Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007

Floor Speech

FARM, NUTRITION, AND BIOENERGY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - December 05, 2007)

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this sounds somewhat similar to the discussion the majority leader and I had earlier today, so I will not belabor this. Sometimes it is harder to get a consent agreement limiting Members' opportunities to offer amendments than it is to call up a bill and process amendments, which is the way we have done farm bills in the past.

Six years ago, a Democratic majority filed cloture a couple times and cloture was not invoked. The bill was put aside, and we came back later and finished it in a week, with no consent agreements, no limitations, nothing. We disposed of the amendments. That is the way to pass this bill.

With regard to the AMT, this is a bill upon which there is a possibility of a consent agreement limiting amendments. In fact, I offered one yesterday that would limit the AMT consideration to four amendments. So we can get, on the AMT, a consent agreement that would make that possible to be dealt with in short order.

I repeat my request of the majority leader to take a look at that and see if we cannot enter into a consent agreement to wrap up the AMT.

Regarding floor time, we have spent the whole day doing nothing. Today, we could have been on the farm bill processing amendments and moving us down that path. Senator Chambliss indicated, before I came to the floor, that the list on our side could be significantly narrowed. Why don't we, at some point, look at that, and we will have fewer and fewer amendments to deal with. I don't know what we intend to do on the floor next week, but if most of the work of the Senate right now is going on in negotiations off the floor, why not be doing the farm bill on the floor and processing amendments and moving forward like the Senate normally does?

I yield the floor.

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