Hill Heat

Senate leaders struck an eleventh-hour deal on the 2007 farm bill, agreeing Thursday to debate 40 amendments before lawmakers leave for the holiday recess.

The number of amendments will be split evenly between both parties, with each offering 20, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday night.

“It’s going to be a lot of work, but we’re going to finish the farm bill before we leave, unless something untoward happens,” Reid added.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the agreement represented a “significant step” toward finishing the bill before the end of the year.

Lawmakers have been batting around many amendments since the bill stalled in early November, but only proposals filed by Nov. 14 will be up for consideration, said a Senate Agriculture Committee aide.

Some non-germane proposals may be debated, including an amendment that would change the estate tax and one that would affect how commodity markets handle energy-related derivatives.

The compromise follows almost a month of gridlock over the measure. More than 250 amendments were filed at the beginning of November.

Reid, who complained that many of the Republican amendments had nothing to do with agriculture policy, tried to limit debate Nov. 16 after both parties failed to winnow their lengthy list of amendments. But he fell five votes short of the 60 needed to invoke cloture.

White House Threatens Veto of Senate Farm Bill By Adrianne Kroepsch, CQ Staff

The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto the Senate version of a five-year farm bill, but it isn’t likely to receive a final measure anytime soon.

The Senate debate on the legislation (HR 2419) ground to a halt almost immediately as Republicans refused to agree to offer only amendments relevant to the bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., retaliated with a parliamentary maneuver that effectively blocked all amendments except those senators unanimously agree to consider.

The White House objected to the budget accounting of the farm package.

The legislation would shift the timing of farm payments in a fashion “that does not allow for the proper accounting of $9.8 billion in actual government outlays,” according to the statement of administration policy.

The formal veto followed a warning Monday by acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner, who said the legislation hides new spending by shifting billions of dollars in payments outside the 10-year horizon used in the budget accounting.

The bill “does not meet the spirit” of congressional budget rules requiring new expenditures to be offset by revenue increases or spending cuts, Conner said.

President Bush is eager to sign a farm bill this year, but he would veto the Senate version as it stands, the White House said.

Despite a strong agricultural economy, the farm bill would not make “significant farm program reform” as the administration requested in January, the statement said. Instead, the measure would increase price supports and continue to send farm subsidies to the wealthy, it said.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the veto threat premature.

“The president has threatened a veto before the bill has been debated, before amendments have been offered, and before it’s been passed,” Reid said Tuesday morning. “Here we go again.”

Reid also railed against the White House and the Agriculture Department for not overhauling the offending farm subsidy policies themselves.

“The Bush administration has had every opportunity to fix the issue of non-farmers receiving farm payments. . . . This can all be changed by fixing [USDA] regulations. You don’t have to change the law,” Reid said.

Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns spent the year leading up to the farm bill giving presentations on the topic. “He should’ve been giving a Power Point presentation about why the Bush administration hasn’t fixed it,” Reid said.

The administration urged the Senate to remove provisions of the bill it called trade-distorting, and to eliminate timing shifts that mask billions in costs and remove tax increases.

Amendment Battle

The tax-related provisions of the bill — folded into the measure after Senate Finance Committee approval — could be one of the trickiest portions of the bill under debate this week.

Reid has said repeatedly that he will not allow “mischievous” tax amendments — on topics ranging from capital gains rates to the estate tax — to be considered on the Senate floor during farm bill debate. “I have indicated that we will take only relevant amendments,” he repeated Tuesday.

But when Reid sought unanimous consent to allow only relevant amendments to be offered, Republicans objected.

Senate Republicans appeared ready to stall action on the measure. That could jeopardize Reid’s goal of passing the farm bill before the Thanksgiving recess begins at the end of next week.

“If people don’t want to do work on the farm bill, that’s their right as a senator. I am certainly not going to file cloture this week,” Reid said. “But I don’t think that’s a very productive way of doing things, when I’ve indicated I will take relevant amendments.”

Senators on both sides of the aisle were readying a repeal of the estate tax, another stab at overhauling children’s health insurance, amendments dealing with the war in Iraq and labor-related proposals, among others, Reid said.

He responded with a procedural move, “filling the amendment tree” with proposals directly related to the farm bill, including one by Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., to limit farm payments and a substitute bill by Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., and Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., among others.

That blocked all other amendments unless unanimous consent was granted.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., protested the maneuver.

“The Senate is now gridlocked on the farm bill because of majority’s decision to fill up the amendment tree,” McConnell said. “What will have to happen at this point — which happens every day on every bill here in the Senate — is that we’re going to have to sit down outside of the chamber and figure out a way to go forward. We’re not going to be able to go forward under the existing circumstances.”

Broader Policy Overhaul May Be in Store as Senate Takes Up Farm Bill By Catharine Richert, CQ Staff

The Senate is prepared to write a dramatically different farm bill than the version the House passed last week.

The Senate debate will not happen until September or later. For now, Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has promised to increase funding for land-conservation programs far above House numbers.

The $286 billion, five-year House measure (HR 2419), which passed, 231-191, on July 27, would impose new limits on farm subsidies, increase support for fruit and vegetable growers, boost land conservation and increase funding for nutrition programs. Farmers making more than $1 million a year would not be eligible for federal assistance.

Given the tight budget for the farm bill, subsidies are likely to be Harkin’s first target. He has said he will support a proposal by Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, that would cap the amount of money a farmer can get at $250,000 a year. Currently, the cap is $360,000 a year. The House bill does not include an overall payment cap.

Harkin has other options. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., supports FARM21, a version of a proposal by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., that the House rejected. It would have phased out some subsidies and ­reinvested billions into conservation, nutrition and rural development programs.

Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., issued a plan to link countercyclical payments, which kick in when the price of a crop drops below a government-set target, to a crop’s revenue instead. They say their plan would be cheaper and more compliant with international trade law.

The flurry of proposals signals that the Senate is more open to a broad overhaul of the 2002 farm law (PL 107-171), says Scott Faber, farm policy director for Environmental Defense, an organization that will seek deeper cuts to subsidies and more money for conservation programs.

Also hoping for a bigger pot of money are nutrition advocates, who asked the House for an extra $20 billion over five years for a broad range of food programs.

Ellen Vollinger, who works for the Food Research and Action Center, said that money may be difficult to find in the Senate because of the tight budget. Her group may be looking for a much smaller amount, she said. The House bill proposes a $4 billion increase to various nutrition programs over five years.

Some of the extra cash for nutrition programs in the House bill came from cuts to crop insurance. Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., made those changes at the last minute to mollify food stamp advocates such as Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who vowed to vote against the bill unless it did more to boost nutrition.

The rest of it came from a provision that would tax foreign companies doing business here — which almost sunk the House bill. Most Republicans voted against the measure over the tax provision.

If a similar provision appears in the Senate farm bill — or becomes an issue in the expected conference on the legislation — big business is sure to launch an attack claiming that the package would discourage foreign companies from setting up shop in the United States.

• The Ron Kind (D-Wis.) amendment (H.AMDT. 700, text) to cut farm subsidies and invest the money in conservation, nutrition, rural development and deficit reduction failed 117-309
• The Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) amendment (text) to make it easier for Cuba to buy U.S. crops failed 182-245
• The John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) amendment to prevent farmers from locking in artificially high loan-deficiency payments failed 153-271
• The Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.) amendment (text) to increase the subsidy ceiling above $1 million if 75% of the recipient’s income was farm-related failed 175-252
• The Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) amendment (text) to make cuts to the crop insurance programs to support grasslands conservation failed 175-250
• The Lee Terry (R-Neb.) amendment (text)to create $10 million worth of sweet sorghum ethnanol demonstration project passed by voice vote
• The Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.) amendment (text)to return plant pest inspections to the Department of Agriculture from Homeland Security Department passed by voice vote