My question is this: How do we convince our competitors to follow suit? Past history shows us that when we reduce our acreages,
our competitors do not follow suit. World stocks are not reduced. They increase their production by more than we reduce ours.
There is no clearer example than during the 5-year period from 1982 to 1988 when the United States harvested 12 million fewer
acres of soybeans and, during the same period, Argentina and Brazil increased their production by 14 million acres. Guess which
countries are now the largest competitors of the United States in the soybean market.

Critics will also claim that plantings and stocks have increased and prices have plummeted because our farmers were allowed to
plant fence row to fence row. That is not true either. The United States was not the cause of increased world production. In 1996,
farmers in the United States planted about 75 million acres of wheat. Under Freedom to Farm, that fell to 70 million in 1997, 65
million acres in 1998. That is almost a 14-percent drop in wheat acreage. The farmer made that decision, not somebody in
Washington, a voluntary set-aside. It was a paid diversion because he got the AMTA payment. USDA projections are an
additional decrease this year of another 9 percent. That is a voluntary farmer set-aside, not a government mandated set-aside.

If U.S. wheat farmers planted less wheat, where did the record crops come from? We have been blessed with near perfect
growing conditions in most of wheat country. The average farmer's yield went from 36 bushels an acre to 43 last year, 47 this
year. Once again, the American farmer's record of productivity is simply amazing. I don't know of any farm bill that has ever been
able to control production in other countries, or the weather, or growing conditions. I don't think even our friends across the aisle
who are most critical would propose trying to limit the farmer's yield.

Still despite these facts, the naysayers say we must control production and raise loan rates. Raising loan rates will only increase or
prolong the excess levels of crops in storage and on the market and actually result in lower prices down the road. Excess stocks
will depress prices. Do we then extend the loan rate or raise it, leading to an endless cycle, leading to a return to planting
requirements and Washington telling farmers to set aside ground to control production and limit the budgetary costs?

How do higher loan rates help producers who have suffered crop failures and have no crop underneath the loan? We had low
prices in the mid-1980s. As a matter of fact, in 1985, and, it seems to me, in 1986, we spent almost $25.9 billion. We tried PIK and
Roll; we tried certificates; we tried set-asides. We tried everything under the sun. We passed the 1985 act dealing with
unprecedented world conditions. So we tried that. We had the higher loan rates.

It is one thing to propose a new farm program, albeit we haven't seen anything too specific. But how do you pay for the budget
cost, notwithstanding the emergency declaration of this legislation, which I think is appropriate? There was no request from the
President, after 3 years of complaining, no request from Secretary Glickman for additional funding. It seems to me it is one thing to
propose changes in the farm bill in the form of increased loan rates, however you want to change it--or, as the President says, we
just need a better farm bill--and another to propose how we pay for it.

The reason I am bringing this up is, I think we need a little truth in budgeting, aside from the proposed emergency legislation that
we need. Do the advocates of change pay for the new program, set-asides, and increased loan rates or whatever it is in regards to
the new farm program by taking away the transition payments now provided to farmers under Freedom to Farm? Will farmers
willingly give up the transition payments, direct income assistance, and go back to the days of standing in line at the Farm Service
Agency, filling out the forms and the paperwork, and set aside 20 percent or more of their acreage?

What do we tell farmers who have on their own made historic planting changes from primary crops in the past to crops of higher
value--oil seeds, sorghum, dry peas, navy beans, soybeans, and, yes, cotton? Under Freedom to Farm, I tell my distinguished friend
and colleague from Mississippi, in the heart of cotton country, we have 40,000 acres in Kansas that are now in cotton production.
When Steve Foster wrote the song `Those Old Cotton Fields Back Home,' he was talking about Kansas. We have the most
cost-efficient cotton in the world because the temperatures are so low, you don't have to use pesticides on the insects. None of
that would have happened without the flexibility in regards to the new farm bill.

The reduction in wheat acreage going to other crops has been dramatic in 1997 to 1998: 15 percent down in North Dakota, 15.5
percent in South Dakota; 18 percent in Kansas; 18 percent in Minnesota; 15 percent in Texas. These are farmer-made decisions,
and the changes in American agriculture have exceeded all expectations. Farmers have switched because it made economic
sense.

The plain and simple and sometimes painful truth is that all U.S. producers are no longer the most efficient producers of certain
crops, now wheat, in the world. That is true of other crops. But if you give the farmer the proper research and the proper export
tools and the proper precision agriculture tools and the proverbial so-called level and fair trading field--which does not exist right
now--he can be.

But we must also have the flexibility and the freedom to respond to market signals. So instead of looking back to the failed policies
of the past, I think we must look to a long-term agenda for the future that allows our farmers and ranchers to be successful. That
agenda includes most of what was promised during the passage of the Freedom to Farm Act--promises, promises, promises. I held
up this ledger. I had two of them. On one side it said, if we go to a market-oriented farm program, these are the things we will
have to do to complement it in order that it may work. And we listed them. That was the other side of the ledger.

Unfortunately, I am sad to say that those promises have not been kept by either side of the aisle. If I get a little thin skinned in
regards to all the criticism in regards to the act that we put together, I am more than a little unhappy in regards to the Republican
and Democrat leadership and the lack of progress on things we promised that would complement Freedom to Farm, things that
attract bipartisan support from all of us who are privileged to represent agriculture.

I am talking about an aggressive and consistent trade policy, fast track legislation, sanctions reform with authority to use USDA
export programs, a strategy for WTO negotiations that puts agriculture first, a renewed effort to complete the trade breakthrough
we had with China. I am talking about tax legislation. Some of it is in the tax bill. Unfortunately, we have a political fussing and
feuding exercise, and some of these will not actually take place--100-percent self-employed health insurance deductibility, farm
savings accounts. If we had farm savings accounts, this situation would be tough but it wouldn't be grim.

Capital gains and estate tax reform. I am talking about crop insurance reform. Senator Kerrey and I have what I think is a very
good crop insurance bill. I am talking about regulatory reform and about commonsense management of the Food Quality Protection
Act. And, yes, I am talking about reasonable emergency assistance to provide income assistance due to the unprecedented record
crops, EU subsidies, world depression of the export markets. And that brings us to the two proposals we have before us today.

Let me point out that, given the dynamic change in agriculture and world markets, no farm bill has ever been perfect or set in
stone. That has been the case with the seven farm bills I have been directly involved with since I have had the privilege--seven of
them. That statement is buttressed by the fact that, in the last 10 years, there have been no less than 13 emergency supplementals
or disaster bills. Given the current drought in the Atlantic States and our price and cash flow problems due to the unprecedented
developments I have already discussed, there are going to be 14. It is just what form it will take. But it seems to me we should not
be in the business of spending more than is necessary, or making changes in farm program policy that will be market disruptive, or
that will lead us back down the road to command and control agriculture in Washington. That, of course, depends on your
definition.

There are several questions, or concerns, I have in regard to the emergency assistance package introduced by my friend, Senator
Harkin, and my friend from Mississippi, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee. The income loss
assistance that has been proposed by Senator Harkin, as I understand it, has a fixed amount of $6.4 billion made available. But it
sets up a parallel supplemental loan deficiency payment system with a separate $40,000 payment. It provides that payments be
made to producers with failed acreage, or acreage prevented from plantings, based on actual production history, and provides for
advance payments to producers as soon as possible. And we want that.

I think we are headed toward a train wreck in regard to the payment limitation. One of the major concerns among farmers is the
$75,000 payment limitation on an existing $7 billion to $8 billion worth of loan deficiency payments. Now we are trying to cram an
additional $6.4 billion through a payment limitation half that size, and it seems to me we are going to have some real problems. Per
unit payments will go up, and a smaller and smaller percentage of production will be covered.

Now, if this new payment form is supposed to go to those who produce, it is ironic that we are going to see 85 percent of the
producers who produce the field crops shortchanged to bulk up payments to those that really create 15 percent of the crops. This
isn't the big producer/small producer argument. I think the penalty will reach down to the medium-size commercial farmer, while
the part-timer with a job in town may reap a windfall.

Discretion to the Secretary. Last year's disaster program was predicated on giving the Secretary maximum discretion to use his
expertise to create a fair and speedy program. The delivery of disaster payments was delayed for 8 months. This program relies
even more heavily on the Secretary. I hope that Secretary Glickman has magic in the way he can get the payments out.

The Secretary must take a fixed amount of money and fairly divide it among producers; guess in August the total production of a
variety of crops for the year; determine which producers will have failed acres and determine their actual production history;
calculate how a $40,000 payment limit will affect the division of the funds; create a per bushel, pound, or hundredweight payment
for crops not yet harvested; determine how to make advanced payments; and he must prorate payments when and if all the
guesses happen to turn out to be wrong.

Last year, with a far simpler task, the Secretary gave up and waited until June to make the payments. Let me point out that

transition payments under the AMTA supplemental plan went out in 10 days. They were delivered to producers in 10 days. Direct
income assistance: A farmer could take the check and show it to his banker and say: I can make it through the next year.

WTO limits. Almost unnoticed in the farm crisis is the rapid increase in payments made to producers. The United States is rapidly
approaching the limit allowed in the treaty for payments defined in something called the amber box as trade distorting. All
payments associated with commodity loans, including LDPs, are counted in the amber box. They are not counted in the AMTA
box if you provide farmers direct assistance due to unprecedented things. That will nearly double LDPs in 2000 and may very well
put us over the limit, making it very difficult for the President to sign a bill that would violate the Uruguay Round agreement.

My question is: What is the White House position on the Harkin amendment as it applies to payments to farmers through the loan
deficiency payment program, as opposed to the AMTA payments? I have other questions, too.

I have indicated to my colleague from Minnesota that I would not take too long, and I have already done that. I apologize to him.
Again, we know the money can be distributed through the AMTA system in as little as 10 days.