THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080611
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
The Senate approved far-reaching legislation Wednesday to end Depression-era programs that pay farmers not to plant certain crops. The bill would replace many crop subsidies with fixed payments that will gradually decline over the next seven years.
The measure, the most sweeping agricultural legislation in 60 years, would also end most federal controls over planting decisions. Similar legislation is expected to come to a vote in the House later this month, and Senate backers of the measure said on Wednesday night they were optimistic it would pass.
Speaking for the Clinton administration, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Wednesday night that the bill was ``a step in the right direction'' but urged the House to make ``additional improvements.''
Peanut farmers fared better than most Wednesday. Instead of providing fixed payments that would decline over a seven-year span, the federal support price for quota peanuts would be maintained. However, the minimum price for those peanuts would drop from the current $678 per ton to $610 a ton over the life of the bill. The Senate voted down an amendment by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., that would have effectively shut down the support system.
Peanuts have traditionally been a staple crop for many farmers in Suffolk, Isle of Wight and throughout western Tidewater.
Consumers may feel little impact from the bill, because raw ingredients make up a small share of supermarket costs. However, critics pointed out that the bill keeps in quotas and price guarantees that make consumers pay more for sugar and peanuts. Complicated and regionally divisive dairy programs were left untouched.
Wednesday's vote was 64-32, with 20 Democrats joining 44 Republicans. The vote gave the Senate majority leader, Bob Dole of Kansas, and the bill's other main sponsor, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., an important victory in advance of the Iowa caucuses on Monday. Dole and Lugar are both seeking their party's presidential nomination.
Though he prevailed Wednesday, Dole was stung Tuesday when Senate Republicans fell one vote short of shutting off debate and bringing the bill to a vote. Dole criticized several Senate Republicans who missed the vote, but saved his sharpest barbs for Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a rival for the Republican presidential nomination who was campaigning in Louisiana and Iowa.
On Wednesday, Gramm brushed off the criticism. ``He knew he wasn't going to win on that vote,'' Gramm said on the NBC News program ``Today.'' Gramm criticized Dole for scheduling the final vote on the bill for Wednesday, when Gramm was scheduled to be campaigning in Iowa.
The focus of farm legislation now shifts to the House, which is scheduled to debate its version when it returns from a recess Feb. 26. After Wednesday's farm bill vote, Dole announced that the Senate would take off the next three weeks.
The Senate bill that won acceptance Wednesday was approved once already by the Republican-controlled Congress as part of the huge budget reconciliation bill that President Clinton has vetoed. But when Dole brought the bill up again for a stand-alone vote, Democrats effectively stalled the measure by refusing to end debate.
To attract some Democrats, Republicans accepted provisions offered by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., to expand environmental and land conservation programs by $2 billion over the next seven years, and to reauthorize nutrition programs such as food stamps.
Republicans also agreed to keep a permanent farm law that dates to 1949. The law calls for an outdated and expensive set of price supports that Republicans and Democrats agree are budget-busting provisions. But the concession ensures that Democrats will have a chance to rewrite farm policy in seven years. If new legislation is not passed then, farm policies will revert to the 1949 provisions.
These changes were enough to sway 20 Democrats, many of whom had complained that the fixed payments amounted to welfare payments to wealthy farmers and stripped away a government safety net for family farms that dates to the Depression. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The New York Times,
Knight-Ridder News Service and The Associated Press.
ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
HOW THEY VOTED
A ``yes'' vote is a vote to pass the bill.
John W. Warner, R-Va.Yes
Charles S. Robb, D-Va.Yes
Jesse A. Helms, R-N.C.Yes
Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C.Yes by CNB