Split U.S. House approves farm bill
WASHINGTON — A deeply polarizing farm bill passed the House on party lines Thursday, a month after the legislation went down to stunning defeat after getting ensnared in the toxic politics of immigration.
The legislation, which passed 213-211, includes contentious new work rules for most adult food-stamp recipients — provisions that are dead on arrival in the Senate. The legislative package overseeing more than $430 billion of food and agriculture programs contains a host of measures aimed at strengthening farm subsidies, expanding foreign trade and bolstering rural development.
The bill was championed by a dwindling number of farm-district Republicans who feel duty-bound to deliver farm supports to their rural constituents. On the first go-round last month, this group lost out to an increasingly powerful cohort of conservatives who are more interested in winning political points on welfare change and immigration.
The tense divide between the two camps has huge implications for the future of food and farm policy in the United States, as well as the Republican Party itself. Even as the bill advances from the House, political analysts said, the tensions revealed in its lurching, divisive journey are likely to persist.
“People think, ‘who cares about the farm bill? It’s so boring,’” said Adam Sheingate, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. “But it’s a window into contemporary politics right now, particularly among Republicans — the struggles they face balancing the responsibility of governing against their ideological commitments.”
The most divisive element of the legislation passed Thursday are new, stricter work rules for most able-bodied adults in the food-stamp program, the federal safety net that provides an average of $125 per month in grocery money to 42.3 million Americans. Under the proposal, adults will have to spend 20 hours per week either working or participating in a state-run training program to receive benefits.
Democrats and anti-hunger advocates say most states do not have the capacity to scale up case management or training programs to this extent.
The legislation also directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to re-evaluate school lunch nutrition standards adopted under former President Barack Obama’s administration. It proposes to expand who counts as a “farmer” for purposes of subsidies, the compensation the Agriculture Department distributes when crop prices fall below predetermined references.
It eliminates much of the Conservation Stewardship Program — aimed at encouraging farmers to address soil, air and water quality on their land — and folds it into the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which is oriented toward compensating farmers for one-off conservation projects. And despite efforts by some lawmakers to end them, it extends federal supports for the U.S. sugar industry through programs that control the amount of foreign and domestic sugar on the U.S. market and guarantee a minimum price for producers if sugar prices drop.
Members of the Arkansas congressional delegation supported the bill and issued written statements after its passage.
“Agriculture is critical to the Arkansas economy, and the top two farm income counties in Arkansas are in the Third District,” Rep. Steve Womack, a Republican from Rogers, said.
He urged the Senate “to move swiftly to aid our nation’s producers.”
Rep. Bruce Westerman said he was proud to back the bill, noting that it contained language on forest health that he had introduced.
The Republican from Hot Springs also praised the bill for “adding a work requirement for able-bodied, working-age adults without young children at home who receive SNAP benefits. There is no better anti-poverty program than a job.”
Rep. French Hill also highlighted work or education-related requirements.
“Our economy is growing more rapidly and there are more work and training opportunities. Providing this incentive will offer a chance for upward mobility from welfare to work, dependence to independence, and ultimately poverty to prosperity,” the Republican from Little Rock said.
Republicans have not historically struggled to pass farm bills — though it has become increasingly difficult over the past 10 years. The farm bill comes up for reauthorization every five years and is generally passed on a bipartisan basis.
Information for this article was contributed by Caitlin Dewey and Erica Werner of The Washington Post; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.