— Some new farm bill reality from veteran sources:
• Says one farm bill veteran: “It takes a long time to draft and score a 12-title farm bill, and that is after there is a top line agreement. With no Senate bill, no Senate markup, it just seems highly unlikely an agreement can be reached, drafted, and sold to the House and Senate. Since 1965 no farm bill has been enacted without going through both Ag Committees and passed on the House and Senate floors. Two have been done in lame duck, but only after getting off both floors.”
• Comments from another farm policy analyst: “Let’s talk again on November 11th. Because there is one thing and one thing only that will determine the fate of anything in a lame duck. Who controls what in the 119th [Congress]... and leadership makes the call in a lame duck of what will and won’t happen IN CONJUNCTION with the President-elect.”
— Talks with other Capitol Hill contacts provide additional perspective:
• Some are optimistic about getting a deal on a farm bill this fall, with one putting the odds of getting a deal at 75% and 25% that it falls apart. Moving a stopgap spending bill through Dec. 20 creates a legislative vehicle where perhaps being $30 billion over a farm bill budget baseline (House farm bill) isn’t “super consequential,” one source notes.
• Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow’s (D-Mich.) staff director is back from maternity leave, providing some hope she has more authority to negotiate versus her interim replacements. Some sources say Stabenow is taking the economic arguments about an improved Title I safety net to heart and might be more willing to deal versus her position earlier this year. Meanwhile, Stabenow has been pressed on the topic from Sens. Ralphael Warnock (D-Miss.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo). Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Min.) reportedly wants Stabenow to get a deal so that, according to one contact, “she doesn’t have to choose between making the farmers in Minnesota happy or catering to the progressives on SNAP, socially disadvantaged, and the NSAC crowd.”
• The biggest farm bill sticking points involve funding (Title I, CCC, etc.), but optimists say there is some flexibility and time, without providing details.
• Regarding the role of House Budget Chair Jody Arrington (R-Tex.), who has been criticized for not helping House Chair GT Thompson (R-Pa.) enough relative to financing, one inside contact acknowledged it was a big ask all along, while others say Arrington led Republicans on that he would come through but changed his mind multiple times and would never provide a straight funding answer to Thompson. Many contacts think Arrington had evidence needed to assert his oversight responsibility of USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) spending, but he did not follow through as needed. Some think getting only four House Ag Democrats to vote for the House farm bill on May 23 made Arrington think the bill would not be going to the House floor, so he did not intervene, which then became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Even more important, some say, is that Arrington was likely worried about using his intervention on behalf of ag against him next year during the tax reform/extenders debate (many of the 2017 Tax Cut Act expire at the end of 2025). Others said Stabenow and House Ag Ranking member David Scott’s (D-Ga.) tweeting about “magic math” scared him off a bit. Still others say that is ironic because behind closed doors, Stabenow is more than willing to do direct scoring.
• As for any watering down of reference prices in the pending House farm bill, sources say this is not part of Thompson saying he was willing to negotiate on some topics. Proponents say the House reference prices are at the place of being an effective safety net, but any reductions would not meet that description. Some sources say GOP lawmakers would probably rather get some sort of ad hoc/interim assistance and punt a farm bill to next year versus taking a bad deal on reference prices and watering down Title I further. Of note, House members have made it clear that since the safety net drafted in March for the pending House farm bill, farm income and liquidity issues have gotten worse for some, and they do not want to lock in weak Title I program features for five years.
• As for Thompson, usually reliable sources say he is willing to talk about ways to fund other titles of the farm bill, without moving nutrition dollars out of the Title, while still getting some internal reforms such as more palatable Thrifty Food Program restrictions. If it is necessary to explore way to direct some Title 2 (Conservation) funding toward climate, without the rigid carveouts in current law, sources say Thompson is “flexible” on these topics.
Bottom line: After contacting many veteran farm bill sources, there is recognition of a serious problem on the horizon. Some have been ringing alarm bells about this since the spring when lenders were telling Capitol Hill how bad 2025 lending would be. Also, it took some commodity groups until recently to realize how bad the ag sector situation is, and could become. It appears that here has been some internal pressure with certain American Farm Bureau Federation states, some contacts inform, whereby southern state presidents have urged the Farm Bureau to take a more active role. This is one of the reasons why Farm Bureau reportedly spearheaded a farm bill letter that all 50 states signed on to.
Meanwhile, sources say GOP leadership has apparently finally realized the kind of funding that is going to be needed for ad hoc aid and a new farm bill, and they are not happy about it, but they all know how important it is to deliver something. Some wish GOP leadership would have realized this a lot sooner ahead of Nov. 5 elections, but reportedly some do not have an appreciation for the politics around farm bills.
A growing number of farmers are now weary about the lingering farm process, with some saying there are far more important things to focus on, like transition assistance that will come a lot sooner than any new farm bill payouts... and if the Biden administration ever gets guidance out on the 45Z program.
Some farm-state lawmakers say their message to Leadership, and everyone, is that agriculture needs both. Said one contact: “You can’t call it transition assistance unless you are transitioning to something, otherwise it’s just a Band-Aid and you still have to fight the farm bill next year in the first year of a new administration and new Congress. I don’t like those odds for an early resolution to the farm bill next year and next fall we will be in the same situation about needing ad hoc if we don’t get a new safety net in for crop year 2025.”
Regarding the 45Z tax credit program, one Washington contact emailed: “When are people going to wake up and realize what is going on: They are giving tax breaks to companies importing used cooking oil from China while leaving our domestic producers out of the loop. That is an abomination, and shame on the ag community for getting fooled into thinking officials at Treasury and EPA under this administration give a damn about domestic farmers.”