Posted November 4, 2013
Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN) is optimistic that the House and Senate conference committee will find a compromise and bring a bill to a vote, according to an article by the West Central Tribune, available here.
Peterson believes that both chambers of Congress could vote on the legislation by Thanksgiving. He emphasized that they still have work to do to resolve differences, but said that staff members have 90 percent of the work done on a new bill. Peterson said, “We’re at the point where the members are going to have to make some decisions.”
Peterson said that the bill will likely be as expected: direct payments will end, crop insurance will remain, the sodbuster provision will remain, the sugar program stays in place, and beginning farmer programs are continued.
Major differences include: the dairy program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), whether to eliminate the 1949 default permanent law, and renewable energy standards.
Peterson supports keeping the 1949 law in place because it “forces Congress to act every five years or face the consequences of reverting.”
The biggest surprise of the conference may have been that House Agricultural Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) announced his support for changes to the law requiring country-of-origin-labeling (COOL), according to an article by the National Journal, available here.
Lucas said that he hopes the conference can “prevent the imposition of tariffs on a wide array of products important to many states.”
For more information on farm bills, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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