The FY13 House Agriculture Appropriations bill has been delayed and has not been rescheduled.
Meanwhile, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Lucas (R-Okla.) announced that committee’s markup of the farm bill will be on July 11.
According to a news story in AgriPulse, Chairman Lucas said he made it very clear to leadership that he preferred not to have the agriculture appropriations bill at the same time. “As of this moment, I don’t anticipate having ag appropriations in the House at same time as the farm bill markup in the committee,” he said.
In the meantime, Lucas is focused on marking up the farm bill on July 11, and noted “we need several days to get our work done and if necessary we’ll delegate people among ourselves to the floor.”
He said he has not yet pressed House leadership on floor time for the farm bill, because he “doesn’t have a bill to press,” but when the committee completes markup in the days after July 11, “that becomes the next biggest issue for me.”
When the time comes to reconcile differences between the House version and the Senate bill, or the “Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012,” S. 3240, Chairman Lucas said he’s confident the two chambers will be able to reach an agreement, using the “Super” Committee process as an example.
“Just as we achieved consensus back in September in the hurry-up, we’ll achieve consensus this time,” he said. “We’re just not at that point of hashing out the details.”
Lucas noted that regarding differences between each chamber’s legislation, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Stabenow (D-Mich.), “understands I have to do my work with the committee. When we get to conference certainly the bills will have to be melded together, but we’ve not talked about particulars.
“I understand the importance of crop revenue to her; she understands the importance of letting a safety net to Southern farmers and people in Southern Plains to me.”