Inside D.C.

Is there light at the end of the Farm Bill tunnel?

With the announcement this week that the clash of the political titans over dairy supply control language in the Farm Bill conference report may be over, there actually may be hope yet we’ll see a 2014 Farm Bill on the floor of the House and Senate by early February.

You’ll note I’m not jumping up and down, nor am I popping any champagne corks. Too much political interference and too much ineptitude have been the hallmark of getting this Farm Bill even this close to the finish line. As one colleague put it, “never has the old axiom ‘it ain’t over ‘till it’s over’ been more appropriate.” I like to refer to it as the 2012-13-14 Farm Bill.

The hero this week is House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R, OK), the poor soul placed squarely between his party’s leader, House Speaker John Boehner (R, OK) and his committee’s ranking member Rep. Collin Peterson (D, MN).

The politically entertaining dust up between Peterson and Boehner is rooted in whether a plan favored by the National Milk Producers Federation (NCFC) and Peterson, but opposed by dairy processors, small independent dairy farmers and Boehner to replace existing dairy programs with a margin insurance program and mandatory supply milk management will survive. Peterson says the milk production controls are necessary to avoid increased USDA payments based on overproduction. The supply management portion was stripped from the House bill during floor debate, Boehner calling it a “Soviet-style” program.

The difference in policy approach accelerated when Boehner, Peterson and Lucas talked by phone two weeks ago to determine if Boehner, personally and directly engaged on the supply control provision, would accept a compromise on the supply language. Boehner not only rejected any compromise, he told the ag lawmakers if a final conference report contains supply control language, he’d be hard pressed to bring the report to the floor for a final vote.

Lucas did not release details of this dairy compromise, but it’s widely reported it would allow USDA to adjust the margin insurance payment based on a producers base production up or down depending whether the producer exceeded or came in under that base number, with no supply controls. While Peterson said he can likely live with the compromise – though he’s not finally committed himself because he hadn’t seen final language – he said it “sounds like” it sends signals to farmers not to overproduce milk. Reports indicate support among both Senate and House conferees is growing. Boehner has not publicly blessed the deal. Details are to be worked out during a week-long Martin Luther King holiday recess beginning January 20.

The Lucas deal clears the way for him and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D, MI), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, to finally call the formal meeting of all 41 conferees to resolve the remaining open issues between the two bills, something Stabenow wanted to do two weeks ago. Some of the still-outstanding issues include producer payment limitations, language to fix redundant EPA Clean Water Act (CWA) rules on NPDES permitting for the use of pesticides near or on waterways; country-of-origin labeling of meats, and whether the Farm Bill will move federal catfish inspection from FDA to USDA. Also still open is the infamous “King amendment” to authorize the federal government to preempt state laws prescribing livestock and poultry production standards and barring the sale of out-of-state products not produced under identical standards.

Keep in mind: In this game of whack-a-mole that is the “major unresolved issue” du jour, any one of the issues listed above could morph into the single issue that could “bring down the whole bill.”

Next week will tell the tale. Congress will be on a week-long Martin Luther King holiday recess, and all the final “i’s” are to be dotted and the “t’s” crossed on dairy and whatever else can be resolved prior to the lawmakers’ return. Look for the conference committee meeting during the last week of January or the first week of February, and if the road remains smooth, one or the other chambers may take up the bill for final passage shortly thereafter.

I’m thinking of organizing Farm Bill vigil conference calls for those like me who fervently want this legislative torture to end.

Fingers crossed.