House Narrowly Defeats Farm Funding Change

A bipartisan effort to forge a major change in federal farm funding for the sake of the environment failed narrowly in the House on Thursday, but support in the Senate and the Bush administration for conservation programs gave sponsors hope that their struggle is not lost.

The House voted 226 to 220 to reject an amendment that would have shifted $1.9 billion annually from crop subsidies to programs to help farmers control polluted runoff from their fields, resist urban sprawl and preserve wildlife habitat.

Supporters of the measure saw the close vote as a sign that there is hope for a significant revision of the way the government spends money on farming.

“We’ve strengthened the hand of the administration and the Senate in crafting this farm bill,” Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a chief sponsor of the bill, said after the vote. “This is the beginning of some very serious negotiation that will have to take place before there is a final farm bill.”

The Bush administration opposes the House farm bill, which would provide $170 billion for agriculture over the next decade. Among other criticisms, the administration faulted the bill for missing the opportunity to support “innovative environmental programs” for working farms.

“The good news is that this is the closest vote ever to significantly transform federal farm programs,” said Tim Searchinger of Environmental Defense, a mainstream environmental group. “It should encourage the effort in the Senate. It should encourage the Bush administration.”

As drafted, the House bill would greatly expand subsidies for grain, cotton and soybean producers, which are concentrated in the Plains states and Texas. It is expected to pass easily, despite the administration’s contention that it would threaten U.S. trade agreements, encourage overproduction and low prices for farm goods and help the biggest farms, which need it least.

Because of the terrorist attacks and the faltering economy, the administration and leading senators argue that it is the wrong time to debate the farm bill, so it is unlikely that the Senate will draft its version this year.

The bipartisan support for the conservation amendment came from House members in states where farmers receive relatively little agricultural funding. Supporters saw conservation programs as a way to help their farmers at home and improve the environment.

Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), one of the chief sponsors, said the amendment would “help farmers and cities, protect land and water, preserve open space and keep farms in business.”

Republican leaders in the House joined with big agriculture in the fight to defeat the amendment.

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Larry Combest (R-Texas), argued that the provision would “totally devastate” his bill and threatened to pull the legislation altogether if the amendment passed.

But supporters of the amendment stressed that even some of the conservation programs funded by the bill fail the “green test.” The bill’s largest conservation program would allow haying and grazing on grasslands that are supposed to be set aside for wildlife habitat and the second-largest would funnel most of the money to the largest livestock operations, which have the funds to clean up pollution runoff without help.

The vote proved an interesting challenge for California’s representatives, who traditionally have had little interest in the measure because--despite being the biggest farming state in the nation--the state receives relatively little federal farm support.

In 1998 and 1999, farmers in some states received on average more than 20 cents for each dollar of product they generated, but farmers in California received only 2 cents on the dollar.

Even though the amendment would have increased California’s annual federal farm funding by hundreds of millions of dollars per year, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) was the only California Republican to vote for the amendment. Three California Democrats opposed the measure: Reps. Calvin Dooley (D-Fresno), Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres) and Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino).