|
Farm Bill Inches Closer to Conference; House Takes Up Nutrition Bill Next Week
With House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R, VA) confirming this week his hard-fought stand-alone nutrition bill is on the House floor schedule for action next, the last hurdle to House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) naming Farm Bill conferees will be cleared. The House and Senate will return to their pre-Syria schedules now that President Obama has asked for a delay in congressional votes on a Syrian military strike to allow the White House to pursue a diplomatic alternative. The Cantor nutrition bill would cut about $40 billion out of federal food stamps over 10 years, compared with $4 billion in cuts approved in the Senate Farm Bill. Those savings, Cantor said, will be achieved by changing state eligibility authority; ensuring work requirements are enforced for able-bodied adults without children, and eliminate loopholes that have allowed some recipients to evade income and asset tests for eligibility. Earlier this week it seemed leadership might postpone the nutrition bill action if the votes needed to approve it weren't there, but late Wednesday Cantor confirmed the bill is on next week's floor schedule. Supporters of food stamps, however, are hoping the $40 billion in cuts is too steep for at least 17 GOP members, the magic number to defeat the bill. If approved, the bill stands as the benchmark for House Farm Bill conferees on the Senate's nutrition title. Throughout the week ag leaders fromboth sides of the Hill and both sides of the aisle have been trading barbs over the fate of the 2013 Farm Bill, complemented by remarks from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and others. House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R, OK), who announced his intent to run for reelection this week, said he's ready to move to conference with the Senate as soon as Boehner makes it official. He's also confident the conference will have a final bill ready for House and Senate approval in 2013. Ranking ag committee member Rep. Collin Peterson (D, MN) is not as sanguine about the fate of the conference action. He has said consistently that the reason the bill has been derailed and the reason Boehner has not named conferees is that House leadership isn't communicating well, and that farm legislation is not a priority for Cantor. Peterson called Vilsack this week and asked him to begin preparations for reverting to 1949 law as its apparent to him there is simply not enough time to name conferees, complete conference and get the bill back to the floor before the current extension in 2008 authority expires September 30. This means Peterson will begin his media rant over the price of milk; 1949 law requires USDA to support milk prices at $39 per hundredweight, a level translating to a doubling of both current wholesale and retail milk prices. As to whether a short-term extension of existing farm program authority will be approved by both chambers if a conference report isn't forthcoming in early October, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) says she can't support another short term extension. Leaders on both sides have argued against a one or two-year extension as some have suggested. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) has echoed Stabenow's statements, but has added informally that if an extension becomes necessary it will have to kill off direct payments to get Senate support. Farm groups reminding him that killing direct payments separately from the Farm Bill, robs conferees of the necessary savings to fund other reinventions of USDA authority. | 
