President Bush has asked Congress to pass a one-year extension of the 2002 Farm Bill as the expiration of the bill’s one-week extension looms.
The White House proposal would erase hopes in Congress of large increases in funding for nutrition programs like food stamps and in land stewardship. Some farm lobbyists say a bill cannot pass without rewarding those popular programs. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Bush does not support another short-term extension.
House and Senate negotiators, meeting minutes after the White House issued Bush’s statement, said they would make a final effort to wrap up the new law. The optimism was mixed with sober words that time is short.
“Maybe that’s where we end up, I don’t know,” said Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin, referring to Bush’s idea of a one-year extension. The Iowa Democrat oversees the effort to write a final version of the farm bill.
Farm bills are omnibus legislation that control dozens of programs including nutrition, stewardship, specialty crops and biofuels. Nutrition would get two-thirds of the estimated $600 billion in outlays over the coming decade.
Discussions have deadlocked for weeks over how to pay for a $10 billion spending increase for the new law and Senate insistence on a $2.4 billion tax package. While traveling in Louisiana, Bush said in a statement there were no signs that negotiators would agree soon on a reform-minded farm law that does not raise taxes.
“I therefore call on Congress to provide our agricultural producers with the certainty to make sound business and planting decisions about this year’s crop by extending current law for at least one year,” said Bush.