It would be the first time since 1996 that conservation compliance is required to buy crop insurance coverage. The close vote of 52-47 in favor of a conservation compliance amendment offered by Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) was followed by a two-thirds vote in favor of the premium subsidy cut for large farms that was backed by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), who is the assistant majority leader for the Democrats in the Senate.
The crop insurance changes have a way to go before becoming law. The House of Representatives lags the Senate in writing a farm bill. Its ag committee markup has been pushed back to July 11 and the committee leaders have said they're against other ideas for limiting premium subsidies that were suggested this spring. If the House passes its own bill, the two pieces of legislation will have to be merged into one in a conference committee, where controversial proposals often die.
Still, the Senate rejected its own ag committee leadership's opposition to the Durbin-Coburn amendment by a vote of 66 to 33.
Coburn said his amendment was not as severe as an option studied by the Government Accountability Office that would have capped crop insurance premium subsidies for all farmers at $40,000.
TACKLING THE DEBT
That proposal didn't come up for a vote in the Senate. Instead, on Wednesday it considered Coburn's idea of lowering subsidies for farms above $750,000 in AGI. "If you want to save a billion dollars, if you want to tackle the debt, here's a way to save a billion dollars and not put anybody at risk," Coburn said.
Earlier in the day, Durbin spoke against an amendment by Senator John Thune (R-SD) that would have delayed Coburn's amendment with a USDA study.
Coburn's reduction in subsidies would affect only 1,500 farmers out of 1.5 million, Durbin said. For those large farms, the USDA premium subsidy would drop from an average of 62% to 47%.
The Thune amendment to stop the Durbin-Coburn amendment failed by a vote of 44-55.
Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-KS) spoke passionately against both changes. Programs are in the commodity title already have conservation compliance, he said, and linking compliance to crop insurance would be wasteful duplication.
