(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is predicting an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill will be in the temporary spending bill congress is likely to pass in the next few weeks to keep the government operating.  “I think we’d be better off having a five-year Farm Bill,” Grassley says, “but that isn’t going to happen.” Congress voted last November to extend the policies of the 2018 Farm Bill, which had expired on September 30th. So far this year, the House Agriculture Committee has voted for a new version of the Farm Bill, but the measure hasn’t been brought up for a vote in the full House and negotiations in the Senate haven’t produced a bill yet either.

Grassley, a Republican who serves on the Senate Ag Committee, says the new Farm Bill needs to include higher price supports for commodities like corn and soybeans. “We say it this way in the United States Senate: ‘We need more farm in the Farm Bill,'” Grassley says. “Presently it’s 85% food stamps and 15% agriculture and we think the reflection of the inflation to put more farm in the Farm Bill.” Congress has a September 30th deadline to pass budget bills, but 1997 was the last time that happened.

Lawmakers instead pass a measure that funds all government agencies. Grassley says that move should happen well before September 30th. “When you get close to shutting down the government, like let’s say the week before, there’s a lot of taxpayers’ money spent just getting ready to shut down the government,” Grassley says, “so we ought to bring some consistency to it and it should not be a controversial thing.”

After the House and Senate passed a short term spending plan last September, a handful of Republicans successfully removed Kevin McCarthy from his role as House Speaker.