The Issue
Subsidies
EWG’s renowned farm subsidy database reveals that taxpayer support goes mostly to large, profitable operations, not to sustainable family farms that truly need the help. We’re working to change a badly broken system.
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The Latest on Subsidies
For years the federal government wrongly sent millions in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies to dead farmers – a black eye for subsidy defenders and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Now it seems farmers are paying the dead back for all that bad publicity by bulldozing historic prairie cemeteries.
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The draft budget released by the House Budget Committee takes a first step toward reforming wasteful farm programs by calling for $31 billion in savings from farm subsidies and crop insurance, Environmental Working Group said in a statement today. The budget document cited record farm income over the last few years in the face of crippling federal deficits as a reason to reexamine farm subsidies and the structure of the bloated crop insurance program.
Read MoreSen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) today introduced companion bills in Congress that would provide much-needed reform of the heavily subsidized federal crop insurance program. The Crop Insurance Subsidy Reduction Act of 2013 would restore the program’s fiscal integrity while ensuring that farmers are protected by an effective safety net when the weather turns against them.
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America’s Midwest and Great Plains are often derisively described as fly-over country. And now unblinking, data-collecting satellites soaring over the western Corn Belt have recorded a devastating manmade environmental disaster.
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About every five years, Congress debates legislation popularly known as the “farm bill,” a huge and complex measure that largely determines the nation’s agricultural and nutrition support policies.
Read MoreIn a recently posted blog titled Something’s Gotta Give, Marcia Zarley Taylor proves once again that she is one of the most cogent observers of crop insurance. Taylor is executive editor of the agriculture website DTN, and her post warns farmers that the once-sleepy crop insurance program is taking center stage as Congress starts over on the farm bill. She quickly explains why.
Read MoreWASHINGTON – The decision by a federal appeals court not to block the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent corn ethanol (known as E15) is a setback for consumers and the environment, says Environmental Working Group vice president for government affairs Scott Faber.
Read MoreWASHINGTON – Buried in the 150-page “fiscal cliff” tax bill passed New Year's Day is a last-minute farm bill extension that buys time for Congress to craft and debate an improved measure to establish food and farm policy for the long haul.
Read MoreHouse Speaker John Boehner made the right choice when he refused to include a trillion-dollar farm bill in legislation designed to avert the “fiscal cliff.”
Read MoreHouse Speaker John Boehner made the right choice when he refused to include a trillion-dollar farm bill in legislation designed to avert the “fiscal cliff.”
Read MoreBoth the Senate and House versions of the farm bill include $6 billion in cuts to conservation programs. Should a new version emerge from the fiscal cliff negotiations, these misguided cuts are sure to be part of the deal.
Read MoreSimple good governance and due process are reason enough to demand open deliberation on the farm bill, but there are significant budgetary reasons to insist on it as well, and lawmakers should take note of them.
Read MoreEWG’s Scott Faber joined representatives of several fiscally conservative organizations in calling on Congress not to slip a full farm bill reauthorization into any legislative package they cobble together to avoid the imminent “fiscal cliff.”
Read MoreEnvironmental Working Group joined several groups today at the National Press Club to call on lawmakers to stop a secret farm bill from being attached to any legislation designed to straighten out the nation's finances. The groups urged Congress to pass a responsible one-year extension bill that is paid for by eliminating direct payments.
Read MoreCongressional leaders in search of a compromise to avoid plunging off the “fiscal cliff” are under growing pressure from the agriculture subsidy lobby and its friends in Congress to attach a subsidy-laden farm bill to legislation ostensibly designed to straighten out the nation’s finances.
Read MoreSyndicated columnist Froma Harrop explains how federal crop insurance is flooding the heartland in her latest column on RealClearPolitics.com.
Read MoreCongressional leaders in search of a compromise to avert the “fiscal cliff” are under growing pressure from advocates for subsidized agriculture to attach a $1 trillion farm bill to legislation ostensibly designed to straighten out the nation’s finances.
Read MoreCongressional leaders in search of a compromise to avert the “fiscal cliff” are under growing pressure from advocates for subsidized agriculture to attach a $1 trillion farm bill to legislation ostensibly designed to straighten out the nation’s finances.
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