This is part of an email from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition .
The Sierra Club's Agriculture Commitee is member. Grassley and Harkin
are mentioned.
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CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET RESOLUTION UPDATE
Congress left for a spring recess on April 6 having passed a House and a
Senate version of the FY02 Congressional Budget Resolution. When
Congress
returns the week of April 23, a Senate-House conference committee will
begin work on a compromise budget resolution that will give direction to
the congressional appropriations and tax committees. Senate Republicans
have selected Senators Domenici (NM), Grassley (IA), Nickles (OK), and
Gramm (TX) to be conferees. Other conferees will be chosen after the
recess.
The House version of the budget resolution essentially tracks the
provisions of the Bush Administration's proposed tax cut and budget
plan,
calling for a $1.6 trillion tax cut over a ten-year period from FY02 to
FY11. The agriculture budget does not include funding for disaster and
market loss assistance programs. Instead, the House Budget Committee has
provided a $514 billion strategic reserve, with first call on the fund
from
defense and agriculture. The House Budget Committee also established a
July
11 deadline for policy recommendations for the funding, including the
recommendation from the House Agriculture Committee on agriculture's
share
of the reserve fund, with a final passage deadline of July 25. This is
the
budget framework for the House Agriculture Committee to pass a truncated
Farm Bill consisting primarily of commodity programs with some funds for
conservation.
The Senate approved, by a final 65-35 vote, its version of the budget
resolution which calls for a $1.18 trillion tax cut over ten years, with
an
additional $85 million tax rebate out of this year's surplus to
stimulate
the economy. Amendments approved before the final vote included one
offered
by Senator Grassley (R-IA) to add $63.5 billion over ten years to the
amount in the current baseline for commodity support programs, as well
as
additional funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program of
$350
million per year through FY11. This amendment was adopted by a 51-49
vote
with Senator Zell Milller (D-GA) crossing over to vote with Republicans
in
the evenly divided Senate. A competing amendment offered by Senators
Johnson (D-SD) and Conrad (D-ND), which would have added $97 billion to
the
agriculture budget including $1 billion per year extra for conservation,
was defeated by a vote of 53-47 with Democrats Torricelli (NJ), Carper
(DE), and Miller (GA) joining Republicans to vote against the
amendment. An additional amount of $1.3 billion was added for the Farm
Bill conservation programs in FY02 on an amendment offered by Senator
Smith
(R-OR) and also sponsored by Senators Leahy (D-Vt), Harkin (D-IA), and
others. With the $350 million from the Grassley amendment, the final
Senate version of the resolution contains an additional $1.65 billion
for
the next fiscal year, FY02, for conservation. However, the likelihood
of
retaining much of this amount in the conference on the budget resolution
with the House is highly questionable.
USDA
<> BUSH ADMINISTRATION FY02 USDA BUDGET
The Bush Administration's USDA budget proposal for FY02 slashes
conservation programs and comes up short on some anti-hunger programs,
while leaving many other programs on the sustainable agriculture agenda
with the same funding level as appropriated for FY01. The USDA budget
provides no funds for the Wetlands Reserve Program, Farmland Protection
Program, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. All of these
programs
have run out of mandatory funds authorized by the 1996 Farm Bill but
could
have been included in the budget as either discretionary or emergency
items. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program is funded at $174
million, which is $26 million below its authorized level. The Natural
Resources Conservation Service gets an increase of about $30 million for
conservation operations, for a total of $773.5. About $44 million of the
total amount is a fund transfer earmarked for the Conservation Reserve
Program. The WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program is funded at $20
million, the same level as appropriated in FY01 but the Senior Farmers'
Market Nutrition Program, which received $15 million this year, is not
funded. Overall, the WIC funds in the budget will not keep up with
inflation and the increased need for the program in the face of a
significant economic slowdown.
Programs with level funding include the Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education program at $13 million; the Community Food Projects grant
program at $2.5 million; the Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural
Areas at $2 million; the Federal-State Market Improvement Program at
$1.35
million; State Mediation Grants at $3 million; the Initiative for Future
Agriculture and Food Systems at $120 million; the Rural Cooperative
Development Grant program at $4.5 million and the Rural Business
Enterprise
Grant Program at $40.7 million. The Direct Farm Ownership Loan program
is
funded at the FY01 level of $128 million but the Direct Farm Operating
Loan
program gets $600 million, up from the FY01 level of $525
million. Outreach and Technical Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged
Farmers is level funded at $3 million. Level funding is also provided
for
implementation of the Organic Foods Production Act. In FY01, the Fund
for
Rural America had $30 million, which was used to increase the funding
for a
few sustainable agriculture programs. The FY02 USDA Budget proposal
provides that the $30 million available in the Fund in FY02 will be
allocated after enactment of the FY02 Appropriations Act, within the
discretion granted by Congress to the USDA Secretary.
The USDA Budget does not include funds for Forest Service firefighting,
emergency watershed protection, emergency conservation and other
programs. If money is needed for these purposes, the Administration
proposes that the USDA will need to apply through the Administration and
Congress to draw on funds from a National Emergency Reserve of $5.6
billion
set aside in the Bush budget for government-wide emergencies in
FY2002. Also not included in the budget are emergency crop and
livestock
disaster assistance and market loss assistance programs, estimated to
cost
$10.6 billion in FY01. In addition, money provided in FY01 by
Congressional
earmarks is not included in the administration's proposed budget for
FY02.
The big winners in the Bush budget were trade programs and food safety
initiatives. For trade, the Export Enhancement Program is funded at
$478
million, market access programs at $90 million, export credit guarantees
raised by $112 million to $3.9 billion, and the Dairy Export Incentive
Program increased to $42 million. Funding for the Foreign Agriculture
Service is also increased.
USDA officials will be testifying before congressional Agricultural
Appropriation Subcommittees starting the week of April 23. Subcommittee
mark up of the appropriations bill will not occur until late in the
spring
or early summer, after the Congressional Budget Resolution is finalized
and
specific dollar allocations are made for each Appropriations
Subcommittee.
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