Negotiations on the farm bill stumbled yesterday. House and Senate negotiators met for 90 minutes Wednesday evening, and for an hour Thursday morning, but talks broke up without a deal on cuts to nutrition aid, such as food stamps, or an insurance-based federal crop safety net to replace direct payments to farmers. The House of Representatives recessed Thursday evening for the Thanksgiving break, the Senate is expected to leave today. The House will return the first week of December, but the Senate is not expected back until December 20.
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said that meetings with Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS), Rep. Frank Lucus (R-OK), and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) have hit a wall. Senator Stabenow said “we haven’t decided” about additional meetings. “I don’t know what this means for getting things done,” she said regarding whether a 2013 farm bill can be crafted this year.
However, House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson (D-MN) said in an interview with KFGO, a North Dakota radio station today that the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate agriculture committees will hold a conference call on the farm bill at noon on Monday.
To have adequate time to get the conference version of the bill drafted, reviewed by USDA, and scored by the Congressional Budget Office, a framework had to be agreed on by the end of this week, according to House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK). Lucas also said “anything is possible but it is very challenging” now for him to meet the Republican leadership’s schedule of having a final agreement back on the House floor by December 13.
Failure to meet the December 13 deadline could mean that the farm bill would be kicked over to a third year of debate, and it raises the prospect that Congress will need to adopt a short-term extension into January of at least dairy program provisions. Without a farm bill, USDA will be legally obligated to implement the 1938 and 1949 permanent farm laws. That would mean the government buying milk at out-of-date prices and a milk-price spike for consumers. After both chambers return from the Thanksgiving recess, there remains only one week to accomplish what is necessary to pass a farm bill before Congress breaks for the Christmas recess.
