Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 4217 - Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994

(SENT 8/3/94)
(House Rules)
(de la Garza (D) TX and two others)

The Administration strongly supports H.R. 4217.

The Administration recently proposed to reform the crop insurance program in response to the impact of the Midwest flood of 1993. Based on this proposal, H.R. 4217 would establish a comprehensive crop insurance program to provide a reliable source of assistance for future disasters. This program would allow farmers to know what assistance is available before disaster strikes rather than after the fact, as is currently the case with ad hoc agricultural disaster assistance. It would also benefit taxpayers by reducing Federal spending for disaster-related losses.

The Administration understands that an amendment to H.R. 4217 may be offered that would significantly alter the reformed program to require the entire cost of the program to be paid through mandatory spending. The magnitude of the changes in H.R. 4217 that would be required to offset this additional cost would seriously compromise the ability of the reformed crop insurance program to replace ad hoc emergency disaster assistance. This would make it more likely that Congress would again be asked to provide ad hoc disaster assistance whenever farmers suffer weather-related losses. Consequently, the Administration urges the House to vote against such an amendment.

Pay-As-You-Go Scoring

H.R. 4217 would affect receipts and direct spending; therefore, it is subject to the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) requirement of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1990. The preliminary OMB PAYGO scoring estimate of this bill is presented in the table below. Final scoring of this legislation may deviate from this estimate.

PAY-AS-YOU-GO ESTIMATES
(dollars in millions)