Sessions Issues Statement On Farm Bill Following Last Night’s Vote

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement after voting yesterday against final passage of the Senate Farm Bill:

“I greatly appreciate the hard work that Senators Cochran and Stabenow put into the Senate farm bill. Through Sen. Cochran’s leadership, this year’s bill is better for many farmers in Alabama than last year’s bill, especially considering improvements to programs used by peanut and cotton farmers. In addition, unlike last year’s bill, this year’s Senate bill retains the USDA inspection program for catfish, which is a major priority for Alabama’s catfish industry. However, I find it deeply concerning that the Senate farm bill lacks reforms to the food stamp program—food stamps now make up 80 percent of the spending in the farm bill—while instead making substantial cuts to the provisions for our farmers, which make up less than 20 percent of the bill.

Many of us in the Senate wanted to find ways to improve the bill. Yet, once again, Majority Leader Reid preempted real legislative debate by filing cloture after just 10 roll call votes on amendments. More than 200 amendments were left unheard. This is not acceptable in the Senate—the world’s greatest deliberative body. Important bills like this simply must be subject to the traditional amendment process. While I was pleased that one of my amendments was accepted by the Senate—Amendment No. 945, which will help Alabama farmers access federal irrigation programs—several others I filed or supported, including amendments to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the food stamp program and to prevent regulatory overreach, were denied a vote. I am hopeful that, as a result of a conference with the House of Representatives, the final farm bill will be something I can eventually support. But much work remains left to do.”

BACKGROUND:
The bill spends approximately $955 billion over 10 years and reduces spending by $17.9 billion, or approximately 1.8 percent (according to the Congressional Budget Office). Food stamp programs comprise 80 percent of spending under the Senate farm bill and, while programs important to Alabama farmers are cut significantly under the Senate bill, the food stamp program receives virtually no real reductions—a cut of around one-half of one percent. Unlike the Senate bill, the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill would achieve four times as much savings from reforms to the food stamp program compared with the Senate bill.

While less than 5 percent of amendments received a vote during the Senate’s consideration of the farm bill, Senator Sessions was able to obtain approval of his Amendment No. 945, which clarifies that, when providing irrigation assistance under the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program, USDA cannot limit eligibility on the basis of “prior irrigation history” [more information on this amendment here].

However, many other amendments introduced or supported by Senator Sessions did not receive a vote, including:

· Sessions Amendment No. 946, which would have ended the USDA partnership with Mexican consulates that encourages foreign nationals, migrant workers, and non-citizen immigrants to enroll in food stamps and fourteen other USDA-administered welfare programs.

· Sessions Amendment No. 947, which would have required state agencies that issue food stamps to take mandatory steps to verify the immigration status of applicants for such benefits. Currently, states are not required to verify the immigration status of food stamp applicants, even though states are required to do so for other federal programs such as Medicaid.

· Sessions Amendment No. 1051, which would have revised language in the bill to modify a study regarding regulatory compliance costs for small-scale commercial farmers.

· Grassley amendment No. 1097, which Sen. Sessions co-sponsored, would have protected livestock and poultry farmers from having their personal information released by EPA.

· Manchin-Boozman-Coats Amendment No. 1130, which Sen. Sessions co-sponsored, would have provided regulatory relief for farmers from EPA overreach by clarifying that an EPA permit is not required for “routine agricultural discharges.”

Among other things, the Senate farm bill would eliminate direct and counter-cyclical payments for farmers, and in its place, the bill establishes additional crop insurance support programs. For example, the bill establishes the “Agriculture Risk Coverage Program” (ARC) to protect farmers from “shallow losses” due to drops in crop revenues. The bill also authorizes the “Adverse Market Payments Program” (AMP) to provide farm payments if crop prices fall below commodity specific reference prices, and the bill creates a new revenue insurance program for cotton called the “Stacked Income Protection Plan” (STAX) to provide shallow loss coverage for cotton producers. However, spending on programs that help farmers comprises less than 20 percent of the total spending authorized in the Senate farm bill.

[NOTE: For more information on the food stamp component of the farm bill, click here.]
http://www.sessions.senate.gov/publi..._id=&Issue_id=