A two-week legislators’ break won’t be as much of a concern for local farmers after some of the debate has ended.

A joint federal committee has been examining two different versions of a bill passed by the U.S. House and Senate since March 13 to rectify differences between the two.

After today, the committee adjourns for two weeks with the rest of the Congress, which posed some concerns for the bill, said Sarah Black, national legislative counsel for the Michigan Farm Bureau.

If not attended to by the break, budget changes would have altered the amount of money allocated to the bill, but a resolution was passed earlier in the week alleviating those concerns.

“They did agree to the same levels of spending,” Black said.

“They’ve figured out how much they’re going to spend, now they just need to figure out how they’re going to spend it.”

Passing the bill after the break will push the effects of the bill into the 2003 crop year, but Black said that shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for farmers.

“Once the Senate and House adopt a budget and the money’s set aside for it, the only deadline they have, in my opinion, is Sept. 30,” she said. “So they theoretically have all spring and summer now.”

But members of the committee hope to have the bill sorted out well before that.

Seth Boffeli, spokesman for Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the committee will still be working on the issue during the two-week break and is expecting to reach a conclusion in mid-April.

“Essentially what we’re trying to do now is trying to get the bill in position so when they come back they can have a solid framework to work with,” he said.

Boffeli said many of the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill have been worked out, but some details are still unclear.

Still to be addressed is the issue of payment limits. Some legislators are pushing for a higher limit to payments but would require higher loan rates to compensate.

Other areas to be addressed include the labeling of meat and how to deal with dairy farms.

And many local farmers are still attentive to the bill because of those details.

As part of the Michigan Farm Bureau’s annual legislative seminar held three weeks ago, more than 100 Michigan farmers talked to local legislators in the Lansing Center about the bill.

Eaton Rapids farmer Janet Lyon participated and said her talks seemed fruitful.

“They all said that they would try,” she said.