WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Boozman is working to rally support for his farm bill proposal after it failed to get out of committee late last week.
“Look at the vote and see who voted for what, who’s been voting for what. Republicans have consistently, unanimously supported this and I’m very proud of that. We kept our members together,” Boozman said. “The good news is they’re together. They want to get this passed. Then also they’re really willing to help the states with their problem. On the other hand, they’re not as willing to go as far as the Democrats want and I think very, very rightfully so.”
Boozman said there seems to be a stigma about the farm bill that simply needs to be overcome.
“What they’re concerned about exclusively is this error rate thing. That’s got them fixated and they’ve got themselves I think in a bind saying that they just have to have two years,” he said. “We got some indications as we were negotiating that a year would be OK. I worked really hard to get them a year along with our leadership because I realized as I got into this, that there were some inequities. There were some things that we needed to work out.”
Boozman chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry. Congress has not passed a farm bill since 2018.
