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House Passes Farm Law Extension
by: The Associated Press
April 16 2008, Article # 11684
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a one-week extension of current farm law Wednesday, hoping to give Congress more time to finish a multibillion dollar farm bill that is stalled by a dispute over tax breaks.
Negotiations on the roughly $280 billion, five-year bill to expand agriculture and nutrition programs are in disarray with lawmakers from the House and Senate squabbling over how to pay for it. The White House says both the current House and Senate versions are too expensive and has threatened a veto if either one reaches the president's desk with the spending intact.
House members object to several tax breaks in the Senate bill, including provisions to help owners of racehorses, landowners who find endangered species on their property, and those involved in litigation over the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., have said that many of those tax provisions are not acceptable. The tax package, which also includes a $5 billion program for farmers who lose crops to bad weather, was compiled by the Senate Finance Committee and helped win 79 votes for the farm bill in that chamber last year.
The rac horse provision, for example, is a priority for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, and North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, have insisted on the disaster aid.
Baucus and Rangel have been charged by House and Senate leadership with finding an extra $10 billion over 10 years to help pay for extras added to the bill and to work out the dispute over taxes. Rangel, who has few farmers in his New York City district, has expressed frustration that his committee is responsible for coming up with the money.
The two men met privately twice on Tuesday, and Rangel said they still had not come to a deal after the second meeting.
If the two sides are going to agree, "some people are going to have to change their minds," Rangel said after the meetings.
Rangel would prefer that any extra money raised by the tax-writing committees be used for the nutrition and food stamp programs that make up two-thirds of the bill's price tag. But he has shown willingness to negotiate with the farm-state senators.
Congress is also arguing with the Bush administration over how the bill will be paid for. Rangel and Baucus have suggested a number of different ways to come up with the dollars, including some ideas the White House has backed. But administration officials have rejected most of their ideas, saying they would rather use the dollars for other priorities.
With so many issues to resolve, Peterson said Congress may need additional time beyond the one additional week approved by the House. The Senate is expected to vote on the extension before the law expires on Friday.
President Bush said last month that lawmakers should stop relying on such short-term fixes and extend current law for at least a year if it expired without a new law in place. This would be the law's fourth extension.
Department of Agriculture spokesman Keith Williams said Wednesday that Bush's signature on the extension depends on the negotiators' progress this week. The two chambers will meet to continue negotiations on the bill later Wednesday.
The bills passed by both chambers would expand subsidies for several crops and create new grants for vegetable and fruit growers.
They would also increase loan rates for sugar producers, extend dairy programs, and provide more dollars for renewable energy and conservation programs to protect environmentally sensitive farm land over the next five years.
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