Agriculture panels look at disaster relief

By DAVID ROGERS 

Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are slated to meet Tuesday morning amid signs that House Republicans may pull back from a one-year extension of farm programs and focus instead on the immediate needs of drought-stricken livestock producers.

The extension — due on the House floor Wednesday — remains highly divisive even as there is broad support for new disaster aid to fill gaps in the current farm law for livestock and some specialty crops.

No final decisions have been made. But Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, appears open to this approach, absent an agreement by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to allow House-Senate negotiations in August on the larger five-year farm plans favored by the two committees.

The Senate approved its farm bill in June, but Boehner has so far blocked House action for fear of a messy fight dividing his party. Instead, the speaker prevailed on House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) to move ahead with a one-year extension, filed late Friday.

But Peterson is balking and appears to enjoy the backing of major commodity groups who share his fear that the extension will be used as an excuse to kill any further farm bill action by this Congress.

Lucas himself wants to move ahead with a five-year bill and has been put in a difficult spot by his leadership. Friday’s unveiling of the 48-page draft extension was more haphazard than is the chairman’s style. His typically close working relationship with Peterson is showing some strains. And despite the fact that Lucas included substantial disaster aid in his extension, it has been met with a steady drumbeat of complaints from the right and left.

Fiscal conservatives and taxpayer groups are upset that the bill walks away from earlier promises to end costly direct cash payments to farmers. Environmentalists are agitated by the fact that the greatest share of the cuts to pay for the disaster aid would come from conservation programs.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has major agricultural interests in his own home district, reached out to Peterson over the weekend. And given the severity of the drought, the GOP leadership badly wants to show some progress before sending their farm state members home for the August recess.

“They are beginning to figure out that this is a big albatross and want to get it off their back,” Peterson told POLITICO. He said McCarthy was not unsympathetic with his desire to get onto the five-year bill but as an interim step, just dealing with the livestock aid is an option.

As now drafted, the one-year extension provides about $621 million in new assistance, most of it paid out in 2013. To offset this cost, a very modest $261 million cut would be taken from the direct cash payments while $759 million would come from conservative programs.

The Senate is mindful of the pressure to do something, as well to reassure livestock producers. And as a practical matter, the two committees had always expected to do so as part of their five-year plans.

Peterson said he has continued to consult with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Agriculture panel. And she and her ranking Republican, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, are expected to be part of Tuesday’s meeting.

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