A Bid to Overhaul a Farm Bill Yields Subtle Changes
The New York Times, October 23, 2007

WASHINGTON — Few Americans know as much about the farm bill as Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. So it was not trivial, with the bill up for renewal this year, when Mr. Harkin spoke forcefully about the need to overhaul federal farm subsidies.

“We have to consider new ideas,” he said in a conference call with reporters in June. “We should not cling to a system that channels ever larger commodity payments to a relatively few, with two-thirds of American farmers getting none at all.”

Even at a time of sky-high grain prices and soaring demand for ethanol, those were bold remarks for a lawmaker from a state at the heart of corn country and that ranks second only to Texas in the farm subsidies collected over 10 years.

But as the Agriculture Committee prepares to put the final touches on the farm bill on Wednesday, Mr. Harkin has come up mostly empty-handed. A near-final draft bill, unveiled on Tuesday, leaves the subsidy programs largely unchanged.

Mr. Harkin says he was thwarted by members of his own committee, all of whom represent farm states. And committee members do not dispute this, though they cast their efforts somewhat differently, as protecting the farmers they represent.

In a brief interview on Tuesday, Mr. Harkin said he had hoped for more but was pleased with the bill. “Everything is a compromise,” he said. “In agriculture you don’t make sharp turns, but I do try to bend the rails a bit.”

But he also said he was not particularly disappointed to lose the fight this time. “I have always said it wouldn’t terribly upset me and break my heart if we just had to extend the present farm bill for a couple of years,” he said. “That wouldn’t bother me.”

Skeptics of Mr. Harkin’s commitment to change say Iowa just has too much to gain from the status quo. Supporters say he is ardently committed to smarter farm policies and got the best bill he could given tight fiscal constraints.

“Chairman Harkin has been trying to do the right thing and steer this farm bill in the direction of reform,” said Representative Ron Kind, Democrat of Wisconsin, who led a failed effort to overhaul farm subsidies in the House version of the bill.

Mr. Harkin’s experience this year illustrates how farm-state lawmakers dominate the agriculture committees in Congress and, backed by the formidable farm lobby, control legislation that will cost taxpayers some $288 billion over five years.

It also shows how farm interests cut across party lines, splitting lawmakers not by politics but by geography and the particular crops or commodities in their home states.

On the Senate side, Mr. Harkin’s push for big change was blocked not only by Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the committee, but also by two powerful Democrats from major wheat-growing and cattle-ranching states, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

Mr. Baucus also used his authority as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee to leverage the creation of a $5 billion disaster fund for farmers and ranchers who suffer losses from natural disasters, which critics say effectively creates a large increase in subsidies at a time when market conditions call for cuts.

The fund certainly will benefit the Dakotas and Montana, which have suffered severe droughts. But other than the $5 billion for disaster relief, the Finance Committee added just $3 billion for other programs in the farm bill.

Opponents of the existing farm policies are now pinning their hopes in two places — an alternative bill by Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, which has little chance of being approved, and the possibility that President Bush makes good on his threat to veto the farm bill because of its cost and the absence of substantive changes.

The Lugar-Lautenberg proposal would replace the existing subsidy programs, which benefit farmers of a few crops, with a crop insurance program that would be available to all farmers and would pay benefits only when farmers lose money.

“We want to end out-of-date subsidies and provide a more equitable and less expensive safety net for all American agriculture,” Mr. Lugar said at a news conference.

Mr. Harkin had proposed a $4.5 billion cut in the so-called direct payments to farmers of corn, soybeans, cotton and other major crops. These payments, totaling more than $5 billion a year, are made even when farmers are earning sizable profits.

But the farm bill contains no such cut. Instead, Mr. Harkin succeeded in writing into the bill an optional revenue-protection program that he said could save roughly $3.5 billion a year if farmers now receiving relatively small benefits choose longer-term protection instead.

That money, along with the $3 billion provided by the Finance Committee, would be added to other programs in the farm bill that Mr. Harkin wanted to expand, including food stamps and land conservation.

The bill adds $4 billion each for conservation, nutrition and rural development programs, about $1 billion for farm-based energy initiatives, and about $2 billion for specialty crops, including fruits and vegetables — all of which Mr. Harkin hailed as advances.

“Everything is a compromise,” he said. “I got a lot of what I initially wanted.” He added, “We have made some change. I think we are moving in some new directions.”

The bill includes some changes that are also in the House bill, including the closing of a loophole that let some farmers exceed subsidy limits by owning partnerships in multiple farms.

It also includes a new rule for specifically disclosing federal payments to farmers, which Mr. Conrad said was the change most needed.

But the peculiarities of farm politics have also prevented Mr. Harkin from including some provisions that he supports but are opposed by other Agriculture Committee members.

For instance, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, have proposed an amendment to set a $250,000 cap on the payments to farmers and would allow payments only to people actively engaged in farming.

Such caps are opposed by Agriculture Committee members from states with substantial cotton production.

Many advocates for changes to farm subsidies say they will happen only through floor amendments, outside the control of the Agriculture Committee.

Mr. Lugar, who owns a farm in Indiana, said he expected the Agriculture Committee would approve a bill on Wednesday without many changes.

“Having counted votes around the table for the last 31 years, I suspect that will be the result,” he said. “But the floor is a different story. That involves all senators, all states, all Americans, not specific states and specific crops. And that representation, I hope, will come to a different result.”