Tuesday, September 12,2006

At the polls
Chafee's tough challe nge
from right is among prima ry
contests in nine states

The Legislative News-Dailyfrom Congressiona l Quarterly

House GOP Backs Bush on Tribunals

Holdout Republican senators increasingly isolated on detainee trail procedures
hearsay evidence and testimony given after
CQ STAFF WRITER
coercive interrogation. Like the president's
House Republicans fell in line Monday beproposal, the House bill also would permit
hind President Bush's proposal for military
suspects to be excluded from their own tritribunals to try terror suspects, further isolatals and amend a law that guarantees susing a trio of Senate
pects the protecArmed Services
tion of the Geneva
Committee leadConventions.
ers who support
Moving quickly
legislation that
to get legislation to
would provide
Bush's desk this
month, the House
such suspects with
panel is scheduled
greater legal protections.
~ to mark up the bill
The chairman
on Wednesday.
of the House
By aligning with
Armed Services
~ Bush's proposal
~ for military tribuCommittee,
In his speech, Bush said the nation's message to terrorists
Duncan Hunter,
nal legislation,
R-Calif. , with the was,' America will find you, and we will bring you to justice.'
Hunter ratcheted
up pressure on John W. Warner of Virginia,
support of the House leadership, planned
the Republican chairman of the Senate
Tuesday to file a legislative proposal that
echoes Bush's own draft bill for tribunals,
Armed Services Committee, as well as
which would permit the introduction of clasGOP panel members John McCain of
silied information unavailable to defendants,
Detainees continued on page 6
BY JoHN M . DoNNELLY

Pressure Builds for Drought Aid in Farm Belt

BY CATHARINE RICHERT, (Q STAFF WRITER

Penny Altendorf, a orth Dakota crop

duster, measures her success in acres .
A devastating drought sweeping the nation's farm belt has sharply reduced the Red
River Valley acreage she and her husband
treat with herbicides and pesticides, giving
them no chance to break even this year. The
Agriculture Department has declared every
county in North Dakota an agricultural disaster area.
"It's depressing when the phone doesn't
ring," she said. "You can hear the wind
blowing through the screen doors and the
dust blowing in the fields."
Altendorf is not alone - a long summer
of drought and fire is affecting not only

farms, but also the businesses that serve

them. That message has been clearly received in Washington, especially by banking and industry groups that otherwise steer
clear of farming issues.
Lawmakers, likewise, are listening. A bipartisan group of senators wants to pass
$6.5 billion in emergency farm aid before
the end of the year. Much of the funding
would go to farmers who have lost crops
and livestock due to drought and fire in
2005 and 2006 - but about $300 million
would be set aside for small businesses
such as Altendorfs.
Emergency farm aid is nothing new for
Congress - the Congressional Research
Drought continued on page 8

Gulf oil leases probed, p. 13

Today's Hill schedule, p. 30

PULSE OF
CONGRESS
EDITED BY GREG McDoNALD

t&

J..Wh II llllllf

SENATE ADOPTS Sept.ll Resolution While House

Leaders Fight Over Language
House leaders were cordial enough at a
small gathering Monday night on the Capitol steps commemorating the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But simmering beneath the surface was a
disagreement over wording of a draft resolution honoring those who died that day.
The Senate adopted its own simple resolution (S Res 565) Monday afternoon,
yet House members aren't scheduled to
act on their measure before Wednesday.
One House GOP aide declared that
Republicans "are no longer negotiating
with the minority leader's office" on the
wording of the resolution because Democrats want all references to legislation
struck from the measure, including mention of the Patriot Act reauthorization
(HR 3199) and the border security bill
(HR 4437). Those measures were primarily backed by Republicans.
"The resolution should be above politics. We should come together to honor
victims and resolve to continue to fight
terrorism. But what the Republicans
want to do is score political points," said
Jennifer Crider, spokeswoman for House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Republicans, however, insist that the
resolution is bipartisan and mentions only
continued on page 14
Volume 42, Number 126

PageS

CQToday,Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Drought continued from page 1

Services says about $55 billion has been appropriated since 1988 in response to agriculture disasters. But industry groups say
this is the first time lawmakers have tried
to use such an aid package to also help businesses that are integral to the farm economy, including crop dusters and equipment
dealers.
The new interest may be the key to passage of farm aid before the end of the 109th
Congress. Many Republicans have been reluctant to support emergency agriculture
spending this year because of budget pressures, but the involvement of banking and
industry groups could make the package
more appealing to business-friendly GOP
members.
Also, now that harvest season is nearly
over -and many farmers have little to show
for it -lawmakers from Washington state
to Missouri are feeling pressure to help
their constituents.
Republican cosponsors of the aid package (S 3855) could use their clout with the
GOP to win over a budget-conscious White
House and other members who have not
yet signed on to the bill.
Even more is at stake for two of the five
Republican cosponsors: Conrad Burns of
Montana and Jim Talent of Missouri are
both locked in tough re-election fights this
fall.

Finding a Target
The package, sponsored by Kent Conrad,
D-N.D., would provide $2.5 billion more
than one already proposed in the fiscal2007
Agriculture appropriations bill (HR 5384).
Conrad and 16 cosponsors are eyeing a
number of vehicles to pass their bill and are
counting on support from some of the 72
members who voted to include farm aid in
the fiscal 2006 emergency supplemental
(PL 109-234). That aid eventually was cut
when it pushed the cost of the Senate's version of that bill to $108.9 billion, and President Bush threatened to veto the bill.
With the legislative calendar shrinking,
senators may have no choice but to try to
add a new package to another bill.
For now, the Agriculture bill is stalled in
the Senate and is unlikely to emerge until
after the midterm elections.
Critics say the original $4 billion of farm
aid attached to the bill by Conrad and fellow North Dakota Democrat Byron L. Dorgan earlier this spring is the holdup; it has

Drought Afflicting Large Areas of Nation

The long, hot summer has left large areas of the Great Plains, South, Northwest and Southwest suffering from moderate-to-exceptional drought conditions, leading farm groups and
business interests in the agricultura l belt to seek help from Congress for damage to crops
and livestock.

'0

Hawaii

'is:>

()

0 Abnormally Dry

Severe Drought

0 Moderate Drought

Extreme Drought

Exceptional Drought

Source: National Drought Mitigation Center,Sept.5.

proved a hard sell to budget hawks and the

administration, making the measure the
most likely candidate for an expected yearend omnibus appropriations bill.
But folding the spending bill into an omnibus could be a blessing in disguise, one
agriculture lobbyist says. The funding could
be put into the spending package "in the
dead of night," with little pushback from
Senate leadership so late in the game.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert also
may now be willing to go along with the
plan, because farming communities in the
Illinois Republican's own district suffered
from drought at the end of the summer, the
lobbyist said.

Collective Power
Hundreds of farmers, small business
owners and banking groups will rally at a
Capitol Hill press conference Tuesday to
publicize Conrad's bill.
The turnout is a testament to how
drought can affect the entire economy, said
Chris Thorne, Conrad's spokesman.
"Disaster doesn't stop at the farm gates,"
he said.
Tom Buis, who is president of the Na-

tional Farmers Union, agrees.

''When the economic situation in rural
America is difficult, that translates to the
whole economy," he said.
Rural bankers who finance farmers are
also weighing in on the issue, said Mark
Scanlan, director of agriculture policy for
the Independent Community Bankers of
America.
When farmers go broke due to crop loss,
they are less likely to pay off loans, which
can undermine the banking business, Scanlan said.
Altendorf, the crop duster, said the economic ripple effect has raised her awareness of farming issues and politics.
Her company, Northwood Arrow Service, runs on tight margins. AJtendorf and
her husband spend thousands of dollars at
the beginning of every summer to hire pilots, subsidize expensive insurance packages and pay for fuel.
When there is a drought- and no work
comes in - the Altendorfs don't recoup
those initial expenses.
"We're a small group," Altendorf said.
''We're invisible unless there is an agriculture crisis." +