June 27, 2012
www.gfb.org
Vol. 30 No. 26
SENATE PASSES FARM BILL, AWAITS HOUSE VERSION The U.S. Senate passed its version of the 2012 farm bill on June 21 by a 64-35 vote. The bill establishes program guidelines for the USDA for the next five years. Georgia Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson both voted against the final bill, citing inequities between commodities and regions. “If this bill were to become law without significant changes, producers in the Southeast would be left without an effective safety net,” Chambliss said. Both Georgia senators expressed hope the imbalance of protections for farmers would be resolved when the House and Senate bills are conferenced. The House Ag Committee is expected to resume work on that chamber’s farm bill after the July 4 recess. The Senate bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012 (S. 3240), establishes total spending for USDA programs at $969 billion from 2013 to 2022, $23.6 billion less than would be spent if the USDA programs under current law were continued for the same period according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Though the farm bill is reworked by Congress every five years, the CBO does budget estimates in 10-year increments. The bill eliminates direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) payments and Supplemental Revenue Assistance (SURE) payments. The bill’s commodity portion was reworked around private crop insurance, with the federal government assisting farmers with premium payments. The bill placed limits on who could receive premium assistance and how much farmers could receive; farmers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $750,000 or more are ineligible for payments, which are capped at $50,000. An amendment submitted by Chambliss and approved in the final bill makes conservation compliance a prerequisite for participating in the crop insurance program. Overall, S. 3240 cuts spending on commodity programs by more than $13 billion over the next 10 years. An estimated $6 billion was cut from conservation spending by combining 23 programs into 13. An estimated $4 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; commonly referred to as the food stamp program), which accounts for approximately 80 percent of the USDA budget. This was achieved by enacting rules to close a number of loopholes, including a prohibition against states making marginal heating bill payments to individuals to allow them to qualify for SNAP benefits.