Senate May Move Farm Bill To Conference This Week

The Senate is expected to vote this week to go to conference with the House to come up with a single Farm Bill, and the hope is lawmakers can approve the legislation before the current Farm Bill expires in late September.  Last week the House voted to move to conferences, including naming conferees.  Senate leaders says they will name Farm Bill negotiators soon after the vote, with a formal conference expected in September, since the House leaves for its August break Thursday.  But time in September is short.

“We have a lot of anxiety out in the countryside, because of trade, because of RFS, because of low prices, because of weather in my area,” said Top House Ag Democrat Collin Peterson.

Peterson proposed instructing House conferees to defend the House’s permanent $450 million for a new Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program, a long-sought U.S. vaccine bank, and the Animal Health Laboratory Network.  The Senate leaves funding up to Senate appropriators.

“The problem is the AFIS and the people that deal with it on the state level, can’t depend on it, because you never know what it’s going to be from year to year because the appropriators are the ones who decide, so we want to make this permanent and we’re hopeful that the Senate will see to our ideas.”

No Democrats voted for the House Farm Bill, objecting to its added food stamp work and training requirements, opposition they plan to take into conference, siding with the Senate against the changes.

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