Agriculture Appropriations

AGRICULTURE APPROPRIATIONS -- (Senate - November 15, 2006)

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Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first, thanks to my colleague who states well the reasons we are on the floor. I think we have said most of what needs to be said in support of those farm families who have struggled and who have been hit and devastated with something they could not have envisioned: a natural disaster, drought and flood in both cases in our State in successive years.

I mentioned earlier this is not unusual. Traditionally in our country when family farmers have been hit with a tough blow, this country has said: You are not alone. We want to help you. And we have passed some kind of disaster legislation. We have provided some kind of help to those families. They are the ones who live out on the farm alone. It is a tough life.

I was looking back yesterday at 70 years ago in our region, first in South Dakota and next in North Dakota, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt did a train trip and it was a drought tour. On that drought tour he went out to say to people: I want to see what is happening out here and I want to tell you we are going to help. That was 70 years ago. This isn't new. We are not asking for something that has not been done before. It is something that has always been done.

The President has threatened to veto agricultural disaster aid when it has passed the Senate twice before. There were amendments I added in the Senate Appropriations Committee providing disaster help for farmers. It proceeded through the Senate. It went to conference. I was a conferee. The President threatened the veto and he got the House conferees to resist it and knock it out.

We asked the President to do a drought tour, to go out and see the middle part of the country. Go to the Northern Great Plains, the epicenter of drought, and take a look at ground that is not growing anything. It is just bare ground where crops used to exist. The President was not able to do that.

I want to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt who 70 years ago on a train did do that drought tour. Here is what he said in Huron, SD, from the back platform of a train. The drought inspection trip was the occasion for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be on the back platform of a train, speaking to the citizens of Huron, SD, and the family farmers in the surrounding area. He said:

No city in an agricultural country can exist unless the farms are prosperous. We have to cooperate with one another rather than trying to buck one another. I have come out here to find you with your chins up, looking toward the future with confidence and courage. I am grateful for the attitude you are taking out here. As I said, it is a question of working together.

Then he was in Devils Lake, ND, on his train trip. He said:

Today out here I don't 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 that faith. If it is possible for government to improve conditions, government will do it.

That is Franklin Delano Roosevelt 70 years ago. He said:

I assure you, the interests of these communities are very close to my heart. I won't forget the day I have spent with you. We hope that nature is going to open up the heavens. When I came out on the platform this morning, I saw a rather dark cloud and I said to myself, Maybe it is going to rain, but it didn't. All I can say is I hope to goodness it is going to rain good and plenty.

He said:

I will tell you, my friends, I am not going to let up until I can give my best service to solving these problems.

Seventy years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who knew family farmers, a man who knew America's workers, got on the train and went to take a look at what had happened, at the suffering in the Northern Great Plains as a result of that drought and said: We are going to help.

This is not new. My colleague Senator Conrad and I are not asking for something that hasn't been done. In fact, in more modern times, the agriculture bill, known as the farm bill, has always included, until the recent decade or so, a provision called the disaster title that could be triggered when there was a disaster. That is not the case now. So each year we have to come to the Senate to ask for a separate disaster aid package, to try to reach out and help those who otherwise are going to be thrown off the farm and told they can't continue. Is it their fault? No, it is not their fault. Bad managers? No, not bad managers. Spend too much? No. It was a drought that came and destroyed everything they had, and where, in some parts of the country, a flood came and wiped out everything that existed on their farm. It is not their fault. It is the best of this country then to reach out and say: We want to help you. We think you are important to this country.

I mentioned yesterday a fellow named Rodney Nelson from my State who writes prose. He is a cowboy poet. He lives near Almont, ND, and he wrote a piece once that I have not forgotten. He asked in that piece: What is it worth? I think it is important for us to ask the question, What is it worth? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to weld a seam?

What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to work livestock? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to grease a combine? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to fix a tractor? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to build a lean-to? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to teach a newborn calf how to suck milk out of a bucket? What is all that worth? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to plow a straight line?

There is only one university in America, only one, where they teach all those skills, and that is the family farm. Some people say it doesn't matter. It does to us. That is why we are here. This is not about a handout. It is about a helping hand during a time of trouble, during a drought and a flood. It is the best of what this country can do, and it is what this country should do. I hope, before this day is out, we will have an agreement by which we will have an opportunity to offer this amendment, get a vote on this amendment, after which clearly it will pass the Senate, and we will be on the way to getting this to the President.

My hope is that the President will not block it. He previously said he would veto legislation such as this, but I think, since he said that, things have changed. My hope is that he will recognize that change.

There has been a lot of discussion about change in this country in recent days, particularly in the last week. Change has a lot of meaning to it. Change is a word that we hope the President will embrace with respect to this issue. Twice previously he has blocked disaster aid for farmers who suffered a disaster as a result of weather-related problems. Twice previously he has blocked it. We hope he recognizes the change necessary to decide that now we need to help those family farmers.

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