Senate offers $10-billion-above baseline proposal

Apr 14, 2008 1:10 PM

Source: Farm Press Editorial Staff

Senate leaders say their version of the 2008 farm bill, which contains $10 billion above the Congressional Budget Office “baseline,” should be the model for the legislation that must be passed by April 18 to keep farm programs from reverting to permanent law.

But the chairman of the House agriculture Committee said the Senate bill, although close to a proposal offered Thursday (April 10) by House conference committee members, still requires more work before it can be adopted.

Senators Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairmen of the Senate Agriculture and Finance Committees, announced the Senate conferees latest proposal Friday afternoon (April 11).

The proposal is based on a March 25, 2008 framework of $10 billion in additional spending for the farm bill, including funds for disaster assistance. The framework maintains the investments of the Senate-passed bill with strong farm income protection as well as investments in nutrition, conservation and renewable energy and a program to provide disaster assistance to farmers.

The senators said their two committees worked in tandem to develop the framework with the Senate Finance Committee identifying offsets that make the bill deficit neutral. The conferees were scheduled to reconvene Monday afternoon (April 14) to discuss the proposal.

“The Senate farm bill is a strong bill and should be the model for the final farm bill that will become law,” said Harkin, who also chairs the House-Senate conference committee on the farm bill.

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