Posted by: Phillip Fraas
April 28, 2008
Topic: REPORTS ON 2008 FARM BILL STATUS--January 2008 To Enactment

Late last week, Congress  passed and the President signed another one-week extension (to May 2) of the current farm bill; and throughout the week, the farm bill conferees continued work to resolve their differences on farm bill funding. Conferees are scheduled to begin work again later today.

It appears that the conferees are nearly at agreement on increasing farm bill spending above the base line by about $10 billion. The added funds will be used for a new disaster program and increased spending for nutrition programs, among others,

One senses that the conferees resolved a lot of differences last week and are close to finishing their work on the bill. Perhaps, this new extension will be long enough to get the work done, though the chairman of the conference, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, had asked for a two-year extension to begin with..

I havn't seen any statements out of the Bush administration on the developing conference package. While the President's willingness to sign the extension is an indication that they want and hope to get a new farm bill the President can sign, that should not be read as an implicit endorsement for what the conferees are coming up with. Look for the Administration to weigh in on things this 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