CongressDaily
SALT LAKE CITY - Senate Judiciary Chairman Hatch told the National Farmers Union convention here Saturday he will schedule hearings this year on current antitrust laws due to concerns about agricultural concentration. And Senate Agriculture Committee staff director Keith Luse said Agriculture Chairman Lugar also will schedule hearings on the agricultural checkoff programs at either the full or subcommittee level. Hatch said he wants to determine whether the Justice Department is fully enforcing antitrust laws and whether the laws are adequate to meet the needs of producers as well as consumers. Hatch said that, during his now-abandoned presidential campaign, he heard complaints from New England to Iowa, as well as in his home state of Utah, that agribusiness concentration and mergers are reducing the number of customers for farm products and damaging the prospects for family farmers being able to stay in business. "I don't know if federal antitrust laws are being broken, but you have a problem when there is only one potential buyer for agricultural products in a region," he told the group. Hatch declined to say when the hearings will be held. He said farm groups should be "wary" of countercylical payment programs that cause difficult relations with producers in other countries and reduce U.S. farmers' "resiliency," but also said he has an "open mind about the role of price support programs as part of a larger safety net." Hatch said he believes he and Senate Minority Leader Daschle will be able to assemble the votes to pass their bill to allow interstate shipment of meat inspected by state-certified inspectors. Asked about opposition from the American Meat Institute, whose members include the largest packers, Hatch said: "They do better if [shipping] isn't freed up. They have plenty of advantages." He added, "There are friends of mine on both sides." Lugar announced last week he will hold a hearing soon on the Hatch-Daschle bill. Luse did not say when the checkoff hearings would be held. Both beef and pork producers have gathered petitions to hold referendums on their checkoff programs, which mandate that producers pay the checkoff fees once they are put in place. An Agriculture Department panel has recommended periodic referendums be held on the checkoffs, which are used for research and advertising. Zabrae Valentine, the senior agriculture adviser to Daschle, noted Daschle supports periodic referendums. During a panel discussion of agriculture staffers, Luse, Valentine and Senate Agriculture minority staff director Mark Halverson got into a dispute about Lugar's opposition to holding general hearings on farm policy this year. Told by a member of the audience that he was "absolutely appalled" Lugar is refusing to hold hearings, Luse pointed out Lugar had held hearings last August and that some senators who are now demanding hearings did not participate. Halverson and Valentine said the reason Democratic senators did not participate was that the Agriculture appropriations bill was on the floor at the same time. - by Jerry Hagstrom:
