Farm bill opposition unites diverse groups
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Colloquially it’s called the farm bill, but the legislation that narrowly failed to pass Friday in the U.S. House of Representatives is actually the largest federal source of conservation funding for private and public lands.
Up for renewal every four years, recent incarnations generally have attempted to curb the impacts that farmers and other landowners might have on everything from water quality and wildlife management to food assistance and prices at the local grocery. H.R. 2, the House version of the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, slows or reverses that trend by supporting the economic and job-growth considerations of big farming, trimming protections and funding for environmental and conservation initiatives and demanding more work hours from food assistance recipients.
Scores of hunting, angling, boating, birding and other conservationist organizations have lined up behind environmentalists and social welfare advocates, all on record opposing parts or all of the farm bill.
“The $887 billion outdoor recreation economy relies on healthy fish and wildlife populations, quality habitat, and the upkeep of public land infrastructure,” said Whit Fosburgh, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, in a statement. He vowed to “ensure these basic tenets of conservation are upheld,”
Jacquelyn Bonomo, president and CEO of clean-energy advocate PennFuture, put it like this: “[H.R. 2] is replete with attacks on bedrock environmental laws and America’s national forests, and it includes numerous categorical exemptions from public input and environmental review on forestry projects, incentivizing logging over clean water, recreation and wildlife.”
On the social side of the bill’s opposition, Just Harvest, an advocate for community food access and poverty programs, is focused on proposed changes to the former SNAP food stamp program (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which constitutes about half of the farm bill’s spending. The Pittsburghbased Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, PASA, has a raft of farm bill complaints that its executive director Hannah Smith-Brubaker says stem from, “Congress’ partisan nature [which] will cause cracks in the loose knit coalition of agricultural, conservation, rural development, nutrition and other groups that have historically worked with past chairmen to pass the legislation on the floor.”
Supporters of the bill include Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, who said in a statement the legislation includes “meaningful adjustments to the . . . Agriculture Risk Coverage program” as well as “provisions aimed at improving conservation programs” and “research and rural development programs.” In a recent policy overview, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau asked Congress to pass a robust 2018 Farm Bill in a timely manner “in order to provide certainty to America’s farmers and consumers.”
The deadline to pass the bill is Sept. 30.
Marina restrictions
A dredging project began May 14 at the popular marina at Walnut Creek Access Area in Fairview, Erie County. Boaters using the channel might experience lane restrictions and other delays. Work is expected to be finished within two weeks.