Two days after farm bill negotiators declared unity in working together on the 2018 farm bill, the House author of the most controversial proposal on the table — stricter work requirements for food stamp recipients — attacked Senate negotiators as weak-willed. House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway aired his complaint at the same time the House recessed for six weeks, making enactment of the farm bill impossible before mid-November.
“Right now, I don’t get the sense that getting something done has quite the sense of urgency with my Senate colleagues as it does with me,” said Conaway. Besides SNAP, there are disagreements between the House and Senate throughout the bill. The House would eliminate the green-payment Conservation Stewardship Program and loosen the rules for collecting farm subsidies, for example, while the Senate would make only one “manager” per farm, in addition to farmers and their spouses, eligible to receive subsidy payments.
There will be few immediate impacts from the expiration on Sunday of the 2014 farm law. SNAP and crop insurance, which are permanently authorized, will remain in operation. Most commodity supports will run for months, although dairy subsidies lapse in December. Most of the USDA’s land stewardship programs are now in limbo, but its export promotion and international food aid programs will be shuttered.
In a statement, Conaway, a conservative Republican, mentioned SNAP, farm subsidies, and conservation as among a variety of unresolved issues. “It’s just a matter of having the political will to make those hard decisions,” he said. Louisiana Rep. Ralph Abraham, a Republican supporter of stronger work requirements, pointed the finger at Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and said farmers were “caught up in the political games of the swamp.” Stabenow, like Conaway, is one of the “big four” negotiators involved in the day-to-day farm bill talks; Abraham is a junior member of the so-called conference committee on the bill.
“The Senate leaders are working tirelessly on a bipartisan basis to reach a final agreement,” said a spokesperson for Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee. “If House Republicans are serious about getting this done, they should put politics aside and focus on working towards a compromise.”
President Trump has said the farm bill should include stronger work requirements. House Republicans viewed the farm bill as their only chance for welfare reform this year.
Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts and Stabenow wrote a bipartisan farm bill that encourages administrative efficiency in SNAP but leaves the benefits alone. The Republican-written House bill would require an estimated 7 million “work-capable” adults aged 18 to 59 to work at least 20 hours a week or spend equivalent time in job training or workfare. The Senate rejected a similar proposal by a 2-to-1 margin and passed its bill 86-11. The GOP-controlled House passed its bill by two votes on the second try.
At present, SNAP recipients are required to register for work and to accept a suitable job if offered one; the bulk of recipients are children, elderly, or the disabled, and are exempt from the work requirement. Since 1996, so-called able-bodied adults, aged 18 to 49, without dependents are limited to 90 days of food stamps in a three-year period unless they are in an area with high jobless rates or low job availability.
After a meeting last week, the “big four” said in a joint statement, “Each of us is still at the negotiating table, and we remain committed to working together on a Farm Bill. Our conversations are productive, and progress toward an agreement is taking shape. We are going to get this right.”