Final details remain slim as Congressional Budget Office makes final scores on agreed-upon issues.

Jacqui Fatka, Policy editor

November 29, 2018

3 Min Read
INSIDE WASHINGTON: Farm bill agreement reached in principle
Senate and House Ag Committee leaders met the morning of Sept. 26 and released a statement saying their "still at the negotiating table" and said they all have a commitment to "get this right" in passing a new farm bill.

Farm bill principles announced that they had reached an agreement in principle on the 2018 farm bill.

“We are working to finalize legal and report language as well as [Congressional Budget Office] scores, but we still have more work to do. We are committed to delivering a new farm bill to America as quickly as possible,” the House and Senate agriculture committee leaders said in a joint statement.

Details of the deal were slim as the principles wait for drafting of the final legislation and scoring by the Congressional Budget Office. Members of Congress and their staff cautioned against releasing details because they could change pending the completion of the costs analysis and legislative language.

House Agriculture Committee chairman Mike Conaway (R., Texas) had been pushing for stricter work requirements as well a wheat acreage update that could divert as much as $500 million more to cotton farmers.

Reports indicate that the final version will blend the House and Senate versions on the nutrition title. Other unresolved issues shortly before the agreement in principle announcement included the conservation title and regulatory language.

One of the last hiccups appeared to be from a dispute House Republicans and the White House had with the Senate on how to handle forestry regulations and wildfire prevention. As the fires burned in California, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called for Congress to make permanent and expand existing insect and disease categorical exclusions that help prevent forest fires in the future or lessen the degree of forest fires.

House Democrats and those in the Senate argued that the change wasn't needed, as the omnibus forest management package passed in March already offered the authority to use the exclusion to expedite fuel clearing projects under certain conditions to prevent wildfires.

“The Trump Administration is politicizing this tragedy to push damaging policies that will harm our forests. Instead, it should be supporting existing fire prevention tools it praised earlier this year,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) said.

National Corn Growers Assn. (NCGA) president Lynn Chrisp said it's critical that farmers and rural communities have a new farm bill this year. “NCGA is grateful for today’s announcement that sets the steps in motion to ensure that happens. Our grower members have been making phone calls and sending emails to Capitol Hill urging lawmakers to reach a deal before year’s end. We thank them for heeding this call and look forward to fully reviewing the conference agreement,” Chrisp said.

American Farm Bureau Federation president Zippy Duvall added, "The 2018 farm bill emerging from the conference committee is good news for farmers amid a prolonged downturn in the agricultural economy." He said Conaway and Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R., Kan.), along with ranking committee members Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) and Rep. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.), "made the bill a priority for this Congress and all Americans — farmers and consumers — are better off for it.”

Duvall added, “Continued access to risk management tools, assistance in foreign market development and conservation and environmental stewardship programs within the legislation are especially important for farmers and ranchers. These programs will help provide certainty to rural America at a time when it is much needed, given the financial headwinds so many family farms now face. Additionally, the bill continues to help low-income children, families, seniors and military veterans access the high-quality foods produced by farm families.”

John Piotti, president and chief executive officer of the American Farmland Trust, added, “We look forward to further analyzing the contents of the bill as additional information is available. We are encouraged by this important step towards a final 2018 farm bill that will provide certainty and support to our farmers and ranchers and resources to protect the agricultural land that sustains us.”

About the Author(s)

Jacqui Fatka

Policy editor, Farm Futures

Jacqui Fatka grew up on a diversified livestock and grain farm in southwest Iowa and graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications, with a minor in agriculture education, in 2003. She’s been writing for agricultural audiences ever since. In college, she interned with Wallaces Farmer and cultivated her love of ag policy during an internship with the Iowa Pork Producers Association, working in Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Capitol Hill press office. In 2003, she started full time for Farm Progress companies’ state and regional publications as the e-content editor, and became Farm Futures’ policy editor in 2004. A few years later, she began covering grain and biofuels markets for the weekly newspaper Feedstuffs. As the current policy editor for Farm Progress, she covers the ongoing developments in ag policy, trade, regulations and court rulings. Fatka also serves as the interim executive secretary-treasurer for the North American Agricultural Journalists. She lives on a small acreage in central Ohio with her husband and three children.

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