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www.hagstromreport.com Friday, July 13, 2012 | Volume 2, Number 121 ▪ Senate bill would extend ag disaster programs; drought could change politics▪
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Friday, July 13, 2012 | Volume 2, Number 121 |
 USDA's Fast-Track Drought Disaster Map |
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Senate bill would extend ag disaster programs;
drought could change farm bill, election politics
In what would appear to be the equivalent of an ad hoc disaster program and a signal that the drought may change the politics of both the farm bill and the election season, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Tim Johnson of South Dakota Thursday introduced legislation to provide a one-year extension of the agriculture disaster assistance programs that were in the 2008 farm bill but expired at the end of the 2011 fiscal year.
“As severe fires and drought threaten ranchers and farmers across the country, this extension will provide certainty for American producers while Congress works to pass the next farm bill,” the senators said in a news release. They also released the text of the bill, and a link to state- and county-level information on the expired disaster payments.
Conrad and Baucus insisted on the inclusion of what they called permanent disaster programs in the 2008 farm bill, but those programs have expired because there was not enough money to enact them for the full length of the five-year bill.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said that the new farm bill should include disaster programs that cover this year’s problems, and that the bill should be finished before Sept. 30.
Vilsack this week announced a package of program changes to speed up secretarial disaster designations:
▪ A final rule that simplifies the process for designations and would result in a 40 percent reduction in processing time for most counties affected by disasters;
▪ A reduced interest rate for emergency loans that effectively lowers the current rate from 3.75 percent to 2.25 percent;
▪ A payment reduction on Conservation Reserve Program lands qualified for emergency haying and grazing in 2012, from 25 to 10 percent. A natural disaster designation makes all qualified farm operators in the designated areas eligible for low-interest emergency loans, but that is not the same as disaster aid.
The bill the four senators introduced today would reauthorize the following programs:
▪ Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) program, providing crop insurance for farmers affected by disasters.
▪ Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), which compensates ranchers at a rate of 75 percent market value for livestock mortality caused by disasters.
▪ Livestock Forage Program (LFP), which helps ranchers who graze livestock on qualifying drought- or fire-affected pasture land.
▪ Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP), which compensates producers for disaster losses not covered under other disaster programs.
Links
▪ Text of bill to extend supplemental disaster assistance program
▪ Payments by state for the five disaster programs (Excel document)
▪ Payments by county for the five disaster programs (Excel document)
▪ USDA Disaster Map Crop Year 2012
▪ USDA Fast-Track Drought Disaster Map
▪ USDA Listing of Disaster Designated Counties
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No farm bill floor plans from Boehner or Cantor |
 Rep. John Boehner, D-Ohio |
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, refused to guarantee that the farm bill will get floor time, and a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., also did not discuss floor time in a statement, National Journal Daily reported Thursday.
“There’s some good reforms in this farm bill,” Boehner answered when asked to address complaints from some conservatives that the legislation does not go far enough, the newsletter reported.
“There are other parts of the farm bill that I have concerns about,” he said, adding “you know we’ve got a Soviet-style dairy program in America today, and one of the proposals in the farm bill ... actually make it worse.”
“I’ll reserve the rest of my comments on the farm bill until I get a closer look at it,” Boehner said, according to the report.
“We appreciate the hard work of the chairman and the Ag committee and will be discussing the committee's product with our members in the weeks ahead,” said Laena Fallon, a Cantor spokeswoman said, according to the report.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., have both urged the House leadership to bring up the bill.
Meanwhile, Politico reported that Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee want the leadership to bring up the bill. |
 Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa |
“Bring this bill to the floor — fast,” said Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who is running for reelection against Christie Vilsack, the wife of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “I would’ve been happy to bring this to the floor last night, the minute it passed out of committee.”
King refuses to even entertain the idea that his leadership would extend current policy, Politico reported, saying he would be “terribly disappointed if we don’t have floor time to debate this ag bill.”
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan, who voted against the bill in committee, told Politico the issue is difficult, and noted that “We have a lot of folks that won with 55 percent and less in rural areas.”
▪ Politico: GOP leaders may squash farm bill
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Vilsack criticizes SNAP cut |
 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack |
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday that the proposed cut to the supplemental nutrition assistance program better known as SNAP or food stamps was “unfortunate” and that the Obama administration, which has proposed no cuts to nutrition programs, will continue to seek policy solutions that are consistent with President Barack Obama’s budget.
“Unfortunately, the bill produced by the House Agriculture Committee contains deep cuts in SNAP, including a provision that will deny much-needed food assistance to 3 million Americans, mostly low-income working families with children as well as seniors,” Vilsack said in a statement.
“The proposed cuts will deny 280,000 children in low-income families access to school meals and reduce farm income across rural America,” the secretary said. “These cuts wouldn't just leave Americans hungry — they would stunt economic growth.”
Vilsack said that the bill “also makes misguided reductions to critical energy and conservation program efforts.” |
How they voted on the farm bill
Thirty-five members of the House Agriculture Committee voted to approve the farm bill early Thursday, but 11 voted against it.
The 11 committee members who voted “no” on approval:
Republicans
▪ Bob Gibbs, Ohio
▪ Bob Goodlatte, Va.
▪ Tim Huelskamp, Kan.
▪ Marlin Stutzman, Ind.
Democrats
▪ Joe Baca, Calif.
▪ Joe Courtney, Conn.
▪ Marcia Fudge, Ohio
▪ Jim McGovern, Mass.
▪ Chellie Pingree, Maine
▪ Terri Sewell, Ala.
▪ David Scott, Ga.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that if she were on the committee, she would have voted with the Democrats who voted “no” over the food stamp cut, the National Journal Daily reported.
Stutzman issued a news release that he had voted against the bill because the food stamp cut was not big enough. |
Grain industry alarmed by Peregrine failure
to segregate customer funds
The National Grain and Feed Association said this week that it is was “extremely alarmed” by reports that the Peregrine Financial Group Inc. failed to segregate customer funds, and said it would work with Congress and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on new regulations to avoid the problem in the future.
NFGA, the nation’s largest trade association comprising commercial hedgers of grains, oilseeds, feed and feed ingredients, and grain products, said it is uncertain about the full extent to which member companies may be affected by the PRG insolvency and alleged missing customer funds.
But the case “clearly demonstrated” that the earlier MF Global incident was not a one-time problem, the group suggested. “We now see that significant risk to supposedly segregated customer funds still exists,” said the NGFA.
The group noted that it had earlier this month submitted a series of recommendations to Congress and the CFTC designed to provide greater oversight and enhance customer protections in the event of another MF Global-type liquidation of an FCM.
The NGFA’s recommendations included amending the U.S. bankruptcy code to, among other things, provide greater and more detailed guidance in liquidation proceedings involving a commodity broker or FCM, and placing customers first-in-line for distribution of funds, ahead of creditors.
The NGFA also recommended establishing a new type of voluntary, fully segregated customer accounts to shield customer assets from pooled losses if an FCM bankruptcy occurs, and extending insurance coverage to protect against FCM bankruptcies involving commodity accounts.
“We look forward to working with Congress, the CFTC and other stakeholders to achieve these critically needed changes,” the NGFA said.
In addition, the NGFA said it would await a “full explanation” from regulators as to how the alleged missing funds escaped notice, apparently over a long period of time.
First allegations of missing customer funds occurred July 9, when the National Futures Association determined that an account that was supposed to have $225 million of customer money actually held just $5 million.
According to the NFA, a further review of the company’s records found that the firm allegedly had been falsifying records as long ago as 2010, with one account in February 2010 found to contain just $10 million of the $218 million it was supposed to contain. The NFA has said the whereabouts of the customer funds currently is unknown.
The CFTC on July 10 filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against PFG and its owner, alleging that they committed fraud by allegedly misappropriating customer funds, violating customer fund segregation laws and making false statements in financial statements filed with the agency.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., has scheduled a hearing on the matter for Tuesday. |
USDA announces new political appointee changes
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that Leigh Allen, an appointee in the Risk Management Agency, will begin a detail as a confidential assistant in the Farm Service Agency. Allen was a professional staff member on the Senate Agriculture Committee when former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., chaired that committee. He also worked as a legislative consultant.
Yaesul Park has joined USDA as a staff assistant in the office of Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment Harris Sherman. Park served as an intern in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs. She also served as an intern for Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., a legislative assistant for the Oregon state legislature; and was a co-founder of the “Kids Achieving Literacy” program of Moroccan Migrant Association in Taqadoum, Morocco. She graduated from Emory University in 2012 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and was a staff writer for the Emory Political Review. |
Zeigler new executive director of Global Harvest Initiative |
 Margaret Zeigler |
The Global Harvest Initiative, a collaboration among DuPont, Elanco, IBM, John Deere and Monsanto on global food security, has hired Margaret Zeigler as its new executive director.
Zeigler has been deputy director of the Congressional Hunger Center, where she has worked on global food security issues and designed and implementd the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellowship Program in 2001.
Through the U.S. Insitute of Peace, Zeigler has researched coordination of humanitarian nongovernmental organizations and the military in Bosnia, and provided regular humanitarian training for the Southern Command of the U.S. military and Latin American military units during peacekeeping exercises from 1999 through 2001.
Zeigler holds doctoral and master of arts degrees in geography and international development from the University of Cincinnati, and served as an adjunct faculty at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University from 1996 through 2006. She received a bachelor of arts in psychology from Miami University of Oxford, Ohio.
The Global Harvest Initiative encourages increases in agricultural productivity, mostly through modern technology. |
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