Congress overrides veto, enacts farm law

By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress enacted the $289 billion U.S. farm law on Thursday over a presidential veto, a move that will expand the major nutrition program for poor Americans at a time of rapidly rising grocery prices.

The new law puts an additional $10.36 billion into public nutrition programs over 10 years, adds $4 billion to land stewardship and provides $1.2 billion for biofuel development, particularly ethanol from cellulose, found in grass and wood.

Two-thirds of spending under the five-year bill would go to nutrition programs. Funding for crop insurance and crop supports would be cut by several billion dollars.

In the major U.S. nutrition program, nearly 28 million Americans receive food stamps, which help poor people buy food. The new law adjusts the formula for calculating benefits, resulting in more help for an estimated 10 million people, and indexes the changes for inflation.

Senators voted, 82-13, for the override a day after the House voted 316-108. A clerical error omitted the trade section from the vetoed bill, so further votes were expected to renew U.S. farm trade and food aid programs.

"Fourteen of the 15 titles of this bill are now the law of the land," said Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, after the Senate vote.

Bush said the bill would continue to subsidize multimillionaire farmers while Americans face higher grocery prices. The administration complained that the headline reform in the bill, barring farm subsidies to the wealthiest Americans, was so toothless it will touch virtually no one.

It was the second override by Congress out of 10 vetoes by Bush. The other was on a water project bill last November.

With the election season at hand, a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted for the override rather then stand with an unpopular president.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president who said he agreed with the veto, was not present for the vote. Of the two senators seeking the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton of New York voted for the bill while Barack Obama of Illinois did not vote.

Democratic leaders said the omitted section did not imperil the legitimacy of the override. They pointed to a 1892 Supreme Court decision as proof an accidental change in text did not prevent a bill from becoming law.

"There are a number of precedents that what we did yesterday was valid," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

House Republicans accused Democrats of cutting corners in a rush to enact the bill before Memorial Day. "The fact is, that's not the bill we voted on," said David Drier of California.

As a safeguard, House Democratic leaders called a vote on a new bill containing all sections of the farm bill. It passed, 306-110, with strong support by Republicans.

Harkin said the Senate could pass the bill as early as Thursday, creating the possibility that Bush could veto the farm bill twice and be overridden