USA Today
03-22-07
Spinach growers get aid provision as food-safety-standards bill stalls
By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Darryl Howard's mom, Betty, was among those who died after
eating contaminated spinach last fall at her home in Washington state, he says.
He was stunned to learn last week that the emergency bill to fund the Iraq war
and Hurricane Katrina relief included $25 million to compensate spinach growers
hurt when consumers stopped buying their products.
FARM AID IN IRAQ BILL: Dems insert $3.7 billion that's unrelated to war
"They killed my mother, and now they want me to pay for it," Howard says.
Backers of the spinach provision say it is designed to help innocent growers
whose businesses took a hit even though their greens weren't contaminated. The
insertion into an emergency war funding bill of $3.7 billion to benefit spinach
growers, peanut farmers and others in agribusiness underscores a Washington
truism: Some interests are more special than others.
"All senators and a lot of congressmen have some farmers, and they all like to do
good by agriculture," said Bruce Babcock, who heads Iowa State University's
Center for Agricultural and Rural Development.
Agribusiness spent $84 million lobbying Congress and contributed $44.1 million
to federal campaigns in 2005 and 2006, according to public records tallied by the
Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks spending
by those seeking to influence federal policy.
While the spinach aid provision was placed in a must-pass spending bill that has
been scheduled for a vote Friday in the House, legislation to toughen food safety
standards is stalled. A bill to create an independent food safety agency,
introduced in February by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., is pending in the
Energy and Commerce, and Agriculture Committees, where similar DeLauro
proposals have died for years.
"It is unconscionable that when it comes to public safety and the health of the
American people, Congress has remained silent," DeLauro said in a statement.
Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the
spinach provision was part of an overdue disaster relief package and that food
safety would be addressed in upcoming farm bills.
Farm interests are no strangers to success in reaping benefits from government.
The federal government provided $165 billion in farm subsidies from 1995
through 2005, according to the non-partisan Environmental Working Group,
which tracks the spending.
For years, voices in both parties have criticized farm subsidies as wasteful.
President Bush, in his 2008 budget, proposed eliminating subsidies for farmers
earning more than $200,000 annually. That idea will be taken up when Congress
debates a farm bill later this year.
Proponents say some level of subsidies are crucial to preserving domestic food
production. "If we want farmers to grow crops in the U.S., we're going to have to
subsidize them," said Michael Doyle who directs the University of Georgia's
Center for Food Safety.
Traditionally, spinach growers have not been large subsidy recipients. But Rep.
Sam Farr, a California Democrat who represents the most Spinach-rich district in
the country, sits on the Appropriations Committee, where he was able to secure
the relief funding, he said.
Farr expressed sympathy for the victims of contaminated spinach, but he said
growers were victims, too. He noted that the industry voluntarily implemented
new safety provisions after the spinach crisis. No one disputes that farmers have
suffered losses from natural disasters in recent years — droughts on the Great
Plains, freezes in citrus regions, Gulf Coast flooding and hurricanes. The
question is whether the government should continue to fund disaster bailouts on
an emergency basis — a process that values political influence over merit, said
Ken Cook, Environmental Working Group president. The government has
handed out $15 billion in farm disaster aid over the past 11 years, the group said
in a recent report.
"It's bad public policy," Babcock said.
Bush, who has threatened to veto the bill because of the provision setting a
timetable to withdraw from Iraq, said Monday that Congress shouldn't "use
funding for our troops as leverage to get special interest spending for their
districts."
Not all the bill's farm provisions are disaster relief. Two of them — $74 million for
peanut subsidies and $252 million for milk price supports — are designed to
preserve subsidy programs that are set to expire.
Emergency spending bills are used "to fill in the gaps of things that aren't full
fledged disasters, but they kind of fit in the train as it's leaving the station," said
Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, who supports the peanut provision
but plans to vote against the bill because he opposes the troop withdrawal
deadline.
The peanut provision pays farmers to cover their storage and handling fees. In
all, peanut subsidies cost taxpayers about $276 million in 2005, according to the
working group.
"If we do not maintain our food independence, ultimately we'll be held hostage,"
said Joe Boddiford, a Georgia peanut farmer who estimates the storage subsidy
is worth $30,000 a year to him.
In June, 2005, Boddiford contributed $1,000 to the campaign of Rep. Sanford
Bishop, the Appropriations Committee member who takes credit for inserting the
peanut measure. Boddiford said Bishop has been a staunch peanut advocate.
Bishop said it was only natural that peanut interests contributed $35,750 to his
most recent campaign. "They appreciate good government," he said, "and good
government is a government that works in their best interest."
Contributing: Kathy Kiely