Roberts: No Farm Bill Before Year’s End

By Phyllis Jacobs Griekspoor, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Sep. 9–HUTCHINSON — Kansas farmers shouldn’t expect to see a new farm bill before year’s end, Sen. Pat Roberts said Saturday at the annual Farm Bureau breakfast at the Kansas State Fair.

In fact, the Kansas Republican said, he expects the current farm bill to be extended into next year.

"So far, we don’t even have a clear picture of the timetable," said Roberts, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "We don’t know when we will discuss the farm bill."

A bill has passed the House, but Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, stopped short of predicting what will happen in the Senate.

He said he thought it was "only fair" that Congress pass the bill by the end of the year to let farmers know what it offers before they make spring planting decisions.

Peterson was invited by Rep. Nancy Boyda, a freshman Democrat who represents Kansas’ 2nd District.

He said the House committee was able to draft a farm bill — the legislation is renewed every six years — and move it through the House because it avoided getting mired in partisan issues. He said it maintains a safety net for farmers in tough times and provides a framework for the Senate.

Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, was in the good humor that the State Fair always seems to bring out when he brought out a guitar and invited Peterson to play "Home on the Range."

Peterson obliged, the Kansas delegation joined him at the podium and the whole room joined in.

But Moran turned quickly serious on the issue of the farm bill and the work still facing Congress.

"I’m not surprised the Republicans lost the off-year elections," Moran said. "We were not governing the way we need to govern. But I don’t think the American people were saying ‘replace Republicans with Democrats.’

"What the American public wants is a Congress that acts like adults and gets its work done. We need to put America’s needs ahead of partisan bickering and get the job done."

And, he said, no legislation is more important to Kansas than the farm bill.

Kansas has 64,500 farms, and agriculture contributes $10 billion annually to the state economy.

Moran said the work is harder for every farm bill because of a decreasing farm population and a corresponding decrease in legislators who understand the farm economy.

"We have people always talking reform," he said. "But what they mean by reform is take money away from the farm bill and spend it on something else."

Sen. Sam Brownback said he wants to see agriculture get "as big a piece of the energy pie" as possible. He also wants to remove some House-passed portions, including a provision to place Davis-Bacon labor law restrictions on ethanol plant builders, add specialty crops to farm programs, and expand taxes to offshore corporations.

The legislators spent time greeting visitors at the fair before attending a live radio forum at noon, at which they reiterated their positions on farm issues and answered questions from the audience.

Reach P.J. Griekspoor at 316-268-6660 or pgriekspoor@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:pgriekspoor@wichitaeagle.com].

—–

To see more of The Wichita Eagle, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.kansas.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.