When I testified last year before the House Agriculture Committee's conservation subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Tim Holden, I was asked what I thought about means testing for conservation programs. The back story was the administration's proposal to means-test commodity programs (cutting off subsidies for adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more) which the subsidy lobby hated not just because it threatened the unlimited supply of taxpayer money to the biggest, wealthiest subsidy farms in the country, but because it was the camel's nose under the tent, and the camel was George W. Bush. The back story's sub-story was that EWG very publicly supported the idea, along with Dorgan-Grassley style payment limits.

Some of the subcommittee members seemed to surprised to hear that I thought means testing for conservation should be on the table. I told members of the Texas Farm Bureau the same thing when I met with them here in town recently. It was Earth Day, come to think of it.

So when Jerry Hagstrom of Congress Daily sought our views on the matter Monday, here's the response we emailed him:

Means testing is clearly appropriate for commodity subsidies. Taxpayers should not be accelerating farm consolidation by bankrolling big, wealthy farm operations, which is what commodity subsidies do. But with tight funding and such a large unmet need for conservation programs, we should also take a hard look at means testing for all farm bill programs, even conservation.

Our view is that if policymakers have ideas in this department, they should present them for discussion and debate.

But the subsidy lobby is crassly and transparently calculating that at least some conservation groups will be scared away from Title I reforms, and perhaps enlisted to the cause of resisting them, if means testing for conservation programs is put on the table. Some groups clearly would be scared off, and by much lesser threats than this.

While EWG may differ from them in emphasis or nuance on this issue, we think EDF and other groups make a strong and principled case for treating conservation programs differently than commodity programs when it comes to income caps and payment limits.

Other conservation groups covered their eyes, ears, mouths--and especially their noses--on any issues pertaining to Title I during the past year's debate, hoping that conservation programs would somehow be sustained or expanded with money that fell from the sky. EDF was different. EDF never shrank from making the case for broader subsidy reforms as part of their impressive effort to secure substantial increases in conservation investments.

Bully for them. EDF has had the courage of their convictions to suggest where to find the money for conservation--in Title I, crop insurance, and by eschewing the 'permanent disaster' fund--while other conservation groups have cowered in the modest comforts of committee accommodation, in silence or in press releases. That's one reason we're down to $4 billion above baseline for conservation at this point, an amount that doesn't even replace the funding cuts to conservation since 2002.

Of course, in farm bill politics EDF's reform stance is a prescription for retribution by subsidy interests and the politicians in their thrall, if they can arrange it, no matter what impact the revenge may have on conservation.

The reprisal dynamic was on display last summer in the legislative intimidation of Ducks Unlimited by Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas. He threatened DU during House consideration of the farm bill with an amendment that would have defunded the organization's crucial role of providing technical assistance to farmers under conservation programs like the Wetlands Reserve Program. Berry's amendment was in retaliation for DU's support in 2002 of the Boehlert-Kind-Dingell-Gilchrest reform amendment, which outraged the subsidy lobby (Berry's rice and cotton constituents in particular) because it would have shifted some money away from top crop subsidy recipients to pay for dramatically increased conservation investments.

Conservation groups who take stands like that are bound to become targets of recrimination by the subsidy lobby and their friends in congress.

The message is always the same: play nice, keep your great big save-the-world pie hole shut about Title I reform, and maybe you'll get some money. A lot less money than is needed, a lot less money than you want, a lot less money than you've told your supporters you'll be fighting for in the farm bill, of course.

But if you do play along the commodity boys will throw you a few bucks that are mandatory (and many more bucks that are merely authorized) for programs you consider central to your mission, whether it is holding the nation's migratory bird flyways together, protecting farmland from sprawl, preserving ecological gems or helping family farms protect their land and everyone's water, air and wildlife. Big Ag will even consider "protecting conservation through conference" if you bend sufficiently to their wishes, though of course you never know what the House (or Senate) might do. . .some things are beyond their control. . . Blah, blah, blah.

The standard bonus in these deals is that the subsidy lobby will do their level best to resist their powerful impulse to warp or destroy conservation program function and effectiveness through hatchet jobs on policy. Like collapsing all conservation easement programs into one--or dropping their demand for income caps or payment limits, if that's what twists your shorts.

Food assistance advocates are treated to their own version of these bullying tactics in every farm bill cycle.

I disagree with Chairman Peterson's characterization of EDF's position (as reported by Hagstrom in CongressDaily) as "hypocritical." But I certainly understand why he might misread as inconsistency EDF's thoughtful case for treating conservation subsidies differently than commodity subsidies.

The chairman's difficulty in distinguishing false virtue from the genuine article surely is symptomatic of his constant, acute occupational exposure to high doses of hypocrisy from the subsidy lobby. I'm worried for him.

How can a person not become confused and disoriented about what is and is not hypocritical when:

. . .Subsidy-addicted farmers continually express their powerful yearning to earn their living from the market, instead of the detestable Big Government, just as soon as higher prices permit. . .

. . .Politicians declaim that direct payments made without regard to prices or income are "hard to defend" in this overheated farm economy, then increase those payments selectively for the very largest subsidized farms. . .

. . .Commodity groups dependent on export markets warn that without direct payments for cotton plantations, America may become dependent on other countries for our food--as we are for our oil. . .

. . .Farm organizations pine for the day when market prices and incomes suffice to render "market-oriented" subsidy checks unnecessary, so that conservation programs and rural development can at long last be fully funded. . .

. . .Political leaders assert that Congress has no business dictating farm size through subsidy limits, with the exception of dictating that 10 acres or less is not a farm at all. . .

. . .Proponents of "production agriculture"--code for plantation-scale subsidy operations--brag about feeding the world, then express heartfelt regret at not being able to feed some of the world's poorest and hungriest kids by coming through with the $840 million promised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ag Committee Chairman Peterson for the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program. . .

Even the sturdiest farm policymaker is bound to be impaired over time by prolonged exposure to so much howling hypocrisy. No one should hold it against him.