WASHINGTON - December 22 - The following is a statement of Environmental Working Group's President Ken Cook on the recent release of farm subsidy payment information by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

"Congress mandated a new tracking system for farm subsidies under Section 1614 of the 2002 Farm Bill, and USDA provided the resulting database on December 20 to EWG, in response to Freedom of Information requests we filed several years ago. A number of news organizations also received the data. While we are in the preliminary stages of analyzing this data, we expect it will add important new details about exactly who receives farm subsidies from taxpayers, and how much. This information should be highly useful as Congress takes up reauthorization of federal farm subsidy programs next year.

The vast majority of farm subsidy recipients have long since had their payments disclosed on our database because they are not complex business entities but sole proprietorships or simple partnerships (husband and wife, for instance). The new database from USDA promises a fairer, more consistent disclosure of subsidy beneficiaries because for the first time it will shed light on program beneficiaries within the complex partnerships, joint ventures, corporations, and farmer cooperatives. Many of those beneficiaries have not been disclosed in the past by the EWG Farm Subsidy Database for the simple reason that the information was not made available to us.

We commend the USDA staff who worked very hard to make the benefit tracking system a reality in advance of the 2007 Farm Bill debate. EWG expects to complete our analysis and prepare the data for release as part of the Farm Subsidy Database in early January."

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