The House could debate the new farm bill as early as January or February, said House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway, meaning that very soon farm-state lawmakers “are going to have some hard decisions to make.” The committee faces expensive proposals to expand commodity supports, ag research, and conservation programs when there is no additional money to pay for them.
During a teleconference, Conaway said some potential elements of the farm bill would appear first as stand-alone bills in coming weeks as a way to test support for them. For the most part, the 2018 farm bill will be a “fine-tuning” of the 2014 law, he said, though there will be “bold” reforms in food stamps that will encourage participants to find work or improve their skills so they aren’t reliant on federal help to buy food. “That should be the metric of success,” Conaway said, rather than the enrollment total.
Previously, the chairman said the House might debate the farm bill before the end of this year. That seems unlikely, since the Republican-controlled House will be occupied with tax reform this month, and in December, it faces a showdown on funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year. Farm lobbyists are dubious about a fast start in the new year. “Seems to me we are going to be tied up with taxes for a while,” said Mary Kay Thatcher of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Conaway and the top Democrat on House Ag, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, have traded ideas for the farm bill and have requested cost estimates on some of the bill’s potential components. “The biggest problem is we haven’t got any money,” Peterson said last month. The committee leaders have kept their work under wraps.
“They want to minimize the grief and rush it through” without adequate review, said economist Vince Smith of Montana State University, a critic of crop subsidies and crop insurance. One veteran lobbyist says the plan to keep the bill under wraps could backfire, because lawmakers might be reluctant to support a bill they did not write. Still, the Republican majority has relied on that approach throughout the year, with leaders hatching major legislation with few public hearings and limited consultation with the rank and file.
By one estimate, the requests for a doubling of ag research spending; a restoration of cuts in conservation programs; improvements to cotton and dairy supports; realignment of the county yields used in determining Agriculture Risk Coverage subsidies; higher reference prices for Price Loss Coverage subsidies; and reallocating the “base” acres eligible for farm payments would add $15 billion a year to farm bill costs. Some 340 people spoke at Agriculture Committee listening sessions around the country last summer, and “not one of them asked for less money. We are going to have some hard decisions to make,” said Conaway.
Although there are rumors that Conaway will propose food stamp cuts of around $10 billion over a decade, he said he is focused on writing good policy. “I have no idea the impact that will have on the fiscal side,” he said. Food stamps account for three-fourths of farm bill spending.
“Farm bills are all about finding the money,” said economist Joe Glauber during a think-tank discussion of the future of food stamps earlier this week. The House defeated a farm bill for the first time ever in 2013 when Tea Party-influenced Republicans demanded $40 billion in cuts — the largest in a generation — and Democrats opposed any reductions.
Conaway said he wanted Democratic support for the farm bill so that he can roll up “a big vote in the House” to give the bill momentum. The chairman said, “I have no expectation there will be 218” Republicans voting for the bill. In the House, 218 votes is usually the minimum required to pass a bill. At present, the GOP holds 239 seats and the Democrats 194. There are roughly five dozen Tea Party-influenced Republicans, who often vote for smaller spending, which jeopardizes GOP control of legislation.
Two reform-minded senators, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, filed a bill to eliminate federal subsidies for the purchase of crop insurance policies that include the so-called harvest price option. The popular provision indemnifies producers for losses if a crop’s price at harvest time is higher than the price guaranteed when the policy was purchased in the spring. A companion bill was filed in the House by Rep. John Duncan of Tennessee.
And Reps. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska filed legislation to help young and beginning farmers by making access to farmland and crop insurance coverage more affordable.
Congress has not passed a farm bill on time since 1990. With commodity prices in a trough and farm income in a slump since 2013, farm groups say it is vital to complete the 2018 bill before the 2014 law expires next fall.