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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
House Republicans revived their farm bill and its expanded work rules for food stamp recipients by narrowly passing the legislation with the help of conservatives who had used the measure as leverage to get the House to act on immigration policy.
If history is a guide, there’s little chance Congress will enact a new farm bill this year. Congress hasn’t enacted a farm bill in the same year it was first introduced since 1990, which is what lawmakers are trying to do this year.
Leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee have reached agreement on a bipartisan farm bill that would keep the 2014 farm law largely intact while avoiding a partisan fight over food stamps.
House Republican leaders pick up the pieces this week after another embarrassing defeat on a farm bill, which was weighed down yet again by controversial food stamp reforms before sinking because of an intra-party feud over immigration policy.
The White House has endorsed the House farm bill ahead of a contentious floor debate, saying the legislation would provide certainty to farmers while imposing “common-sense work requirements” on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
House GOP leaders hope to pass a farm bill this week over likely unified Democratic opposition, but Republicans head into the debate divided over critical amendments on sugar policy, crop insurance and other issues.
With a farm bill floor debate looming next week, House members have filed more than half a dozen amendments attacking various aspects of the crop insurance program and others seeking to tighten rules for commodity subsidies and to roll back the sugar program.
President Donald Trump told key lawmakers Thursday that the tighter work rules for food stamp recipients in the House GOP farm bill move "in the right direction," but he stopped short of threatening to veto legislation that doesn't include them.
President Donald Trump is using a meeting with the House and Senate Agriculture committee chairmen today to emphasize that a new farm bill needs to tighten work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said.
A congressional hearing on SNAP “program integrity” provided a snapshot of the debate over the most controversial aspect of the proposed House farm bill – that in order to receive benefits, all able-bodied adults between 18 and 59 years of age work or be in an approved training program for at least 20 hours per week.
