Congress Votes to Overhaul Farm Programs

The House passed a sweeping change in the government’s farm programs early today, sending the compromise legislation to President Clinton for his expected signature.

The measure would end government planting controls that have been the basis of farm policy since the Great Depression, leaving farmers free to plant on the basis of the market.

The legislation also would bring an end to most farm subsidies over the next seven years. But farmers who raise such crops as wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton would continue to receive fixed, declining payments from Washington until 2002. The House voted 318 to 89 to approve the bill. The Senate passed the measure Thursday on a 74-26 vote.

The farm bill will have less impact on California’s diverse agricultural economy than it will on states where feed grains are the dominant crops, although it will directly affect the huge cotton farms in the San Joaquin and Imperial valleys. While earlier versions of the bill threatened major reforms in the government’s program governing sugar and sweeteners--a major crop for the Golden State--lawmakers in the end held off such a bid and made only minor changes.

As the new farm program neared the end of its tortuous legislative journey, Republicans cheered an effort that first threatened to divide them but ultimately brought them together to reduce the federal government’s role in agriculture.

“From now on the federal government will stop trying to control how much food, feed and fiber our nation produces,” said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.). “Instead, we will trust the market for the first time in a long while to direct those signals.”

While all but one Senate Republican voted in favor of passage, Democrats in the end were the ones who split over the measure. Twenty-two Democrats, including California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, voted for the measure, while 25 Democrats voted against.

With farmers across the nation readying their crops for planting, lawmakers in both the House and Senate rushed to complete the bill before recessing for two weeks. The delay in the bill--which was to have been completed by last September--had caused great uncertainty among farmers.

Clinton has said that he has “very serious reservations” about the bill but conceded that he likely would sign it. The administration had sought provisions for a continued “safety net” that would help farmers weather crop disasters and other severe market fluctuations after 2003.

Republicans earlier had made some concessions to win Clinton’s grudging acceptance of the bill. They voted to retain the Conservation Reserve Program, which keeps environmentally sensitive farmland out of production by paying landowners 10-year leases. Prodded by moderates in the Senate, lawmakers kept nutrition assistance, including the giant food stamp program, as a federal program, rather than turning responsibility for such assistance over to the states. And they guaranteed $200 million to protect the Everglades.

The food stamp program would be retained for another two years while Congress works on welfare reform and continues research programs for two years.

Lawmakers from states with large agricultural interests were deeply divided over the bill. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) applauded the bill as a “complete departure from the past,” but North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad warned that that departure could spell ruin for many family-owned farms after payments end in 2002.

“I believe the underlying farm policy contained in this legislation is fatally flawed,” Conrad said. “Farmers get a check from the government even if they plant nothing. That is wrong. This legislation contains payments that are fixed but sharply declining. That is wrong. This legislation provides no adjustments if prices plunge or yields are low. That is wrong.”

On one of the most contentious issues, the bill would end the special tax on dairy producers and phase out the government support for butter, powdered milk and cheese over four years.

Within three years, the Agriculture Department would have to merge 33 regional dairy price-setting agreements into between 10 and 14, and make prices more uniform.

To satisfy critics concerned that farmers would be left without direction after the bill expires in seven years, the bill provides that the 1949 Agricultural Adjustment Act would take over if new farm legislation is not enacted.

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Vote on Farm Bill

Here is how members of the California delegation voted in the 318-89 roll call by which the House passed the bill to overhaul farm programs:

Republicans for--Baker, Bilbray, Bono, Calvert, Campbell, Cox, Cunningham, Doolittle, Dornan, Dreier, Gallegly, Herger, Horn, Hunter, Kim, Lewis, McKeon, Moorhead, Packard, Pombo, Radanovich, Riggs, Rohrabacher, Royce, Seastrand, Thomas

Democrats for--Berman, Condit, Dixon, Farr, Fazio, Harman, Matsui, Torres, Woolsey

Republicans against--None

Democrats against--Becerra, Brown, Dellums, Dooley, Lofgren, Miller, Pelosi, Roybal-Allard, Stark, Waters

Democrats not voting--Beilsenson, Eshoo, Lantos, Martinez, Waxman