Tick, tick, tick…
August 7, 2007 | Posted by Timothy Male in Uncategorized
Today's post is by Timothy Male, a senior ecologist at Environmental Defense.
A lot of stories have focused on the fact that the current Farm Bill expires on September 30th. What if Congress doesn’t pass a new Farm Bill by then? Will there be panic in the streets? Will agriculture end as we know it? Does Congress have to pass an emergency “extension” of the current farm bill – perhaps one as long as two years — as many commodity groups have argued?
The simple answer is ‘no.’
There may be a few readers out there who will be surprised by this –- but Congress has actually failed to pass legislation on time before.
In the case of the Farm Bill, Congress has missed the deadline many times before as this report [PDF] from the Congressional Research Service makes clear.
It happened in 1981, 1985, 1990, and 1995 — in fact, the only time Congress turned in its homework on time since the early days of the Carter Administration was in 2002. Usually Congress only missed the deadline by a couple of months, but in 1995, more than 6 months passed before a new bill was signed into law.
If the current farm bill expires before Congress completes work on the 2007 Farm Bill, things will pretty much go on as usual. As the CRS report points out, the current farm bill’s commodity programs will continue to cover the 2007 crops, even if they are harvested and marketed later this year.
Farmers planting winter wheat may want to see the policies that will cover the 2008 crop finalized sooner than growers of other commodities, but this ruminant sees no reason to reason to hurry home from pasture.
Congress still has plenty of time to get the details right and pass a 2007 Farm Bill that serves American agriculture, consumers and the environment more equitably.
One Response
Comment from Tom
December 5th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
We do need reform and need it now. Title 10 of the farm bill would correct the fascist legal decisions that undermine the Packers and Stockyards Act. Decisions in the 11th circuit have made protections for farmers almost non existent and allowed large mostly family controlled agribusiness to cheat family farmers so they can capture the profits in the industry. They then use these profits to bribe Congress.
The Packers and Stockyards Act should be enforced without excuses. The 1.3 billion dollar jury verdict with interest should be paid to the cattlemen in the suit and judges should stop making up decisions that write laws giving corporations a license to steal from producers the value of their products and manipulate the supply markets. The Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration, with the help of USDA attorneys have allowed their favorite companies to break the law. It was THE reason Joann Waterfield left in disgrace when the OIG report on GIPSA came out as well as Bruce Knignht. The USDA needs to be investigated and the corporate revolving door people who are making and enforcing policy against the suppliers (farmers) and for big Agribusiness need to be prosecuted under RICCO.
You can get to title 10 by going to agriculture.senate.gov and scrolling down to Section by Sections, pick title 10.
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