Concerns Over House & Senate Farm Bill Differences

Concerns Over House & Senate Farm Bill Differences

Concerns Over House & Senate Farm Bill Differences. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow says the House GOP Leadership has decided not to transmit to the Senate the House-passed farm-only farm bill until the House acts on a separate nutrition bill. Stabenow says there can be no House-Senate negotiations on a farm bill until the House sends its version to the Senate.

STABENOW: We fully expected to receive it in the Senate right away. We were, in fact, intending to leave the Senate floor open that night in order to receive the House bill so that we could go through the procedures that we needed to to go to conference. And when Majority Floor Leader Cantor announced they were not going to send of the bill I was pretty stunned.

But without a transmitted House bill - Stabenow says formal talks are out of the question. She says the House has to send them something. She says there’s not much interest, if any in the Senate in moving a split bill.

STABENOW:We could not pass that through the Senate nor would the President of the United States sign that kind of bill. That’s not something that has the support as an approach. It would be a very short term approach that would end the coalition between urban and rural communities that has allowed us to have and agriculture and food policy for the country.

Another major problem with the House bill - Stabenow says repeal of decades-old permanent law would endanger future farm bills or key titles - and faces strong opposition from farm and conservation groups.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. 

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