Lugar Wants To Wait A Month; Democrats Balk

July 27,1999

Something of a confrontation is shaping up over the process Congress will use to shore up sagging farm income and when congressional action should be taken. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) wants to wait until September. Democrats say the process should not stand in the way of more immediate action.

Lugar Monday said he wanted three days of "comprehensive hearings" on the farm income situation, Aug. 3-5. He proposed that agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and other administration witnesses would testify first on Aug. 3. "On the basis of these hearings," Lugar said, "the agriculture committee would draft and mark up authorization legislation during the first legislative week of September, thus providing to the Senate Appropriations Committee a clear road map for prompt action on farm income."

However, he also took a swipe at Democrats pushing for billions more immediately to bail out farmers from the low prices they face for their 1999 crops. Some senators "may simply want to debate the farm income issue immediately (even though) nothing may come of these efforts but that such failure could be blamed on someone else."

He then implied he would scuttle the entire process if the agricultural appropriations bill came up for debate before the August recess or that "any individual senator simply decides to start the debate by offering a surprise amendment to any bill." Then, he added, "we will not proceed with hearings, because committee members will be on the Senate floor participating vigorously and at length in the debate."

Democrats were quick to respond. Glickman said he and Lugar had talked about the problems facing agriculture, and "while I believe that congressional hearings are necessary to examine the underlying problems and to evaluate solutions to fix the farm safety net, such hearings should not stand in the way of efforts in Congress, working with the administration, to enact immediately emergency farm assistance."

Although he had vowed to attach a massive farm aid amendment to other legislation, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) came back Monday to the agricultural appropriations bill as the vehicle he'd use. "We have crafted an emergency package that deserves immediate attention by Congress," said Harkin. "There is no justification for further delay. I started working in May to get this emergency package passed, and since then the situation in rural America has only gotten worse. I will not give up until this Congress responds to the economic devastation in rural America."