1. Very successful fly-in, centered around the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act. Kudos to all the member groups and staff involved, and of course to the farmers. Rep. Pingree met with the fly in participants, and also penned an op ed in today’s edition of Roll Call (a Capitol Hill rag).
2. Farm bill deal may or may not be announced tomorrow. The two leaders on the House side (Lucas and Peterson) have said they will announce in the morning that the deal has been struck and provide a general outline, but not an actual bill. The Senate chair, however, says deal not struck, still working on it, and, as of now, no announcement tomorrow. Senate ranking member told his troops that it is basically down to the two chairs now, and the two ranking members are less in the picture. Stir all that together and you get…..I don’t know, a great big mess I guess. Maybe something gets announced tomorrow, maybe not. Stay tuned.
3. The numbers seem to be about the same as what we have been hearing — $15 B reduction in commodity title, $6.3 billion reduction in conservation title, with CRP being the big cut, $4 billion from food stamps, but done in a way that seems to have satisfied the anti-hunger groups on the whole so looks like they will not be fighting it. $2 billion total in new funding, unclear entirely where it goes, though specialty crops gets an increase, SNAP incentives seem to be in the mix, and some of the programs we care about appear (I stress appear, because we don’t have anything hard) to be kept alive, but not increased. We have sketchy info on various parts of the bill we care about, some of which is good news, but will hold off spreading rumors until we have something firmer to go on. They have been pretty good about keeping a gag order in place.
4. The Senate version of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act did not get introduced today as planned. Still a couple of Senate offices that look like they will get on as co sponsors, but need another day to confirm. So far, confirmed, are Harkin of course, the lead sponsor, plus Leahy, Brown, Casey, Tester, Franken, Johnson. Waiting on Baucus, Bingamin, and Klobuchar, and we should know their answer tomorrow. Should be officially introduced Monday when Senate back in session next. The identical House bill of course is already in the hopper. Lead sponsors are Walz and Fortenberry, and also on the bill are Connolly, Farr, and Pingree. (could use more House co-sponsors, so please help get your guys and gals on the bill). Please be in touch with Juli if you want to take action on BFROA.
5. Senator Grassley and Johnson today sent a letter and a new bill to the Super Committee today urging them to do real commodity payment limitation reform. The new bill is written so that it applies to the new shallow loss revenue insurance deal being put together as the new title one program. The letter is attached. They have also of course already communicated with the Ag Co leaders, but expect no comfort there, so jumping ahead to working the Super Commies on the issue.
6. USDA/GIPSA announced today to Hill offices that the GIPSA fair competition and contract reform rule has been partially sent to OMB for final clearance. The poultry (and hog) contract reform pieces have moved forward as final rules (one item as an interim final rule), and the note says they expect them to clear OMB and be out in the Fed Reg within a few weeks. That is the good news. The bad news is the livestock pieces, including undue preferences and competitive injury provisions, are “still under review.” Based on other conversations I have been having, we fear, unfortunately, that they will ultimately move those pieces forward as new proposed rules, which means the whole rulemaking process and clock would start all over again. Stay tuned. We may know more soon.
7. Ag Approps conference b/n House and Senate started this evening, but ended abruptly when the House members had to go vote, so nothing much happened yet. We sent the conferees a letter this morning (attached) and yesterday did action alerts in GA, IA, MO, and WY, aimed at key House GOP conferees. We imagine that there will be a staff level conference on Friday and possibly over the weekend, with another member meeting early next week where they will hope to wrap it up.