Speaker says no decision has been made on farm bill vote

Boehner criticized "Soviet-style" elements of the bill and gave no commitment it would reach the House floor.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday criticized elements of a sweeping farm bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee and said “no decisions” have been made about bringing it to the House floor.

The committee passed the $957 billion measure on a bipartisan 35-11 vote early Thursday morning, but it faces strong opposition from conservatives who say it spends too much, and Boehner gave no commitment that it would receive a vote in the full House.

“I think Chairman [Frank] Lucas and the committee have done an awful lot of good work. No decisions about coming to the floor,” Boehner told reporters during his weekly press conference. 

“There are some good reforms in this farm bill, and there are other parts that I have concerns with,” he said when asked to elaborate on his views about the legislation. “We’ve got a Soviet-style dairy program in American today, and one of the proposals in the farm bill would actually make it worse.”

Boehner, a long-time critic of farm subsidies, added that, “having been a committee chairman, I understand the difficulty of putting together a very complicated bill.”

The dairy program is the most complex farm subsidy in the House farm bill.

The House Agriculture draft bill contains changes to the U.S. dairy subsidy system, but it keeps federal control over the supply of milk in place. Supporters argue that dairy is such a highly volatile sector, due to fluctuations in milk and feed prices in an open market, that controls on supply need to be maintained. 

The bill gives farmers the choice to participate in a margin protection program in which they will receive payments if their profit margin plunges, but in exchange they must agree to limit production. The government would also continue to buy up dairy products for donation to food banks to support prices. 

The bill's dairy provisions are supported by dairy farmers, but opposed by dairy processors.  An amendment from Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) to replace the complex system with a simpler insurance program was defeated 29-17 in committee. Supporters argue the new program contains triggers that terminate the program when domestic and export demand for dairy is high.

Supporters of the bill also point out that it does away with a more extensive system of federal dairy purchasing and a system of federal marketing orders that governs dairy purchasing. 

Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) both voted to sustain President George W. Bush's veto of the 2008 farm bill. That bill was passed in May 2008 when the veto was overridden. 

Boehner also voted against the 2002 farm bill because of the reintroduction of price-based subsidies. He supported a 1996 "Freedom to Farm" version that phased out subsidies and which is known in the agriculture lobbying world as the "freedom to fail" bill.

— Erik Wasson contributed to this report.

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