Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), the ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, released a farm bill framework on June 11 that is similar to the GOP-written farm bill that the House Agriculture Committee passed, but with fewer policy or funding details.
At a news briefing, Boozman said the Senate Republican committee staff has a text, but it will not be released. An aide said the committee does not have a final score from the Congressional Budget Office, but that savings would be found within the $1.5 trillion bill to pay for changes.
When asked how much the bill would cost, Boozman did not provide details, but said, “We are using the Sen. Stabenow approach.” When Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) released her farm bill, she said it would not cost more than current budget authority plus $5 billion over 10 years that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said could be found and added to the bill.
At the news media briefing and in a statement, Boozman emphasized that more money is needed for the farm safety net and that the GOP bill would provide it.
Boozman said, “From the onset of this process, we have sought to draft a farm bill that reflects the needs of stakeholders. The world has changed dramatically since the 2018 bill became law, and the unprecedented challenges and economic uncertainty that farmers face now are only projected to get worse in the coming years.
“Our framework released today meets that call by modernizing the farm safety net, facilitating the expansion of access to overseas markets, fostering breakthroughs in agricultural research and growing the rural communities our farmers, ranchers and foresters call home—all while making a historic investment in conservation and protecting nutrition programs that help Americans in need.”
Boozman said he has been “proud to partner” with Stabenow on other issues and looks forward to working with her on “a bipartisan farm bill that meets the needs of farmers, ranchers, foresters, rural communities and consumers nationwide.”
Now that he has released the Senate GOP framework, Boozman said he and other committee members “have to sit around the table like this and be serious about getting the farm bill done or agree to disagree and start working on an extension” of the 2018 Farm Bill. The 2018 bill expired on Sept. 30, 2023, but has already been extended through Sept. 30, 2024.
In response to questions, Boozman said he does not believe it would be necessary to consider an extension of the 2018 farm bill until after the November presidential election, when it might also be possible to write a new farm bill.
Using a series of slides, Boozman said the farm bill safety net needs to be improved because farm commodity prices are falling while input costs have risen and remain high.
Boozman also said the bill would require that all future rewrites of the Thrifty Food Plan, used to set benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), be budget neutral.
The Senate bill would also tighten up SNAP overpayments, which a slide showed are now at $91 billion per year, almost as much as the cost of the crop insurance program and more than commodity and conservation programs.
Like the House bill, the Senate bill would move the conservation budget authority—estimated at between $14 billion and $20 billion—in the Inflation Reduction Act into the farm bill, while removing the guardrails that require Inflation Reduction Act money be spent on climate-related conservation programs.
The Senate bill does not officially “suspend” Title V of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Charter Act like the House bill does. Boozman repeatedly declined to say that the Senate bill would “suspend” Title V authority, saying that the bill would “reign in” spending “through” Title V and increase transparency in the use of the CCC, USDA’s $30 billion line of credit at the Treasury which the Agriculture secretary can use to address almost any farm problem.
Former President Donald Trump and his Agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, used the CCC to provide payments to farmers in reaction to reduced agricultural product sales to China after Trump put tariffs on Chinese products. President Joe Biden and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack have used that authority to establish the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities, which Republicans have criticized.
Asked whether Trump in a second term might need the authority to provide payments to farmers if he imposes steeper tariffs on Chinese products, an aide said that if farm prices or incomes fall due to decreased exports, the higher reference prices should generate payments.
Like the House GOP bill, the Senate bill contains a provision to stop states from passing measures like California’s Prop 12, which requires all pork sold in the state to come from animals raised under certain conditions. The Senate bill would cover all products that a federally inspected, an aide said.
The House GOP bill would use $27 billion in savings from making the Thrifty Food Plan budget neutral and avoiding future noninflationary increases in SNAP benefits to fund other nutrition program increases, trade promotion programs and specialty crop programs. It would also use the savings from suspending Title V of the CCC Charter Act to pay for increases in reference prices, although there is a disagreement between the House Agriculture Committee Republicans and the Congressional Budget Office over how much in savings that provision would generate.
The bill includes many other provisions, which may be found in the documents that Boozman released.
Early reactions
A few lawmakers and some farm groups issued responses to the farm bill framework.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) said, “House Republicans are eager to build on this momentum and enact a comprehensive farm bill that meets the needs across the agricultural value chain.”
Rep. David Scott (D-GA-13), the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee, said, “By copying the approach taken by House Agriculture Republicans, the Senate Agriculture Republican minority has chosen to ignore Democratic warnings by putting forth policies, particularly on nutrition, that Democrats cannot and will not accept.”
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said, “This is encouraging progress in the Senate, but there is much work to be done. There are stark differences between the two outlines and we urge Chairwoman Stabenow and ranking member Boozman to find common ground on the important issues that farmers and ranchers face.”
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) President Mark Eisele said, “This Senate farm bill framework understands the full threat of a foreign animal disease outbreak on U.S. soil and acknowledges that cattle farmers and ranchers carry out vital work, through voluntary conservation programs, to preserve our nation’s natural resources.
“NCBA welcomes this positive step forward and urges the Senate to follow the ranking member’s lead, as the policy ideas in this framework have already received bipartisan support in the House.” — Jerry Hagstrom, DTN political correspondent
