Just a few weeks ago it appeared that there was no way Congress would be able to get a Farm Bill passed this year.
But, oh ye of little faith, it did indeed happen this week with a wider margin of votes than any farm bill has ever received. On the House side, 318 members voted in favor of the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2008 passed the House and 81 senators approved it on Thursday.
That makes it virtually veto-proof, and a good thing too, since President Bush intends to make good on his promise to veto the bill which he says “increases farm subsidy rates, spends too much and fails to reform farm programs for the future.”
The president and members of his administration seem to be standing alone there. Literally every single farm and commodity group in the entire countryside has voiced support for the bill, from specialty crops to livestock to cotton to field crops. It’s the most popular farm bill I’ve ever seen. The bill is also being praised by environmental and consumer groups, religious groups and anti-hunger organizations.
Many are urging the president to reconsider, even though Congress has the votes to override. President Bush has only vetoed nine bills so far, and he was overridden on only one - the Water Resources Development Act - or WRDA. The score will likely be 10 and 2 next week.
“If farmers ran their business like we’re running this Farm Bill negotiation, we wouldn’t have any food to eat.”
That statement from Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) pretty well sums up the frustration felt by farmers and some lawmakers at this point with planting season here and no farm bill.
Congress got another one week extension of the current farm bill to try and get a new bill passed this week, but it is looking more and more like a long term extension of current legislation will be the end result.
Optimism was starting to sound a bit hollow on Friday when Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) called progress on the legislation “incremental at best” with funding of the bill continuing to be a stumbling block.
Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, tried to sound optimistic. “Hopefully by the time Tuesday morning rolls around here, some kind of progress has been made.”
President Bush expressed great reluctance to extend the current bill another week, but gave Congress the benefit of the doubt and signed the extension Friday. USDA Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner says he did it to avoid reverting to the archaic 1949 farm law. “We owe it to the producers to not do anything that would be that disruptive,” said Conner.
However, unless significant progress is made within the next day or so, an extension of the current farm bill for another year at least seems the best course of action to give farmers some sense of security as they head to the fields.
Will we have a new farm bill at $10 billion above baseline, an extension of the 2002 bill for one year with minor changes, or permanent law from 1949?
At this point it’s anyone’s guess - although I would say that permanent law is more of a threat than a real possibility. Congressional ag leaders met on Friday and decided to instruct their staff to move ahead with a bill that’s about 10-billion dollars above baseline, even though they have not yet concluded a funding deal with the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees. They do seem to be in agreement that there will not be another short term extension of current law.
House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson says even with an extension through April 18th, negotiators are out of time already. “We have to get this bill finished over the Easter recess,” Peterson said. “After we get the bill done, it takes two weeks to get all the language together, so we have maybe two days to get settled how we’re gonna move forward if we’re going to get this done by the 18th of April.”
Negotiators said Friday they’ll have to write a ‘bare-bones’ baseline bill unless they get a firm agreement from tax writers on added funding this week. President Bush has reportedly agreed and will recommend a one-year extension if a bill’s not ready by April 18th.
Six state corn grower organizations have issued a joint-statement saying that “a farm bill without an optional “revenue-based” safety net is little better than no bill at all.”
The state corn association of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland and Virginia say that the key elements of a revenue-based system include being based on market prices, being exclusive of other programs, and being designed to activate on need. There should also be the ability to negotiate direct payments and state and county triggers should be used rather than a national trigger.
The effort to merge old and new ideas has led to a startling gap in both the House and Senate farm bill proposals, according to state corn leaders. The disaster aid component being offered to fill this gap is insufficient and risky and seems to show little regard for the corn industry, a key economic driver for the nation.
The groups state that the country needs a program that provides assistance when it’s needed most, not one that is in place because it’s always been done that way.
The president doesn’t get to visit all the different departments of the federal government as often as he would like, so it was a pleasure for him to drop in at the US Department of Agriculture this week for the swearing in ceremony of Ed Schafer as new ag secretary.
“The roots of this Department stretch back to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln,” Bush told the assembled USDA employees, cabinet members and congressional representatives. “In 1862, President Lincoln established the first federal agency devoted to agriculture — and he called it “the people’s department.” Nearly a century-and-a-half later, the USDA can still be called “the people’s department.” With your nutrition programs and support for farmers and ranchers, you help ensure that our people are healthy and well fed. With your food safety measures, you give peace of mind to families across America. And with your conservation efforts, you help preserve our natural resources.”
Bush outlined his priorities for agriculture in his last year as president with Ed Schafer as secretary, saying “We will work to make our strong agriculture sector even stronger.”
That includes improving trade and increasing use of energy from agriculture.
“We recognize that farmers also have the potential to help our nation solve one of its greatest challenges — and that is our dependence on foreign oil. I’d much rather our farmers be growing energy than trying to buy from other parts of the world. So we will continue to work for renewable fuels — including a new generation of ethanol and biodiesel.”
Bush also talked about the importance of getting a good farm bill passed “a bill that spends the people’s money wisely, doesn’t raise taxes, reforms and tightens subsidy payments” and threatened to veto any bill that does not meet those qualifications.
Read remarks from Bush and Schafer here.
It’s not every day that the mayor of the nation’s biggest metropolitan area uses a farming analogy to make a point, but that’s what New York’s Michael Bloomberg did today in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. While accepting the National Mayoral Leadership Award for his efforts to combat climate change, Bloomberg launched into a tirade against Congress and the federal government that slammed agriculture in the process.
AP reports the “metropolitan mayor used a farming analogy to heap scorn on the current crop of Washington leaders.” “They spent most of this past decade when things were good running up bills with reckless abandon, and when the economy started heading for the ditch, the special interest giveaways got even bigger. I think they ate the seed corn without worrying about the next year’s crop. Here we are, the seed corn is gone, and all we’ve got is a barn full of IOU’s,” he said.
Ok, so the analogy sort of works (if anyone actually ATE seed corn), but what does the son of Jewish immigrants who grew up in Boston and became a multi-billionaire financial tycoon know about seed corn in the first place? And its not like when Jesus spoke to people using farming parables so they could relate - his audience was a bunch of fellow metropolitan mayors who also probably don’t know seed corn from popcorn.
The comment makes a bit more sense when you read the entire text of Bloomberg’s remarks, which transition from seed corn to attacking the farm and energy bills:
“We all know that spending decisions in Washington are driven by whatever will attract votes and campaign cash. You can see it in the farm bill: 10 percent of farms – the large agribusinesses – captured 75 percent of the benefits, while the small family farmer got a few crumbs. You can see it in the energy bill, which was also a gift to agribusiness – and the rest of us are paying higher food prices as a result.”
Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg would like to see how the people of New York City would fare trying to grow their own food and he could learn first hand what it would be like when the seed corn was gone and the barn was empty.
Senators just finished patting each other on the back for their “tremendous” work in getting both an energy bill and a farm bill passed within 24 hours.
The Senate version of the 2007 Farm Bill made amazing progress overnight after Senators decided it was taking too long to go through even the pared-down list of amendments they had agreed to and they voted to end debate on the bill. Today, 79 senators voted in favor of the bill’s passage, the biggest majority to pass a farm bill since 1973. The number would have been even bigger if the presidential candidates had been there for the vote. Senators Clinton, Obama, Dodd and Biden all said they would have voted for the bill if they had been there.
The bill must now still be reconciled with the House bill before it heads to the president’s desk, with the threat of a veto still likely.
The energy bill was on a roll after passing the House Thursday, but a failed vote to end debate in the Senate puts the bill back in limbo.
In urging Senators to block a vote on the bill, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, argued: “This is not a good bill, but it can be turned into a great bill.”
The White House threatened a veto over the bill which includes increased taxes for oil companies and requires utilities to generate more electricity from sources such as solar and wind energy.
Meanwhile, the Senate got back to work on the farm bill this morning after reaching a deal that will allow 20 amendments from each party.
At last week’s National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention, NCGA President Ron Litterer did a number of interviews including one with me about the farm bill.
In the picture Ron’s being interviewed by one of the many farm broadcasters that came by the NCGA booth.
I asked Ron where things stand from a corn grower perspective. It was really dark in the room so I apologize for the quality of the video but it works. I’m also posting the audio of the interview separately for you.
Listen to Ron Litterer Interview here:
Ron says he feels good that the Senate ag committee has put forward a revenue based proposal but that it would have been nice to see crop insurance integration included. Ron mentions the cloture vote that failed last week so it looks like it’s time for some more debate after the holiday.
Despite initial diplomatic words of praise, Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner does not seem to be very pleased overall with the Farm Bill out of the Senate Agriculture Committee this week.
“I have to note the provisions that raise loan rates and target prices for half a dozen crops,” Conner said in a telephone press conference on Thursday afternoon. “This is just simply bad policy. It paints a bull’s-eye on the backs of the American farmer, causes us enormous trouble internationally. It’s just simply bad farm policy. No reform at all.”
Conner also has major problems with the lack of change in payment limitations. “I will just tell you simply that the administration and I do not understand the unwillingness to take wealthy investors who are simply among the wealthiest of Americans, the top 2 percent of tax-filers in all of our country, off of direct government subsidies. We just simply can’t understand that unwillingness.”
“There’s not enough reform in this, not enough in terms of the AGI limits, not enough in terms of loan rates and target prices, a number of areas that are vital to us,” Conner said. “But we are confident that we can work these things out; that we can work with the members of Congress on this. The president is anxious to sign a farm bill this year and I know producers are anxious to have a farm bill as soon as possible so they can know the rules of the game.”
The country’s largest producer organizations also voiced concerns about the Senate farm bill. The National Corn Growers Association was most disappointed by the passage of an amendment offered by Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan., which stripped the crop insurance integration from the Average Crop Revenue program.
“NCGA is deeply disappointed with this setback,” said NCGA President Ron Litterer. “The amendment makes the revenue proposal a much less attractive option to growers.”
Can we do better? We’ll see, since the bill is far from its final form. It must still be passed by the full Senate and then go to conference, but it is unlikely that we will see any real major reforms. No bill will make everyone happy, but there is definite reluctance on the part of Congress to make any sweeping reforms that might make the U.S. less vulnerable to challenges from world trading partners, institute more fairness among commodities, or to prevent wealthy investors in farmland from reaping subsidy benefits.
But, oh ye of little faith, it did indeed happen this week with a wider margin of votes than any farm bill has ever received. On the House side, 318 members voted in favor of the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2008 passed the House and 81 senators approved it on Thursday. 
“The roots of this Department stretch back to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln,” Bush told the assembled USDA employees, cabinet members and congressional representatives. “In 1862, President Lincoln established the first federal agency devoted to agriculture — and he called it “the people’s department.” Nearly a century-and-a-half later, the USDA can still be called “the people’s department.” With your nutrition programs and support for farmers and ranchers, you help ensure that our people are healthy and well fed. With your food safety measures, you give peace of mind to families across America. And with your conservation efforts, you help preserve our natural resources.”
“They spent most of this past decade when things were good running up bills with reckless abandon, and when the economy started heading for the ditch, the special interest giveaways got even bigger. I think they ate the seed corn without worrying about the next year’s crop. Here we are, the seed corn is gone, and all we’ve got is a barn full of IOU’s,” he said.
In urging Senators to block a vote on the bill, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, argued: “This is not a good bill, but it can be turned into a great bill.”
At last week’s National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention, NCGA President Ron Litterer did a