Lawmakers return from their long Easter recess with the House GOP potentially facing continued turmoil amid a packed pre-election schedule that would appear to leave dwindling chances for passing a new farm bill.
Items on lawmakers’ to-do list include aid for Israel and Ukraine, a possible Senate impeachment trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, funding for replacing the collapsed bridge that has blocked the port of Baltimore, and an April 19 deadline for reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
This week’s congressional schedule will include a joint meeting of the House and Senate to hear from Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., has indicated that he wanted to move a new farm bill this month. He said in an interview with Agri-Pulse Newsmakers ahead of the Easter recess that a new bill was getting “more realistic.”
But the chamber is out of action again the week of April 22, and the committee still isn’t ready to take up the legislation, according to sources, and it’s not clear Thompson is anywhere close to bipartisan agreement on ways to pay for modifications to commodity programs and other changes in the legislation.
A prominent agricultural economist who has advised the committee on policy, Joe Outlaw of Texas A&M University, told Agri-Pulse last week that the committee staff “is farther along than is out there right now” in terms of developing a draft bill. But he acknowledged that the committee is challenged by the funding issue. “Right now it’s all over money.”
Committee Democrats have balked at GOP funding proposals, which include reallocating Inflation Reduction Act money designated for conservation programs and restricting future updates to the economic model that’s used by USDA to set benefit levels for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Getting a farm bill through the House without Democratic support would be very difficult, if not impossible, for Republicans to do, since they only narrowly control the chamber, 218-213.
Meanwhile, there’s little sign that the Senate Agriculture Committee is moving toward marking up a bill.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s letter to colleagues outlining the chamber’s priorities “in the weeks and months ahead” makes no mention of a farm bill.
Schumer, D-N.Y., instead lists such issues as “bipartisan bills that enhance our national security, advance online safety for kids and promote innovation, expand the Child Tax Credit, work on a path forward on TikTok legislation, combat the fentanyl crisis, hold failed bank executives accountable, address rail safety, ensure internet affordability, safeguard cannabis banking, outcompete the Chinese government, lower the cost of prescription drugs like insulin while expanding access to health care, and more.”
Congress has little time scheduled in action after July until the November election, and even the July work period is broken up by the Republican National Convention.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has a tenuous hold on his job as he tries to figure out how to move a foreign aid bill that would include assistance for Ukraine. Ahead of the Easter recess, conservative firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to remove Johnson as speaker and she’s continued to slam him through the Easter break for reaching agreement with Democrats on fiscal 2024 spending legislation.
It’s not clear how many of Greene’s right-wing colleagues would vote for Johnson’s removal, but GOP hardliners are keeping the heat on him.
Many conservatives oppose funding for Ukraine, and the House Freedom Caucus last week laid out a list of conditions for the Baltimore bridge funding that President Joe Biden has promised, including that it be offset by savings elsewhere in the federal budget. The group also calls for exempting the project from federal environmental regulations and wage requirements as well as resuming U.S. exports of liquified natural gas.
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Mayorkas’ fate is relatively certain, although the border security issue that has fueled criticism of him continues to dog Biden’s re-election campaign. The House is expected to transmit the articles of impeachment to the Democratic-controlled Senate on Wednesday, but Schumer likely has the votes to simply dismiss the case without holding a time-consuming trial.
A conservative group, Heritage Action, is putting pressure on senators to vote for a full trial. “In this important election year, conservatives must continue to expose the failures of Biden’s deliberate open-border policies. Any Senator who votes to dismiss the charges without a trial will be turning a blind eye to the problem and is complicit in covering up Mayorkas’ deliberate dereliction of duty,” the group said in an email.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EDT):
Monday, April 8
4 p.m. – USDA releases Crop Progress report.
Tuesday, April 9
2:30 p.m. – Senate State-Foreign Relations Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the U.S. Agency for International Development, 138 Dirksen.
Wednesday, April 10
10 a.m. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the U.S. Agency for International Development, 419 Dirksen.
10 a.m. – Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the U.S. Forest Service, 124 Dirksen.
Thursday, April 11
8:30 a.m. – USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.
10 a.m. – House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing for House members, 2362-A Rayburn.
10:30 a.m. – Commodity Futures Trading Commission agricultural advisory committee meeting, Overland Park, Kansas.
Noon – USDA releases monthly Crop Production report and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.
1 p.m. – House Oversight and Government Accountability Committee hearing, "Oversight of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration," with FDA Commissioner Robert Califf.
Friday, April 12
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