Press Release of Agriculture Committee Sen. Chambliss Discourages Finance Committee from Using Tax Hikes to Pay for Farm Bill Contact: Erin Hamm (202) 224-2035 Tuesday, September 18, 2007 (WASHINGTON, D.C.) U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Ranking Republican Member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, today urged members of the Senate Finance Committee to work closely with members on both committees on identifying spending offsets during the farm bill reauthorization debate. Sen. Chambliss and five other members of the Senate Agriculture Committee sent letters to Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) hoping to avoid a partisan divide that plagued House consideration of the farm bill, which was approved in July. “Since the Senate Finance Committee is the likely source of additional revenue, we wish to express our concern that any provisions to offset spending be carefully vetted and discussed with all members of the Agriculture Committee prior to markup,” the Senators wrote in the letter. “We wish to avoid a situation such as that occurred in the House which brought forth an unfortunate series of events, straining the farm bill’s long tradition of bipartisan and multi-regional support.” During the farm bill debate in the House of Representatives, controversial tax increases were added to the legislation after the measure had been discharged from the House Agriculture Committee. The divisive move shattered broad bipartisan support of the measure and consequently brought the bill under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ### 283537