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Friday, November 09, 2007

Harkin promises a Farm Bill before Thanksgiving

Even with Senate debate on the Farm Bill delayed until next week, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says voting on the bill will begin soon and that it will be finished before the Thanksgiving break, reports Agriculture Online. While Harkin was delivering that promise on Thursday, Democrats were responding to the Bush administration's threat to veto the legislation, writes Dan Looker.

Harkin and other Democrats said the move was just an attempt by the administration to influence the Farm Bill, Looker reports. "No Republicans are paying attention to them on what they want to do on the farm bill," Harkin said. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said the Bush administration wanted "leverage" and is using the veto threat to get it. "Conrad said that the Bush administration's own farm bill proposal put out last January actually costs more than the Senate bill," writes Looker. "The independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate bill will cost $285.8 billion over the next five years. The Bush proposal would cost $287.2 billion, he said."

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., who is the House Agriculture Committee Chairman, issued an "opinion editorial" on Thursday in which he challenged reports of non-farmers getting commodity payments. (Read more)

On Thursday night in St. Paul, Minn., acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner laid out his complaints about the Senate version of the Farm Bill, but he said there is still hope for a compromise in 2007, reports The Bemidji Pioneer. Conner said the bill included "accounting gimmicks" and did not do enough to fix farm subsidy payments, reports Scott Wente. (Read more)

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