WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Senate on Friday failed to approve a cloture motion that would have forced a vote on the 2007 farm bill, choking off delaying tactics by Republicans seeking to add amendments to the $286 billion, five-year agriculture subsidy, farm conservation and nutrition bill.
The failure throws into question whether Congress will be able to complete work on the 2007 farm bill - the "Food and Energy Security Act of 2007" – this year.
The vote on cloture was 55 to 42, but under Senate rules 60 were needed for approval.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said before the vote, "If we get cloture, we can move ahead aggressively. We can come back after the Thanksgiving recess...and be over with it. We can send a bill to the White House. It won't happen if we don't get cloture."
The U.S. House of Representatives approved its version of the farm bill in July, but both chambers need to do so and then negotiate a unified bill to send to the White House.
Some House Republicans, pointing to the Senate's inability to approve its farm bill, proposed Thursday to extend the current 2002 farm bill by one year.
"This inaction is putting our producers between a rock and a hard place and that is unacceptable," U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Thursday. "This extension provides producers with a little certainty to make it through this crop year until we can get a long-term farm bill finished."
Source: Bill Tomson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; bill.tomson@dowjones.com