Tom Harkin: “we have had a very significant vote here on this farm bill. I will have to check the record, but this has to be one of…”

“we have had a very significant vote here on this farm bill. I will have to check the record, but this has to be one of the strongest votes for any farm bill in the history of farm bill legislation in the Senate. It has truly been a team effort. It took a long time--about a year and a half; 2 years, actually. Senator Chambliss, when he was chairman of the committee, started the whole process, so it has been a couple of years in the making. It has been a great team effort. As I said, we have all worked together. It has been a very long road with a lot of tough negotiations. We did it in a manner in which the people of this country want us to operate around here. We worked hard and got the bill through committee. We brought it to the floor. We had our amendments, we had good debates in December, passed it at that time, then we went to conference. We had a good number of conference meetings, frankly. But they were good conference meetings. That is the way we ought to do legislation around here. The proof of doing it in that manner--in an open, cooperative manner, having all sides being able to have their viewpoints heard and input made--is that we came up with good legislation as an end product. I want to thank and congratulate all of the members of the Agriculture Committee, on both sides, for all of their hard work in bringing this bill to this vote today.”