Lori Glenn
May 08, 2008 10:31 pm
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MOULTRIE — An agreement was made Thursday by the conference committee to present a $300 billion farm bill to the Senate and House for consideration next week. If it passes, the conference report will be sent to the president for his consideration, but Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., doesn’t think it likely President Bush will sign it into law even though he said the conference committee made strides to bend to his concerns.
The conference was long and frustrating at times, Chambliss said in a telephone press conference. However at others, it has been rewarding, he said.
“This is a very balanced farm bill. I think the president has a lot of reasons why he can sign it. Certainly, there are concerns on the part of the White House relative to the bill itself from a number of different prospectives, but what we have sought to do in a very bipartisan way is to move as close to the president’s concerns and positions as we could without compromising the overall safety net, and at the end of the day I don’t know what the president is going to do. He never directly told me that he’s going to veto this bill,” he said.
However, Chambliss doesn’t get the sense that there’s not a great chance he’s going to sign it.
“At the end of the day, we wanted to craft a bill that is a very strong bill that reflects the needs and concerns of farmers and ranchers all across America concerning a real safety net and at the same time provide real incentives to produce alternative energy and also good stewards of the land. I think we’ve done that,” he said.
“The White House thinks we’re spending too much money on this bill. This bill was intended to be $10 billion above the baseline, which was agreed to by the leadership of the House and the leadership of the Senate. The White House never concurred in that $10 billion, but that’s not their main objection. Their objection on spending is that it goes above $10 billion,” he said.
There were timing shifts so that crop insurance payments might be made to save the federal government a significant amount of money, he said. The president has said that the farm bill draft goes above $10 billion.
“The fact is we disagree about it,” he said. “...We have addressed each and every one of those concerns. We have not given the president exactly what he wanted, but we have moved very much in a direction toward the president. For example, with payment limits, they wanted a hard cap of no more than $500,000. Well, we’ve done that for non-farmers. We don’t have a $500,000 hard cap for farmers, but we moved in his direction.”
The general provisions “somewhat mirror” the 2002 farm bill, he said. The structure of the commodity title also is similar to the 2002 farm bill in that included are direct payments, marketing loan provisions and countercyclical provisions that kick in times where prices are low and yields are difficult. Chambliss said he doesn’t predict much payments needed this year or next year because prices of all commodities are as high as they’ve ever been, “certainly in my lifetime.”
The new farm bill does make a significant change in payment limit provisions in the commodity title. It cuts back the adjusted gross income limit from $2.5 million to $750,000 per producer. It eliminates the three entity rule, but it would allow a producer’s spouse, however, to qualify for payments if that person in involved in production, he said. The bill eliminates certificates but provides for direct attribution.
“Those are major, and I emphasize, major changes and reforms to the payment limit provision,” he said.
For non-farmers, those with an income of adjusted gross income $500,000 or more are not eligible to participate in farm programs.
“We’ve got a lot of criticism over the years for non-farmers receiving payments under farm bills. Some of that’s been justified, and some of that has not been. Suffice it to say, we’ve made a major move toward the White House in this issue,” he said.
Non-farmers are important to the way farmers operate in the Southeast, he said. The measure, however, will hurt farmers who can’t pay cash rent for the extra land they need for their operations, he said.
Farmers with income exceeding $750,000 on a three-year average would lose direct payments. Farmers with incomes of any amount can participate in marketing loan program and countercyclical program, which allow the federal government to achieve significant savings over projected expenditures, he said.
No changes in loan rates or target prices were made in cotton and peanuts, he said. The bill also provides for a mechanism to ensure handling and associated costs are not deducted from a producer’s loan rate, he said.
Peanuts, which grow under ground and contribute to the nitrogen content of soil, would participate with the proper rotation in the security provision in the conservation title.
The bill contains a new specialty crops provision, which will benefit Southeastern farmers. There are still no subsidies for fruit and vegetable growers, but the bill includes grants and loans for research projects. There is $466 million in mandatory funding for Specialty Crop Block Grants; provides $230 million in a new Specialty Crop Research Initiative; invests $377 million to address pest and disease management and disaster prevention; provides $20 million to establish a national network of diagnostic centers to ensure safe root stocks for nursery crops; invests $5 million for organic data collection and provides $22 million in new money to help farmers transition into organic production.
The bulk of farm bill spending goes to nutrition programs while the commodity title received less 14 percent of the overall funding. That’s a dramatic cut from the 2002 bill in which the commodity title comprised 28 percent of funding, he said.
This farm bill added more than $10 billion for nutrition assistance and food aid programs including $1 billion for Chambliss’ Food Stamp Savings and Investment Act to exempt IRS-approved retirement and education savings accounts as countable assets to encourage long-term self-sufficiency. The bill improves the asset limit and indexed that limit so that people who need food stamps have better access to them. It also provides $1.2 billion in new funding to support local food banks and expands the Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program for school children.
“I’ve had a very keen interest in nutrition title. I think we are behind in our updating of the food stamp program. It’s been somewhat controversial particularly for conservatives like me, but we made great strides in eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the food stamp program. Unfortunately, we have not really upgraded that program from an operational standpoint in 20 years,” he said.
The conservation title was expanded by $4 billion, including an expansion of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. However, it decreased Conservation Reserve Program acres to “mirror the reality” that an increasing number of CRP acres are shifting to production because of the high price of commodities, he said.
The energy title invests $320 million for a new loan guarantee program for the development and construction of commercial-scale biorefineries; provides $300 million in the Bioenergy Program to provide assistance to biofuel production plants for the purchase of feedstocks; provides $118 million for biomass research and development efforts; reauthorizes and provides $250 million for grants and loan guarantees for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects; and authorizes a new program, the Biomass Crop Assistance Program to help producers transition to new energy crops for biofuel production, a press release from the Senate agriculture committee said.
“One of the main aspects of our energy title is that we are not seeking to incentivize the production alternative fuels, particularly ethanol from corn. We don’t need to incentivize that. The incentive is already there. So, we are seeking to move away from corn-resource to cellulosic-based ethanol. There are a number of programs to provide, for example, somebody who’s willing to make a commitment to growing cellulosic crops whether it’s switchgrass or whatever they crop may be,” he said.
“There will be a year or so where they may not receive any income from growing that crop and they’re going to have to sacrifice,” he said.
The bill improves the Rural Utilities Service Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program to deploy broadband Internet service to rural America; provides $120 million in funding for the large backlog of water and waste water projects; provides $15 million for the Rural Microenterprise Assistance Program to help assist small businesses in rural areas; and creates the SouthEast Crescent Authority, which encourages economic development in Georgia and throughout the Southeast, the press release said.
A new livestock title establishes a catfish grading and inspection program in the Department of Agriculture; incorporates an industry compromise that provides for mandatory COOL for meat, chicken, produce, peanuts, pecans and macadamia nuts and addresses several of the implementation cost concerns; incorporates an industry compromise to encourage the interstate shipment of state inspected meat and makes arbitration voluntary for livestock and poultry producers.
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