Negotiators “are nearing agreement on many of the issues” in the farm bill, said Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts on Tuesday, although one committee member said he doubted there will be an agreement this year. “As with any good legislation, everyone will get something, but not everyone will get everything they want,” said Roberts. “That is how we get things done in the Agriculture Committee.”
The biggest issue dividing Senate and House negotiators is the demand by House Republicans for stricter work requirements for SNAP recipients. Farm policy expert Mary Kay Thatcher of Syngenta said the issue may be out of the hands of House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway. “I suspect this is a [Speaker] Paul Ryan and [GOP] leadership call,” said Thatcher on the Adams on Agriculture program.
“At the moment, I don’t see the GOP budging,” said Thatcher, pointing to calls by President Trump, Ryan, and Majority Whip Steve Scalise for the farm bill to include the GOP proposal.
Earlier in the day, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said there were few signs of progress on the farm bill, suggesting lawmakers are “more apt to get a one-year extension” of the 2014 farm policy law that expired on Sept. 30. He contrasted the divisive House farm bill, passed on a party-line vote, with the bipartisan Senate farm bill. “I can’t see why we can’t just pass it in the lame duck session,” he told reporters.