Bill Huffman
Director - Government Relations

The Friday Report

June 19, 2009

Health care reform and climate change continue to occupy the agenda in Washington.  Although “climate change” legislation seems to be on hold until various factions in the House of Representatives can iron out their differences over the proposed legislation.

Latest Developments

It appears that prospects for a floor vote before July 4th on the House version of climate change legislation is fading. Late yesterday, House Energy Committee Chairman Henry Waxman announced that he “can resolve disputes over the climate legislation” with a revised version of the bill as early as June 22nd in hopes of getting it on the House floor by July 4th.  But House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel questions that timeline, openly questioning whether the House is ready to debate the climate change proposal, especially with health care reform pending.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told the new media Thursday that he still intends to bring the climate change legislation to the House floor either the week before or the week after July 4th.

As we’ve reported before, members of the House Agriculture Committee are opposed to several provisions in the climate change bill. Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and Ranking Minority member Frank Lucas of Oklahoma stand in opposition to the legislation as do other members of the Committee. Additionally, Chairman Rangel of the Ways and Means Committee said “health care legislation is a more important agenda item for Congress” and he has concerns about how to shield low and middle-income consumers, perhaps through tax rebates, from any increases in energy prices that result from the bill’s cap on carbon dioxide emissions.

Waxman, the principal author of the climate change legislation, told reporters that members of his committee and members of the Agriculture Committee “are working together” in hopes of rewriting compromise language into a revised bill, or manager’s amendment, that he could offer on the floor early next week.

As you can imagine, there are numerous issues and concerns with this legislation.  The number one issue for the Agriculture Committee is that the Agriculture Department should oversee the program offering “emission offsets” for farm and forest areas that sequester carbon emissions.  They also want a more generous definition of biofuels that would benefit ethanol production.

Late Thursday, Chairman Waxman offered an outline of a deal intended to bridge differences over how much help the bill would give to mid-west rural electric utilities to meet its cap-and-trade program. Waxman also proposed a new conservation program that Federal EPA would oversee in consultation with USDA to resolve the offsets dilemma for agriculture and forestry. Peterson took Waxman’s offer to his fellow House Agriculture Democrats where it “blew up”.  Peterson was quoted as saying “Nobody understood it (Waxman’s proposal) for one thing.  It’s a whole new concept being brought in at the last minute. I’m tired of this going around in circles.”

Peterson and Waxman were meeting again this afternoon (Friday) along with officials from the White House and various farm groups, to discuss the offsets issue. We’ve received no further word on these deliberations at press time.

Our view is that this legislation will not be brought to the House floor until the issues with the Ways and Means Committee and the Agriculture Committee are resolved. Leaders of those two committees, both Democrats and Republicans, can derail this legislation on the House floor if a compromise isn’t worked out. 

Joining the list of agriculture groups opposed to the climate change legislation this week was the National Farmers Union. NFU said the bill in its current form is not improved with regard to agricultural offsets.

We’ll continue to monitor this legislation and report on significant changes with respect to agriculture.

Clean Water Act

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has marked up and passed legislation that would amend the Clean Water Act to clarify its jurisdictions over the nation’s waterways. The Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787) introduced by Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin would replace the term “navigable waters” with the term “waters of the United States” for determining which waters are protected by Federal law.

The bill defines waters of the United States to include all waters that are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide; territorial seas; and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, sand flats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes or natural ponds.

The USA Rice Federation and 30 other agricultural and conservation groups sent a letter this week to Chairman Barbara Boxer of the Environmental and Public Works Committee opposing the expansion of the definition of federal jurisdictional waters as proposed in the Feingold bill. The Northern California Water Association and other north state water and drainage entities are also opposed to this change.

The concern for these agriculture groups and irrigation and drainage districts is that by removing the term “navigable” from the bill would expand the definition of waters to include drainage ditches and other storm water management structures on farms and ranches. The last thing agriculture would need is to have Federal EPA managing the water in drainage ditches.

Senator James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environmental and Public Works Committee said “There is probably almost no chance of this bill passing the Senate”.  Mr. Inhofe said “I don’t think this bill is fixable”.

There will be a big fight on the Senate floor if this legislation is brought up for a vote.

USDA Names Deputy Undersecretary

The Obama Administration has announced the appointment of John Ferrell to be Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at USDA. Ferrell, a native of Iowa, grew up on a hog, cattle, corn and soybean farm. He most recently served as Majority Professional Staff to Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

June 30th Fundraiser for Senate Candidate Jerry Moran

The Farmers’ Rice Cooperative Fund and the California Rice Fund are joining other major California agriculture organizations as co-sponsors for a fundraiser June 30th in Fresno for U.S. Senate candidate Jerry Moran of Kansas. The event is being organized by State Board of Food and Agriculture Chairman Al Montna of Yuba City.

Jerry Moran currently is serving his seventh term in the House of Representatives. He is seeking the Senate seat currently occupied by Sam Brownback of Kansas, who is retiring in 2010. Moran is a veteran member of the House Agriculture Committee, formerly Chairman of the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management.  He is a good friend of the California rice industry. We certainly need all the friends we can get in the U.S. Senate.

The fundraising luncheon will be held at 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday, June 30th at the Slates Restaurant, 7455 N. Fresno Street in Fresno.

If anyone is interested in attending the event, please contact Bill Huffman at (916) 768-4416.