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House Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx opened a meeting on the farm bill Tuesday with a Serenity Prayer.
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."
Rep. Jim McGovern, the panel’s top Democrat, followed the North Carolina Republican by pointing to Tibetan prayer beads around his wrist. They were a gift from the Dalai Lama during a trip to India to help with anxiety, fear and anger, the Massachusetts lawmaker said.
“I’m anxious to see him again — to tell him that they don’t work,” McGovern deadpanned.
The references to higher powers followed a tense gathering the night before to hammer out terms of a farm bill vote in the full House. Clashes over funding cuts to food nutrition programs, pesticide-labeling laws and livestock-welfare regulations in California and elsewhere punctuated the deliberations.
The committee finished its work on the farm bill early Tuesday evening, setting it up for consideration on the House floor as soon as Wednesday morning. The final rule allows a vote on an amendment that would remove a pesticide-labeling provision that critics say is a gift to big ag chemical companies like Bayer, setting up a potential fight on the House floor.
The Rules Committee blocked consideration of a proposed amendment that would strip from the farm bill language to repeal animal-welfare state laws, like California’s Prop 12.
Ethanol drama
After prolonged negotiations behind closed doors Monday and Tuesday, speculation swirled there was trouble with a bipartisan amendment to allow year-round U.S. sales of higher ethanol blends, known as E15, a top priority of biofuel and corn producers. It's opposed by independent refiners.
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The E15 measure was broken out into a separate bill, meaning it won't be voted on as an amendment to the farm bill. If it passes along with the ag legislation, however, the two measures would be bundled when they move to the Senate.
The breakout of E15 could make it more difficult to pass, though some biofuel advocates say more Democrats might be willing to support stand-alone E15 legislation than the farm bill itself.
A potential setback for lawmakers working to get the ethanol bill passed is a Congressional Budget Office report that estimates the E15 measure as written would add billions of dollars in the “single digits” to the U.S. deficit over 10 years. That projection is due to a provision in the bill to revamp parts of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Growth Energy, the world's biggest ethanol trade organization, rejected claims that the E15 bill would translate into larger deficits.
“There are no cost implications with passing a year-round fix," Growth Energy Chief Executive Officer Emily Skor said. "A permanent fix that allows year-round, voluntary sales of higher blends like E15 saves American drivers and taxpayers alike. Unfortunately, opponents have been successful in their efforts to misrepresent where the true costs are."
Still, the CBO score could be an obstacle. McGovern, who also sits on the ag committee, criticized Republican leaders for allowing it to get a vote.
“You come here every week and lecture people about the deficit, the debt, and why we can't help poor people get food, and you just voted to green-light billions and billions of dollars and unpaid-for money,” McGovern said. “This is unbelievable.”
Ethanol backers have long said higher ethanol blends at gasoline pumps save money for consumers. President Donald Trump has called for Congress to pass an E15 bill that he can sign into law.
Ag producers say the need to expand markets for U.S. crop-made fuels is crucially needed as Trump’s tariff wars with China cloud the outlook for the global appetite for soybeans and other U.S. farm products. The rise of electric cars is an existential crisis for U.S. ethanol, which accounts for about 40% of all U.S. corn usage each year.
“Half the income of farmers is from fuels drawn from corn and soy,” Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio., said. “Fuels are terribly important to the survival of the American farmer across this country.”
Partisan feuds
In other farm bill matters, Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., the House Ag Committee’s top Democrat, assailed the legislation for not addressing high farm input costs, lost export markets or including additional economic aid for financially strained producers.
Craig, who encouraged lawmakers to vote against the bill, noted a spike in U.S. farm bankruptcies. She also dismissed the legislation for not being a traditional, comprehensive measure. While the bill’s provisions cover five years, ag program updates also were passed by Congress last year through reconciliation in the Senate, which enables bills to be fast-tracked.
Congress hasn’t passed a full five-year farm bill since 2018 amid a widening partisan divide.
“Mark my words, we will be right back here in a year if the administration continues the bad policies that are impacting farm country, trying to save family farms all over again,” Craig said.
House Ag Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., who spearheaded the farm bill, stressed that it is a bipartisan effort informed by 150 listening sessions and visits to 43 states and one territory. More than 500 stakeholder groups publicly back the legislation, he said. Thompson also emphasized the harm caused by waiting so long between farm bills.
"Producers are currently facing some of the toughest times in the farm economy since the 1980s farm crisis, and the simple fact is that 2018 policies are no match for 2026 challenges," he said.
American Soybean Association President Scott Metzger, who grows soy, corn and wheat on his multi-generational farm in Ohio, said it’s important to get the farm bill over the finish line.
“It’s been eight years of not having one,” he told Agri-Pulse.
Midterm elections, farmer stress
The divisions and positioning around the latest farm bill all share a common thread: they’re unfolding in the middle of a high‑stakes election year.
House races in the farm-heavy states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio will help determine if Democrats win back control of the chamber from Republicans, a shift that would be certain to spur efforts to restore funds to anti-hunger programs and address Make America Healthy Again concerns about ag chemicals.
In Iowa, where two Republican House seats are considered too close to predict by top election forecasters, Democrats have been quick to go after incumbents over lack of progress on E15.
Meanwhile, Republican control of the Senate after this year could hinge on the outcome of races in Michigan and also Ohio, where former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown is vying to win back his seat. Brown, who served in the chamber for nearly two decades before losing his re-election bid in 2024, previously was outspoken in support for soybean farmers being undercut by biofuel feedstocks coming in from China.
Thorny ag issues like pesticides, biofuels and the treatment of livestock are all potential talking points for both Republican and Democratic candidates. That’s against a backdrop of the most difficult economy for crop farmers in decades, along with concerns that war in Middle East will further drive up fertilizer and fuel costs and worry about worsening drought conditions this growing season.
“This is by far the toughest economy I've ever been in,” said Metzger, who's been farming since 1998. “This economy is just, it's really depressing.”
A sobering farm bill amendment from Kaptur would direct the agriculture secretary to disclose information about a federal suicide and crisis lifeline through USDA programs and field offices to boost awareness of mental-health help for ag producers.
“Believe me, it’s needed,” Kaptur said. “Farmer suicide is above the national average, and at an all-time high.”
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