Legislative logistics, not just farm policy fights, are impeding the completion of a 2023 farm bill before the September 30th deadline.
According to House Ag Chair GT Thompson (R-PA), he says “my goal, my personal goal actually, is that at the beginning of September, we’re in a place when we’re back here, to be able to have a bill that we can mark up, and then, soon after that, have that on the House floor.”
But a month or so after that comment to Agri-Pulse, Thompson said at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days he won’t unveil his bill for panel action until House leaders reserve a week for it on the floor – maybe in September, maybe not.
Spending bills, a spending extension showdown, and a GOP Biden impeachment push could all be given priority. And then there’s the Senate which, according to Thompson, he says “I can’t control the Senate. We can only do our best, and I can collaborate and communicate with the Senate, and we’re doing that.”
But Senate Ag is even further behind. Committee member Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says “both from the standpoint of Senator Schumer’s statements and Senator Stabenow’s statements, we’ll get a bill by the end of the year. And if we had text by October 1st, I think that’s still very much a possibility.” Otherwise, Grassley sees the need for a one-year farm bill extension through 2024, an election year.
A recent Purdue University poll showed for the first time, a plurality of 36 percent of large-scale producers surveyed in mid-July said a farm bill is “very or somewhat” unlikely this year.