Agricultural Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I rise today to speak on two matters. The first is the farm bill and the second is the U.S. attorney situation in my State of Minnesota.

Being a Senator from a State that is a leader in agricultural products and now the sixth biggest State in terms of agricultural exports, I can tell my colleagues that the agricultural sector of this country is strong and it has, in fact, been a jewel in this economy when we look over the last few years and we look at the industries that were hit so hard during the downturn. Our food supply remains strong. Part of why it remains strong is because we have believed in investing in agriculture and agricultural research and in the next wave of machinery and all kinds of things, and it has helped our country, it has been a positive for our country.

We have 80,000 farms in Minnesota. We are an exporting State, and it is one of the major reasons our unemployment rate is down to 4.6. Because it is not just about the small farmers all over our State, it is also about the businesses and the employees, and it is also about the fact that we are a country that makes its own food and is not dependent on foreign food the way we are dependent on foreign oil.

I fought hard to get on the agriculture committee when I came to the Senate. I was honored to serve on the farm bill conference committee under Senator Stabenow's leadership. We worked together, as the Presiding Officer knows, on a bipartisan basis to put together a farm bill that strengthens the safety net for our Nation's family farms, preserves critical food and nutrition programs, and brings down the deficit compared to the last farm bill to the tune of over $20 billion, which is one of the reasons we wanted to put this new farm bill in place. The bulk of the savings comes from the transition from those direct agricultural subsidies to a more risk-based management system of crop insurance.

We also worked hard in the conservation area, which is very important in my State where hunting and fishing are a way of life. The conservation provisions are streamlined from 23 to 10 and we have the support of hundreds of environmental and conservation groups, including Pheasants Forever, which is based in Minnesota, as well as Ducks, Unlimited.

We also worked hard in the energy area to finally fund that title, to acknowledge that we need many sources of energy in this country, including biofuels, wind, and solar. That is a big part of this bill as well.

We kept the nutrition programs strong just by the fact that we were up against suggested cuts of $40 billion from the House of Representatives, and we found a way to make some changes that might not have been our top priority, but they were ways we were able to move on the farm bill and work with some of these States that were leveraging their heating assistance for food stamps. Most States were not affected. My State was not affected.

We also provided permanent disaster relief for our Nation's livestock producers, something that is very important when we look at all the dead cows in South Dakota and everything that happened there.

I believe the strength of this bill is a testament to the work and leadership of Chairman Stabenow and her tireless efforts. I thank Senator Cochran as well as Chairman Lucas, and Ranking Member Peterson from my State, and then also Congressman Tim Walz who served on the conference committee as well.

This bill is important to the farmlands of our country, but it also is good for rural economies. I believe we do right by ourselves when we do right by our rural communities.

I was listening to my colleague from Oklahoma, and I too have been on combines with farmers. I will say I wasn't driving that combine, which wouldn't have been good for the farm or the neighboring farms. I was a passenger. I heard a different story from my farmers in terms of the concern about bouncing from year to year and not knowing what the policies are, and how good it has been to have a 5-year policy in place for farm policy, how far we have come from those freedom-to-farm days when we were foreclosing on farms all over our State, and how we want to be able to continue to produce food in our State and to encourage young farmers and ranchers. That is why that amendment was part of my major focus, which was to give them some breaks on crop insurance and grazing their cattle on CRP land.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Now I wish to turn to a very different topic, which is Minnesota's U.S. attorney. This is an appalling situation, as the Presiding Officer will hear by the numbers. For 887 days, Minnesota has not had a full-time, permanent U.S. attorney--887 days. During that time, from August 2011 to August 2013, Todd Jones was responsible for doing two jobs. He was responsible for being the U.S. attorney in Minnesota as well as being the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. As my colleagues can imagine, with the mess after Fast and Furious, he had a lot of work to do at the ATF and that was his major focus. Meanwhile, we kept going with some fine prosecutors, but we didn't have a full-time leader.

Over the summer, thanks to my colleague from the State of Arizona, Senator McCain, we were able to finally confirm Todd Jones to that job. The ATF had been without a permanent director for 7 years.

We got that done. Of course, then it officially left the Minnesota U.S. attorney's position open, even though it had already really been open for 2 years.

Even before that decision was made by the Senate to confirm Todd Jones, Senator Franken and I had gathered together a bipartisan group, including the former U.S. attorney under President Bush, to advise us on a replacement for Mr. Jones--even before the time we confirmed Mr. Jones because of our concern over the problems in the office, many of which were on the front page of our newspaper. We were able to get a recommendation from our committee for a replacement, Mr. Andy Luger. He is a respected litigator, a former assistant U.S. attorney.

It has now been 196 days since we made that recommendation to the President. It has been 187 days since Director Jones was confirmed with no full-time U.S. attorney again in the office. While the office has continued to provide the United States with the high-quality legal representation it deserves, Minnesota needs a full-time U.S. attorney.

Mr. Luger sailed through the Judiciary Committee with no objections. He has passed all the tests necessary, including the FBI test. He has the support of law enforcement with whom I have spoken. He has the support of one of our Republican Congressmen in the area. I want to thank Senator Grassley, who also supports him and has raised issues with the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office because of the fact that we have not had a full-time attorney for 888 days, and he has been supportive of our efforts to quickly move Mr. Luger's nomination, not just through the committee but to the floor.

Senator Grassley is in a similar situation because his U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa was nominated on the same day and is also awaiting confirmation on the floor. Again, they have both come through the Judiciary Committee without any objection.

So why is this important? Well, I ran a prosecutor's office with about 400 people for 8 years. We worked directly with the U.S. attorney's office. We were there during 9/11 when the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota was dealing with the Moussaoui case. As you remember, he was caught in Minnesota. They were dealing with terrorism issues. We worked hand in hand. We took a number of their white-collar cases.

I have been able to witness firsthand how day in and day out you need a U.S. attorney to make very difficult decisions as to what cases to go forward on, and especially without a full-time U.S. attorney it is very difficult to decide where to put limited resources in terms of strategic decisions. We have not had that person in place for 888 days.

Protecting our Nation from terrorists is a top concern for all of us. When you hear of the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office, you might not think: terrorism. But in fact, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota is renowned for its counterterrorism efforts and terrorism prosecutions, especially investigating the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. For years, authorities have been on alert for al-Shabaab in Minnesota.

In Operation Rhino, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted Omer Abdi Mohamed, who recruited young Somali Americans to fight for terrorists in Somalia. Mohamed was indicted in November 2009 in Minnesota and pled guilty in July 2011 to conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim abroad.

This operation is part of an ongoing terrorism investigation. As you know, there have been suicide bombings in Somalia--sadly, recruiting people out of our Somali community in Minnesota. We are proud of that community. They are an incredible part of our State. But this did happen. It has led to charges against 18 people for aiding al-Shabaab--8 of whom have been convicted, some receiving sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

So I ask you, why would you pick an office like this not to have a leader for 888 days? But through a variety of circumstances--the fact that the ATF job was held up in terms of an appointment, and then the fact that this is being held up right now--we still do not have a leader.

In addition to terrorism cases, the U.S. attorney's office is also responsible for prosecuting major drug crimes. Recently, the office won a major conviction and played a key role in shutting down a big synthetic drugstore in Duluth. And 2 weeks ago, the Minneapolis Star Tribune had a major news story about a growing and deadly heroin epidemic in Minnesota. As we have seen from the death this weekend of someone who was a celebrity, I think we all know there have also been heroin deaths all over this country, so Minnesota is not alone. But we are alone in that we have not had a chief leader in our U.S. attorney's office to come up with a strategy to deal with this case for 888 days.

In the first half of 2013, 69 people died of opiate-related overdoses in Hennepin County, MN. That would be 69 people died. Some of these deaths were young kids. This is a situation that demands attention immediately, and Mr. Luger is eager to work with law enforcement on a strategy.

Federal and State law enforcement also partnered to combat identity theft and white-collar crime. Minnesota had the second biggest white-collar conviction in terms of money--next to Madoff--in the country. Yet this is an office that we have chosen not to put a leader in for 888 days. The U.S. attorney's office won a conviction in a $3.65 billion-dollar Ponzi scheme case--as I mentioned, the second biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

Currently, Minnesota's U.S. Attorney's Office is headed by an acting director. But an acting director simply cannot provide the same kind of leadership as a full-time U.S. attorney.

I know that the local heads of the DEA, FBI, and other Federal and State law enforcement agencies are very anxious to get a U.S. attorney in full time.

I would also note that we also do not have an administrative officer because we are awaiting putting in a U.S. attorney so that Mr. Luger can hire an administrative officer. This is not a small office. There are more than 100 people working there, including 54 lawyers. Again, they are without a full-time boss and a leader. I think these hard-working prosecutors and the people they work with deserve a leader in the office.

When Minnesota was first made a State, President Zachary Taylor filled the position of U.S. attorney in 2 days for our young new State. Back then, they deserved a U.S. attorney. If they could get it done in 2 days, I think we should be able to get it done in 888 days.

I urge my colleagues to support his swift confirmation and give this office and its hard-working prosecutors the full-time prosecutor they deserve.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

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