Liz Saville Roberts: “there are several basic reasons I urge colleagues to support the Cochran-Roberts amendment. No. 1, there has been a…”

“there are several basic reasons I urge colleagues to support the Cochran-Roberts amendment. No. 1, there has been a great deal of discussion about which bill serves small farmers versus big farmers--most especially from the Senator from North Dakota. Under Cochran-Roberts, the payment limitation is $165,000 total for direct payments for the farm accounts that are in the bill, and then also the loan deficiency payments. Second, truth in budgeting: The committee bill spends $46 billion over the first 5 years, allotted over a 10-year part of the bill, only leaving $28 billion. We are robbing the future to pay for the current bill. Then we have the issue of the guaranteed payments. Again, again, and again I say if the farmer loses a crop, he is not eligible for the loan rate at the target price. The target price is capped. It only goes to about $3.45. There is more protection under our bill. Under the WTO, let me quote from the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute: Given the structure of the changes, we calculate a 30 percent chance that the U.S. will exceed this limit in the 2000 marketing year. And they also go ahead and say: The countercyclical program begins payments in the 2004 marketing year essentially replacing green box expenditures with amber box expenditures. I think it is too dangerous a road to go down. The President and the administration support this amendment, and we can conference it more quickly with the House.…”