Harkin: Finance Committee Shouldn’t Oversee Ag Programs

Sen. Tom Harkin is opposed to a plan to take some farm programs out of the jurisdiction of the agriculture committees in Congress.

Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, told agriculture reporters on a conference call Thursday that a Farm Bill proposal to allow the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee to administer a federal crop disaster program is a “non-starter.”

As Congress has struggled to scrape together enough funds for the new Farm Bill, members of the Senate Finance Committee created a plan to fund a permanent disaster assistance program. But the plan came with one stipulation: The finance committee gets complete control of the program.

The key players in crafting that plan were finance committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the ranking Republican on the finance committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Baucus and Grassley also happen to be members of the Senate Committe on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and will serve on the Farm Bill conference committee.

The turf battle has become one of the major impediments to the completion of the new Farm Bill. Harkin once again stressed his firm opposition to the idea, striving to keep all agriculture programs under the jurisdiction of the agriculture committee.

“I think once we start giving up jurisdiction on agriculture to the finance committee, God help us,” said Harkin. “I mean, you know, I’m not so certain that the finance committee would be all that good for agriculture in the future.”

Harkin said he’s mostly concerned about setting a precedent that could someday give urbanites control of agriculture programs.

“I think that’s dangerous, dangerous for those of us who are concerned about agriculture and rural America,” said Harkin. “It is true that Baucus and Grassley are rural people. They’re chairman and ranking member of finance now. Now. What about later on? Who is next in line in finance? I don’t know, but I start looking at that and say, boy, what would happen if they lose their jurisdiction, what would happen if they’re not here? When somebody starts establishing a principle like that, boy, it’s hard to end.”

Harkin said he doesn’t have a problem with the tax-writing committees creating some form of tax credits that could be applied to agriculture programs, just as long as those committees don’t seek to take control of the administration of the programs. “If the finance committee wants to do some tax benefits for certain things or tax credits, that’s their business,” said Harkin. “But they’re not going to provide us with funds and then say, ‘OK, now we’re going to exercise control over conservation or exercise control over disaster programs.’ That’s not going to happen.”

He said that a solution to the problem could involve setting up a system somewhat similar to how highway funds are dispersed.

“There was some talk that what we might do on the disaster portion is to set up a trust fund, like the highway trust fund, where we would decide how the money goes out,” said Harkin. “And I think we’ve just about got that done. We’ve got language pretty well written for that. The finance committee would decide how much money to put into it, and they could do that any time they wanted. That would be up to them. But they would have to come up with the revenues and how much to put into it.”

Members of Congress passed an extension of the current Farm Bill this week, giving themselves until April 18 to resolve their differences and finish the new Farm Bill.