A CQ piece from three hours ago ledes thusly:

Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said today that markups will begin the week of May 21 on at least three titles of the 2007 farm bill.

The bill will be huge, contain more corporate welfare than you can shake a stick at, and Peterson wants to deliver a fait accompli to the House:

Peterson reiterated his committee's primacy in the process. "People are misguided if they think the farm bill will be written on the floor . . . it would be a recipe for chaos," he said.

And, though the squeals provoked would be deafening, there's nothing to stop that happening: a closed rule, perhaps even without a motion to recommit.

Now, the Senate will be a whole 'nother story, natch.

But once provisions get added to bills, they're a lot harder (even in the Senate) to get out than to keep out.

The MO proposed by Peterson only makes it more necessary for those of us trying to keep tabs on what's going on (Matt has taken the lead on this) to work with lobbies that are on our side to use their contacts not only to find out what's going on generally, but for copies of legislative texts as they're made available and for help in locating where the bodies are buried - the stinkiest of them, at any rate.

My earlier thoughts on this area from Tuesday.