BODY: Last
year, for the first time in recent memory, there were serious efforts in
Congress to make basic changes in the government's outdated, wasteful and
discriminatory farm subsidy programs. These efforts fell short of meaningful
reform. The House and the Senate have now passed differing farm
bills that preserve many of the worst features of the old subsidies. Yet for
a host of reasons the Senate bill is far superior. Since the country is going to
get a farm bill anyway, we urge the Senate to stand firm in
what are sure to be difficult negotiations aimed at reconciling the two
versions.
For starters, the Senate at least had the
good grace to cap the subsidies that growers can receive for row crops like corn
and wheat. Though grievous inequities remain -- one-fifth of the farmers get
four-fifths of the money -- the Senate version would limit the maximum annual
subsidy to $275,000 per farmer, half the amount the biggest farmers would
receive in the House bill. That's still too high, but it's something. It's also
a tribute to the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that put
together a Web site showing in graphic detail how the big farmers grab most of
the money. These revelations caused no end of constructive embarrassment among
farm-state senators.
In addition, the Senate bill
provides substantially more money, and in far more imaginative ways, for
conservation programs that all farmers can benefit from, not just the big
players. Starting from the powerful principle that farmers and ranchers are
stewards of half the country's land, the bill would devote more than $2 billion
a year to incentives for farmers to restore wetlands, improve habitats for
endangered species and hold the line against urban sprawl by preserving open
space.
Though some of these programs have been around
for years, the Senate bill greatly strengthens their financing while adding
several promising new initiatives. One would pay farmers to relinquish their
water rights when the water is deemed necessary to save threatened species or
nourish the natural system. Another is an experimental energy program that,
among other things, would provide serious money for developing "biofuels" from
farm products.
The Senate bill's most enthusiastic
supporters call it the most important environmental measure since the Clean
Water Act of 1972. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. For its
conservation virtues alone, the Senate version deserves to prevail.
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