The Wichita Eagle | By Alan Bjerga | June 17, 2002 WASHINGTON _ Disaster aid, a staple of farm budgets over the past five years, could be a much tougher political sell this year despite crop-destroying droughts across the Great Plains.
One month after a $248 billion, 10-year farm aid package passed Congress, senators are already discussing emergency assistance this year to hard-hit farmers from Montana to Texas.
But dismay over the size of the new farm bill and concerns about growing federal deficits could make disaster aid impossible to pass this year. "We have a difficult hill to climb," said U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. "The perception in Washington is that the farm bill by itself should take care of farmers."
The Agriculture Department is still sorting out details of the farm bill Congress passed last month. The bill's size ballooned with every federal estimate, causing ill will over what critics consider lavish spending in an economic downturn.
But as parts of Kansas, Colorado and the Dakotas head toward their worst drought conditions in generations, farm-state lawmakers have called for more money.
In a recent Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on emergency assistance, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that despite the substantial funding-base increase in the new bill, farmers will actually receive less money than they did before without additional payments.
Moran, whose district is in the midst of extreme drought, said crops simply don't exist in many dry areas.
"The reality is, many areas of western Kansas are in drought for the second or third year," he said. "Farmers can survive one year of drought, but a second year of extreme dryness makes conditions awful."
Even so, Congress might be feeling farm fatigue this year after the divisive farm-bill debate. The bill has become a lightning rod among groups criticizing government waste and the federal approach to farm programs.
Anne Keys monitors agriculture policy for the Environmental Working Group, which has called for major changes in federal farm policy.
Keys said that, after decades of programs that have driven crop prices down and made it tougher for small farmers to make ends meet without bailouts, it's time for the spending spiral to end.
The Bush administration is also skeptical of a disaster bill, which it maintains would put an unnecessary dent in a tight federal budget. An attempt to tack more aid onto the 2002 federal supplemental spending bill drew an administration policy statement saying the farm bill is sufficient to protect against natural disasters.
But assistance hopes remain alive in the Senate, where every member has a rural constituency to deal with. Farm-state lawmakers of both parties are looking for ways to further disaster aid, possibly in this year's agriculture appropriations bill or as a stand-alone bill.The Wichita Eagle:
