A Bid to Overhaul a Farm Bill Yields Subtle Changes

From The New York Times:

Few Americans know as much about the farm bill as Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. So it was not trivial, with the bill up for renewal this year, when Mr. Harkin spoke forcefully about the need to overhaul federal farm subsidies.

But as the Agriculture Committee prepares to put the final touches on the farm bill on Wednesday, Mr. Harkin has come up mostly empty-handed. A near-final draft bill, unveiled on Tuesday, leaves the subsidy programs largely unchanged.

Mr. Harkin’s experience this year illustrates how . . . farm interests cut across party lines, splitting lawmakers not by politics but by geography and the particular crops or commodities in their home states.

On the Senate side, Mr. Harkin’s push for big change was blocked not only by Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the committee, but also by two powerful Democrats from major wheat-growing and cattle-ranching states, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Senator Max Baucus of Montana.