The 2018 Farm Bill is on the home stretch. President Donald Trump is soon expected to sign the massive, $867 billion (over 10 years) bill, officially named the “Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018.”
The bill passed with sweeping bipartisan majorities in both the Senate and House after undergoing a major makeover in light of differing versions passed by those chambers in June of this year.
The separate bills passed by the House and Senate in June would have made some significant policy changes, such as forest management reform, new food stamp work requirements and farm subsidy limitations. However, most of those changes were left out when a “conference committee” of legislators negotiated a compromise bill, which was released Monday night, Dec. 10.
The very next day, the bill cleared the Senate by a vote of 87 to 13. The House passed it the day after that (Wednesday) by a vote of 386 to 47. Some of Congress’ most staunch conservatives voted against it.
Nutrition dominates, forestry foregone
As has been the case in recent decades, this farm bill dedicates over 70 percent of its funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps.” Measures included in the House bill that would have increased work requirements for SNAP recipients were left out of the compromise bill.
In light of catastrophic wildfires devastating Western communities, the House had proposed to increase federal forest management, but the compromise scrapped that proposal. The proposed changes would have exempted many forest management activities from full Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review. Full NEPA reviews, for example, would have been waived for 6,000-acre-or-less salvage logging jobs; hazardous fuel thinning jobs; thinning to protect waters sources; and similar projects.
The House bill would have also required courts to consider the “effects of no action” when forest management projects got litigated. It would have put 60-day limits on preliminary injunctions on forest projects, unless the judge acted to extend the injunction.
Instead of those changes, however, only modest forestry changes were made in the compromise bill:
• Vegetation management on greater sage-grouse and mule deer habitat can be categorically excluded from full NEPA review on areas under 4,500 acres.
• “Good Neighbor Authority” has been reauthorized, with expansions. Now, not only states but tribes and counties can enter into agreements with the Forest Service to assist in forest restoration activities.
• $20 million per year through 2023 is approved for “cross-boundary hazardous fuel projects.” Grants to state foresters are authorized to support hazardous fuels reduction projects on both federal and non-federal land.
• At the same time, however, the bill cuts the funding for hazardous fuel reduction on federal land by $100 million per year (from $760 million to $660 million annually).
Increased subsidies for commodities
Not every sector was shortchanged by the bill.
For dairy farmers, the “margin protection program” was updated to encourage smaller producers to participate in the safety-net program, which includes lower insurance premiums and a higher margin.
The new farm bill also reauthorizes federal crop insurance and farm commodity programs, which provide price floors and income support for covered commodities and farmers. It expands crop insurance coverage to new crops including fruits, vegetables, hops and barley.
Certain payments, such as Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage payments, have been expanded to include non-farming nieces, nephews and cousins of farm operators. One Senator, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), has been very vocal in his opposition to subsidies to non-farmers, which he says are costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Although his amendments to close these “loopholes” were included in the Senate bill, the conference committee left them out of the final bill.
Livestock-specific disaster programs were reauthorized in the bill, with a few revisions:
• Livestock Indemnity Program—Provides assistance to livestock producers in the event of the death or forced sale of livestock due to an eligible cause of loss. The new bill updates the eligible causes of loss to include disease and deaths of un-weaned livestock.
• Livestock Forage Program—Provides feed cost replacement for livestock producers in the event of forage loss due to severe drought.
• Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm?raised Fish (ELAP)—Provides assistance to producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm?raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses not covered under other disaster programs. Will now cover the inspection of herds for cattle fever ticks. Removes the payment limitation on ELAP assistance.
The conservation title of the bill was fully funded. Highlights include:
• Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) got an increase in acreage cap from 24 million to 27 million acres by 2023. CRP soil rental rates were decreased.
• Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) got a funding decrease.
• Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) got a funding increase.
• Agriculture Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) got a funding increase.
• Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) got a funding increase and some administrative changes.
• Water Source Protection Program, a new program under the forestry title, was funded at $10 million per year through 2023. “End water users” can partner with Forest Service on largescale projects to restore watersheds on national forests.
Other topics and spending
One provision included in the original House bill would have required the agencies to make vacant federal grazing allotments available to grazing permit holders if the permittee’s current allotment is unusable because of natural disaster, court-issued injunction, or conflict with wildlife. This measure was excluded from the final bill.
The bill funds a new National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank and instructs the bank to prioritize a stockpile of foot-and-mouth disease vaccine in the event of an outbreak.
The compromise bill also made agricultural production of hemp legal in the United States by removing its designation as a drug akin to marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act.
With the farm bill battle in the rear-view, Congress and the president will continue to look at other spending bills before government funding expires on Dec. 21. As negotiations continue on funding for Commerce-Justice-Science; Financial Services; Homeland Security (DHS); Interior-Environment; State-Foreign Operations; and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, President Trump has indicated that his top priority is border security.
“I am proud,” he said in a televised meeting with Democrat leaders on Dec. 11, “to shut down the government for border security.” — Theodora Johnson, WLJ correspondent
