URBANA – The U.S. House of Representatives has yet to vote on a farm bill. Lawmakers hope to pass the legislation Thursday after sending it back to committee on Wednesday.
The farm bill, a comprehensive, multiyear law that governs agriculture, food and conservation, has not been reauthorized since 2018 and was due for an update in 2023.
According to Jonathan Coppess, Director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, there have been three major sticking points that have been especially contentious: year round sale of E15 fuel; a provision blocking some lawsuits from pesticide companies; and an effort to overturn a California law that sets minimum space requirements for farm animals.
“Those three together have added very specific complications on top of what they did last summer and the SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] provisions,” he said.
Key issues like SNAP that are typically passed in a farm bill were instead passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer.
Democrats and many non-profits have spoken out against the bill, as it does not reverse those cuts to the SNAP.
The other sticking points may be too hard to tackle. Lawmakers may ultimately look to separate the E15 provision from the farm bill.
The pesticide provision is also proving particularly difficult, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle speaking out against it, Coppess said.
“That has caused opposition from multiple sectors, including quite a few Republicans who align with the MAHA, the Make America Healthy Again,” he said.
Coppess isn’t sure why Republican leadership have insisted on keeping these controversial provisions in, he said.
“I don’t know how many votes it brings. Again, most of those authorizations are noncontroversial on their own, so nobody is going to vote against rural development, nobody is vote against research, those basic things,” he said. “The only reason why they have problems is what they did last summer coupled with what they put into this bill this year. And so, it is all self-inflicted. There is no doubt about that.”
Even if the House passes the bill on Thursday, it still has a long way to go, Coppess said.
“Remember, this is just the House. The Senate hasn’t even started, and in fact, the Senate hasn’t started on a farm bill legislation since the ’18 bill expired in ’23,” he said. “The committee hasn’t produced anything.”