Some Senate Ag Republicans suggest it may be better to hold out until next year for a better farm bill deal. Others disagree.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says the argument for waiting ‘til next year to get ‘more farm in the farm bill’ may not hold up. He says, “We’d be better off if we had a bipartisan bill this year, but that seems difficult. There might be a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I recently heard that the Democratic Senator from Georgia, Warnock, has said he needs higher reference prices.”
Which Grassley says could give Republicans a majority on the Ag committee to boost crop supports. But as for a GOP majority in the full Senate next year, Grassley says, “I don’t know how many times I’ve been in the Senate, I expected a Republican majority to happen. I think, 2010, 2012, but it didn’t happen until 2014. So, I think it’s very difficult to predict.”
Meantime, Grassley says the Supreme Court could soon help farm and biofuel groups in their challenge to EPA’s new tailpipe emissions rule thought to favor electric vehicles. That, by reigning in a 1983 ruling granting greater power to federal regulators. Grassley says, “The courts had given great deference to that under the Chevron doctrine. And if they overturn that, then that’s going to put the courts back into being an honest interpreter of the law rather than just relying on what the bureaucracy says.”
Grassley says an earlier West Virginia case established the so-called ‘major questions doctrine’ that limits agency power to decide issues of vast economic and political significance without Congress’ say-so.
Story by Matt Kaye/Berns Bureau courtesy of NAFB News Service