Inside D.C.

For the House Farm Bill, a win is a win

If you carve away the political drama surrounding the House Farm Bill – most of which had little to do with the substance of the House Farm Bill – this week’s full House approval of the controversial partisan legislation by just two votes this week, is still a win for Agriculture Committee Chair Mike Conaway (R, TX), and the process remains on track to potentially get a Farm Bill to President Trump’s desk by September 30.

Goodlatte told reporters after the vote he knew the margin of victory would be “razor thin.” The Texas lawmaker’s second bite of the Farm Bill apple came after the full House rejected, as expected, a controversial immigration reform bill by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R, VA), chair of the Judiciary Committee.  The Goodlatte vote fulfilled House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R, WI) commitment to the conservative GOP Freedom Caucus, and caucus leader Rep. Mark Meadows (R, NC) delivered enough Republican votes as promised to give Conaway a Farm Bill win.  It was defections by caucus members which helped, in part, to defeat the Farm Bill on May 18, on a 198-213 vote.

While the House panel was heaving a big sigh of relief, the bipartisan Senate bill, approved on a 20-1 committee vote, will be on the floor first thing next week.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) told his colleagues to expect the first procedural vote to move to the legislation around 6 p.m. Monday, June 25, meaning by close of business on Wednesday, both chambers could have approved their respective versions of omnibus farm program legislation.

This puts both bills back on track to begin informal conference committee activity – staff-to-staff meetings – before Congress recesses for July 4.  It also grants Conaway’s second wish:  “Now we’re ready to anxiously await Pat’s success next week in the Senate, if he can get his bill done,” referring to Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Pat Roberts (R, KS), who should have very little trouble “getting his bill done.”

Also looking forward to conference committee reconciliation of the two bills is House Agriculture Committee ranking member and former committee chair Rep. Collin Peterson (D, MN), who apparently is going to play for the Senate team in the upcoming legislative match up.

Peterson dodged reporters, but said in a prepared statement after the House Farm Bill vote, “The only upside to its (the Farm Bill’s) passage is that we’re one step closer to conference, where it’s my hope that cooler heads can and will prevail.  The Senate’s version isn’t perfect, but it avoids the hardline partisan approach that House Republicans have taken here today – and if it passes, I look forward to working in conference to produce a conference report both parties can support, which is the only way to get a farm bill enacted into law.”

Getting the Farm Bill enacted before September 30, is the overarching congressional goal, both because it avoids having to enact one-year extensions of current law to avoid reversion to 1949 farm law – which means several modern day USDA programs would disappear, albeit temporarily – but it gives both GOP and Democrat farm state members an enacted Farm Bill to run on for the midterm elections.

However, the following is a reality check for all involved: “Congress hasn’t enacted a farm bill in the same year it was introduced since 1990…(and) every bill since 1990 has taken two to three years for lawmakers to finalize,” reports Agri-Pulse. Then there’s this somewhat daunting notion: “No farm bill has passed before the expiration of the previous bill since 1977, and no farm bill has been enacted after an election, during a lame duck Congress, since 1990.”