Photograph by Rich Clement/Bloomberg

Supporters for passage of a new agriculture law rally near the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12, 2012.

From Bloomberg Government’s CongressTracker

Though it’s only Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can see the end of the week from here.

During today’s session-opening floor remarks, Reid said that the chairwoman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, had expressed optimism about finishing work on the farm bill, S. 954.

“I spoke to Chairman Stabenow last night; she indicated that she believes that there’s an opportunity to finish the bill even this week,” Reid said. “I certainly hope that’s the case.”

Original post is Reid: Farm Bill Can Be Finished This Week by Political Capital.

Photograph by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

A tractor cuts down corn in a field designated as zero yield on a farm in Vigo County near Terre Haute, Indiana.

Written with Derek Wallbank

The House Agriculture Committee canceled tentative plans to draft a new farm bill after its top Democrat sought a commitment that the legislation will be considered by the full chamber, according to committee leaders.

“There’s going to be no markup in the foreseeable future without it,” Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota said today in an interview. Peterson had said the committee would meet on Feb. 27, and that “is off.”

The timing of a meeting of the committee, which may occur as lawmakers debate raising the federal debt ceiling, also comes into play, Chairman Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican, said today in an interview. Lucas, who hasn’t confirmed a Feb. 27 meeting, had said a session could happen as early as late February.

U.S. agricultural law that governs food aid to poor families as well as crop subsidies to farmers this week was extended to Sept. 30 as part of the congressional tax and spending settlement. The law approved in 2008 lapsed last year, triggering rules dating to 1949 that would have pushed up milk prices.

Read the full story here.

Original post is House Panel Scraps Draft Farm Bill by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ty Wright/Bloomberg

Wholesale milk prices may double if a Farm Bill is not passed soon.

One of the big questionmarks for the rest of the lame-duck session is what will become of the farm bill. As lawmakers were leaving last week for their break, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said only that he wanted Congress to address what he called the “farm issue” before adjournment.

Whatever the leaders come up with, the math could be tricky, since several retiring House members have said they may not be back for the final votes.

If Congress doesn’t extend the U.S. dairy support program, which is one of the programs covered in the larger farm-policy law, it will revert to the way it was in 1949, roughly doubling wholesale milk prices.

“Fiscal-cliff tax increases would hit middle-class families’ pocketbooks, but so would paying six or seven dollars for a gallon of milk,” said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat.

The average retail cost of a gallon of whole milk was $3.54 per gallon in November, according to Agriculture Department data compiled by Bloomberg. The base price of Class  III milk, from which all dairy prices are calculated, was $20.83 per hundred pounds (hundredweight) in November.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said that it would “take a while” to implement changes if the U.S. reverts to the 1949 law. He hasn’t offered any more specifics, telling reporters in a conference call last week that “the best outcome would be for Congress to do its job.” While the USDA doesn’t currently purchase much dairy, it could be forced to stockpile butter, cheese and other products should wholesale prices revert to the levels set in the 1949 law.

Oklahoma Republican Frank Lucas and Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, the House Agriculture Committee’s chairman and ranking member, separately predicted that if Congress fails to act, the wholesale cost would rise to about $38 per hundredweight. A rise in milk prices could help generate support for congressional action, according to Peterson.

The committee plans to mark up a new bill on Feb. 27.  “Maybe the milk price will wake them up,” Peterson said, adding that the full impact of higher prices may not be seen at the grocery store until summer. “It’s not going to be a change on Jan. 2,” he said in an interview last week.  “How soon it goes up, nobody knows.”

Original post is Higher Milk Prices: Farm Bill Wake-Up Call? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

A corn field in Le Roy, Illinois.

Written with Mark Drajem

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today mentioned submerging Washington D.C. under 20 feet of water — but it wasn’t meant as a threat to Congress for failing to pass a new farm bill.

Vilsack, at a drought forum in Washington, was pointing out the aid his department had provided to farmers and ranchers as the worst drought in 50 years took hold on the country’s midsection. Under the recently expired farm bill, U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs helped reduce water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer under the Great Plains by at least 860,000 acre feet, Vilsack said. That’s more than enough to inundate the nation’s capital.

Without a new farm bill, the government’s efforts to help agricultural producers weather the drought and plan for the future are being hampered, Vilsack said. He urged Congress to take action.

“They need to understand the consequences because there is no fallback option,” he told reporters today after speaking at the forum. “The risks of inaction are so significant that it out to propel people to creativity.”

The fate of the farm bill, which will govern USDA programs over the next five years or so, is currently tied up in negotiations aimed at averting $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to start taking effect in January — the so-called fiscal cliff.

“The Obama administration remains committed to doing everything it can to help farmers, ranchers, businesses and local and county governments meet drought related challenges,”  Vilsack said at the forum, according to the USDA. “Drought recovery is a long-term proposition, and we will continue to partner with producers to see it through.”

Original post is Drought Aid Sinks as Congress Sits on Farm Bill, Vilsack Says by Political Capital.

Photograph by Rich Clement/Bloomberg

Supporters for passage of a new agriculture law rally near the Capitol in Washington on Sept. 12, 2012.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow  is urging her party’s negotiators to throw another big piece of legislation into the mix during fiscal-cliff talks.

Her suggestion: Look at the Senate-passed farm bill, S.  3240, according to spokesman Ben Becker.

Bloomberg Government analyst Robert Greene laid out the logic for this earlier this month in a BGOV insight ,which explains that the legislation that Stabenow shepherded through the Senate offers savings of $23.1 billion over 10 years and deals with food stamps in a way that have already passed muster in one chamber.

For Stabenow, the bonus would be to un-stick legislation that’s languished since summer.

Though the Senate passed its farm bill by 64-35 in June, the House has yet to vote on a full-scale agricultural policy bill. A measure approved by the House Agriculture Committee in July, H.R. 6083,  hasn’t been brought to the floor. Republican leaders have said it doesn’t have the votes to pass.

Original post is Fiscal Cliff Bonus Savings Offered: Un-sticking that Stuck Farm Bill by Political Capital.

Without a new farm bill, old legislation would gradually take effect in 2013, beginning with dairy programs in January. Photograph by Paul Sisul

The top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee says the $1-trillion agriculture bill the panel approved in July is out of his hands — and if milk prices double next year because Congress doesn’t act, it has only itself to blame.

“The irony of their screwing around here is that they could cost taxpayers an incredible amount of money,” should House leaders not bring a five-year farm bill to the floor during the current lame-duck session, Rep. Collin Peterson said. The Minnesota Democrat was interviewed today on “AgriTalk,” a syndicated radio program.

Without a new farm bill — the old one expired Sept. 30 — agriculture programs revert to a 1949 law, which requires massive government price-setting that would dramatically increase the prices of wheat, cotton and other agricultural products. Milk, for example, would be required to sell at $39.53 per hundred pounds, based on current market prices, almost double the level on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Peterson said the bill is out of the Agriculture Committee’s control, and that he hasn’t spoken with the panel chairman, Republican Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, since September.

He said the farm bill probably will proceed as part of the talks on how to resolve the so-called fiscal cliff, the $607 billion of tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect next year without congressional action.

The eventual legislation “is going to be a top-down deal,” Peterson said. “They’re going to work it out between the president and the leaders, and they’re going to send it down to us.”

The Senate in June passed a five-year bill, which sets farm policy and funds U.S. Department of Agriculture programs including food stamps and crop subsidies. While the House Agriculture Committee approved its version of the law in July, it was never considered by the full House. Both plans would cost roughly $100 billion annually, or a trillion dollars if scored over a decade. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last month promised to bring the stalled legislation to the House floor during the lame-duck congressional session that began this week.

Without a new bill or an extension of the ex1949-designed programs would gradually take effect in 2013, beginning with dairy programs in January and affecting other crops as their growing seasons get under way, unless the USDA comes up with alternative ways to administer programs.

Farmers would prefer the certainty of a five-year farm bill to any extension that may be proposed as a stop-gap measure, Peterson said. Still, dairy farmers, especially in areas of the country experiencing surpluses, wouldn’t be crying over expensive milk.

“Thirty-eight dollar milk is a problem” for consumers, he said. “But for the California guys who are in trouble, if they get three, four months of $38 milk, it might save them.”

Original post is Farm Bill Stalemate: No Crying Over Doubled Milk Prices Next Year by Political Capital.

Photograph by Damon Winter/The New York Times via Redux

President Barack Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, third from left, with the McIntosh family during a stop at their farm to speak about the drought in Missouri Valley, Iowa, on Aug. 13, 2012.

President Barack Obama campaigned in Council Bluffs, Iowa, today with a little pop at his Republican rivals.

”Too many members of Congress” are standing in the way of a farm bill, Obama said, noting that Mitt Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, is visiting the Iowa State Fair today.

“He is one of the leaders in Congress standing in the way,” the president said of Ryan, who is chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The Republican-run House has passed a $383 million emergency relief package for livestock producers affected by the worst drought in almost a half-century as Republicans and Democrats complained about inaction on a broader farm bill that would help more farmers and ranchers.

House Republican leaders pushed the stand-alone drought relief bill, which passed on a 223-197 vote, because they don’t have enough support to advance a five-year farm bill approved July 12 by the House Agriculture Committee.

The Democratic-run Senate wouldn’t pass the drought measure before leaving Washington for its August recess.

The farm bill’s difficulties in the House resemble those House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio encountered when he tried to pass a transportation and highway measure, Bloomberg’s Jim Rowley and Derek Wallbank have reported. The measure languished for months because of opposition among Republican members and never came to a House vote.

One big difference: Boehner favored the House highway measure. The Ohio Republican said the farm bill perpetuates a “Soviet-style” dairy subsidy and “would actually make it worse.”

”What’s holding us back right now is Washington politics,” Obama told his Iowa audience. “You’ve got folks who think compromise is a dirty word.”

This weekend, he said, Romney chose “the ideological leader” of the Republicans in Congress for a running mate.

Obama launched from here into an assault on Romney’s economic plans, including tax cuts for wealthier Americans as well as other.

“They have tried to sell us this trickle-down theory before, and every time they have tried it it has not worked,” Obama said. “We do not need tax cuts for millionaires.

“Your taxes are lower since I’ve been president,” Obama said. “I want to keep your taxes right where they are.”

It’s households earning more than $250,00 a year for whom he wants to raise taxes.

Romney has touted his experience in the private sector, Obama said of the former Bain Capital chief executive. A lot of that experience, Obama said, was investing in companies termed “pioneers in out-sourcing.”

Romney wants to end tax credits for wind-energy producers, Obama said in a state where wind energy is popular. The industry supports about 7,000 jobs in Iowa, the president said.

Original post is Obama Ties Ryan to Farm Bill Stalled in Congress, Romney to the Rich by Political Capital.