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<p>Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.</p>
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Witnesses at a House Ag hearing on nutrition programs called for a stronger emphasis on health outcomes and improving job opportunities for those receiving food assistance. Committee members, meanwhile, used the hearing to vocalize their positions on potential reforms in the coming farm bill.
Congressional approval of the debt ceiling agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has triggered a new debate about the impact of the changes made to SNAP work requirements, with Republicans insisting they take another crack at the issue during the upcoming farm bill.
The House Agriculture Committee is set to hold its first hearing this year on farm bill nutrition programs, while a Senate Agriculture subcommittee this week will analyze the horticulture title.
The GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday evening to avert a first-ever government default, impose caps on federal spending and make the first major changes to SNAP work requirements in decades.
Leaders of the House and Senate Ag committees are in agreement that the debt limit has taken the issue of SNAP work requirements off the table for the farm bill debate.
House Republicans who have been struggling unsuccessfully for years to tighten work rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program scored a win in the debt limit negotiations that would expand the requirements to people in their early 50s, but President Joe Biden also won key new exemptions for veterans and people who are homeless.
The chief economist for Senate Ag Committee’s Republican staff says the Congressional Budget Office’s new farm program forecast does nothing to help lower the cost of making improvements in commodity programs that ag groups are seeking.
A key House lawmaker defended the tightening of work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as a way to reduce federal spending, in an interview on Agri-Pulse Newsmakers.
A key House Republican wants to reinstate a restriction on USDA’s use of its Commodity Credit Corp. Rep. Andy Harris, who chairs the House Ag Appropriations Subcommittee, claims Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack misused the CCC to fund the $3 billion Partnerships in Climate-Smart Commodities initiative.
