(WASHINGTON, D.C.)  --  Congressman Collin C. Peterson (DFL-MN 7th District) today voted against the Agriculture Appropriations Conference Report, which passed the House by a vote of 240 to 175.

“This bill was basically removed from the normal process by the Republican leadership and rewritten without any input from the membership.  They “hijacked” the bill from the committee members and shut us out of the process,” Peterson said.

As passed, the bill provides $69 billion for the Agriculture Department’s (USDA) agriculture, rural development, domestic food assistance, and foreign aid and export programs, as well as the Food and Drug Administration and several related agencies.  Also included are $8.7 billion in “emergency” funds for disaster relief -- which does not count against the Balanced Budget Act’s spending caps, but consumes more than half of the expected non-Social Security surplus for Fiscal Year 2000.

“Spending $7.4 billion on market transition payments under “Freedom to Farm” is not going to make our situation much better.  There will be additional payments going out, but they won’t be targeted to the people who have the greatest need for assistance.”

“As far as I’m concerned, northwestern Minnesota farmers were totally ignored in this process.  The Republican leadership refused to consider our amendments for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) or for multi-year disaster payments.  The bill only adds another $1.2 billion for weather related losses, and that is clearly not enough.”

The bill contained a farm relief package of roughly $8.7 billion, including $5.5 billion in market transition payments, $1.2 billion for weather-related crop losses, and other financial assistance for livestock, dairy, oilseed, cotton and specialty crop producers.

“Since we couldn’t even get a hearing for the concerns of farmers in northwestern Minnesota, it looks like the only alternative we have left is to ask the President to veto the bill,” Peterson said, “and I’m going to do just that.”

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