Tom Harkin: “here we are, finally after a long year and a half. That is how long I have been chairman. Of course, my friend and…”

“here we are, finally after a long year and a half. That is how long I have been chairman. Of course, my friend and ranking member was chairman before that, actually started the farm bill when he was chairman. So I guess we can say after about 2 years we are finally here with this farm bill on the floor for final passage and ready to send to the President. It has been a long road to get to this point. But it has been a road I have had good friends to travel with, good colleagues to travel with. We have had a few bumps along the way, but through it all, we have come here on the floor of the Senate with a strong, good farm bill, and it came from the House today with a strong 318 votes. So the House has passed a conference report with 318 votes this afternoon. As I said, some people call it a farm bill. Here is the title of it: the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008. Food, Conservation, and Energy Act. We do not have ``farm'' in it. Farm is subsumed under food and conservation and energy, because all three of those apply to our farmers today. So we have a bill here, a Food, Conservation, and Energy Act, passed with bipartisan votes in the House. We have a coalition of over 500 farm, conservation, nutrition, consumer, and religious groups all together supporting this bill. This is my seventh farm bill, counting my time in the House of Representatives and my time here in the Senate.”