(Radio Iowa) – The U-S Senate Agriculture Committee will hold an oversight hearing tomorrow (Wednesday) on the U-S-D-A at which U-S Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is scheduled to testify. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says one key focus of the hearing will be on how to prompt Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to get moving on a vital piece of legislation that’s especially significant for Iowa. “The line of questioning is going to go along the lines of what we can do to get a Farm Bill passed,” Grassley says, “and what he’s doing to encourage Schumer to bring a Farm Bill up and I’m sure he’s going to open with that very subject.”

Typically updated every five years, a new Farm Bill didn’t materialize last year, and Congress passed a one-year extension which will last through this fall. Grassley says Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, knows how crucial the legislation is for Iowa’s farmers and the state’s economy. “I don’t know whether he can do much about it,” Grassley says, “but his voice is very important in encouraging the president to get Schumer to bring up the Farm Bill.”

Grassley says he also wants to question Vilsack about the Commodity Credit Corporation. Grassley, a Republican, says the agency is being used as a “slush fund” to pay for a lot of things of which Congress didn’t approve. “The original legislation setting up the Commodity Credit Corporation is loosely written,” Grassley says, “and I’m sorry to say that not only this secretary of agriculture has abused it, but the Trump secretary of agriculture, abused it as well, as well as President Trump even abusing it.”

The C-C-C was created in the 1930s and is designed to stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices. Grassley co-sponsored a bill last year, saying the corporation was “at risk of becoming a slush fund for politically-driven pet projects.” He says the U-S-D-A Spending Accountability Act would save some eight-billion dollars over ten years.