Grassley Will Take Farm Program Payment Limits to Full Senate

Two Midwestern Senators are not happy with a lack of commodity payment reform in the 2007 Farm Bill, and announced Monday that they would lead a charge to change the bill when it reaches the full Senate floor.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., held a press conference Tuesday to explain the details of a planned amendment that would cap the amount of money a farmer can receive in federal farm program payments.

The Farm Bill will be taken up tomorrow by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Grassley and Dorgan will not propose their amendment in the committee. Rather they will wait until the bill goes to the full Senate to put their amendment up for a vote.

A series of compromises have been reached under the leadership of Iowa's other Senator, Democrat Tom Harkin, who chairs the ag committee. But the proposed bill reportedly does not include a cap on the amount of federal dollars that a farmer can receive through the bill's many commodity programs.

"The payment limits language that's been released by the agriculture committee is simply the status quo, from my point of view," said Grassley. "What's even more disconcerting is that we've been hearing that the mark considered on Wednesday will include provisions similar to the House bill."

The U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the 2007 Farm Bill in July. The House bill would exclude from federal farm programs any individual who makes more than an average of $1 million in adjust gross income over a three-year period. It would not, however, cap payments to individuals who are eligible for payments.

"These reforms are window dressing, and they don't accomplish much at all. We need a clean vote on real reform," said Grassley. "We need a real, hard cap, not a fig leaf that's being proposed." Grassley warned that the adjusted-gross-income approach to limiting farm program payments is vulnerable to "subterfuge."

Dorgan, who has long sided with Grassley on the subject of limits to farm program payments, explained that he and Grassley are strong supporters of a "farm safety net," but he said "that safety net, regrettably, has become in many cases a set of golden arches for some of the largest corporate 'agri-factories' in our country. And a substantial amount of money goes to some of the largest corporate farms."

Current law allows substantial money to go to "people that never lived on the farm, never laid eyes on the farm," said Dorgan. He said many are not involved in farming in any way.

Dorgan explained that their amendment will attempt to accomplish three goals: establish a payment limit of $250,000 per farm; require that those receiving farm program benefits be "actively engaged in farming"; and that payments must be attributable to a person and not a corporate entity.

The Bush Administration has also called for caps on farm program payments, something that may aid Grassley and Dorgan's efforts this year.

These reforms are not new to Grassley and Dorgan, who led a similar effort when the 2002 Farm Bill was being written. That effort resulted in a victory in the Senate in 2002, but the payment limits were removed when the Senate Farm Bill went to conference committee with the House.
An audio recording of Grassley and Dorgan's press conference is available here.