Science Provision Buried In House Farm Bill Could Gum Up Regulatory Work, Critics Say

WASHINGTON -- Some senators and environmental and public health groups are concerned that a little-noticed provision in the House's version of the farm bill, which would change the way federal agencies deal with science, might make it into the final version.

The provision, on page 560 of the 609-page bill, is titled "Ensuring High Standards for Agency Use of Scientific Information." While that may sound like a good thing on its surface, the provision is worded in such a way that has advocates in the environmental and scientific community alarmed. Among other things, the measure would require agencies to have new "procedures in place to make policy decisions only on the basis of the best reasonably obtainable scientific, technical, economic, and other evidence and information concerning the need for, consequences of, and alternatives to the decision." The bill would also stop all government agencies from doing regulatory work as of Jan. 1, 2014, until those new guidelines are in place.

Legal Experts Slam Controversial Farm Bill Amendment In Letter To Congress

A group of law professors have written to the House and Senate blasting a controversial amendment to the farm bill currently undergoing negotiations.

Originally published in a study, the letter penned by 14 law professors was obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle and not released publicly. In it, they reportedly criticize the Protect Interstate Commerce Act introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an amendment that seeks to limit states’ power to supervise their own farming standards. If passed, the amendment would ban states from requiring agricultural and livestock conditions that are stricter than those in other states, so long as the products are intended for out-of-state sale.

House Dems Can Block GOP Food Stamp Cuts—by Killing the Farm Bill

The food stamps program—which helps feed 1 in 7 Americans—is in peril. Republicans in the House have proposed a farm bill—the five-year bill that funds agriculture and nutrition programs—that would slash food stamps by $40 billion. But by taking advantage of House Republicans' desire to cut food stamps as much as possible, Democrats might be able to prevent cuts from happening at all.

To pull it off, Democrats would have to derail the farm bill entirely, which would maintain food stamp funding at current levels. Here's how it would work, according to House Democrats who've considered the idea.

Meet Your Taxpayer-Subsidized Farm Bill Billionaires!

When most people think about farm subsidies, chances are they do not immediately think "massive taxpayer money boondoggle that should be cut from the federal budget immediately." They've probably heard about how hard it is out there for small family farmers, doing honest work in the world, keeping everyone fed and maintaining our institutional repository of agricultural practices. Surely, these subsidies are helping to keep an important way of life alive for the True Sons of Soil and Toil ... like, say, multi-billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Billionaires Received Millions From Taxpayer Farm Subsidies: Analysis

Congress recently altered the country's farm bill, cutting billions from the food stamp program over the next decade.

That comes after more than a decade of the same bill providing millions in farm subsidies to billionaires' businesses, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, a left-leaning think tank. Those billionaire subsidies would only increase in the coming years, the report found.

In total, U.S. taxpayers provided $11.3 million in subsidies to businesses with ties to the 50 billionaires between 1995 and 2012. The subsidies were first instituted to help family farms keep afloat when prices of certain crops got too low, but now smaller farms have largely been crowded out by larger farming corporations that control many levels of production.

Farm Bill Delay May Give Green And Public Health Advocates Voice In Revisions

Some U.S. farmers are paid to leave their land wild; others are compensated when weather devastates their cultivated land. Still others receive money when crop prices drop -- all from the same federal funds set aside through the current Farm Bill.

To call it the "Farm Bill," however, is something of a misnomer. The federal government's primary agricultural and food policy legislation comprises hundreds of programs, which extend well beyond cows, corn and cotton to everything from food stamps and an array of environmental and public health safeguards.

"The totality is overwhelming. Nobody can grasp it," said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. "This makes the Farm Bill profoundly undemocratic since the public -- and, I would maintain, congressional representatives -- cannot possibly understand it."

At least now the public and their representatives will have a bit more time to wrap their heads around the bill and all its implications. Earlier this month, to the relief of many advocates concerned about the lack of transparency and what they perceive as the undue influence of the industrial agriculture lobby, the congressional super committee failed to reach an agreement on future budget cuts. This means the legislation will follow the same, more open route that it has taken every four or five years since its debut in the 1930s.