Now that the House and Senate struck a deal late last week to reopen the government through January 15, the farm bill could gain more serious attention this fall within the Capital Beltway. In taking that step last week, Congress also lifted the debt ceiling until February 7, which clears another higher-ranking political issue off the radar.
Whether anything gets accomplished on the farm bill remains to be seen, as the political divide is quite large. The House appointed a historically large, 29-member conference committee that included 17 Republicans and 12 Democrats. The House, which initially passed 11 of the 12 traditional farm bill titles separate from the larger food assistance title, must now iron out differences with the Senate conference committee. That much smaller committee includes seven Democrats and five Republicans. Of note, the Republicans control the House and the Democrats control the Senate, hence the ratios on each respective committee.
There is no doubt food assistance programs will remain the sticking point. As author of the deal-breaking amendment in the House's farm bill push this past June, Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) is among the 17 Republicans on the House conference committee. Not a member of the ag committee, Southerland is a leadership appointee by House Republicans. He could be very insistent on the $39 billion in food program cuts over 10 years which caused House Democrats to withdraw support for the plan. Meanwhile, the Senate only trimmed $4 billion from food assistance programs.
Where dairy settles out will be another battle. Back in June, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sent a letter to House colleagues urging them to support the Goodlatte-Scott amendment which stripped dairy stabilization or supply controls (depending on your perspective) from the Dairy Security Act.
While the first attempt to pass the farm bill ultimately failed, the current House bill does have the Goodlatte-Scott provisions in it. Another interesting point, of the 29 House conference committee members, 15 supported the Goodlatte-Scott amendment. Meanwhile, the Senate version of the farm bill contains the entire Dairy Security Act, including dairy market stabilization.
In one sign of movement, four key ag leaders met last week to discuss the farm bill's commodity title. They included Senate Agriculture Chairwomen Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Senate Ranking Republican Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Ranking House Member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and the meeting was hosted by Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) who chairs the House Ag Committee. With Congress being out of session this week, the earliest a full conference can meet is the week of October 27.
As most in farm circles know, the current farm bill expired in September. The MILC program, dairy's only active safety net, expired in September. Without action, permanent law with 1940's parity based milk pricing would kick in.
