Panel Plans To Restore Farm Funds Nethercutt Behind Amendment That Will Put $98 Million Back Into Budget After It Was Taken Out Last Week

After a week of criticism from farm groups and even some Republican leaders, a House committee is set to restore money to a new agriculture program.

U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt said late Wednesday that some $98 million will likely be added back into next year’s proposed agriculture budget, completely funding the market transition program.

The Spokane Republican said he and Rep. Jim Lightfoot, R-Iowa, will offer such an amendment today when the House Appropriations Committee meets. The move has the support of Republicans, who are in the majority in both houses of Congress.

“We had to fight for it,” Nethercutt said. “It took a few days to work out jurisdictional questions between the committees.”

The Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, on which Nethercutt serves, proposed the 1 percent cut in the market transition program last week as part of a $600 million reduction in spending on farm programs in fiscal 1997.

The panel was trying to balance priorities and save funding for agriculture research, the panel said at the time. Today’s amendment keeps the money for research.

After last week’s vote, farm groups, including the National Association of Wheat Growers, accused Congress of reneging on its promises even as farmers were signing up for the new program.

The program will provide farmers of wheat and other grain crops with seven years of declining cash payments to ease them out of the federal subsidy programs, which are ending. Farmers have until July 12 to sign contracts that lock them into the new program for seven years.

Senate Agriculture Chairman Dick Lugar of Indiana threatened to filibuster against the reduction if it passed the House, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, another committee member, called the change “completely unacceptable.” House Speaker Newt Gingrich also criticized the subcommittee’s move.

After discussion with House and Senate leaders, the Appropriations Committee was told farm programs will be allocated an extra $60 million in 1997. The amendment will also propose an additional cut of $31 million to the Export Enhancement Program. The remaining $7 million will come from trims in other programs.

The subcommittee previously voted to cut $100 million from the export program, commonly known as EEP. The additional reduction means it will be nearly halved from the 1996 level.

Nethercutt said he believes the program, which helps market U.S. grain overseas, can absorb the cuts because of current conditions.

“When prices are good and crops are good, we don’t need as much EEP,” he said.

Nethercutt’s office has received calls from Inland Northwest farmers concerned about possible cuts in the new program - and the precedent that could set for future cuts.

“I think there was an overreaction,” he said. “But we’ve sought to ease their minds by saying, ‘Be patient, this is all going to work out.”’

, DataTimes