Larry Combest: “Mr. Chairman, in early October of last year this House passed a new approach for farm legislation in a very strongly…”

“Mr. Chairman, in early October of last year this House passed a new approach for farm legislation in a very strongly bipartisan manner and in a margin of over two to one. It was the intent of our committee at that time to have hopefully a conference report that we could bring back to this body and have signed into law a new farm bill sometime last year so that we would begin to be able to deal with the problems that have been confronting the agricultural economy for the last 4-plus years. Unfortunately, there was no item with which we could conference. However, in February, on Valentine's Day, we finally had that item that we could conference. We are in conference now, and it is this Member's hope that early in April upon our return we will be able to provide to the body a conference report. We, however, have lapped over into a new budget cycle. What made it possible for us to be able to write that farm bill last year was the strong commitment of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, and the good work of the Committee on the Budget in providing $73.5 billion in last year's budget and providing $73.5 billion in this year's budget to allow us to continue.”