(NAFB.com) – While House Ag Chair GT Thompson and Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman laid out an optimistic scenario for the farm bill, Democratic lawmakers who addressed agriculture reporters said they’re uncertain about the bill’s prospects and worried about the Trump administration’s cuts to agriculture agencies that aren’t raising many public objections from Republicans. E&E News reports that Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said she’s ‘petrified’ by staff reductions and frozen grants and contracts at the Forest Service. Pingree, who’s on both the House Agriculture and Appropriations committees, said the Agriculture panel could write a bipartisan farm bill on its own but that the reality of passing legislation on the floor and satisfying the Republicans’ right wing complicates the picture. Pingree said, “The committee is pretty reasonable at figuring these things out. (But) now that lawmakers are juggling reconciliation and a farm bill together, all hell has broken loose.”
