Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 9/7/18

The House voted Thursday to go to conference over a spending package likely to include USDA and FDA appropriations, a big step toward passing a new bill with fresh funding for those agencies on time.

That'll happen only if negotiators move fast and avoid blowups over narrow policy disputes that are all too common in spending talks. Speed will truly be of the essence — the September legislative calendar includes only seven combined working days.

How we got here: The Senate in August passed a four-bill appropriations package including the Agriculture-FDA measure. The House never passed its own version of the Agriculture-FDA bill, but it did pass two other measures in the Senate package, funding the Interior Department and Financial Services programs. Now, lawmakers are going straight to conference, where the aim is to finalize all four of the measures before current appropriations expire at midnight Sept. 30, Republican and Democratic aides said.
Staff-level talks over differences in the House and Senate Agriculture-FDA measures have already begun, a House Democratic aide tells MA.

It's part of a broader push by lawmakers to clear as many spending bills as possible before they're forced to take up a stopgap "continuing resolution" for measures that didn't pass to avert a government shutdown. 

Shutdown watch: POLITICO's Rachael Bade reports on an unusual split within the hard-line House Freedom Caucus over how hard it should push to get money for President Donald Trump's promised U.S.-Mexico border wall included in the CR.

Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows has cautioned against pushing the government to the brink of a shutdown a month before the midterm elections. But Rep. Jim Jordan, the group's co-founder and staunch Trump ally, is itching for a fight.