K Street in Brief

Group gets heated over farm bill

Not that long ago, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) lobbied lawmakers to pass a farm bill, fearing that critical conservation programs would be cut otherwise.

But the legislation that grew out of weeks of negotiations is “entirely unacceptable,” in the words of NWF’s Julie Sibbing. That’s because provisions were added in conference committee that would diminish wildlife habitat and increase greenhouse gas emissions.

{mosads}One of the things that attracted NWF to the bill in the first place was language that denied the issuance of crop insurance to farm grasslands. That denial has been changed to allow governors an “opt-in” option to deny the insurance, which NWF contends is an unlikely political scenario.

Taking the original language out, lawmakers then added something worse, in Sibbing’s view: a $4 billion disaster relief fund that will encourage farmers to develop marginal land that now is untilled. The Government Accountability Office has found that the availability of crop insurance and disaster relief are two key factors in a farmer’s determination on whether to bust sod.

That’s bad, because soil stores carbon dioxide that is released when it is plowed. Sibbing said studies show that tilling an acre in the Prairie Pothole region of the Great Plains can release between 45 and 54 tons of carbon per acre.

The farm bill could have the equivalent carbon impact of the addition of millions more cars to the road, Sibbing said.

House aides said lawmakers tried to balance environmental protections with the need to grow more crops with some countries facing food shortages. The bill also increases support for some conservation programs. For instance, it would add 1.5 million acres to a grasslands reserve program. The bill also increases the money for farmers who try to reduce the environment impacts of farming.

The bill isn’t without its supporters.

In a letter sent to Capitol Hill Tuesday, 557 farm and food groups praised the farm bill as a “carefully balanced compromise of policy priorities that has broad support among organizations representing the nation’s agriculture, conservation and nutrition interests.”

Jim Snyder

Unheeded warning

As energy costs rise, the issue of energy supply is one that more and more business groups are paying attention to in Washington.

Case in point: the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) wrote senators this week warning it would record an upcoming energy vote on an amendment to a flood insurance bill offered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Energy and Natural Resources panel ranking member Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

The amendment sought to boost domestic production of oil and gas by removing drilling restrictions in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Outer Continental Shelf along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Jay Timmons, executive vice president at NAM, said the McConnell amendment would “not only help to expand domestic supply, it would create and preserve hundreds of thousands of jobs here at home.”   

Democrats countered that oil and gas companies already have plenty of access to production areas.

In a lengthy speech on the Senate floor on Monday, for example, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) pointed out that about three-quarters of leased land is not being produced.

Even in areas of the Outer Continental Shelf that are open to drilling, 33 million acres are not producing out of a total 41 acres available for lease.

Bingaman noted testimony by energy experts before his committee that suggested market speculation was a significant cause for the run-up in oil prices.

“We are witnessing a substantial influx of speculative money into energy markets,” Bingaman said.

In the end, senators were more swayed by Bingaman’s argument than by NAM’s threat.

The amendment was defeated 42-56.

J.S.

House (and Senate) calls get easier 

The American College of Surgeons is packing up its bags and moving from Georgetown to Capitol Hill.

By doing so, the surgeons’ lobby becomes the latest to set up operations within walking distance of the Capitol, joining the lobby shops of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, UPS , the Associated General Contractors of America and others.

“It is becoming increasingly important for all of surgery to speak with one voice,” said Thomas Russell, executive director of the American College of Surgeons, which has its national headquarters in Chicago.

The surgeons broke ground last Friday on a brand-new 10-story office building that will house its lobbying and research arms as well as other, smaller medical societies. The building should be completed by 2010.

Jeffrey Young

 A look at the books

The Sunlight Foundation , a group dedicated to pulling back the curtain on how government operates, launched a new website that lets voters sneak a peek at how well members of Congress have done for themselves in the past 11 years.

That’s how long personal financial data has been available. Sunlight is putting it online on its new site, Fortune 535 .

The site also lets viewers compare the net worth of each lawmaker to that of the average American family and will list the wealthiest lawmakers.

Ellen Miller, executive director of Sunlight, said the information may surprise some people.

“Even though popular stereotypes tell us that lawmakers are all millionaires and get more wealthy the longer they serve in Congress, we found that every lawmaker profile is different,” Miller said in a release.

J.S.