Region’s Senators Join Effort To Block Crp Cuts

Senators from the Northwest joined an effort Monday to block cuts to a federal erosion program important to the region’s wheat farmers.

Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Larry Craig and Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho, signed on to a letter criticizing cuts in the Conservation Reserve Program.

The letter, sent on the eve of a hearing on an emergency funding bill, argues against a House plan to cut the program by 5 million acres.

“We should not limit the right of our growers to make their lands eligible for a program that is good for business and good for the environment,” Murray said.

Washington wheat farmers have estimated that the changes proposed by House Republicans could cut in half the number of acres in the program in the state.

The Senate plan has the support of both senators from Montana and Oregon. A spokeswoman for Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said he is studying the plan.

The conservation program, which pays farmers for taking fragile land out of production, would cover 19 million acres nationwide under the current law.

House Republican leaders have proposed cutting the program to 14 million acres. That change is in an amendment to the emergency spending bill that would help the flood-ravaged Midwest.

Leaders of both parties have pledged to help disaster-stricken communities and are rushing that spending bill through Congress.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., lost an attempt last week to remove the proposed cut to the conservation program while the emergency spending plan was in a House committee. The spending bill has not yet come to a vote before the full House.

A spokesman for Murray said if the House cuts the program and the Senate does not, it would force the emergency spending bill into a conference committee to work out the differences.

, DataTimes