Things are happening fast on Capitol Hill as the idea of boosting funding for the renewed war in Iran is pushing the House to pass a third budget reconciliation bill, which could possibly provide a ride for bond-friendly provisions.
"We realistically see three opportunities for MAMBA to be included in a vehicle," said Council of Development Finance Agencies president and CEO Toby Rittner.
"The first one is reconciliation 3.0, which is something that's happening now. It's more or less going to be tied to defense spending, and it will be very difficult to get a tax bill put into that legislation."
The comments came during a panel discussion on Tuesday in preparation for a lobbying visit on Wednesday.
The Modernizing Agricultural and Manufacturing Bonds Act would loosen restrictions on industrial development bonds that date to changes in the 1986 tax code and expand the use of Aggie bonds that were crippled by a change in how farms were assessed in the 2000 census.
"You may wonder why we've combined the two bills," said Rittner. "It's because it's under the same tax code. So why not fix our bonds while we fix the Aggie bonds, and why not fix the Aggie bonds while we fix our bonds?"
The CDFA partnered with the National Council of State Agricultural Finance Programs on a quest that includes numerous sponsors and five introductions in the House and Senate.
"We have been trying to get this passed for a very long time," said Tammy Nebola, AG program specialist at Iowa Agricultural Development Division.
"We're going to keep trying until we see it go through because it's really important for the states that administer Aggie bonds,"
The CDFA relies on estimates that peg MAMBA's costs to the federal government at $300 million over 10 years.
"Since it does have a cost, it has to have an offset," said Rittner. You have to find a way to pay for it, and that's where the rubber meets the road."
Without an offset, MAMBA is vulnerable to the Byrd rule in the Senate, which bars "extraneous" provisions from inclusion in budget reconciliation bills.
In years past, reauthorizing the farm bill offered the best vehicle for MAMBA.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, which alienated Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee and turned the farm bill into a partisan issue.
The absence of ailing Mitch McConnell's vote has stalled an already slow process.
MAMBA supporters are already exploring other scenarios. "After the election, let's say the House flips, there may be some collaboration on a lame duck bill," said Rittner.
"When the new Congress comes into place, they tend to like to do something big. With the president we have now, he also likes to do something big in the first several weeks of his terms, and so there may be some type of a bill that happens sometime in February that would allow for us to slide into that piece of legislation."
