This Week in DC
The GOP is still in charge of the House until January, when the new Congress convenes, so the question facing farm bill negotiators is whether House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, will cut deals with his Senate counterparts to ensure a new bill gets enacted on his watch.
Conaway and ranking Democrat Collin Peterson of MInnesota, who will take over the House committee in January, plan to meet privately on Monday to discuss progress. A meeting between them and the two lead Senate negotiators, Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, could take place later in the week.
Conaway said in a statement that he was "100 percent committed to completing the farm bill this year.”
Peterson said in interviews last week that committee aides have drafted legislative options to settle key disagreements between the House and Senate versions, but that the four negotiators need to reach deals. There are disputes to be resolved in several titles, including commodity, conservation and crop insurance.
Still unsettled is the biggest disagreement: tightening work requirements for able-bodied adults participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Stabenow has refused to go along with the House bill’s provision expanding the existing requirement to people in their 50s and parents of children over the age of 6, so the Trump administration’s focus has turned to making it harder for states to get waivers from the existing requirements, which deny SNAP benefits to able-bodied adults without dependents who are out of work more than three months in every three years.
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Conaway and ranking Democrat Collin Peterson of MInnesota, who will take over the House committee in January, plan to meet privately on Monday to discuss progress. A meeting between them and the two lead Senate negotiators, Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, could take place later in the week.
Conaway said in a statement that he was "100 percent committed to completing the farm bill this year.”
Peterson said in interviews last week that committee aides have drafted legislative options to settle key disagreements between the House and Senate versions, but that the four negotiators need to reach deals. There are disputes to be resolved in several titles, including commodity, conservation and crop insurance.
Still unsettled is the biggest disagreement: tightening work requirements for able-bodied adults participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Stabenow has refused to go along with the House bill’s provision expanding the existing requirement to people in their 50s and parents of children over the age of 6, so the Trump administration’s focus has turned to making it harder for states to get waivers from the existing requirements, which deny SNAP benefits to able-bodied adults without dependents who are out of work more than three months in every three years.
Click Here to read more.