02/21/08 Time running out on Farm Bill negotiations

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad have been trying to find common ground on funding for the Farm Bill. Peterson says North Dakota's Earl Pomeroy has returned to Washington to join the discussions. PETERSON "To help us with the Ways and Means Committee and Finance. The three of us are going to do everything we can to try to get on the same page and then to try to get all of our colleagues on the same page." They have to arrive at a final budget number and then find the money to cover that and they have to do that by the end of this week. As Peterson put it, "our staff is dead in the water, they've gone as far as they can." PETERSON "And if that slips until next week literally it will be fiscally impossible to finish this bill by the 15th of March." The current farm bill expires on March 15th and without a new one that means that farm programs revert back to the 1949 permanent law that created the farm bill in the first place. Senator Conrad won't tip his hat but he says there have been some positive developments recently. CONRAD "I don't want to give away our bottom line. I think that would not be productive for this negotiation." Stay tuned. The clock is ticking and it could get interesting in the next 23 days. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott