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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Friday, June 02, 2023
A bill that will suspend the debt ceiling, impose caps on federal spending and make major changes to work requirements under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program got final approval from the Senate late Thursday, clearing the measure for President Joe Biden's signature in time to avert a government default.
The GOP-controlled House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday evening to avert a first-ever government default, impose caps on federal spending and make the first major changes to SNAP work requirements in decades.
Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees say the debt limit agreement should remove SNAP work requirements as a potential sticking point in the upcoming farm bill debate, but also said the deal takes away some potential funding.
The House Agriculture Committee is considering raising reference prices based on a commodity’s relative input costs, an approach that could benefit some southern crops over commodities such as soybeans and corn.
Under a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced this month, the $5 per acre pandemic cover crop subsidy would be revived and made a permanent part of the farm bill.
House Republicans who have been struggling unsuccessfully for years to tighten work rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program scored a win in the debt limit negotiations that would expand the requirements to people in their early 50s, but President Joe Biden also won key new exemptions for veterans and people who are homeless.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden reached an agreement in principle on raising the debt ceiling that would expand work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service expressed confidence that the agency could hire the staff it needs to handle a sharp increase in climate-related funding, despite many applicants for soil conservationist positions lacking a key job requirement – a class in soil science.
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