Posted by: Phillip Fraas
January 12, 2008
Topic: REPORTS ON 2008 FARM BILL STATUS--January 2008 To Enactment

While official Washington was quiet this week, with Congress still in adjournment and the President in the Middle East, there was plenty of work going on behind the scenes to prepare for the House-Senate conference to resolve the differences between those two bodies' versions of the farm bill. This is so even though farm bill conferees haven't been named yet, and can't be until Congress begins the new session later this month.

DISCUSSIONS/NEGOTIATIONS: There have been no official negotiations on the farm bill yet, but in public statements and speeches, the Administration and Congress are doing plenty of sparring over their serious differences on the legislation. Beyond that, reports are that the congressional agricultural leaders are in serious discussions among themselves and with the Administration on how to resolve their disagreements, which seem to be focused on funding the farm bill and the scope of benefits or access to benefits under the farm bill programs.

Meanwhile, House and Senate staff are meeting to develop proposals for resolution of their hundreds of smaller differences between the House and Senate, proposals that they can then take to their bosses for ratification without additional debate.

Look for the behind-the-scenes work to continue for another week or longer, until conferees are named and public conference meetings scheduled.

CONFEREES: Typically in farm bill conferences, the Senate names a small number of conferees--the seven to nine most senior members of the Agriculture Committee--and they are conferees for the entire package. This time around, because the Senate bill includes substantial revenue-raising provisions and many other sections developed by the Senate Finance Committee that were tacked on to the Agriculture Committee-reported bill during floor debate, look also for several senior Finance Committee members to be additional conferees on at least that part of the bill.

The naming of conferees in the House of Representatives is handled much differently. First of all, more members of the Agriculture Committee are named general conferees--around 13 to 15 or more, again the most senior members. In addition, the House leadership usually includes on the House side of the conference representatives of every committee with jurisdiction over a substantive portion of the farm bill, at least for purposes of debate on that portion. Since this farm bill is so big, there are numerous provisions that, while relating to agriculture, food, or rural America, are within the jurisdiction of other committees. Thus, it can be expected that the House side will include perhaps dozens of additional non-general conferees from other committees.

The earliest that conferees can be named is when Congress returns next week; but I wouldn't be surprised if it might be a week or longer before they actually get named. Right now, negotiations are limited to the key agricultural members of Congress and it is perceived that this small leadership group can get a lot more done on framing the issues and developing options than the larger group of all conferees. So, there is no rush to name conferees while this preliminary work is on-going.

TIMING: In talking to people in the know, one hears that optimistically the agricultural leadership would like to get the farm bill done in less than a couple of weeks after the conferees are named. So, if the naming of conferees is delayed for a while as suggested above, that optimism is translated into a target date around the middle of February.

However, given the strong differences of opinion between the Administration and Congress on the legislation, that target date easily could slip. In that regard, it is rumored that the congressional leadership is looking to get the farm bill completed by the first of March.

Finally, there is sort of a "drop dead" completion date of March 15, when the Congressional Budget Office will adjust its estimate of the budget base line for the farm bill programs. The base line is the projected cost of the programs in the farm bill over the next five or ten years assuming current programs are extended without change. That amount, roughly $50-60 billion annually, is the amount that Congress has to work with in crafting this new farm bill without running afoul of rules designed to prevent increases in the federal deficit. To the extent that the new farm bill will spend over the base line, it also must include offsetting reductions in other programs or measures that will raise additional revenue to cover the increased spending.

Because farm commodity prices have strengthened greatly since the prior CBO cost estimate done last year, it is believed that the new mid-March base line for the farm bill will decline substantially and hinder Congress's ability to craft new programs. This is because, as a general rule, when market prices go up, the need for federal support under the current programs goes down and estimates of future federal spending on the programs are thus reduced.

Right now, it is difficult to predict a finish date for the conference; it simply is too early in the conference phase to get a sense of where things are heading. It can be said with some confidence, however, that if the farm bill conference doesn't finish in March, the pressure will increase dramatically to just extend the current farm bill for a couple of years.

News

FARM BILL UPDATE: Behnd-The-Scene Discussions/Negotiations; Conferees Still To Be Named

News

Environment

Topics

Recent Updates

Archives

Web Resources