Stabenow will stay on Ag, CFTC will have to wait until next year
November 17, 2014 | 05:03 PM
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., confirmed today that she will become the ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee in January when the Republicans take control of the Senate.
There have been rumors that Senate Democratic leadership was pressuring Stabenow to become the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee.
After a conservation-related news conference today at the Agriculture Department, Stabenow confirmed earlier statements from her office that she would remain on Agriculture.
“Sen. Roberts and I have a great working relationship,” Stabenow said in reference to Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who is set to become the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Roberts chaired the House Agriculture Committee when the 1996 farm bill was written and was ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee until the current Congress, when Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., claimed that position.
“Obviously I would rather be chair of the Agriculture committee and setting the agenda,” she added.
Stabenow said she and Roberts have already talked about the committee moving forward.
The reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will have to wait until the next Congress, Stabenow said. But she added that for the rest of this year the committee will continue to focus on administrative actions that the CFTC can undertake to help end users of futures.
On the reauthorization of child nutrition programs, which the Agriculture committee is scheduled to undertake in 2015, Stabenow said she is “very committed to moving forward, not backward,” a reference to efforts to roll back the healthier school meals standards established under the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Stabenow also said she will vote against the bill that would force President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone pipeline. Stabenow said that she would not support the pipeline “unless the oil stays in America.” There will be no opportunity to amend the bill to add such a provision, she said.
The most important goal for Congress for this year is to pass an omnibus appropriations bill that would fund the government through Sept. 30, 2015, she said. Any lesser appropriations measure would be a “disservice” to the American people, she added.
