Making Further Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 - Continued
MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003CONTINUED
Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I thank Senator Daschle for his leadership on this amendment and express my high regard for Senator Cochran as well. We now find ourselves in a circumstance where the drought has gone on for 2001 and 2002 across much of this country, including in South Dakota, and it has been devastating. There has been a $2 billion loss to South Dakota's economy alone based on numbers from South Dakota State University.
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There is a need for urgent relief and comprehensive relief. We had 79 votes in this body for a $6 billion package last year. Now we find ourselves in a circumstance where we are being told about fiscal constraints and yet the White House and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are telling us they are willing to borrow $674 billion over the coming decade$108 billion this next yearfor a so-called tax relief plan, but we do not have the resources for a comprehensive $6 billion drought relief bill in rural America.
If ever there was an initiative that would stimulate the economy of rural America, it is the comprehensive $6 billion amendment before us today, and it would fit very nicely within the context of the enormous stimulus initiative coming to us from the White House and from our colleagues.
While I appreciate the work that has gone into the alternative bill presented by the Senator from Mississippi, it is half the money. With respect to aid for livestock producers, arguably the hardest hit, $1.5 billion would be available for livestock under the bill I support and Senator Daschle supports as opposed to only $250 million under the alternative version.
By applying the AMTA payments, we wind up with gross inequities in the plan offered by the other side. In one of my counties, for instance, it is a primary disaster area, but it has been determined that just 23 percent of its 1,200 farmers have experienced crop or hay losses meeting or exceeding the 30-percent threshold that normally triggers disaster relief. That means 77 percent of the farmers in that disaster county have not experienced significant crop or hay losses but will still get an AMTA payment from the alternative plan.
Meanwhile, a rancher in a western county in South Dakota with whom I spoke this morning said his average AMTA payment is just $250 per year because he is primarily a cattle producer. Under the alternative plan, he would receive a $250 AMTA payment, which would purchase just a couple bales of hay, and be forced to compete with other producers for just $250 million annually remaining for livestock producers, and that is spread across the entire country.
On top of that, under the alternative plan, producers must pick drought payments from 2001 or 2002, but not from both, and there is concern over a $10 million grant for Texas farmers and $50 million carved out for cotton as opposed to the comprehensive crop loss coverage under the Daschle bill that I am cosponsoring.
Simply put, the amendment I have cosponsored provides real, comprehensive aid to crop farmers and livestock producers who suffered actual losses to the drought or other natural disasters. The alternative plan provides aid to producers regardless of loss. It simply is not fair.
It ought to be apparent which bill provides the real assistance and real relief. We are seeing a hemorrhage of farmers and ranchers off the land. It hits the youngest producers worst. Those least capitalized are least able to sustain their operations throughout all of this crisis. We have rancher after rancher who have liquidated their animals. Young people are leaving the land. We are falling below the critical mass of population in many of our rural areas to sustain basic rural institutions.
At a time when this body is debating economic stimulus, I can think of no other initiative that would do more for rural America than this $6 billion drought bill in the context of the $108 billion that has been proposed by the White House as economic stimulus for this year alone.
It makes sense for this initiative to pass now. I ask support of the Daschle amendment.