Senate Farm Bill
Timeline
October 31, 2001
Work on the Senate Farm Bill proposal began in the
Agriculture Committee on Wednesday, October 31. Committee
Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) released his bill, the Agriculture,
Conservation and Rural Enhancement Act of 2001 (S. 1628). The
committee began a piecemeal process of considering the eleven
titles of the bill, marking up the Credit title on October 31.
Senator Harkin’s credit title has been praised by farm
advocates for spending $50 million on credit measures and making
it easier for beginning farmers to borrow money to purchase a
farm. This title passed unanimously.
November 6, 2001
The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday gave its approval
to the Forestry and Energy titles of the Chairman Harkin’s
Agriculture, Conservation and Rural Enhancement Act of 2001. A
new addition to the Farm Bill this title was strongly supported
by Senators Lugar and Wellstone as well. The title includes $100
million per year in mandatory funding to:
- Encourage the production and federal purchase of
biomass-based alternatives to petroleum products
- expand on-farm and cooperative renewable energy generation
(biomass, wind, solar and fuel cells) with competitive
grants, loans, grants and research funding
- Assist farmers, ranchers and rural businesses to and
become more energy efficient.
The title also contains a research and demonstration program
for carbon sequestration.
The Forestry title, also approved by the committee on
Tuesday, establishes outreach, grants and cost-share assistance
to promote sustainable forestry. It also includes a forest
management program to enhance drinking water supplies and
re-authorizes the Forestry Incentives Program and the
international forestry program. The Committee also added
measures to establish fire research centers, a local forest fire
fighting measure, and a provision that would allow wood that is
deemed to be a fire hazard to be removed from public and private
forest lands and used in biomass energy facilities. The latter
measure is somewhat controversial because it could open the door
to increased logging, the grants are directed toward power
plants, and the measure subsidizes transporting forest products
over long distances, which could actually end up wasting energy.
November 7, 2001
Today the Senate Agriculture Committee passed the Trade title
of the Farm Bill. Provisions in this title include
reauthorization of the Market Access Program for export of U.S.
produce, with funding at $190 million per year ($10 million less
than the House figure). The bill also extends credit to
importing countries, expands the list of practices that are
considered to be unfair trade practices, and contains a
provision to promote biotech foods abroad, expand food exports
for international aid purposes, and seeks to renew food exports
to Cuba.
November 8, 2001
Today the Senate marked up the Rural Development and Research
Titles of the Farm Bill.
The Rural Development title includes provisions to expand
rural broadband access, water facilities, community-based value
added enterprises and local business and economic development
provisions.
November 13, 2001
Senator Harkin’s Competition Title was struck from the Farm
Bill on Tuesday, by a vote of 12-9. Democrats Lincoln (AR) and
Miller (GA) joined all the Republicans on the Committee (Lugar,
Helms, Cochran, McConnell, Roberts, Fitzgerald, Thomas, Allard
Hutchinson and Crapo) to kill the title. An attempt by Senator
Wellstone to ban packer ownership of livestock also failed.
Thomas (WY) was the only Republican that voted in favor of a
ban, while Democrats Lincoln, Miller and Nelson (NE) voted
against it. These proposals would have been an important first
step in improving the conditions faced by family farmers
battling colossal agribusiness interests for their fair share of
the food dollar. Moreover, rejection of these important
proposals represents tacit endorsement by the committee of a
pattern of vertical integration, consolidation and
overproduction that often makes farmers sharecroppers on their
own land, spreads urban sprawl, degrades air and water quality
and turns America’s heartlands into economic and social
wastelands.
Predictably, those leading the charge against the competition
provisions were the very same agribusiness interests that
created the current situation. "We believe existing laws
adequately ensure that [a strong, free and fair] marketplace
continues," wrote agribusiness giants Monsanto, Tyson
Foods, Smithfield Foods, and Cargill. Other signatories to
competition title opposition letters include the following
commodity groups (followed by the % of the market controlled by
the top four firms in that industry, as determined by Dr.
William Heffernan and Dr. Mary Hendrickson): National Cattlemen’s
Beef Association (79%), National Pork Producer’s Council
(57%), National Chicken Council (49%), National Turkey
Federation (42%), National Grain Trade Council (62%), Corn
Refiners Association (57%-74%), American Soybean Association
(80%), and the Grocery Manufacturers of America (42% and
climbing, as estimated by Albert Foer of the American Antitrust
Institute). Hope remains that the title can be re-instated on
the Senate floor.
Multi-organization Competition Title statements:
November 14, 2001
The Nutrition Title of Senator Harkin's Farm bill passed
unanimously on Wednesday afternoon, after an alternate proposal
offered by Senator Lugar failed 9-12. Senator Harkin's title
simplifies the eligibility requirements and application process,
bringing them in line with the requirements for welfare and
Medicaid. His proposal also increases food stamp spending by
$6.2 billion over 10 years (above the 10-year baseline of $240
billion). Senator Lugar's proposal would have added $4 billion
more than Harkin's bill, but failed when Helms (NC), Hutchinson
(AR) and all Democrats except
Wellstone (MN) voted against it.
November 15, 2001
Legislative staffers worked late into the night to hammer out
a compromise Conservation Title that passed unanimously on
Thursday morning. The bipartisan conservation amendment that
was adopted by the Committee today
retains many of the good features of Chairman Harkin's original
proposal: it contains a conservation security program to reward
farmers for stewardship practices
on their working lands, adds 250,000 acres per year to the
Wetlands Reserve Program, establishes a Grasslands Reserve
Program and retains a (somewhat weakened) long-term and permanent
easements program under the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program.
Unfortunately, the title was marred by the lifting of the CAFO
eligibility caps under the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program. This move, a clear capitulation to the factory farms,
transforms a good environmental program into a subsidy cash cow
for mega-operations to receive huge sums of money
to construct unsafe and unsanitary manure handling lagoons. The
new EQIP is still somewhat better than the House provision in
that it requires a nutrient management plan and closes some of
the loopholes to prevent operations from receiving multiple
payments.
After finishing the Conservation title, the Committee tackled
the Commodities Title. AMTA payments and loan rates were the
topics of the hour. Republicans on the Committee offered a
proposal that would have kept loan rates the same, increased
AMTA payments, and initiated farmer savings accounts. This
measure failed on a party line vote, with Lugar abstaining. The
Committee then passed a measure that raises loan rates and
gradually lowers AMTA payments. This proposal was based on
Harkin's original Commodity title, but adds $11 billion in
peanut, sugar and dairy programs. It passed by a nearly
party-line vote, with all Democrats and Hutchinson (AR) voting
in favor. Neither proposal provides for supply management or
reserves, and the final commodity title will likely exceed
budget constraints. A proposal offered by Senator
Dayton, which provided even higher loan rates and was supported
by National Farmers Union, also failed. The Senate also passed
miscellaneous provisions before reporting the entire bill.
Provisions adopted here include an organic certification
cost-share program and mandatory country-of-origin labeling for
produce and meats. |