GRASSLEY: Tomorrow, our Finance Committee will have its annual hearing on the administration's trade agenda, and that hearing is to hear about what they want to do on trade for the year ahead.
We'll hear directly from U.S. Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk. I plan to ask questions about the non-science-based sanitary and phytosanitary measures imposed by other countries on Iowa farm products. As an example, we have China banning U.S. pork due to alleged safety risk posed by H1N1. So we ought to know what the outlook is for getting our products into these countries where they're not using science as a basis for keeping our products out.
I again plan to bring up the importance of the U.S. implementing trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Without these agreements, the United States is at a disadvantage. It's vital to the economy as a whole, including agriculture, to get these agreements passed in order to level the playing field for U.S. farmers and for the promotion of all of our exports.
According to the Farm Bureau Federation, our trade agreements with these three countries, once fully implemented, would result in almost $2.4 billion in increased agricultural sales. I've held nearly 30 town hall meetings this year and jobs and the economy are top priorities for my constituents. We're finally starting to hear more from this administration about implementing trade agreements and the important role that international trade plays in creating good-paying jobs in the United States.
We need to increase our trade, and the most effective way to do that is implementing these trade agreements because that would reduce tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to our exports. Our pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea will do just that.
Dan Looker?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
I just wondered if the biodiesel tax credit is attached to the bill that would extend unemployment
benefits, and what you expect to happen with it if it is.
GRASSLEY: Well, it's in one of the 73 that's in this bill before us. It's the same set of tax extenders that was taken out of the Baucus-Grassley bill by Reid two or three weeks ago. And so we're back to square one.
What do I expect to happen to it? If it was just the extenders that were in the bill, I would expect it to pass unanimously. But we're in a situation where there's a lot of measures in this bill that aren't paid for and Republicans are going to try to get amendments adopted to pay for this, probably taking money that's not going to be spent wisely out of the stimulus bill or out of the TARP bill, to make sure that that money is used more wisely, and this would pay for it.
If we don't get that done, it may not turn out to be a bipartisan vote on final package (sic), even though there's a lot of things like the biodiesel tax credit is in it. I expect the bill to pass because these things need to be done.
QUESTION: You do expect the bill to pass, even given the objections about the funding?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think if we get a -- if we get an offer, an opportunity to offer our amendments, and we may not get our amendments adopted, but at least it's an open and free debate, and that's really what we objected to in the bill that passed last week, because we didn't have -- we didn't have opportunities to offer any amendments. We were frozen out, in other words.
QUESTION: And there will be an opportunity this time? Have you gotten any indication that there will?
GRASSLEY: Yes -- we -- we've got -- we're going to have opportunities to some amendments. How many, I don't know.
QUESTION: OK. So the bottom line is it looks likely that the bill would pass with the biodiesel tax credit.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: And do you have any idea when that might happen?
GRASSLEY: Before the end of the week.
QUESTION: OK. Well, thank you very much.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
Tom Rider?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
Senator, on the Chinese trade thing, on the pork, Canada recently regained access to that market and their people were saying that part of the reason they regained access was that they were recognizing good science. Does it seem to you that the Chinese are kind of speaking out of both sides of their mouth on this deal?
GRASSLEY: They're treating the United States different than Canada and that's about all you can say. I don't know the rationale behind it and I'm not sure that I even knew Canada was getting their pork into China.
QUESTION: What do we need to do to get that market reopened?
GRASSLEY: We have to negotiate and negotiate and negotiate, and then if they don't accept the negotiation and respond to it, then -- then we have to just take action accordingly under the WTO. But -- but the bottom line is China has to make all these decisions on sound science. Otherwise, they're violating the WTO.
Gene, Iowa Farmer?
Bob Quinn?
Dan Skelton?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
I wanted to ask you about these tax extenders, and specifically about the 21.2 percent cut in physicians pay for relative to Medicare and Medicaid. Is that part of that extenders tax bill? And what do you see happening to that?
GRASSLEY: Please forgive me. Ask the question again.
QUESTION: Well, I was wondering about the 21.2 percent cut in Medicare (inaudible). Obviously, a big impact on...
(CROSSTALK)
GRASSLEY: Oh, yes.
QUESTION: They're were supposed to take effect yesterday and apparently it (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
GRASSLEY: Yes. Well, let me answer that question because I just got done with breakfast with a delegation of Iowa doctors, and you can believe it that that was the only subject that we discussed. And legitimately, we ought to be discussing that. And it's not fair to expect doctors to take a 21 percent cut, and they aren't going to. They momentarily are, I presume, but it will be back-dated so they won't actually lose any money.
This is another one of those things that we had taken care of in the Baucus-Grassley bill that when Reid decided to go partisan with just a Democrat bill, then that was left out. Now, of course, just like the tax extenders, that's back in this bill, and I expect when this bill passes, you're going to have the doctors not taking a 21 percent cut.
QUESTION: You had mentioned previously, Senator, that the final bill on passage may not have bipartisan support, if I -- will you be supporting this bill?
GRASSLEY: Why, you never make your mind up on supporting a bill until you get -- find out how all the amendments turn out. And I'm going to be voting for some of these amendments. There's a Thune amendment up to help small business because they create most of the jobs. That's the first one up. I'm going to be voting for it, as an example. And it depends on whether these get adopted or not.
Chris Clayton?
QUESTION: Well, Senator, on that -- following up on that bill again, how much of this bill, then, is different than the bill that you and Senator Baucus originally proposed?
GRASSLEY: I believe that it for sure would probably include the things that were left out by Pelosi -- I mean by Reid, when he introduced his bill and dumped the Baucus-Grassley bill. And it probably has some other things in it, but I don't have a list of those in front of me right now.
QUESTION: Well, but you are raising objections to this bill as it stands, right?
GRASSLEY: The extent to which Democrats adopted a rule of pay-as-you-go...
QUESTION: Yes?
GRASSLEY: ... and some of these things aren't paid for, yes.
QUESTION: Now, are the tax cuts paid for in that bill then as well -- the extenders?
GRASSLEY: The -- the -- the principle is if you extend existing tax policy, you don't have to offset it. New tax policy, you'd have to offset.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
OK, Stacia?
Gary, Arkansas?
QUESTION: Senator, I just got in a few minutes ago and missed your opening comments. Does this bill include the farm disaster provisions and do you support those?
GRASSLEY: I don't have an answer to that. They were in the Baucus-Grassley bill, and at that point, a bipartisan bill would have had my support, but I don't know whether they're in this bill or not.
QUESTION: Did you support those provisions? Did you think the disaster bill as drafted by Senator Lincoln and others is a good idea?
GRASSLEY: I never -- before I got a rationale for their being included, I never heard that rationale. And remember, when Baucus-Grassley bill was put out, it was put out for discussion, not as a final product. Because of this new way of doing things that you ought to have 72 hours to read and consider things, we didn't want to look like we were -- have it take-it-or-leave-it to the Republican and Democratic caucuses. So we put it out for comment, and that thing did not get any comment because intervening in that was Reid deciding to go partisan, and that was left out.
QUESTION: In principle, do you think it's a good idea to continue to have ad hoc farm disaster bills while we've got a permanent disaster provision in the farm bill?
GRASSLEY: As long as it doesn't give people that don't have crop insurance -- let me -- I'm saying that backwards. It should not do anything to discourage people from having crop insurance. So people that get disaster payments should get less if they didn't have crop insurance.
QUESTION: That's not the way this -- this provision was structured, was it? Everybody simply got a 90 percent direct payment under certain circumstances.
GRASSLEY: Yes. I'm going to have to take a rain check on that because that was part of it that was put out for discussion and it was left out of the final product. And after we put it out for discussion, I never studied it beyond that point.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: You bet.
If it were in the final bill, then I would have an answer for you. OK?
Philip Brasher?
OK. Anybody else want to jump in? That's the entire list.
QUESTION: Senator, this is Chris Clayton. I'm just looking at that bill, and that disaster provision is in there and it is very much as Senator Lincoln wanted it. You know, if you have a 5 percent loss you'd be eligible for disaster assistance. Is that -- is that politically proper and feasible, I guess, to have that (inaudible)...
(CROSSTALK)
GRASSLEY: Don't...
QUESTION: ... of loss -- acceptable loss, given the -- how much people beat up on farm programs?
GRASSLEY: Don't ask me about it until I read it.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
OK. Anybody else have a question?
QUESTION: Senator, it's Tom Steever with Brownfield.
GRASSLEY: Yes, go ahead.
QUESTION: I understand that Senators Graham, Kerry and Lieberman are working to overhaul climate legislation. That you know of, would this contain anything that would be similar to cap-and-trade or might be more or less palatable to those in agriculture than cap-and-trade was?
GRASSLEY: I don't have the slightest idea, because I'm not part of that group or on that committee. I just know the cap-and-trade that came out of committee and the cap-and-trade that passed the House is very much opposed by me, very much opposed by Iowa agriculture, and would be very, very expensive to farming. The -- the bonuses you get or the credits you get don't offset the costs unless maybe you're going to plant your entire farm to timber, and you can't eat trees.
So -- and, but more importantly than agriculture is we'll end up losing all of our manufacturing to China, because that's why you've get back to where I've been on this issue for two years. You've got to have an international agreement that includes China. Otherwise, we're going to have a non-level playing field for America.
But if you do have an agreement, a worldwide agreement that includes China, you've still got unfairness within our country that has to be dealt with, but we could deal with that. One of it is unfairness to agriculture because they don't give us enough credit for things we've already done for this sequestration of carbon through no-till operations that have been going on for a long period of time.
And also, you don't -- it doesn't take into consideration the unlevel playing field for the Midwest and Southeast of the United States that gets so much of its -- so much of its electricity generated by coal. That makes us -- our cost of production and even just living much more expensive than it does other parts of the country.
It's a -- you know, it shouldn't be any surprise when the chairman of the committee comes from California, but they make out pretty good under the bill that's come out of committee and passed the House, as an example.
So we have problems globally because it doesn't include China. If you didn't have problems globally, we'd still have issues that need to be dealt with in the United States. But I believe if the former happened and China was included, we could deal with these problems within the United States, but they aren't even worth talking about until we get China covered because we don't want to do anything. We can't do anything to lose more manufacturing to China.
OK. Anybody else? OK.
Thank you all very much.
END