One more comment, as I see my colleague is waiting to speak on the Senate floor. I want to thank everyone. As we are working through the farm bill, we are making progress, moving forward, and looking forward to continuing to put in place…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 23, 2013, at 2:30 p.m. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Subcommittee…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 23, 2013, at 10 a.m., in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive…

I yield back the balance of my time. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Minnesota wish to still maintain his point of order?

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule XX, this 15-minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by 5-minute votes on…

Mr. Speaker, this is a final amendment to the bill and will not kill it or send it back to committee. I oppose H.R. 1911. While it's bad enough that student loan interest rates are set to double on July 1, this bill actually makes interest…

Well, then, we are in the same place we were before. Basically, this is senatese, but what I basically said is that I want the Senate to go into negotiations with the House. The only thing we ask is that when they come back, there not be…

Mr. President, I too want the Senate to move to negotiate with the House on the budget. I think it is critically important. I have tremendous respect for the legislative process and our Republic at the State level, local level, and the…

Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk a little bit about the farm bill which is before the Senate. Notwithstanding all the rhetoric we have had around the budget over the last 4 years or so around here, last year the Senate…

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bipartisan bill cosponsored by Senator King that would ensure the Department of Defense provides military recruits with athletic footwear made in the U.S.A. The Berry Amendment, established by…

Mr. President, in recent years the farm bill has changed and become more about welfare than providing a safety net for America's agriculture producers. Because this is so frustrating to me, I offered an amendment that would have restored…

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in condemning the Internal Revenue Service for intentionally singling out dozens of nonprofit organizations for no cause other than their political leanings. This…

Madam President, 4 percent of the farmers in this country receive 33 percent of the benefits from crop insurance. I don't think it could be said any better than Senator Durbin has said it. The point is, what we ought do is make sure there…

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on our amendment and yield back our time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Amendment No. 1031

Let me just make the point. The large farmers I know in Oklahoma really don't want the government telling them what kind of agreement they are going to have with their crop insurance and environmental things. We already have a ton of…

Madam President, how much time remains? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senators Durbin and Coburn have 5 minutes remaining, Senator Hagan has 1 minute remaining, and Senator Stabenow has 1 minute remaining.

The No. 1 person who cares about the environmental quality of their land is the farmer. The bigger the farmer, the more they care. The No. 4 farmer, as far as crop insurance in the country, farms 105,000 acres. The average farmer in…

Mr. President, I would like to respond to my friend Mr. Merkley. This act, which I would think would more properly be called the farmer assurance act, was passed by both the House and the Senate and signed into law by President Obama in…