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Will Roberts chair ag committee?
WASHINGTON (DTN)--Will Sen. Pat Roberts, R-KS, ever become chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee? Action taken by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence late May 4 raises that question.
The committee unanimously approved an Intelligence Authorization Act that eliminated term restrictions for committee members. Roberts is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
By tradition, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has had term limits, but members of the committee decided to eliminate them as part of a plan to reform the intelligence agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence community entities.
A Roberts news release said "The bill takes an important step forward in improving oversight of the Intelligence Community by eliminating term limits for members of the Senate Intelligence Committee." The full Senate must act if the term limits are to be removed.
Roberts has risen to national and international prominence in his role as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman. He is also the second ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-VA, the current chairman, is expected to relinquish that spot after this session of Congress. Under current Senate rules, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, has served as long as is allowed as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Cochran is second in line for that spot. Roberts is now the fourth in seniority on the Agriculture Committee but two members more senior--Sen. Richard Lugar, R-IN, the former Agriculture chairman and now chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, are unlikely to be interested.
That would leave Roberts next in line to chair Agriculture. Roberts has lots of fans in the agriculture community who hope he might become chairman, but he is known to enjoy the Intelligence Committee and his frequent appearances on the Sunday talk shows--a role that he did not have when he chaired the House Agriculture Committee.
Roberts also underwent something of a disappointment and defeat with his Freedom to Farm bill. Only a few years after it was written, prices went down and farmers asked Congress to double the Freedom to Farm payments that were the core of the bill. In 2002 Congress passed a farm bill that reversed many of the Freedom to Farm reforms and reinstated higher payments when prices are low. Roberts did not vote for it.
A World Trade Organization panel also recently ruled that the Freedom to Farm payments distort production and trade because the rules say fruits and vegetables cannot be grown on land on which the payments are made. The United States had maintained the payments were not production-related.
If Roberts does not take the chairmanship of Agriculture, the next in line is Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
There is also speculation Roberts might serve as chairman of the Intelligence Committee until 2007, when the farm bill is up for a rewrite.
A spokeswoman for Roberts said Tuesday that all speculation about Roberts's future chairmanships is premature. She also noted that under any circumstances Roberts would maintain his seniority on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Date: 5/20/04
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