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Agriculture News As It Happens

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House CR to be voted next week

The House of Representatives will vote as early as Tuesday on a continuing resolution to fund the government through December 11, the House Daily Gallery advised reporters today.

The vote was planned for today, but postponed because House members wanted to hear President Barack Obama’s speech on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The bill mostly funds federal departments including the Agriculture Department and related agencies at fiscal year 2014 levels through December 11, but it also contains a few other provisions.

One would allow additional funds to offset food price increases in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program to ensure that no current recipients are removed from the program.

Another would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through June 30, 2015. Boeing is the biggest user of the bank's services for foreign customers, but many rural manufacturers also use it. Without the reauthorization, the bank's charter would expire September 30.

Heritage Action opposes the Ex-Im measure, and has said it will key vote the entire continuing resolution if it contains the extension of the bank.

Obama has asked for some funding to authorize American troops to give support to resistance forces in Syria, but House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said today that no decision has been made about including any ISIS-related provisions in the bill.

There have been rumors that if the House Republican leadership needs Democratic votes to pass the CR, House Democrats might try to negotiate a different schedule for Export-Import Bank reauthorization. House Democrats have proposed a seven-year reauthorization, but for bank supporters the extension until June with a debate over reauthorization at that time is problematic because Republicans might control the Senate next year.

The Senate is expected to take up the continuing resolution once the House has passed it.

The House is scheduled to leave at the end of next week for one-week break and return the first week of October.

But the Senate is scheduled to leave September 23, and it appears likely that if the House passes the continuing resolution and the Senate takes it up, the House will cancel its early October session and not return until after the elections.

House Committee on Appropriations — Chairman Rogers Introduces Short-Term Continuing Resolution to Maintain Government Operations, Prevent Shutdown
— Continuing Resolution