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HEADLINE: Farm Bill Bears Stamp of Senate's Prairie Power

BYLINE: Dan Morgan, Washington Post Staff Writer

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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the combined population of North and South Dakota in 2000 was 1,397,044, about half of 1 percent of the nation's total.

But in the population-blind U.S. Senate, the Democrats from those states have been having a giant-sized influence on key legislation affecting the environment, energy, trade and food production. You might call it Prairie Power.

The Democrats control the Senate, and in many ways their base is the Great Plains and upper Midwest. Of the 10 seats in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Montana and Minnesota, Democrats hold eight. South Dakota boasts Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle. North Dakota has the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Kent Conrad, as well as Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, a senior leadership post.

They are Democrats with liberal voting records. But when it comes to legislation affecting their tiny constituencies, they repeatedly have set ideology aside and used their clout on behalf of home state economic interests.

The prairie stamp was plainly evident in the just-signed farm bill, which contained record subsidies for wheat farmers and a major concession to raisers of livestock in the windy northern states.

Daschle, Conrad and four other wheat state Democrats (including both Minnesota senators) serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee, making up a majority of the panel's 11 Democrats. During contentious negotiations with the House, they held out for a whopping hike in the wheat "loan rate," the federal government's base income guarantee for wheat farmers.

The House eventually came most of their way, granting an increase from $ 2.58 a bushel to $ 2.80. But in return, the senators conceded massive subsidies for southern rice and cotton farmers, a key part of the political base of the House GOP.

The cross-ruffing between Senate Dems and the House GOP sent the cost of the bill spiraling upward. But the groundwork had been laid a year earlier by Conrad, who, as top Democrat on the Budget Committee, had secured a $ 73 billion increase for farm programs in the 10-year budget.

For good measure, Daschle & Co. also helped get a country-of-origin meat labeling provision in the farm bill. The provision, reserving the U.S. label for beef and hogs born and raised in this country, was a priority for livestock raisers in the northern Plains, who feel the labeling could give them an edge in the competition with their Canadian counterparts.

This and dozens of subsidy provisions in the bill already have caused major frictions with U.S. trading partners, but prairie lawmakers have been boasting in news releases and letters to constituents. Conrad called it a "good bill" that will mean a 68 percent increase in farm payments in North Dakota.

Not long before the final farm vote, Daschle roughed up fellow Democrats from California (Pop. 33,871,000) and New York (Pop. 18,976,457) in a scuffle over provisions in the energy bill.

Daschle used his power to insert a provision mandating a tripling of the volume of ethanol in gasoline by 2012. Ethanol, made mainly from midwestern corn, helps make cleaner-burning gasoline required for smog-ridden urban areas.

But the mandate and related provisions were opposed by Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), representing states with limited ethanol supplies and no easy way of importing large quantities of it from the Midwest.

Nonetheless, Daschle and the Midwest bloc easily stopped efforts by Schumer and Feinstein to strike the mandate or provide waivers that could help California avoid spikes in the price of gasoline as a result of it.

The pro-ethanol farm bloc won, but left the big-state senators feeling bitter. Feinstein characterized the Midwest bloc's position bluntly: "I am for the farmers in the Midwest, and all the rest of you be damned."

DRIVING HOME: Another example of prairie clout came in the March 13 voting that scuttled a major environmental initiative of the year: tougher fuel economy standards for light trucks and cars.

Democratic Sens. Dorgan, Conrad, Max Baucus (Mont.), Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) -- but not Daschle -- supported an amendment backed by the auto industry that rules out tough new standards now in favor of giving the Bush administration two years to develop its own rules.

Before that amendment was approved, to the dismay of environmental groups, Daschle, Dorgan, Conrad, Nelson, Baucus and Johnson voted against an amendment that would have raised the fuel standard for pickup trucks above the current 20.7 miles per gallon. The six votes provided the precise margin needed to block the higher standard.

Supporters of increased fuel efficiency argued it was the best way to reduce U.S. dependence on Middle East oil. But a number of Great Plains Democrats said the higher standards threatened the safety of their constituents by encouraging Detroit to manufacture lighter vehicles.

"Driving larger, safer vehicles in tough winter driving conditions on our farms and ranches is not a luxury, it's a necessity in a rural state like North Dakota," Dorgan said.

Even so, fellow Democrat John F. Kerry (Mass.) called the Senate action "an extraordinary process of distortion."

HOUSE WINE: The Congressional Wine Caucus recently enlisted a representative from its 50th state: Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb.). While Nebraska is better known for grain than grapes, it is "typical of some of the states with a small but growing wine industry," according to a caucus release. The wine caucus has 215 members.

THE WEEK AHEAD: The Senate plans to finish up the trade bill. The House plans to take up a supplemental appropriations bill funding defense and homeland security.

Staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.



LOAD-DATE: May 20, 2002