WASHINTON, Nov. 22,
3025 - The crop insurance program may have dodged a bullet in the new budget
agreement, but more shots may be coming, starting as soon as next year. Or at
least House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway is gearing up for that
possibility by organizing an outreach effort to fellow House Republicans.
House GOP
leaders have pledged to reverse a $3 billion cut to crop insurance that was
included in the budget deal. But they’ve also pledged a more open process for
handling legislation on the House floor, and that’s where there could be
trouble for Conaway and his committee. GOP leaders kept the Agriculture
appropriations bill, which funds USDA and FDA, off the House floor this year,
depriving critics of farm programs a chance to propose amendments that would
involve cuts in funding. But Conaway, R-Texas, knows he might not be so
fortunate in 2016.
So, Conaway and fellow Republicans on the
committee will be meeting with groups of their GOP colleagues starting as soon
as next week to field questions about crop insurance as well as other farm and
nutrition programs.
“Each member
has a small group that they’re going to be listening to ... modeled after what
we do with our constituents back home,”
Conaway said. “We want to be the link between the (House Republican) conference
and the ag issues.”
Putting it another way, he said, “The idea is to give folks a chance to talk
about ag issues in a format with folks who know what they’re talking about and
get our perspective as well.”
The committee members will be divided up on a regional
basis. Conaway and Randy Neugaubauer, for example, will be responsible for
their 23 fellow Republicans in the Texas delegation.
Conaway cautioned that it isn’t an effort to create
“whip” teams to back the committee’s positions, but he thinks the outreach will
not only help with annual appropriations but to lay the groundwork for
defending farm programs when the farm bill is up for renewal in 2018.
“Members need to know about the issues and facts and
then they’ll make better decisions on votes at some point in the future.
Obviously, 2018 is coming around pretty quick, and the better educated our
members are as to what the issues are that production agriculture faces, the
easier it will be to get them to support the program that keeps those guys in
business,” he said.
The attacks on crop insurance and other programs from
both the right and left are likely to intensify. After the leadership agreed to
reverse the cut, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.,
and Ron Kind, D-Wis.,
introduced legislation that would slash $24 billion from the insurance program in
addition to the $3 million reduction that was in the budget agreement.
“We’re just trying to push back,” Flake told Agri-Pulse. “This is big money. This isn’t just
piddly stuff.”
The bill isn’t going anywhere on its own, but any one
of the collection of proposals could make an appearance either in the
Agriculture appropriations process or, almost certainly, when the farm bill is
up for debate.
“The last few weeks have shown that rural America is willing
to fight to maintain the critical support that crop insurance provides,” said
Mike Torrey, executive vice president of the Crop Insurance Research Bureau, a
leading industry trade group. “But this
also means that as crop insurance grows in importance, we must broaden efforts
to find common ground and help non-traditional allies understand the value of
the program.”
As for that $3 billion cut in the budget deal, it’s
still not clear where the money is going to be found to keep it from falling on
crop insurers. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, worries that agriculture programs
could still get cut despite the leadership promise. “This is a promise by
leaders and sometimes these promises aren’t carried out.”
But both Conaway and Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat
Roberts, R-Kan., say they are confident that the money won’t come out of
agriculture and nutrition programs.
“My faith is
in (House Speaker) Paul Ryan and (Majority Leader) Kevin McCarthy, keeping
their promise that they made to me to keep that (the cut to insurers) from
happening,” Conaway said. “I’ve got confidence that they will deliver on
what they promised.”
“Titanium-clad” is how Roberts describes the deal with
House GOP leadership. “There’s a general understanding now of just how serious
this was. …. It was a very bad mistake.”
Roberts went on, “Maybe there’s a silver lining in this,”
referring to the furious, 48-hour lobbying campaign by farm groups, crop
insurers and bankers that led to the leadership deal. “Everybody just weighed
in. That’s a good thing. We all got together.”
#30
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