Lawmakers who represent rural districts are urging their colleagues to act fast on the $1 trillion farm bill reauthorization, hoping to avert a growing rebellion among conservatives who want to shrink government spending.
A revolt was ignited among members on the right flank of the Republican Party against GOP leadership earlier this month after members expressed frustrations with the debt ceiling deal that was brokered between Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Joe Biden. The hard-line conservatives later threatened to stall action on the floor in response, lamenting McCarthy’s agreement to raise the debt limit in exchange for some spending cuts.
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The group was especially upset about a provision in the debt limit bill that could expand the number of people who receive federal food aid, a measure GOP lawmakers sought to restrict by adding increased work requirements. A similar measure tucked into the farm bill package could once again stoke the anger of some hard-liners — which could sink the bill if concerns aren’t met.
The farm bill is a legislative package passed by Congress roughly every five years. The bill includes measures that are responsible for funding programs crucial to farming communities across the country that affect what crops are harvested and how they are grown.
The most recent iteration of the farm bill was passed as the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, which is set to expire at the end of September. The farm bill easily passed the House and Senate in December 2018, as both parties have historically favored extending the key legislation.
The House Agriculture Committee has already begun drafting legislative text as lawmakers push to hold a series of hearings as quickly as possible over the next two months.
“When you're a farmer, you don't get the leisure of deciding that you want to push harvest back for another couple of months because you can't agree with the policy guys,” said Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), who sits on the committee. “We can't be kicking the can down the road for a farmer when they're depending on these programs to be successful.”
But negotiations are expected to heat up, especially as hard-line conservatives push for stricter restrictions with the SNAP provisions.
The current farm bill reauthorized SNAP benefits to help provide food assistance as well as employment and training programs for low-income individuals and families across the country, which are set to expire in September. Now, Republicans are likely to push for increased work requirements, setting them on a collision course with Senate Democrats who say they will not negotiate the program’s benefits.
“The only real change there is that we've put in work requirements for able-bodied adults, up to 54 without dependents and children, to put in 20 hours of job development work or job seeking or job skills development in order to be eligible for SNAP,” said Rep. John Duarte (R-CA), who also sits on the House Agriculture Committee.
Republicans pushed for strict work requirements in the debt limit bill, but many of those proposed measures were diminished during negotiations. Frustrated, conservatives are beginning to push even harder for those restrictions to be included.
“The work requirements are very popular in my district, and I've got the 18th-highest poverty level in an American district,” Duarte said. “So we have many people relying on the SNAP program, and still the sentiment is able-bodied adults need to work or seek work if they're going to ask for this public benefit.”
But other Republicans such as Nunn are urging their colleagues for swift passage of the bill, pointing to the other provisions included in the legislative package that are crucial for farmers.
The legislation includes different programs that provide crop insurance for farmers as well as provisions to ensure access to healthy foods for low-income families. Since its inception in the 1930s, the farm bill has focused on three goals: keeping prices fair for farmers and consumers, maintaining an adequate food supply nationwide, and preserving the country’s natural resources.
“This is a must-pass piece of legislation,” the Iowa Republican said. “If we like having food on our plate, that means we’ve got to be able to grow food in the field. And this is a challenge if we drop the ball on a farm bill because we're focused on … a bumper-sticker-level policy to just cut [spending] without a real plan to be efficient.”
House Democrats have also chimed in, pointing to measures such as commodity protection that help keep prices affordable. Some members warn that a delay in passage could have a devastating impact on family farms, which are already disappearing from the country at a rapid rate.
“If somehow we're not able to make a farm bill work, I mean, it's really going to hurt our family farmers [and] our producers,” said Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL).
Sorensen acknowledged concerns around the SNAP requirements being pushed by his GOP colleagues, noting it’s “concerning” that the “aging population is now going to be forced to work to get the benefits that they need for food security.” However, he signaled that Democrats on the Agriculture Committee would continue to work closely with Republicans to get bipartisan legislation on the House floor.
“I think this gives us an opportunity of really finding ways to work together across the partisan divide, to find solutions,” Sorensen said. “This gives us an opportunity to prove to our communities that we can work together as opposed to the political power that one political party has and really shutting things down.”
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Nunn echoed similar sentiments, underscoring the importance of advancing a bill that can also make it through the Democratic-led Senate.
“We're going to work hard across the aisle because this also has to make it through the Senate,” he said. “And it's got to make it to the president. And I don't want to see a situation where you end up losing the farm bill because we've made it impossible to get to the resolute desk.”