Wall Street Journal | April 22, 2002 | By DAVID ROGERS, Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- House and Senate farm-bill negotiators struggled through the weekend against a backdrop of election-year politics, highlighted by President Bush's coming trip to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's home state of South Dakota.
Negotiators approved major funding increases for land-conservation programs, including a much-expanded farmlands-protection initiative popular with states working to maintain open space. About $1 billion would be committed to the program during the next 10 years -- double what the House first proposed. Millions more acres would be put into wildlife-habitat and grasslands reserves.
At a 10-year cost of $305 million, negotiators agreed to restore wool, mohair and honey subsidies that had been dropped in the 1996 farm bill. Specialty-crop growers won greater government purchases of surplus fruits and vegetables for school-lunch programs. Both sides agreed a new national dairy program, promising direct payments to producers, seems certain to emerge from the talks.
But the unusual weekend sessions made little headway toward resolving larger issues surrounding subsidies for cotton, corn and other row crops that dominate federal commodity programs. As Mr. Bush plans to head west Wednesday, his aides and Mr. Daschle already are trading shots over who is to blame for the impasse.
While agriculture and trade are the official White House agenda in South Dakota, the president's primary purpose is to rally support for Rep. John Thune, whose campaign to oust Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson is an implicit challenge to Mr. Daschle. Farm-bill politics play heavily in the Thune-Johnson race. Among the four Senate Democratic negotiators, Mr. Daschle has been most firm so far in holding the line against the Republican-controlled House.
"I think we will get a bill," he said after returning from South Dakota Sunday. "There are strongly held feelings on both sides, but hopefully there is more of a desire to get a bill than to make a point."
An estimated $73.5 billion in new 10-year spending is on the table, of which commodity programs account for about $47 billion, or 60%. The two other big pieces are $17 billion for conservation and about $6.4 billion for nutrition programs.
The commodity fight reflects a clash of regions and philosophies, as well as partisan politics. The Senate bill sets a more Midwestern, populist, small-farmer tone by capping annual subsidies and raising loan-price supports to help working producers get operating funds from local banks. The House bill is more conservative and influenced by larger Southern and Californian agricultural interests, which resent any subsidy cap and prefer direct cash payments that can be shared among the multiple partners needed to support a larger cotton or rice farm, for example.
As the Senate presses for higher loan rates, subsidies -- including a new counter-cyclical program favored by the House -- must be trimmed to stay within budget. When the House offered to raise its loan rates last week to try to reach a compromise, it had to cut the target prices that measure the support promised under the counter-cyclical program.
How a farmer sees that choice can vary by climate. Many Midwest producers, with a relatively stable climate and water supply, prefer the loan rate. But a West Texas cotton grower, living in fear of drought, would prefer the target price that promises federal help even if his crop fails.Wall Street Journal:
