House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said today that the farm bill will contain a measure to use $400 million of the farm bill savings to make payments in lieu of taxes to Western communities surrounded by federal land.

Peterson told reporters that the program does not belong in the bill because the payments are made through the Interior Department, but that he will not object if it helps pass the bill.

He noted that inclusion of the program "helps with the speaker," a reference to the plans of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to use some of the farm bill savings for the PILT program because Western senators and representatives are upset that it was not covered in the omnibus appropriations bill.

–The Hagstrom Report