A Bush appointee to the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds good and bad aspects in the House and Senate versions of a Farm Bill now stalled in the Senate.

Bruce Knight, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, spoke to the Wyoming ag community Monday night at the Natural Resource Conference sponsored by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Wyoming Cattle Women, Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, Wyoming Wool Growers Association and Auxiliary.

A South Dakota farmer, Knight found most fault with the Senate version of the bill, rather than the House version.

Congress is coming back into session after the Thanksgiving break and has three weeks before the Christmas break. One of the 11 appropriation bills facing Congress is the Farm Bill, which has been hung up in the Senate for more than a month over the issue of amendments and terms of debate. There are more than 260 potential amendments on file.

Some of the major facets of the bill include more support for fruit and vegetable growers, more than a billion dollars to boost the use of cellulose as a feedstock for biofuels, and an expansion of food stamp benefits.

Knight warned that the Senate version will get the nation's ag community caught up in World Trade Organization violations, due to increased loan rates on commodities. He also criticized the Senate version for being 37 billion more than the USDA request and has having 15 billion in tax increases.

Knight expressed enthusiasm for the energy aspects of the Farm Bill, particularly investments in biomass and waste-based renewable energy, more resources for wetland and grassland preservation and for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), "the rock star for helping working lands," said Knight.

He also made a pitch for congressional passage of the next round of trade agreements, noting upcoming bills focused on Panama, Columbia and South Korea.

He encouraged his audience to register for participation in the national animal ID system, which can help the government identify and contain animal disease outbreaks as quickly as possible. If the nation's ag producer adopt such a program, the US can be as efficient as Great Britain was in containing a recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

In a brief question and answer session, Knight defended his decision to reopen the beef trade with Canada, saying Canada has enough protections in place to prevent mad cow disease-infected animals from being exported into the U.S.

In a question about the concentrated ownership of meat packing companies, an issue addressed in the Senate version of the Farm Bill, Knight warned that a too-tight bill would simply encourage the packers to move their operations overseas to South America.

"Be careful of unintended consequences," he said. A less restrictive Farm Bill would simply encourage the packer companies to reorganize, said Knight.