Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow rejected on Thursday a Republican proposal to move several billion dollars of climate funds into the commodity title of the farm bill. “No, the answer to that is no,” Stabenow said at an expo on climate-smart agriculture practices.
“We can’t be in a situation like some want [of], ‘We’ll give you half of it, and we want to take the other half and put it someplace else,’ ” said the Michigan Democrat. During a brief speech, she praised on-farm efforts to sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a way to slow global warming.
On Wednesday, Republican staff workers on the Senate Agriculture Committee said $13 billion in climate funds, provided by the 2022 climate law, could be leveraged into a long-term increase in USDA stewardship accounts. They suggested moving the climate money into the conservation title of the farm bill to create a higher baseline for conservation spending, which would be carried forward under congressional bookkeeping rules. “While disagreements remain regarding climate requirements … Senate Republicans stand ready to reach a bipartisan consensus to protect these funds,” said the staffers in a two-page blog.
Stabenow said she liked the idea of fattening the conservation baseline for years to come. “Those resources are outside the conservation title of the farm bill right now. I would love to move all those dollars into the conservation baseline and stretch that out and make it go even further. But we have to do it within the language that was put in [the statute] around climate-smart agriculture.”
Farm groups have given priority in the new farm bill to higher reference prices, which would make it easier to trigger subsidy payments, and a stronger crop insurance program. Both would cost money. Climate funds have been eyed as the offset for increased crop spending. Democrats say they won’t allow cuts in climate funds or in SNAP.
“I’m just saying I’m not going to take half of it [climate funding] and put it in the commodity title, which has been one of the proposals,” said Stabenow.
Asked about farm bill negotiations, she said, “We’ve had good work on some titles (and) stuck in others. … We’ve had good work in a number of areas, and if we could agree on strengthening the title [climate funds], as I talked about, I think we could be pretty close to wrapping that [title] up.”
The midday climate-smart expo was organized by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the LCV Education Fund. During a roundtable discussion, Agriculture undersecretary Robert Bonnie said the USDA should be more flexible about how farmers use its cost-share programs to tackle land and water conservation on their land. “The how is as important as the what,” he said. Participation in USDA conservation programs is voluntary.