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The Washington week will include more efforts to find compromise on the federal budget for fiscal 2011 and USDA's annual Outlook Forum.

The House voted 235-189 early Saturday morning to pass its Continuing Resolution (CR) H.R. 1 to cut federal spending by over $61 billion for the remaining seven months of fiscal 2011.

Late Friday night, the House interspersed rapid-fire batch voting with hours of debate on budget bill amendments ranging from Chesapeake Bay pollution controls and mountain top removal to blocking payments to the United Nations and blocking healthcare law funding.

In the House CR debate on the Republican proposal to cut $61 billion in federal spending this year, House members voted solidly to block funding for the administration's new healthcare reform law.

The House debate over GOP-proposed budget cuts for the current fiscal year dragged on into a fourth day Friday, with battles over issues ranging from the Farm Bill to healthcare, abortion and Defense Department weapons systems.

Under an agreement reached late Thursday, nearly 100 amendments scheduled for floor consideration will have 10 minutes of debate time, while 8 others will have up to 60 minutes. Amendments from Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) aim at preventing funds from being used to en

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack launched USDA's new online mapping tool Friday, providing a broad range of demographic, economic, and agricultural data on rural areas across the United States.

House Agriculture Committee hearing to examine the state of the U.S. farm economy turned into a GOP bashing of the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory agenda for agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Senate Agriculture Committee members Thursday that despite commodity prices, net farm income and farm exports all doing well, “the next downturn is right around the corner.”

House floor debate continued into Wednesday evening on the Republicans' Continuing Resolution (CR) HR 1 to cut federal spending by $61 billion from current funding levels for the current fiscal year.