Lawmakers this week had to work out a snag on forestry in order to reach a deal. | Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images Agriculture Farm bill deal blocks major GOP food-stamp overhaul

Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts is eyeing a Senate floor vote on a compromise farm bill next week — and said the deal reached by top negotiators treats food stamps in similar fashion to the bipartisan Senate bill's status quo approach.

Roberts spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon after top House and Senate farm bill negotiators announced earlier in the day that an agreement in principle had been reached, capping months of difficult negotiations. He said forestry provisions are still being discussed as top negotiators and their staff work to draft legislative text and analyze the cost of various titles.


That process has taken about a week with previous legislation, but lawmakers are hoping to wrap up within four or five days, Roberts said.

"We've been piecemealing things that we have agreed on," Roberts told POLITICO after the announcement. "Now we have an agreement, so we're going through the scoring and language. It just takes time. ... We're going to try to do this in four or five days if we can do it. They're working 24/7."

Morning Agriculture A daily briefing on agriculture and food policy — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Senate leadership is pressuring farm bill negotiators to finalize the conference report quickly. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said a compromise bill would get a vote "as soon as we can get it there."

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), another member of GOP leadership, said Thursday that floor action depends on other priorities the Senate has stacked up. If there isn't enough time for a vote next week, the farm bill could "ride on the big spending bill," which faces a Dec. 7 deadline, Thune told reporters.

The projected timing of a House vote was not immediately clear. Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a member of the House Agriculture Committee, said he hopes to "see the final version of this Sunday or Monday, early next week. Our goal is to get this voted on before the potential government shutdown Dec. 7," when funding for the Agriculture Department and other agencies is set to expire.

Roberts and other members of the so-called Big Four Agriculture lawmakers have yet to release the specifics of the deal, including how they resolved major disagreements over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, as well as hang-ups over commodity, forestry and conservation policy. Senators have yet to be briefed on contents of the compromise, Roberts said.

But some details did emerge on Thursday. Roberts and Senate Agriculture ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) confirmed that the nutrition title — the biggest divide between the House and Senate bills — is more closely aligned with the Senate version. That means House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas) gave ground on his effort to impose stricter work requirements on millions of food stamp recipients — a proposal in the House bill that led House Democrats to abandon the legislation earlier this year and is seen as politically impossible in the Senate.

Roberts confirmed that the compromise would legalize commercial cultivation and distribution of hemp, a top priority of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Industrial hemp, a variety of the cannabis plant, would be removed from the federal list of controlled substances, allowing hemp farmers and researchers to apply for federal agriculture programs.

The 2014 farm bill established a pilot program that permitted states that had legalized the crop to pursue research and development initiatives.

Stabenow told reporters that a major working-lands initiative — the Conservation Stewardship Program — will not be scrapped, though it was not clear whether the deal features any change to its funding. The House bill had called for the program's elimination, creating a sticking point during conference negotiations as Senate Democrats and conservation groups rallied to preserve it.

House Republicans wanted to funnel CSP funding to another USDA-run conservation initiative, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, because they argued the latter program makes participation easier for farmers.

"We have both, and that's good," Stabenow said, referring to the deal continuing CSP and EQIP.

A dispute over forestry management that cropped up following the devastating wildfires in California hasn't been settled for good, Roberts said. He added that the forestry title still might be jettisoned from the farm bill and passed as standalone legislation.

The White House, along with USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, had pressed for the farm bill to include provisions that would grant federal agencies more leeway in how they're allowed to fight forest fires.

"That's still — I'm not saying it's open — but it's subject to more discussion," Roberts said. "That would be the one that would be the outlier right now. I think everything else is sort of tied down."



This article tagged under: Farm Bill

Agriculture