WASHINGTON – Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Cheyenne) expects Congress to pass a farm bill extension by the end of the year.
“The expressions I get from the faces of leadership, both my chairman and the elected Republican leadership in the House is that it’s just not physically time to do a complete bill,” Lucas said. “You do an extension, that doesn’t mean you stopped for one moment writing the new farm bill. It just means that an extension for a year will carry us until the new bill is passed.”
The current farm bill was passed in 2018. It was set to last until 2023 but was extended until the end of the 2024 crop year and fiscal year 2024.
Lucas’ expectation is not unfounded.
Punchbowl News reported that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) recently told Republicans that he is pursuing a one-year extension of the Farm Bill.
The ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee Sen. John Boozman (R-Arkansas), is also pursuing an extension.
“We need an extension of the farm bill,” Boozman said.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is also hoping for an extension.
“I expect Congress to pass another short-term extension, carrying farmers through the new year,” Grassley said. “And when Congress returns in 2025, Republicans will work quickly to debate and pass the next five-year farm bill.”
Lawmakers attempted to bring a new five-year farm bill to the floor throughout the year but their efforts were either unsuccessful or too late.
In May, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) introduced the Farm, Food and National Security Act, H.R. 8467, a new five-year farm bill. The bill was approved by the committee 33-21 largely along party lines but it never made it to the House floor.
On Nov. 18, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) released the text of the Senate’s version of a new five-year bill.
Following its release, agriculture-minded lawmakers expressed their displeasure with the timing considering the legislative session is nearing its end as Christmas is just weeks away.
“I kind of wish Chairwoman Stabenow had thrown her proposal out a month earlier,” Lucas said.
Grassley said it’s sad that Democrats would leave farmers waiting before releasing the text of the bill.
“We’re reviewing the 1,400-page bill in my office. The timing of this bill is disappointing and unrealistic,” Grassley said. “As you know the 2018 farm bill expired September 30, 2023, since then we’ve been operating on a one-year extension.”
Boozman was also disappointed by the timing of Stabenow’s bill and said the approach wasn’t really meaningful.
With the current farm bill, from 2018, expiring at the end of the year lawmakers are likely to continue their work on passing a new one in the 119th Congress.
“Come the first Monday in January, you’ve got a new Republican chairman of the ( Senate Agriculture) committee from Arkansas by the name of Boozman. You still have Chairman Thompson,” Lucas said. “It remains to be seen who the Secretary of Agriculture will be granted that person won’t come in until the third week of January, but the new secretary will matter. Once he or she is named, we’ll see what kind of Republican bill we can put together.”
“That said though, farm bills, especially in such a narrowly divided House and Senate ultimately have to be bipartisan. There will be no shoving it through.”
Kevin Eagleson is reporting from Gaylord News’ Washington bureau this fall as part of an OU Daily scholarship.
Gaylord News is a reporting project of the University of Oklahoma Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. For more stories by Gaylord News go to GaylordNews.net
