| |
Source: Congressional Record on McCain/Feinstein Amendment, 5/21/13
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Before the Senator from Ohio leaves, I want to thank him. He has been an invaluable member of our committee. We would not have the agricultural risk coverage portion and the yield loss coverage portion in this bill were it not for his work, he and Senator Thune working together. We used their bill as the basis for this.
He has also been the champion of rural development. We have investments in rural development we would not have had without his involvement, as well as other efforts in the energy title and throughout the bill. I thank him. We are very lucky to have him as a member of the committee.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up the Feinstein-McCain amendment No. 923 and make it pending.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I just indicated to the Senator from Arizona that while I have no objection to having a vote on his amendment, I ask that he not proceed with his request at this time. We have an amendment that is pending, and we also have a number of crop insurance amendments we want to do together. I will not object to voting on his amendment, there is no attempt not to do that, but at this point I do object to having his amendment as the pending amendment.
I ask my colleague through the Chair if he would be willing to work with us. I will commit to having a vote on his amendment. This is not an attempt to not vote on his amendment. The ranking member and I have talked, and we are certainly committed to voting on the Senator’s amendment; however, we would like to have an opportunity to set up how we will be voting on a series of amendments.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, if I heard the Senator correctly, she committed to a vote on this amendment, correct?
Ms. STABENOW. That is correct.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCAIN. Does that mean we would vote on this early on?
Ms. STABENOW. I don’t know the exact timing of the vote. There is no attempt to delay. We are just getting started at this point. I will be happy to work with the Senator from Arizona. We are certainly not trying to postpone it to be the last vote. We can certainly do it earlier rather than later, but we would like to have some flexibility to look at a group of amendments we might vote on which relate to the same subject area.
I believe I can speak on behalf of the ranking member in saying we are committed to a vote on the amendment and want to work with Senator McCain as to a time.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank the distinguished manager.
Since I have the floor, I would like to make a brief statement about the amendment. I understand the objection, and I would rely on the good offices of the manager of the bill, as well as the ranking member, that we would have a vote early on in regard to this amendment and not at the last minute when we are trying to complete the votes on the amendments to the bill.
The amendment by Senator Feinstein and me would eliminate taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance for tobacco». The Congressional Budget Office estimates this amendment would save taxpayers $333 million. Again, that is the estimate of the Congressional Budget Office.
It might surprise Americans to know that despite efforts to end traditional farm subsidies for «tobacco» producers, government handouts for «tobacco» lives on in the form of highly subsidized crop insurance. Since 2004 we have spent more than $276 million on insurance subsidies for «tobacco». This is in addition to the $10 billion financed under the «tobacco» buyout law the Congress passed a decade ago. That law was paid for by assessments on «cigarette» manufacturers, and it was meant to wean «tobacco» growers from farm subsidies by buying out their growing quotas. Well, it turns out that Joe Camel’s nose has been under the tent all this time in the form of these hidden crop insurance subsidies.
As my colleagues know, crop insurance in general has a dubious reputation as a “safety net” for farmers because it largely insures against revenue loss instead of crop loss due to weather or pests. According to the Congressional Research Service, taxpayers spend about $14 billion a year to subsidize about 60 percent of the cost of crop insurance premiums. The Federal Government also reimburses private crop insurance companies for about 25 percent of their “administrative and operating” costs.
We have identified eight types of «tobacco» that are eligible for crop insurance: «tobacco» Maryland, «tobacco» flue cured, «tobacco» fire cured, «tobacco» dark air, «tobacco» «cigar» wrapper, «tobacco» «cigar» filler, «tobacco» «cigar» binder, and «tobacco» burley. All of these crops remain extremely profitable even without their old farm subsidies.
According to reports by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, «tobacco» is 10 times more profitable than corn and most American «tobacco» is exported. In fact, the value of American «tobacco» is at a 10-year high since Congress ended traditional «tobacco» subsidies. It makes no sense to subsidize «tobacco» insurance considering how well the free market system is working for «tobacco» producers.
I will have a longer statement on this, Mr. President.
Last year the eight separate «tobacco» insurance products cost $34.7 million in taxpayer subsidies. The USDA—Department of Agriculture—data shows that more than $276 million in taxpayer subsidies has been spent on this «tobacco» subsidy program since 2004.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, «cigarette» «smoking» adds $96 billion to domestic health care expenses and costs the American economy $97 billion in loss productivity annually. Secondhand «smoke» adds another $10 billion in health care costs and lost productivity.
Clearly, we should be doing nothing to subsidize production of «tobacco». I am not saying we should ban the growth of «tobacco» in America; that is a decision farmers and the market make. But for us to continue to subsidize when these enormous costs are borne by the American people in terms of our health and our economy—it is time we ended it.
I thank the distinguished manager and ranking member for their commitment to having an up-or-down vote on this amendment.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment this afternoon to talk about the importance of crop insurance as a risk management tool. I think we will probably have a lot of discussion on the floor about crop insurance, but, as I said, as a matter of policy, we are moving away from direct subsidies. We certainly have not subsidized «tobacco» growers for a long time, and I would not support doing that.
In general, we are moving away from that into an insurance model where the cost is shared between the Federal Government and growers. We want as many growers as possible to purchase crop insurance rather than have a disaster and then want us to pass a disaster assistance bill. I might add that we didn’t have to do that this last time around despite the worst drought in 50, 60, 70 years because the crop insurance worked this last year. Crop insurance covered the losses. It is a very important public-private sector process and partnership.
One of my concerns about carving it up, having limits or removing one crop over another is that we have been moving away from a general policy of insurance. Going down the road, I think that would have a lot of implications and farmers in general would have great concern about that.
I have a tremendous amount of sympathy and, in fact, agreement with the distinguished Senator from Arizona. I sympathize with what my colleague was saying about «tobacco» as far as the harm to health and so on. When we look overall at crop insurance, the good news is that less than 1 percent of that whole program—I think substantially less than 1 percent—covers «tobacco», so that is a good thing.
The larger question for farmers and all of us across the country is, Are we going to make a commitment broadly to the No. 1 risk management tool for them? Are we going to make sure that as we say we are not going to do subsidies anymore, we listen to what they are saying about having a crop insurance system?
There are parallels between that and flood insurance. So as people are proposing various limits on crop insurance, I think it is important to ask would we put that on other types of insurance, such as flood insurance risks or other things. Insurance deals with risks, and it is more about encouraging farmers to have a stake in the game and to be able to cover part of that risk with their own dollars rather than other types of policies we have debated about subsidies.
As we go forward, there will be a lot of different discussions about crop insurance, and I would ask colleagues to join with us in resisting efforts to eliminate or limit what is a public-private insurance system that is, frankly, working very well.
We are so proud that all of the farm organizations and commodity groups—just about all of them—come together to work with the conservation groups and environmentalists. They say that together they are going to both support an insurance model—a risk management model broadly as a matter of policy for agriculture—and they are also going to support linking that to conservation packages. So as a farmer receives that partnership—the piece we kick in—with that brings a commitment for conservation practices for our land, our soil, our water, and so on.
This is very important. This was not the case in the last farm bill or the farm bill before. We have not seen that kind of link, and now they have come together and said they support crop insurance broadly as an insurance model without limits that have been proposed by various people. In return for that, whether it is a very large farm or a small farm, the broad public benefit of having conservation compliance outweighs much of what we are hearing about in terms of the limits being proposed. In terms of the public good, we should have crop insurance that gives this alliance of crop insurance and conservation compliance.
This is a historic agreement, and I stand by that agreement with all of the Members. I believe that whether we are talking about large farmers or small farmers, this is a very important policy, and we need to have conservation compliance involved across the board in our efforts as we expand crop insurance.
We will have a lot of discussion and a lot of debate on this issue. I think it is very tempting to look at one particular crop—certainly a crop that has a lot of health risks related to it and that we have a lot of concerns about in other venues—and say let’s just eliminate one crop.
The challenge with that, of course, is as a policy for insurance, there will be deep opposition and concern coming from agriculture—from farmers, large and small, across the country—about starting down that road no matter how noble the cause in terms of the concern about the risks of that particular crop. So we look forward to more discussion, but I think it is very important to put a broad lens on this. We have moved away from subsidies that come regardless of good times or bad, whether they are needed or not, and have moved to a system where we are asking farmers to put some skin in the game. We are saying: You have to get crop insurance; you have to be a part of paying for it, and you don’t get any help unless there is a disaster; there is no payout unless there is a disaster. As we move to that broad cornerstone, I hope we can keep that in place and not see efforts that will weaken it around the edges.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Gillibrand). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I further ask unanimous consent to speak for perhaps as long as but probably shorter than 20 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
|
