Farm bill goes behind closed doors

WASHINGTON — For three New York lawmakers, serving on the Agriculture Committee is a badge of honor. But on the committee’s main order of business — crafting a five-year package of programs on dairy policy, farm subsidies and nutrition programs — they appear to be all but locked out of the barn.

The farm bill usually deliberated every five years by the House and Senate agriculture committees is being hashed out this year behind closed doors by the committees’ top leaders and may ultimately be decided by the joint committee on deficit reduction, also known as the “supercommittee.” Unless the committee fails miserably — which is possible — all indications are that Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Reps. William L. Owens and Christopher P. Gibson, the only New Yorkers on any of the panels, will never be afforded a vote on a farm bill, let alone be able to offer provisions in the committees.

“It’s never coming back to the ag committee,” said Mary Kay Thatcher, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

From the Farm Bureau’s view, the agriculture committees at least will be heard, albeit through the filtered messages of their chairpersons and ranking members. Still, the Farm Bureau prefers transparency, she said, a sentiment echoed by the lawmakers whose roles have been diminished.

“It’s being done by four people in a closed door fashion,” said Mr. Owens, D-Plattsburgh, who isn’t alone in his frustration on the Agriculture Committee. “Everyone is really focused on the fact that we’re not participating.”

With only two Northeastern lawmakers on the supercommittee and none among the agriculture committees’ four top leaders, decisions on critical issues such as the safety net for north country dairy farmers is falling to lawmakers largely from the West, South and Midwest where priorities are often different from the Northeast’s.

That contrasts with Mrs. Gillibrand’s popular refrain of being the first New Yorker on the Senate Agriculture Committee in decades and with Mr. Owens’s and Mr. Gibson’s earlier assertions that they had staked a platform for helping New York farmers when agriculture programs were revisited.

Now, New York lawmakers have been relegated to asking the people who will actually be in the room to look out for their interests.

Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Owens and Mr. Gibson, R-Kinderhook, have offered suggestions to their committee leaders on future farm policy. Mrs. Gillibrand has proposed a margin insurance program she says is friendlier to small farms than Mr. Peterson’s and that doesn’t restrict farms’ ability to expand. She has proposed to keep a government subsidy paid to dairy farmers when prices tumble — a proposal Mr. Peterson rejects and that, from the makeup of the decision makers, would appear improbable.

Mrs. Gillibrand and Mr. Gibson have also advocated making the crop insurance program better suited to specialty crop growers who, like those in the Hudson Valley this summer, suffer from weather disasters.

“I want to be heard on this topic before decisions are made,” Mrs. Gillibrand said in a recent interview in her Capitol Hill office.

Whether their ideas advance remains to be seen. Mr. Owens said he asked Mr. Peterson Thursday to include a provision to expand the types of farm businesses eligible for loans through the Farm Credit system, and that Mr. Peterson appeared open to the idea. The Agriculture Committee’s final recommendations are due by Tuesday, and the supercommittee has until late November to reach a deal.

On dairy policy, lobbyists and others say Mr. Peterson appears to have momentum behind his idea of a margin insurance program that protects farmers from low milk prices and high feed costs, while eliminating the Milk Income Loss Contract subsidy, which pays farmers when milk prices fall below $16.94 per 100 pounds. The margin insurance would be optional, but farmers who sign up would have to agree to restrictions on milk production to discourage them from expanding.

“Right now Peterson is in the driver’s seat,” said Robert J. Gray, executive director of the Council of Northeast Farmer Cooperatives, representing farmer-owned bargaining cooperatives. Despite being in the House minority, he has additional influence because the Congressional Budget Office says his proposal will save money in the long run, Mr. Gray said.

Of course, the supercommittee’s ability to reach a deal on deficit reduction is anything but certain. Should it fail to do so, farm policy might fall back to the agriculture committees after all, Mr. Owens said.

That may even be true, he said, if the deficit panel stumbles and President Barack Obama works with House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to craft a deficit deal. In that case, Mr. Owens said, he doubts those leaders would become involved in such details, leaving program specifics to the committees.

Some Agriculture Committee members would not mind if the deficit committee fails, from the perspective of farm programs, Mr. Owens said. The resulting cuts from so-called sequestration would have to be determined in the Agriculture Committee, at least, he said.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, has weighed in on farm policy with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said his spokesman, Matt House.

In a statement, Mr. Schumer said, “No matter the legislative process, I’m going to push as hard as I can to ensure that the farm bill is right for New York. Vegetable and dairy farmers across the state are the backbone of our rural communities across Upstate New York, and I’m going to work hard to keep it that way.”