The LegislativeNews-Dai lyfrom Congressional Quarterly EyePolitics of FarmBill Leaders try to balance competing subsidy desires of vulnerable freshmen BY CATHARINE RICHERT CQSTAFFWRITER When House Speaker N arrey Pelosi showed up attheNationalFarm-ersUnionmeeting this spring, it wasn't just her speechabouttheim-portance of farming that won over attendees. Thefactthatshe stuck around for hours todance,eat and talk onvincedmembers' 1ewascommitted toWalz, a farm-state lawmaker, said,'l will always make the argument agriculture policy.Bybased on what's best for farmers, not what's best for my politicalparty.' all accounts, everyone- including thefaceabiggerdilemma:Theoutcomeof California Democrat- had a blast.thisyear'sfarmbillcould makeor break Now the House isknee-deep in writingthere-electionof vulnerablefreshman a new farm bill (HR 2419), and the outlookDemocrats. isn't as rosy as it was earlier this year. WhileThere are 42 freshmen in the House House Agriculture Committeemembersthis year- including many withrural squabble over money and plot to fend offconstituencies - and nine of them sit threats from outside the panel to overhaulon the farmpanel. agriculturalpolicy,Pelosiand her circleFarmBillcontinued on page 4 Bush Mends Rift to Prepare for Spending Fight Bv ALANK. O rA, CQSTAFFWRITER Althoughmembersof hisownparty show signs ofimpatience with some admin-istration policies, President Bush is count-ing on House Republicans to back him in an appropriations showdown. To prepare for battle over spending bills thissummer and fall,the White House is nurturing relationships that were strained byasplitovertheminimumwageand, ore recently, by the immigration debate. BushandHouseGOP leaderswantto back Democrats into a comer wherethey willhave to pare back their spending bills or risk being on the losing side of veto over-ride votes.If the GOP stands firm,the re-sult could be one big fight over an omnibus spending packageafter aseriesof battles over individual appropriations measures. Thekeynumberis 145. With all435 House members voting, the White House would need 145 votes to pre-vent its opponents from mustering a two-thirds majority to override a veto. There are three vacancies;. all are expect-ed to be filled in the next few months. There are 201 House Republicans. Bush, aided by a revamped White House lobby-ing team with ties to the House GOP,has to convinceat least145that backing his position on spending would have a bigger political payoff than would the local good-ies in vetoed funding bills. Republicanscontinued on page 5 Iraq War debate Sen. Warner hopes new amendment leads to bipartisan plan Passport backlog, p. 6 This week's Hill schedule, p. 22 PULSE OF CONGRESS i -EDITED Bv GREG McDoNALDl..J"'""""U AMTRAKPLANTOOutsource Operations Abroad MayNot Be a Money-Saver, After All Senate appropriators sent a message to Amtrak this week:Don't send your customer service operations offshore. Included intheSenatefiscal2008 draftTransportation-BUDspending bill is a provision that would bar Amtrak from hiring operators based overseas to staff its reservations line. In2006,Amtrak'sRepublican-controlledboardofdirectorsan-nounceditsintentiontooutsource itsreservations, a move aimed at cut-ting costs.But the plan drew criticism fromDemocratic lawmakers,notto mention organized labor, and Amtrak officials promised not to move toward outsourcing abroad for several years. That promise wasn'tgood enough forSens.RobertC.Byrd,D-W.Va.,and Patty Murray, D-Wash.They had a pro-visioninserted inthedraftbillthat would prohibitAmtrakby lawfrom engaging in offshore outsourcing. - Kathryn A. Wolfe BAUCUSBUYING VOTES?Either That or He's Dreaming, Lott Says Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has apparently worked a vote-counting wonder in recent weeks, boost-ing support for his $32.1 billion energy tax Pulsecontinued on page6 Volume43, Number 121 Page4 Farm Bill continued from page 1 Thatmeansleadershipwillhaveto weighthere-electionneedsofnew memberssuchasTimWalzofMin-nesota,whoseconstituencyincludes many farmersused tocollecting sub-sidies,againstthosesuchasArizona's GabrielleGiffordswhowouldbring millionsmorebacktoherdistrictif somefarmpayments wereredirected toconservationprograms,according to a new report by Environmental De-fense. Leadership hopes tostrike a deal that accommodates both types of new mem-bers. "It's a question of creating good pub-licpolicy that can achievestrong bipar-tisan support ... sound legislation that includesreformandasafetynetfor America'sfarmers,"saidaDemocratic leadership aide. ToCut or Not to Cut The farmbill could come to the floor at the end of thismonth,and the issue most likely to divide Democrats is whether to cut subsidies.Leadershipisunderpressure to end what criticsdescribe asexpensive, trade-distorting farm payments to the rich-est farmers. Some Democrats- such as Ron Kind of Wisconsin, who touts his own version of the farmbill -would like to steer the money spent on subsidies toward conservation, ru-ral development, biofuel and nutrition pro-grams - all priorities of theDemocratic leadership. House Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., also isunder pressure to cut subsidies, largely because his budget to write the farm bill is tighter than in past years. Hiscommitteecanspend$20billion over the measure's baseline of about $226 billion, but only by finding offsets. Leader-ship says it is working to find funds in other federalspendingprograms,butexpects Petersontoredistributecashwithinhis own bill. Petersonnowistoyingwithwaysto limit subsidies; those changes are likely to come up when the full Agriculture Com-mittee begins debating the bill Tuesday. But major changescould threaten the re-election hopes of most freshmen Dem-ocrats on the committee, who barely won Republican-leaning districts where victory Heartland Subsidy Politics Several freshmenDemocrats on the House Agriculture Committee won seats in districts that President Bushhadwon handily two yearsearlier. The re-election hopes of three inparticular could turn on preserving the agriculture subsidies that farmers intheir districts enjoy. PercentageofAgricultural votein2006subsidies TimWalz Minnesota NancyBoyda Kansas Brad Ellsworth Indiana 52% 51% 61% 2003-05 inmillions $900 $225 $305 SOURCES:CQPolitics.com. Environmental Working Group could come down to farm votes. "There'snoswing voter likea farmer," said Brent Gattis, a farmlobbyist forOls-sonFrank Weeda and a formerRepubli-can aid fortheHouse farmpanel. While manyfarmersfitaconservativeprofile, their votes typically come down to money, Gattis said. Walz, for example, unseated six-term Re-publican and subsidy champion GilGut-knecht by a 5.6 percent margin in 2006. Be-tween 2003 and 2005, soy,corn and dairy farmers in Walz's district collected roughly $900millioninsubsidies,about 2.6per-cent of the national total, according to the Environmental WorkingGroup'ssubsidy database. Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., is in a similar situation. She defeated an incumbent by a 3.5 percent margin and represents farmers who collected about $225 million in subsi-dies between 2003 and 2005. Walz acknowledges the tough spot that he and his leadership are in, as they strive to write a bill that balances an overhaul with subsidies.But he emphasized the impor-CQToday, Monday, July 16, 2007 tance of payments to his district. "I will alwaysmake my argument bas on what's best for farmers,not what's best for my political party," he said. "It would be foolish to say this isn't an important piece of legislation for me." Redistributing Direct Payments Pelosi and her circle have been briefed onEnvironmentalDefense'sreport, which showed that redistributing direct payments -the money farmersget an-nuallybasedontheiracreageandthe type of crop they grow- to conservation programswouldbringmoremoneyto new members' districts in states includ-ing California,Pennsylvania,Ohioand Vermont,wheremorefarmersreceive AgricultureDepartmentpaymentsto preserve land. But a senior Democratic aide said vot-ers in these districts -many with broader constituencies and policy concerns - are unlikelytoturnagainstanewmember based on farm policy. Thingsaredifferentinthedistricts represented by AgricultureCommitte members Boyda, Walz and Indiana Derr. ocrat Brad Ellsworth, where it iscrucial tokeepproducersof commodity crops fromraising money tounseat them, the aide said. "Theonesthat benefitfromthecom-modity money willthrow youout of of-fice," the aide said. "You piss these guys off, they'll make your life miserable." Leadership iseager for Peterson to get a bill out of committee in July- even one without major changes, which can be left to floor debate, aides say. Ultimately, House leaders are most con-cerned withaddingthefarmbilltothe llOth Congress' list of accomplishments, so theyprobablywill have to bend to politi-cal realities. A compromise that supports some ver-sion of the classic farm subsidies while also boosting spending on conservation, nutri-tion and energy is likely to be the best they can do this year, aides say. Thatwouldlaythegroundworkfor broader changes when Congress writes a new law five or six years from now, one aid added. "We're just trying toset thingsinmo-tion," the aide said.+ JonathanAllencontributedtothis story.