Lawmakers return to D.C. next week for a possible battle over keeping the government funded when the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1. And they also may take up another extension for the 2018 farm bill.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters Tuesday he thinks a new one-year farm bill extension will be attached to whatever continuing resolution Congress ultimately passes this month to keep the government funded into fiscal 2025. “It’s too bad we don’t roll up our sleeves and get the job done” on a new farm bill this year, he said.
Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-SD) said last month that Congress was likely to pass a one-year farm bill extension but didn’t say when it would be considered.
The House farm bill has a $33 billion funding gap, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that may not be any easier to fix in the next Congress.
Grassley suggested Congress may have to override the CBO’s score of the bill. In the Senate that would require 60 votes, and that would “not be very fiscally responsible,” Grassley said. He has said in the past that Congress should abide by CBO’s cost estimates.