(CQ Today) -- With a little more than two weeks to finish the farm bill, lawmakers were still at odds Thursday over a financing package for the measure. House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., is looking for some reassurance that nutrition funding isn’t used for other provisions in the farm bill. The House version of the farm bill (HR 2419), which passed in July, included about $11.5 billion for nutrition funding, some of which came from a $4 billion tax revenue package that Rangel helped craft. Currently, the Senate is batting around a number of $9.5 billion for nutrition, which Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says was hard to come by. Rangel says he’s worried he’ll have a hard time selling the latest iteration of the farm bill in his chamber without more substantial reform — especially if it includes tax increases to pay for the extra $10 billion in funding that farm committee members want to spend over the $280 billion baseline. Part of the problem is $4 billion in funding for farmers to which Great Plains state senators such as Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., are wedded. Farmers in those states have taken a big hit recently because of flooding and drought. Rangel says he’s seen no specific funding plan from Baucus, and that could mean quick death for the bill.
