It is the plan of the Chairman that the House Agriculture Committee will be on a dual legislative track. The first will be legislation that will provide support for agricultural commodities for the 2001 crop. The Budget Agreement provides $5.5 billion for this purpose. These funds will have to be spent by USDA by October 1, 2001. In order to accomplish this the Chairman believes that a bill must be on the presidents desk for signature before the August recess. We anticipate that the House Agriculture Committee as well as the Senate Agriculture Committee will be but the outlines of this legislation together very soon. While the budget agreement allocates $5.5 billion in FY 2001 for this purpose it does not prohibit the committee from adopting assistance programs for 2001 crops above this level as long as the payments are made after October 1, 2001. It is the Chairman Combest's hope that the Congress will send to the President a bill that includes all federal support for 2001 crops including those paid from FY 2001 funds and those that are funded by FY 2002 money. Of course any FY 2002 funds used for this purpose would not be available for agricultural spending during FY 2002-FY 2011.

Looking at the budget agreement, the Committee has within the budget $168.2 billion of mandatory spending authority for FY 2002 -FY 2011. This figure will be lower if funds from the pool are used for commodity support for 2001 crops. At the meeting today Staff Director Bill O'Connor and Deputy Staff Director Tom Sell explained that under the current baseline for FY 2002-2011 there is $94.7 billion. This is broken down into two categories of mandatory spending, $21.6 billion in CRP EQUIP and WRP and $77.1 billion in commodity support. The budget agreement added another additional $73.5 billion to the FY 2002-FY 2011 baseline. The budget resolution divides this additional money into two segments $3.5 billion or 350 million a year for conservation and $70 billion for commodity support. The committee is not bound to the $350 million a year for mandatory conservation spending they can spend more or they can spend less. So the Agriculture Committee begins the process of writing a multi-year farm bill with $168.2 billion in spending authority and more flexibility than with previous farm bills.

As I have reported in previous "Notes" all of the Commodity groups have appeared before the full House Agriculture Committee and testified as to what programs and policies they would like to see in the next farm bill and to provide for the Committee an analysis of the cost to the federal government. These hearings are complete and the House committee staff has gone back and taken a collective look to discover that additional funding requests from commodity organizations far exceed the additional funds provided by the budget resolution. The budget resolution provided $79 billion in additional funds for FY 2001-FY 2011. When they staff added up the mandatory spending request provided to the committee they totaled conservatively $261 billion over the baseline for FY 2001-FY 2011 and that is just what the commodity organizations asked for. Clearly some choices and decisions will have to be made. Bill said "it would be very helpful if you let us know what are the priorities among your priorities".

Chairman Combest plans to begin mark-up of the Farm Bill in July. If possible he would like to report out all titles of the multi-year farm bill before the August recess. However the mandatory spending programs as set forth in the budget agreement are his priority. In the next several weeks it is his hope that a bi-partisan framework will emerge on which the Committee can hold hearings the last two weeks of June. They would expect to hear from any organization or group that wished to comment on their "committee working document". Following the hearings the Full Committee would begin to mark-up the bill. The Committee mark-ups are scheduled for July 25-31 and August 1-3. The Chairman has informed all House Agriculture Committee members that they should plan on being in Washington Monday through Friday for all of July. It is his intentions to have business meetings and mark-ups Monday through Friday in necessary to meet the timetable.

While this is a very ambitious timeframe it has several checkpoints that will give us an early indication as to its success. The first being the "committee discussion draft". If this materializes in early June and is met favorably there is a very good possibility that the Chairman's timetable, particularly with regard to mandatory spending programs can be accomplished. I would bet on the Chairman.

In the Senate there has not been the same level of activity as in the House as it pertains to multi-year agricultural policy. However, the Senate Committee staff has begun to discuss what type of support will be needed for the 2001 crops. In addition at the hearing of Dr. J.B. Penn to be Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services , Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Lugar (R-IN) said "We will need to pick up the pace of things" . Dr. Penn responded that the department will likely not provide the Administration with a "full-blown" proposal for a multi-year farm bill, but would develop a book of principles that the Administration can send to Congress to serve as a guide for replacing the Freedom to Farm Act which expires in 2002.

The action is definitely in the House this summer.

FRAN BOYD
WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE
412 FIRST STREET
WASHINGTON, D.C.