Rebel farm bill would help state, but puts Boxer, Feinstein in bind
San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2007

An odd pair of senators joined Tuesday in an assault on farm programs that will put their colleagues - none more than California's Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer - in a tough spot.

Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., proposed a rebel farm bill called the Fresh Act that would replace billions of dollars in payments to farmers of a handful of crops with an insurance program that would be available free to all farmers - including the 91 percent of California farmers who receive no federal crop subsidies.

They estimate that California would by far be the biggest beneficiary of the changes, gaining an additional $7 billion in federal aid over five years, mainly for environmental, research, and pest and nutrition programs.

But it would come at the expense of the state's heavily subsidized cotton and rice farmers and the cluster of seven states in the Midwest and South that get most of the $7.5 billion that will be spent this year on subsidies for corn, cotton, rice, wheat and soybeans.

The plan is expected to save so much money that it could finance a veritable liberal dream list.

Billions of dollars would be diverted to food stamps and fruit and vegetable purchases in school food programs. Money would be freed for conservation easements to preserve farm land from suburban sprawl and a host of other environmental programs. Aid for organic farms and locally based food purchases, research for fruit, nut and vegetable crops, and rural development would rise.

The changes would also bring farm programs into compliance with world trade treaties, and still trim $3 billion from the deficit.

Feinstein and Boxer have yet to take a position on the Fresh Act, or the farm bill the Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to vote on Wednesday. That $286 billion bill, which would authorize farm programs for the next five years, maintains traditional subsidies, creates a new $5 billion "permanent disaster" fund that would mostly benefit the same crops that get money now and increases environmental and nutrition programs.

Lugar said he has discussed his bill with Boxer and Feinstein.

Both face "very complex groups in their state so I've not pressed on the issue," Lugar said. "They're hearing from a good number of constituents who have very diverse points of view, as I understand it. How they will finally at the end of the day come out on all this, only you can divine, but they're listening. They're very, very knowledgeable about it."

Lautenberg and Lugar bypassed the Senate Agriculture Committee, which Lautenberg said is set to "give us the same farm bill they've given us every year that gives huge payments to a handful of farmers that grow a handful of crops."

New Jersey is the nation's largest producer of blueberries and cranberries, which like California's specialty crops, do not receive crop subsidies.

Lautenberg said farm income and grain prices are near record highs, yet commodity interests are still demanding subsidies from the federal government.

"It doesn't make sense," Lautenberg said. "We want to scrap a broken, wasteful system."

A galaxy of reform groups, ranging from overseas development advocates such as Oxfam to poverty groups, environmentalists and budget hawks, are throwing their weight behind the Fresh Act. Physicians and hospitals have become increasingly vocal, drawing links between rising obesity and farm programs.

"Why is it that 1 in 3 children born in the U.S. today will develop diabetes at some point?" said Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and a nutrition research physician at George Washington University. "Why does the U.S. have epidemics of diet-related disease and rank, believe it or not, 38th in life expectancy? A big part of the reason is that subsidized livestock feed, subsidized dairy products and federal commodity programs make greasy cheeseburgers and sausage pizza artificially cheap and especially plentiful in schools and food assistance programs."

Bay Area physicians have been especially active lobbying Boxer and Feinstein.

Dr. Seth Ammerman, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent care at Stanford University and medical director of a nutrition clinic for poor youth at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, said he and other physicians are alarmed by the dramatic rise in childhood obesity and the enormous health complications and costs that accompany it.

"We are subsidizing a lot of foods that end up as cheap fast food and school lunches that are essentially unhealthy," Ammerman said. Most people have ignored past farm bills, but "now we realize how important good nutrition is to good health, and as we're seeing all these adverse health consequences for children and adolescents from poor diets ... people are finally making the connection that (the farm bill) affects the entire United States, not just farm states."

Even though only about 150,000 commercial farms operate in the nation, with commodity growers clustered in just a handful of states, Lugar and Lautenberg face an uphill struggle in the Senate.

Lugar said like-minded reformers failed in the House because traditional farm program supporters bought off critics by sprinkling extra money for nutrition, environmental programs and speciality crops, while preserving the subsidies - much the same process that is going on now in the Senate Agriculture Committee.

"Very rapidly, those around the table on the Agriculture Committee added in $3 billion, $4 billion, $5 billion, $6 billion - whatever it took - to satisfy the groups," Lugar said.

Jim Lyons, vice president for policy at Oxfam America, agreed, saying Congress has moved from providing buyouts for dairy, tobacco and peanut farmers to "buy-offs" of reform groups as outside opposition to crop subsidies has swelled.

Nonetheless, Scott Faber, a former lobbyist for Environmental Defense now at the Food Products Association, said this year many Democrats are "very disappointed with the bill" emerging from the Senate Agriculture Committee," and could vote it down.

Lugar said he expects to have support from the Bush administration, which has issued a veto threat against the House version of the farm bill that passed in July. It is similar to the legislation expected from the Senate committee.