House Speaker Jim Wright said Monday he hopes that a relief package with disaster payments of up to $100,000 for drought-stricken farmers will win committee approval and be ready for floor action in Congress this week. ``The relief shall be targeted to those who need aid the most _ primarily family farmers,'' Wright, D-Texas, told reporters. He also said that ``there should be no windfalls for major corporations and wealthy individuals'' in the package being fashioned by the House and Senate Agriculture committees. He said disaster payments should be capped at $100,000 for each individual. Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., called for expedited action but added that he remains uncertain about just what features should be included or what snags might exist. ``If we can agree on a bipartisan drought package, I would like to see us do that this week,'' Byrd said. But Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told reporters following a White House meeting with President Reagan that Congress should not rush legislation through recklessly. ``I don't think anybody should put artificial deadlines on it,'' he said. ``The important thing is that you tell people that are about to go bankrupt that there is hope, that there will be planting and raising herds next year. ... I think we're all agreed that that's going to be the goal. It's going to be a bipartisan piece of legislation and one that the president can sign.'' ``We would like to have this bill ready for House consideration bfore this week expires,'' Wright said. ``If this should prove impossible, we shall plan to vote during the week of July 26.'' ``The drought of 1988 is one of the hottest and driest spells of continuous weather on record,'' Wright said. ``It affects almost all agricultural regions of the country, particularly the Northern Plains states, the Corn Belt and the Mississippi Delta.'' He said the relief bill being drawn up would make farmers in more than 1,880 counties in 37 states that have been called disaster areas eligible for payments from the government. As outlined by Wright, government-held hay and feed grains would be made available to livestock producers up to a value of $50,000 per individual. The drought has wiped out a substantial amount of hay in the Farm Belt and, as a result, feed is now at a premium. Under the bill, Wright said, drought-stricken farmers would not be required to refund to the government so-called deficiency payments they have received in advance. Deficiency payments are income supports provided to farmers by the government. They represent the difference between market prices and congressionally set target prices, which are adjusted annually by the secretary of agriculture. As estimates of this year's harvest have grown smaller, crop prices have increased accordingly. As a result, the gap between market prices and target prices has diminished and the size of deficiency payments for many farmers also has shrunk. Forty percent of these payments, however, have already been made in advance. As things stand, some of these farmers would be obliged to refund to the government a portion of their advance deficiency payment at a time when the drought has robbed them of a crop to take to market. Wright said the legislation would encourage the Farmers Home Administration to restructure loans and delay collection from drought victims. Wright cautioned that consumers should be protected under the legislation and livestock producers should be provided with immediate relief. ``The bill cannot be a budget buster,'' Wright said. ``To the extent possible, it should be paid for out of the savings the government is anticipating from lower deficiency payments.'' Tentative provisions sketched in by congressional sources said the measure would cancel the 50-cent cut in dairy price supports scheduled for next year. Payments for wheat, feed grains, cotton and rice farmers would equal 65 percent of expected earnings for any losses greater than 35 percent of yields. For example, corn growers would be paid at a rate of 65 percent of the target price of $2.93 a bushel or $1.90 a bushel. Payments would start once a farmer suffered a loss of more than 35 percent of the historical yield that he has established with the Agriculture Department. A corn grower with 100 acres and a historical yield of 100 bushels would receive a payment of $12,350 as a disaster payment if his crop were wiped out. It remains unclear, however, just how much might be saved in deficiency payments as a result of the drought. And the savings will not merely be from smaller deficiency payments. Heightened demand is emptying government grain bins, thus lowering substantial storage costs borne by taxpayers. Sen. David Durenberger, R-Minn., said Friday that budget savings due to the drought would be at least $5.3 billion through fiscal 1990 and could top $10 billion. Lawmakers have been talking about recycling some or all of these savings to distribute to drought-stricken farmers as disaster payments. The extent of the drought damage remains uncertain. Lawmakers, farmers and policy-makers are awaiting Tuesday's official crop production estimates from the Department of Agriculture. They should offer the best available guide to the magnitude of the destruction caused by fierce heat and lack of rainfall in the midcontinent.
