Coming together?

From the office of Chairman Peterson Friday:

“The Senate’s Farm Bill counter-offer today affirms the House position on the core Farm Bill policies and shows how close we are to an agreement on those issues but also demonstrates that there is still work to do on financing the bill and other extraneous issues.
The Senate’s proposal only further muddies the water on funding for the Farm Bill by scrapping the offsets recommended by the House and failing to offer alternative funding sources that are acceptable.
The Senate’s $12.5 billion offer also breaks the previous agreement to limit above baseline spending in the bill to no more than $10 billion. When we can’t agree on offsets for the core Farm Bill issues, adding $2.5 billion in tax giveaways that don’t even belong in the Farm Bill is counterproductive.”


Meanwhile, from Chairman Harkin in the Senate:

WASHINGTON D.C. – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate-House Conference Committee on the farm bill, today announced a meeting for all Senate and House farm bill conferees.

The conference committee is scheduled for Monday, April 14, 2008, at 3:30 PM in room 325 of the Russell Senate Office Building (Russell Caucus Room).

The proceedings will be available live via webcast at http://agriculture.senate.gov/.