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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

No agreement on Farm Bill amendments; parties split on standard for producing renewable fuels

More than a week after formally taking up the Farm Bill, the Senate has yet to make much progress on the five-year, $286 billion legislation. That slow pace — thanks to disputes over the amendment process, among other things — means time is running out on the bill this year, reports the Des Moines Register. A two-week Senate recess begins Friday.

"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that senators were 'highly unlikely' to finish work on this bill this week," reports Philip Brasher from Washington. "The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, accused Republicans of holding up the bill. 'At this rate we may not have a farm bill,' he said."

The disputes over issues such as a proposal to increase the amount of biofuels used by refiners meant "the Senate chamber was quiet for long stretches of time Tuesday afternoon," Brasher writes. (Read more) "The Republicans would very much like to put it on the farm bill because they're afraid the energy bill won't move," Farm Bureau lobbyist Mary Kay Thatcher told Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network. "The Democrats would like to keep it off, because they fear if you put a renewable fuels standard on the farm bill, that that's one more chance that the energy bill won't move." (Read more)

McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., supposedly agreed to come up with a list of acceptable amendments, but this morning "it appeared no agreement had been reached on which of the roughly 240 amendments to the farm bill would actually be considered," Shinn reports. Even when the Senate passes the bill, Senators and members of the House must reconcile their two versions, making it unlikely the legislation will go to President Bush before 2008.

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