Posted by: Phillip Fraas
September 10, 2007
Topic: REPORTS ON FARM BILL STATUS--Second Half of 2007

Congress has returned to Washington following its August recess, and work will soon resume on the drafting the 2007 farm bill. Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, is expected to come out with his farm bill proposal within the next few days. Then, he likely will schedule committee mark-up of the proposal soon thereafter. Next, reports have it that the Senate leadership is prepared to take the farm bill to the floor as soon as the committee completes its work. And, once that is done, the House and Senate will convene a conference committee to resolve the differences between their versions of the farm bill. A lot to get done this fall, but that is the goal.

At this point, when these key steps in the farm bill process are ready to start unfolding, it might be a good time of consider a few of the subsidiary aspects of the process.

THE ADMINISTRATION'S ROLE IN THE DEBATE:  Congress typically doesn't give a lot of consideration of Administration farm bill proposals, perferring to draft the bill themselves. That cerrtainly has been the case this time around. But, that does not mean that the Administration is shut out of the congressional farm bill process. Traditionally, the Administration has had a seat at the table at Senate-House conferences on the farm bill, making these sessions three-way negotiations to an extent. This is because Congress needs the President's signature to have its farm bill become law; and, if a President opposed to key provisions vetoes the bill, Congress would be hard put to round up the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.

In this farm bill debate, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns has already, even before conference, staked out an activist role. In this effort, he is being ably assisted by Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner, who has gone through enough farm bills (either when he was a congressional staffer, White House official, or lobbyist) to know how the process works and how to maximize the Administration's influence.

Substantively, Secretary Johanns already has threatened veto recommendations on the revenue-raising measure attached to the House farm bill, and on any efforts to increase price support loan rates. On these issues, and on others the Administration has strong positions about, such as payment limitation reform, expect the Administration to be directly involved in the final decision making.

LIKELIHOOD OF A FARM BILL EXTENSION: As this year has unfolded, there have been repeated calls for Congress to avoid divisive disputes on difficult issues--such as finding money to fund all the programs or the specific terms of the farm and income support programs (loans, direct payments, and counter-cyclical payments)--by extending the current farm bill for at least a year.

A straight extension certainly is an option Congress will have at its disposal throughout the remainder of this farm bill debate. However, as Congress moves past one after the other benchmark in the legislative process, and as the congressional leadership and Administration continue to reiterate their commitment to seeing the job through to the end, one senses that the straight extension option is getting pushing farther and farther into the background.

Of course, if the Senate Agriculture Committee doesn't get a bill reported fairly soon, the calls for an extension will increase and grow louder.

WHERE ARE THE VOTES IN SENATE AG? The real farm bill action in recent weeks has been behind the scenes at the Senate Agriculture Committee, as Chairman Harkin fine-tunes his chairman's mark to pick up the 10 votes that with his vote will give him a majority in the committee. In the mean time, it seems that an alternative has surfaced that is closer to the House-passed bill than the Harkin proposal. Harkin's proposal is understood to differ from the House bill by imposing tougher payment limitations reforms and shifting price and income support spending levels among commodities. Rice and cotton producers prefer the House version; so, not surprisingly the alternative appears to have the support of Senate Ag Committee members Chambliss, Lincoln, Cochran, and Graham. Further, it is likely that they are being joined by several other committee members. If so, that still doesn't constitute a majority of the committee, but it makes for an exciting horse race as to who will get to 11 votes first.

If Chairman Harkin succeeds in corralling a majority in the Committee, look for him to move to mark-up and floor debate as soon as possible. If the other side captures the majority or there is an effective deadlock in the committee, it is hard to tell what happens next. On the one hand, the Senate leadership wouldn't be inclined to force one of its committee chairman to move legislation he doesn't support, but on the other hand they want to see some action on the farm bill very soon. At this point, anything is possible. Stay tuned.   

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