House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson tells Agri-Pulse he has set aside Feb. 23-25 to debate a new farm bill in the panel.
Thompson, R-Pa., confirmed in an interview that he met with GOP members of the panel Wednesday to discuss what would be in the legislation.
Thompson’s “farm bill 2.0,” as he calls it, will include provisions aimed at preempting certain pesticide labeling lawsuits in state courts, and state animal welfare laws like California’s Proposition 12, he said.
“We don't want 50 different states impacting, changing the labeling. Talk about driving up the cost of food and creating chaos and confusion,” said Thompson.
Major farm groups are backing a proposal called the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act to prevent states from adding warnings to pesticide labels that conflict with EPA human health assessments or carcinogenicity classifications.
He said the farm bill also will include a provision to codify the Trump administration’s move of the Food for Peace international aid program to USDA. The program had previously been managed jointly by the department, which handled purchasing of commodities, and the U.S. Agency for International Aid, which oversaw distribution of the food.
The legislation will be scaled back significantly from the farm bill Congress passed in 2018, because Congress last year used the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to increase funding for commodity programs, crop insurance and foreign market development while cutting projected spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The new bill will include issues that couldn’t be addressed in the OBBBA under the budget reconciliation rules used to pass the bill in the Senate without Democratic support. Those lingering issues include reauthorization of the Conservation Reserve Program and increases in USDA loan limits.
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