WASHINGTON – Republicans pushed their long-awaited up-to-date farm bill through the U.S. House Agriculture Committee this week, despite opposition from most Democrats that could delay further advancement of the bill.
The massive $1.5 trillion bill would set policy and funding levels for key food, agriculture and conservation programs for the next five years. After a marathon meeting on Thursday, the Republican-authored bill passed the committee after midnight on Friday by a vote of 33 to 21, with four Democrats voting in favor.
The committee’s bill would augment “safety net” payments to farms for certain crops, expand eligibility for disaster assistance, and augment funding for specialty crops, organic farmers, and dairy farmers.
It is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years. A title-by-title summary of the 942-page bill can be found Here.
Democrats Don Davis of North Carolina, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado and Eric Sorenson of Illinois joined all Republicans on the committee in voting to forward the bill.
After hours of heated debate and criticism from Democrats, the support of the four lawmakers from both parties seemed to surprise House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican who was the bill’s lead sponsor.
His microphone caught his remark at the end of the vote: “That was bipartisan. I did not expect that.”
Changes are coming
But the Democrats’ muted support is probably not enough to get this version of the bill through the House of Representatives.
A handful of Republicans typically oppose farm bills on budgetary grounds, and even Democrats who voted for the bill in the House committee said it would need to be fundamentally changed before it could become law.
The measure is not supported by Democrats in the Senate or the White House.
“Everyone knows this bill was never going to become law. The Senate is not going to pass it and the administration is not going to pass it,” said Representative David Scott of Georgia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, during the vote. “And while this bill is a huge misstep, it is still the beginning of our path to passing a farm bill.”
As the House committee debated the bill, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview Thursday that the House proposal had no chance in the Senate.
“It tears apart the agri-food coalition and does not have the votes needed to pass the House of Representatives. And certainly not the Senate,” Stabenow told States Newsroom.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said earlier this week that the draft farm bill would harm the coalition, which has traditionally stood united behind farm bills, and “raises the real possibility of failing to get farm bills through the process.”
The vote in committee – which came eight months after the previous agricultural law expired – was the first step in what is likely to be a lengthy dispute over food and agricultural policy.
Many agricultural companies support the bill, but it faces resistance from anti-hunger advocacy groups and fiscal conservatives.
The Heritage Foundation, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense joined with the Environmental Working Group this week to protest the bill, which they call a government gift to favored special interests.
The groups, which span the ideological spectrum, claim that the bill would spend tens of billions of dollars in subsidies that would largely benefit a relatively tiny number of farmers growing certain crops.
Financing dispute
In the past, farm bills have brought together lawmakers from across party lines and united regional interests. The comprehensive bill combines support for agricultural producers, energy and conservation programs for farmland, and food and nutrition programs for families in need.
But committee members are deeply divided over restrictions on food and climate programs that form the funding mechanism for the Republican bill.
“Policy-wise, this is a very good bill,” said Democrat Angie Craig of Minnesota. “But what about how the payments are calculated?”
The Key dispute Democrats are proposing a funding calculation that would place limits on the formula used to calculate benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food assistance program formerly known as food stamps.
“One of the reasons it is so difficult to negotiate on the small points of this bill is because the big points and the funding mechanism are fundamentally flawed,” said Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine.
The bill would limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula used to calculate SNAP benefits, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would result in spending cuts of nearly $30 billion over 10 years, lawmakers say.
“If we want a farm bill that can pass with the bipartisan support it needs to pass this committee, we need to go back to the negotiating table and remove this provision,” Caraveo said.
Caraveo, who faces a difficult re-election in an undecided district, ultimately voted for the bill.
Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes proposed an amendment that would have removed the changes to the program, but after more than two hours of passionate debate Thursday night, the amendment failed in a caucus vote by 25 to 29.
The farm bill must remain budget-neutral, meaning lawmakers must place their proposals within a baseline forecast that determines how much the government would spend over the next decade if the current farm bill were extended.
The House Republican bill would offset the augment in payments to farmers through caps on the SNAP program and a discretionary account at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The bill passed by committee would set limits on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s discretionary account with the Commodity Credit Corporation and remove climate-friendly strategy requirements for about $13 billion in conservation projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Farmers agree that this is good money that has come to all of our states and it is critically important,” Pingree said. “So to strip that authority away from a secretary of agriculture, perhaps because you don’t like a program, is completely misguided. That is not a forward-looking approach.”
Slow progress in the Senate
On the Senate side, Stabenow published his own draft Suggestion for the farm bill in early May, but said she is waiting for Republicans’ language before they can move forward.
Stabenow’s bill would, among other things, augment eligibility for nutrition programs such as SNAP for low-income people. Stabenow released a summary of the bill, but no legislative text.
John Boozman, Republican of Arkansas and the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Thursday he supports the direction of the farm bill taken by the House Agriculture Committee but is not sanguine that anything will be passed quickly in his house.
“We have a lot of headwinds,” Boozman said in an interview with States Newsroom Thursday.
Boozman said he plans to announce the language in the coming weeks, but suggested lawmakers could face another extension if they cannot make rapid progress.
“When I visit the farmer organizations, I notice that their attitude is that if it doesn’t make sense, we’d better wait rather than just do something,” Boozman told States Newsroom. “This is a five-year commitment. And again, if we don’t make meaningful changes to improve farmer safety, it’s probably not worth it.”
Election topic
The Farm Bill is widely considered a must-pass law. Lawmakers must rewrite the comprehensive law every five years to set mandatory funding levels and policies. The current Farm Bill expired at the end of September 2023, but most programs have been continued through extensions.
The current extension runs through the end of September, but it is unclear whether lawmakers will meet that deadline – especially as attention turns to election campaigns in the summer and fall.
The votes on the agricultural law could be crucial for the decision-maker in the upcoming elections.
As the House committee debated the measure on Thursday, the Republican candidate in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race to replace Stabenow criticized Democratic candidate and committee member Elissa Slotkin for her stance on the bill. Republican Mike Rogers took to X (formerly Twitter) to say Slotkin had not adequately addressed the bill.
Further negotiations are pending
As the House committee debated the farm bill’s surcharges for 13 hours, both Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that further negotiations on the bill were needed before it could go into effect.
Republican Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, who chaired the panel from 2011 to 2015, called the committee’s vote “the first step of a long road.”
“Now we ultimately need to work together to advance a comprehensive committee product,” Lucas said.
“As we begin this process, I want to remind all my colleagues that the real fight is not here in the Agriculture Committee, but in the House floor and the House Appropriations Committee. We will resolve our differences with the United States Senate.”
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
