House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway has backed off dramatic changes to SNAP in the stalled $87 billion farm bill, sealing a deal with ranking Democrat Collin Peterson and sending a version of the bill to the Senate, according to press reports.
“The final version of the so-called farm bill won’t have the new training regime that Republicans wanted to add to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though there could still be other changes that Republicans sought,” HuffPost reported.
A spokesperson for Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts said the Kansas Republican needs to read the joint farm bill, but added, “it’s a good sign,” according to DTN.
The farm bill has been stalled in a conference committee for months as the “four corners,” the so-called farm bill leaders in the House and Senate, tried to make progress to meld the radically different Senate and House bills. House ag chairman Conaway had stood firm on demanding stricter work requirements and changes to eligibility rules for food stamp recipients. But the measures were uniformly opposed by House Democrats, so there was little chance the changes would appear in a farm bill written under their control.
Now with the Democrats poised to take control of the Congress, Peterson appears to have shifted his stance. Just last week, observers were saying there was only a 50/50 chance of a farm bill being reached in this session, but progress appeared to be made by Friday morning.
Lawmakers had insisted they wanted to get a deal done by the end of the session to avoid scrapping the farm bill altogether and starting anew with the incoming Congress. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the farm bill is one of two items that “absolutely have to be accomplished” by year’s end.
Conaway, who drafted the SNAP package, has been a dogged advocate to move people to work and to help them move up the employment ladder. Foes say there won’t be enough money for high-quality job training and people will be disqualified unfairly from SNAP by the paperwork maze that will accompany the work-or-training rules.