GRASSLEY: Congress has placed a very high priority on renewable resources over the last 10 years, more than just ethanol and wind energy. We got the 2008 farm bill authorizing and reauthorizing a program that gives preference within the federal government to bio-based products.
According to our USDA, there are 2,200 companies that manufacture or distribute products in the United States that have already been or expect to be designated for preferred government procurement -- meaning federal government procurement -- through the BioPreferred program. Many of these companies are in our great state of Iowa.
This program is even timelier than ever. The need to wean ourselves off the use of foreign sources of petroleum and the economic situation the United States currently faces provide incentives to make use of this program.
It is important that we use this program not just at the Department of Agriculture, but throughout the federal government. So today I'm sending a letter to Secretary Vilsack asking about what steps the Department of Agriculture has taken to promote the initiative with other federal agencies.
Implementation of the BioPreferred program across the board will be a boost to our home-grown products.
Dan, Successful Farming?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
Earlier this morning, Senator Harkin and five other senators introduced the Clean Energy Partnership Act, which basically, I think, would add the equivalent of the Peterson Amendment to the House climate change bill. It would add that to the Senate bill.
And I wondered if you support that legislation. I know you have similar goals, but I wondered if you supported that bill.
GRASSLEY: I think that every -- if it -- let me start over again. If it is as you just said -- what Congressman Peterson did in the House -- and they want to do it to the Senate bill, I would say yes. I would support that. But you've got to go way beyond that, I think, to give agriculture the credit that it ought to have.
And I believe even Congressman Peterson would -- would have in mind some things that -- that he would have done beyond what got done in the House of Representatives.
So I'm exploring other things that need to be done that would go beyond what Congressman Peterson did, because that would be a minimum.
And even -- even after you do those things, don't forget that most of the people that are looking at the impact of cap-and-trade on agriculture are seeing agriculture come out negatively.
QUESTION: Can you elaborate just a little bit on what -- what some of the things are that you're exploring?
GRASSLEY: Yes. Well, at least one I can give you right now, and that would be that we get more credit for what we're doing for minimum tillage and no tillage.
Tom Rider?
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
Senator, I was wondering what you were hoping to see the Senate put in a -- in a health care package that would, perhaps, counter what the House came up with.
GRASSLEY: Well, I think, first of all, that you got to look at the whole bill. And it's questionable whether you can fix it.
Now, when I start over, I don't mean start over with a clean sheet of paper, because there are several provisions in the bill -- might even amount to a high percentage of all the pages -- that are not Republican, Democrat, bipartisan, but kind of consensus. They fall mostly in the area of what we call coverage, or delivery. And I'll just give you one example of -- of coverage -- you know, doing away with the discrimination because of preexisting conditions. I'll give you one example in delivery. Making reimbursement to doctors and hospitals based on quality instead of on quantity.
But then there's a whole bunch of taxes and mandates that are bad in the bill, and some of the -- one of those that I would take out, just to give you one example, would be the individual mandate.
And I'd substitute a reinsurance program, because the individual mandate's the first time in the 225-year history of our country that the federal government's ever said that you, Tom Rider, had to buy something, and that if you don't buy it you're going to pay a $1,500 additional money to the federal income -- on the federal income tax because you don't have insurance.
Then some other things that would be added would be selling insurance across state lines -- health insurance across state lines like you can car insurance. And another one would be medical malpractice reform; in other words, doing away with the frivolous lawsuits, and making sure that what lawsuits move ahead that people are made whole but you don't have these irresponsible punitive damages that drive up the cost of medicine by 10 percent. Ten percent of $2.3 trillion is $230 billion, and, you know, it adds up to real money.
So those are some changes that I would make.
Julie Brownfield?
QUESTION: Yes, good morning.
In regard to the climate change bill, do you expect any Republicans to vote for a climate change bill, no matter what shape it takes?
GRASSLEY: Well, we have one, Lindsey Graham, working with Kerry on some sort of a compromise -- if it would include nuclear and would include offshore drilling.
I don't know whether that's good enough to offset the bad that's in the bill or not. I don't think it's good enough for me. But you'll at least him working there.
And I wouldn't want to say that there's not two or three other senators. But Republicans see this as something that's very detrimental to the economy. In other words, we've had plenty of expert witness from people in the Congressional Budget Office -- and last year, Peter Orszag, who's now OMB director, he testified along the lines of it cutting down on the growth of our economy, which means that you're going to have less jobs and less standard of living.
Ken Root?
QUESTION: Senator, good morning to you.
GRASSLEY: Good morning to you too. And I missed you the last few times.
QUESTION: I know, and I regret that I haven't been here.
I'm an hunt to see whether or not this propane shortage we have for drying grain in Iowa might been -- might have been contrived. Have you anyone who's asked you to investigate whether or not that shortage is a real shortage?
GRASSLEY: No, but I expect it to happen this week, because there is a shortage. And -- and whether it's contrived or not, I don't know. But when farmers can't get it, you know darn well they're going to be calling my office. Or when they're paying over $2 -- and I don't know what the price is right now, but when you have these sort of shortages, you're going to drive up the price. And when it gets ridiculously high, they're going to be calling me.
And, hopefully, I've got something in place ahead of time to tell them that we're looking into it. But right now I've not taken any action.
QUESTION: How's the situation on the home farm as far as getting the crops in and dry?
GRASSLEY: Corn's real wet. Bought a new corn dryer to make sure that we can dry faster. Our bin dryer wasn't fast enough. We probably only got about 15 percent of the corn out. We got 100 percent of our beans out as of last weekend.
QUESTION: Thank you, sir.
GRASSLEY: Let's see, that was Ken Root.
Dan Skelton?
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator.
I wanted to ask you about Cuba trade. You've said in the past that you were not enthusiastic about removing some of the sanctions until they had free elections in Cuba.
But I understand that there's a bill that's going to be introduced in the House of Representatives that would ease some sanctions -- sponsored by Collin Peterson and -- and Jerry Moran from Kansas.
Are you familiar with that legislation? And are you open to easing some of the (OFF-MIKE) restrictions?
GRASSLEY: The only thing that I would do that maybe -- well, first of all, I don't even know that their bill does, so let me tell you where I'm coming from. It might be a partial answer to your question.
What trade goes on maybe ought to be done on a commercial basis like everything else. But beyond that I'm not for importing any more or exporting any more to -- to Cuba than -- than food and -- and medicine.
And I believe that I would just love to have open trade with Cuba. But I want to see that they're having free and open elections, and people have freedom, and have an opportunity to participate in the political system. Until I see that I'm not changing my mind on Cuba.
And -- and let me say that the justification for all this is that this dictator has taken Cuba from one of the most prosperous countries in the world -- let's put it this way: They at least had a middle class -- to one of the poorest countries in the world.
And -- and it's all because the government's running everything. The ingenuity of the Cuban people is just fantastic. And if they would let that be unleashed they would enhance the living standards of all Cubans by a miraculous amount, if they would just free up their economy.
OK, Chris Clayton?
QUESTION: Senator, going back to the climate bill, you mentioned what is seen as the negative impacts on agriculture. What have you seen in studies regarding the negative impacts on American agriculture if climate change if real? And you don't think that that outweighs the prospects of (inaudible) under the legislation?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think it's -- the extent to which the climate's getting warmer and it's warmer -- it's warmer in Minnesota, you know, they're going to grow corn and beans further north than they have in the past.
And so I -- I look upon it as -- as something that you have to look at the impact of the legislation not just on agriculture, but on the entire economy. And -- and I -- I've never said I'm against doing anything about global warming. I've only said that it ought to be done on an international basis, and China and India ought to be included so that we don't lose all of our jobs to China; because we got strict regulations here and they don't have, and so our manufacturing's going to move -- and jobs will go with it.
QUESTION: Well, Senator Baucus said this morning that -- I guess he gave a speech this morning where he talked about border protections, border measures. I know you guys are having a hearing...
GRASSLEY: Today.
QUESTION: ... today on this. Would you support some sort of border tariff to protect the manufacturing industry in the country?
GRASSLEY: The best way to help the economy, the entire world is to expand world trade, not narrow it down. And the best way to make sure that we have a level playing field for American importers and exporters is to make sure that we have the same rules applicable to both countries.
And so you start with what's the problem. The problem is that the United States might pass a cap-and-trade bill and the rest of the world doesn't live up to it, and so we lose our manufacturing to China.
So you take defensive action to make sure that some of those products don't come back here without a big tariff on them to offset the fact that China -- if the goal is to clean up the environment, wouldn't it be better to spend our time working with China to get them to see the need for CO2 restrictions?
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Gary, Arkansas?
QUESTION: I have no questions. Thank you.
GRASSLEY: Jean, Agrinews?
Any -- I've gone through the entire list. Anybody else want to jump in?
OK. Thank you all very much.
QUESTION: Thank you, Senator.
END