Ag Aid Bill Reaches $8 Billion,
Snags On Milk And Cuba Embargo

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The Clinton administration raised objections late last week to an agricultural spending bill that's stalled in Congress, saying it provides too little emergency assistance to growers and goes too far in restricting the use of trade embargoes.

``We have got to make sure this bill is properly tailored to deal with the problems farmers are facing,'' Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said at a news conference. Asked if the administration was threatening a veto, he said, ``I'm not signaling anything.''

Republican leaders have agreed to put $8 billion in farm aid in the bill. But it has been stalled because of a dispute over the trade provision, which would allow sales of food and medicine to Cuba and make it more difficult for the president to impose future embargoes of such items on other countries, and by a separate squabble over dairy producers.

The farm-assistance package includes $500 million for weather-related losses, well short of the $1.2 billion that's needed, not counting damage in North Carolina from Hurricane Floyd, Glickman contended.

He also objected to the way $5.5 billion in direct payments in the package would be distributed because some of the money would go to farmers who didn't even plant crops this year, he said. Many farm groups support the GOP plan, however, because they say the money will be distributed much faster that way.

The administration objects to the trade provision because it would require a president to get congressional approval for sanctions on food and medicine.

The measure would have ``grave implications for our nonproliferation, counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics initiatives,'' said Gus Shumacher, USDA's under secretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, reading from a prepared statement. He declined to discuss the Cuba provision.

A House-Senate conference committee that is working on the spending bill stopped work last Wednesday after House GOP leaders told the budget negotiators they did not want the dairy issue in the bill and will not let the legislation out of the House if it weakens the 40 year-old trade embargo on Cuba.

``We're up against a wall on that (bill) and the leadership needs to take it on,'' said Rep. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

Farm groups are pushing Congress to allow the sale of food and medicine to Cuba, but that has riled some conservatives and Florida lawmakers. The dairy dispute involves an Agriculture Department overhaul of milk pricing set to take effect next month. Lawmakers in the South and East want to scrap the new system and replace it with regional price-setting agreements. Lawmakers in the Midwest support the proposed changes.

House leaders offered to put an additional $700 million in disaster relief in the bill if the Cuba and dairy issues were removed. However, the proposal did not satisfy farm-state lawmakers, Young said today.

The aid package includes $5.5 billion in direct payments to growers as compensation for a second year of depressed commodity prices and additional money for special crops and weather-related losses.

``We need to get this assistance out to people and we need to get it out now,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

Democrats are expected to push for hundreds of millions of dollars more. But some conceded the $8 billion plan is likely to be approved by the House-Senate conference committee writing the final version of the appropriations bill.

GOP leaders struggling to find a way to pay for the $8 billion without raiding the Social Security surplus refuse to go any higher, said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the lead Senate negotiator on the spending bill.

``We're up against the limit on our allocation,'' Cochran said.

He said Congress could consider additional aid in 2000 to cover this year's crop losses. North Carolina lawmakers are expected to seek $1 billion or more for crops and livestock destroyed by Hurricane Floyd.

Most of the aid would go toward helping farmers cope with a second year of depressed crop prices because of a worldwide grain glut. Prices for corn and soybeans are at their lowest levels in more than a decade.

Agriculture Department officials say they need $1 billion to compensate farmers for losses that already had occurred this year from drouth in the East and flooding in the upper Midwest.

Mary Kay Thatcher, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the proposal was ``woefully inadequate.''

With Republicans controlling both the House and Senate, one of the Democratic negotiators, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, said the GOP had the votes to pass the $8 billion plan. ``They're not talking to us,'' he said.

The House did not have the farm assistance in its version of the appropriations bill.

Checks from the disaster bill could be in the mail to farmers by Thanksgiving, according to Rep. John Thune, R-S.D.

Thune told South Dakota reporters Friday that he thinks disagreements over the legislation could be resolved as early as this week.

Thune said a fight over federal milk policy has no business being in the aid package. It could come to a head this week, and senators from Vermont and Wisconsin have threatened filibusters depending on which way Congress goes.

``They're taking advantage of a situation where we know we have a sense of urgency on these other issues,'' he said.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture restructuring of milk pricing is to take effect next month, but Congress is split. Lawmakers from the South and East want regional price-setting agreements, while those from the Midwest support the proposed changes.

Thune also said he'd support improved trading relations with countries such as Cuba and Iraq. Food isn't a very good political weapon, he said.

``Food sanctions really aren't very effective in changing human behavior,'' he said.

``I think from an agricultural standpoint, the time has come when we need to start looking at making some changes in our policy there and opening up a better trading relationship with Cuba.''

Thune also said he and other members of Congress have asked Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Illinois, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to schedule hearings on concentration in the ag industry.

The South Dakotan said recent mergers are part of a trend that is putting more market power into fewer hands.