"A news release yesterday from Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) noted in part that, “[Chairman Goodlatte] introduced an amendment that would ensure regulations imposed under the FARRM Act are subject to promulgation under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Congressional Review Act, which falls under the jurisdiction of the House Judiciary Committee. The version of the bill reported by the House Agriculture Committee last month waived this requirement. Congressman Goodlatte’s amendment passed the House Judiciary Committee by voice vote with bipartisan support.”I've not followed this closely. Farm Policy goes on to explain this action on the part of House Judiciary is part of the infighting over the dairy provisions in the House Ag farm bill. Chairman Goodlatte wants USDA to do some studies. But from the description, it sounds more general, perhaps applying to all provisions of the farm bill.
In my memory the farm bill always contained an exemption from the APA for production adjustment programs. The usual reason was that Congress never got the legislation completed in time, so we were always behind the eight ball in getting the program in the field. By waiving APA requirements Congress could ask us to act quickly and keep their constituents happy. Now as I write my memory is being tickled with the idea that maybe one of the attorneys in OGC did push us to comply once or twice, but by putting out an interim rule instead of doing the proposed rule/public comment/ final rule process.
I may also be wrong on this, but I think the APA always technically applied to the farm bill, but in the 70's ASCS ignored it. It was only with the 1983 PIK program with its contracts that we got really serious about involving the lawyers and dotting every i.
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