WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday blocked the first of several planned attempts to slash subsidies in the $286 billion farm bill.
The Senate rejected 58-37 an amendment by Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., that would have phased out most farm subsidies and replaced them with stronger crop insurance for all farmers. The money saved would have been shifted to nutrition and conservation programs designed to protect environmentally sensitive farmland.
Farm-state senators lobbied against the amendment, saying it would be too drastic a change for the agricultural sector. “It just moves too far, too fast,” said Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Lugar said current government farm programs benefit the wealthiest farmers and should be scaled back as crop prices are hitting all-time highs.
Supporters of the legislation are pushing for final Senate passage before lawmakers adjourn for the year. The five-year bill would extend and expand crop and dairy subsidies along with popular nutrition-aid programs, including food stamps. Most of those programs have been operating under a temporary extension since the last five-year farm law expired Sept. 30.
Sen. Wayne Allard, a Loveland Republican, voted for the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment while Sen. Ken Salazar, a Denver Democrat, voted against it.
Salazar’s brothers, U.S. Rep. John Salazar and Leroy Salazar, from 1994 through 2005 received more than $182,000 in subsidies under an earlier farm bill, according to the Environmental Working Group. John Salazar now leases out his farmland, and Leroy Salazar leases out part of his land, said Eric Wortman, spokesman for John Salazar.
“Dependence on subsidies is a complicated and risky safety net for farmers,” said Allard spokesman Steve Wymer. “Sen. Allard supports an American agricultural industry that is responsive to markets. This amendment would have helped provide a market-based replacement for billions of dollars that have often funded duplicative programs that have not gone to our most needy rural farming communities.”
Ken Salazar’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Valencia, said he opposed the amendment because it “would have pulled the safety net from underneath our nation’s farmers and ranchers.”
Staff writer Anne Mulkern contributed to this report.
