The U.S. Senate has voted to move forward with the 2018 Farm Bill Conference Committee and have announced which senators will serve on the committee.
The nominees are:
- Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas
- Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky
- Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan
- Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas
- Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vermont
- Sen. John Howeven, R-North Dakota
- Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa
- Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio
- Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-North Dakota
Roberts is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, while Stabenow is the ranking member. McConnell is the Senate majority leader.
“This strong group of Senate conferees knows how to work together on a bipartisan basis to get the farm bill across the finish line,” Roberts and Stabenow said in a joint statement. “We look forward to beginning the conference process so we can provide certainty to our farmers, families and rural communities.”
Prior to the announcement of the senators chosen to serve on the committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, revealed in an email newsletter that he and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway recently met with Roberts and Stabenow to “touch base on plans to begin conference discussions.”
“Committee staffs are preparing the conference documents that compare the legislative language in the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of H.R. 2, and staff will be spending the month of August walking through that language and ironing out differences,” wrote Peterson, D-Minnesota.
Peterson further wrote that he and Conaway, R-Texas, would talk weekly with Roberts and Stabenow to check on staff progress and to look for a date in August for the conference committee to potentially meet.
The Senate in June passed its version of the farm bill by a bipartisan 86-11 vote. However, the House version of the farm bill, also in June, passed by a vote of 213-211, with no Democrats voting in favor of it.
