(CQ Today) -- Slowly but surely, negotiators are inching closer to a final deal on a new farm bill. They’ll use the final days of the conference hammering out differences between a House plan released last week that would spend only about $6 billion over the bill’s $280 billion baseline by eliminating a $4 billion disaster trust fund, and a Senate counteroffer made Friday to authorize $10 billion in new spending and about $2.5 billion worth of farm tax credits. Lawmakers say the end is in sight — they have until April 18, when an extension of current law expires, to finish the bill (HR 2419) — but there are still a few hurdles the conferees must navigate before their work is finished. For instance, the Senate is proposing that Congress extend customs and user fees to help offset about $4.1 billion in new farm spending. Such offsets are relatively scarce this Congress, but they are needed to comply with pay-as-you-go rules that mandate all new spending be balanced with spending cuts, taxes or other revenue. There’s a chance Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., will object because he wants to use the revenue to help pay for an overhaul of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which gives benefits beyond traditional unemployment payments to certain workers hurt by trade.
