Congress in recess, but Farm Bill negotiations go on

Congress may be on its Presidents' Day break, but negotiations about the Farm Bill continue as the House and Senate try to reconcile their versions of the bill, reports Peter Shinn of Brownfield Network. Last week, the House Agriculture Committee submitted a bipartisan proposal that "called for raising no revenue and spending about $6 billion over the Congressional Budget Office baseline for farm programs," while the Senate committee countered with an offer that spent $12.3 billion over the baseline, Shinn writes.

Now, the two sides are trying to meet in the middle, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Shinn and other reporters on Tuesday. "The Senate received a counter-offer from the House of the Representatives over the weekend on the farm bill," Grassley announced. "It's my understanding that that proposal was $8 to $10 billion over baseline compared to the Senate counter-offer to the original House bill."

Grassley said some tax-code changes, similar to what the Bush administration made in its budget proposal, could pay for the increased funding. With an agreement on funding, Grassley said the legislation will be close to completion, though "controversial issues, like payment limits and the livestock competition title of the Farm Bill, may require public votes," Shinn writes. (Read more, including audio of the Grassley news conference)

One of those contested issues is the amount of funding for conservation programs. This week, 60 House members signed a letter to House leaders asking them to support the Senate version's $5.1 billion in funding for programs related to conservation efforts, reports advocacy group Environmental Defense. (Read more)

In a column for the Des Moines Register, Chuck Hassebrook, the director of the Center for Rural Affairs, says a "new alliance" could deliver genuine reform in the Farm Bill. "The bottom line is simple," he writes. "Both the Senate and House farm bills would subsidize the destruction of family farming and undermine the agricultural communities of rural Iowa and rural America. The administration proposal is scarcely better. But the administration's insistence on more reform, together with the standoff between the two Houses of Congress, creates an opportunity for a new alliance." (Read more)