Drouth, Other Federal Ag Aid
Won't Be Available For Months

WASHINGTON —(AP)— Livestock owners who suffered hay and feed losses in last summer's drouth will have to wait several more months for promised federal aid.

They've already been waiting since early February, when the Clinton administration initially announced the financial aid would be disbursed.

``This is unacceptable,'' U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts Jr., R-Okla., said last Friday, confirming that aid checks won't be issued for at least three more months.

U.S. Rep. Wes Watkins, R-Okla., had said last week that the emergency funds would be released March 22. But the Agriculture Department has once again extended the sign-up period for the program.

He also criticized the agency for the delay, saying that Congress passed the Livestock Assistance Program to provide quick assistance to beleaguered livestock owners.

``Now, it's six or eight months later and they still haven't got the checks out,'' Watkins said.

The congressman sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in February asking the agency to expedite the payments of the $200 million, which will be divided among qualified livestock producers in all the states hit by the 1998 drouth.

Watts sent Glickman a letter Thursday saying he was incensed with the way the USDA was handling the situation.

Drouth aid isn't the only area in which USDA is months behind. The agency is coming under criticism from other members of Congress after news that $2 billion in additional disaster aid for farmers and ranchers won't be delivered until June.

The news means the emergency aid will get to farmers nearly eight months after Congress approved it.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest, R-Texas, called the delay ``unacceptable.''

``There are now billions of dollars that should already be in the hands of farmers and ranchers,'' Combest said last week, noting that farmers need the money as they go into the new planting season.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman wrote to Combest and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Dick Lugar, R-Ind., that administering the aid is ``far more complex than past natural disaster assistance programs.''

And he said the agency is inundated with aid disbursements during this tumultuous farm year, including assistance packages of $50 million for hog farmers and $200 million for dairy farmers.

``Getting these payments out as expeditiously and as fairly as possible is a top personal priority for me,'' Glickman wrote.

Congress approved the money as part of a $6 billion emergency package to aid farmers suffering from free-falling commodity prices.

Glickman said one of the things complicating the disbursement is that it covers farmers who suffered crop losses over several years before 1998 or who had losses only in 1998.

``USDA must go through one additional step of determining which will pay the applicant more before issuing final payments,'' he said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol, meanwhile, spent Wednesday looking at ways to overhaul a crop insurance program for farmers, even while acknowledging an uphill battle for the money.

USDA unveiled details of between $2 billion and $2.5 billion worth of reforms, including raising coverage, making higher-level coverage more affordable and covering multiyear disasters as well as livestock. Several lawmakers have also introduced proposals.

``Our proposal is specific, and it is designed to fill the most glaring crop insurance voids,'' Glickman said. ``It will make crop insurance more affordable and worth buying.''

But it won't be easy as Congress faces pressure to use budget surpluses for Social Security and Medicare. ``I've got to figure out what the tide will bear,'' Lugar said of attempts to get money.

About 79 Republican lawmakers sent a letter to House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, this week urging him to address crop insurance in his committee's budget resolution.

Many farmers don't have crop insurance and those who do complain that it is too expensive and inadequate. With low prices expected to continue for much of this year, lawmakers have said it is critical to strengthen crop insurance to have an adequate safety net for farmers, who lost decades of government subsidies as part of the 1996 farm law.