Farm Bill Creation Could Be a Bumpy Ride in 2013
January 24, 2013 Although some saw Congress’s inability to produce a new farm bill in 2012 as a stalemate for the cotton industry, National Cotton Council President Mark Lange insists otherwise.
September 30 of 2012 was supposed to be the expiration date for the 2008 Farm Bill, although stagnation on Capitol Hill saw multiple deadlines pass before a newly-elected Congress decided to simply extend the current bill by another year. In a speech during the Beltwide Cotton Production Conferences, Lange outlined the multiple deadlines Congress set and then exceeded for itself to pass new farm legislation over the last months of 2012.
In extending the current farm legislation, Lange said, Congress extended for 2013 the provisions of the Farm Bill that were in place for 2012 in respect to the direct counter-cyclical program, the marketing loan rates, and all the program eligibility requirements. However, there are glaring problems created by extending the bill with little to no alterations.
Notably, Lange said, Congress did not pass any incremental budget cuts for this extension – meaning proportionally larger reductions to the farm bill budget will arrive next year.
“This was disappointing to all of us who follow agriculture,” Lange said. “There were no cuts applied to the one year extension for 2013, so when the agriculture committees meet in 2013 and begin their deliberation on a four year bill, they’re going to have to put five years of cuts into four years of farm bill.
“The fact that there were no cuts here doesn’t change the fact that agriculture in the end is going to need $24 to $30 billion in reductions. So, all of those reductions just got pushed into the next four years of Farm Bill. It’ll be significant, the impact, on all of us,” said Lange.
Further, Congress’s inaction in settling on a farm bill budget leaves the door open for others to make cuts as important dates draw closer in 2013. Lange pointed to deadlines pertaining to the Taxpayer Relief Act, as well as other, future “fiscal cliffs” in the first half of 2013.
“All Congress did with the Tax Relief Act was push back sequestration by 60 days,” Lange said. “It begins on March 1.”
With several fiscal deadlines looming, like March 1, it’s not difficult to imagine policy makers on Capitol Hill eyeing the 2013 Farm Bill as a source for potential budget cuts.
“Each one of those (deadlines) brings its own set of problems that Congress has to face,” Lange said. “But all of them bring the opportunity – and remember that agriculture is always the low-hanging fruit – for Congress to say ‘Part of the way we’ll address this debt ceiling, part of the way we’ll address sequestration, or get money for a continuing resolution, is to take it from agriculture,’” Lange said.
“There are plenty of people out there who believe that agriculture will be the very first thing to take a budget cut.”
As someone who has been involved with the Brazilian WTO sanctions for many years, Lange also reminded the audience that Brazil would factor into the 2013 Farm Bill debates. Ideally, a farm bill would pass in Washington D.C. that Brazil reviews and is satisfied with. The country could then present it to the WTO and recommend that their case against the United States is, at long last, resolved.
“One of our issues will be to continue to try to find a resolution to this Brazil case and finally get it off our back,” said Lange.
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