NTU urges all Senators to vote “YES” on the following amendments that could be offered on H.R. 2, the 2018 Farm Bill. These amendments would improve the underlying bill for both farmers and taxpayers:
Corker (R-TN) - Toomey (R-PA): Congressional Oversight of Trade: Ongoing trade uncertainty and harsh new tariffs are a serious threat to the farm economy. More than government subsidies, access to markets is essential for farms to thrive. Dollar for dollar, agriculture exports contribute 10.4 times more income to the farm economy than taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Stabilizing our precarious trade environment could be the most important step Congress can take on behalf of farmers.
To that end, this amendment would amend the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to require Congressional approval before the President adjusts imports that are determined to threaten to impair national security. Under this amendment, any potential tariffs to be applied under Section 232 would be submitted to Congress and taken up via an expedited procedure to ensure timely consideration. In addition, the amendment includes a two-year reach-back mechanism to capture and harmonize recent trade decisions with this improved approach.
Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the authority to impose tariffs and regulate foreign commerce. This is an essential power that Congress should reclaim and use to prevent damaging trade policies that could hurt our economy, farmers, and consumers. **This amendment will be heavily weighted.**
Durbin (D-IL) - Grassley (R-IA): Crop Insurance AGI Test: This amendment would reduce the taxpayer-funded crop insurance premium subsidy by 15 percent for those farm businesses with an Adjusted Gross Income over $700,000 or $1.4 million for married couples. Applying a generous means test to crop insurance subsidies would bring this program in line with the commodity subsidy AGI limit in the underlying bill, with the important difference that rather than cutting off access to the program, premium support is merely stepped-down. Most other subsidy or social welfare programs apply a means test to ensure that limited resources are targeted to those who need them most. This modest reform would not affect program participation and could save $490 million over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Shaheen (D-NH) - Flake (R-AZ): Crop Insurance Uniform Payment Limit: This amendment would harmonize payment limits across the farm bill by applying a $125,000 cap to crop insurance premium subsidies in the same way that commodity payments were limited to $125,000 in the 2014 Farm Bill. Like the amendment above, this would affect a very small number of farm businesses and reflects the same principle of providing help to those who need it most. CBO estimates this amendment could save $502 million over 10 years.
Lee (R-UT): Online Crop Insurance: Unlike numerous other insurance products from home to business, federally-funded crop insurance companies are statutorily prohibited from selling crop insurance online. Farmers have the best understanding of their risk and coverage needs and could easily make these decisions without the assistance of a middle-man agents, particularly when all companies sell the same standard products. Removing this unnecessary prohibition could help crop insurance companies modernize and increase efficiency. This amendment would permit companies to sell and service policies online, if they can document this would reduce their costs. Savings are required to be passed on to farmers and ranchers.
Shaheen (D-NH) - Toomey (R-PA): Sugar Policy Modernization: This bipartisan amendment would bring smart reforms to the antiquated sugar program. These reforms would increase flexibility in a restrictive marketplace that increases costs for consumers and food manufacturers and puts hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. First established in 1934, the sugar program is long overdue for reforms that reflect our modern, global economy. **This amendment will be significantly weighted.**
Booker (D-NJ) - Lee (R-UT): Commodity Check-off Improvement: This commonsense amendment would bring much-needed transparency and accountability to checkoff programs. These mandatory programs raise costs for consumers and are sometimes used by large businesses to muscle competition out of the marketplace. Amd. 71 would provide much-needed protections for consumers and small-scale producers.
McCain (R-AZ) - Lankford (R-OK) - Shaheen (D-NH): Catfish Inspection Reform: This amendment would restore catfish inspection under the rightful purview of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both the FDA and Centers for Disease Control consider catfish to be a low-risk food, making the unjustifiable changes to catfish inspection merely a cronyist attempt to use the regulatory regime to create an unnecessary barrier to free trade. The program, in effect, implements a ban on foreign catfish species, raising costs for consumers and undermining our relationships abroad.
Double Dipping: This amendment would prevent taxpayers from paying twice for the same loss. Too often, despite a counter-cyclical design, farm businesses can collect both commodity payments and crop insurance payments on one loss in the event of yield or revenue declines. This amendment would bar commodity payments if the loss is already covered by a revenue insurance policy.
Roll call votes on these amendment to H.R. 2 will be included in our annual Rating of Congress and a “YES” vote will be considered the pro-taxpayer position.