Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 10/4/18

The four principal ag leaders on Capitol Hill are convening today to attempt to advance farm bill negotiations, even with the House out of session until after the Nov. 6 midterm elections. House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway and ranking member Collin Peterson are sticking around D.C. in a bid to make some headway before the lame-duck session — but progress has been hard to come by for months.

Today is their first face-to-face meeting since Conaway pinned the blame on the Senate leaders for dragging their feet in the talks. Political finger-pointing between the Texas Republican and his Senate counterparts has reached new heights as the deadline for passing a new farm bill sailed by at the beginning of the week without the ag leaders striking a deal — or even being within the vicinity of a consensus.

"Getting the farm bill done is really important, but it's got to be important to everybody negotiating, and right now I don't get the sense that getting something done has quite the sense of urgency with my Senate colleagues as it does with me," Conaway said last week.

Senate Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow denies a loss of focus. "Playing politics is not going to get a farm bill done," she told reporters Wednesday. "Sen. Roberts and I choose to keep our head down and work hard together."

Finger-pointing over forest fires: Conaway isn't the only House Republican blasting senators for the impasse. In a statement provided first to MA, House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah and Arkansas' Bruce Westerman — the two GOP Natural Resources panel members on the farm bill conference committee — blame Stabenow's side for holding up a deal they see as crucial to helping Western states dealing with catastrophic wildfires.

The House-passed farm bill includes forest management provisions aimed at lowering wildfire risks and speeding up emergency responses by scaling back forestry regulations. Conservation groups have argued some of the provisions go too far in scrapping needed environmental protections.

"Despite good faith efforts by the farm bill conferees, Senate Democrats refuse to even discuss these needed reforms," Bishop and Westerman said, noting that nearly 1 million acres are now on fire nationwide. "We urge our Senate colleagues to listen to the stories of the farmers and ranchers affected by catastrophic wildfire, and work swiftly to finalize the 2018 farm bill."

Forestry is one of the many titles in the farm bill that had not been finalized before House members recessed last week to hit the campaign trail.

What it means: The blame-game over provisions like forestry — not to mention the sniping over issues as narrow as rooftop gardens — is fairly standard posturing. But it's also a sign of how much ground negotiators still have to cover before they can say they're approaching a final deal.