Posted by: Phillip Fraas
July 30, 2007
Topic: REPORTS ON FARM BILL STATUS--Second Half of 2007

Last Friday, July 27, the House of Representatives passed the 2007 farm bill by a vote of 231 yeas to 191 nays. The closeness of the vote reflected Republican unhappiness with the tax increase/closure of a tax loophole added to the bill by the House leadership to fund new farm bill programs and priorities.

The farm bill now goes to the Senate for its consideration; and recent reports have it that the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa), will draft his "chairman's mark" over the August recess and schedule committee mark-up of the farm legislation in early to mid-September. If things unfold under that scenario, the full Senate could take up bill in late September or early October, and the House and Senate would then meet to resolve their differences on the bill later in October. 

HOUSE COMMITTEE BILL GOT THROUGH FLOOR DEBATE MOSTLY UNSCATHED: While House Republicans strongly opposed final passage of the farm bill because of the tax provision, during the floor debate on the legislation, they joined Democrats on handily defeating most amendments that would have done any damage to the substance of the bill drafted by the agriculture committee. An amendment offered by Cong. Ron Kind (D.-Wisc.), which would have substantially revised the farm and commodity support provisions that are the heart of any farm bill, went down by a vote of 309 to 117.  More narrowly focused amendments to cut back on loan deficiency payments, sugar program benefits, cotton direct payments, and crop insurance administrative subsidies also failed by substantial margins.

LAST-MINUTE ADD-ONS TO THE COMMITTEE BILL HELPED ITS CHANCES: After the agriculture committee reported the farm bill to the full House on July 24, several provisions were added that strengthened the bill's appeal to members who might not have been inclined to support it otherwise. The insertion into the bill of the above-mentioned revenue-raising measure made it possible to increase spending on nutrition programs by $4 billion and biomass energy programs by $2.5 billion. Close to $1 billion in crop insurance spending was switched to additional nutrition program funding. And, a break-through compromise to implement country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for meat and poultry products was reached at the last minute and tacked onto the bill, as was a proposal to enable African-American farmers to seek damages for USDA discrimination, a measure strongly supported by the Congressional Black Caucus.

HOW THE HOUSE BILL WILL FARE IN THE SENATE: It is hard to predict at this point how much of the House farm bill that the Senate will accept when it considers the legislation. In general, the sentiment in the Senate agriculture committee seems to be much the same as was evident in the House agriculture committee--farmers are relatively happy with existing farm programs and policies, and so there is no momentum for a drastic rewrite of current programs.  

Senate Chairman Harkin, however, has already thrown down the gauntlet on conservation. He long has been a champion of soil and water conservation programs, and is especially supportive of the Conservation Security Program (CSP), a USDA "working lands" conservation program. The House bill limited funding for the CSP, and Harkin commented late last week that, "most notably, the House bill did serious damage to conservation."  One can expect the Senate agriculture committee to consider a substantially different approach than the House on conservation.

Also, the Republican opposition to the House bill's revenue-raiser seems to run deep, and it is extremely doubtful that there are the votes in the House or the Senate to overcome the veto threat that already has surfaced because of it. Thus, the Senate can be expected to look for an entirely different approach to fund new farm bill spending.  At this point, however, I have not heard of any alternative funding approach that has surfaced. A good alternative will be hard to find.

Thus, it can fairly be said that, while the House agriculture committee had a very difficult job in getting a consensus on a farm bill that could garner a majority in the urban-dominated House, the Senate agriculture committee will have an equally difficult job patching together a winning coalition on farm policy and solving the knotty funding problem in that body. In short, the farm bill process remains a challenge, but the challenge has moved to new venue.

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