Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 10/5/18

House and Senate agriculture leaders emerged from an hourlong meeting in the basement of the Capitol on Thursday trying to send a signal of unity: The four lawmakers posed for a photo with locked arms. Behind the scenes, however, talks have been slow and tense.

The expectation had long been that the House's insistence on implementing new work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would sink the whole bill, at least politically. But deep differences between the two chambers on farm subsidies and other spending priorities have stymied progress as lawmakers have met over the past several weeks — so much so that SNAP has barely been a focus, report yours truly and Catherine Boudreau this morning.

The Conaway-Stabenow dynamic: Amid the slow rolling talks, a public standoff has emerged between House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway and Senate Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow — even as Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts has raised similar objections to House proposals during closed-door meetings. The Conaway-Stabenow friction has been driven by a combination of personality, policy and party politics.

Title I woes: At the heart of the current impasse is the bill's commodity title, and how the farm subsidy pie will be divvied up among regions of the country. Stabenow and Roberts oppose House provisions that the CBO projectedwould send more cash to farmers in the Southern Plains, including more than $500 million to cotton growers, a top constituency in Conaway's West Texas district.
Conaway isn't thrilled about how the Senate bill would eliminate a $2 billion perk for rural utilities that borrow from the federal government, a tradeoff that opened up funding for a number of Stabenow's priorities, including initiatives promoting renewable energy development and local and regional food, research funding for urban and indoor farming, and assistance for beginning farmers and ranchers.

Disputes between Conaway and Stabenow over commodity policy have taken up much of the oxygen in talks among the so called Big Four, said House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson.

"[Conaway] and Stabenow are fighting over this stuff, and Pat and I just sit and look at each other and roll our eyes," the Minnesota Democrat told POLITICO last week.