Johanns would vote for Farm Bill

Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Wednesday in Grand Island that if he was in the Senate, he would vote for the $290 billion Farm Bill that's awaiting congressional approval.

The House of Representatives Wednesday approved the Farm Bill by a 318-106 margin, which is enough support to survive a threatened presidential veto.

Johanns, who defeated his Republican opponent, Pat Flynn, on Tuesday for the Republican Senate nomination, resigned as ag secretary last year to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Chuck Hagel.

Johanns' successor, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, said Wednesday that President Bush intends to veto the Farm Bill. Schafer characterized the Farm Bill passed by the House Wednesday as "a bloated, earmark-laden bill that spends nearly $20 billion over its original cost and continues to balance subsidy payments to the wealthy on the backs of the middle-class taxpayer."

"Reckless spending like this is not what farm bills should be about," Schafer said. "Congress had a real chance to implement reform and strengthen farm programs for the next decade. This reform could have allowed for savings to be reinvested in future agriculture needs, such as energy and research. Instead, they decided to spend billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to grow government and invest in the tired status quo."

Johanns said the Farm Bill passed by the House Wednesday is not the Farm Bill "that I would have asked for."

He said it's not the Farm Bill he proposed when he was Bush's ag secretary in January 2007 or when he testified before both the House and Senate agriculture committees.

"But it's time that farmers have a Farm Bill," Johanns said.

He said the Farm Bill approved by the House/Senate conference committee and voted for by the House Wednesday is inadequate in a number of ways.

"I don't believe they have a safety net as strong as what we proposed," Johanns said. "But having said that, it is time for America's farmers to have a Farm Bill. If I was in the Senate, it would be a ’yes' vote. But I will tell you very candidly it would be a very reluctant ’yes' vote."

Johanns said if he is elected to the Senate, he would seek a seat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, where he would work to reform those aspects of the Farm Bill he feels are inadequate.

"There's too much of this Farm Bill that sends us in a direction that farmers weren't asking for when I conducted those Farm Bill forums," Johanns said.

One of those forums was held at Husker Harvest Days outside Grand Island in 2006.

When asked if he were still secretary of agriculture, whether he would have counseled Bush not to veto the Farm Bill despite all of its perceived imperfections, Johanns said he never talked about the messages or conversations he had with Bush.

"I just felt it was the respectful way to handle the relationship with the president of the United States," he said. "He needed to rely on my advice without having to worry about reading about it in the newspapers before or after I gave it. I just really avoided that kind of comment and I think that is a good practice to continue."

As secretary of agriculture, Johanns oversaw the tremendous boom in the nation's biofuel industry. But an unintended consequence in the increase of corn-to-ethanol production, was corn prices that have nearly tripled over the last several years.

That has led some to criticize the biofuel boom, blaming it for higher food costs and higher feed costs for livestock producers.

Those critical of biofuels would like Congress to eliminate the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on foreign ethanol and the 51-cent-per-gallon blender's tax credit for ethanol production and roll back the renewable fuels standard goal, which mandates 15 billion gallons of ethanol use domestically by 2015.

But Johanns said he would oppose any attempts to scale back government biofuel programs.

"As we move into more corn- based ethanol, there will be a point where we will plateau for the demand for ethanol," Johanns said.

He said that plateau will happen well before the RFS's goal of 15 billion gallons by 2015. Johanns believes ethanol demand will plateau at about 12 billion gallons. Currently, the nation's ethanol industry will produce about 8 billion gallons of ethanol this year, Johanns said.

"We are starting to close in on that number," Johanns said.

He said a policy that the nation needs to embrace is for the U.S. to lessen its dependency on foreign oil.

Johanns said those knee-jerk reactions to cutbacks on the nation's biofuels industry worry him.

"We are being whip-sawed because we have so few alternatives," he said.

"That 8 billion gallons of ethanol is 8 billion gallons that we would have to get somewhere else. We need to continue to move in that direction. But if we cut back now, it would be very destructive to an industry that is starting to show some signs of lessening that dependence on foreign oil."