Fort Worth Star Telegram | December 2, 2001 | By JOHN MORITZ; Star-Telegram Austin Bureau
AGRICULTURE: Texas farmers are urging Congress to pass a new subsidy package before adjourning for the year.
AUSTIN - Texas farmers desperately need Congress to pass a new agriculture subsidy bill before the holiday recess to offset several years of hard times, an official with the Texas Farm Bureau says.
"Simply put, it's life or death for Texas farmers that they pass a farm bill," said Steve Pringle, a lobbyist for the Texas Farm Bureau, which begins its four-day annual meeting in Waco today. "They can put our folks out of business overnight without a bill." In October, the House approved a $170 billion measure that would subsidize mostly grain, soybean and cotton farmers in the Plains states and Texas over 10 years.
A similar measure is awaiting a floor vote in the Senate, but both versions have been heavily criticized by President Bush and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman because they would raise subsidy rates as much as 20 percent.
The payments are triggered when commodity prices fall below certain levels. The current farm bill, enacted in 1996, expires next year.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle plans to bring the bill to the floor as early as Monday, despite a threatened filibuster by some Senate Republicans.
Daschle, D-S.D., said he wants the Senate to pass a bill before year's end because there is a chance that the nation's economic outlook might further deteriorate by 2002 and lawmakers might feel pressured to give farmers lower subsidies, said spokesman Jay Carson.
"That is certainly a major consideration," Carson said. "Senator Daschle believes that the legislation currently pending in the Senate is the best stimulus package for rural America."
Pringle said Texas farmers are expected to receive about 20 percent of the farm subsidies.
"Our position is, let the Senate vote and send the bill to the conference committee, and hopefully what emerges will be acceptable to all sides," Pringle said. "The important thing is that we keep moving forward."
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combes said she supports "a good safety net" for an industry battered by drought over the past five years.
"In Texas, no one could have predicted that our farmers and ranchers would enter into a drought in 1996 ... and still be suffering tremendous losses," Combes said. "Since 1996, drought has taken a $5 billion bite out of our farmers' and ranchers' pocketbooks."
The Bush administration favors a GOP farm bill that has lower subsidy rates and would provide assistance to a broader range of farmers. The Republican plan would set up subsidized IRA-style savings accounts that would let farmers sock away income in good years to use when crops or prices are poor. Critics of the savings plans say farmers don't have spare income to put into them.
The 312,000-member Texas Farm Bureau meets through Wednesday and will hear from several candidates for statewide offices that are being contested in 2002.
This report includes material from The Associated Press.
John Moritz, (512) 476-4294 jmoritz@star-telegram.com
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