Senate Agriculture Marks Up Farm Bill; Votes on Amendments to End COOL, Cuba Trade Ban Postponed

• Export Credit Guarantee program, which provides export credit guarantees to help ensure the availability of credit to finance U.S. agriculture exports to countries where financing may not be available. The bill specifies that the Commodity Credit Corporation should make no more than $4.5 billion in credit guarantees available from 2014 to 2018. That’s a $1 billion reduction from current levels of export credit guarantees, a move made to address concerns related to the Brazil World Trade Organization cotton case, according to a summary of the bill from the Senate Agriculture committee (here). See 11062015 for more on the cotton case. The bill also adjusts the rate for upland cotton in the Marketing Loan Program, designed to bring the program into better compliance with WTO requirements.
• The Market Access program, which provides matching funds to promote U.S. agricultural products in overseas markets, is continued through 2018.
• The Foreign Market Development Program is also continued through 2018. The program provides matching funds to nonprofit commodity or trade associations to aid in the long-term expansion of export markets.
• Emerging Markets and Facility Guarantee Loan Program is also continued through 2018. It provides funding for technical assistance to promote U.S. products to emerging markets, and supports loan guarantees to establish or improve agriculture facilities in emerging markets.
• The “purpose” section of the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops program is revised to cover technical barriers to trade under the program. The overall program gives financial assistance to producers and exporters of specialty crops to address trade barriers. The bill also allocates $9 million for the program from 2011 to 2018.
• The bill authorizes funding through 2017 for the Global Crop Diversity Trust, with stores and maintains seed from global food crops at a facility in the Arctic Circle. Under the bill, U.S. contributions to the fund may not exceed one-fourth of the total funds contributed to the Trust from all sources.

The May 14 Senate markup of the bill includes votes on various amendments. Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., introduced an amendment to ban all mandatory country-of-origin labeling on livestock and poultry, but withdrew it without calling for a roll call vote. Johanns said he recognized there was a difference of opinion on the issue, and would wait for a floor vote. “I hope we can resolve this issue before some of our largest trading partners retaliate and withdraw our exports,” he said. Mandatory COOL labeling ends up being a trade restriction, Johanns said, and the U.S. needs to find a better policy to deal with country of origin “without getting hammered again with another [World Trade Organization] case that cost us a lot of money.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said COOL is “the most confusing issue that I have ever seen in all my years on the Ag committee.” He urged Johanns to bring the amendment to the floor “and resolve this.” Fellow Committee members, however, said U.S. consumers support COOL. WTO has approved the labeling, and Canada is also moving in that direction, said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. “This is a process that whether we like it or not,” is happening, she said. Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown agreed. “Few things do I hear more about at home [than COOL],” he said, and consumers feel safer knowing where their food comes from. "Messing with this unless we can reach real consensus is a mistake.”

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., also introduced an amendment to end the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba -- which he called a “no brainer” -- but said he would not bring it for a vote at the hearing.