A tentative bipartisan agreement was struck Sunday night getting the votes needed to pass the senate.
According to Duane Simpson president and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC), “The Senators came to a compromise to allow us to break the filibuster and allow the government to open but included in that is funding for the agricultural Department along with the Congress and the military.”
Simpson says the agreement also includes an extension a farm programs typically funded in the farm bill that weren’t included in the one big beautiful bill act.
“We don’t have to revert back to 1950’s law. A lot of really good news coming out of it.”
Simpson explains that while this is good news for agriculture today a new modern farm bill is still necessary. Priorities like a fix for prop 12 and others will have to wait until more negotiations can happen.
“And this is basically an admission of the fact that with the shutdown we lost six legislative weeks and so there’s just not enough time to get this done before the end of the year. With the AG Appropriations bill a part of the final piece, my guess here is that that chairman Bozeman said, ‘hey let’s take advantage of this opportunity and let’s extended it for another year and give us an opportunity to get to work on this and hopefully Q1 or Q2 we can finally wrap up what’s left in the farm bill and get it passed.’”
Simpson did congratulate Senate Ag Chairman John Bozeman for getting the funding and more time for negotiation included. More votes need to happen before the government can reopen and needs to pass the house which isn’t a certainty. And it will need President Trump’s signature.
