We found this item in Small Grains, the news source of the Minnesota Wheat Growers. It looks to be a news release:
The House today passed a one-week extension of current farm law to give conferees a few more days to negotiate a new farm bill. The current law expires April 18.
The extension will allow farm bill negotiators to continue their work on the 2007 Farm Bill and create a new deadline of April 28th to complete their work. The measure will extend the 2002 Farm bill while Farm Bill negotiators continue to work out the details of the 2007 Farm Bill.
Congressman Walz is confident that the conference committee is making good progress and with a little more time the farm bill negotiators will be able to strike a deal. The House Ways and Means committee and the Senate Finance Committee chairs are negotiating a funding framework that will outline how much new spending the package should support and what offsets should be included. Once we have that framework completed, I am confident that the rest of the farm bill negotiations can be completed within a short amount of time.”
The funding package is necessary as pay-go rules require Congress to offset any new spending with tax revenue or spending cuts.
While President George Bush told Congress he would want a one-year or longer extension of existing farm legislation if Congress was unable to complete a new farm package by April 18, USDA Secretary Ed Schafer has previously given farm-state lawmakers some hope of still another short-term extension when he said if there is enough progress made in ongoing negotiations, he would support another short-term extension.
Hopefully they'll get 'er done. The Star Tribune notes that Congressional climate has become tougher for farm bill.
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