Bill Huffman
Director - Government Relations

The Friday Report

October 29, 2010

The election next Tuesday dominates much of the news this week. Given the mood of the country, big changes could happen and that could change leadership of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees as Congress prepares to write new farm policy this next year. Here is a view of possible changes that could affect agriculture and farm policy.

House of Representatives

Most observers believe Republican’s will reclaim leadership of the House of Representatives. Should that occur, there will be new Chairmen for all of the committees including the Agriculture Committee.

Republican Frank Lucas of Oklahoma would become Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee replacing Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who would become the Ranking Democrat on the Committee. As Chairman, Congressman Lucas would likely support keeping direct payments (for wheat, cotton and rice) and would also likely spend more time on perfecting conservation programs. He is a cattleman from southwest Oklahoma and is viewed as supporting a more level playing field for livestock, diary and poultry interests in future farm legislation. Farmers’ Rice Cooperative and the California rice industry have met Congressman Lucas on multiple occasions in Washington, D.C. We believe he would be an effective Chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

If Republican’s take control of the House, there will also be a new Chairman for the important Appropriations Committee. California Representative Jerry Lewis should be in line to become Chairman of that Committee, however, it appears there may be a leadership fight and Lewis might not get that Chairmanship. We’ll just have to wait and see how this shakes out.

The U.S. Senate

Polling data and political analysis indicates that the Republican’s may not win control of the U.S. Senate next Tuesday. Assuming that to be correct, there still could be a change in the leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Virtually all of the polling data we’ve seen indicates that current Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, D-Arkansas will lose her Senate seat next week to Republican Congressman John Boozman. Should that occur, and we believe it will, control over agriculture and farm policy in the Senate will likely shift to Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan. Senator Stabenow is a ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee. The newsletter Politico reported this week that Senator Stabenow is well-liked by her colleagues and earned their respect during the last farm bill negotiations by bridging the interests of states with commodity crops (like rice) and those with specialty crops such as fruit and vegetables.

There is another factor, however, that could alter that from happening. If the Democrats barely control the leadership of the Senate, there is the outside chance that they may select moderate/conservative Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to head the Committee. Senate Nelson voted on several occasions this past year with the Republican’s on controversial legislation and the Democrats will need his full support in the next term and a way to try to get him to stay in their tent is to dangle a chairmanship in front of him. We’ll just have to wait and see how the politics of this plays out! On the other hand, should the Republican’s win control of the Senate, our good friend Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia would become Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Tuesday’s election is going to bring some important changes in Congress. It will be interesting to see how it plays out!

Trade

Jim Wiesemeyer, the respected Washington, D.C. agriculture writer reported this week that Japan is mulling over a possible new trade pact proposal. Apparently, Japan is considering joining a new Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) with others including the United States, Australia and Vietnam. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who will be chairing a summit next month of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation (APEC), is signaling a strong desire to see Japan join the prospective free trade zone. Participation in the TPP would require Japan to make major concessions including further opening its agriculture market to imports. Rice could be a major beneficiary of this imitative.

The Green Trade Corridor Gets Underway

The so-called Green Trade Corridor project got underway this week when officials broke ground in Stockton on the project to launch an inland marine highway linking the Ports of Stockton, West Sacramento and Oakland for shipment of agriculture and other products via existing shipping channels.

We reported earlier this year that the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it was awarding $30 million in stimulus funds to the project aimed at allowing the Ports to ship container cargo from West Sacramento and Stockton to the Port of Oakland’s container terminal via water. Some of the money earmarked for the Port of West Sacramento will be used to purchase a crane and make facility improvements to handle container cargo at the local port.

The ultimate objective of this “Green Trade Corridor” is to reduce truck traffic on area highways by utilizing the marine highway link to Oakland.