House approves $4.5 billion to help farmers, others

The House Thursday night approved nearly $4.5 billion in emergency spending to help farmers, fight wildfires and pay for rural schools.

The bill, approved 302-120, includes $425 million to extend payments for one year to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging, as well as $500 million to fight wildfires and $60 million for West Coast salmon fishermen.

Democrats separated the spending measure from a controversial bill that would pay for the war in Iraq but require benchmarks for success.

Still, like the war-spending bill, the domestic measure faces a veto threat from President Bush, who said he is not convinced the spending constitutes a true emergency.

That drew a sharp response from Western lawmakers of both parties.

"President Bush lives a sheltered life," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "He travels around the world in a jumbo jet and is surrounded by Secret Service day and night at taxpayer expense. For him to say to the tens of thousands of Oregonians and others who are on the verge of losing jobs and vital services like law enforcement and health care...that it's not an emergency, shows how out of touch he is with the needs of average citizens."

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said the White House statements "simply ignore reality of what's happening in the rural West. It is outrageous. Enough is enough."

Despite the veto threat, the House vote showed lawmakers from both parties were trying to ensure that rural communities don't have to undergo devastating cuts in services this summer, DeFazio and Walden said.

Besides the timber money, the House bill includes $3.5 billion for a variety of agricultural disaster relief; $500 million to establish a reserve account dedicated to emergency wildland firefighting; and $60 million to help fishermen in California and Oregon hurt by a sharply curtailed salmon fishing season.

Western lawmakers have pushed for nearly two years to extend the timber program, formally known as the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act. The program, which reimburses 700 rural counties in 39 states hurt by federal logging cutbacks imposed in the 1990s, expired in September.

Schools and counties throughout the South and West have scrambled to cut spending to make up for the expected loss of federal money.

The bill also includes $20 million for dairy farmers in California who suffered losses in a heat wave last year, and another $20 million for California citrus farmers hurt by a five-night freeze in January.

The bill does not include a Senate-approved measure to extend the school payments law through 2011. Some lawmakers said they expected the Senate to include the longer term measure in its version of the spending bill. If so, the two measures would have to be reconciled in a conference committee of the two chambers.