The CEO of the conservative Heritage Action organization, Michael Needham, has called for a one-year extension of the existing farm bill, according to The Hill.
According to The Hill
article, Heritage Action “played an influential role in defeating a $940
billion farm bill this summer and in getting House leaders to strip out food
stamp funding from a farm bill that later passed” the House in July. In an interview with C-SPAN’s Newsmakers,
Needham stated that the extension could give his group more time to meet with
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK).
House leaders are now
drafting a new “food stamp bill with $40 billion in cuts over 10 years, twice
the cuts made in the failed farm bill.”
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (commonly referred
to as “food stamps”) has been a contentious issue in Congress. Needham’s comments “signal that his group
could oppose” the effort to separate SNAP benefits from the remainder of the
farm bill in the House.
Needham also “admonished
the GOP for failing to get rid of corporate farm subsidies.” While both Senate and House versions of the
farm bill eliminate direct payments, a one-year extension would keep those
payments in place.
The current farm bill will
expire on September 30. For more
information on recent farm bill developments, recent blog articles are
available here
and here. For more information about farm bills, please
visit the National Agricultural Law Center website here,
including its Farm
Bills page and a free-of-charge database of Congressional Research
Service Reports.
Another excellent resource for daily updates on the farm bill is
Farmpolicy.com, available here.
