The FedeRal MoToR Carrier Safety Administration will now accept comments on interpretations of farm trucking rules until Aug. 1. ..............................................2
The neW e15 (15 percent ethanol) pump label represents a relatively balanced compromise that will allow the market to determine demand for new blends. ..................3
R a i n s l oW e d W h e a T har vest at many locations last week, but far mers as the week began were around half done with the crop statewide. .........................7
Monday, July 4, 2011
Two sections Volume 39, No. 27
Quinn trims state budget for new fiscal year BY KAY SHIPMAN FarmWeek
Gov. Pat Quinn ushered in the state’s new fiscal year by first cutting and then signing a new $32.9-billion state budget. That amount is nearly $2 billion below what the governor proposed when the budgetwriting process started. Quinn said he “carefully examined the budget ... and identified areas for improvement and reduction.” He used
his line-item veto to make $376 million in cuts. Those areas included eliminating of $11.3 million in general revenue funds, for regional superintendent of education salaries as he had proposed earlier. Quinn stated the regional superintendents may be funded with other state funds. “To fund the regional superintendents from other sources would most likely take separate legislative action,” said Kevin
Semlow, Illinois Farm Bureau director of state legislation. “In March, the governor included in his proposed budget eliminating the regional superintendents, but the General Assembly did not support that recommendation,” Semlow continued. “The ball is now in the General Assembly’s court to accept the funding change or restore the funding by overriding the governor’s veto.” The governor also reduced
Roberts: Let ag committees write the next farm bill BY MARTIN ROSS FarmWeek
Periodicals: Time Valued
Senate Ag Committee ranking Republican Pat Roberts (RKan.) can’t predict when his committee may begin drafting a new farm bill, though “we’re trying hard to figure that out.” But Roberts asks congressional appropriators to allow House and Senate ag committees to “set the policies that lead to responsible spending reductions and strike a balance between the needs of our producers and our taxpayers.”
The broader budget debate “will have more impact on the structure of the next farm bill than it has on any other (ag) Sen. Pat Roberts policy proposal in my memory,” he warned at a Washington biotech industry conference last week. The House recently defeated an Appropriations Committee move to set a new $250,000 annual adjusted gross income limit for farm program eligibility, though direct farm payments remain a key target. Roberts sees “a big bull’s-eye on our back,” given high commodity prices and mounting deficit reduction pressures. He argued high prices don’t last forever and stressed ag policy is written for five years to ensure a farm safety net “in the good times and the bad.” High prices “don’t mean much if we don’t have a crop to sell,” he said, citing drought conditions in western Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas and a wet spring that’s prevented many Midwest growers from planting a crop. Crop insurance and direct payments (“Yes, direct payments”) will help “devastat-
ed” farmers survive 2011 losses, he said. Roberts is wary of program direction being set by appropriations committees, insisting “it’s what you’re cutting that’s dramatically important, and how that policy affects the farmer and, eventually, the consumer.” “We just went through (House) ag appropriations, and you saw what happened there, with some amendments that I thought were terribly counterproductive and not wellthought-out,” Roberts told FarmWeek. “That’s always what’s happened with appropriators who think they’d like to write a farm bill, as opposed to the (farm bill) authorizers. “We think we have the expertise to do it better, or at least safer. We just don’t know until we get (an ag budget) number, and we’ll quarrel about the number, obviously, like everybody else. “Farmers and ranchers tell me they’ll certainly contribute to deficit reduction. It’s just that we’d like to have everything on the table, and I mean everything within the ag budget. And we’d not like to be singled out for something that’s very disproportionate with regards to the entire budget.” See Roberts, page 3
FarmWeek on the web: FarmWeekNow.com
school districts’ transportation funds by $89 million. He stated that would bring the funding level back to fiscal year 2011 levels of $205.8 million. “The budget is now in place. A large portion of the smaller amounts cut from the budget were included twice in appropriations,” Semlow said. The governor noted he had discovered and eliminated double appropriations during his assessment of each line item in the budget. Quinn also cut $276 million in Medicaid funding. “Implementing a budget is not a one-day event but rather a year-round process filled with robust debate and difficult deci-
sions,” Quinn said. Quinn is unable to make a decision on the General Assembly’s expansion of the state’s gaming system because that legislation is being held in the Senate via a procedural rule. The action of the Senate freezes deadlines of having the legislature forward the bill to the governor and, therefore, blocks the governor from acting on the bill. It also puts on hold the creation of expanded gaming facilities. The General Assembly will be able to address the governor’s budget veto when lawmakers return in October for the veto session.
destined to become ethanol
Paul Jeschke, left, and his wife, Donna (atop truck), of rural Mazon in Grundy County load corn destined for an ethanol plant in Indiana. The Jeschkes are in the process of cleaning out corn from last year’s har vest. They farm with Mrs. Jeschke’s brother, John Dollinger, and his wife, Noreen. Mrs. Jeschke said the condition of their corn and soybeans this year ranges from good to fair. The family had to replant 90 acres of soybeans and 60 acres of corn due to heavy rains. (Photo by Ken Kashian)
Illinois Farm Bureau®on the web: www.ilfb.org