Proposed farm subsidy reforms bring praise

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 21, 2001

Last spring the Bush administration and some congressional Republicans couldn't buy a kind word from environmentalists. Last week they both earned high marks for their suggestions about agriculture policy.

Still reeling from a defeat on a House farm bill amendment that would have shifted $19-billion over 10 years from crop subsidies to conservation programs, environmentalists found a new ally in Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Agriculture Committee.

Lugar and Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman are advocating farm subsidy reforms that would give money to farmers based on their need, not the size of their farm. Environmentalists have always said most of the benefits went to the biggest farm plots, which need help the least.

Scott Faber, a water resource specialist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the Bush administration has approached his organization for feedback about certain ideas. Faber said he has been impressed by the president.

"I don't think I've ever said this, but President Bush deserves enormous credit," he said.

'There's no question' that this phrase is popular

It's a phrase that dominates Pentagon briefings nowadays. On Thursday alone, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used it at least 10 times in exchanges with reporters.

"There's no question," he likes to say, as he answers yet another question.

At a Pentagon briefing Thursday, Rumsfeld was asked about the wisdom of continuing to bomb Afghanistan without first having a government in place to succeed the Taliban.

Here was his response:

"I don't know that I understand the question, but there's no question but the president has asked us, the government of the United States and our friends and allies around the world to go after terrorist networks, and we intend to do that.

"There's also no question but the situation in Afghanistan has been a terribly difficult one for years and years and years.

"And there's also no question but that the United States and other nations would want to try to make that better and do what we could to assist them at that point where Taliban and al-Qaida have been dealt with.

"And I don't know how I can answer it better than that."

-- Times staff writers John Balz and Paul de la Garza contributed to this report.

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