House Panel Advances Farm Bill as Partisan Fight Takes Shape

The House Agriculture Committee approved its long-awaited farm bill on May 23 mostly along party lines despite heated objections from some Democrat members.

The $1.5 trillion package, which the committee advanced in a 33-21 vote, includes funding boosts for farm safety net programs, trade promotion, and rural infrastructure. It also expands farmers’ financing options, increases their access to energy efficiency updates, and allocates funding for agricultural research.

Four Democrats joined with the Republican majority to pass the bill out of the committee. But many others decried certain provisions of the bill as nonstarters, suggesting that a funding fight could be in the works.

For example, the bill would remove climate-focused restrictions on billions in Inflation Reduction Act funds to make them available for all conservation practices, a move Democrats and environmental groups strongly oppose.

Another provision would prevent future administrations from making unilateral changes to the Thrifty Food Plan, which serves as the basis for calculating Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for low-income families. Democrats say that measure would result in a $27 billion cut to SNAP funding over the next 10 years, a claim Republicans refuted.

“Saving and cutting are not the same,” Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) noted ahead of the vote. “By reining in executive overreach and preventing future circumvention, the $27 billion in nutrition savings is reinvested into the farm bill.”

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) likewise took issue with his Democrat colleagues’ accusations that the Republican majority lacked empathy. He noted that he had lived on food stamps “when they were actually physical stamps.”

“I served for 26 years in the United States military, oftentimes below the poverty level and using these programs, so I will not be lectured to by people who are saying that I’m trying to cut these benefits. It is not true and it’s disingenuous,” he said.

Nonetheless, Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), the committee’s top Democrat, disavowed the bill as “misguided” and “meanspirited.”

“I cannot and I will not support this bill,” Mr. Scott said. “I will vote no, and I encourage my colleagues to oppose it as well.”

Budding Battle

Despite the many deep-seated divisions on Capitol Hill, the farm bill is one piece of legislation that often receives bipartisan support.

Authorization for the most recent version of the law expired last September, but Congress extended it for another year. Members now have until Sept. 30 to pass a new bill or extend the 2018 version for a second time, and on May 23, the beginnings of a showdown were already starting to take shape.

As other Democrats on the committee echoed Mr. Scott’s disdain for the bill before them, several accused Republicans of shutting them out of the legislative process.

“I am disappointed that we sit here today to consider a farm bill that has fallen victim to partisan politics,” Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) said, calling the bill a “political prop” with no chance of passage by the full House.

Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.), meanwhile, said she and her fellow Democrats “would have loved to have the opportunity to at least get one or two of our priorities in” the bill.

But Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), pushing back on that charge, noted that 40 Democrat-led initiatives had been included in the package, including some proposed by the bill’s detractors.

“To say that this is not a bipartisan bill when you know full well that this bill includes your requested priorities, well, back home, we call that chicken [expletive],” she said.

Ms. Cammack went on to suggest that her Democrat colleagues were following orders to “hold out for a better Dem product in the Senate.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, is currently working on a rival proposal that would funnel funding toward Democrat priorities, including climate-conscious programs and incentives.

In the days before the House panel’s vote, the senator met with Democrats on the committee to urge them to save their support for her bill, a request many of them heeded.

The House bill will now advance to the Rules Committee before heading to the floor for a vote.