UPDATE - Bill doubling US farm "green" not enough - critics
Date: 02-Nov-01
Country: USA
Author: Charles Abbott
The conservation proposals were the first component of Harkin's farm bill to be made public. The Iowa Democrat said conservation would be the cornerstone of his bill. Other provisions were to be released on Thursday.
Under Harkin's plan, agricultural conservation would get $4.4 billion a year on average, compared to the current $2 billion. A novel program of "green" payments, running $500 million a year, would go to producers who practice soil, water and wildlife conservation or adopt new practices.
"Some people out there believe we ought not to reward good actors. I believe they're wrong," Harkin told reporters. When green payments go to good stewards, "you encourage others to do the same."
Skeptics said Harkin offered a much smaller initiative than suggested by his rhetoric although Harkin said his bill would provide 25 percent more funding than a bill passed by the House of Representatives.
"Harkin is not leading the pack," said Ken Cook of the Environmental Working Group. Cook said two other Senate proposals would do more for conservation.
Tim Searchinger of Environmental Defense said Harkin's plan might spend as little as $3.5 billion a year through 2006. "It's roughly the House average," he said. Environmentalists regarded the House farm bill as inadequate.
Conservation funding was overshadowing crop subsidies as the premiere issue in overhauling U.S. farm law. The Bush administration wants Congress to wait until next year to replace the "Freedom to Farm" law that deregulated farming in 1996.
Written every few years, farm bills bundle crop support, public nutrition, export, rural development and agricultural research programs that spend billions of dollars a year.
Two dozen Democratic senators who want a farm bill this year, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, requested to meet Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and White House budget chief Mitchell Daniels on Thursday.
"There's going to be far less (money) available next year to write a farm bill," said North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad, Budget Committee chairman and an Agriculture Committee member.
Environmentalists say conservation programs were a fairer way to distribute federal support to a wider range of growers than the traditional crop supports, which go chiefly to large operators in the Plains, Midwest and South.
The House, before passing its bill to boost grain, cotton and soybean subsidies by $49 billion through 2011, narrowly defeated, 226-200, a proposal to boost conservation spending at the expense of crop supports.
There was wide support among lawmakers, conservation groups and the White House for "green" payments to reward farmers who were good stewards.
Harkin's bill would make "green" payments available to producers, based in part on local land rental rates and supplemented by cost-share assistance and incentive payments for adopting new conservation techniques.
Payments would peak at $50,000 a year for farmers moving to the most advanced levels. "We believe there is enough money" to make the so-called Conservation Security payments available to everyone, an aide said, despite the low annual cost.
"It can't be that much of a cornerstone, it seems to me," said Cook of the Environmental Working Group.
Other provisions would:
- allow 40 million acres in the Conservation Reserve, which pays farmers to idle fragile land for 10 years. Enrollment now is capped at 36.4 million acres.
- boost funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, now $174 million a year, to $950 million. EQIP shares with producers the cost of controlling manure, pesticide and farm runoff.
- create a one million-acre Grassland Reserve to preserve grass and prairie land from development.
- allow 250,000 acres a year into the Wetlands Reserve to preserve and restore wetlands.
- expand the Farmland Protection Program, which shares the cost of buying easements to preven
