Posted on 09/20/2002 8:57:49 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
The Bush administration said today that it would provide $752 million in emergency aid for livestock producers in the West and elsewhere. The move could aid a Republican Senate candidate as well as drought-stricken ranchers.
Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced the new relief program in a teleconference with Representative John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who is in one of the closest Senate races in the country with control of the chamber at stake in November.
"This program will provide immediate assistance to producers who need it the most," Ms. Veneman said.
The high-profile help from the White House underscored how the drought has emerged as a political issue not only in South Dakota, but in other farm states like Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri — all sites of Senate races. But it has been particularly prominent in South Dakota, where some ranchers have been selling their herds because of the severe drought.
Mr. Thune has been somewhat on the defensive on the issue since President Bush traveled to South Dakota last month and said he could not endorse new drought help if it drove up the deficit.
Mr. Thune's opponent, Senator Tim Johnson, the Democratic incumbent, is seeking $6 billion in relief that is tied up in the Senate. Mr. Johnson's campaign had said Mr. Bush's position showed that Mr. Thune could not get the White House to deliver and challenged Mr. Thune to back the Senate measure.
Mr. Thune said today that the new approach would bring help faster. "With drought relief so uncertain in the Senate, I worked with the administration to deliver critically needed cash assistance to livestock producers," he said.
Mr. Johnson and the majority leader Tom Daschle, the senior senator from South Dakota, welcomed the new help, but they said it was not enough. "I hope the administration understands that this assistance is merely a drop in the bucket," Mr. Daschle said. "Farmers and ranchers deserve more than a million-dollar solution to a $6 billion problem."
Mr. Johnson noted that he had pressed for the release of the very money the administration is using and said "every little bit helps."
"However, let me be clear, this money does not serve as a replacement for emergency disaster assistance," he said.
The $752 million will come from unspent portions of a fund generated through customs fees. Using those proceeds will allow Mr. Bush to say he provided some help without new spending.
Ranchers can begin applying for the cash assistance on Oct. 1 and it will be portioned out on a per-head basis, with $18 per beef cattle as a baseline. Ranchers statewide in Arizona, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Carolina will be eligible, as well as those in disaster-designated counties of South Dakota and 29 other states.
The Senate last week added the $6 billion in emergency aid to the spending measure for the Interior Department but it has stalled as both parties, in the run-up to the November elections, have sought to deny each other any political victories through the bill.
Much of this week has been devoted to a stalemate over $825 million in emergency firefighting money and efforts by Republicans to attach a plan to thin national forests to reduce the threat of fires. Environmental groups and some lawmakers say the plan is tantamount to a broad change in policy that will expand commercial logging on 10 million acres of national forest. Neither side has been able to make headway.
The White House opposes the $6 billion in emergency drought aid but supporters say its cost would be offset by savings in other farm spending, so it would not drive up the deficit.
Meanwhile, some doughty state officials in Pennsylvania have found a small company with the answer but are restricted from giving it any more than bare starting funds for stage one research, despite the technologies having been proven in contracting with the EPA (which then promptly blocked their deployment into the market place).
Millions for handout constituencies with your tax dollars, but not one cent for actual solutions.
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