If you aren't familiar with Lugar, you are in luck. Senator Lugar likes the YouTube. You can see him in three videos from a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing about global hunger:
1. Opening statement
2. First round of questions
3. Second round of questions
From Lugar's site, he offers a PDF summary of his farm bill amendment, jointly sponsored with Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
The FRESH Act Lugar-Lautenberg Amendment
Institutes an equitable safety net to ALL farmers:
Replaces depression-era price supports with modern risk management tools, including county-based revenue insurance and whole farm insurance tools available to all farmers, not just the 43% of farmers who grow commodity crops.
Fairly shares the risks and cost of insurance with crop insurance agents and companies.
Phases out the Direct Payments that were instituted in 1996 as a temporary transition payment. These taxpayer funded subsidies go out to farmers regardless of whether cash is flowing in or out of their farms or whether they farm at all. Although many subsidized farmers are projected to receive record crop prices and earn record farm incomes, the Senate Agriculture Committee Farm Bill doles out up to $26 billion in direct payments to a select group of farmers.
Brings our agriculture policies into trade compliance.
Fully funds the nutrition title. While the committee provides $5.4 billion in new investments in the nutrition title, it fails to fully pay for the increases. As a result, all but one small program change will sunset after 2012 and food stamp spending will return to existing levels. In other words, almost all improvements made to the nutrition title will expire, requiring approximately an additional $9 billion to be found in 2012 just to maintain program levels. Lugar-Lautenberg fully pays for all nutrition title programs across 10 years. It also provides an additional $250 million for the Seniors Farmers' Market Nutrition Program and $200 million for the WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program and expands the Simplified Summer Food Program to all states. The FRESH Act amendment also makes funding mandatory for the McGovern-Dole School Lunch Program at $450 million per year to provide school lunches to hungry children in the developing world.
Increases specialty crop funding by $770 million over the Agriculture Committee Farm Bill:
• $250 million for the Seniors Farmers' Market Nutrition Program;
• $200 million for the WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program;
• $20 million for the Farmers' Market Promotion Program; and,
• $300 million for specialty crop block grants, including $50 million for aquaculture and seafood.
Increases conservation spending by nearly $1.2 billion over the Agriculture Committee Farm Bill:
• $640 million increase in the EQIP program;
• $115 million increase in the FRPP program;
• $350 million increase in the Healthy Forests Reserve Program;
• $75 million increase in the WHIP program;
• $160 million increase in the GRP; and,
• $100 million increase in efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay.
Provides an additional $1 billion to expand research into new bio-fuels and deployment of rural renewable
energy projects:
• $300 million for Biorefinery and Repowering Assistance;
• $350 million for Renewable Energy for America Program; and,
• $350 million for Biomass Research and Development Research.
Provides $75 million for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers.
Does not impact the MILC program, sugar program, tax provisions passed by the Finance Committee,
nor the permanent disaster package.
The FRESH Act amendment is fully paid for without employing budget gimmicks and still provides $4 billion for deficit reduction.
About the conservation programs listed in this bill...
EQIP is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which is criticized for giving a disproportionate amount of funding to factory farms. While Lugar gave it his support, he gave it less money than the final farm bill did (although the Senate version of the bill that went to the floor didn't give EQIP any increase at all).
FRPP is the Farmland and Ranchland Protection Program. This program "provides matching funds to help purchase development rights to keep productive farm and ranchland in agricultural uses." In other words, this program helps farmers continue farming - particularly when they are located near urban or suburban areas and the land values are being driven up and chasing farmers out of business.
The Health Forests Reserve Program provides assistance for forest land owners for habitat for threatened and endangered species, to improve biodiversity, and to sequester carbon.
WHIP stands for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. It's used for cost-share for farmers interested in developing wildlife habitat.
GRP is the Grassland Reserve Program. The program "helps landowners restore and protect grassland, rangeland, pastureland, shrubland and certain other lands and provides assistance for rehabilitating grasslands. The program will conserve vulnerable grasslands from conversion to cropland or other uses and conserve valuable grasslands by helping maintain viable ranching operations." In other words, valuable grassland is used for grazing but cannot be converted to growing crops. The grassland owners have to have a conservation plan that limits the number of cattle that can be grazed and often required rotational grazing practices.
Efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay - At
the time this was a discreet program to reduce runoff that is causing hypoxia in the Chesapeake but the final farm bill changed the program somewhat to a regional funding pool for the various programs that help improve water quality. This includes manure treatment because of the huge poultry production on the eastern shore of Maryland and in Delaware. Really this is more about reallocating conservation funding from the midwest to the east coast.
Other Positions
Supports federal nutrition programs.
Supports conservation programs.
Supports GMOs, nitrogen fertilizer, and all things conventional ag.
Supports biofuels.
Opposes direct payments to commodity farmers.
Voted against the 2008 farm bill. |
