Page 18 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

Staff said that Cantor wanted more time to assess the political situation for farm bill passage. On
July 12, the Committee approved H.R. 6083, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk
Management Act of 2012, by a vote of 35-11. The markup lasted until nearly 1 a.m.

At that time, Agri-Pulse wrote: “Chairman Frank Lucas masterfully marched through the bill,
title-by-title, with Ranking Member Collin Peterson at his side, as the two moved mostly in
lockstep to keep the fragile coalition they had forged focused on final approval. Lucas prodded
and pulled to keep members of his caucus who sought far deeper cuts and more substantial
reforms from derailing support for the bill.”

Both the House Agriculture Committee’s version and the Senate-passed bill had eliminated
direct payments, but – reflecting strong regional differences – they took two different approaches
on the commodity title.
The Senate version created a new shallow-loss revenue protection program that corn and
soybean farmers had lobbied heavily for. The House Ag Committee’s version was different –
protecting against deep losses, while also creating a countercyclical program modeled after
historical target price programs that was favored by Southern growers.

Both included provisions for a new cotton program, but the House cotton package offered
considerably higher levels of support with a fixed reference price in the insurance program. The
House version also continued a phased-down version of direct payments for the 2014 and 2015
crops of upland cotton. Some folks were concerned about the potential impact the new
provisions might have on the Brazilian cotton case.

You could almost see the relief in Lucas’ face as the bill advanced to this point. Then he
waited… and waited… and waited.

Most of the crops in the countryside were burning up in a drought and members wanted to go
home to campaign for the November elections. House Ag Committee members especially
wanted to get back to their districts and tell everyone that they passed a farm bill. But, in a year
divisible by two, Boehner and Cantor would not agree to let the bill come up for a floor vote.

The two GOP leaders claimed they didn’t have enough Republicans to vote for the bill. But
Boehner and Cantor didn’t appear to be in lockstep about the strategy. In fact, often they
appeared at odds.

Others wanted the delay in hopes that Republicans would win back the Senate and enable greater
farm bill reforms.

Other members weighed in. Reps. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., spearheaded a
bipartisan letter that was signed by 80 others, urging leadership to send the House Agriculture
Committee’s bill to the floor for debate. GOP leaders did draft a farm bill extension bill in late
July that would have trimmed direct payments and made more significant cuts in other programs,
but it was later pulled for lack of support.

Speaking in Iowa after touring drought-stricken areas later that July, Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack told House Republicans that they needed to quit stalling and vote on a farm bill that
would include livestock disaster assistance.

16 www.Agri-Pulse.com