Senate Offers House Conferees New Proposal on Farm Bill

As the House and Senate continue to negotiate over the farm bill, the Senate conferees presented their House counterparts with a new offer today for a framework outlining the bill’s $10 billion in new spending and offsets to make that spending deficit neutral.

House conferees said they would take the proposal under advisement, neither accepting nor rejecting the proposal as Ways & Means Committee members were not present.

House Agriculture Committee GOP spokeswoman Alise Kowalski told The Hill that conferees are aiming to agree on a spending framework by next week, but that a one-week timeframe has been in effect for the past month.

President Bush today signed an extension of the previous farm bill that will push back its expiration to next Friday. Kowalski said this was the third extension Bush has signed.

Details of the Senate’s offer can be found here.