National Journal's CongressDaily / March 30, 2001 / By Jerry Hagstrom
The FY02 budget resolution passed Wednesday by the House includes a provision to provide more money for agriculture--but the process caused a split between House Agriculture Chairman Combest and ranking member Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, and is pitting crop growers against livestock producers.
The measure would give agriculture access to the $514 billion Strategic Reserve Fund for both emergency spending for this year and for a higher budget allocation through 2011--if the House Agriculture Committee passes a bill to reauthorize the commodity title of the 1996 farm bill before July 11.
Combest in a statement Wednesday praised the House resolution.
"By summer, the Agriculture Committee will present a long-range commodity program based on the consensus of farm groups' specific plans that will determine the budget needs recommended by the Agriculture Committee," Combest said.
But Combest told Reuters Thursday that "if everything went right" the House Agriculture Committee could complete the entire farm bill by July 11. If not, he said work on the rest of the bill would continue after the July 11 deadline. Combest also said that he would not send "anything less than a full bill" to the House floor.
But the prospects for such speedy action on a full farm bill-- including nutrition, research, rural development and conservation titles--appear so unlikely that livestock groups are concerned about passage of a title benefiting crop producers without a title that benefits them.
Leaders of groups such as the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council worry that there will not be enough money left to pay for the conservation programs they want in the farm bill. National Cattlemen's Beef Association lobbyist Chandler Keys said Thursday that livestock groups understand the pressures on the Agriculture Committee, but would request a "place marker" for conservation spending.
Agricultural lobbyists said they have been urged to trust Combest and House Budget Chairman Nussle, who wrote the provision, because the two chairmen are trying to obtain funds for agriculture.
In the Senate, neither Senate Agriculture Chairman Lugar nor ranking member Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has shown interest in taking up the commodity title at an early point in the farm bill debate.
Senate Agriculture Committee staff director Keith Luse has told CongressDaily that Lugar is most likely to mark up either the conservation, research or rural development title this year, but wants to hold hearings on the range of titles in the bill.
Stenholm told a policy conference this week that he disagrees with the Combest and Nussle approach of passing a commodity title alone. Stenholm did not mention the livestock groups' opposition--but said the next farm bill must help address "water quality" issues to avoid a confrontation between "landowners and consumers" that could lead to restrictions on private property.
Copyright 2001 The National Journal Group, Inc.:
