Sen Harkin on '06 Ag Apprpriations Bill

[nosmokes]

original

Iowa Senator Harkin Speaks Out Against Sneak Attack on OrganicStandards & Ag Appropriations Bill
CONFERENCE REPORT ON FY2006 AGRICULTURE APPROPRIATIONS
STATEMENT OF SENATOR TOM HARKIN
Nov. 3, 2005

Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to lay out my reasons for my vote on this conference report.

It gives me no joy to have to vote against this measure. There are many aspects of the bill that I support and that I believe should become law. I believe that Senator Bennett and Senator Kohl worked hard to get this bill through, and I supported the bill as it was reported from Committee, and in its passage through the Senate.

But unfortunately, the conference process with the House was seriously flawed, and resulted in a seriously flawed report as a result. In some instances, it was as if the House were negotiating with the Administration, rather than allowing the Senate any meaningful role.

My greatest concern is the continued assault on the farm bill's mandatory conservation programs, particularly the Conservation Security Program. As passed by the Senate, this bill included no annual cap on spending. The CBO baseline estimate for fiscal 2006 was $331 million.
While the other body included an extremely low cap of $245 million, traditionally we have split the difference between the two bodies in conference. But in this instance, rather than splitting the difference between the House and Senate, the conferees evidently chose to split the difference between the President's budget request of $274 million and the House level, for a final level of $259 million – far below the $288 million that would have resulted from splitting the difference. In effect, the will of the Senate as expressed in the bill that passed by 97-2 was thwarted.

Since the farm bill was enacted in 2002, the USDA conservation programs have taken a real beating year after year as they have been used as a source of offsets for to fund other needs. Including this conference report, the annual appropriations measures from fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2006 have cut some $1.1 billion in funds that we dedicated to conservation in the farm bill. In addition to that, last fall a further $3 billion was taken out of the Conservation Security Program to pay for disaster assistance. And in the reconciliation measure, a further $1.78 billion would be taken away from conservation over 10 years – over $1.2 billion from the Conservation Security Program alone. Let me emphasize, what I am describing here is taking away mandatory funds that were dedicated to conservation in the farm bill – within the budget allocation we were provided for the farm bill.

In the debate earlier today on the payment limitations amendment, I heard all of this talk about not reopening the farm bill. The truth of the matter is that the farm bill has been repeatedly reopened as farm bill funds for conservation – and other programs for that matter – have been taken away in the appropriations bills. So to complain about limiting payments to those getting hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from farm programs as reopening the farm bill is a bogus argument.

The last thing that we should do is worsen the cuts to farm bill conservation funds. Farmers and ranchers are not now able to obtain enough funding assistance from USDA for conservation, yet this measure would substantially worsen the shortfall.

I have a number of other concerns.

I would like to talk briefly about country of origin labeling. During debate of the 2002 farm bill, we included country of origin labeling for meat, fruits and vegetables, peanuts and fish as requested by producers and consumers from across the country. I supported country of origin labeling then, as I do now, because it just makes sense. Producers should be allowed to add value by differentiating the origin of their products and consumers ought to have the power of information and choice when buying food for their families.

Unfortunately, the will of producers and consumers has been largely ignored. Behind closed doors, without debate or even a hearing, country-of-origin labeling for meat, fruits and vegetables and peanuts was delayed until September 30, 2008. This same back door maneuver was done in the fiscal year 2004 appropriations bill with the justification that industry needed more time to prepare for the program. Now I suppose they need more time in order to kill the law altogether in the next farm bill. These efforts to re-write the farm bill in the appropriations process have gotten way out of hand and are making a complete mockery of the rules.

Mr. President, I am also concerned about this same quiet back door process used to amend the Organic Foods Production Act. Earlier this year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals struck down three final rules for the National Organic Program. I urged the organic community to come together, reach a consensus on what was needed to respond to the court decision, and then come to Congress. Unfortunately, that did not completely happen, and some people were left out of the process.

Last month, Senator Leahy introduced an amendment to the Senate agriculture appropriations bill that would require USDA to study the impacts of the Circuit Court of Appeals decision as a place holder in the bill in hopes the organic community would have more time to discuss the proposed changes to the law and reach a consensus, which could then be inserted during conference. Regrettably, no agreement was reached within the organic community on any proposed changes to the law.

Unfortunately, this conference report complicates what was already a complicated and sticky issue. Again, behind closed doors and without a single debate, the Organic Foods Production Act was amended at the behest of large food processors without the benefit of the organic community reaching a compromise. To rush provisions into the law that have not been properly vetted, that fail to close loopholes, and that do not reflect a consensus, only undermines the integrity of the National Organic Program.

The agriculture appropriations conference report also strike a provision adopted by the full Senate that would limit contracting out to private companies for carrying out the Food Stamp Program. This amendment was adopted without objection by the full Senate and then reaffirmed by the Senate conferees during the conference committee meeting last week. However, like so many other aspect of this bill, this provision, contrary to the will of the Senate, was stripped from the bill behind closed doors.

Not only does the removal of this provision put at risk the ability of low-income individuals to obtain food stamp benefits. It also threatens to undercut tremendous progress made in the area of program integrity by allowing state to contract out vast portions of the Food Stamp Program to untested private entities. The removal of this provision also highlights the hypocrisy of many of my colleagues in the Republican party. While the Agriculture Appropriations conference report prohibits USDA from privatizing farm loan and rural development programs, it contains no such prohibition on food stamp program operations. Apparently, the needs of the poor do not warrant such similar protection.
I am pleased that the measure includes $58.8 million which will complete the construction of the major laboratory building at the ARS animal disease facilities in Ames. It also provides some funding for animal holding facilities.
Unfortunately, construction has been moving more slowly than expected. And, until we have a completion of bids on the laboratory building, we will not know what additional funding may be needed to adequately provide for animal containment facilities. My hope is that whatever additional funding may be needed will be placed into a supplemental appropriations measure next year.

I continue to be disappointed that the measure eliminates or reduces funding for a variety of provisions in the Rural Development program of the Farm Bill. We have a major reduction in the Value Added Development grants that creates jobs and improves farm income. The Rural Development Investment program which has been destroyed by abusively excessive fees is at an end. I was pleased that the Senate report calls for a revamping of the operation of the broadband program – which ought to facilitate more broadband loans – through a simpler, less costly and more available loan program. Clearly, this is a technology that needs to be available in all areas of rural America for them to have a chance of economic development.
I am thankful for the inclusion of numerous projects specifically important to the state of Iowa. Some of the research, like one that looks to a way to separate soy proteins from soy oil, could have a tremendous impact on our ability to create new high value products.
In this conference report, Congress provides $1.15 billion for the P.L.-480 Title II Food for Peace food aid program, the largest food aid program run by the U.S. government. This is the same level of funding provided for fiscal 2005, which was not enough to both meet last year's massive emergency needs and provide usual funding for development assistance programs.


Food aid law requires that a minimum of about $650 million be devoted to non-emergency, development programs, which address chronic food problems and help improve infastructure and productivity in developing countries. At the beginning of last year, US-AID set a target of $480 million in funding for these programs, and although end-of-year accounting has not yet been completed, it now looks like the figure will be closer to $330 million.

I am concerned that this Administration is seriously shorting the development assistance projects under Food for Peace. In many cases, investment in mitigating chronic food needs in developing countries in one year may avert the need for far higher spending to address genuine emergencies in later years. For example, one of the countries where U.S. food aid development projects were cut back earlier in 2005 was Niger, a country which by summer was experiencing a serious shortage in food availability, which prompted a flash appeal for emergency assistance by the UN's World Food Program in August.


On the other hand, I am pleased that funding for the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program has been boosted to $100 million for fiscal 2006.

Mr. President, I want to express my thanks to Chairman Bennett and Senator Kohl and their staff for their consideration in this process. I wish I could support this measure, and there are some very worthwhile provisions included in it that I strongly support. But on balance, I cannot support it.