>> c-span's "washington journal," live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. sunday morning, former aide to president carter stewart eisenstadt will join us to discuss a book about his use the white house. and a senior fellow and program director of a hartford universityprogram -- project on the cold war will join us. 7:00us sunday morning at a.m. >> as the house gets ready to

debate the farm bill, catherine boudreau joins us. a reporter for food and agriculture from politico pro. what are the key details of the farm bill and how long is this authorization for federal farm program funding? guest: the bulk of this sweeping legislation is geared towards a supplemental nutrition assistance program, were -- or food stamps. the most controversial aspect of getting the farm bill passed. nutrition accounts for eight percent of this bill so the chairman has proposed imposing stricter work retirements between five and seven million people that are enrolled in the snap program and then of course, the other 20% of the farm bill is spent on commodity subsidies for farmers, also crop insurance programs that they pay into but their premiums are subsidized so that is where the government comes in.

then that pays out when there is a disaster, like hurricanes or wildfires that we saw last year. of course, there is also assistance with implementing land conservation practices and funding for world development. -- four rural development. those are really key aspects of the farm bill. host: you mentioned snap of course, the food stamps program , and the fact is that the farm bill usually gets quite a bit of bipartisan support. but the food stamps are something that seems to be splitting the parties mostly along party lines. tell us more about this issue. guest: certainly, yes. the snap program has 42 million recipients. and as agriculture chairman conaway wants to have stricter work requirements on a subset of the people on the program. between five and 7 million people would be subject to the stricter work requirements. they would have to work at least 20 hours a week or be enrolled in a job-training program and

states would be required, mandated, that is new, to offer slots in job-training programs. of course that is very expensive. they would save probably $9 billion over 10 years on slashing foodstuff -- foodstamp benefits and then some of that money would be spent going towards the state work program. but that is pretty controversial because i think that there is a lack of data on the success of the state work programs and they estimate it would take upwards of a decade to get these things up and running and be able to offer all of the spots required. democrats have rejected this proposal pretty much. during the committee, they did not vote for it at all. it advanced out of the committee on party lines. is passede farm bill with a coalition in the middle of democrats and republicans. also lawmakers who do care about

the snap program but not necessarily have farmers in the district. that seems to be broken and i think we can expect that the farm bill had to be passed in the house with mostly gop members. host: let's take a quick look at your article. the headline, conaway races to nail down farm bill votes before the house floor debate. as you mentioned, they will need some support from mostly republicans. how exactly does that break down? democrats have been pushing their members to oppose it. what are republicans saying to their team? guest: house leadership is certainly selling this as a way to get a component of overhaul ing welfare programs. something to energize the midterms. we get the sense that that is not necessarily following on ears, buts -- on deaf

it is taking a bit of persuasion to get the gop on board. and some members of the house caucus on thursday spoke to the chairman, he says there are concerns about the work requirements of snap and has concerns about the agricultural components of it. the dairy program and there are small dairy producers in his district. i think they're looking to offer some amendments to the bill. they want to be able to offer an amendment in order to have greater support in favor of the bill and i mean it is possible that rural democrats could peel off and vote for it but i think remains -- i think it remains hard to gauge at this point. of course there are members of the republican committee and some persuading as well. it is something that the chairman is working on throughout the weekend because the boat is coming up pretty quick next week. host: and president trump hosted a meeting at the white house recently with both the house and the senate agriculture committee chairs and also the agriculture secretary. what came out of that and do you

think that the house and maybe later the senate version would change because of the white house meeting? guest: i think the white house anding between conaway perdue, they were talking farm bill specifics. meeting,aid after the they didn't really talk about the veto threat that they talked about earlier this week, it was walked back. conaway after the meeting, said that trump is a strong proponent of the work requirements they are proposing. i think that is maybe a little bit of pressure on some of the gop in the house, the white house is on board, maybe fall in line. but i think at the in of the day, the house farm bill does go to conference.

it will be interesting to see if that version can get back to the house, because you know, the the senate agriculture chairman has said he is not interested in giving a large overhaul in snap because it would be extremely challenging to get 60 votes for for something like that. of course that begs the question, is conaway is having trouble getting support for this version which is the most conservative it will ever be, can he get a more moderate version through the house? democrats will probably have to come on at this point, and his relationship with democrats on the back -- ag committee has soured. i think there are a lot of questions about how this will work and i think we're all keeping an eye on whether there will be a presidential veto. host: we will continue to follow you. thank you so much.

texas senators ted cruz and john cornyn recently spoke at the national rifle association national leadership forum in dallas. you can watch the full event tonight at 8:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span. monday, utah senator orrin hatch and connecticut senator richard blumenthal join a forum looking back at the 2001 supreme court case united states versus microsoft. and its lasting influence on antitrust law and technology. hatchto the case, senator chair to the judiciary committee and mr. blumenthal introduced the case in 1998 when he was connecticut's attorney general. that is live monday, starting at noon eastern on c-span. >> crews in puerto rico are still working to restore power after damage created by

hurricane maria lester. on capitol hill, the senate energy and national resources to me held a hearing. along with the ceo of the puerto rico power authority on how much power has been restored. >> good morning, the committee will come to order. we are here today to learn more about the work that has been completed, the work that is still underway as we seek to restore electricity to the people rigo -- the people of puerto rico and discuss moving forward. so much remains to be accomplished. we will also take a close look at the proposal to reform the islands energy sector, such as the governor's proposal with regards to the puerto rico electric power authority and the puerto