The House and Senate commenced their August recess on Saturday, so we'll dedicate half of this week's Rural Updates to the status of some of the most important pieces of legislation now before Congress. Since the recess is dedicated to in-district work, this month is a good time to contact your lawmakers and weigh in on these important issues. The House Agriculture Committee has reported (voted on) the Combest-Stenholm Farm Bill plan (H.R. 2646). The bill will come to the House floor sometime after the recess. None of the other various proposals, such as Congressman Kind's Working Lands Stewardship Act or Thune and Kaptur's Conservation Security Act, were added in Committee. On the Senate side, the emergency economic aid package (the best chance to secure funding for WHIP, WRP, FPP and several other underfunded programs) failed to gain enough votes to stop a filibuster. The Senate then hastily approved the House version of the aid package, which was $1.9 billion smaller contained no funding for WHIP, WRP or FPP. The remaining funding may still be considered in September. Please tell your Senators over the recess not to abandon these important conservation programs.

For more information, see http://www.familyfarmer.org/alerts/stopzero.html

2. LEGISLATIVE UPDATE #2 ENERGY AND FAST TRACK BILLS

The House of Representatives voted in the wee hours of the night last week to pass an energy bill that has been called a "generous payback on the investment energy companies made in electing their advocates to the Congress and the White House." The bill would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, fails to mandate increases in vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and contains plenty of giveaways to oil and coal companies. Some of these companies have been accused of manipulating the rate of energy delivery to raise prices that consumers pay to run their homes, farms and vehicles. Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Kerry has vowed that the Senate version of the energy bill will look much different from the bill the House passed last week. In somewhat better news, grassroots pressure kept a vote on Fast Track trade authority from coming up before the recess. Fast Track authority would allow the President to negotiate trade agreements that Congress would not be able to amend. 

The Farm Bureau supports Fast Track legislation that doesn't allow the consideration of environmental and labor issues in trade agreements (see Rural Updates, June 26 and July 10). However, demonstrating that the Farm Bureau is not the sole "Voice of Agriculture," over 60 farm and rural life groups have signed a letter asking Congress to oppose Fast Track. 

On July 24, the Natural Resources Defense Council released its report on factory farm pollution, "Cesspools of Shame." The report documents the threats to human health and the environment from an industry that dumps 220 million gallons of animal waste into America's waterways every year. The report criticizes the open-pit manure lagoons and sprayfields that are used by many confined animal feeding operations to handle their waste -- systems which allow nitrogen, phosphorous, pathogens, metals, and antibiotic residues to enter the nation's waterways. The report also describes alternatives to the lagoon and sprayfield system, including wastewater treatment technology and sustainable agricultural practices that prevent pollution. In related news, the New Orleans "Times-Picayune" reported on July 28 that the infamous "dead zone" area of the Gulf of Mexico has reached a record 8006 square miles (an area the size of the state of Massachusetts). The "dead zone" refers to the area where algal blooms have caused oxygen levels to drop so low that no other organisms can survive. The algal blooms occur because of excess nitrogen entering the Gulf from the Mississippi River -- much of it, no doubt, coming from factory farms. 

Results of the 2001 Nebraska Rural Poll were released last week, with some interesting results: 75% of Nebraskans believe that federal support payments should continue in some form, but 73% of these agreed that annual payments should be limited, to $36,000 (non-farm respondents) to $61,000 (farm respondents). Over half of respondents agreed that: farm payments should be based upon the level of conservation practices undertaken by the producer, meat packing firms should be prohibited from livestock feeding, a moratorium on agribusiness mergers and acquisitions should be enacted, and short-term conservation measures should be permitted in times of grain surplus. Only 10% opposed a voluntary farmer-owned grain reserve, an idea opposed by the Farm Bureau in their 1998 Policy Statement. 

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