that's why we need to hit my -- my constituents with a tax when they choose to buy those kinds of steel that the canadians happen to specialize and americans don't. this makes no sense at all. and, finally, mys last point is, so, look, we have sincerely held difference of opinions on this. why can't we vote? isn't that what the senate is here for? let's debate this. let's consider this. and let's have a vote. i didn't think the purpose of the senate was to avoid votes that people think are tough or challenging or that they disagree with. i fully accept disagreement. i don't expect a unanimous agreement on the outcome of the policy. but why in the world isn't this a body that can't have a vote on something as timely and relevant as this?

the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i will be brief. i know the senator from ohio wants to speak and the senator from wyoming has been waiting. people in our nation are being hurt today. americans are being taxed heavily. a tariff is a tax on the american people. what the senator from ohio is doing is saying that the senate should not even vote on a measure to alleviate the pain that americans are going to feel, the jobs that are going to be lost over the next couple of months as this trade war continues. and i'm just disappointed. i cannot believe with the zeal that we both came into the senate 11 and a half years ago to debate and deal with the big issues of our nation and to have an amendment that supported -- that's supported in a bipartisan way when people know -- when

they know that the trade policy that is being put forth by this administration is being made up on a daily basis and they know that jobs are going to be lost and farmers are already hurt, we cannot even vote on amendment -- even though we may disagree -- vote on an amendment. so on this day, june 27, let it be known that a bill that is very relevant because of the pain that farmers are going through, we were kept from voting on a measure that would alleviated an incoherent policy from continuing on because it relates to trade. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you. i appreciate senator corker's comments. i guess i appreciate senator toomey's a little less who tried to say that i was thinking that the people he's -- people's

republic of china -- i said that china's government fights for its national interest by putting people to work and our trade policy since nafta, since pntr, since cafta, many pushed by members of my party who stood up for have undermine domestic security. i reject that. but i appreciate senator corker's comments about voting on this. you know, is this a major change in policy with no legislative hearings, with no real discussion or debate. it's a bit rich when the majority party talks about us not allowing votes when start with the supreme court nominee of three years ago and all the times we tried to do a transportation bill important in our banking committee, senator corker, as you know, you weren't a support of the obstruction, but i find it a bit rich. senator hatch said he wants to do hearing to do what he

understands what it would mean to roll back trade remedies like 232. we lost 7,000 jobs in the steel industry in my state. i don't know the number in western and central pennsylvania in senator toomey's state. but i want to move quickly on having these real discussions and real debates. having a vote on a bill that nobody really understands except it's really reacting to the president's sometimes bungled positions and attempts on trade enforcement. and i share that frustration. i'm his ally on this. i've been frustrated, too, at the back and forth and which countries are in and which countries are out. fundamentally, tariffs are a temporary tool. they're not a trade policy used by the president in this case to force a discussion and a real policy about what to do with china excess capacity where half the world's steel can be made in one country and they put people to work and undermine

international trade laws by doing it. people in my state have paid the price as they have all over the country. a senator: madam president? 60 more seconds? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: this amendment has nothing to do with china. this amendment deals with canada, mexico, our european allies, and other countries. and i guess when we go back home this week and we talk to our constituents and they talk with us -- i had a member of the u.a.w. write a letter to the editor thanking me for these efforts that are under way to stop these tariffs take are keeling the automobile industry -- killing the automobile industry that are -- or will kill the automobile industry that exist in ohio and tennessee, but i guess what i'll tell them is, well, we couldn't vote on a simple measure that

would allow congress to vote up or down on tariffs that the president negotiates, but what we're going to do while you lose your jobs, while you pay 25% more for steel and aluminum, why these industries go away, i'll tell them, well, we're going to have hearings. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: madam president, i'm so glad that you are presiding at this time because i know that you are part of the select committee on budget reform. and i want to address that a little bit because earlier this week, the senate passed its version of the fiscal year 2019 energy, water legislative branch and military construction and veterans affairs spending bills. prior to this week, the last time the senate had passed a regular appropriations bill, not a supplemental or an omnibus bill, was more than two years ago. i commend chairman shelby and the members of the appropriations committee for

their work in getting us this far and for their commitment to restoring a more regular process for the consideration of appropriation measures. i hope that in the weeks to come we'll be able to process more such measures in a similarly productive manner. it was a long road getting to this point. last february after a brief government shutdown that followed an immigration policy dispute and a year long stalemate on appropriations, congress and the administration agreed to legislation laition -- to legislation establishing new discretionary spending caps for this fiscal year and the next and providing a process for budget enforcement, something normally done by the budget committee. this latest for thes a string of deals each reached under the threat of a shutdown. in fact, frustration with the current process has grown so great that through the february legislation congress created,

this joint select committee tasked with improving our broken budget and appropriations process. and i commend the joint committee and its leaders, chairman womack and cochairman loewy for their work on this budget. our budget process is clearly in need of reform and i wish them success in this effort. today i rise to share some of my thoughts and experiences on this subject having led bipartisan efforts in the senate budget committee to explore and reform the budget process. as my colleagues know, the senate budget committee set, -- sets the top line spending levels cha the committee divides under various departments and accounts. the appropriations committee does the specific spending. while there are many potential improvements we could make in this process, i'll focus my remarks at this time on just three points. first, the annual spending

process will never truly improve so long as we're willing to hold hostage to larger ideological or political battles. both sides have been guilty of this in the past and until we're willing to say no more, no process reform will succeed. i'm hopeful that the progress we are seeing now on fiscal year 2019 appropriations bills is a sign that we have reached a tipping point and are willing to work together as an american people and they expect us to do. the second topic i want to address is the need to move to a by enyal -- biennial funding cycle. i'm pleased to hear some members of the committee voice support for this concept and i hope that consensus on this point continues to build. the appropriations process, the spending process, has rarely worked as intended. in all but four years between 1977 and 2018, continuing

resolutions or c.r.'s were enacted because of the failure of congress to complete all of the regular appropriations bills before the beginning of the new fiscal year. we've actually had more than 180 continuing resolutions signed into law over the last four decades. in this fiscal year alone we required five. these short-term continuing resolutions keep the government funded while we continue our work, but their recurring nature demonstrates the problems with our current process and the individual agencies have to operate on last year's budget until something new is approved. all too often by the time congress can agree on how to appropriate money for a given year, the results are a massive omnibus that funds the entire government. members are then presented with a choice. either pass the bill or shut down the government. i've long believed that one of the most important things we can

do is fix this process. and the way to do that would be to move to a biennial appropriations system. by providing funding for two years instead of one, congress would immediately make the consideration of regular appropriation measures more likely. instead of subjecting itself to a nearly perpetual annual cycle of developing and attempting to pass 12 appropriations bills for the next fiscal year which starts october 1, congress could spread those two bills over two years allowing more time to develop and scrutinize them and give two years worth of planning to everybody. not only would a biennial appropriations process help congress execute its power of the purse, it would also benefit the federal agencies, too. agencies would have more time to developing and to executing long-term strategies and would

finally have some certainty in their budgets. nowhere is the need for this more obvious than at the department of defense. the budget committee has heard repeatedly from defense department leaders that the only thing they want more than anything is budgetary certainty. annual spending fights and the inability to plan under continuing resolutions have wreaked havoc on the department's workforce and contracting efforts. secretary of the navy richard spencer recently delivered must be pub -- delivered public remarks in which there was $4 billion due to a lack of financial stability. he said quote, since 2001, we have put $4 billion in a trash can, poured lighter fluid on top of it and burned it. it's enough money that it can buy us the additional capacity and capability that we need. instead, that $4 billion of

taxpayer money has been lost because of inefficiencies caused by continuing resolutions. end quote. transitioning to a biennial appropriations process could help solve that problem. last congress i introduced legislation that would continue the budget resolution process on an annual cycle in order to allow for topline adjustments and reconciliation instructions as events warrant. but would move toward a bifurcated biennial appropriations process. under such a proposal, appropriations would continue to be divided among 12 different bills. six of which would be adopted in the first session of congress. and six would be adopted in the second session. maybe we could even take it so the six toughest ones would be done right after an election and the six easier ones just before an election to take some more of the politics out of it.

but by cutting in half the number of bills required to be adopted annually, congress could create space for itself to devote more time and attention to oversight and other national priorities. if adopted, i believe this proposal would yield a more sustainable and successful budget and appropriations process, a goal i believe both parties share. and i want to thank speaker of the house ryan for his comments this morning where he suggested that we should do it on a biennial basis and that they should be divided into two segments of six, each decided for a two-year period so they would stagger on how they're approached. now, my third suggestion is a really minor one but could have some of the most significant impact on the budget. the first one is change the name of the budget committee.

people think that we actually make all of those spending decisions. we don't. we set the top line for the appropriations committee which is also improperly named.so that they can do their work. so my suggestion would be that we stop calling the budget committee the budget committee and call it the debt control committee. we ought to be and are responsible for seeing how much revenue is coming in and what some of the different allocations are and doing a lot of reviews of that and checking to see what the debt-to-g.d.p. ratio is going to be and how much the debt limit is going to go up which becomes a whole other subject of debate. but if that were the debt control committee, all of that could be done in committee with one approval here on the floor. now, the other half of that suggestion is the appropriations

committee ought to be called the budget committee because they really are the ones in control of the spending, in control of the budget. in every state in the nation, the committee that actually does the appropriations is the budget committee. and that would stop the flood of people that come in right after the president's budget comes out and before the senate budget committee does their work where they think they have to come in and ask for the detail on their expenditure at that time. if it was the debt control committee, they'd have a whole different perspective on what it was that that committee is trying to do, and they would take their suggestions to the appropriate committee which would be the appropriations committee renamed the budget committee so they would understand what they're doing. now, as the joint committee continues to work, i encourage my colleagues here and in the other body to consider biennial appropriations as a necessary form. and i wish them success in their

endeavor. and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. a senator: thank you very much. i rise to talk about the farm bill and i want to thank senators roberts and stabenow for making this farm bill really a model of bipartisanship. mr. booker: i live in a community in newark for the last two decades plus that most folks would not associate with the farm bill. but the truth is, the issues we are grappling with in this bill affect all of our american communities. suburban, urban, rural alike. folks in my community have borne the burden of horrific environmental injustices for decades. from toxins that have poisoned our river, to lead in our soil,

to pollute tntses in the air. -- pollutants in the air. families in my city cannot plant crops in their soil because huge swaths of my city and many areas are toxic. we also have food deserts that exist in communities like mine where people don't have healthy foods. i also visited rural areas of our country that endure the same kind of injustices. i've met families who cannot open their windows because industrial farming operations are spraying waste into the surrounding air, families who can't hang their clothes outside, can't run their air conditioning, who can't plant in their soil because of the way we do factory farming. the truth is pollution environmental degradation at the local scale from communities like mine to many of the communities i visited are real for folks all across this

country. it's real for rural folks. it's real for urban folks. it's real for suburban folks. and it's caused the same misaligned incentives that also are contributing to much larger-scale problems of climate change. and just like local-scale pollution, toxins in communities like mine and others, global climate change is very real and cannot be ignored because of its impacts on folks all over our country, particularly vulnerable communities. and so i'd like to take a few minutes to talk about these kind of pollutants, talk about climate change, which is closely intertwined with issues within the farm bill, even if it doesn't appear so at first glance. the numbers on what's happening to our climate are clear. we know that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher now than at any point in recorded history. and our global carbon emissions are still riseing. 16 of the 17 warmest years on

record in history have all occurred in the 21st century, and if nothing changes, we are headed for a three-degree celsius of warming by 2100, which would cause catastrophic chaplains in many parts of the world, many parts of the united states of america. hurricanes in the north atlantic will actually continue to become stronger and more intense and potentially more devastating. drought and heat waves out west will become ever-more frequent and parts of the northwestern u.s. could see temperatures above 150 degrees for one-third of the year. and all of the extreme weather will have a dramatic impact on you are a farmers. climate change is real for american family farmers even now. some u.s. crop yields are expected with climate change to drop significantly. estimates suggest that under a business-as-usual emissions scenario, yields of wheat and

soybean and corn could fall 20% to 50% by the end of this century. and just as climate change impacts our agricultural systems, our agricultural systems also impact the climate. although it is often not discussed in the same breath as transportation or power generation, the global agricultural industry is actually one of the largest contributors to climate change. some estimates suggest up to one-third of our global greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, and these numbers are projected to grow and grow and grow. as people's diets around the world continue to change. in fact, as china and india and parts of africa are moving to a western diet, our globe simply cannot sustain that impact. global agriculture emissions as people shift to our diet are projected to rise another 80% by

2050 alone. this is huge. this is unsustainable. and annal agriculture in particular, industrial animal agriculture in particular is especially harmful to the climate. this factory farming is having a tremendous impact on our climate. global livestock production alone accounts for nearly 15% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which is greater than the total greenhouse gas emissions for the entire global transportation sector. it is a fact. we have all the tools we need to tackle the dual challenge, though, of climate change and environmental degradation. but in order to solve these problems, we must address the impacts of this consolidating global, industrial farming system. this system is having an impact on our climate environment, and

the farm bill should find ways to reduce the pollution, to reduce the impact, to reduce the environmentally devastating impact it's having on our country. the 2018 senate farm bill takes some small steps in the right direction. the farm bill grows overall funding for agricultural conservation practices. it encourages farmers to plant cover crops which improve soil and water quality. and it helps drive climate-smart agriculture with several initiatives to keep carbon stored in our soil and in our forests in place. but p what we really need is a fundamental shift in some of the major elements of our food system, shifts that actually could improve health and well-being, improve our nation as a whole. we need to emphasize local farm economies where food is produced

in a way that minimally impacts the environment and actually empowers our small- and medium-sized farms. we need to grow more of our produce using organic and regenerative message oz. would end to put limits on major agricultural organizations which are growing in size, to merge and dictate the market. these corporate agricultural institutions that are growing so large and so powerful are dictating practices that are contrary to our very idea of farming in our country, where small- and midsized farms who engage in practices that are more sustainable are being overrun by these large factory farms. we need to protect small family farmers from being squeezed out of business. i'm a new jersey senator, but i have been meeting farmers from all over our country telling stories about what we're

allowing to happen as they are being gutted out by these big businesses. it is threatening the american farmer. the top four grain companies today control 90% of the global grain trade. just four companies now control 60% of the poultry market. and while giant agribusinesses are posting record earnings, our farmers, our american farmers are facing desperate times. the farmers' share of every retail dollar has plummeted from 41% in 1950 to approximately 15% today. many of these large corporate agricultural companies, some of them are not even american manufacture owned, are continuing to punish american small farmers, shrinking their margins, driving them out of business, undermining what is an american way of life.

this consolidation must stop and i'm working on a new bill that would help address this challenge. but for the farm bill that is before us, i'd like to speak now about three amendments that i filed. first i would like to talk about the amendment that senator lee and senator hassan and i have filed, a bipartisan amendment which would make much-needed reforms to our checkoff programs. checkoff programs collect fees, which amounts to a tax, on all farmers -- they collect these fees from producers of a particular agricultural commodity and are supposed to be used -- they're supposed to use these fees, collected from farmers, to promote and do research on that particular commodity. but, unfortunately, we have seen some of these checkoff programs plagued by conflicts of interest, people who are

engaging in anticompetitive behavior, and funneling dollars to trade associations that only represent a sliver of the farmers who are required to pay into the checkoff programs. and as you would imagine, those farmers are the big agribusinesses that get the benefit to the detriment of often our small- and medium-sized farmers. let me give you some examples. we know in 2015 documents objecttained under the freedom of information requests showed that the ag board illegally used checkoff dollars to attempt to halt sales of an egg-free mayonnaise product. talk about anticompetitive activities. in 2016 it was discovered that the oklahoma beef council lost $2.6 million checkoff dollars to embezzlement by a staff member who wrote over 790 fraudulent checks to herself during a ten-year period. in 2017, it came to light that

the usda had filed for more than four years to publish legally required annual financial reports on the $400 million-per-year dairy checkoff program. and this year, 2018, federal court ruled that the usda had unlawfully approved spending $60 million of hog farmers' checkoff money on a defunct promotional campaign. so this amendment i am leading with senator lee and senator hassan would make some commonsense reforms to the checkoff program to stop these abuses and frankly i don't see how anyone could argue against what are very commonsense reforms to the program to create fairness and transparency and actually stop and prohibit these conflicts of interest. that's what the amendment would do, prohibit conflicts of interest. the amendment would require more

transparency, mandating that the usda publish budgets and expend tours that the usda approves. the amendment would prohibit anticompetitive behavior such as we saw from the egg board, attacking a start-up company that they viewed as a threat. the language from the e-mails was actually stunning, talking about working to kill a business. and the amendment would prohibit checkoff boards from contracting with entities that engage in ag lobbying. i am one of those people, we've got enough lobbyists down here in d.c. so i hope that this bipartisan amendment to implement commonsense reforms will get a vote and that it will receive the bipartisan support it needs to pass. there are two other amendments which i filed that i'd like to discuss. they would help to protect contract farmers. this is the salt of the earth. these are americans whose traditional work, these farmers,

many of them who have been on their land for generations, what's happening now is unacceptable to these farmers. the first amendment to protect contract farmers would -- the first amendment that i am filing to protect contract farmers would prohibited retaliation against these farmers by the large integrators like smithfield and tysons. as our agricultural markets have become more and more concentrated, more and more corporate concentration, the rights and bargain i.g. power of our family farmers has diminished dramatically. the traditional model of independent farmers selling to independent producers has shifted towards ones of contract production, particularly in the livestock and the poultry sectors. farmers now go into debt in excess of $1 million to help build the facilities on their

farmers' farms in order to get into this new contract production, often putting their farms and their homes up as collateral. for the majority of contract farmers, the large corporate integrators with which they must contract is either the only company or one of two companies in their area. these farmers simply don't have the option of shifting to another buyer. under this new consolidateed corporate major agribusinesses, under these circumstances, contract farmers, small farmers, small business people are left incredibly vulnerable to retaliation by these big, big corporate agribusinesses, at least one of which, smith field, for example, is not even an american company. it is a chinese company. recently i had some contract farmers come into my itself meet with me. these farmers were terrified,

terrified of coming to d.c. and actually talking to congress people and senators. they were terrified that the integrators they contract with might find out that they were talking to us and raising legitimate concerns about the abuses they were suffering. this is the united states of america. we're making our farmers, our small business people afraid of even talking about the abuses they're suffering from these massive, multinational agricultural corporations. one contract farmer -- our contract farmers should not have to live like this. they should not have to be afraid that they will be retaliated against for engaging in lawful activities like speaking with members of congress or the usda. or for joining together in producer associations. madison's "federalist papers" -- "federalist paper" number 50

talks about this idea of free association and yet these contract farmers are afraid of doing that. the second amendment i'm filing to help contract farmers would require transparency in how these large corporate integrators calculate the payments they make to contract farmers. the payment mechanism used by poultry companies and meet producers to pay contract farmers are deliberately opaque. they're deliberately difficult to understand how those payments are made. not only does this lack of transparency make it difficult for farmers to make wise business decisions but allows integrators to manipulate the farmers' compensation. it is a practice that's despicable. it's not a free and open and transparent market that we all claim to have in the united states. this is large, concentrated,

massive corporations manipulating local contract farmers in our community for nefarious purposes. my amendment would simply require poultry companies, swine contractors, and meatpackers to provide farmers with the relevant statistical information and data used to calculate their compensation. this is clear. you shouldn't do these things to squeeze or retaliate or pit farmers against each other. these are businesses. have some transparency about the data so businesses can make sound decisions. now, before president obama left office, the usda proposed rules that would have prohibited this kind of retaliation from these large corporate entities where they prohibited retaliation by the integrators and required more transparency in payments to contract farmers. we were moving in the right direction.

unfortunately, under this administration, when they came in, they killed these dipsa rules and once again sided with the big agribusinesses, some of which are the foreign-owned companies and coming in and rendering our contract farmers, our small family businesses into what has been compared to sharecropping. the dignity of these small businesses, the humanity, the american tradition of farming is being eroded and undermined by these massive corporations, many of them foreign owned. they are attacking our way of life. they are attacking one of the most dignified professions in america, which is small farmers. it is outrageous. it is unacceptable what's going on to contract farmers across our country. these two amendments would

reverse the trump administration's rollback of these important protections for our small contract farmers. i urge with all of my heart my colleagues to support these two amendments, to be with the small farmers of america, to be with these people who are now struggling with mortgages and facing bankruptcy, who are now suffering because of these large corporations, who are making their lives so difficult or undermining what has been an american way for centuries. i want to conclude by speaking about the importance of snap and snap assistance for the food insecure. i was relieved, actually, i rejoiced to see that the senate farm bill does not cut snap funding. in 2014, i voted against the farm bill because it contained more than $8 billion in cuts to snap, the supplemental

nutritional program. and it disproportionately helps people in my state of new jersey, and therefore the cuts disproportionately impacted my state. the truth is at a time when we continue to heavily subsidize these large agribusinesses, -- i say very purposely that there is still a corporate welfare in our farm bill. we should not force struggling families and seniors and disabled citizens, working americans to make sacrifices that they can't afford. at the end of the day, this program aims to feed our country's most vulnerable population with more than half of snap recipients being children and seniors. i repeat that. more than half of snap benefits are our kids and our beryl. in my home state of new jersey, approximately 142,000 senior citizens and 113,000 disabled

residents receive snap. snap helps a cross section of americans in all ethnic groups. snap helps folks in our cities, in our towns, in our suburbs, in our rural communities alike, and snap feeds our family farmers who too often rely on food assistance to feed themselves and their families while producing the food that we eat. the irony of that is unacceptable. snap feeds our children -- our child care workers, our health care providers, our veterans. snap feeds those who are in between jobs or who have had three jobs and are still struggling to make ends meet. i'm glad to see the senate bill has rejected the damaging and destructive snap cuts in the partisan house farm bill, because the truth is at a time that over 13 million children in our country -- and please

understand the children in america, in a global knowledge-based society, the greatest natural resources our country has is not coal, oil, or gas. it's the genius of our children. and young minds need proper continuing nutrition. and at a time when 13 million children in our country face food insecurity, what we need to be doing is to fund programs like snap, not -- not fund them less, but actually fund them more. snap plays a critical role in making sure children are able to focus in the classroom, not be distracted about where their next meal is going to come from where the hunger pains are filling. i live in a low-income community. i'm a senator that lives in a community, according to the lassen u.s.s., where the median income is about $14,000 per household. i see my neighbors, working

folk, working full-time jobs and still not making ends meet. when i go to my local bodega, i see people use programs like snap. god bless america, if we're not going to raise the minimum wage so that people who work a full-time job in this country don't have to still live in poverty, we shouldn't be cutting programs that are essential to helping families help the children meet their nutritional needs. i see this at the end of the month when snap benefits are running out. one study shows that calories fall by 25%, the intake of calories for folks on food stamps from the beginning of the month to the end. and families struggle. kids struggle when there is less food in the house, when they go to school hungry. what does that do to cultivate that genius? and that's why we shouldn't be doing things like passing the snap for kids -- that's why we

should be doing things like passing the snap for kids act of 2018, introduced by my friend and colleague, senator kirsten gillibrand. if we are experience about expanding opportunity, strengthening american competitiveness in our economy, making sure every child, every adult, every senior citizen has access to the next meal, this legislation is important. madam president, before i yield the floor, i would like to ask unanimous consent that two members of my staff, lauren tavar, and arianna spawn, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the farm bill. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. booker: thank you very much. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call, senator. mr. kennedy: madam president, i'd like to talk today for a few minutes about food stamps and the farm bill. let me preface by saying that it's been my experience that the american people are the most generous people in the world. we spend about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money at the federal, state, and local level helping our neighbors who are less fortunate than we are. in america -- and i'm very proud of this. if america, if you are -- if you are homeless, we will house you. if you're too poor to be sick, we'll pay for your doctor.

if you're hungry, we will feed you. and that separates our country from a lot of other countries that exist and have existed in the world, and i'm very, very proud of those principles as an american. so i do get upset when people suggest that the american taxpayer is not generous with his or her money. we're the most generous people in the world. now, in that regard, madam president, i know, as do you, that for many americans, the food stamp program, we call it the supplemental nutrition assistance program, some people call it snap -- means the difference between an empty stomach and a warm meal, and that's just a fact. i'm talking about the men and women, many of whom are hard working, who do all they can to provide for their families.

they just need a little extra help to put food on the table. and the american people are happy to provide it. each and every year, the federal government spends more than $68 billion. not million. $68 billion to make sure that no american has to wonder where his or her next meal is going to come from, and it's the generosity of the american people that pays for those meals. if the food stamp program is going to continue to provide food to the 42.2 million americans who use their benefits every month -- and i want you to think about that. 42.2 million americans out of a country of 320 million, including one in five louisianians, and we have got to do our part to ensure the programs are intact. right now, this is also a natural fact. the food stamp program is rife

with fraud and criminal activity. every year, more than $1.2 billion of staff -- snap benefits are stolen or misused by criminals. so it's no wonder, madam president, that congress has been discussing requiring photo identification at the point of sale for the food stamp program since the 1970's. as early as 1981, our g.a.o. testified -- now, g.a.o., they are not politicians, they are not republicans, they are not democrats, and i don't mean this in a pejorative sense. they are bean counters. g.a.o. testified that such measures would be effective in reducing overissuance, but we haven't acted. reform is long overdue and the time to act, it seems to me,

madam president, is right now when we are considering the farm bill. if snap is going to be available to the people who depend on it most of the years to come, we have got to do more to ensure the taxpayer dollars are going where taxpayers intended them to go, and that's why, madam president, i have offered an amendment to the farm bill which will help protect our precious snap dollars by requiring a photo i.d. to use your benefits. it doesn't take anybody off the rolls. it just says you have to have a photo i.d. to use your benefits. this amendment is very simple. it will require states to list on e.b.t. cards the names of all of those who are eligible to use the e.b.t. card. household members listed on the card must then produce photo i.d. at point of sale when they use their e.b.t. cards. it's about as simple as you

could get. we already have successful blueprints that prove this amendment will work. two states right now are already doing it and doing it successfully. one is maine and one is massachusetts. they both have successful snap benefit photo i.d. bills in law that already are saving thousands, indeed probably millions of taxpayer dollars. this should send a very clear message to every governor and every legislature and every congresswoman and every congressman that food stamp reforms can work. in the past few months alone, madam president, we have had numerous snap benefit fraud cases that have been identified throughout our country. in tennessee, for example, two men were found to have been selling their e.b.t. cards to undercover cops in exchange for cash and heroin. in new jersey, a couple managing a grocery store exchanged more than $4 million in snap or food

stamp benefits for cash between the years 2014 and 2017. in rochester, new york, a store owner was found to have used cash to purchase food stamp benefits from beneficiaries for less than half their full value over a five-year period. now, that's not what the american taxpayer intends the food stamp program to do. that one individual's criminal actions cost taxpayers and people who really need food stamps $1.2 million, and that was one act. and i could go on, madam president. and i could go on and i could go on and i could go on. now, we are asking in the farm bill taxpayers to spend $68 billion a year. we throw this figure a billion around like it was a nickel. a billion is a lot.

if i started counting right now to a billion, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, it would take me 32 years to count to one billion. it would be 2050 when i finished. i wouldn't make it. we're asking taxpayers not to spend $1 billion a year but $68 billion of their money on the farm bill. we have an obligation, therefore, to keep an eye on that money and to make sure it's going to those who need it the most. the federal government, not a single one of us in this congress, should stand by and tolerate criminal stealing from the mouths of children. that's not a democratic principle. that's not a republican principle. that's a human principle.

we owe it to the american taxpayer, madam president, and to every family who rehrao*eus on food -- relies on food stamps to put food on the table to protect americans from those who would take advantage of our general spirit and it's in that spirit that i'm offering my amendment. i yield the floor. thank you. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. ms. heitkamp: madam president, i want to first off acknowledge and thank chairman pat roberts and ranking member debbie stabenow for their incredible hard work and commitment to drafting such a strong pw-bt -- bipartisan farm bill. we would not be here today if it weren't for their tenacity. but i think more importantly, we would not be here today if it weren't for their love of agriculture, their love of rural america and knowing that these are challenging times in rural america. and the one thing that we can do

here is to take this important policy and enact it in law so we can give a five-year window of certainty to american farmers and farmers in my state. over 90% of the land in north dakota is engaged in the production of agriculture, whether it's farming or ranching. it is the bedrock of what we do in north dakota. in fact, it is who we are. in every given year, 30,000 farmers and ranchers lead the nation in the production of over ten different commodities. these agricultural products are sold in every state and exported to every corner of the globe. at a time when farm income is down and commodity prices have declined, it is so important that we as members of the senate work together in a bipartisan way to provide our nation's farmers and ranchers with a strong farm bill. and with disruptions in trade weighing heavily on our agricultural producers, the single-most important job right now is providing certainty to

farmers and ranchers and passing this farm bill and reauthorizing it beyond september 30, 2018. in fact, it is important to note that net farm income since 2013 has been literally cut in half. and so when people say why do we need a farm bill? why should we care? i would suggest that if we want food security in this country and if we want to make sure that we have farmers in this country, we need to care. and how many american families could really support or weather a 50% reduction in their income? when i first came to the united states senate, i was fortunate enough to receive a committee assignment on the senate agricultural committee which for north dakota is really, quite honestly, the highest and most important committee assignment. passing a strong bipartisan farm bill has been my highest priority since coming to the senate. i helped write, negotiate and pass the 2014 farm bill, and

ever since as a member of the ag committee i have been working with farmers and ranchers to make sure that the 2018 farm bill is as strong as possible for north dakota. since 2014, when the farm bill was signed into law, i have heard from countless farmers and ranchers about what programs work and what didn't work and how we can build a stronger rural america. while the 2014 farm bill addressed a number of key priorities needed to ensure an effective safety net for farmers and ranchers, there were challenges with aspects of that law. understanding these concerns, i am pleased members of the committee passed in the current administration the chair and ranking member have been willing partners in addressing these important challenges. in particular, i am excited that this bipartisan farm bill includes language from our a.r.c. improvement bill which i introduced with senators last october. it works to strengthen and

improve the agricultural risk coverage county-level program. this language would direct the farm service agency to use a more widely available data from the risk management agency as their first choice in calculating yields so that county-level data is more accurate and updated. additionally, this language would calculate safety net payments so they reflect what is owed to producers in the physical county where their farms are located and not where their farm stead is. this bill succeeds in protecting and improving the safety net that allows farmers and ranchers to weather the most difficult times and thrive during favorable conditions. this bill extends and makes improvements to the commodity programs passed in the 2014 farm bill and maintains the farm safety net that is crop insurance. i do want to give a shout out to my colleague, senator roberts, who every time there was testimony on the farm bill, he

started with crop insurance, crop insurance, crop insurance. that is a sentiment that is shared by almost every producer in my state. this bill, the 2014 bill, from those provisions passed in 2014, it extends the livestock disaster payment which played an invaluable role in north dakota last year as we experienced one of the worst droughts in our recent history. additionally, this farm bill includes a number of provisions that work to improve access for beginning farmers around -- and ranchers. included is the part of the next generation and agriculture act. it provides baseline funding for beginning farmer and ranching program and it would codify positions at the usda to coordinate beginning farmer and ranching programs and provide youth outreach. the average age of farmers in our state and across the country

is way too old. if we are going to help build that next generation of farmers, we're going to have to pay attention to those risks and respond to those risks in a way that will make a difference for our future production. i'm also excited that this legislation includes a number of provisions that work to raise the profile of indian tribes within the farm bill and includes a provision from the tribal food and housing security act which i introduced earlier this year. specifically, the provision included for my bill would waive the majority, if not all the administrative costs required to run the food distribution program on indian reservations which tribes use to provide healthy, affordable food options to low-income individuals and families. it also would establish a permanent tribal development -- excuse me -- rural development tribal technical assistance office at usda to provide rural development support for native american skaoupbts --

communities and offer greater certainty for the current tribal promise zone designees. as we consider the farm bill i want to make sure indian country has a seat at the table which is why i introduced this legislation since indian country faces a unique set of challenges, many of which can be addressed in the farm bill. i think sometimes we forget that members, the fundamental occupation of many of the tribal members in my state is farming and ranching, and we also, i think, sometimes forget that they suffer not only historic challenges to economic development, but like we are experiencing throughout all of rural america, economic development not only from being a reservation but also from being rural. checkoff programs are vitally important for our ag commodities as they provide beneficial research, promotion in education services to the producers they represent. it is critical that these programs if much as intend --

function as intended to be preserved and protected from unnecessary scrutiny. the beef checkoff has not for some time represented the majority view of beef producers and hasn't been functioning as intended. i strongly encourage my colleagues to examine with a critical eye the beef promotion and research act of 1985 to ensure that the checkoff functions as truly as a truly independent organization representing the needs and viewpoints of the majority of our nation's beef producers. the farm bill also makes important investments in ag research and enhances trade. i strongly believe that we need to increase our investment in research. i am pleased to see a robust level of support for our land-grant colleges, inclusion of the pollinator health task force and funding to maintain both of those in this bill. but i agree that more should be done in order to enhance agriculture so we may continue to be competitive on the global stage.

with that said, we also have to improve market access and develop new export opportunities for our agricultural products. in north dakota, we export soybeans to china. beans to cuba. barley to mexico. and the list goes on and on and on. building upon these successes will play a critical role if ine improvement of the economic health of rural america. during consideration of the farm bill, we must also work to protect programs that are vitally important to farmers in my state that provide and produce american-grown sugar. last week i had an opportunity to deliver to each senator a simple her haveshey's candy bar. i am going to thank curt from the red river valley who took the time to put these together for me.

he saw a rainy day and put the stickers on. i think you'll hear a lot about the sugar program. probably people have been done here and they'll tell you how it burdens the confectionary industry and how this will increase their cost. so i think it's absolutely critical that you know that in this candy bar -- not this big one -- but one that is a normal size, there is only two cents worth of sugar in that candy bar. and did you know that in 1980 a candy bar like this cost 35 cents and had two pennies' worth of sugar in it? today this same candy bar costs $1.49 but still contains just 2 cents of sugar. don't let anyone tell you that we have a crisis as it relates to the sugar program. guaranteeing a steady supply of sugar in this country as the beet farmers and sugar cane farmers and we know we need to maintain that industry in our state. and i would encourage everyone to keep that in mind as they're being asked to roll back the

sugar policy in the farm bill. each year our sugar industry employs nearly 142,000 americans in 22 states and generates over $20 billion in economic activity. and the policy that makes it all possible -- listen to this -- this policy that makes it all possible is at a zero cost to taxpayers. given the economic importance of this industry to our nation, it's critical that we maintain the sugar program to protect the many jobs in this industry and so that we can continue to enjoy american-grown sugar. the chairman and ranking member really deserve incredible praise for the work that they've done collaboratively, not just with members of our committee, but as you see in the back here, working with members that aren't on the ag committee to listen to their response. the farm bill works to improve programs -- this program works

to improve programs that were authorized in 2014 farm bill and provide much-needed certainty to farmers and ranchers. i want to just ask that we have unanimous consent that alexis young, an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session in the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. heitkamp: thank you. i want to just make a general observation. all of us when we go home, all of us, are asked why can't you get anything done? why can't you work together to solve america's problems? i think it would be a wonderful way to exit for the 4th of july. i think it would be a wonderful way to exit for the 4th of july if we were allowed an opportunity to say on a bipartisan way after a robust discussion about amendments, we passed a farm bill. i know that, madam president, knows how important the farm bill is to her state of

mississippi. she comes with that as her top priority. let's get this done. let's work together. let's try and overcome any hurdles that we have right now. and let's tell the american people that when it comes to producing their food and having them access their food, this food bill is possible at a time of great division in this country. and so with that, i am proud to have been a member of the ag committee. i'm proud to say i play a role in approving this farm bill. i look forward to not only passing it, but seeing what comes out of the conference committee. and with that, madam president, i yield the floor. mr. gardner: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. gardner: thanks, madam president. and i know the presiding officer is a cattle farmer, i think as they're referred to in mississippi. it's an honor to be on the floor with you to talk about important work for mississippi. colorado is an incredibly diverse state when it comes to

our economy. if you look at just per capita jobs, we have more aerospace jobs per capita than any state in the country. we have the second highest number of jobs outright, second only to california. our tourism industry is world renowned. first-class ski resorts, gold medal trout fishing streams. it's incredible all that we have to offer. we're also one of the country's biggest agricultural producers. i grew up in a part of colorado that looks like -- that looks more like kansas. this is my backyard. i live in town. this is a farm in ant pivot -- and pivot irrigation system that i grew up with. i said this so many times. i grew up selling farm equipment. when i first ran for office, going around eastern colorado, i

would introduce myself, i would say, hi, i'm cory gardner, i am running for state legislature. i sold that, i sold half of you the wrong parts. i stopped using that line. i grew up knowing a lot of great people in agriculture thraw that business. water is the lifeblood of our area. there's an old saying that sometimes if you have -- a downturn in agriculture, then, you know, our community will feel it next week. that's not true anymore. if we have a downturn inning a a, our community feels it that day. that's how connected we are to global commodity prices. i'm a fifth generation coloradan. our entire family has been all agriculture and it's the heart and soul of who we are as a country. that's why the farm bill debate is so important. in colorado we have tremendous crop and livestock

opportunities. corn -- humana county, the county i am from is rated one of the top corn producing counties. we're a leading wheat exporter. 787% of the wheat in my congressional district, 87% of that wheat gets exported overseas. you look at the research in eastern colorado, the akron research station is there, potato, san luis valley is known for the high-quality san louis potatoes. a lot of people are familiar with our we're -- beef, we have pintos. who could forget our peaches. we have that time of the year where we starting to see peaches in the farmer's markets and in stands around. i challenge anybody from south carolina to georgia to compare their their peaches to our peaches because woe know we have the best. coming up on the peach festival

as well, the western slope of colorado and certainly sugarbeets. we do have an incredibly diverse economy. we have a diverse economy that represents a lot of export opportunities. some of our best exports, largest exports are beef, frozen beef, fresh beef, you name it, we have a lot of beef, and that's why trade is so critically important to our economy. if we're going to get to our ag economy growing -- by the way, agriculture is facing a tough time right now. we have -- farm receipts are down 35% from what they were in 2013. if you look at some of the gollen years of agriculture, we are probably down even further than that. when commodity and export prices drop, these communities that i grew up, the agriculture communities in the eastern plains, they feel that impact not next week, the week after, they feel it immediately. that's why trade is so important. let me give you an example. if you are an -- had an irrigated corn field and you had

225-bushel, and let's say the corn was $4.09. today it is $3.55. that 50-cent drop in commodity price on 160 acres. if you take 160-acre quarter and look at the farmable land, 140 acres, if you raise that on 120 acres of land, 225-bushel an acre, you drop that 50-cent per bushel price, that is a $12 or $13 loss of income per quarter. if the average farm size -- let's say they have 1,000 acres of irrigated corn. if that price drops 50 cents, that's a $100,000 plus loss of income. if we see impacts of a trade war to lower the commodities, we'll

see the impact, not tomorrow, but today and the low commodity prices has affected the health of our communities. beef alone counts for $675 million of these exports. we should pursue this. we have over 50% of potato exports to mexico. nafta is very important and all of our agriculture products and how to get them to market. agriculture is key, trade is key to that rural development. the farm bill represents a great opportunity for us to focus on rural development. what we can do to help start young farmers, help them get a start, help them afford the operation. it is incredibly expensive. a quarter of irrigated ground in colorado is approaching $1 million a quarter, a tractor could costs $250,000 if you had to buy a new one, a big one.

so, all of this means we have an obligation to provide certainty and policy and that's what this debate is doing with the farm bill to provide our farmers, folks involved with agriculture, with the certainty they need to plan, to be able to go to the bank, to talk about next year's operation loan, this year's operation loan and how to get the receipts to continue that generational business of agriculture and beyond. we know economic times resulted in significant economic stress and significant mental stress. i worked with a number of my colleagues to introduce the farmers first act earlier this year. this is a bill that helps address some of the mental health concerns that we've seen in agriculture, and agriculture per 100,000 population, we have five times the number of suicides in agriculture than average -- than a broader group of americans. five times higher suicide rate.

this bill starts to address that. our agriculture commissionerrer, i grew up -- commissioner, i grew up with him. they starred a suicide hot -- started a suicide hotline in colorado to address the mental health needs because of the challenges in agriculture today. i thank commissioner brown for that work and i thank my colleagues for being able to do the work we have done on the farmers first act. we have made great strides in this farm bill on conservation. i was able to get an equip amendment in the farm bill that addresses drought concerns to be sure that it addresses the work as it relates to drought. i thank udall, bennet, harris and allowing me to work with them on this amendment and have it included in the substitute. if you look at the drought gripping the western united states in particular, arizona 100% drought, california 69% of the land in a drought, colorado

79% of the state in a drought, kansas 79% in a drought, utah 100%, north dakota 81%. this is -- these are areas where this equip language will help address as we work toward solving this ongoing drought condition. water is the lifeblood in the west. colorado is the only state where water flows out of and not into. we have to be sure to get this right. this is the picture of the colorado river. this is an example of a bloodline of water that goes from colorado down to california, all the states in between, that rely on this river. as we see that water in the river decrease, it puts more pressure on the upstream states, and that could be a challenge between the p up -- between the upper basin and lower basin states. the tools we helped provide in the farm bill help us manage this river, help us manage the

land, -- land address conservation needs and keep more water in the systems and land and not to have to buyup and dry up agriculture land. we were able to increase cost shares, increase the authority of usda to enter into conservation reserve, enhancement program agreements. this will help areas like the republican river in colorado and beyond. so important -- important inclusion in the farm bill. we have other things that should be highlighted though that will also address some of our water concerns. we know that forest fires are a significant challenge to colorado. if you have a massive water fire, all the watersheds that the forests are in results in contamination of those water systems, water ways. it hurts our ability to have access to that water. and so the farm bill in the omnibus that we passed earlier this queer, -- this year, we were able to address categorical

conclusions to bat them in certain areas of force. now, the challenge we have in colorado is the -- is the categorical seclusions only apply to fire regime groups one, two, and three. but in colorado we have 24% of our zones of concern in colorado that are in a different category, not in one, two, or three, which means we can't use the categorical exclusion to address insect and disease concerns under that provision. we know a significant area of these forests have insects. this is where a lot of the insect infestation has occurred. when you have insects that results in dead trees and the drought doubles the pressure on that for an historic fire conditions, you end up imperilling the water conditions.

we offered an amendment to address that and extend the categorical exclusion to have better opportunities to prevent the next disaster from occurring and to help make sure that we can manage our forests in a more responsible way. i'm excited that we were able to include work for the akron research station. we had an amendment that is incorporated in the substitute that authorizes research and extension groups to study utilization of big data for dry land farming agriculture systems. this goes into how much water we need, how we can better manage dryland, if we have a drought that continues, we'll have to have more tools and data to manage the farming practices this so we can do a better job of creating high yields in a low-moisture environment. these are issues that we work on. crop insurance is vitally important to main streets in colorado and we have to continue to strengthen the crop program

and the farm bill does that. the conservation is also important. this is a lot that the farm bill addresses. i thank senator robert for his work on it. he is our neighbor. i don't think he included a thank you for the water we send to colorado. they have better lawyers than us, and i won't push that when it comes to water conflicts that we have. i say that jokingly. what i don't say jokingly, of course, is what agriculture means to all of us. it is that bond that we share in our communities. it's the foundation colorado economy and this country's economy. there's so few people today in agriculture that those of us that are involved in agriculture, are in agricultural communities, we have to be strong advocates. i hope the work this senate is doing when it comes to agriculture will be that ambassadorial effort that we need to be good stewards of our land, to continue to promote new

farmers, young farmers and keep generations of farmers on the land and we don't have the dry up and buyup because we mismanaged our resources. this farm bill addresses some of the big challenges. let's get the trade right and we can be make our farmers and ranchers proud of the work that we do today. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: thank you, madam president. i rise today on behalf of this nation's farmers and ranchers. i would urge this body to continue in the bipartisan way that they have been on the farm bill to get this farm bill passed, keep it in good shape. it's a strong farm bill at this moment in time, work to improve it, get it out of the body so that farmers can have the certainty that they need with a predictable farm bill.

i believe i'm the only actively engaged working farmer in this body. i have lived on the farm that i live on for over 61 years. my wife and i have been farming the land that my grandfather homesteaded and grandmother homesteaded and my folks harm -- farmed after them for 41 years. during that time i have seen good falser that have worked -- falser that r -- farm bills that have worked and bad farm bills that resulted in devastating consequences for our family farms, driving families off the land, paving the way for more consolidation, and bad first ladies that have dried up rural areas and small towns and along the way dried up our rural way of life. this is an important time for folks in production agriculture.

commodity prices are low pretty much across the board. we're seeing this administration engaging in tariffs that have potential -- that have a potential trade war that is threatening montana's number one industry, agriculture, and threatening the viability of the economy and montana an rural america. and that is why it is important that this week, critically important this week that we pass a good farm bill that will work and give certainty for montana's producers in rural communities across this country. in my travels around the state of montana, i've had a number of listening sessions on the farm bill. i've heard from farmers and ranchers, visited with them,

looked at them eyeball to eyeball and heard their concerns and heard their priorities. and during these farm bill listening sessions in montana, i heard from grain growers, from cattlemen, sugar producers, specialty crop growers, organic growers. we grow a lot of stuff in montana. i even sat down with the folks who fight the good fight to make sure their kids don't go hungry. i sat down with fifth generation montana farmers and ranchers whose families have worked the land for over a hundred years and young producers who are getting ready to go out for their very first harvest. and for the most part, they all said the same thing, and that is that they wanted certainty. at the wanted access to -- they wanted access to a quality crop insurance that is a big part of the safety knelt for our -- safety net for our farmers and ranchers. at times when they can't get

their paycheck from the marketplace, the safety net is critically important. they also wanted to be in a position financially that they could hand their farm down or ranch, their operation down to their kids and their grandkids. but just don't take my word for it. since my last farm bill listening session, literally hundreds of montana's farmers and ranchers have written to my office to make sure that their voice is heard on the farm bill. tom from glass company, montana -- glasco, montana wrote to me about the challenges. this is what he wrote. i urge you to support the farm bill before it expires on september 30. the legislation that came out of the senate ag committee has a robust farm bill safety net including a strong crop insurance program. our farmers face a challenging agricultural economy. they need the certainty of knowing what programs are available as they make their plans for the coming years. critically important. everybody that's in agriculture

knows you have to plan multiple years out before you can get to a point where you can harvest that crop and bring it to the bin and get it to market. so having that kind of certainty of a farm bill, a long-term farm bill and getting one done long before september 30 is critically important. another fellow by the name of frank from lewistown, montana, wrote me, about the important role of the -- that the farm bill plays in feeding this country, the united states. and here's what frank said, and i quote. the farm bill can help put the united states on track to ending food and security and hunger in our country. i urge you to work on a bipartisan farm bill that protects and strengthens domestic nutrition programs, especially snap. we have a democracy in this country and we're very proud of it. but as we offer that safety net for our folks in production agriculture, we need to make sure that we don't have hunger

in this country to the best of our ability because democracies don't work well when you have a hungry society. so i'm here on the senate floor to tell tom and frank and the hundreds of other montana's farmers and rankers who contacted me that their voices have been heard and that their priorities are reflected in this senate farm bill. this bill reauthorizes critical crop insurance initiatives that keep farmers in business. it rejects the house attempt to combine and cut funding for successful conservation practices. it amends equip to allow dollars to flow to producers who focus on research conservation and drought resiliency. it strengthens our fight against foot and mouth disease. it keeps in place important sugar provisions which have a multidecade track record of success, especially in sugar beet country in southeast and eastern montana. it reauthorizes funding for ag research and as we know, for every dollar invested in ag

research, we see major returns to our economy. it gives green light to industrial hemp growers, industrial hemp, a crop that can fit in most rotations around this country. in montana -- and montana is no exception. and it reauthorizes funding for critically usaid rural development grants which help fund water and wastewater infrastructure. it helps build rural communities so when the house chose to make political hay out of the farm bill, i commend the folks in the senate because we got to work and through the senate ag committee, we got to put together a bill that farmers and ranchers can literally take to the bank. and we did so while protecting the provisions that feed hungry families and protect seniors. but now is the time to get this bill across the finish line. through the amendment process this week, we had the opportunity to make this farm bill even a better bill.

we have already attached a bipartisan amendment to this bill that strengthens the safety net by ensuring that our county payments properly reflect yields. we're giving more authority to the state and local f.s.a. committees to identify boundaries that reflect the conditions in the crops being raised in that region. and i want to thank the montana grain growers for their support of this amendment as well as montana farmers union for their input. it is my hope that folks continue to check their politics at the door and do what's right for montana's family farms, the folks who are making a living off the land by passing a good farm bill this week. farmers and ranchers are always talking about the future. they're always thinking about the future, whether it's the future of commodity prices or market access or costs, yields. oh, yes, the weather. they're constantly thinking about the future of their operation, how they can implement new practices that will make this operation more

financially viable to pass on to their children. so let's get the job done this week and pass a good farm bill that gives our producers in this nation, my producers in montana the kind of long-term certainty that they deserve. and gives them the keys to building even a stronger family farm unit. thank you, madam chair. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, madam president. madam president, i'm doing something this week i wish i didn't have to do. as a matter of fact, for the past several weeks i wish i didn't have to do this. but i have to draw attention to something that's very important to me and should be important to everybody in the united states and every person on capitol hill. it's about a man who's been held in prison in turkey for 628 days. most of that time without

charges in a cell that was designed for eight people that had 21 people in it. this man's name is pastor brunson. he's a presbyterian minister that spent most of the last 20 years doing missionary work in turkey, sometimes going into syria, going to syria in refugee camps in turkey, living in and around the izmir area. in october of 2016 after the coup attempt, they started sweeping up thousands of people, including people who were doing nothing but trying to bring the word to those who wanted to hear it nrks this case in the country -- it, in this case the country of turkey. he was accused of being part of plotting the coup attempt. he's subsequently been accused of plotting terrorist act tifts against the -- activities against the government and people of turkey. the -- we've been working on this case for well over a year. we treated it like constituent work. we were doing everything we were

supposed to do, working with the state department, working with the various agencies, reaching out to the country team to say why can't we get this pastor freed. why isn't he being held -- why is he being held without charges? why could a presbyterian miss near, how could he -- missionary, how could he be a coup plotter. four months ago i was in a meeting and overheard -- this was about the time he was indicted after 17 months being held without charges, i heard he was afraid that after the indictment was released, that the american people would believe the indictment and just turn their backs on him and forget him. so it was important for me to go to turkey. i requested a visa to get to turkey. i went to the tush qish press -- turkish prison and told him that was the last thing that would happen. i knew i had the backing of the majority members of the senate and almost 200 members of the

house now who believe that pastor brunson needs to be set free. it was important for me to be able to tell them that face to face. about a month later i went to his first court hearing. and it was absurd. i spent about 12 hours at a turkish courtroom hearing some of the most extraordinary, almost comedic allegations against pastor brunson. every week i kind of vary it because there's so many, you can't cover them in any reasonable length of floor speech. but this week's ab sushed allegation is -- absurd allegation is this notion that the turkish prosecutors believe that all the christian religions in the united states are actually somehow woven together as some sort of intelligence gathering, coup plotting, terrorist plotting network throughout the world, to collect information and use it for the -- to the detriment of a sovereign nation like turkey. that's the sort of -- so he's an

operative, a man who actually comes from black mountain, was affiliated with the same church as reverend billy graham, has for 20 years been plotting the overthrow of the turkish government. now, keep in mind it's only this concept. he hasn't been charged with any specific activity. there's no witness attesting to some specific thing that he did. but because he's a christian, because he's a missionary and because he's been in turkey for 20 years, he's got to be a part of this organization. and, therefore, we're going to put him in prison for 628 days. that's what we're dealing with. now, when we started down this path, i spoke with a lot of turkish officials, and what i heard from them is, well, justice has to take its course. we have an independent judiciary, justice has to take its course. then not too long ago, president

erdogan who recently was reelected president for i believe another five-year term had the audacity to say we'll give you your pastor if you give us our pastor. it turns out there's someone here in the united states who was previously an ally of president erdogan. they had a falling out. he's part of a movement that wants to see change in turkey. and he is a man of faith, a man of muslim faith. but the president transformed what i believe started out being let's just let the independent judiciary take its course. they transformed what was an illegal detainment, lengthy detainment of a presbyterian pastor into what i believe is a hostage swap. the president said this. if the president could actually make this offer, then clearly he's not constrained to a judiciary outcome like we are here in the united states.

so the day that the president erdogan said this, that's the day that we can clearly say that pastor brunson is being held as a political hostage and the president, president erdogan, has the power to end it. now, why -- i do this speech every week. i'll do this speech every week for as long as pastor brunson is in prison. every once in a while, either my mother or my wife will see a videotape of this speech. and they always say, why do you act like you get so angry towards the end of it. because i am. i'm angry for a lot of reasons. one of them is that they're a nato ally. since 1952 turkey has been a member of the nato alliance. what does the nato alliance mean? at the most profound level it means if turkey is attacked by another nation and their safety, security, and freedom is at risk, then the united states has an obligation to send men and women in uniform to the country

of turkey to potentially lay down and die in defense of their freedom. that's what you call a partnership. now, for the first time in the history of the nato alliance they're holding an american hostage. so on the one hand i'm in the senate armed services committee where we spend a lot of time focusing on our alliances, a lot of time training with various countries, and turkey is one that i would like to have a great relationship with. but they're holding a north carolinian hostage. they're subjecting him to a kangaroo court. and they think that that's okay for the first time in the history of alliance for a nato alliance partner to behave this way is unacceptable. so we've taken all the steps we could diplomatically and quite honestly it hasn't worked to this point. now we have to take additional steps. and one of those steps is to put a provision in the national defense authorization that asks certain questions about the long-term nature of our relationship with turkey. turkey is a very important ally

in the middle east. i hope some day that i come down to the floor gushing over all the great relationships that we have. we have many. their work in afghanistan is important. their work and fighting in syria is important. what's more important than anything is freedom of a man that's held in prison and respect for a fellow nato ally. so we put a provision in the nda a that asks certain provisions, like does turkey have someone illegally detained? yet or no. our president can certify one way or the other. does the fact that turkey is considering the acquisition of the s-400 missile system from russia, which comes with it a lot of intellectuals gathering and other tools that could put the safety of the air force base we have in turkey and the manufacturing operations for the joint strike fighter in turkey at risk? certifiable one way or the other. and because we lie on turkey for

the joint strike fighter and if that supply chain were to shut down, if turkey were to drift further away as an ally, does this make stones have the supplier manufacturing supply chain of the joint strike fighter dependent on a country that's drifting away from the nations who are the members of nato? those are simple provisions we're asking the president of the united states to certify one way or the other. but if you can't certify it, then we have to really start questioning just how much further we can go with a country that's holding an american citizen, with a country that's considering a would-be adversaryious missile defense system. we'll be going into conference fairly soon on the national defense authorization. i'm asking all of our colleagues the 70 that signed on to a letter expressing their concern with the detainment of pastor brunson to stick with us to make sure that provision makes it out of conference and we hold turkey accountable. it's within president erdogan's

power to end this now. i'd love to come back to the floor next week and not be talking about the illegal detainment but talking about a free man and an improving relationship with turkey. my last message is to the turkish people. this is not about the turkish people. i've trolled to turkey several times in -- i've traveled to turkey several times. this is about an administration that needs to understand what it means to be nato ally. it's about an administration that needs to understand what a real independent judiciary looks like. and it's about an administration that needs to be put on notice until they take the positive step in that direction. so, madam president, thank you very much. i hope that i don't have to come to the floor next week when you're presiding and present this same speech. but i promise you, as long as i'm a u.s. senator and pastor brunson is in prison, i will be back.

i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, i have eight requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have been approved by the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. blunt: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, this week, we are considering