Posted by: Phillip Fraas
January 04, 2008
Topic: REPORTS ON 2008 FARM BILL STATUS--January 2008 To Enactment

As of this writing (January 5, 2008), It is anticipated that the farm bill conferees will be named and the conference will convene in the week of January 21 or soon thereafter and push to complete its work as soon as practicable. In that regard, reports are that Senate and House agriculture committee staffers have been hard at work recently analyzing the differences between the two bills and looking for possible compromises on the less controversional diffferences to speed up the process.

With this ground work being laid, the conference could move to a conclusion as quickly as early February if all the stars are in the proper allignment. However, we know going into 2008 that some differences between the two versions don't look amenable to quick resolution (e.g., price support levels and payment limitation rules), and the Admnistration is strongly opposed to portions of both versions. So, the conference might take many weeks before completion. And even then, the President can still veto the conference report if he doesn't like it and send the legislation back to Congress for additional work.

Follow-up postings (under the topic heading "REPORTS ON 2008 FARM BILL STATUS--January 2008 To Enactment") will shoot to keep you abreast of conference developments and give you a sense of where things are headed as we near the end of the process. Look for the next posting early next week.

News

Environment

[11/14] NY pet cemetery ranked among Taj Mahal, pyramids
[11/13] Man arrives at bar with pet alligator; cops called
Read More

Web Resources

United States Department of Agriculture
FindLaw
Thomson West
U.S. Courts
Westlaw
United States Chamber of Commerce
FirstGov
Legislative Branch
Library of Congress
White House
Internal Revenue Service
National Weather Service
Yahoo!Maps
YellowPages.com
New York Times
Newspapers Online
USA Today
Wall Street Journal
AOL
Google
Yahoo!Legal Blog Directory