House Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson says he’s asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to look into whether the Congressional Budget Office has enough staff and resources to provide accurate, independent cost estimates of legislation.

Peterson, D-Minn., said Thursday that CBO’s estimates pertaining to provisions of the farm bill (HR 2419) have contained $1.5 billion in errors, many of which made the bill appear more costly.

The errors, which Peterson said CBO itself discovered and corrected, made him question whether the agency may be short-staffed or is relying too much on information from the Agriculture Department — a problematic approach, he suggested, because the administration opposes the legislation.

“I think [the Agriculture Department] has an agenda, which was to bring down my bill,” Peterson said.

Melissa Merson, a CBO spokeswoman, said she wasn’t aware of any errors in the formal cost estimate provided for the bill.