WASHINGTON -- Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., was elected the Republican leader of the House Agriculture Committee Dec. 10, succeeding Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who had bumped up against a Republican House rule limiting leadership terms to six years.
Goodlatte had served two terms as chairman and the last as ranking member, the term used to describe the top member of the minority party on each committee. Lucas was the third most senior member of the committee after Goodlatte and Rep. Terry Everett, R-Ala. Everett would have been in line for the post, but he retired. Lucas was elected by the House Republican Steering Committee.
Goodlatte's days
Lucas' district uses the same federal farm programs that are used in the Upper Midwest and the South much more than the district that Goodlatte represents. The Goodlatte district has animal production and fruits and vegetables and almost no program crops that get direct subsidies. Although he supported the 2008 farm bill, Goodlatte often was a critic of the program crop subsidy programs and viewed within agricultural circles as more concerned with the issues of livestock producers who use crops as feed than with the concerns of program crop producers. Lucas' Oklahoma district includes large swaths of wheat, cotton, corn and cattle production as well as a large amount of land in the Conservation Reserve Program under which the government pays farmers a rent to keep marginal, environmentally sensitive land out of production.
In an interview after his election, Lucas said his initial priorities on the committee would be the controversies surrounding the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the implementation of the 2008 farm bill and adjusting to the new political appointees at the Agriculture Department when President-elect Obama takes office.
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Commodity regulation
In the past year, as oil and farm commodity prices have skyrocketed and plummeted, there have been many concerns about whether the CFTC's regulation has been strong enough. During the current financial crisis there have been proposals to merge the CFTC with the Securities and Exchange Commission and bring it under the jurisdiction of the House Financial Services Committee.
But Lucas said Dec. 10 he would join House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., in fighting to keep the CFTC independent and under the Agriculture committee. Lucas noted that he is taking that position even though he serves on the Financial Services Committee as well as Agriculture. He added that the CFTC's powers do need to be strengthened and said he thinks the Agriculture committee can "move to respond quickly" to the challenges posed by the financial crisis. Peterson said Dec. 10 he wants to push a CFTC bill in January to deal with commodity speculation and ensure greater transparency in futures trading.
Lucas, who will begin his ninth term in the House in January, also said he wants to maintain the bipartisan cooperation for which the House Agriculture Committee is famed.
"I have long served as a strong voice for production agriculture," Lucas said in a news release. "As the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, I will continue to work with both Republicans and Democrats to ensure that farmers and ranchers have the necessary resources to not only survive, but to thrive in this nation."
