Rollback Averted In Idled Farmland Action A Victory For Wheat-Growing States

In a victory for wheat-growing states Thursday, the House rejected a rollback in farmland idled under the Conservation Reserve Program.

The provision was stripped from a bill that will provide emergency funds to flooded areas of the Midwest. By dropping the rollback, the House avoided a fight with the Senate over the conservation program.

Some House Republicans wanted to limit enrollments in the program this year to 14 million acres, down from the 19 million proposed by the Agriculture Department. That would have forced the department to tighten the program’s eligibility rules, shifting some acreage from the Plains states and Pacific Northwest to the East.

Republicans from the affected states balked, and found themselves aligned with the Clinton administration and farm state senators from both parties. The Senate’s emergency aid bill does not have the lower limit.

Rep. George Nethercutt of Spokane spent part of the week maneuvering to strike the new limits through a tactic known as a point of order. The program, he said, “is critical to our agriculture communities and our environment.”

When Rep. Gordon Smith of Oregon, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, rose to explain the need for the change, David Obey of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, tried to cut him off by saying the Democrats had no objection to dropping the new limits.

Smith finished his speech anyway.

CRP contracts on about 22 million acres are due to expire this fall. Farmers have offered to enroll about 26 million acres, most of which already are in the program.

The program pays farmers not to put certain land in production for 10 years and helps them plant grass and trees on it to control erosion and provide wildlife habitat.

, DataTimes