Roberts Offers Package for Farm Relief

February 14, 2000

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) will introduce legislation that doubles the 1996 farm law transition payments and reforms certain tax provisions and trade provisions. He blamed the Clinton Administration and Congress for "foreign policy trade failures."

In a speech to the National Association of Wheat Growers meeting in Las Vegas, Roberts claimed the Seattle trade talks failed because the administration "pandered to political factions and anti-trade radicals."

He said the administration had failed to bring fast-track trade negotiating authority legislation to Congress and "blocked attempts to pass it." Also, "while granting waivers for grain sales to Iran, Libya and the Sudan, the administration failed to provide credit, thus preventing any grain sales."

Roberts added, "To be sure, Congress shares some of the blame for these foreign policy trade failures, especially in its failure to pass sanctions reform. But the administration. s leadership and budget commitment continues to fall short of what agriculture needs to survive. We now have to pick up the pieces of a shattered agriculture trade policy."

His legislation will include a 100% "bonus" for transition payments, "real crop insurance reforms that do not undermine the program"; tax relief including accounts farmers can use for saving money for lean years, such as capital gains and estate tax changes; regulatory relief including implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act "using sound science"; permanent normal trade relations for China; "real sanctions reform," and approval of fast-track authority.