Advocate Summary

Issue:  US Farm Bill
Advocate:  Office of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) – Jill Hershey 
Date of Interview: 7/17/02

Basic Background
The Senator formerly sat on the Senate Agriculture committee but when the farm bill was actually being considered he was not on the Senate Ag committee, but I think his previous role and membership on the committee certainly helped his relationship with the committee. And it helped what I think he was instrumental in doing, which carried over into the farm bill, which was establishing a role for the Northeast and for non-traditional crops and farmers and what is their role in federal agriculture policy. Where it really started was with I guess it was drought funding and maybe in 1999 and when there was a summer drought, a lot of the Northeast members really pulled together during an agriculture appropriations bill to get supplemental funding for farmers suffering from the drought and from crop loss. And I think that really started the niche and push and recognition from other people that were from other farm states, of what the role of agriculture is in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. I think that the Senator feels that there is regional imbalance in federal farm policy and he overtime, along with the other interests up and down the Atlantic seaboard have been trying to form a coalition and push and promote change in federal agriculture policy that affects our farmers. And I think what a lot of people didn’t realize is that agriculture is the number one industry in our state and I think members from states like North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa larger farming states, they just didn’t realize the impact agriculture has in our commonwealth. I start with that in way of background to show where the Senator comes from in forming agriculture policy, what his role was on the committee and how it carried over into the farm bill. Having said that, he has always been very physically responsible and aware, which is sometimes at odds with federal agriculture policy, because we fund programs not only through mandatory spending but there is discretionary and supplemental spending on agriculture programs because of weather situations. So sometimes it’s a challenge, coupled with the amount of money that we are spending and regional inequity, it’s hard for the Senator to balance the needs of other states, when our state has seen little and we’re spending increasing amounts of money on farm policy on these programs and he thinks it is some of these programs that have failed and we need to be fixing the infrastructure, not pouring more money on top of it to make it better. So in the farm bill he’s always had a long standing interest in reforming some of the 1930 style, quota style programs, namely the peanut program and the sugar program, he’s always interested in dairy policy because it is the number one sector of agriculture within agriculture in our state and another piece that he worked on that became a part of the farm bill through an amendment was related to amending the animal welfare act which is under USDA and it was relative to puppy mills, large breeding operations and increased safety of animals in large breeding facilities. So those were the four areas that he was concentrating on in the farm bill. 

[Were you active at all on the conservation title?]
Somewhat, that was a very large interest to the Northeast and as a new program that will help folks that have non-traditional farming interests or who are the vegetable growers, it is really a way to supplement their income because they’re just not of the scale, they just can’t compete with the folks that are producing large acreage of corn, so it really was a way to help give a safety net to producers in the Northeast. So that the internal Northeast group really worked to promote that. I think the senator realizes it will be beneficial to the Northeast, it is certainly going to move ahead the conservation efforts but it’s not the panacea for what the Northeast needs. I mean we need larger fixes and increased trade opportunities, they just created a new entitlement spending by establishing these programs, again, while it’s beneficial it is only one small piece of where we want to be in the end. 

Prior Activity on the Issue 
[The Senator was formerly a member of the Ag committee]

Advocacy Activities Undertaken
We wrote a dear colleague on a dairy bill that the senator introduced, he offered one amendment that wasn’t considered on dairy and another on the puppy mills and animal welfare act. 

So what we were looking at was, trying to steer some of the money and change policy in the areas of support. He ended up being for the payment limitation because it brings more parity because it caps what some of the larger organizations can get, which really then helps distribute more money and price supports to more farmers. In the conservation title, he was for farmland protection and programs like that certainly help our state, some of the minor crop – the vegetable and fruit crop – what programs are being put into place to help them and a lot of that was done previously. A major commitment was made to those crops and those growers, a safety net crop insurance bill that we passed about two years ago now. So that was a good first step in creating a safety net and we just needed to continue that. So really we were looking throughout the whole bill, he had an eye toward certain pieces of it, but really it was how can we change the direction of the bill so that we’re not spending so much money in the places where he felt were the wrong places for farm policy, both nationally and for our state.

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
None mentioned.

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
There was sort of an internal group on the Senate side, the unofficial name for it was the Eggplant Caucus, just a group of Northeast interests coming together to promote new ideas or ideas that have been around, ideas that are of interest to Northeast producers. Producers who may produce vegetable crops, fruit or vegetable crops, tree interests, things that may be non-traditional to other large farm states that are mainly concentrated on wheat or corn or just large farm crops. So that was one internal group, and then really it breaks down by commodity, how issues get taken care of: dairy, there was a larger umbrella of dairy interests and then underneath that you have folks that support a compact approach. 

He worked with Zell Miller from Georgia, who represents peanut growers, but they’re I guess more aggressive in their approach toward farm policy, all the producers weren’t represented by the group in Senator Miller’s district. I think they realized what was coming down the road for them in terms of price and wanted to institute change on their own, they are kind of more reform mined growers if you will, so we worked with him on the peanut program. In terms of dairy, there was really a large group who worked together on dairy, from Senator Lugar’s office, Domenici, Senator Snowe and Collins, it was really varied interests, and not all the same but sharing an interest in dairy, some supported compacts, some didn’t, some had large herd size others smaller family farms, but of that group everyone wanted to push something dairy related and everyone tried to work together, and Senator Cochran’s office too, so that was the group on dairy. On the animal welfare provisions he worked very closely with Senator Durbin from Illinois. 

Targets of Direct Lobbying
None mentioned.

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
Not applicable.

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
Producers who may produce vegetable crops, fruit or vegetable crops, tree interests, things that may be non-traditional to other large farm states that are mainly concentrated on wheat or corn or just large farm crops. So that was one internal group, and then really it breaks down by commodity, how issues get taken care of: dairy, there was a larger umbrella of dairy interests and then underneath that you have folks that support a compact approach.

There is an association that represents the fruit and vegetable industry, the growers and wholesalers, it’s called the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, and they were active in the debate on behalf of their membership. Then on the dairy side there’s International Dairy Foods Association, they represent the processors and manufacturers, the National Milk Producers, they represent the farmers and their cooperatives, as do others like Land O’Lakes they are a large cooperative, but the membership group is the National Federation of Milk Producers, 

On the animal welfare provisions the Humane Society of the United States was very supportive and worked closely with us on that piece and the ASPCA was supportive of the provision. We worked with and tried to work out some differences with the American Kennel Club. This was in the farm bill because the Animal Welfare Act is implemented under USDA, and the Agriculture Committee has jurisdiction over that. 

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
So that was one internal group, and then really it breaks down by commodity, how issues get taken care of: dairy, there was a larger umbrella of dairy interests and then underneath that you have folks that support a compact approach. And then what happened was geographically, folks from the west kind of bound together because they have 4 to 5 thousand head cow operations, whereas our average heard size in Pennsylvania we have is 150, so you get regional interests that break down within commodity interest, so that’s dairy. And then on sugar, the quota holders and the growers versus some of the manufacturers and the same way with peanuts, peanuts and sugar kind of operate in the same way. It comes from who operates or is producing or who is manufacturing in your state. The manufacturing and processor groups clearly have one interest as opposed to the growers’ interests. So folks in the southern states may be working on behalf of their growers and states like us that have a large confectioner manufacturer side of things. It depends on low or reasonable costs to make their products like sugar, we’d have interest in how the sugar program effects jobs and what the processor views are. So the Senator came at it as it’s a program that’s really rooted in the 1930s, it’s a quota approach and he thinks that farm policy should be based on freer markets and should be supported by that and need rather than have a set parameter of crops that drive up the price.

And then there was the Farmers Union, the National Farm Bureau, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Soybean, Rice, Corn associations, those are the big ones. 

For the conservation groups, the two groups I’d say is probably the Sierra Club and we did work closely with American Farmland Trust on other conservation issues, that is one area, even from the last farm bill, that the senator was very active, on farmland preservation. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
[Dairy]
Pretty much the general effect on the economy, I think it pretty much goes with his larger philosophy on other issues as well, I think moving our agriculture policy more and more in line with a freer market approach. That our growers should be able to respond to what the needs are either in the domestic or global economy versus producing for a price that is set by the government, producing for a market quota program that only helps to props up the price which is artificial which could hurt us in the world market or hurt domestic industry, when we really should be responding to the needs of what people could use. 

[Sugar]
So folks in the southern states may be working on behalf of their growers and states like us that have a large confectioner manufacturer side of things. It depends on low or reasonable costs to make their products like sugar, we’d have interest in how the sugar program effects jobs and what the processor views are. So the Senator came at it as it’s a program that’s really rooted in the 1930s, it’s a quota approach and he thinks that farm policy should be based on freer markets and should be supported by that and need rather than have a set parameter of crops that drive up the price.

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
Not really applicable – different arguments for each area.

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
It’s different, I think that the way the senator went after, what his view on this particular dairy piece was that we do need something, a national program that is fair to all producers despite your size, despite your region, because milk is used for different purposes, and that’s how you’re paid, if it’s used for milk you are paid a higher price, if it’s used for cheese you are paid a different price, yogurt, etc. and so it’s hard to reconcile and get everybody on the same page because each region uses milk differently and that’s how you’re paid and therefore your interests are different. So you try to do something that’s national, you try to do something that’s good for everyone across the board, despite what the end use is and then also, what is in the parameters of our budget so those are really the three different areas he used to look at dairy policy. 

Nature of the Opposition
It starts as people dividing by commodity and then in breaks down also by a regional angle. People certainly formed bonds within the Agriculture committee, a lot of programs that support the loan deficiency payments for growers of wheat and rice and corn and cotton, pretty much does break down by commodity and then that helps members from certain states for coalitions. Aside from that there are also different factions geographically, that while you may be interested in dairy if you have a herd size in your state that’s 4000 your interests and what helps your growers is going to be different then if you’re in Vermont and your average herd size is fifty. So dairy is very much regionally biased and based, and that’s been the most difficult to cross over – that is how do you accommodate all the needs of growers throughout the US regardless of their size. There are definite divisions between the small farms and the large farms and you really saw that increase even outside of dairy, on larger farm policy generally, we saw that really highlighted during the debate, both in the Senate and in the House during the farm bill, the large versus small farm and corporate farms versus the family farm. And that is how the whole payment limitation issue came in, how much one farm unit or one farm organization could get from the government in terms of support and price supports. And that was new and just a really interesting development in farm policy in this farm bill. That people who aren’t actually working on the farm shouldn’t be getting the subsidy and shouldn’t be being paid for not producing if they’re not producing something. 

[Pro-price Support]
You’re always going to have your producer groups, the organizations that represent the producers, the National Farmer’s Union, the National Farm Bureau, the Corn Growers, the Soybean growers, there’s an association for cotton producers, the rice people, you name it – they get a benefit from that and therefore the producers, the states they’re in are for that as well. Where it differs is the level at which each group supports the price-support and that did vary between organizations. So it is a broad interest generally, but it really did vary by group what they thought the appropriate price level should be. 

They were supported by Senator Harkin, Senator Daschle, Senator Dorgan and to some degree Senator Roberts, Senator Cochran, it just goes back to what you produce in your state. So if you go back to the structure of the Agriculture Committee you can really see who has what in their district and that’s how you can pretty much see who pushed for what, just based on what’s happening in their home state. 

[Anti-price Support]
Offices and I think certainly the committee were cognizant during the formative period of the bill, and it was even talked about afterwards because of the size the bill was in the end, the amount of money that is being spent, of how it effects international trade obligations or commitments. So that, where does that place us in the red and green boxes, and where does that place us in international trade commitments and relations. I think it was in the forefront of the discussion. It’s hard to say if the WTO would bring a challenge. Even rhetorically, I think the European Union likes to use it as a basis to argue against what the United States is doing to prop up our agriculture industry and how it makes it hard for their producers to complete, I think the flip side of that is agriculture producers in the European Union certainly have been subsidized for a longer, and probably at a greater cost than US producers have been. So I don’t know if they’re will be an official challenge, I haven’t actually heard anything of late, but it certainly was a topic of consideration when being formulated by the committee; that are we closely approaching or pulling up to our trade obligations or limitations. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
Every interest had separate arguments.

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
Every interest had separate argument.

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
Every interest had separate argument.

Described as a Partisan Issue
She didn’t mention the intense partisanship described by other players.

Venue(s) of Activity
Senate Agriculture Committee

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
The bill has passed and been signed into law.

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Working toward an agriculture policy more in-line with the free market, supporting the interests of non-traditional producers and for stricter regulations regarding animal welfare in large breeding facilities. 

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I’ve been with Senator Santorum for about four years and before that I worked on the House side for about four years. 

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

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Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

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Miscellaneous