Liz Saville Roberts: “Then the key question is this, if the Senator will continue to yield. As he knows, in agriculture, we are going through…”

“Then the key question is this, if the Senator will continue to yield. As he knows, in agriculture, we are going through some tough times. We are not in very good shape for the shape we are in. One of the real things I believe we have to do is get Presidential trade authority and get our exports tracking. I am not going to go into a long-winded speech on that, but no farm bill, whether it is the bill being proposed by the Senator from Arkansas, or Cochran-Roberts, or the Senate bill, the Daschle-Harkin bill, can be successful unless we sell the product. We have not been involved in the 133 trade negotiations--except for two--ever since we lost the Presidential trade authority. We exported $61 billion of farm products about 3, 4 years ago. Now we are down to 50, maybe 51, 52. Subtract that difference in terms of what we are selling and whether that is what you add up to with emergency spending. I don't understand why we don't expedite consideration of the Presidential trade authority. That is on the back burner with the leadership. That should not be the case. In lieu of that, we are going to have to have protection for farmers. In your State there are rice, cotton, and soybean producers, and in my State of Kansas there are corn, soybean, wheat, and cotton producers--40,000 acres. So the question is this: In terms of the support that would be going to farmers, under the Senate bill that targets price, that countercyclical payment doesn't come into effect until 2004.”