Agricultural News
Senator Lincoln Unhappy with Obama Administration Counteroffer on Disaster Aid
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 6:21:35 CDT
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has balked at an Agriculture Department compensation offer for weather-related crop losses in 2009 after southern farm interests complained too few growers would receive assistance.
Following up on an Obama administration promise to Lincoln in late July that ag disaster funding would come from their budget, senior USDA officials handed her a proposal this past week that bore little resemblance to the $1.5 billion bill she tried to get through Congress.
USDA has come up with a little over $500 million that would go only to rice and cotton producers that suffered loss due to flooding or similar troubles. It appears that the more than $100 million that could have gone to Oklahoma wheat producers due to losses in 2009 may have disappeared in the electrion year manuevering.
Colleague Stewart Doan has been following this story- and reports from Little Rock, where Lincoln is trying to catch up in her November reelection bid. Currently, Mrs. Lincoln looks like a dead duck in this race, well behind Republican Congressman John Boozman, who hopes to end her one year reign as the Chairman of the Senate Ag Committee.
Click on the Listen Bar below to hear more about the disaster aid plan earlier promised to Blanche Lincoln- and now apparently to be made available in a much less expensive configuration.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
