Dairy Title Of New Farm Bill Approved By House Ag Panel
An updated
dairy program title for the 2007 farm bill was approved Thursday by the House
Agriculture Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Subcommittee, but the panel did not act
on a number of agricultural market enforcement measures some farm groups are
seeking.
One of the biggest changes was the subcommittee's adoption of a
proposal from the National Milk Producers Federation to change the target price
for government support from one based on milk alone to one based on other dairy
products, because it considers basing support on milk prices alone to be
outdated.
Under the current program, the government purchases enough
dairy products to keep the price of milk at $9.90 per hundredweight. Under the
new proposal, it would make enough purchases to support the price of cheddar
cheese in blocks at $1.13 per pound, cheddar cheese in barrels at $1.10 per
pound, butter at $1.05 per pound and nonfat dry milk at 80 cents per
pound.
Subcommittee members did not take any action to extend the Milk
Income Loss Contract program because the future baseline funding for that
program will not be assured until the
The new title also would make permanent a pilot dairy
forward-pricing program in which producers agree to provide future production to
processors at a set price. Dairy processors like the program because it helps
them better fix costs, but dairy cooperatives fear it
could give processors more market power.
Reps. Steve Kagen, D-Wis.,
and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said during the markup they
would press for restrictions on forward-pricing when the bill reaches the full
committee.
NMPF said the program should last only as long as the current
farm bill, and needs safeguards for producers. "Our support for forward
contracting is conditioned on getting those protections included with the
overall farm bill," CEO Jerry Kozak said.
The subcommittee also approved
a Kagen amendment to provide $10 million to the
By a similar vote, the panel approved an amendment
offered by Agriculture Livestock, Poultry and Dairy Subcommittee Chairman
Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, to
require arbitration in disputes over livestock or poultry contracts only if both
parties consent in writing.
Boswell, who has introduced a
"competitiveness" bill to beef up enforcement of both the Packers and Stockyards
Act and the Agricultural Fair Practices Act, presented but withdrew mandatory
price reporting and contracting amendments without offering other
competitiveness measures as expected.
In other farm bill action
Thursday, Senate Agriculture Chairman
Harkin released a conservation proposal that would consolidate all
working-lands conservation programs in a Comprehensive Stewardship Incentives
Program so farmers would only have to apply once to solve a specific
problem.
Senate Budget Chairman
Conrad also said in an interview that, with Harkin's approval, he has
prepared commodity title proposals and sent them to CBO for
scoring.
Conrad said he agreed with Harkin that direct payments to
farmers would have to be cut in order to find money to increase spending to
encourage renewable energy production. By Jerry Hagstrom
APPROPRIATIONS
Congress Sends Supplemental To
Bush
Congress
gave final approval Thursday to a $120 billion supplemental spending bill
funding military operations in
The measure also provides farmers and ranchers with
assistance to cope with drought and other natural disasters, continued hurricane
recovery aid for the
After a long struggle between President Bush and
congressional Democrats, Bush said he would sign the bill because it dropped
timelines for withdrawing troops from combat zones. Democrats did not have the
votes to override a veto.
"It's a political reality. It is not what we
want to pass," House Majority Leader
Hoyer said, although Democrats said they would come back later this
year to press the issue again. Democrats did force Bush into accepting billions
of dollars in unrelated spending in exchange, although they dropped a few items
he had objected to.
"I wanted to remove even more; but, still, by voting
for this bill members of both parties can show our troops and the Iraqis and the
enemy that our country will support our servicemen and women in harm's way,"
Bush said Thursday.
In the place of timelines, Democrats included 18
benchmarks for the Iraqi government to demonstrate progress toward stabilizing
the country. It also would tie economic aid to
House Democratic leaders structured the debate in such a
way as to allow separate votes on Bush's funding request coupled with the
benchmarks, and on portions providing additional military and veterans' funds as
well as domestic priorities.
Many Democrats, including Speaker Pelosi and Appropriations Chairman Obey, voted against
the Bush request but for the roughly $17 billion in domestic and other
items.
"This proposition falls far short of containing everything that
it should on both the Iraqi war and our own domestic needs, but I take some
comfort in the knowledge that even Babe Ruth struck out more than 1,300 times,"
Obey said.
The domestic portion was added on a 348-73 vote; Bush's
funding request was approved 280-142. Later in the evening, the Senate voted
80-14 to send the combined measure to Bush's desk.
Republicans
complained of delay in getting the troop funding passed, as well as the added
spending and being shut out of the negotiations. Appropriations ranking member
Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said the debate has been "long on politics and short
on substance" marked by "symbolic votes to placate the 'Out of Iraq'
caucus."
"I'm deeply dismayed that this legislation was written
completely without input from the minority," Lewis said. "They made a decision
early on not only to abandon our troops but to abandon any semblance of
bipartisanship."
Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, took issue with
matters in his panel's jurisdiction, such as small business tax cuts and
language delaying by one year Medicaid regulations the administration says could
save $5 billion. He also criticized pension relief for American and Continental
airlines and other pension provisions, arguing they should go through the
regular authorizing process.
House
Minority Leader Boehner said inclusion of minimum wage, pension
provisions and spending unrelated to the war was a "sneaky way to do
business."
Democrats did cut $4.2 billion out of the initial bill Bush
vetoed earlier this month, and numerous areas were subject to the pain. The farm
aid was pared back nearly 15 percent, while homeland security funding was cut by
more than half.
Avian flu and low-income heating funds were dropped
entirely, and even the military portion took a hit.
Smaller cuts were
made to wildland firefighting, overseas food aid and
repairs to a NASA facility in
House
Roll Call Vote on Disaster: 348-73
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll424.xml
Senate
Roll Call: 80-14
Katy
Ziegler
Legislative
Director
National Farmers
202-314-3103-
direct
202-554-1654-
fax
202-494-5365-
cell
