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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Progressive groups pushing for reforms to farm policy and opposed to nutrition assistance cuts and environmental provisions in the House-passed farm bill say Congress would be better passing no new legislation at all unless it’s similar to the bipartisan Senate version.
Corn growers and ethanol producers have their fingers crossed as President Donald Trump goes to Iowa on Tuesday amid expectations that the EPA could announce a long-awaited decision to allow year-around use of E15.
The four lead farm bill negotiators, meeting for the first time since some bickering erupted over the expiration of the 2014 law, declared that they are working together to reach an agreement by the end of the year.
The average farmer probably won’t notice anytime soon that the 2014 farm bill has expired, but producers who try to sign up for some conservation programs could be turned away, and some commodity groups will have to go without some trade promotion funding on which they have counted.
The strained farm bill negotiations have erupted in partisan bickering amid darkening prospects for reaching an agreement by the end of the year to replace the 2014 law, which expires Sunday, Sept. 30.
The four lead farm bill negotiators failed to reach a deal in time to avert Sunday’s expiration of the 2014 law, but they emerged from a one-hour meeting Wednesday to say they are committed to finalizing an agreement that Congress can consider following the mid-term elections.
With the new farm bill likely stalled until after the November mid-term elections, one of the biggest disputes still to be ironed out is a provision in the House farm bill that would end commodity program payments for acreage on which farmers haven’t been growing program crops.
The 2014 farm bill is set to expire next Sunday, leaving numerous programs in limbo while congressional negotiators continue struggling to reach agreement on a range of issues.
Farm bill negotiators are in danger of missing their deadline for agreeing on a new measure before the 2014 farm law expires Sept. 30 after failing to reach a deal last week.
House and Senate negotiators are likely to provide another infusion of cash into rural broadband development, but an effort to repeal the Obama-era “waters of the U.S. rule” doesn’t appear likely to survive the talks on fiscal 2019 spending bills.
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