{"id":4001,"date":"2013-08-07T22:09:49","date_gmt":"2013-08-08T06:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calcanstaging.kinsta.cloud\/?p=4001"},"modified":"2013-08-07T22:09:49","modified_gmt":"2013-08-08T06:09:49","slug":"farm-bill-and-agriculture-appropriations-clear-as-mud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calclimateag.org\/es\/farm-bill-and-agriculture-appropriations-clear-as-mud\/","title":{"rendered":"Ley Agr\u00edcola y Cr\u00e9ditos Agr\u00edcolas - M\u00e1s claro que el agua"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reposted from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)<\/a>
\nJuly 26th, 2013<\/h3>\n

The congressional month-long August recess is just a week away.\u00a0 In more normal times, as those types of deadlines loom, deals get done on Capitol Hill.\u00a0 Not so this year.\u00a0 The path forward on a new five-year farm bill and on the set of appropriations bills to fund the government for the coming fiscal year are clear as mud.\u00a0 With the federal debt ceiling to be hit this fall, it promises, sadly, to be another season of manufactured, interlocking crises in the nation\u2019s Capitol.<\/p>\n

Unless something breaks on the farm bill next week, the situation upon Congress\u2019 return after Labor Day will be quite stark.\u00a0 There will be a total of nine legislative days before the farm bill and before all the appropriations bills, including agriculture, expire at the stroke of midnight on October 1.\u00a0 To see why nine days is not a rosy prospect, let\u2019s review where things stand, starting with the farm bill.<\/p>\n

Farm Bill Recap<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

En\u00a0Senate passed its 5-year farm bill<\/a>\u00a0back on June 10.\u00a0 The House then\u00a0defeated its version of the farm bill<\/a>\u00a0ten days later.\u00a0 The House majority party then stripped the nutrition and food stamp title out of the bill and brought it back to floor where, despite a rule prohibiting any amendments to the bill, it\u00a0passed on a party-line vote\u00a0<\/a>on July 11.<\/p>\n

Since that time, a House Republican-only rump group has been meeting to discuss a possible nutrition title-only bill to bring to the House floor separate from the farm bill.\u00a0 Presumably, if successful, that bill would then be joined with their farm-only farm bill in conference with the Senate\u2019s comprehensive bill.\u00a0 To date, however, the rump group has reported very little progress and, in fact, members of the group say there is no chance they will have a product prior to September, if then.<\/p>\n

Will a Farm Bill Conference Happen?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

House Agriculture Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) has made it abundantly clear that if the House has failed to adopt a nutrition bill by August, then the House should go directly to conference with the Senate, without any House position on the nutrition title or food stamp spending.\u00a0 In such a conference, the Senate position would very likely prevail on the nutrition title, and food stamp budget cuts would be modest.<\/p>\n

House Republican leadership, however, has said nothing to back up their Chairman on this point, and hence there is little reason to hope a conference to work out a final bill will start anytime soon.\u00a0 It also appears to some\u00a0close observers of the process<\/a>\u00a0that House Republican leadership remains divided over whether or not to ever go to conference on the farm bill.<\/p>\n

The clock is ticking loudly now, and by September it will be louder still.\u00a0 The Senate, on a bipartisan basis, is begging and pleading to go to conference and get a final bill worked out.\u00a0 In fact, the Senate is expected to name its conferees next week.<\/p>\n

Based on the rumor mill, those Senate conferees will be, in addition to Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (MI), Pat Leahy (VT), Tom Harkin (IA), Max Baucus (MT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Amy Klobuchar (MN), and Michael Bennet (CO).\u00a0 On the Republican side, in addition to Ranking Member Thad Cochran (MS), the expected conferees are Pat Roberts (KS), Saxby Chambliss (GA), John Boozman (AR), and John Hoeven (ND).<\/p>\n

Of course it takes two to tango and takes two houses and two parties to get to conference, and while House Democrats and the more bipartisan Senate want to get started, House Republicans are still seemingly slow walking the process.\u00a0 At this point in time, there appears to be no hope that the House will name conferees next week and thus no action until September at the earliest, other than perhaps some staff meetings during August recess.<\/p>\n

As it did last year, House Republican inaction raises the prospect of the need for a farm bill extension.\u00a0 Last year,\u00a0Congress let the farm bill expire<\/a>\u00a0on October 1 and left it in that state of limbo until January 1, when it enacted a\u00a0really awful nine-month extension<\/a>\u00a0that itself expires this October 1.<\/p>\n

House Chairman Lucas has called for enactment of a short term extension in September, to provide more time to work things out, but Senate Chairwoman Stabenow has so far said she will not agree to any more extensions.\u00a0 That leads to the increasingly likely prospect that the farm bill will again expire, throwing many programs into turmoil.<\/p>\n

Much hangs in the balance in terms of completing a new full, five-year bill.\u00a0 For instance \u2013<\/p>\n