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Washington Divides Over Foreign Food Aid
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If the administration wants more money for the emergency funds, they argue, then it can request more money overall for international food aid.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a Jan. 11 letter to Harkin that the provisions could undermine the U.S. ability to save lives in emergency situations.
For example, she said the reduction in emergency funding in the Senate bill is equivalent to the entire food operation in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
She urged Harkin to eliminate the spending caps or give the president "reasonable flexibility" to waive them to respond to emergency food crises. "Addressing humanitarian emergencies is a priority of the highest order for the administration."
USAID officials say if the proposed caps had been in place last year, the United States would only have been able to supply emergency food aid to Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia _ the three most famine-prone countries in the world _ and forced to abandon people needing food in almost every other crisis worldwide without supplemental funding from Congress.
That would have affected as many as 8 million people in Afghanistan, southern Africa, Congo, the countries of the Sahel, Nepal, Zimbabwe and Uganda, they say.
While sympathetic to the need to respond to crises, Harkin and other proponents of the caps are unconvinced by the administration argument and maintain that money for long-term programs must be increased and not cut.
"There is no question that the U.S. must respond in times of international food and humanitarian emergencies," Harkin said. "Unfortunately, those emergency funds have been drawn away from development aid, which would help people avoid future emergencies."
"With more adequate funding for food assistance and careful advance planning, we can better address emergency needs and lay the foundation for development that reduces long-term hunger and poverty," he said.
The conflict over international food aid is only one issue that farm-state members of Congress will have to resolve in farm bill negotiations. The administration has threatened to veto both versions of the bill, saying they would increase taxes and not do enough to limit farm subsidies to wealthy farmers.
