Fight over who controls the money

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With less than a week remaining until the once-extended 2002 farm bill (H.R. 2419) expires on March 15, the new farm bill remains embroiled in a jurisdictional dispute over which committees of Congress should have oversight of certain program provisions funded through budget savings derived from those respective committees. 

At the center of the jurisdictional tussle is a dispute between the Senate Finance Committee — led by Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa — and the House and Senate Agriculture Committees concerning oversight of the agricultural disaster-assistance program and the conversion of some farm payment programs to tax credit programs that would be financed through budget offsets identified by the Finance Committee. 

Grassley, in particular, has maintained that the Senate Finance Committee should retain jurisdiction over farm bill programs for which it helps pay. The Senate Finance Committee wrote and holds jurisdiction over a number of elements of the Senate-passed farm bill having to do with tax and trade issues — as the Committee holds sole Senate jurisdiction over U.S. tax and trade policy. 

Farm bill conferees belonging to both the Finance and Agriculture Committees have participated in several meetings since January to discuss the Finance Committee provisions included in the farm bill.  These conferees are Finance Chairman Baucus, Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Ranking Member Grassley, and Senators Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan. 

"They have all expressed their support for Chairman Baucus to keep Finance Committee jurisdiction over the funding provided by the Finance Committee to the Agriculture Committee. Senators Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who are members of both the Finance and Agriculture Committees, but not conferees, also support the chairman and ranking member in this effort," according to a statement from the Senate Finance Committee.

In a statement Friday, March 7, Baucus and Grassley reiterated their commitment to completing legislation for America's farmers in the coming weeks. "For the sake of America's farm families, we in the Senate should acknowledge our shared responsibility to complete this bill, and all pull together to get it done."

The statement said, "Positive negotiations continue on offsets for the farm bill."

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., continue to cajole the various chairmen to resolve their differences so that the bill may be brought to the floor for a vote in the near future.  Pelosi, in particular, has said she will not support anything longer than another one-month extension — to April 15 — in the 2002 farm law. 

Another looming threat to the farm bill comes in the form of a new budget baseline scheduled to be released this month by the Congressional Budget Office, which is expected to reduce further the amount of funding available for the measure.

In a related action, the Senate Budget Committee on March 6 approved by a 12-9 vote an amendment offered by Sens. Grassley and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., to the fiscal year 2009 budget resolution that would implement a $250,000 limit on farm program payments.