Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company The New
York Times
March 24, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 39; Column 1;
National Desk
LENGTH: 899 words
HEADLINE: Political Memo; From Puppy Protection to
Feeding the Poor, Farm Bill Issues Incite Passions
BYLINE: By ELIZABETH BECKER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, March 23
BODY: For the American Kennel Club, the question is
whether the government can decide when dogs will be allowed to breed. For big
rice and cotton farmers, the issue is a provision that would limit each farmer's
annual subsidy to $275,000. For advocates of the poor, the goal is to add legal
immigrants to the food stamp program without undercutting hungry school children
or their mothers.
After three weeks of closed-door
negotiations over the $171 billion farm bill, lobbyists for
agribusiness and the poor are claiming victory, while environmentalists are
complaining.
"This represents a very important
investment for the needy," said Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action
Center, which lobbies for nutrition programs for the poor.
Mary Kay Thatcher, director of public policy at the American Farm
Bureau Federation, said the 70 percent increase in subsidies was good enough for
farmers to get on with their spring planting.
"It's
never easy for a farm bill," Ms. Thatcher said. "But now
Congress won't have to deal every year with giving economic disaster assistance
for farmers."
Environmentalists, who have argued for
more money to protect the land and water, are admitting defeat, saying they feel
betrayed.
"Once again, Congress was extremely generous
to the very largest, most heavily subsidized farming operations in the country,"
said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, which operates a
Web site detailing how much farmers receive from the government.
But this was only the first round, although a critical one.
All special interests are getting a second and third
chance to influence the farm bill as negotiators try to work
out a common policy from the differing House and Senate measures. After more
than a year of hearings and weeks of arguments and votes in Congress, the
critical decisions are being made by 21 lawmakers who will carve up the money
and decide which programs to adopt and which to abandon.
Some policies debated in the bill have little to do with farming. One
hot question this year is how often dog breeders will be allowed to produce
litters of pups.
The Senate bill's "puppy protection"
provision would crack down on excessive breeding of dogs in commercial "puppy
mills." It is fiercely defended by the Humane Society and fiercely opposed by
the American Kennel Club out of fear it would extend to their breeders.
The Kennel Club's Web site urges members to "keep the
pressure on" lawmakers, as the farm bill could be complete the
week of April 9.
In the best of years, the farm bill incites passions not associated with wheat, corn and
soybeans.
When a $6 billion mistake is made, as was
done this year by the Congressional Budget Office, those passions become crucial
matters.
The Senate approved a farm
bill last month that included big increases for food stamps and
environmental programs, only to discover that $6 billion of that money did not
exist. The budget office had miscalculated the cost of the crop subsidy
program.
With farmers complaining that they need to
know how much money they will receive from the government to complete their
spring planting, the negotiators have decided to put about $15 billion each year
into subsidies for grains and cotton, largely at the expense of environmental
programs.
The environmental and conservation money,
originally $22 billion in the Senate bill, has been cut to $17.1 billion over 10
years, $1 billion more than in the House version.
"This
isn't a farm policy, it's a check-writing machine for the big commodity
growers," said Ferd Hoefner of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which
represents small farmers and rural communities generally ineligible for most of
the big programs.
In this election year, Democrats and
Republicans are trying to appear as saviors of farmers who grow the food and the
hungry who need it.
State and local groups, like the
National Conference of State Legislatures, the American Public Human Services
Association and the National Governors Association, have besieged Congress for
more money for food stamps and simpler rules to ensure that the needy use
them.
"The food stamp program serves an average of over
17 million needy Americans a month but reaches only 60 percent of those eligible
for the program," said one letter, signed by America's Second Harvest, a network
of food banks that supplies most of the food to the nation's soup kitchens and
food pantries.
So far, the food stamp and nutrition
programs have been increased by $6.4 billion, almost twice what the House had
offered but $2 billion less than envisioned by the Senate.
Commercial farmers have fared even better. Crop subsidies will be
increased by 70 percent and a new one, for peanuts, added.
"This is certainly a program we could be comfortable with," said
Patricia Buschette of the National Association of Wheat Growers.
While neither party wants to appear unfriendly to farmers, the
Democrats say they would spread the money further through environmental programs
if the House Republicans would agree to the $275,000 payment limits.
That would free more of the money initially cut from
conservation and rural development programs.
Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle, of South Dakota, said this week that "we can do
even better if our colleagues in the House agree to cost-saving payment
limitations."
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