Veneman, Harkin Clash Over
Farm Bill Spending Limits

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The Senate's lead negotiator on a new farm bill complained that the Bush administration won't say how much it is willing to spend on subsidies over the next five years.

``Farmers are hurting badly,'' Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman at a budget hearing recently.

The Senate-passed farm bill would increase spending on agriculture, conservation and nutrition programs by $42.8 billion over the next five years, compared to $33 billion for the House-approved legislation.

Veneman said the Senate bill is too costly but wouldn't tell Harkin what the spending level should be for the five-year period. She did say the administration supports $73.5 billion in new spending over the next 10 years — the limit authorized by last year's budget agreement. That money, Veneman said, should be spread out ``relatively evenly'' over the decade.

``There's a concern about spending too much in the first five years and not having enough in the second five years,'' she told Harkin.

After the hearing, Veneman told reporters that the administration would support spending about half the $73.5 billion, which would be about $37 billion, prior to 2007.

Harkin, the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman, said the administration had not defined what it meant by spending the money ``relatively evenly'' and that last year's congressional budget agreement did not restrict how much money could be spent from one year to the next.

``What we have tried to do in the farm bill is to help farmers who are struggling right now,'' he said.

A House-Senate conference committee is beginning work on a compromise version of the two farm bills, and the spending level is expected to head a long list of issues the negotiators will have to address.

Much of the extra spending in the Senate bill would go toward conservation and nutrition programs and a new $2 billion subsidy program for dairy farmers. Under the Senate bill, the conservation programs would be cut sharply after 2006 and the dairy subsidies would disappear altogether.

The Senate bill also includes $2.5 billion in disaster assistance for farmers who lost crops to drouth and other weather-related problems in 2001.

The nation's largest farm group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, told lawmakers that they needed to act quickly on a compromise but didn't take a position on the spending level.

``The seriousness of the economic situation confronting agriculture cannot be overemphasized,'' the group said in a letter.

Farm Bureau strongly criticized a provision in the Senate bill that would cap subsidies at $275,000 per farm. Farmers can now get some subsidies in unlimited amounts.