Lugar Issues Busy Committee Schedule

January 11, 2000

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) has planned a half dozen hearings for the first 10 days of February. The first will focus on concentration of business ownership in agriculture.

Lugar and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), the committee's ranking Democrat, introduced a bill last year to create a position in the Justice Department's antitrust division to enforce antitrust laws in agriculture.

Other hearings will focus on the impact of the Environmental Protection Agency's water quality regulations on agriculture, dairy policy, the loan guarantee program for rural satellite and cable television, and reauthorization of the Commodity Exchange Act. Also, by March 8, the committee will mark up legislation to improve risk management and use $6 billion in the federal budget earmarked for that purpose.

Dates, times and witnesses will be announced later when they are finalized.