The Wall Street Journal-20080215-Bipartisan Farm-Bill Plan Offers an End to Stalemate
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Bipartisan Farm-Bill Plan Offers an End to Stalemate
Full Text (456 words)WASHINGTON -- With the Bush administration's blessing, key lawmakers are pushing a plan that could break a logjam that has threatened an overhaul of federal farm programs.
The plan, advanced by House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) and Virginia Rep. Robert Goodlatte, the panel's senior Republican, would provide for $6 billion in farm-spending increases during the next 10 years.
The new money would be concentrated in a few programs, among them nutrition initiatives, such as food stamps for low-income families, and development of renewable energy, especially next-generation biofuels.
But the proposed increase is half of what the Democratic-controlled House had previously supported, raising alarms among commodity groups that had anticipated divvying up a much larger pot.
In a letter sent yesterday to Reps. Peterson and Goodlatte, a coalition of more than two dozen farm groups, such as the Alabama Peanut Producers Association and the United Dairymen of Arizona, expressed concern that the scaled-back funding will "strain the safety net for American agriculture."
The groups warned that reduced funding might create problems, especially if the farm economy softens. "We should learn from the past," the groups said. "Markets move."
However, the overture by the two lawmakers appears likely to defuse a looming conflict with the White House, which had threatened to veto the previous version of the House farm bill. This week, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer praised the Peterson-Goodlatte proposal, saying its funding limits "represent the real reform sought by the administration."
Under the House's 10-year proposal, spending on basic farm commodities such as corn wouldn't change much, congressional aides said. But the measure would end payments for farmers with more than $900,000 a year in adjusted gross income, among other things. To save money, it would suspend for one year -- 2016 -- the direct income support received by all commodity farmers.
Lawmakers are working against a self-imposed March 15 deadline to renew farm programs that were last overhauled in 2002.
The House's bipartisan proposal, which reflects several weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations with the White House, is intended to jump-start stalled negotiations with the Senate on the farm bill.
Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin welcomed the overture. The Iowa Democrat said he expected the House and Senate eventually will be able to agree on key policy issues, such as how to control payments to wealthy farmers. But he said there is wide support from both parties in the Senate for spending increases beyond the House's 10-year, $6 billion proposal.
Mr. Harkin declined to say how much additional money would be needed, but he indicated that the funding issue is a flashpoint in coming negotiations.
"We're driving a pretty hard bargain over here on the Senate side," Mr. Harkin said. "We have a lot of votes."
