Above: Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
With the Senate beginning its farm bill debate yesterday, Senator Chuck Grassley says protecting crop insurance and ensuring that his payment limit reform survives the Senate floor remain his top two priorities.
Grassley’s reform would close loopholes allowing non-farmers to receive payments from farm programs, as well as cap all commodity program benefits at $50,000 for a single farmer. Benefits for the marketing loan program would be capped at $75,000, bringing the total cap to $125,000, or $250,000 for married couples.
Grassley says he’s optimistic about his provision’s chances on the Senate floor, which he says is a better reform than the House’s offering.
It’s crucial for the Senate to adopt a responsible payment limit for commodity programs. That’s been my drive for a long time. The Senate bill does it the way that I’d like to do it, and the same way we did it last year, but the bill died in the House. My approach is a much more responsible approach than the $125,000 set by the House Agriculture Committee, and the House Ag Committee bill doesn’t set a cap on marketing loan gains, and I do.
Senate debate continues this week; in a conference call Tuesday with farm broadcasters, Grassley estimated that the Senate farm bill debate will continue for at least a partial week beyond the Memorial Day break.
