Agriculture Budget Reconciliation Maintains Status Quo

(WASHINGTON, Oct. 19) – Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group (EWG), whose free, online farm subsidy database tracks over $130 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to farm entities in the past nine years alone, issues the statement below about today’s budget reconciliation meeting in the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee:

“Chairman Chambliss’s budget proposal maintains a system where our country’s largest agribusiness operations receive huge subsidies, while small family farm operations get almost nothing – especially those who are taking extra steps to protect the environment while farming.

“Chairman Chambliss’s budget is not an adequate response to the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against the legality of our cotton subsidies. As the U.S. enters into international trade negotiations, Chambliss has shown no resolve to reduce farm subsidies and address the problems the U.S. will face in world markets and in the WTO.”

EWG’s searchable farm subsidy database is available at http://www.ewg.org/farm/.

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EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C., that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.