Ag secretary: Delay in reauthorization will hurt poor children

By JERRY HAGSTROM

For the Capital Press

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is urging Congress to reauthorize the child nutrition programs this year with a big increase in spending, and says he is willing to make a cut in the popular environmental quality incentives program and other USDA programs to pay for part of the increase.

"If we don't do this this year, this is not going to get any easier," Vilsack told the House Education and Labor Committee last week.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the same committee, said that he plans to hold a committee meeting the week of July 12 to finalize the bill. If Congress passes the bill, it is expected to provide a major boost in federal purchases of fruits and vegetables for the school lunch program, but also to emphasize low fat dairy and meat products and discourage consumption of high calorie meats and snacks.

At the hearing, Vilsack said he believes no other legislation is more important this year. Delaying the reauthorization until another year, Vilsack said, would only hurt poor children who should have easier access to the meals and all children who should be served healthier food at school.

Miller has introduced legislation to make it easier for low-income children to qualify for free meals and to improve the quality of the meals. Both steps would cost more money, and the bill provides an additional $8 billion for school meal programs over 10 years, but Miller has not identified offsets to pay for the increased cost. The Senate Agriculture Committee has approved a similar bill, but it would increase spending by only $4.5 billion. The Senate bill cuts a food stamp education program, but the larger part of the offset -- $2.8 billion over 10 years -- would come from the environmental quality incentives program, which farmers and ranchers use to pay for environmental cleanup.

House Education and Labor ranking member John Kline, R-Minn., said he agrees with the bill's goals, but is worried that the committee will approve the bill without an offset and "trust the speaker to find the money elsewhere or simply swipe our burgeoning credit card once again."

But Kline also said that the Minnesota Farm Bureau opposes cutting a USDA conservation program, and asked Vilsack if he would support the offsets in the Senate bill.

Vilsack said that cutting any USDA program is like asking him which of his children he likes more. But he said that an audit of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service showing that spending has "outpaced the personnel at NRCS" may indicate that a cut in conservation might be appropriate. Vilsack also said he believes that there may be "other dollars" at USDA and outside USDA that could be cut. "If you give us a target, we will work with you to find that resource," he said.

A coalition of conservation groups has sent Congress a letter opposing any cut in conservation programs to pay for an increase in children nutrition, but Vilsack's comment appeared to leave the conservation program more vulnerable as an offset.