|
|
Big week for the new guys
By Seymour Klierly Last week the Senate Agriculture Committee finally marked up and approved a farm bill, sending it to the floor for a full debate. Tip of the cap to Chairman Harkin for finally getting this thing through his committee. As this column and many others pointed out over the past six months, the chairman had set several deadlines for committee action only to fall short. With the help of the "magic pot of money" called ACR that we discussed last week, this deadline finally stuck. The mark up spanned two days of debate, some of it exciting, some of it not so exciting. One interesting aspect of the debate was how vocal several new members on the committee were, particularly freshmen Democrats. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania offered several amendments and spoke for quite some time on the first day. At times it seemed he was lecturing his fellow members about how a dairy farm operates and how cost inputs were rising. After his oration, he offered an amendment to pay dairy producers based on their cost of production. After several more senior members of the committee offered their remarks clarifying how this amendment singles out one sector of agriculture while all sectors suffer from rising input costs, Casey's amendment failed. Senator Casey didn't stop there however. On the second day he tried to include an amendment clearly in the jurisdiction of the Energy Committee. His amendment would have prevented part of the 2005 energy bill from being enacted. As if following the same script as the day before, again senior, more experienced members pointed out the jurisdictional problem created by Casey's idea and the amendment failed. Another rather vocal freshman was Sherrod Brown of Ohio. As was pointed out in previous columns, Senator Brown has worked closely with Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois to develop the Average Crop Revenue program. Chairman Harkin relied heavily on Senator Brown to explain and defend the ACR program against questions from several veteran members like Pat Roberts from Kansas and Kent Conrad from North Dakota. Senator Brown found himself on the opposing side of an amendment offered by Senator Roberts and supported by much senior members Conrad, Baucus, Chambliss, and others to modify the ACR program by removing the crop insurance portion. In the end, Chairman Harkin struck a deal with Senator Roberts to adopt his amendment and put any extra savings in the fixed payment portion of the ACR then into the nutrition programs mentioned by Senator Lugar in a previous amendment. This agreement came after extensive off the record conversations during a break in the mark up. When the mark up resumed, the committee approved the Roberts' amendment on a voice vote then approved the entire bill in the same manner. I guess there is something to be said for experience. As the farm bill moves to the floor next week, it will be interesting to see if all parties stick to the deal reached in the committee. There's no doubt that the floor debate will be heated with amendments on payment limits, nutrition and conservation funding, and possibly even immigration. That's right, there are rumors floating around that the farm bill may be the next opportunity to bring up the immigration debate--yikes! The farm bill has enough problems without trying to tackle that issue. Hopefully folks on the Hill can focus on one issue and not mix farm policy with the political hot potato known as immigration. Date: 10/31/07
Copyright/Privacy
Copyright 1995-2012. High Plains Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Any republishing of these pages, including electronic reproduction of the editorial archives or classified advertising, is strictly prohibited. If you have questions or comments you can reach us at High Plains Journal 1500 E. Wyatt Earp Blvd., P.O. Box 760, Dodge City, KS 67801 or call 1-800-452-7171. Email: webmaster@hpj.com |
|
