Farm Bill Chaos
The House Agriculture Committee’s three-day stint to write the new farm bill got off to a chaotic start yesterday, as the new Democratic majority showed it’s still getting used to being in charge.
Some people lined up for hours to get in the cramped hearing room and reporters covering the legislation were told to get there early.
But the committee staff kept the doors locked until just before the meeting began and then only a few people got in. The rest had to scramble to an overflow room next door to watch it on television. For reporters, it didn’t matter how early you got there since the only ones that got into the main hearing room were those that pushed their way to the front of the line.
Then, as people were rushing into the overflow room, the meeting started and the audio was turned down so low, the committee chairman’s remarks couldn’t be heard.
Turned out, it didn’t much matter since the chairman, Rep. Collin Peterson, R-Minn., decided not to do any real work on the bill because Republicans hadn’t had time to read his latest draft, which was just produced late Monday.
The whole farm bill process has been mired in confusion this year because of the overarching uncertainty about how much money will be available for the five-year bill.
Peterson has been given a “baseline” amount from the Budget Committee, which, to members of the Agriculture Committee, is well short of what’s needed.
However, Peterson has been told the bill can have another $20 billion if “offsets” can be found in other programs. The money hasn’t been “found” yet, leaving committee members to deal with pretend money.
Republicans are very reluctant to pass a bill out of the committee before the additional money has a hard commitment.
Otherwise, Oklahoma Rep. Frank Lucas said, fights could erupt on the House floor over how to distribute the limited funds and the committee could lose control of the policy it’s responsible for writing.
The fun begins again this morning. Maybe the committee will demonstrate today that it has some control.
Chris Casteel, Washington Bureau
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As the Farm Bill fights is’s way thru Washington here in Oklahoma we have out of control groups deciding what is and what is not cuuel when it comes to Livestock. Years ago it was quite easy to look at a cruelty case and understand when to take someone to court . However just last week I watched as a well know Oklahoma Dr. and horse lover had her name drug thru the mud she was arrested and her 44 horses were impounded. What is hard to understand is how this happended. The horses had plenty of feed, tons of high protien feed, and even more hay, round and square bales. What is not clear is that the officers claimed that the horses were thin, they were living in muddy stalls, they needed their hooves trimmed. While many of us have agreed it was time for the vet to step in and work with this person to have her make the tough decision to put down some of her long time older animals and perhaps bring on some help after all it is alot of work for just tow ladies to take care of 44 horses, what is not understood how a rescue agency got involved in being the impound agency? They already have a plan to keep the horses and “foster” them out to nice homes. Last I checked Food, water and shelter were what decided cruelty or not yet if this goes thru into the courts we will have reached a very dangerous slop in agriculture. These are not dogs and cats this is livestock and it seems these offices have been convinced otherwise. this same group is all for adoption and against processing plants believing that it is best to give rank , old, and dangerous horses good homes feeding tons of feed to unridable horses and not understanding a very well written report called the “Unintended consequences of the Ban on Horse processing Plants”. This group that wants to keep this womans 44 horses, all of which are registered is a 501c3 and has no interest in hoping to help educate this woman help her or return her horses. Instead they are pressing for forfeiture. When did Frfeiture of livestock become an option before a US citizen had even gone to court?
So while everyone is in Washington I hope someone looks around at the horse markets, local auctions, take a look at he price of good horses and horses that should have gone to market and now are being passed around trader to trader. Why well because instead of a 25 million dollar export market of Horse that was keeping 80,000 horses moving out of the US and not continuing to eat feed that could be used to feed good quality horses or produce fuel we are now facing a cost of nearly $250,000. to feed hoses that are building up across the U.S. with no use. The solution by the groups that do no believe in eating horse or processing horse is euthanasia which means throwing eighty thousand dead horses in a big hole each year or into a big incenerator which seems like a lot of air pollution. It is even worse to me that when China is exporting 29.5 Billion in goods into the United States while the United States is only exporting 4.5 Billion goods out we could at least use hose to feed pets in our own country. However I would think that congress while working on the Farm Bill would somehow find a way to stop people from putting market horses back on the market and posing a danger to the public and find a way not to pollute the ground water and air with eighty thousand dead horses that we have had to feed prime grain until they dropped over of natural causes. OK…enough from the soap box…Silver in Spencer OK