Bob Kerrey: “this amendment establishes a separate appropriation for salaries and expenses for the Risk Management Agency inside the…”

“this amendment establishes a separate appropriation for salaries and expenses for the Risk Management Agency inside the Farm Service Agency's account. I wish the administration of the Department of Agriculture had sent up a separation. I think it is clear to most of us who look at the new farm program that increasingly it is going to be the farmers managing their own risks that will determine how well they do in a market that is increasingly volatile. The risk management program, the combination of Government and, increasingly, private sector insurance, is going to determine whether or not a producer, a farmer, or small business person out there operating in the marketplace, is going to be successful. This establishes this risk management agency and sets up a separate account for it so we make sure the U.S. Department of Agriculture does allocate a sufficient amount of resources to do so. I pull $70 million out of the FSA to do that. I believe it is much more likely, as a consequence of doing this, that the risk management program is going to be executed in the fashion that both Republicans and Democrats desire.”