Farm bill extension talks deadlock over market relief, IRA funding

Negotiations over a package of market relief assistance for farmers reached an impasse Saturday after Democratic leaders rejected the latest GOP proposal, and several major farm groups called on lawmakers to oppose a stopgap spending bill if the economic aid is omitted. 

The Republican proposal failed to address a key priority for Democrats – rolling Inflation Reduction Act funding into the farm bill to permanently increase spending levels for conservation programs, a Democratic source said.

“We are waiting for direction to see what we can do to salvage this, if anything,” the source said Saturday morning.

The dispute increases the prospect that lawmakers, at best, can only pass a straight one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill before the end of the year. A farm bill extension was supposed to be included with a continuing resolution that Congress needs to pass by Friday to keep the government funded. 

The farm groups that announced opposition to a CR that lacks ag market relief included the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, National Association of Wheat Growers, American Soybean Association and National Cotton Council.

In a statement, AFBF President Zippy Duvall said, “Our whole country will suffer the consequences if Congress takes farmers and our food supply for granted. For this reason, I call on members of Congress who represent agriculture to stand with farmers by insisting the supplemental spending bill include economic aid for farmers and voting it down if it doesn’t."

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., and the top Republican on the Senate Ag Committee, John Boozman of Arkansas, issued a joint statement Saturday morning saying they could not support the legislation if the economic aid is left out.

“The failure to include economic assistance will have devastating and lasting consequences on our farm families, the rural communities in which they live and American agriculture. For that reason, we intend to oppose any supplemental spending package that does not provide meaningful assistance to our farmers," the lawmakers said. 

Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and the House Ag Committee's ranking  Democrat, David Scott of Georgia, blamed GOP leaders for the stalemate: “Their eleventh-hour offer fell short of what farmers need, shortchanged critical farm bill programs, and steals from critically needed assistance to address recent natural disasters. We can and should do both economic and disaster assistance, not pit one against the other. The coming onslaught of farm foreclosures and retirement sales is on the Republican Leadership.”

Democrats had earlier proposed providing $10 billion in market relief, the cost of which could be fully offset because of a quirk in how the Congressional Budget Office estimates the indirect fiscal impact of moving IRA funding into the bill.

The IRA funding, however, has emerged as a critical sticking point because of the House GOP leadership’s objection to bringing the money into the farm bill baseline and preserving climate guardrails on at least some of the funding. Democrats want to retain climate-related restrictions for IRA funding provided through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

The cost of the GOP's $12 billion aid package would not have been offset but would have instead been considered as emergency spending along with disaster aid, sources said. 

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