By Chris Casteel
Washington Bureau
As printed in The Oklahoman, May 16, 2008.

WASHINGTON – A $290 billion food and farm bill that would preserve crop subsidies while adding billions for nutrition programs is headed to the White House on Thursday for a sure veto, but Congress appeared poised for a certain override.

The Senate approved the new five-year bill on Thursday by a margin of 81-15, following House approval a day earlier by a vote of 318-106; each house had more than the two-thirds necessary support for an override.

Congressional approval this week followed months of tough negotiations, but the bill failed to meet President Bush's demands for less spending and more reforms in crop subsidy programs that provide a safety net for producers when market prices drop.

The current programs, approved in 2002, expired in September, but lawmakers extended them several times while they worked on new legislation. Bush had called for the 2002 bill to be extended into next year, a proposal that made farm groups anxious that less money would be available for the wide-ranging legislation.

Reaction mixed
Mike Spradling, president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, said in an interview that he was pleased the bill was approved.

"It's not exactly what we'd like to have, but we're glad to get what we can," he said. "It's a federal farm bill, not an Oklahoma farm bill, so you've got to have compromise, but it's something we can live with."

The legislation was endorsed by numerous agriculture groups for its farm-related provisions and others, like Catholic Charities USA and the National Council of State Legislatures, for the increases in nutrition programs, including food stamps and aid for local food banks.

More than two-thirds of the bill's spending over the next five years is in nutrition programs. The rest is in crop subsidies, conservation programs, crop insurance, rural development aid and alternative energy production.

Oklahoma's senators, who have been voting mostly together on issues this year, split in a big way on the bill.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, supported the legislation, saying it "ensures that Oklahoma will continue to be a national leader in agriculture production as our cotton and wheat farmers will continue to enjoy the support and certainty these programs provide."

He also praised provisions sponsored by him and Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, that will provide funding for the production of ethanol made from switchgrass and other cellulosic sources.

"Today, world-class scientists at Oklahoma State University and the Noble Foundation are working with farmers across Oklahoma to develop cellulosic bioenergy crops that don't compete with feed for livestock," Inhofe said.

But Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, called the bill "bad for American agriculture, consumers and taxpayers."

Coburn supported the earlier Senate version of the bill in December, but said changes made during the last few months of negotiations turned him against it.

"Congress has put the priorities of special interest non-farm lobbyists over the long-term interests of Oklahoma farmers and ranchers," he aid. "This is not a farm bill. It is a nutrition-social programs bill, with a few Oklahoma farm programs thrown in."

Plusses, minuses forecast for state
Spradling, with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, said, "We did take a little bit of a hit on the commodity side and they picked up on the nutrition side."

But he said he could understand the concern over people struggling to buy food.

Spradling said he was pleased with the new permanent disaster fund that guarantees money will be available when weather destroys crops.

"Oklahoma is one of the states that gets hit a lot, and it's sometimes years before there's any aid given to our farmers and ranchers and sometimes that's too late," he said.

He said the slight cut in guaranteed annual "direct" payments – those that are often cited as the most important to wheat farmers – was regrettable but "manageable."

Bush and other critics of the bill said taxpayers shouldn't be funding crop subsidies at a time when commodity prices and farm incomes are at all-time highs. But Spradling said the cost to farmers for planting is also at an all-time high. The subsidies are there, he said, for when crop prices fall; when they do, he said, farmers' costs will still be high.

"There's a much better chance that prices will drop long before the inputs do and that's dangerous for farmers," he said.

This article appeared in The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com, on May 16, 2008.