hburgnews.com

I’ve previously posted about Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s role in the federal farm bill negotiations. Last week, it was reported that negotiators had reached an agreement. But not according to Goodlatte. Today I came across an interesting memo allegedly sent from Goodlatte’s office.

An excerpt:

… Nothing is set in stone and there are just as many moving parts as there have ever been with an equal number of players that are involved in signing off on a farm bill.

[...] As you know, just b/c it’s in the news does not mean it is accurate, so I urge you to be cautious in issuing statements based on news reports. We will try to provide you with information it is made available to us.

In the meantime, here’s what I’m telling reporters: a deal is when everything is worked out and everybody has agreed to it. There are still key components of this process that have not been decided and other players still need to be brought into the process. I haven’t seen anything on paper (b/c it doesn’t yet exist).

My advice: keep your powder dry if you can.

Based on the agweb post, it’s unclear who the memo recipients were. It just says, “sent by Goodlatte and/or his staff to other Republicans on the farm bill conference.”