Big vote for farm bill could beat Bush veto

By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed and sent to the Senate a $289 billion, five-year farm bill that expands nutrition and biofuel programs in the face of President George W. Bush's promise to veto it.

Agriculture Committee leaders said the 318-106 vote, a 3-to-1 margin, for the bill showed the House can override a veto, which could be issued next week. A two-thirds majority is needed in the House and Senate to override a veto.

Two-thirds of the money in the farm bill would go to public nutrition programs like food stamps. Lawmakers gave nutrition the largest increase in the farm bill, $10.3 billion over 10 years. Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro called it a historic increase that responds to rapid rises in food prices.

Written every few years, farm bills are panoramic legislation covering dozens of programs. Land stewardship programs were allotted a $4 billion increase, biofuel development $1.2 billion and specialty crops $1.35 billion.

Funding for crop supports and crop insurance was cut by several billion dollars.

In a shift in emphasis on biofuels, the bill reduces the tax credit for corn-based ethanol by 12 percent, to 45 cents a gallon beginning in 2009. It offers a $1.01 a gallon tax credit through 2012 for ethanol from cellulose, found in grasses, woody plants and crop residue.

"If this bill makes it to my desk, I will veto it," Bush said in a statement on Tuesday. He said the farm bill has at least $10 billion in hidden spending, subsidizes millionaire farmers and contradicts the free-market reforms the United States seeks in world trade talks.

Bush has vetoed nine bills during two terms as president and been overridden once, on a waterway bill last fall.