Food and Farm Friction

by Dan Owens, Thu May 24, 2007 at 06:00:33 AM EDT

Dan Owens is a Rural Policy Organizer at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska. This is part of Farm Bill blogging.

The writing of the 2007 Farm Bill began this week with the release of a series markups by the House Agriculture Subcommittees. Kerry Trueman alerted us here last Sunday that the House Subcommittee on Conservation was poised to introduce a markup that guts the innovative Conservation Security Program. The subcommittee voted Tuesday, and they passed the objectionable legislation as proposed. This move sets the stage for a rancorous debate over conservation funding in the farm bill. It also signals that there may be a larger debate unfolding over how and who will write the 2007 Farm Bill.

First, I'll do a quick overview of what happened this week in the conservation funding debate, then a quick report on the broader implications for this year's farm bill.

To start, it is official. The House Conservation Subcommittee's markup for the 2007 Farm Bill will not include any money for new Conservation Security Program spending for the entire five-year life of the bill.

But it clearly did not have to be this way...

In fact, Representative Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) offered an amendment to provide the necessary funds to keep the Conservation Security Program in business. The Gillibrand amendment drew on the $20 billion "reserve fund" authorized by the House Budget Committee. Unfortunately, Gillibrand was forced to withdraw her amendment without a vote. Why? Because House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) has other ideas for the reserve fund. And it appears he came up with his ideas without asking anyone else.

This is where it gets interesting, and where broader implications for the farm bill debate start to emerge.

On Monday, just one day before the conservation markup was due to be voted on, Peterson announced that he has already spent the reserve fund, and the money will not be available for subcommittees to use fund new programs and spending. The response from other committee members - who were counting on the money to keep their constituents happy - was not one of approval. From Congressional Quarterly:

Aides say members of the House Agriculture Committee are unhappy with how Chairman Collin C. Peterson has handled this year's farm bill so far.
The dissatisfaction intensified last night, aides said, when Peterson told panel members that his draft of the legislation would spend all of a proposed $20 billion "reserve fund" that was meant to pay for new initiatives. The announcement complicated today's subcommittee markup of portions of the bill.
Peterson, D-Minn., told members last night that he had spread out the $20 billion cushion across the draft bill's 10 titles, but he would not tell members where it would go, according to aides. The announcement frustrated both Democrats and Republicans who were counting on those funds to support new programs.

So, committee members who were counting on the reserve fund, are out of luck because Collin Peterson has already spent the extra cash, and he won't even tell them where it's going. As a result, aides from within the committee are expressing their (and their boss's) disappointment with Peterson. That is not an auspicious start for the first day of subcommittee markups.

That is, unless you think the bill should be written on the floor. Then you might agree with Scott Faber of Environmental Defense:

Without more money for land stewardship, the Agriculture Committee may face a revolt when it brings its bill to the House floor, warned Scott Faber of Environmental Defense. "The leadership has to provide more funds for conservation ... Today is a good day for those who want to write the farm bill on the floor," said Faber...

That brings us back to the prospect of writing the farm bill on the floor, which I wrote about last Sunday.

The broader implication of this initial flap over conservation funding could well be that Peterson is both alienating committee members and causing floor-reformers to dig in their heels. If so, this could influence farm bill politics later this summer. Once a proposal is passed over in subcommittee, it is undoubtedly more difficult to pass it at the full committee level. But from a purely legislative perspective, anything that is not be done in subcommittee can still be accomplished when the full Agriculture Committee considers the entire Farm Bill. And you can be sure advocates of a strong Conservation Title will try to amend the bill in full committee before taking their complaints to the floor.

But from Peterson's perspective, goodwill lost and bridges burned today could make his job a lot harder down the road. It does not take many Ag Committee members breaking ranks and joining efforts to rewrite sections of the farm bill on the floor to make a Chairman's life exceedingly difficult.

Tags: Agriculture, Environment, farm bill, rural (all tags)

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More on the Conservation Security Program

You can find more background on the Conservation Security Program and the current funding battle in Sally Jo Sorensen Dispatch from Southern Minnesota.

On her own blog, Bluestem Prairie, Sally also just posted a statement from Representative Time Walz (D-MN). Walz is from Peterson's home state and sits on the Agriculture Committee with him. The statement is indicative of the cracks beginning to emerge on the committee:

You have given us a good starting point with this Chairman's mark and I look forward to debating it and trying to make it even better.

And, in my opinion, there are some places we can make some definite improvements.

One of the biggest problems in my mind is how this Chairman's mark treats the Conservation Security Program.

In preparation for these markups, I held about 14 Farm Bill forums around southern Minnesota. I talked to hundreds of producers about what they liked in the current Farm Bill, what they didn't like, what they wanted to see changed. Now, if you get 100 farmers in a room, you'll be lucky if you can find a single thing they agree on. But, I'll tell you this: they agreed about CSP.

There is almost universal agreement in rural America that the Conservation Security Program represents the direction in which agriculture should move.

Finally, there is a great post at Gristmill from Monday about the implications of Peterson's proposal.

Any lingering illusions that Democratic control of the House would automatically lead to more enlightened agriculture policy crumbled last Thursday, when Rep. Colin Peterson (D-Minn.), chair of the House Agriculture Committee, released the conservation section of his 2007 Farm Bill proposal.

Peterson kicked off the 2007 Farm Bill reauthorization process -- and in the process, kicked the legs out from under one of the country's best agri-environmental programs.

By cutting funding for the Conservation Security Program in his proposal and freezing any new sign-ups until 2012, Chairman Peterson would essentially kill an innovative, green, and forward-looking program that has been lauded by many environmental, family farm, and sustainable food advocates.

Many of us have been waiting for this year's farm bill reauthorization to turn things around, but Thursday's announcement demonstrates the kind of struggle before us: not only does the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee advocate for more taxpayer money going toward a style of agriculture that has negative environmental and social impacts, he does so by taking from a program that actually fosters environmental benefits.

by Dan Owens 2007-05-24 05:56AM | 0 recs

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Re: Food and Farm Friction

How do you get a new House Agriculture Committee chairman?

And who's number 2 for the House Agriculture Committee? Not the Republican the Democrat. Would he/she be any better.

Can we maybe get Walz to be the chair?

by Populista 2007-05-24 08:52AM | 0 recs

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Re: Food and Farm Friction

Tim Holden from Pennsylvania, D-17, is the vice chair of the committee. It is difficult to tell exactly where he stands on a lot of issues, though I think he is probably a little more progressive than Chairman Peterson. Holden doesn't get much press and he doesn't say much about the farm bill. Or, at least he doesn't say much about the farm bill that gets covered in the press, put it that way. I hate to admit it, but I have no idea where he stands on issues not related to the farm bill.

by Dan Owens 2007-05-25 01:36PM | 0 recs

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Re: Food and Farm Friction

This is a rare, possibly unique, situation where the Bush administration is on the right side, and the congressional Dems on the wrong side.

Unless I am missing something, the Bush administration wants to revamp the farm bill to make it more of a conservation bill, and less of a corporate subsidy bill.

People like Peterson will try to block this.

by Mister Go 2007-05-24 09:30AM | 0 recs

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Re: Food and Farm Friction

This is a tough call. Is what the administration proposed earlier this year a better deal for farmers and the country? In the big picture, I'll say that their proposal is better than what is currently dribbling out of Peterson's Ag Committee, but probably not nearly as good as what may come out of the Senate under Tom Harkin.
As proposed by the administration, the $200,000 adjusted gross income limit (AGI) on participation in farm programs sounds good, but isn't really workable. The idea that people making over a certain amount of money shouldn't get subsidy checks has a certain amount of visceral appeal. However, the admin's proposal is for an AGI limit- and to lower AGI you can write off costs such as machinery and land. Perversely, this could actually motivate farmers to expand even more, so they could get under the limit. Or if they're 100,000 over the limit, just buy a new tractor. Then they're fine.
Additionally, the limit is based on an multi year AGI average- 2 years over the limit and you're disqualified for the next year. But what if the next year is a really bad year, but you've got all your cash locked up in land, etc.? Then you could very easily be in a very bad way. The idea of a farmer qualifying for no payments one year and close to half a million the next is a little absurd. Not only that, but the admin proposal puts in the AGI limit while actually increasing the the amount eligible farmers can receive. Not a good thing.
Much easier to enforce is a strict limit on payments themselves. No IRS involved, and you don't have to worry about monkeying around with AGI. Of course, right now there are numerous loopholes in the current payment limits that make them relatively easily to get around. That is what the Grassley-Dorgan payment limits bill will try to fix.
Ironically, Secretary of Ag Johanns said one of the reasons the admin went with the AGI proposal was that payment limits were "hard to enforce". Uh-huh. It is USDA's job to enforce them, and they have consistently refused to write strict regulations or enforce the laws already on the books.
It is true, though, that the administration in general cannot stand farm subsidy programs, as they conflict with their free-market ideals. They have supported Grassley-Dorgan in the past. But they would take the money saved and put it toward deficit reduction or the war. While their conservation proposal was not very good, it was at least tolerable. And their beginning farmer ideas were actually fairly impressive. But they don't much like rural development, and they sure haven't been a friend of food stamps.
In the end, the ideological limits of the Bush administration prevent their advocacy of policy that could have a substantial positive impact on the future of rural America. So progressive groups will occasionally support specific ideas, but will never embrace them entirely.

by Dan Owens 2007-05-26 09:59AM | 0 recs