Senate passes 5-year farm bill
WASHINGTON – Ending a six-week impasse, the Senate on Friday approved a $286 billion farm bill that authorizes significant new spending for farm programs, food stamps and conservation but makes only modest changes in the nation’s traditional agricultural subsidy system.
The bill, passed on a 79-14 vote, expands subsidies for wheat, barley, oat, soybeans and several other crops and creates new grants for vegetable and fruit growers.
It also increases loan rates for sugar producers, extends dairy programs and provides more dollars for renewable energy and conservation programs to protect environmentally sensitive farmland over the next five years.
The vote came after Southern lawmakers used a procedural maneuver to prevent approval of tighter limits on subsidy payments to large commercial growers of rice and cotton. The savings from the change would have gone to anti-hunger programs, protection of fragile grasslands and the settlement of lawsuits filed by black farmers suffering discrimination in government farm programs.
Despite Friday’s lopsided margin, the measure still faces serious hurdles. House and Senate negotiators must agree on a compromise version. And the White House, citing inadequate reforms and the use of “$20 billion of budget gimmicks,” has threatened to veto the bill, as well as a House version that passed in July.
Acting Secretary of Agriculture Charles Conner said Friday he was “disappointed” with the Senate outcome. “This bill has a tough road ahead of it,” he said.
He singled out the Senate’s rejection this week of an amendment that would have immediately ended government subsidy payments to farmers earning more than $750,000 after expenses. The current cutoff is $2.5 million.
Conner said it made no sense to provide income support payments to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, using dollars derived from middle-class taxpayers. He called on Congress to “simply say no those people.”
Although the amendment, proposed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., won a majority in a 49 to 48 vote, it was rejected under rules requiring 60 votes for victory. Another amendment that would have limited federal farm payments to $250,000, down from the current $360,000, met a similar fate because of the 60-vote rule.
A key player in blocking the changes was a Democrat, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, who threatened to hold up consideration of the entire farm bill unless Democratic leaders agreed to the 60-vote requirement. Rather than face the embarrassment of a Democratic filibuster, Democratic leaders agreed to her terms.
Members of a coalition of anti-hunger, environmental, church and grass-roots groups who advocate sweeping changes in the farm program Friday denounced the maneuver.
“The Democratic leadership of this Congress has come down at almost every turn in favor of subsidized big agriculture,” said Kenneth Cook, president of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. “They’ve shown a spectacular deference to a small group of wealthy special interests.”
But Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, said the bill brings new benefits to thousands of Americans.
It updates the food stamp program, raising from $2,000 to $3,000 the assets a recipient can have and easing eligibility requirements.
The bill also provides funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup, livestock operators seeking help to meet federal clean-water requirements and working farms willing to employ better conservation practices.
Biofuel refineries producing ethanol from new sources, such as wood chips, switch grass or animal fats, would be eligible for federal loan guarantees and cash incentive payments.
The bill also seeks to improve nutrition in schools, providing $225 million so children in at least 100 public schools and Indian reservations can have free fruits and vegetables.
Growers of fruits and vegetables, who are not eligible for traditional farm subsidies, would also benefit. States such as California, Michigan and Florida would receive mandatory annual grants for research and marketing assistance to support fruit-and-vegetable growers.
Critics charged, however, that traditional growers of staple crops are still the biggest winners thanks to deals made between Southern and Great Plains lawmakers. Those crops – corn, wheat, soybeans and cotton – are now enjoying record market prices and profits.
The bill authorizes nearly $10 billion in new payments to farmers, including a $5.1 billion “disaster trust fund” to cover losses from bad weather, as well as a revenue insurance program that would increase taxpayer costs by $4.7 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Spread through the huge bill are gains for producers of wheat, milk, sugar, peanuts, barley, oats, honey and camelina.
Whether or not the billions in new spending will be in the final version of the farm bill remains uncertain. The House and Senate versions are financed in part by controversial fiscal devices, and changes in the tax code that hit U.S. businesses. Without the extra funding, some new programs would have to be cut, reducing political support for a final version.