House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson said Thursday that he now hopes to move a new farm bill by March. Meanwhile, his staff has started briefing farm organizations and other groups this week on possible sources of funding that face resistance from Democrats.
“When I look at the calendar in the first quarter, the first month we get to that has the contiguous weeks that we need is March,” Thompson told reporters Thursday.
Republican aides are pitching three possible sources:
- Reallocating some of the Inflation Reduction Act’s conservation funding. Under budget rules, about $14.4 billion could be put into the farm bill and used to create a permanent baseline for conservation programs while directing as much as $6 billion into shoring up other areas of the legislation;
- Capping or eliminating USDA’s Section 5 authority under the Commodity Credit Corporation, saving $8 billion over 10 years;
- Restricting the way the USDA conducts future updates of the Thrifty Food Plan, the economic model for the cost of eating that’s used to set Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. The TFP restrictions would save an estimated $30 billion over 10 years.
Thompson said the committee is facing funding requests totaling $70 billion to $100 billion above what is available in the current baseline for the farm bill.
According to sources familiar with the GOP proposals, those needs include as much as $30 billion to $50 billion to address requests from farm groups for modifications to commodity programs, including increasing the reference prices in the Price Loss Coverage program.
Proposals to expand crop insurance or increase premium subsidies would cost at least $1 billion to $2 billion. The committee is looking specifically at increasing premium subsidies for beginning farmers and for area-based insurance policies, such as the Supplemental Coverage Option, that provide higher levels of revenue coverage.
Another $2 billion has been requested for export promotion programs.
There also are pending proposals to expand SNAP eligibility to college students and former drug offenders and a third proposal to ensure that SNAP beneficiaries don’t lose their benefits when they take advantage of employment and training programs.
Thompson has been meeting with small groups of Democrats to outline the possible funding sources, but there is little evidence that he has made much headway.
The committee’s top Democrat, David Scott, D-Ga., issued a statement Thursday after the House wrapped up its work for the year blasting House Republicans for the lack of action so far on a new farm bill, despite new House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to move the legislation in December.
“Republicans are going home for the holidays and leaving this critical agricultural legislation undone and without a plan to move forward,” the statement said.
“The failure of the House Republican leadership to support rural America was foreshadowed when they manufactured a debt ceiling crisis, attempted to force a government shutdown, and then proposed an Agriculture Appropriations bill that was so harmful to rural development and research that it was voted down and then abandoned by their own Republican members.
“With no commitment from the House Republican leadership to find additional funds for the House Agriculture Committee’s efforts to improve the farm bill’s safety net, Chairman Thompson is forced to look at cutting other agriculture programs.”
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The statement specifically said that “cutting the Inflation Reduction Act funding for conservation and energy is a non-starter” and that Democrats “oppose in the strongest possible terms all efforts to take food away from Americans facing food insecurity.” The statement didn’t mention the GOP proposal to restrict USDA’s CCC spending authority.
Congress last month was forced to pass a one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill, effectively giving Congress until the end of 2024 to enact a new bill, but the two parties still have failed to reach agreement on key issues, including funding issues.
Thompson told Agri-Pulse that “not all House Democrats” are criticizing House Republicans for the failure to pass a new bill. “Quite frankly, we we've got a great team working, which is a bipartisan team,” Thompson said.
Thompson also insisted that he has had “good, positive discussions” with Democrats over how to fund the bill.
“Bottom line is if we're going to do this, if we're going to win when we do this farm bill, I mean, I would like to include many of the strong bipartisan new proposals that have been put forward by both Democrats and Republicans, but they have to be paid for. And so this is a matter of ... utilizing monies that are within our jurisdiction.”
Noah Wicks contributed to this report.
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