Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has been a loud advocate for accountability in payments that are issued as part of farm programs. During the last Farm Bill negotiation, Grassley was the only dissenting vote on approving their draft of a Farm Bill the Senate Ag Committee for approving their version of the legislation. At the time, he explained that his dissention was because he could not go along with a farm bill that had no reforms to the farm subsidy payments. Even since the passage of the legislation, Grassley has not quieted his calls for accountability.
Now a USDA decision has turned up the volume of his calls.
In November, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) eased restrictions and definitions on what they considered ?active personal management? and ?significant contribution? to farm payment guidelines. USDA said that this was a correction of previous guidelines which they felt were too restrictive for family members listed on farm payment forms. Senator Grassley has long charged that many of those family members were not ?actively engaged?.
Senator Grassley took to the Senate Floor and to his weekly call with Ag journalists to call for accountability once again at the USDA. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the USDA needs to do a better job of overseeing their farm payment programs. Grassley expressed his disappointment with USDA?s easing of requirements for subsidy payments. Grassley says that without reforms to subsidy payments, we will see urban lawmakers and voters stop supporting aid to farmers and rural America.
Grassley stated multiple times that farm subsidy payments should only go to those with ?dirt under their fingernails? and called on Congress to close loopholes in the next Farm Bill.
Grassley said he has support for his reforms from the White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under Obama, George W. Bush, and prior administrations. He expects to see the same support from President-Elect Joe Biden and is willing to work with whoever is appointed to the Secretary of Agriculture position. He reiterated a long-standing fact on the Congressional Agricultural Committees; differences are more geographical than party affiliation, and Southern lawmakers won?t support the changes that are disproportionately benefitting Southern Ag producers.
