Senate farm bill debate starts with quiet, thanks

If one were hoping the Senate floor debate on the 2018 farm bill debate would be a raucous as the debate in the House, one would be disappointed.

With only a couple of amendments introduced in the first day of debate, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-KS, and Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow, D-MI, opened the debate June 26, the day after a near unanimous vote to open debate floor of the U.S. Senate about the chamber’s consideration of the 2018 farm bill.

The goal of the Senate in passing the farm bill, Roberts said, is to provide certainty and predictability to the nation’s farmers, ranchers, and everyone within America’s agriculture and food value chain during difficult times.

“This is paramount to many other concerns,” Roberts said in his opening argument. “It is not an exaggeration to say our nation’s food and fiber production capability hang in the balance with what we do here on this legislation. Let us get this done.”

Roberts said he and Stabenow have worked to include as many priorities in the farm for members both on and off the Agriculture Committee.

“We want to continue working with members to address their concerns. Prepare your amendments and come work with us,” Roberts said. “We are endeavoring to craft a farm bill that meets the needs of producers across all regions and all crops. All of agriculture is struggling, not just one or two commodities. We must have a bill that works across our great nation.

“And, we must ensure that our voluntary conservation programs are keeping farm land in operation while protecting our agriculture lands, forests, and other natural resources.”

Roberts emphasized the soft pedal the Senate proposal possessed toward placing work requirements on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments compared with the House’s version of the farm bill.

“We must focus on program integrity and commonsense investments to strengthen our nutrition programs to ensure the long-term success of those in need of assistance,” Roberts said.

“And, with trade and market uncertainty, to say the least, we must provide certainty for our trade promotion and research programs. Feeding an increasing global population is not simply an agriculture challenge. It is a national security challenge. Show me a country that cannot feed itself, and I’ll show you a nation in chaos.”

But, Roberts added, this means the nation needs to grow more food with fewer resources, which will take investments in research, new technology, lines of credit, and proper risk management. Throughout the 18-month long hearing process, the committee asked tough questions and reexamined programs to determine their effectiveness.

“It takes the government providing tools, and then getting out of the producer’s way,” Roberts said. “Agriculture, and specifically the farm bill, has consistently answered the call to do more with less.

“To those who say passing a farm bill in this environment is a daunting task, I say together we can get it done. This is not the best possible bill; it is the best bill possible under these circumstances.”

Stabenow also made a statement expressing bipartisanship.

“Chairman Roberts and I made a commitment that we would deliver a strong, bipartisan farm bill,” Stabenow said. “Despite the long road, we stayed true to our word. I’m proud to say we wrote a bill that will provide certainty as the chairman talked about, certainty to our farmers, our families and our rural communities.

“We stayed focused on strengthening our nation’s diverse agricultural economy and the 16 million jobs it supports,” Stabenow said. “This is a jobs bill for America.”

For her part, Stabenow, who is up for re-election, dropped in the names of many small towns in her opening argument to her home state of Michigan, where she said agriculture supports one out of four jobs.

“People look at us and see us as a manufacturing state, but we build things and we grow things, and this bill is critical to both of those things,” Stabenow said.

While not mention President Donald Trump by name, Stabenow also took aim at Trump administration trade policies as not helping farm families who are struggling from low prices. Trump’s win in Michigan helped propel him to the presidency in 2016.

“When times are tough, the farm bill provides a strong safety net to protect our farmers and ranchers. All types of farms and ranches,” Stabenow said.

Again targeting a large number of home state farmers, Stabenow pointed out how the new farm bill improves on the 2014 bill’s dairy provisions that failed to support dairy producers during a price slump.

“In addition to the $1.1 billion we secured in the bipartisan budget act, we replaced the Margin Protection Program with new, affordable coverage when the dairy market dips,” Stabenow said.

Echoing Roberts on strengthening nutrition assistance while not imposing work requirements, Stabenow discussed the number pilot programs the farm bill adds to help move people away from assistance to work.

“We improved the integrity of SNAP, and created new job training opportunities and public-private partnerships while preserving critical food access for American families,” Stabenow said.

As the two leaders were making their statements on the Senate floor, the White House released a “Statement of Administration Principles” on the bill. In particular, the administration welcomes the adoption of some U.S. Department of Agriculture budget reforms tighten existing income limits for eligibility for some farm subsidies from $900,000 to $700,000, but the administration urges the Senate to go further in reducing the income limit, and would encourage the Senate to include more farm safety net reforms that would better target payments to farmers who need them most.

“The bill misses key opportunities to reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” the statement said. “Most notably, the bill does not strengthen work requirements for able-bodied working age adults. The bill also fails to close eligibility loopholes and target benefits to the neediest households as proposed in the President’s Budgets for FY 2018 and FY 2019. It also fails to better align SNAP employment and training with other federal workforce programs.

The statement also complained the bill lacks meaningful regulatory reform, and the administration opposes dozens of additional burdensome requirements for new reports, studies and pilots. It also does not incorporate any of the conservation program changes proposed in the budget that prioritized funding for programs that have shown positive outcomes while eliminating funding for those programs with limited outcomes.

The bill reverses streamlining improvements that were made in the conservation title of the 2014 farm bill and instead expand conservation programs through increased Conservation Reserve Program acreage caps and the introduction of multiple new programs, the statement said.

“The Administration would support a reform of P.L. 480 Title II food aid that maximizes resources in responding to global food crises while promoting food security. The current bill does not include meaningful reforms,” the statement said.

The statement did not mention any threat of a veto if the points of the statement were not met, but said the administration “looks forward to working with the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee to address these and other issues with the farm bill as the process moves forward.”

Larry Dreiling can be reached at 785-628-1117 or [email protected].