Agriculture Dept. Reorganization Hits a Snag

A bill to reorganize the Agriculture Department and finally let Secretary Mike Espy begin closing field offices has been put on indefinite hold because of a dispute over environmental regulations.

A month ago, the House Agriculture Committee finished work on the bill. But it also approved an amendment by Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres), that caused the House leadership to keep the bill off the floor.

As a result, a number of field offices scheduled to close are still open, and employees are in limbo over their future with the department.

The Condit amendment would require the department to set up a risk-assessment office that would make sure regulations don’t do more economic harm than environmental good.

Farmers believe that too many regulations are made by people who don’t understand what it costs to carry them out. Critics say risk assessment is an inexact, shortsighted procedure that can be politically manipulated to block any rule.

Condit didn’t pull the notion out of his hat. The idea has been circulating in Congress.

A similar amendment applying to the Environmental Protection Agency has, since February, stalled a bill to lift that agency to a full-scale department with more clout.

The Administration’s stance has been two-sided. President Clinton signed an order Sept. 30 supporting the idea of a cost assessment. But the Administration opposes any legal requirement.

When the issue arose in the EPA bill, Vice President Al Gore and EPA Administrator Carol Browner lobbied Congress to keep the risk-assessment measure out.

However, when the House Agriculture Committee considered the amendment, none of the representatives from the Agriculture Department at the hearing objected. The department’s position is unclear.

“We’re trying to work with the committee to try to address that issue,” said James R. Lyons, assistant secretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment.

“I’m not sure how we’ll come out on that now,” he said.

He said the office is unnecessary because the department is already involved in analyzing rules to balance their economic impact against the harm they are supposed to prevent.

The committee could simply send the bill along to the floor with the Condit amendment. But it doesn’t want any other amendments offered on the floor.

To speed the bill along, the committee can offer it in a way that requires a two-thirds vote rather than a bare majority to pass.

Opening the bill to amendments would require a long debate, and the bill cannot compete with more urgent measures, such as spending bills, for time on the floor in the near future. Once passed, the bill must be reconciled with the Senate version.

House Republicans have already decided to oppose the reorganization bill, but they like the risk-assessment amendment.

If the bill is open to amendments, critics of the job the department has done on food safety could try to pluck that function out of the department.

Also, the bill could be open to an amendment that would permit Espy to appoint more blacks, other minorities and women to the local committees that oversee the work of the department’s field offices.

The committee rejected that amendment on grounds that local farmers should elect all members.