EWG issued the following statement by Scott Faber, Vice President for Government Affairs, on the Senate's failure to pass Senator Gillibrand's amendment to reduce subsidies to crop insurance companies to restore proposed cuts to feeding assistance programs and to increase funding for the fresh fruit and vegetable snack program.

The Food and Environment Reporting Network released an investigation into government subsidized crop insurance today at MSNBC.com.

“Large farms simply don’t need unlimited government support to pay for crop insurance. Capping these premium supports will cut the deficit, while ensuring farms continue to have access to insurance. It’s just common sense.”

National leaders in food and farm policy have taken steps to form a new nonprofit organization that for the first time will hold lawmakers in Congress accountable for their votes on a broad range of issues, including food safety, farm subsidies, nutrition assistance, farm animal welfare, fisheries management, organic and local food, farm and food worker justice, and the impacts of food and farm policies on the environment.

Few Americans know that taxpayers finance a $90 billion crop insurance program that provides millions in subsidies to highly profitable farm businesses and insurance companies. And even fewer know that the crop insurance industry spends more on lobbying and political donations than farm organization representing corn, soybean and wheat farmers.

When the government allows oil and gas companies to avoid paying taxes, lawmakers call it a “subsidy.” But when the government pays 62 percent of the cost of obtaining crop insurance, it’s called a “discount?”

Editorial boards across the country continue deriding the lack of meaningful reform in the Senate farm bill. The Washington Post weighed in today in an editorial called, “Fertile ground for change.” Some excerpts: "The bill’s savings would have been almost twice as great if it did not offset the elimination of direct payments with a new, subsidized crop insurance program on top of the generous one from which farmers already benefit."

The New York Times’ Ron Nixon reports that the Obama administration wants to see deeper cuts to crop insurance as the farm bill debate goes forward: "The bill is expected to cost about $969 billion over the next 10 years, but cuts overall spending by $23 billion."

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., today introduced amendments that would save taxpayers billions of dollars and take important steps toward reforming the heavily subsidized federal crop insurance program.