One down

The first ambitious farm bill reform amendment in the Senate has fallen. From the office or Sen. Richard Lugar:

Senate votes against Lugar's FRESH farm bill reform alternative

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar today debated a fiscally responsible, reform farm bill alternative on the Senate floor. Lugar was joined by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and a group of eight bipartisan colleagues. The Farm, Ranch, Equity, Stewardship and Health (FRESH) Act amendment failed to pass by a vote of 37 to 58.

In his floor speech, Lugar stated, “Agriculture policy is too important for rural America and the economic and budgetary health of our country to continue the current misguided path. Our amendment provides a much more equitable approach, produces higher net farm income for farmers, increases farm exports, avoids stimulating over-production, and gives more emphasis to environmental, nutritional, energy security and research concerns. More importantly, this proposal will protect the family farmer through a strong safety-net and encourage rural development in a fiscally responsible and trade compliant manner.”

· Read Lugar’s floor speech at: http://lugar.senate.gov/farmbill/fresh_floor.cfm

· Listen to Lugar’s floor speech at: http://lugar.senate.gov/farmbill/

· Broadcast quality audio (a 24 megabyte file) is available at: http://lugar.senate.gov/farmbill/media/farm_bill_floor_speech_high.mp3

The FRESH Act would have saved billions in farm payments, while broadening the agricultural safety net. The savings would be invested in other vital programs with $4 billion left over to reduce the deficit.

More specifically, the FRESH Act would have instituted an equitable safety net for ALL farmers, brought America’s agriculture policy into trade compliance, fully funded the nutrition title without budget gimmicks, increased specialty crop funding by an additional $770 million, increased conservation spending by an additional $1.2 billion, provided an additional $1 billion to expand research into new bio-fuels and deployment of rural renewable energy projects and provided $75 million for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.