Price subsidy becomes the focus of agricultural law debate

Introduction: Washington news: on Wednesday, the White House conveyed president George W Bush's warning that the White House strongly opposed the Senate's agricultural subsidy bill, which will encourage food surplus and lead to price reduction At present, the bill is waiting for debate in the Senate The Bush administration supports an alternative bill written by two Republican lawmakers that will help keep prices at current levels and allow farmers to open tax-free accounts to reserve cash for emergencies Either bill would raise agricultural subsidies by $5 billion a year Many agricultural state lawmakers hope the new farm bill will come into force this year to help those who grow grain, cotton and soybeans through the continuing downturn in food prices Senators voted 73-26 to begin the debate on the farm bill, but Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Farm Committee, said there was still 30 hours to discuss before proposing amendments to the farm bill Meanwhile, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest said senators "must complete their bill this week" because Congress needs time to send the final version to Bush before the end of the legislative session at the end of this month "The report I hear is that the Senate will not make big changes to its farm bill until next week," said the Texas Republican This is unreasonable "Any bill passed by the Senate will be coordinated with the bill passed by the house of representatives in early October In a statement, the White House cited eight problems in the agriculture bill approved by the Senate committee led by Harkin, saying that the increase in subsidies would "further encourage overproduction, leading to low food prices, thus aggravating problems in recent years." " In addition, the White House opposes the text of the bill that will lead to the national milk Union; the additional subsidies for grains, cotton and soybeans that may violate the regulations of the World Trade Organization; and the "ineffective" land management fees that allow the United States to provide private financing for the sale of food to Cuba and for arable land; finally, the potential cost of the bill in the future is huge 。 Bush raised these issues a week ago, warning against higher price subsidies and asking the Senate to come up with a bill that respects WTO rules, and encouraging work on "available land" on farms and ranches The White House said senators should reject the committee's bill and accept it from Kansas Republican pat Robert and Mississippi Senator thad Cochran Their bill will ensure that farmers get more subsidies each year and keep prices at current levels "The long-term policy direction of the next agriculture bill will affect farmers for many years, so we will not allow it to go wrong," said agriculture minister Veneman Robert and colan said in a telephone news conference on agricultural radio that they had not received a majority in the Democratic controlled Senate "It's very difficult to get out of the pressure of Democratic leaders," Cochran said Robert said the Senate committee's agriculture bill is based on a "back to the future" plan The bill will reactivate the "target" price system, which was abandoned in 1996, under which the government will issue additional subsidies as long as the price of food, cotton or soybeans is below the legal threshold In early October, the house of Representatives passed a $73.5 billion 10-year agricultural bill, which also uses the "target price" system to fight against the price downturn Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill keeps price subsidies at the current level and increases slightly each year According to the University of Missouri think tank, the target price subsidies mentioned in both bills are at risk of exceeding the WTO's annual allowance limit of $19.1 billion for distorting agricultural trade to the United States In the early days of the House bill, the chances of exceeding the WTO quota were 35.5 percentage points, while in the 10 years of the Senate bill, the chances of exceeding the WTO quota were 30 percentage points On Wednesday, Harkin reached an agreement with conservative colleagues to reduce dairy subsidies and increase land and water management costs by $1 billion The purpose of this agreement is to facilitate the passage of the bill, which will be presented later in the debate Some of that money will be used to support a new plan to buy up to one million acres of water, in order to reduce the conflict between agriculture and fishing in the kramas basin, Oregon.