NATION
Thursday, December 13, 2018
East Oregonian
A7
$400B approved for farmers, forests and poor
By JULIET LINDERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — After
months of debate and nego-
tiation, Congress voted final
approval Wednesday to a
massive farm bill that will
provide more than $400 bil-
lion for agriculture subsi-
dies, conservation programs
and food aid.
The House voted 369-
47 for the legislation, which
sets federal agricultural and
food policy for five years,
after the Senate approved it
87-13 on Tuesday. It is now
headed to the desk of Presi-
dent Donald Trump, who is
expected to sign it.
The measure reauthorizes
crop insurance and conser-
vation programs and pays
for trade programs, bioen-
ergy production and organic
farming research. It also
reduces the cost for strug-
gling dairy producers to sign
up for support programs and
legalizes the cultivation of
industrial hemp.
House Agriculture Com-
mittee Chairman Rep.
Michael Conaway, R-Texas,
said the final bill looks at
“stresses and strains across
all of rural America, eco-
nomic development issues
and just the practice of farm-
ing and ranching. It says:
here are federal resources
we want to put against those
problems.”
One thing the bill doesn’t
include:
tighter
work
requirements for food stamp
recipients, a provision of
the House bill that was cel-
ebrated by President Don-
ald Trump but became a
major sticking point during
negotiations.
Another
contentious
piece of the House’s original
legislation, relaxing restric-
tions on pesticide use, also
didn’t make it into the final
text.
Conaway championed
the stricter work require-
ments, and fought to restrict
the ability of states to issue
waivers to exempt work-el-
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
In this May 16, 2018, file photo, House Agriculture
Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, speaks
about the farm bill during a news conference on Capitol
Hill in Washington.
igible people. The House
measure also sought to limit
circumstances under which
families who qualify for
other poverty programs can
automatically be eligible
for SNAP, the Supplemen-
tal Nutrition Assistance Pro-
gram, and earmarked $1 bil-
lion to expand work-training
programs.
The bill does increase
funding for employment and
training programs from $90
million to $103 million.
The original House bill
failed during its first floor
vote when 30 GOP members
blocked it over an unrelated
immigration issue. It passed
a second time around, but
without any support from
Democrats, who insisted
they wouldn’t vote for a bill
with the new work require-
ments included.
“The version we passed
in June took bold steps to
reforming SNAP and mov-
ing in the direction most of
us believed was supported
by the American people,”
Conaway said. “That was
not supported broadly by
the body across the build-
ing, and we made the com-
promise necessary to get us
to this place.”
The House and Senate
also clashed over portions of
the bill’s forestry and con-
servation sections.
Negotiations were com-
plicated in recent weeks
when the White House asked
Congress to make changes
to the forestry section in
response to deadly wildfires
in California, giving more
authority to the Agriculture
and Interior departments to
clear forests and other public
lands. The final text doesn’t
significantly increase the
agencies’ authority.
Agriculture
Secre-
tary Sonny Perdue said the
bill will help producers
“make decisions about the
future, while also invest-
ing in important agricul-
tural research and sup-
porting trade programs
to bolster export.” But he
voiced disappointment over
the failed changes to work
requirements.
“While I feel there were
missed opportunities in for-
est management and in
improving work require-
ments for certain SNAP
recipients, this bill does
include several helpful pro-
visions and we will continue
to build upon these through
our authorities,” he said.
The bill maintains cur-
rent limits on farm subsi-
dies, but includes a House
provision to expand the defi-
nition of family to include
first cousins, nieces and
nephews, making them eli-
gible for payments under the
program.
Insurance claims at $9 billion from California fires
By KATHLEEN
RONAYNE
Associated Press
AP Photo/Noah Berger, File
In this Nov. 8, 2018, file photo, a home burns as the
Camp Fire rages through Paradise, Calif.
those in Butte.
Jones advised homeown-
ers to be cautious of “fraud-
sters and scam artists” trying
to take advantage of vulnera-
ble communities.
He also said it’s time for
California to start rethinking
how and if it builds in fire-
prone areas. Ken Pimlott,
outgoing director of the Cal-
ifornia Department of For-
estry and Fire Protection,
told The Associated Press
this week the state should
consider banning construc-
Senior Living
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
— Insurance claims from
last month’s California wild-
fires already are at $9 billion
and expected to increase,
the state’s insurance com-
missioner
announced
Wednesday.
About $7 billion in claims
are from the Camp Fire that
destroyed the Northern Cal-
ifornia city of Paradise and
killed at least 86 people,
making it the deadliest U.S.
wildfire in at least a century.
The rest is from the Wool-
sey and Hill fires in Southern
California.
Collectively, the fires
destroyed or damaged more
than 20,000 structures, with
the vast majority in and
around Paradise. On Tues-
day, state and federal author-
ities estimated it will cost at
least $3 billion just to clear
debris.
“As the claims get per-
fected, as individuals get
access to their former homes
and neighborhoods, as they
dialogue with their insurance
companies and share more
information about the scope
of their loss, we expect these
numbers to rise,” Insur-
ance Commissioner Dave
Jones said of the $9 billion
estimate.
There are more than
28,000 claims for residen-
tial personal property, nearly
2,000 from commercial
property and 9,400 in auto
and other claims for the fires.
That’s well above the
number of claims filed fol-
lowing a series of fires that
tore through Northern Cal-
ifornia’s wine country last
year. Losses from those fires
were initially pegged at $3.3
billion but eventually grew
to $10 billion.
While the Camp Fire
destroyed about double the
number of structures as
the 2017 fires, home val-
ues in Butte County are far
lower than those in Sonoma
County. That’s part of the
reason total claims may seem
low compared to the 2017
figures, Jones said. Median
home values in Sonoma
County are more than double
tion in vulnerable areas.
Jones said local gov-
ernments may not be fully
considering the long-term
impacts of building in areas
at high risk of fire, floods and
rising sea levels.
“That’s going to be a
hard conversation. Every-
body likes to build new, peo-
ple obviously want to rebuild
their communities,” he said.
“We’re in a new era where
these risks are so bad I think
we’ve really got to take a
look at how we’re making
these decisions.”
Authorities are still deter-
mining what caused the fire.
Pacific Gas & Electric told
regulators that a high-volt-
age power line malfunc-
tioned at the time and spot
that investigators believe the
fire started on Nov. 8.
The San Francisco-based
utility told the California
Public Utilities Commis-
sion on Tuesday that several
miles away workers found a
fallen power pole and equip-
ment with bullet holes.
A number of fire victims
have filed lawsuits alleg-
ing that PG&E’s equipment
started the fire that destroyed
the town of Paradise and
killed at least 86 people.
The cleanup costs for last
month’s fires will far surpass
the record expense of $1.3
billion the U.S. Army Corp
of Engineers spent on debris
removal in Northern Califor-
nia in 2017.
California Office of
Emergency Services Direc-
tor Mark Ghilarducci said
the state will manage cleanup
contracts this time. Last year,
hundreds of Northern Cal-
ifornia homeowners com-
plained that contractors paid
by the ton hauled away too
much dirt and damaged
unbroken driveways, side-
walks and pipes.
The state OES spent mil-
lions repairing that damage.
Ghilarducci said the
state OES will hire auditors
and monitors to watch over
debris removal in hopes of
cutting down on the number
of over-eager contractors.
“We learned a great num-
ber of things,” last year,
Ghilarducci said.
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