| WASHINGTON -- Democrats forced a new farm bill through a Senate
committee Thursday after giving Southern senators more money for big farms
and adding a dairy program that could raise retail milk prices.
Republicans said the spending will stimulate price-depressing surpluses
of subsidized crops and may break the budget.
The Senate Agriculture Committee approved the bill's subsidy section
12-9 with the support of one Republican, Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who
is up for re-election next year in a major agricultural state. The panel
rejected a Republican alternative backed by the Bush administration.
Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, a fierce critic of the Republican
''Freedom to Farm'' policy enacted five years ago, called the Senate bill
a ''nudge'' to existing subsidy programs.
''We're not going to make any sharp turns. We have to keep our farmers
going,'' the Iowa Democrat said.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the bill was a ''step back to the
past.'' Increases in subsidy rates are bound to encourage overproduction,
he said.
The legislation could go to the Senate floor the week after
Thanksgiving. It faces a series of amendments there, including one that
would shift billions in crop subsidies into conservation programs.
The legislation would cost $174 billion over 10 years, by Harkin's
estimate, $4 billion more than a farm bill passed by the House last month.
Both bills would continue to direct the bulk of subsidies to farmers who
grow wheat, corn, cotton, rice and soybeans and add new crops such as
peanuts.
The Senate bill has more spending for conservation programs and food
stamps.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest, R-Texas, said the
Senate measure exceeded the spending limits in this year's congressional
budget agreement. Harkin denied that, but congressional budget analysts
have not finished totaling the cost of the Senate bill.
To win approval of the committee's southern Democrats, Harkin dropped
his effort to cut payments to big grain and cotton farms, added money for
rice and peanuts and offered new subsidies for lentils and chickpeas.
Under the bill, farms will still be allowed to collect crop subsidies
in unlimited amounts, and they could get another $200,000 in payments
under two other income-support programs.
Critics of farm subsidies, including the Bush administration, say they
encourage overproduction and drive up land rents, which they contend makes
it difficult for small farms to survive.
''We're just moving in the direction of subsidizing big farms to drive
other farmers and ranchers out of business,'' said Chuck Hassebrook of the
Center for Rural Affairs, an advocacy group.
The dairy program, added to the bill to win the support of Sen. Patrick
Leahy, D-Vt., probably will generate wide opposition.
The program would guarantee dairy farmers minimum returns for their
milk in every region of the country, much as a pricing system did in New
England before it expired in September. One independent analysis estimates
the system would cost consumers $1.8 billion more a year.
Both the Senate and House bills set up new ''countercyclical'' subsidy
programs that provide special payments to farmers when commodity prices
are below target levels. The Senate measure would guarantee wheat farmers
$3.45 a bushel, corn growers $2.35 a bushel, cotton growers 68 cents a
pound and soybean farmers $5.07 a bushel.
The 1996 farm bill ended a Depression-era system of production controls
and scaled back on price-based subsidies. Commodity prices dropped sharply
in 1998, and Congress has responded with billions in additional assistance
each year.
The Republican plan proposed Thursday by Roberts and Sen. Thad Cochran,
R-Miss., had lower price guarantees than the Democrats' but offered higher
fixed payments and also would have given farmers money to deposit into
IRA-type savings accounts.
The Senate committee narrowly approved an amendment by Sen. Paul
Wellstone, R-Minn., that would require meat, lamb and produce to be
labeled with the country of origin. U.S. farmers believe the labels would
discourage consumption of imported food. |