When Democrats swept into Congress last November, groups pressing for reforms in federal farm policy had high hopes.
Almost a year later, advocates say they’re confronted with a mixed bag between the farm bill approved by the House last summer and the companion bill approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week.
As a result, amendments are expected to fly next week when the bill hits the Senate floor, as groups take one more shot at making changes. Much of the debate will turn on whether a majority of the Senate will want to shift funds for direct subsidy payments to farmers, which are supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation, to a variety of nutrition and conservation programs.
Conservation has been a top priority for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the Senate Agriculture panel’s chief, and in a Wednesday briefing with reporters he strongly hinted he’d like to see more money shifted from direct payments.
“Is it everything we wanted? No, but bills are compromises,” said Harkin, whose advocacy for cutting direct payments met opposition from other members of his panel, including Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Those members ultimately reached a deal, leading to the committee’s passage of the bill.
Harkin hinted he might support amendments making changes to the bill during next week’s debate.
“I’ve never been a big fan of direct payments,” said Harkin, who added that they were supposed to end in 2003. “If there is an amendment to shift some of that stuff, I might look favorably upon it.”
The senior Democrat, working on his seventh farm bill since entering Congress, compared the farm bill to a groundhog: “Everyone shoots at it. Gets a bead on it. But never quite hits it,” said Harkin.
“Agriculture policy is evolutionary, not revolutionary,” said Mary Kay Thatcher, director of policy of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who is now working on her sixth farm bill. “Small changes are made every time.”
The Farm Bureau’s top priority is protecting the funds in the legislation’s commodity programs — worth about $7 billion, according to Thatcher. She added that $5.2 billion of that sum goes to direct payments, which have come under fire from environmental groups and hunger relief organizations, among others.
For example, Environmental Defense will support amendments on the Senate floor that would cut direct payments and transfer those funds into conservation programs.
Conservation groups are slightly happier with the Senate farm bill than the House version, because the Senate bill includes about $300 million in additional conservation funding, according to Sara Hopper, an attorney for Environmental Defense.
“It is only slightly better. Nonetheless, it is slightly better,” Hopper said. Environmental Defense had aimed for $6 billion in additional funds for conservation.
Other reform groups are happier with the House bill than the Senate bill. For example, Bread for the World, a hunger relief organization, notes that the House bill includes more money for food stamps than the Senate bill. That helped the House bill win support from members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Monica Mills, Bread for the World’s director of government relations, said $2.5 billion is slated for food stamps in the Senate bill, compared to $3.3 billion in the House version.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) offered an amendment in committee to increase food stamp funding in the Senate bill, but it was shot down in a 17-4 vote during the Agriculture Committee’s markup of the bill last week. Lugar would have cut direct payments to pay for the increased food stamp funding.
Lugar and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) are expected to offer an amendment to the Senate bill that would shift funds from direct payments to revenue-based insurance programs for farmers and boost money for nutrition, conservation and renewable fuels. Lugar has long criticized inequities in farm policy, and plans to highlight this at a press conference Thursday with the Environmental Working Group (EWG), according to the group’s press release. Half of direct payments go to just seven states, according to EWG.
Another target for reformers is the new $5.1 billion disaster insurance program supported by Baucus, Conrad and several other farm-state senators. Hopper and Mills argued such a program creates a new avenue for unnecessary subsidies that draws resources from more worthy nutrition or conservation programs.
The Bush administration has threatened to veto the House bill, and has also taken issue with the Senate bill. In a telephone conference with reporters last week, acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner stopped short of issuing a veto threat on the Senate bill, but said it needs to be a better bill. “It needs to have more reform in it. And I’ll just leave it at that for now,” he said.
On Wednesday, President Bush announced former North Dakota Gov. Ed Schafer as his nominee to succeed Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, who resigned to run for the Senate in Nebraska. Conner is expected to continue to press the administration’s position on the farm bill while Schafer goes through the confirmation process.
Another trade group, the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA), hopes to maintain what was achieved in both House and Senate bills.
Funds were included in both the House and the Senate versions of the farm bill that would allow potential claims for late filers to the 1999 Pigford civil rights settlement, which paid discrimination claims against the U.S. Department of Agriculture by black farmers who were denied loans and credit by the agency. USDA believes, however, the $100 million ceiling in both measures would not leave enough money for potential filers. |
