House Republicans are looking to bring their farm bill for a floor vote the last week of April, according to four people close to the talks who were granted anonymity to discuss them.
The timing is still fluid and could be bumped to after the chamber’s one-week recess at the beginning of May as lawmakers continue high-stakes negotiations over immigration enforcement funding as well as a potential second reconciliation package.
Republicans have been privately whipping votes since the House Agriculture Committee advanced the farm bill in a 34-17 vote last month, putting pressure on GOP colleagues to help deliver what committee Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) has called a “morale boost” for rural America ahead of the midterms.
House GOP leadership senior staff have privately warned that the package could be “in big trouble” on the floor due to intra-party divides over controversial provisions on pesticide labeling and state-level livestock laws. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the Agriculture Committee’s top Democrat, has slammed what she calls “poison pills” in the Republican-led bill.
Some Democrats — particularly those seeking reelection in agriculture-heavy districts this November — may back the legislation, which includes dozens of bipartisan bills. Seven Democrats joined Republicans to advance the package out of committee.
Republicans saw many of their favored policies that normally would be included in a farm bill enacted as part of last year’s massive tax and spending package. That reconciliation package was paid for, in part, through major changes and cuts to spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — a move that soured Democrats ahead of farm bill negotiations.
A successful House vote in the coming weeks would tee up negotiations in the Senate. Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) has said he’s working on bill text but hasn’t offered a timeline for formal introduction or a markup. He told reporters Tuesday that the markup would be in a matter of “weeks rather than months.”
Senators are also likely to run into similar partisan disagreements over Democrats’ efforts to undo the GOP’s SNAP cuts. Boozman told POLITICO last year that he’d likely avoid inclusion of the most contentious provisions that Thompson included in the farm bill in order to reach the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passage.
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