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Senate Ag advances child nutrition measure

The Senate Ag Committee unanimously approved on Wednesday Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln’s bill to reauthorize childhood nutrition programs with part of the funding for it coming from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).  Lincoln assured committee members that her bill would not mean any less EQIP money to producers. She says it slows the growth of the conservation program which never reaches authorizing funding levels anyway, “What we do do in this bill, however, is lock in a steady increase to the producers.” Lincoln says that will keep further cuts from being made in appropriations.

But several Senators including Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Pat Roberts of Kansas supported an amendment by Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss of Georgia that would have shifted the offset from EQIP to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), reducing the amount of CSP acres.  Roberts agrees with Chambliss that there is more demand for EQIP than for CSP,“EQIP invests more in rural Kansas than any other conservation program. There’s a long waiting list. I know that we are slowing the growth but we are not slowing the growth but we are not slowing the backlog of over 1,400 contracts in Kansas.”

Senator Johanns says Nebraska has four times as many requests for EQIP than it has to fill. And while EQIP and Child Nutrition Programs are equally important, he says EQIP does not deserve another bite taken out, “We’re being forced to choose one versus the other when actually I think a better direction is to try to figure out with our farm programs in the future. That makes sense from a trade standpoint, makes sense in terms of important safety net for agriculture.” 

Chairman Lincoln and former committee Chairman Tom Harkin of Iowa were among those defeating the amendment which failed, 11 votes to 10.  Chambliss, who supports the bill, says he’ll offer his amendment on changing offsets on the Senate floor.

Johanns, however, praised Lincoln’s reauthorization bill for having offsets. It invests $4.5 Billion in new program funding over the next 10 years, what Lincoln says is a “record investment” in child nutrition programs.

Ag Secretary Vilsack praised the bipartisan committee support of the bill and said it’s a positive step toward President Obama’s $10 Billion budget request to improve access and nutrition goals to fight hunger.

Senate Ag Committee Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act markup (26 min. MP3)