“In the aggregate, yes, we’ll get beat to death going home without having done something, but most of these guys on this floor don’t represent rural districts, and they’re not going to face anybody affected by this,” said Rep. Mike Conaway, a member of the Agriculture Committee.
Updated: 9:17 p.m.
Lawmakers, especially from rural districts and states, don’t want to go home empty-handed to their drought-plagued constituents at week’s end without making some effort to approve agriculture disaster aid.
But as of Wednesday, they were on track to do just that, given that Senate Democrats are reluctant to pass the pending $383 million House disaster bill that still needs to garner enough votes Thursday to even be sent to the Senate. Late Wednesday evening, the House Rules Committee announced it would pull the bill from the suspension calendar, a sure sign leaders did not have the two-thirds vote necessary to approve the measure that way. And if Congress fails to send any sort of legislation to the president’s desk, with about 80 percent of the country suffering from an historic drought, then it will be a blame-game free-for-all when Members return home for the month.
“In the aggregate, yes, we’ll get beat to death going home without having done something, but most of these guys on this floor don’t represent rural districts, and they’re not going to face anybody affected by this,” said Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a member of the Agriculture Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who met with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the Capitol on Wednesday, has said he will consider a stand-alone drought relief package only if it is exactly like the provisions included in the bipartisan farm bill the Senate approved in June.
The House proposal, however, only addresses livestock disaster and tree assistance programs — two of the most pressing issues in current drought conditions. The Senate’s five-year extension — which was supported by 16 GOP Senators — is broader and includes measures to help fruit growers affected by frost and freezes, sweeping improvements to crop insurance and permanent funding for livestock disaster programs.
The House plan would offset the increased spending by cutting conservation programs dear to Democrats. A litany of farm groups and some Democrats released a joint statement Wednesday against the bill, while expressing support for both emergency aid to farmers and a long-term bill.
“If the House simply passed the five-year farm bill reported out of Committee on a bipartisan basis, this bill would not be necessary. While we understand that will not happen before the August recess, this bill potentially costs more than $600 million and would only provide relief to livestock producers a month or two earlier than a farm bill debated and passed in September,” wrote the groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and 12 other prominent organizations. “Agriculture will already provide a minimum of $23 billion in deficit reduction by passing the farm bill. We do not need to provide additional deficit reduction in this package only a few months before we provide far more than agriculture’s ‘fair share.’”
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
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