Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow yesterday criticized the House for failing to quickly pass the farm bill in the face of a drought that has left farmland parched and corn prices skyrocketing.

The Michigan Democrat called on the House to clear the five-year legislation, which already passed the Senate in a bipartisan vote. Agriculture leaders, she said, need time to negotiate policy differences between the House and Senate versions of the nearly trillion-dollar legislation.

"Given the fact that, at this point, there are not a lot of measures being taken up by the House, we certainly could schedule this for a vote," Stabenow said during a press call. "We've never seen the House Ag Committee pass a bill out of committee that wasn't taken up on the floor. We have a looming deadline, we have the drought to deal with, and this is a very serious issue."

Stabenow's office organized the press call a day after House and Senate agriculture leaders met to discuss procedural issues. They agreed to save substantive debate on policy differences for the August work period, Stabenow said, but it's becoming less likely that House leadership will agree to take up the farm bill before the end of next week.

Stabenow, however, said she was still operating under "Plan A," or the goal of getting the entire farm bill signed by President Obama before Sept. 30. A short-term extension of any kind would only cause uncertainty for farmers as they cope with the drought, she said.

Farmers "aren't asking for stopgap measures," Stabenow said. "They want us to step up, work together and complete the job so that they have certainty going forward as well as help right now for the disasters."

The Department of Agriculture yesterday designated an additional 76 counties in six states as disaster areas, bringing the total number of counties eligible for emergency loans due to the drought conditions up to 1,234.

Other members of the Senate Agriculture Committee have raised the possibility of an extension, citing the drought.

"We have to address the disasters in this country," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said yesterday. "If they can't pass it, protecting jobs is better than nothing. An extension might be the best way, but we'll have to wait and see what we can come up with to address the droughts."

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the House Agriculture ranking member, this week expressed an aversion to a short-term extension of the bill. But he seemed less concerned about the impending deadline, pointing out that many of the farm bill's major programs would continue even after the expiration date (E&E Daily, July 25).

Both the Senate-passed version of the farm bill and the version passed two weeks ago by the House Agriculture Committee would reduce conservation programs by about $6 billion over the next decade through what many supporters say are much-needed consolidations. The House bill would also strip all energy programs of mandatory funding; the Senate version would provide about $800 million.

The major disagreements between the House and Senate versions occur in programs that provide subsidies for commodity farmers and food stamps for the poor.

Reporter Jason Plautz contributed.