04/21/08 Will third farm bill extension be the charm?

Farm and Ranch April 21, 2008 Another new week and another new Friday deadline, April 25th, for coming up with a 2007 Farm Bill. President Bush on Friday signed another one week extension of the old farm bill to avoid reversion to permanent farm law. House-Senate conferees and the Administration still can't agree on how to fund additional spending for a new farm bill. After a short conference committee session Friday Senate Ag Committee Chairman and conference chair Senator Tom Harkin had this assessment. Harkin: "We can talk about progress about progress all we want but I think anyone can see it is incremental at best." Many of the conferees are expressing growing frustration with the process. Texas Congressman Randy Neugebauer said flatly. Neugebauer: "You know if farmers ran their businesses like we are running this farm bill negotiation we wouldn't have any food to eat." The conferees probably won't meet formally again until tomorrow, which prompted the ranking Republican on the Senate Ag Committee Saxby Chambliss to say: Chambliss: "I would hope that we continue in a strong spirit of compromise and hopefully by the time Tuesday morning rolls around here some kind of progress has been made." On Friday the Senate made another offer to the House on a farm bill with ten billion above baseline in spending but it still included a tax package the Senate views as a priority and which the House says it can't accept. Chairman Harkin says if there is no resolution he intends to start calling for formal votes of the conference committee this week. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.