Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (Senate - November 14, 2006)

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Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Conrad for his leadership, my colleague Senator Johnson, and so many others, Republicans and Democrats, who have worked together to try to construct a piece of legislation that would provide some disaster help for farmers, and then to try to get it through the Congress and get it to the President's desk for his signature.

This has been a long, tortuous trail. Twice before the Senate has passed disaster relief for family farmers--twice. Both times it went to a conference with the House. I was a conferee on both occasions. I was involved with my colleagues in attaching it to the appropriations bill as it went to a conference. We got to conference. Both times the President threatened to veto the legislation, to block it. And he got the conferees on the House side to require that it be taken out of the conference report. Therefore, this is the third attempt on the floor of the Senate to do this piece of legislation. And it is very important.

Let me talk for a moment about this issue of farming because we all come to work and we wear neckties and suits and take showers at the start of the day. Farmers take showers at the end of the day because their work is hard. They feed cattle. They plow the ground. They grease a tractor. They run a combine. They put up hay. They do all the things that represent very hard work out in the land, and they are economic all-stars.

The ability of the American family farmer to feed more and more people is pretty extraordinary. But they work very hard and they produce a product. If things cooperate, if they get decent weather, enough rain, the disasters don't come, the insects aren't there, then they produce a crop. They produce a kernel of corn, perhaps some wheat, a kernel of barley, some rice. What happens is the wheat gets puffed by a company someplace, after it gets hauled by railroad, and then it gets put in a box and sold as puffed wheat. The farmer gets almost nothing. The railroads take too much, and the box of puffed wheat costs an unbelievable amount of money.

The same is true with crisping rice. It goes into a box called Rice Krispies. The same is true with corn. They flake the corn, put it in a box, and call it corn flakes. The railroads get a lot of money for hauling that corn to market, the people who sell the corn flakes get a lot of profit, and the farmer gets almost nothing. That is what farming has always been about. But they only get the crop in the first place if they do not get wiped out by a natural disaster--whether disease, insects, or so on.

Now, what has happened in the last couple of years, particularly in our part of the country, the Dakotas were called the epicenter of a drought, the epicenter of a drought. So those farmers, who in the spring went out and planted their crops, discovered they did not have any crop growth at all. Nothing came up in those fields.

It is pretty unbelievable to drive by a field that is supposed to be a field of grain and see it look like a moonscape. I drove to Zeeland, ND, one day, a very small town just north of the South Dakota border. And as I drove into that town, to my left was a patch of ground that looked like moonscape--no vegetation at all. There had been no rain there. One hundred ranchers gathered in a small community hall in Zeeland, ND, to talk about what this meant to them. One after another, they stood up to talk about what it means when you don't get rain.

One fellow from another part of our country who had moved back to North Dakota said: I had never, ever understood why they measured rain in hundredths. How much rain did you get? Twenty hundredths, twenty-four hundredths. I never understood before why they measured rain in hundredths until I came to North Dakota, a State with 15 to 17 inches of annual rainfall in an entire year. And then what happens? It stops raining, and you have a drought and nothing grows; or it rains too much, and you get one-third of the annual rainfall in one day. We have had both happen. One happened the year before, in 2005; one happened in 2006.

Some will say: Well, you just come and talk about farming all the time. Family farmers this, family farmers that. There is a writer in North Dakota, a farmer, a rancher, down near Almont, I believe. His name is Rodney Nelson. He asks in some of his prose some very important questions: What is it worth to our country? What is it worth for a young person to know how to plow a field, to grease a tractor? What is it worth for a young person to know how to weld a seam, how to combine a field of grain? What is it worth to have a young person know how to build a lean-to, how to take care of cattle, how to care for livestock? What is it worth to have young people know how to work in the bitter cold and do chores in the morning in the bitter cold, or to be out in the fields when it is unbelievably hot, combining that field of grain? What is that worth? There is only one university in America where those studies are taught, and that is America's family farms.

What is it worth to us? Do we want to save those farmers when they run through some tough times, when they reach a tough patch? That is what has happened here.

Always before our country has said: Do you know what. When you are out there alone, living under a yard light, and you and your family are trying to make a living and you get hit with a natural disaster, this country is going to help. This country wants to reach out a hand and say: You are not alone. We want to help you.

Well, in the new farm bills, they took out the disaster title. There ought to be one. I intend to offer legislation to put a disaster title back in the farm bills so we are not begging at the end of every session to try to provide some help to farmers who otherwise are going to go broke.

Let me describe, as my colleague has done, this picture of a soybean field in North Dakota. There are not any soybeans there. That is a field that is dead, with barely any green at all. Normally, these soybeans would be lush, filling that piece of ground, and would be a foot tall. But, as you can see, these plants are worthless. There is not much alive in that photograph.

I have talked to farmers who sold off their entire herds. I talked to a young farmer who built a herd of cattle for 3 years. It was his life's goal to take over from his parents. He built his herd for 3 years and was barely making it, and then this drought hit and he had nothing to feed his cattle. If you don't have anything to feed your cattle, those cows are going to market. His cows are gone. He is out of business.

Shown in this picture is a man from my State who was a rancher. His name is Frank Barnick. He is shown walking on a creekbed. It does not look like that. It looks like, again, a moonscape. That is a creekbed that would hold water for his cattle, but it is dry. Frank said this is the worst drought he has ever seen.

These people, Frank and his neighbors and friends, are not asking a lot from this country. They are asking if this country cares whether family farmers are able to live on the land and continue farming. They hope that the answer is yes and that this country understands farmers contribute something very important. Family farmers contribute something very important to this country. A fellow who I thought was a wonderful author, used to write in a book about the nurturing of family values in America. He always described that family values in America came from family farms, the seedbed of family values, and they rolled to small towns and big cities, nurturing the value system and culture along the way.

We have attempted time and time again to get some disaster aid for people who need help. We asked the President, in the middle of the drought this year, to come out and do a drought tour. He was not able to do that. I went back and recalled that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came out for a drought tour. We don't have a lot of Presidents stop through North Dakota. When they do, we are enormously honored to have them join us and be a part of North Dakota.

I wanted to read you a couple of things that President Roosevelt said. He stopped in Huron, SD, exactly 70 years ago. Then he stopped in North Dakota--both on a drought tour, both on a train--and spoke to people. Here is what he said to our neighbors to the south in Huron, SD, on a drought inspection trip. He said:

No city in an agricultural country can exist unless the farms are prosperous.

I understand our economy has grown in ways that make this less than an agricultural country, but it certainly has not been the case with respect to agricultural States, where a predominant part of our economic base is still agriculture and family farming.

Here is what else the President said in Huron, SD, 70 years ago, understanding that family farmers were having great trouble during that drought:

I have come out here to find you with your chins up, looking toward the future with confidence and courage. I am grateful to you for the attitude you are taking.

That is the only way you could ever farm. There isn't anybody who would decide to be a farmer if they didn't look forward to the future with hope. They plant a seed and hope. They hope what they planted will produce a crop. It is the only way farmers can exist.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt went to North Dakota 70 years ago on a drought tour, here is what he said:

But, when you come to this water problem through here, you are up against two things. In the first place, you are up against the forces of nature and, secondly, you are up against the fact that man, in his present stage of development, cannot definitely control those forces.

He continued:

Today, out here, I do not ask you to have courage and faith. You have it. You have demonstrated that through a good many years. I am asking, however, that you keep up that courage and, especially, keep up the faith.

If it is possible for Government to improve conditions in this State, Government will do it.

We hope that Nature is going to open the Heavens. When I came out on the platform this morning and saw a rather dark cloud, I said to myself, ``Maybe it is going to rain.'' Well, it didn't. All I can say is, I hope to goodness it is going to rain, good and plenty.

My friends, I want to tell you that I am glad I came here. I want to tell you I am not going to let up until I can give my best service to solving the problems of North Dakota.

Again, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 70 years ago to family farmers: If it is possible for Government to improve conditions, we will do that. He said to the farmers: You are not alone. We want to help.

Let's say that again today, let the Congress say that to our farmers: You matter. You make a difference to this country's future. Your contribution to our culture and our economy is important. This Congress has not forgotten that. We will remember it today by investing in the future and saying to family farmers: We want you to be able to continue to farm. We don't want you wandering, as you go into spring planting, whether you are going to have the ability to remain on the farm with your family, producing food for a hungry world.

We want to pass a disaster aid package, one that puts this Congress in the same position that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in 70 years ago, saying, if it is within the capability of this Government to help, we intend to help.

Again, let me compliment my colleague, Senator Conrad. I am pleased to work with him, as I have for many decades. This is an important amendment to offer now. While this is not the optimum place to offer this amendment, as this appropriations bill deals with different appropriations, we have not had the opportunity to do anything but this because we have not been given the opportunity to move this legislation separately. We offer it hoping for good will and for the support of others.

This is not partisan. It is bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats from farm country understand the importance and the value of doing this kind of legislation that says to family farmers: You matter to this country.

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