We've had quite the roller coaster ride on the farm bill in the last couple of weeks. Well, at least the Washington scene has. Last week Collin Peterson offered a grand compromise designed to get something done. The two main issues are A) How much money will be in the bill over the "baseline" (think of this number as new spending, over and above the previous farm bill) and B) reform in farm program payment limitations. Here's the short and sweet summary of what happened.

• Chair of the House Agriculture Committee Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) sit down to hammer out a farm bill that can gain at least the tacit approval of the White House. This makes some sense, because the House probably does not have enough votes to override a presidential veto unless a bunch of Republicans vote for an override, which is unlikely. The Senate does have enough votes to override a presidential veto, including a lot of Republicans that already voted for the bill when it passed out of the Senate (a 79-14 vote); therefore they have less motivation to compromise. So the House needs to figure out a way to get something the president will sign.


• The result of those talks? A proposal that basically takes away a bunch of money from everyone's priorities (along the lines of previous Peterson comments- "If I'm making everyone equally angry, I'm probably doing my job." The man may have a point there, kind of). It includes $6 billion in new spending (remember this number). It includes a lower adjusted gross income limit on farm program participation, closer to what the White House wanted in the first place (it won't accomplish anything, but we digress). The Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, enthusiastically endorses the proposal and says he would recommend the president sign such a bill. However;


• Peterson and Goodlatte evidently forgot to include the Senate before going public, which is considered bad form. They go kind of nuts, say the proposal is a nonstarter and not going anywhere (for various policy reasons, some of which are good). However, Senators do not want to look like they don't have their own proposal. So the House proposal does seem to have jumpstarted the process, as the Senate rushes to put together a farm bill that includes $12 billion in new spending. That, by the way, is a significant step down from the $30 billion in new spending that the Senate-passed farm bill includes. In the meantime, every single commodity group plus the Farm Bureau and Farmers Union have come out in opposition to the House bill, which they think takes too much money from farm programs. But Ed Schafer says the Senate proposal is bad news, and the administration would never accept it. That is where things stood last Friday.


• A big sticking point here is the $5 billion disaster program included in the Senate bill but not in the House bill. This is a priority for many Senators, in particular Max Baucus (D-MT). Baucus is chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which if you'll recall came up with a bunch of new money for the farm bill. If you don't keep him happy, all of that new money could disappear. And they need that money in the worst way.


• Yesterday Senator Chuck Grassley states the obvious- that the final bill will probably have $9 billion or so in new spending. But just how that is divided up and accounted for is still up in the air, so it is still entirely possible nothing will happen. I imagine every group involved in the farm bill process is right now jockeying in DC to get a piece of that $9 billion. You can be sure that nutrition will get a big chunk of it, but beyond that it is hard to tell. Senator Harkin has been talking conservation and rural development (good), but we'll just have to wait and see.

What is becoming ever more clear is that the amount of new spending in the bill is the real sticking point. The fact Schafer endorsed the House bill with its weak AGI limit stuff and nothing on real payment limits is very disappointing. It implies that if a money figure can be agreed upon, the payment limit issue will be resolved quietly with little in the way of true reform. That's not to say the money stuff isn't important- the funding for dozens of really good programs is hanging in the balance.

Senator Grassley himself acknowledged that the controversial items in the farm bill will be resolved behind closed doors, not out in the open during the conference committee talks. From Chris Clayton's blog:

Grassley said few policy issues can be resolved until the dollar figure is determined. Final figures on payment limits for commodity programs or income eligibility are not being discussed at the present time, Grassley said. Still, payment limits would likely be settled through informal talks instead of during official conference negotiation with the House. Changes to payment eligibility would likely not happen until a dollar figure on the farm bill is agreed to, he said.

"That's paramount to reach an agreement on that," Grassley said.

Other controversial items that will likely have to be settled through negotiations include the competition provisions for livestock in the Senate farm bill. Another proposal generating controversy and needing negotiations is the Bush administration's position that farmers should have to give up beneficial interest of their commodity when they lock in a price for a loan-deficiency payment, Grassley said.

One interesting aspect of what Grassley said is that he does not expect key issues such as the payment limits would be debated in an open, formal conference talks. Grassley did not think any major issues would actually be aired in actual conference discusssions.

And that's the Washington Way. One last thing- both the House and Senate proposals from last week are for 10 year farm bills, instead the usual five. 10 YEARS. GOOD LORD. We could go through two terms of future presidential adminstrations (which I have high hopes for) without ever passing another farm bill. Incredible.  If we don't get real money for rural economic development and conservation and value-added agriculture and organic and all that other stuff that should be funded in the 2008 farm bill, we can always fight for funding in the next farm bill- in 2018.