This week, the Senate voted to move to conference on the farm bill by a voice vote. Following the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer named nine members as conferees to the 2018 farm bill debate.
“This strong group of Senate conferees knows how to work together on a bipartisan basis to get the Farm Bill across the finish line,” said Roberts and Stabenow. “We look forward to beginning the conference process, so we can provide certainty to our farmers, families, and rural communities.”
Two weeks ago, the House moved to reject the Senate farm bill and move to conference. The nine Senators will join the forty-seven House members to reconcile differences between the two bills.
The top four agriculture lawmakers, the “Big Four”, have already begun discussing conference issues and Chairman Roberts has said he hopes to schedule a full committee meeting at the end of August.
Members of the Conference Committee:
Wheeler Discusses EPA Priorities Before Senate Committee
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works this week. Wheeler outlined three directives given by President Trump: “Clean up the air, clean up the water and provide regulatory relief to help the economy thrive and create more jobs for American workers.” Committee members pressured Wheeler to differentiate himself from Pruitt across a range of environmental policies and made it clear that they viewed him differently.
Andrew Wheeler was confirmed as deputy administrator of the EPA to serve under Administrator Pruitt in April of this year. Following Pruitt’s resignation after a litany of personal scandals and congressional ethics probes, Wheeler took the temporary position as acting Administrator of the EPA. Critics have raised concerns regarding his past lobbying clients however, Wheeler has expressed a “commitment to earning and maintaining the public’s trust through transparency and accountability in our actions and civility and fairness in our public participation processes."