§7213 Amounts available for contract payments

Summary

The Secretary must, as much as possible, spend these exact amounts each fiscal year to meet contract obligations. For fiscal year 1996: $5,570,000,000; 1997: $5,385,000,000; 1998: $5,800,000,000; 1999: $5,603,000,000; 2000: $5,130,000,000; 2001: $4,130,000,000; and 2002: $4,008,000,000. Each year’s total is split by percentage among seven commodities: wheat 26.26 percent, corn 46.22 percent, grain sorghum 5.11 percent, barley 2.16 percent, oats 0.15 percent, upland cotton 11.63 percent, and rice 8.47 percent. The Secretary must adjust each commodity’s share by adding repayments of certain deficiency payments, adding refunds of contract payments from the prior year, and subtracting amounts needed to meet specific 1994–1995 crop-year payment rules. Rice gets an extra $8,500,000 for each fiscal year 1997 through 2002. Added amounts from those first two adjustments that are paid to owners or producers do not count as contract payments for payment-limit rules, and no person may receive more than $50,000 of such added payments. Finally, the yearly total is reduced by any contract payments owners or producers give up because of the payment limit.