[Community_garden] CFSC Farm Bill Update vol. 3

Tue Jun 26 15:54:51 EDT 2007

*CFSC Farm Bill Update*
* June 25, 2007 *
* *
*House Timeline Delayed: Action Needed Through July 4 Recess*
* ***
* CONTACT YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS to *
* SUPPORT Community Food Projects*
* *

As of last week, the full Agriculture Committee in the House postponed
addressing the Farm Bill until after Congress' week-long July 4th recess.
During the recess, members of Congress will be in their home districts, and
there may be opportunities for you to meet with them or their staff
personally at events around the community*.
*
***Please CONTACT your Members of Congress (House AND Senate: For contact
info, call the Capitol Switchboard: 202.224.2131) to encourage their support
for CONTINUED MANDATORY FUNDING for Community Food Projects and an increase
of current funding levels to $30 million. Continue reading for further
information on what to request of your Congressperson regarding CFP and
Geographic Preferences. Your Congressperson NEEDS to hear from YOU**
**
Update on CFSC Priority Issues:
Community Food Projects (CFP): *On June 14th, *CFP was reauthorized at $30
million per year by the House Nutrition Subcommittee.* CFSC expresses its
thanks to the leadership of the Nutrition Subcommittee (Mr. Baca) and the
Agriculture Committee (Mr. Peterson, Mr. Goodlatte) for including this in
the version of the Nutrition Title being sent to the full Agriculture
Committee.

If you live in the district of Reps. Baca (CA-43rd), Peterson (MN-7th), or
Goodlatte (VA-6th), please call their offices to thank them for funding CFP
at $30 million and ask them to keep the funding mandatory (which means that
we don't need to re-apply for funds each year of the 5 year Farm Bill).  *For
all other Congressional Districts, please CALL your member of Congress and
urge them to support continued mandatory funding for CFP at $30 million or
more. *Please see the attached CFP talking points for background
information.

*Geographic Preferences/Local Procurement: *In order to ensure clarification
of language in the 2002 Farm Bill to allow school food service directors to
specify a geographic preference, CFSC continues to seek inclusion of this
brief but important language in the House Agriculture Committee draft of the
Farm Bill. This language is currently stuck in a jurisdictional disagreement
between the Agriculture Committee and the Education & Labor Committee
(Chair: George Miller, CA-7th).

If your Congressperson is on the House Education & Labor Committee, (List of
Committee members:
*http://edworkforce.house.gov/about/members.shtml*) please contact his/her
office and urge him or her to encourage Chairman Miller to allow
jurisdiction of the geographic preference issue for school nutrition
purchases to fall under the Farm Bill. This issue needs to be resolved
immediately and this language must be included in both the House and Senate
Agriculture Committee bills.

*Timeline Changes for Legislative Action on the Farm Bill:
*Although schedules frequently change in Congress, here is our latest
information on the timeline for the Farm Bill:
   * Week of July 9: House: Full Agriculture Committee meets to continue
negotiations
   * Week of July 9: Senate Full Agriculture Committee meets (very
tentatively)
   * Week of July 23 or 30: Scheduled Farm Bill debate on the House floor

*Senate Timing:** *As reported in Congress Daily on June 20, Senator
Grassley has said he would support an extension of the 2002 Farm Bill. Even
though he would prefer reauthorization with some reform, he said the Senate
timetable is slipping. Harkin said he still wants to finish the farm bill by
Sept. 30; he has delayed committee markup of the bill until July, awaiting
the Congressional Budget Office's determination of how much Harkin's
proposal would cost.

*Dear Colleague Letters:
**Davis-Rush Dear Colleague: *Last week, Congressmen Artur Davis (AL-7th)
and Bobby Rush (IL-1st) released their Dear Colleague letter to the
leadership of the House Agriculture Committee specifically *in support of
CFP. The letter was signed by the following Representatives*:

Artur Davis, Bobby Rush, John Conyers, Bennie Thompson, Carolyn Kilpatrick,
Barbara Lee, Corrine Brown, William Lacy Clay, Alcee Hastings, Gwen Moore,
Raul Grijalva, Peter DeFazio, Jim McDermott, Henry Waxman, Lynn Woolsey,
Darlene Hooley, Robert Brady, Al Green, Jim Langevin, Howard L. Berman, Jan
Schakowsky, John Lewis, Earl Blumenauer, Xavier Becerra, James Moran, Elijah
Cummings, Yvette Clark, Donald Payne, Nancy Boyda, Ruben Hinojosa, & Steve
Kagen.

Please see *http://www.foodsecurity.org/policy.html* for the text of this
letter. Whether or not your Congressperson signed on, it is important to
bring their attention to the letter and either show appreciation for those
who already signed, or encourage their continued support of the program.

*CA Delegation Dear Colleague: *An additional Dear Colleague letter from 26
members of the Congressional delegation from California to the Leadership of
the House Agriculture committee in support of the inclusion of thealthy and
local food provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill was released. See *
http://www.calfoodandfarming.org/docs/CACongressLetter.pdf* to view the
letter.

*Commodity Title:
*The last of the House Agriculture subcommittees, the General Commodities
and Risk Management Subcommittee voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the
commodity title of the 2002 farm bill until 2012 rather than Chairman
Peterson's reformed version, which would have changed crop target prices and
loan rates to make them more equitable among commodities, ending
farmsubsidies for farmers with 10 acres or less, and imposing stricter
payment
limitations on the highest-income farmers by requiring direct attribution
for all farm bill subsidies to individuals rather than passing them through
co-operatives.

In addition to replacing Peterson's new draft with the 2002 Commodity Title,
the committee also passed a number of amendments to the extension and voted
to reject three alternative farm bill proposals: the Kind-Flake FARM 21
Proposal (HR 2720), the Bush Administration's proposal, and a farmer buyout
plan from Citigroup.

According to the June 20th edition of CongressDaily, Chairman Peterson also
announced that the House leadership has decided to move floor consideration
of the bill to the last week of July and that he has postponed the full
committee markup of the bill from next week until the second week in July.
This extra time will enable the Committee to have a better idea of how much
money above the current baseline the House leadership will provide him. The
FY08 budget resolution contains a $20 billion reserve fund for agriculture,
but the money is supposed to be offset. Peterson has said he would like to
limit the increase in spending to about $13 billion.

Among several amendments that passed unanimously, was a resolution that no
monies under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee should be used to pay for
other titles (such as Nutrition or Conservation) of the Farm Bill. You can
keep track of Farm Bill activity in the House by going to*
http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/2007FarmBill.html.
*
*Media:
*There have been several more CFSC Farm Bill op-eds this week. CFSC
supporters are encouraged to continue to submit op-eds and letters to the
editor as soon as possible. Information and model articles are available-
please contact Mark Winne at mark at foodsecurity.org for more information.
*
*    *Birmingham News link:*
http://www.al.com/opinion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/baseopinion/1182674737207300.xml&coll=2
    *SIERRA Club Magazine link: **
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200707/lol.asp
*    *The Tennesean link: **
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070616/OPINION03/706160332
*

***REMEMBER TO CONTACT YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS DURING JULY 4th RECESS
(7/2-7/6)**
*
Thanks for your support,
Steph & Aliza

*Quote of the Week:
**"If the answer is, 'Build a fence," I've got two goats on my place in
Mississippi. There ain't no fence big enough, high enough, or strong enough
you can keep those goats in that fence. Now people are at least as smart as
goats, maybe not as agile."
*
 -- Senate Minority Whip Lott, speaking today on immigration enforcement. He
later added: "One of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I
electrified it. Once they got popped a couple times, they quit trying to
jump it. ... I'm not proposing an electrified goat fence, I'm just trying --
there's an analogy there."

If you  have not received this update directly from Steph or Aliza and wish
to be added, please contact one of us. All CFSC Farm Bill Updates can be
found on our website: *http://www.foodsecurity.org/policy.html*

-- 
Community Food Security Coalition
110 Maryland Ave. NE Suite 307
Washington, DC 20002
Phone: 202.543.8602
Email: *Steph at foodsecurity.org
*www.FoodSecurity.org

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