Freshman Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) Tuesday introduced the American Farm Bureau Federation`s proposed 1985 farm bill and called on the White House to take the ”easy step” needed to embrace it.
The federation`s bill would set agriculture on a market-oriented course but would do so in a much gentler fashion than the Reagan administration has proposed.
McConnell`s call for support comes at a time when the administration is moving to soften its own proposals. Agriculture Secretary John Block said last week that the administration had begun reworking its bill after President Reagan agreed to reduce his request for farm-spending cuts by half.
Several other congressmen and farm groups are pushing ideas of their own, and political analysts said that only parts of the federation`s proposal are likely to survive the legislative process.
Robert Nooter, a lobbyist for the federation based in suburban Park Ridge, said several members of the Senate Agriculture Committee with more seniority than McConnell declined to introduce the federation`s bill. The federation is the nation`s largest farm organization.
He said some wanted to remain uncommitted, while others were developing their own measures or backing a bill proposed by Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N.C.), the committee chairman.
An aide to Helms pointed out several differences between the chairman`s bill and the federation`s and said, ”I don`t know that the farm bureau`s bill is that attractive a proposal.”
But at a news conference in Washington, McConnell said he thought the federation`s bill was the ”most attractive.”
He said the bill ”does square with many things the administration is trying to do” by reducing the crop-price levels that set the value of government loans to farmers and tying them to past market averages.
But at the same time, he said, it joins Helms in his fight to force the administration to retain cash subsidies for farmers hurt by low prices and to expand the use of subsidies to recapture lost export markets.
It would do this through an ”export-bonus” program in which the government would offer one free ton of grain for each two purchased by certain foreign buyers.
The Helms bill includes even stronger export-promotion measures. In addition, it would phase out acreage set-aside programs and lower the ceiling on cash subsidies to about $24,000 per farmer, while the federation would maintain the set-aside programs and the current subsidy ceiling of $50,000 to ease the effect of the other program changes.
