Why did Foxx vote no on the farm bill?

Recently a question came to us regarding the latest federal agriculture bill and why Fifth District Congresswoman Virginia Foxx voted against it.

The questioner was simply curious as to why a representative from farm country was in the minority on The Hill in opposing the legislation.

For some background, the bill, H.R. 2419 also called the Farm Bill Extension Act of 2007 was introduced by Agriculture Committee Chairman Congressman Collin Peterson of Minnesota and “introduced to provide the continuation of agricultural programs through fiscal year 2012, and other purposes,” according to the bill’s language.

Those other purposes, according to Foxx, are her reasons for voting no on the bill.

“We don’t have enough time to talk about all that is wrong in this bill,” Foxx said.

“But I can tell you that it is not what we need. What we really need is a reformed farm bill, because very little in this bill has anything to do with farming. In fact my understanding is that only 12 percent has anything to do with farming.”

Foxx said there was some pork in the bill but the main problem with it was the earmarks.

“This bill is not really a reform bill, and that is the problem. I would love to see a bill that truly reforms. But what this bill will do is increase the price of commodities and adds to the number of commodities that are covered by the farm bill. Additionally it increases the funding for the food for the world program. Rosa DeLauro [Democrat, Connecticut] wants to make food for the world an entitlement program so that we feed the rest of the world while food prices are going up in this country tremendously,” she said.

“The bill would also extend the 54 cents per gallon ethanol tariff for two years. Ethanol tariffs are restricting our access to more efficient forms of ethanol that do not have nearly the same effect on the food supply chain. The extension was made even though ethanol imports are cheaper, more abundant, and more efficient,” Foxx said.

Other earmarks that were according to Foxx’s staff “air-dropped” into the farm bill in such a way as to not be subject to scrutiny and challenged on the House floor include:

From Senator Patrick Leahy is an earmark that forces the federal government to sell portions of Green Mountain National Forrest to the Bromley Ski Resort causing the possible relocation of parts of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

From Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus [Democrat, Montana] came an earmark to aid the Plum Creek Timber Company in selling a parcel of land to the Nature Conservancy. The earmark would allow the non-profit organization to claim a $250 million tax refund. This was done by wording the earmark in such a way as to ensure the funds only go to a federal forest project of a particular size that also has fish. There is only one tract of land in the US that fits that criteria, it is located in Montana.

“So many earmarks were air-dropped in which means they were put into the conference report and the Democrats promised they would stop doing that and they haven’t and a message needs to go to them that they can’t keep doing that,” Foxx said.

The farm bill did pass both the House and the Senate and went to President Bush who, as promised, vetoed the bill for many of the same reasons Foxx opposed it.

However, in the end both the House and Senate overrode the president’s veto, only the second time this has been done during the Bush Administration.

But a legislative snafu will likely compel embarrassed Democrats to pass the bill all over again and prompt a second showdown with Bush next month.

The problem arose when a House clerk by mistake dropped a whole section dealing with trade policy from the 673-page bill before it went to the president. GOP leaders argued that the House had overridden a veto on legislation that had never actually passed the House and Senate. For legislative reliability, Democrat spokesmen said, Congress will likely start the process again.
- Ron Fitzwater