House OKs Southeast Drought Aid : Package, Opposed by Administration, Approved 418 to 0

The House, joining a Senate drive to beef up relief efforts by the Administration and private volunteers, Wednesday unanimously approved legislation to aid Southeastern farmers battered by the worst drought in more than a century.

The extensive package, which includes government donations of livestock feed, hay transportation subsidies and disaster payments to row croppers, is opposed by the Administration as unnecessary and too costly.

Nevertheless, the bill breezed through the House, 418 to 0. A nearly identical version had won tentative approval by the Senate on a voice vote last Friday. Final congressional action may be delayed, however, because the Senate measure is attached to a slow-moving debt-ceiling bill.

Meant ‘to Give Hope’

Rep. Edward R. Madigan of Illinois, senior Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, said that the relief package was meant “to give hope to people who otherwise would not have hope.” Sponsors contend that the aid could help prevent bankruptcy for thousands of farmers beset by parched pastures and fields from Pennsylvania to Florida.

Agriculture Department officials, who disclosed a series of relief programs last Friday, complained that the new congressional measures would add $1.1 billion to the federal deficit.

However, House sponsors estimated the cost at only $230 million and said it would be fully offset by the proposed sale of government-held farm loans to private institutions. The sponsors estimated that the cost of programs already announced by the Agriculture Department would be about $300 million.

‘$2 Billion in Losses’

“This is a small price to pay to alleviate the more than $2 billion in losses caused by the drought,” House Agriculture Committee Chairman E. (Kika) de la Garza (D-Tex.) said.

The legislation calls for donating government-owned surplus grain to farmers who have only a three-day supply of food for their livestock or poultry.

Providing such free supplies in critical cases would go beyond the step announced last Friday by Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng. He said that the government will cover up to half the cost of feeding livestock in disaster counties by providing farmers with certificates they can redeem for surplus grain.

80% of Transport Cost

The legislation would also require the Agriculture Department to pay 80% of the cost of transporting hay supplies from surplus-producing areas if volunteer hay lifts and relief measures implemented by the Agriculture Department are insufficient. Lyng announced Friday that drought-stricken farmers will be permitted to cut hay or graze cattle on lands that have been idled under programs to slash production of wheat, corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and peanuts.

Besides aiding livestock producers, the legislation would partly compensate growers of row crops for losses. Farmers in disaster areas would be given up to $100,000 each in government-owned grain, even if they were covered by federally subsidized crop insurance. The farmers could sell the grain (imported from surplus areas in the Midwest), barter it for other supplies or use it.

The Administration and several key legislators objected that these disaster payments would undermine the crop insurance program, a deficit-cutting effort aimed at moving away from federal disaster grants.

To All Farmers

Although he opposes the disaster payments, Lyng moved Friday to increase by $1 billion the amount of income subsidies the government will pay farmers now instead of after harvest, the usual time of payment. These advance “deficiency payments” will go to all farmers in every state, not just in disaster areas.

The House and Senate bills would also put more ready cash into the pockets of dairy farmers by allowing them to delay paying assessments levied under the federal milk-reduction program.

Farmers in 189 counties designated as disaster areas are eligible for low-interest loans from the Farmers Home Administration to cover losses from ruined crops. However, many farmers are heavily in debt already because of a depressed economy that preceded the drought.