Political Solutions
Farm Bill would enhance rural America
By Howard A. Learner
Americans overwhelmingly agree that achieving more energy independence is necessary for our nation’s safety, security and health. Clean wind power and biofuels development is the best strategy to get there. 
The Farm Bill’s innovative clean-energy programs are a success story: good for farmers and ranchers, good for rural economic development and good for the environment.
For example, the Section 9006 program provides grants and loan guarantees to farmers, ranchers and rural, small businesses for renewable energy development and energy efficiency improvements. This program has worked well. Demand has far outstripped the $23 million annual appropriation.
Congress was on the right path to greatly increasing Section 9006 program funding in the 2007 Farm Bill. Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin led a bipartisan group of sponsors of the Rural Energy for America Act to ramp up funding to $250 million per year by 2012. Five Midwest senators sponsored a parallel bill. The 25 x 25 agricultural leadership group and the Daschle-Dole Agricultural Policy Project joined in support.
Something happened, however, in the Senate. The recommended funding was cut to less than $50 million per year. Why? In part, to provide more funding to subsidize cotton.
What’s more important to our national security? More clean-energy development or cotton subsidies?
The Great Plains states are the “Saudi Arabia” of wind power. It’s time to invest in getting more energy from America’s Heartland and less from the Mideast.
That requires prompt action to improve the proposed Farm Bill. A broad coalition of farm, environmental and energy groups have called on Congress to commit $250 million by 2012 for the Section 9006 program, and $5 billion during the next five years for the Farm Bill’s overall clean-energy programs. With sufficient investments, South Dakota can become a wind power and biofuels powerhouse.
The Farm Bill’s clean-energy development programs are a win-win-win: providing a new income stream for farmers and ranchers, creating jobs and enhancing the rural economy, and achieving environmental quality benefits for everyone. Congress should seize the opportunity in the 2007 Farm Bill to chart a bold clean energy future that enhances national security, our environment and rural America.
Howard A. Learner is executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center of the Midwest.
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