There's an old adage that if you put a frog in boilingwater, it jumps out; if you put the frog in lukewarm water and heatit slowly, the frog will remain still, unaware of the change untilit's too late.

We're seeing something similar in Washington, as our nation'sfarms suffer the devastating effects of this summer's heat wave. Asthe temperature continued to rise, it was Congress—not thefrogs—that failed to move.

The drought of 2012 is the worst this country has seen indecades, with as much as 65 percent of agricultural land in theU.S. experiencing moderate drought or worse. According to DroughtMonitor, produced in partnership with the National DroughtMitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S.Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration, nearly 35 percent of the U.S. facessevere drought conditions or worse.

Related: Read “Crop Insurance Payments Not a“Bailout” for Farmers, Associations Say” by Mark E. Ruquet.

One expert, G.A. “Art” Barnaby, a Kansas State Universityextension specialist in risk management, told the Associated Pressin September that he expects nearly $25 million in crop insuranceclaims to be filed and underwriting losses on taxpayer-subsidizedcrop insurance of $15 billion.

Also in September, Congress departed Washington for the stretchrun of the campaign trail, having failed to reauthorize or evenextend the legislation authorizing the federal crop insuranceprogram. Instead, the legislation was allowed to expire and addedto the list of things to be done after the elections.

The risk-sharing agreement between the USDA and the privatecompanies is spelled out in the Standard Reinsurance Agreement,which plays a large role in determining program costs. The currentSRA (completed during the summer of 2010) reduced the cropinsurance program by $6 billion over 10 years by, among othermeans, putting a hard cap on administrative and operating(A&O)expenses paid to agents for administering policies, and acap on agent commissions of 80 percent of the total A&O perstate.

Read the sidebar “Farm Bill Roots.”

In 2012, the crop insurance program also was targeted for cuts,although it has so far survived relatively unscathed. The Senatepassed its version of the farm bill in late June by a 64 to 35vote, after debate in which Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.,offered an amendment to cut an additional $5 billion from thebudget baseline of the program, which would have resulted inreductions of A&O funds by 37 percent. NAMIC encouraged itsmembers during Senate floor consideration to ask their senators tovote against Gillibrand's amendment. With their help, the amendmentwas defeated; however, the Senate did adopt one amendment thatincreases premiums for crop insurance policyholders with anadjusted gross income of more than $750,000 a year.

The Agriculture Committee passed the House version of the farmbill in July by a vote of 35-11 after a marathon markup session.Heading into its abbreviated September session, it was expectedthat Congress would, at minimum, address two “must-do” pieces oflegislation: a spending bill to keep the government running intonext year and the House version of the farm bill. Doing so wouldhave allowed for the members of the House and Senate to meet inconference during the month prior to the elections and negotiatethe differences between the two bills, setting the stage for aswift up or down vote in each chamber when lawmakers returned.

As it turned out, the conventional wisdom was half right. Thegovernment has been funded through March of next year, givingeither the Obama or Romney administration time to hammer out alonger-term spending deal with the House and Senate.

The farm bill, however, was left to expire at the end ofSeptember, despite an 11th-hour push by a bipartisan coalition ofmembers of the House Agriculture Committee.

Related: Read Charles Abbott's column, “DroughtBrings Record U.S. Cost for Crop-Insurance Subsidy.”

Congress has seen a number of issues get bogged down incommittee crossfire, but members of the agriculture committees inthe House and Senate have worked together to push for passage ofthe legislation. Similar to other legislation, the farm bill fellvictim to partisan politics and the heightened wariness greetingevery dollar of federal spending. The impasse generally hasrevolved not around other programs governed by the legislation,such as food assistance, that have been either cut too drasticallyor not drastically enough depending on your side of the aisle.

The senators and congressmen who have worked to advance thislegislation are largely from farming states. They understand theneed for a robust farming industry and, more specifically, a strongsafety net for the industry in crop insurance, and they haveconstituents who rely on the programs the farm bill provides for.Members of House Agriculture Committee rallied supporters to asktheir representatives to push for a vote on the floor.Additionally, they sought to bypass House leadership with a“discharge petition” that would have automatically moved the farmbill to the House floor if 218 members of the House had signed on.Unfortunately, time ran out.

Related: Read “IQ: Provision Could Raise CropPremiums, Cap Subsidies.”

After the November elections, Congress will return for alame-duck session jam packed with “must-do” items that were put offuntil the votes were counted but requiring action before the end ofthe year. In addition to the farm bill, Congress still has the“fiscal cliff” composed of a raft of tax provisions, the Medicare“doc fix” for physicians' payments, and the sequestration cuts.

If Congress fails to act by Jan. 1, the entire government systemrelating to farming will reportedly revert back to the levels ofthe permanent farm bill passed in 1949. For some farmers, thiswould mean a drastic uptick in the price of their crops, whileothers—mainly those whose crops were added to government programsin the past 63 years—would see little or nothing from thegovernment. For crop insurers, the government would no longer havea role in covering against crop losses, leaving the private marketto fend for itself on a risk that is impossible for the marketplaceto absorb.

For now, there is breathing room. Although the farm bill and itscomponent programs have expired, they are still funded through theend of the year. Congress could adopt a short-term extension forthe farm bill, maintaining it for one year as opposed to thestandard five-year extension, although few have expressed supportfor this except as a last resort.