By Philip Brasher and Niels Lesniewski, CQ Staff

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set up test votes for Wednesday on two amendments to the farm policy bill after a deal that would allow lawmakers to finish work on the bipartisan legislation fell apart.

Reid’s move Tuesday will allow votes on proposals by Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that would gut a price-support program for sugar growers and another by Kentucky Republican Rand Paul that would give control of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to the states.

The votes probably will be on motions to table — and thus kill — those amendments, said Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

The continuing debate between the two parties over amendments suggests that floor consideration of the $969 billion farm policy measure (S 3240) is likely to extend into next week and possibly even into the next.

Earlier Tuesday, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., laid out a series of five regulatory issues on which Republicans want to force votes, a move that Reid, D-Nev., said was part of a pattern in which GOP senators slow down Senate operations to block what the Democratic leader considers job-creation bills. “It’s precisely these non-relevant and non-germane amendments that keep the Senate from doing its work,” he said.

The GOP amendment requests include proposals related to financial derivatives, non-navigable waters and work safety rules for children.

“The biggest threat to farmers in Kentucky and across America are this administration’s job-killing regulations,” McConnell said. “That’s why Republicans are calling for votes on common-sense amendments that would either eliminate or prevent future job-killing regulations from going into effect, which would provide the necessary relief for American farmers and give a boost to rural America in these challenging economic times.”

Filling the Tree

Later Tuesday, Reid used a procedural tool known as filling the amendment tree to prevent senators from offering amendments — except for the Shaheen and Paul proposals — after Paul objected to an agreement to consider a broader number of amendments. Paul wanted the deal to include an amendment that would bar foreign aid to Pakistan until Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who provided information that helped U.S. forces find Osama bin Laden, is released from custody.

“I don’t think this is too much to ask,” Paul said. “The Senate has historically been a body that allowed debate, that allowed amendments — pertinent or not pertinent. This one is very important.”

Reid said while he considered Paul well-intentioned, his amendment had no place in the farm bill. Reid also indicated that Vermont Democrat Patrick J. Leahy, the top State Department appropriator and a former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, had expressed concern about the measure.

One of the GOP amendments on McConnell’s list was one by Mike Johanns, R-Neb., to block a possible EPA effort to regulate agricultural dust, even though the EPA has said repeatedly it has no plan to implement such a policy. Johanns also has introduced a stand-alone bill (S 1528) on the subject.

Johanns tried to offer his dust regulation prohibition as a non-germane amendment to a China currency bill (S 1619) last fall, but Reid blocked that vote by establishing a new Senate precedent after a dispute on the floor.