Dusty Johnson: “As I understand the immediate amendment before the Senate having to do with marketing loans, it strikes me, and I wonder…”

“As I understand the immediate amendment before the Senate having to do with marketing loans, it strikes me, and I wonder if the Senator shares this view, that we need to put this in some perspective. There are some who view this as a debate on Freedom to Farm, and certainly there are those of us who have widely and varied opinions on that underlying legislation. But the amendment that is pending, does the Senator agree, does not unravel or turn inside out or otherwise dispose of the Freedom to Farm legislation? The amendment, as I see it before me, builds on what is already in the existing farm bill; that is, a marketing loan provision that is already there, at an inadequate level, but it is there, and the amendment that is pending simply gives the President of the United States the authority in a state of emergency for 1 year to remove the current loan caps and raise the cap on wheat from $2.58 a bushel to $3.22, on corn from $1.89 to $2.25, on soybeans from $5.26 to $5.33 and extend the loan period from 9 months to 15 months? Would the Senator agree that this is not a radical amendment? This is not an amendment that somehow sweeps away the previous legislation--and we have different opinions about what ought to happen--but this amendment, it would seem to me, is a very modest, in fact, very narrowly crafted and a very modest change in what is already existing law. Would the Senator agree with that point on this issue?”