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[Page: S2761]  GPO's PDF
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   Mr. ROBERTS. Madam President, thank you very much. This is one of those speeches I had not intended to make. I have to make it, but I would just as soon not make it.

   I rise today to provide a few comments on the situation we are facing regarding the farm bill and the possibility of an assistance package this year. My colleagues are working very hard in the conference. I don't mean to perjure anybody's intent. These are friends of mine, and I know we have strong differences of opinion. But we are in pretty rough shape for the shape we are in, in farm country, and we need assurance that there will be an assistance package as of this year.

   For several weeks now, I have been warning that we need to either get a farm bill finished and apply it to this year's crop or pass an agriculture assistance package, and then pass a new bill that goes into effect for the 2003 crop. The thinking behind that is it is better to pass a good bill than simply disagree on a bad bill and try to expedite that.

   Prior to the Easter and Passover recess, I introduced an assistance package that I said was a placeholder if a bill could not be passed almost immediately after the recess period. Well, it is now April 17. We still have not passed a bill . In fact, the negotiations did break down yesterday, unfortunately.

   It seems clear that a bill will not be passed as of this week. Madam President, the clock, if not expired, is certainly ticking. It is the 11th hour and 59th minute. It is time for us to admit what farmers and ranchers already know: It is too late to pass a bill that applies to this year's crop.

   Consider these facts:

   The 2002 wheat crop was planted last fall and harvesting in the far southern region will begin next month.

   Several crop reports in recent days have said that 9 percent of the Nation's cotton crop is planted, including 37 percent in Arizona, 35 percent in California, and 13 percent in Texas, with the rest of the States starting to plant.

   Corn planting is 59 percent complete in Texas; 25 percent in Tennessee; 3 percent in North Carolina; 26 percent in Missouri; 17 percent in Kentucky; and in Kansas--yes, we grow cotton--11 percent.

   Another article said corn planters were already in the field in eastern

[Page: S2762]  GPO's PDF

   Our producers and our bankers, lenders, must make planting and lending decisions. We cannot continue this game of Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. This will not work in farm country.

   Our producers have been told that the bill could be completed prior to Christmas, the bill could be completed right after the first of the year, the bill would be completed by Easter, and the bill would be completed by April 15.

   Quite frankly, we have people who crawl out of train wrecks faster than the farm bill conference is proceeding in regard to the tough amendments they must reconcile. My producers do not believe any predictions they hear at this point. They now need to make decisions forced by their lenders.

   I want to make it clear to colleagues that if we pass a new bill for this year's crops, we are setting ourselves up for another disaster or supplemental bill this fall--even after spending $73.5 billion in new funding for agriculture. Unfortunately--and this is the one I want all farmers, ranchers, and agribusiness to pay attention to--you are going to discover that in both House and Senate farm bill proposals, there will be no supplemental AMTA statement, no market loss payment in September, as producers have grown accustomed to.

   Instead, under the countercyclical proposals in the two bills, producers and farmers could receive a portion of their countercyclical payment for wheat in December, while other crops would receive no assistance until next spring.

   To put it another way, none of this countercyclical assistance, after all the talk we have heard in the last years as to the current farm bill --about the lack of a safety net and the need for countercyclical assistance--none of this assistance for the 2002 crop will even go out until the spring of 2003. When farmers discover this, there is going to be an outcry. That is why, in a recent poll, 70 percent of the farmers said about the supplemental in this crop bill : Put the new farm bill under 2003.

   We are receiving indications that any agreement on the farm bill will include much higher loan rates--most likely at the expense of direct payments or the countercyclical payment.

   It was 97 degrees in Dodge City 2 days ago. That is pretty hot for Dodge. Nearly 50 percent of our Kansas wheat crop has been rated at below favorable conditions and getting worse. My producers who may have no crop to harvest--and that is the condition in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, moving north--will gain nothing from higher loan rates. Loan rates don't help if you don't have a crop.

   This is a blueprint for disaster. We cannot continue down this path. It appears the farm bill will not be completed this week. We still have 8 or 10 contentious amendments. They probably should not be part of the commodity title.

   I am putting colleagues on notice that as soon as the procedural situation allows, I will either ask unanimous consent that S. 2040--the supplemental bill I just referred to, which I previously introduced--be pulled up and, hopefully, passed by the Senate or I will offer it as an amendment to any bill under consideration by the Senate.

   Madam President, it didn't have to go down this road. I hope my Senate colleagues serving on the conference--good men and women all--can reach some accommodation by the end of this week and break this logjam or we are going to have to go this route because we will be in a world of trouble in farm country. We already are.

   I yield the floor.

   The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.

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