Marc Heller in the Register-Star reports that even though Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Chris Gibson crow about being on their respective agricultural committees, they are being completely shut out of negotiations about the current farm bill. This every-five-year agricultural giveway bill is usually hatched out in committees, but this year's congressional gridlock gave control to the "supercommittee." “It’s never coming back to the ag committee,” Mary Kay Thatcher, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau Federation, told Heller. “I want to be heard on this topic before decisions are made,” Gillibrand said in a recent interview in her Capitol Hill office, Heller reports. Gibson is also trying to get funds from fellow Republicans to help low-income New Yorkers with their heating bills, Kyle Glazier reports in Capitol Confidential. Gibson, R-Kinderhook, signed a letter with several Democrats to the House Appropriations Committee urging against a change in funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The change would mean $152.3 million less for New York this year under the current House Appropriations bill. Read the agriculture story in the Register-Star and read the heating story in Capitol Confidential.