A combine harvester is used to harvest soybeans in a field on a farm on October 14, 2019 in Rippey, Iowa. The U.S. House Agriculture Committee this week approved a bill to renew agriculture and nutrition programs. The measure faces a difficult path to becoming law. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Republicans advanced their long-awaited new farm bill through the U.S. House Agriculture Committee this week, despite opposition from most Democrats who could delay the bill’s further progress.
The massive $1.5 trillion legislation would set policy and funding levels for key food, agriculture and conservation programs over the next five years. After a marathon draft on Thursday, the Republican Party-drafted bill cleared the committee after midnight Friday, 33-21, with four Democratic votes.
The committee’s bill would increase safety net payments for certain staple crops, expand eligibility for disaster relief and increase funding for specialty crops, organic farmers and dairy farmers.
This is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over ten 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 advance the bill.
After hours of heated debate and criticism from Democrats, support from the four lawmakers across the aisle appeared to overwhelm House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican who was the bill’s lead sponsor. to surprise.
His microphone took him aside as the voting ended: “That was bipartisan. I didn’t see that coming.”
Changes ahead
But the tepid Democratic support likely won’t be enough to pass this version of the bill in the House of Representatives.
A handful of Republicans typically oppose farm bills due to fiscal concerns. And even Democrats who voted for the bill in the House committee said major changes are needed before it can become law.
The measure does not receive support from Democrats in the Senate or the White House.
“Everyone knows this bill would never become law. The Senate will not accept it and the Administration will not accept it,” Representative David Scott of Georgia, the top Democrat on the committee, said of the price increase. “And while this bill is a colossal misstep, it nonetheless begins our journey toward passing a farm bill.”
As the House committee debated the bill, Michigan Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow said in an interview Thursday that the House proposal has no chance in the Senate.
“It tears apart the agriculture and food coalition and does not have the votes to vote on it in the House of Representatives. And certainly not in the Senate,” Stabenow told States Newsroom.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said earlier this week that the draft farm bill would damage the coalition that has traditionally rallied behind farm bills and “raises the real possibility that we won’t be able to get a farm bill through the process.”
The committee vote — eight months after the previous farm bill expired — was the first step in what is expected to remain a protracted dispute over food and agricultural policy.
Many agricultural commodity groups have supported the bill, but it faces opposition from both hunger advocacy groups and fiscal conservatives.
Heritage Foundation, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense joined this week with the Environmental Working Group to oppose the legislation, which they characterized as a government giveaway to favored special interests.
The groups, which span the ideological spectrum, argue that the proposed legislation would spend tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, which would overwhelmingly go to a relatively small number of farmers who grow certain staple crops.
Financing dispute
Historically, farm bills have brought together lawmakers across party lines, uniting around regional interests. The massive bill combines support for agricultural producers, energy and conservation programs on farmland, and food and nutrition programs for families in need.
But committee members are deeply divided over the restrictions on nutrition and climate programs that provide the funding mechanisms for the Republican bill.
“This is a very good bill policy-wise,” said Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat. “But how do you do your math on the payment side?”
The main dispute for Democrats is a funding calculation that would place limits on the formula that calculates benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, the food assistance program formerly called food stamps.
“One of the reasons the small parts of this bill are so difficult to negotiate is because the big parts and the funding mechanism are so fundamentally flawed,” said Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree.
The bill would limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, the formula that calculates SNAP benefits. This would result in cuts of nearly $30 billion over 10 years, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, lawmakers say.
“If we want a farm bill that can be passed into law with the bipartisan levels necessary to get out of this committee, it is imperative that we go back to the negotiating table and remove this provision,” Caraveo said.
Caraveo, who faces a tough re-election in a rollout district, ultimately voted for the bill.
Democrat Jahana Hayes of Connecticut offered an amendment that would have made the changes to the program. But after more than two hours of passionate debate on the issue Thursday evening, the amendment failed on a party-line vote, 25-29.
The farm bill must remain budget neutral, so lawmakers must fit their proposals into a baseline projection of how much the government would spend over the next decade if the current farm law were extended.
The House Republican bill would offset increases in payments for farmers by imposing restrictions on SNAP and a discretionary account at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The bill passed by the committee would place limits on the USDA Commodity Credit Corporation account and eliminate climate-friendly policy requirements for approximately $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 taking away this authority from a Secretary of Agriculture, perhaps because you don’t like a particular program, is completely misplaced. It is not thinking into the future.”
Slow progress in the Senate
On the Senate side, Stabenow released an overview of her own farm bill proposal in early May, but said she is waiting for comment from Republicans before moving forward.
Stabenow’s bill would, among other things, expand eligibility for low-income nutrition programs like SNAP. Stabenow made public a summary of the bill, but no legal text.
Arkansas Republican John Boozman, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Thursday he supports the direction of the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill but was not optimistic about quick moves in his chamber.
“We have a lot of headwinds,” Boozman said in an interview with States Newsroom Thursday.
Boozman said he plans to release the language in the coming weeks, but indicated lawmakers could be headed for another extension if they can’t make progress quickly.
“When I visit the farmer groups, I think their attitude is that rather than just do something, if it has no meaning, we better wait,” 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 issue
The farm bill is generally considered ‘must-pass’ legislation. Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping legislation every five years to establish mandatory funding levels and policies. The current farm law expired at the end of September 2023, but most programs have continued through extensions.
The current extension lasts until the end of September, but it’s not clear whether lawmakers will meet that deadline — especially as attention turns to election campaigns in the summer and fall.
The votes on the farm bill could provide fuel in the upcoming elections.
As the House committee debated the measure Thursday, the Republican candidate in the race for Stabenow in the Michigan Senate criticized Democratic candidate and committee member Elissa Slotkin for her position on the bill. Republican Mike Rogers told X (formerly Twitter) that Slotkin had not focused enough on the bill.
More negotiations ahead
As the House committee debated the farm bill increase for 13 hours, both Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that the bill would need more negotiations before it could become law.
Rep. Frank Lucas, an Oklahoma Republican and longtime committee member who chaired the panel from 2011 to 2015, characterized the committee vote as “the first step of a long journey.”
“Now we ultimately need to work with each other to advance a comprehensive commission product,” Lucas said.
“As we begin this process, I want to remind all my colleagues that the real fight is not here in the Ag Committee, but on the floor of the United States House and in the conference committee. We will resolve our differences with the U.S. Senate.”
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.
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