Bill Huffman
Director - Governmental Affairs

May 23, 2008

There was a minor glitch this week in moving the Farm Bill forward. On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed the 2008 Farm Bill calling it “bloated and deficit in payment limit reform” among other concerns. After the veto, it was discovered that when the Farm Bill was enrolled and printed and sent to the President, the title having to do with Trade, Market Promotion and Foreign Market Development was missing. It seems as though that title was not printed and thus not forwarded to the President, which immediately caused another ruckus between Congress and the White House.

Efforts are underway to correct the administrative misstate. On Thursday, both the House and the Senate voted to override the President’s veto. Subsequently, the House reprinted the Farm Bill in its entirety and passed the bill a second time. It will now go to the Senate where it is expected to be passed again by a resounding margin. Senate action on the “complete” Farm Bill will not occur until after Memorial Day Recess, a minor delay in the nearly two year effort to get the bill to the President’s desk.

We expect President Bush will again veto the 2008 Farm Bill, thus causing the House and the Senate to again have to override the President veto so that the bill can become permanent law for the next five years.

While all of this seems somewhat complicated, it was embarrassing for the Democrats who control Congress to have had something like this happen. For American farmers, it was another disappointment in the long process of getting a new farm program in place.