Portions of expiring Farm Bill extended

Deal will pre­vent spike in milk prices

MARY CLARE JALONICK

The Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — A poten­tial dou­bling of milk prices will be averted as part of the com­pro­mise that White House and con­gres­sional bar­gain­ers reached on wide-ranging leg­is­la­tion to avert the “fis­cal cliff,” a lead­ing sen­a­tor said late Dec. 31.

Sen­ate Agri­cul­ture Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Deb­bie Stabenow, D-Mich., told reporters that nego­tia­tors had agreed to extend por­tions of the expired 2008 farm bill through Sep­tem­ber. She said that includes lan­guage keep­ing milk prices from ris­ing, but excludes other pro­vi­sions like energy and dis­as­ter aid for farmers.

Stabenow said she con­sid­ers the slimmed-down exten­sion to be “Mitch McConnell’s ver­sion of a farm bill.” She was refer­ring to the Sen­ate Repub­li­can leader from Ken­tucky, who she said forced bar­gain­ers to accept the ver­sion of the farm bill that appeared in the deal.

McConnell spokesman Michael Bru­mas responded: “Sen. McConnell put for­ward a bipar­ti­san, respon­si­ble solu­tion that averted the dairy cliff and pro­vided cer­tainty to farm­ers for the next year with­out cost­ing tax­pay­ers a dime.”

Just a day ear­lier, Stabenow said lead­ers from both par­ties on the House and Sen­ate agri­cul­ture com­mit­tees had agreed to extend the entire farm bill.

Stabenow and House Agri­cul­ture Chair­man Frank Lucas, R-Okla., announced Dec. 30 that they had agreed on a last-minute move that would extend the entire farm bill and replace dairy pro­grams that expire at mid­night Jan. 1. Expi­ra­tion of those dairy pro­grams could mean higher milk prices at the gro­cery store within just a few weeks.

But the House GOP had not endorsed the com­mit­tees’ exten­sion agreement.

The non­par­ti­san Con­gres­sional Bud­get Office esti­mated Dec. 30 that extend­ing the entire bill through Sep­tem­ber, includ­ing dis­as­ter assis­tance for farm­ers affected by drought, could cost more than $1 bil­lion this bud­get year.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has pushed back on pas­sage of a new five-year farm bill for months, say­ing there were not enough votes to bring it to the House floor after the House Agri­cul­ture Com­mit­tee approved it in July. The Sen­ate passed its ver­sion of a farm bill in June. The bill, gen­er­ally passed every five years, includes food stamps, farm sub­si­dies and other help for rural areas.

But the prospect of higher milk prices prompted some action. Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vil­sack has said Amer­i­cans face the prospect of pay­ing $7 for a gal­lon of milk if the cur­rent dairy pro­gram lapsed and the gov­ern­ment returned to a 1948 for­mula for cal­cu­lat­ing milk price supports.

Extend­ing the entire agri­cul­ture bill would have included an over­haul of dairy pro­grams that was included in both the Sen­ate and House com­mit­tee bills. The new dairy pro­grams include a vol­un­tary insur­ance pro­gram for dairy pro­duc­ers, and those who choose that new pro­gram also would have to par­tic­i­pate in a mar­ket sta­bi­liza­tion pro­gram that could dic­tate pro­duc­tion cuts when over­sup­ply dri­ves down prices — an idea that hasn’t gone over well with Boehner.

In July, he called the cur­rent dairy pro­gram “Soviet-style” and said the new pro­gram would make it even worse. Large food com­pa­nies that process and use dairy prod­ucts have backed Boehner, say­ing the pro­gram could limit milk sup­plies and increase their costs.

One of the rea­sons Boehner has balked at bring­ing up a farm bill is dis­agree­ment among House Repub­li­cans over how much money should be cut from food stamps, which make up roughly 80 per­cent of the half-trillion-dollar bill’s cost over five years. Lucas has unsuc­cess­fully pushed his lead­er­ship for months to move on the leg­is­la­tion despite the dis­agree­ment over food aid.

Posted by Tina Murdock on Jan 10 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.