| | | | |  | | By Grace Yarrow | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Meredith Lee Hill and Marcia Brown
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Top farm bill negotiators are making last-minute pushes to unite their parties ahead of the House Ag farm bill markup Thursday. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | | | | — It’s markup week: Top Ag lawmakers are making last-minute pushes to unite for or against the House farm bill ahead of Thursday’s long-awaited meeting. — Democrats and anti-hunger groups react to nutrition policies included in the full farm bill text House Ag Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) released on Friday. — First in Morning Ag: Hundreds of chefs, including some key political players, are getting involved in the farm bill’s climate fight. IT’S MONDAY, MAY 20. Welcome back to Morning Agriculture! I’m your host Grace Yarrow. Send tips to gyarrow@politico.com and follow us at @Morning_Ag.
| | A message from CropLife America: Misguided state regulatory efforts are jeopardizing U.S. farmers' access to safe, effective pesticides, threatening the stability of America’s food supply and compromising national security. More than 360 agricultural and allied groups endorse the bipartisan Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act to help the U.S. correct course while still allowing for local use case restrictions. Find out how the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act protects America’s farmers. | | | | | FARM BILL PUSH: House Ag Chair Thompson released the House farm bill draft Friday, ahead of the committee’s long-awaited markup set for this Thursday. The bill includes a raft of bipartisan priorities, like boosting farm safety net programs and a host of Democratic-led policies. But it crosses several of senior Democrats’ red lines, setting up a political showdown over the must-pass package. Now, some of the few rural Democrats left in the House are under growing pressure from senior Democrats to oppose the bill in markup, as Meredith has reported. A group of frontline Ag Democrats met Thursday to consider farm bill approaches and “discuss policy options” a day after senior Democrats pressed them to oppose the House bill in a closed-door meeting. Amendments: Senior Democrats are coordinating amendments to strip out the climate and nutrition pieces of Thompson’s plans they oppose. “We'll see what amendments come forward,” Thompson told MA. “I will tell you, though, that their ideas are already baked into this markup. And we've done a nice job of being very transparent.” Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is trying to rally House Ag Democrats around her rival proposal. Stabenow said Friday that Thompson’s bill “clearly crosses” Democrats’ “bright red lines.” (Remember, Stabenow has warned she will block any farm bill that touches climate or nutrition programs.) Republican’s slim House majority gives Democrats confidence they can block any farm bill on the floor. House Ag ranking member David Scott (D-Ga.) said Thompson’s bill text “doesn’t provide a path forward to getting a bill passed on the House Floor.” But Thursday’s markup could still be a tough vote for some House Democrats. Several of those at-risk members have suggested they don’t necessarily need to vote for a farm bill, and will hold out for Stabenow’s plans. Morning Ag will be tracking reactions to the farm bill and political insight this week ahead of the House Ag markup. Stay tuned.
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| | ANTI-HUNGER BACKLASH: Some of the most bitter response to the Thompson’s plans is from anti-hunger groups and senior Democrats who’ve lambasted his moves to limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, which serves as the basis for SNAP. Scott argued the “economic impact” of the move alone “would be staggering,” appearing to reference a potential hit to the food industry. Democrats see the Thrifty Food Plan as the main way to increase SNAP benefits in future years. Major anti-hunger groups have also come out against the bill, arguing that despite the benefits to nutrition programs in the bill, future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan shouldn’t be limited. Ty Jones Cox, vice president of food assistance for the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, urged lawmakers to reject Thompson’s “harmful proposal.” Moderate Republicans haven’t indicated that they’d support forthcoming Democratic amendments on the TFP during the Thursday markup. NUTRITION RESPONSE: Nutrition advocates, however, are praising Thompson’s plans as a major step to tackle diet-related diseases in the U.S. Jerold Mande, CEO of Nourish Science and a former USDA senior nutrition policy official, said language in Thompson’s farm bill draft “makes diet quality a core SNAP objective” while tackling food insecurity. “If the goal is to improve the diet quality of SNAP participants, the provisions that Congressman Thompson has put in his bill … are more likely to be effective in improving diet quality than the Thrifty Food Plan increase,” Mande said. As we’ve reported: The bill requires additional USDA reporting on what food is being purchased via SNAP benefits, and the diet quality of SNAP and non-SNAP households. The bill’s efforts to improve diet quality with SNAP households in part pulls from legislation from Senate Ag Democrat Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). Keep an eye on: Lawmakers will likely clash over SNAP diet quality and a possible pilot program restricting what kinds of foods can be purchased with the benefits during an appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday.
| | | | A message from CropLife America:   | | | | | PESTICIDE POLICY: The House farm bill also includes provisions regulating pesticides based on a bipartisan marker bill that proponents say clarifies labeling requirements. Critics argue that the bill is actually intended to shield Bayer, the maker of Roundup, and other pesticide manufacturers from thousands of lawsuits over pesticides’ connections to adverse effects including cancer. Linda Lipsen, American Association for Justice CEO, said overriding state and local law “would wipe out the ability of communities to decide for themselves what safeguards they need and grant legal immunity to corporations.” EATS ACT: Fierce and flashy opposition did not stop Republicans from including a slimmed down version of the EATS Act in the farm bill. The controversial proposal would overturn state animal welfare regulations, including for beef and pork, but not egg products. The original bill would have undone swaths of local agricultural laws, but lawmakers settled on a compromise focused on livestock. The EATS Act is ultimately designed to reverse California’s Proposition 12, an animal welfare law pork producers have vehemently opposed. The response: Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, said the EATS Act is a “partisan bill with just a very narrow slice of Republicans actively backing it. … The only thing bipartisan about that bill is the opposition to it.” The National Pork Producers Council President Lori Stevermer said Thompson’s farm bill, which includes pork producers’ top priorities, addresses “the most pressing issues facing the agriculture industry across the country.”
| | | | DON’T MISS POLITICO’S ENERGY SUMMIT: The future of energy faces a crossroads in 2024 as policymakers and industry leaders shape new rules, investments and technologies. Join POLITICO’s Energy Summit on June 5 as we convene top voices to examine the shifting global policy environment in a year of major elections in the U.S. and around the world. POLITICO will examine how governments are writing and rewriting new rules for the energy future and America’s own role as a major exporter. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | FIRST IN MA: Chefs are getting involved in Capitol Hill’s farm bill climate fight. 525 chefs from 50 states — including José Andrés and Padma Lakshmi — led a letter urging lawmakers to “safeguard” the conservation spending from the Inflation Reduction Act. Thompson seeks to remove the strict climate guardrails around roughly $14 billion in the IRA’s conservation funding and incorporate it into the farm bill for years to come so more farmers can access the funding. Pushback: But many Democrats and climate advocates argue those guardrails are necessary to combat climate change via the agriculture sector and to reach President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate goals by 2030. The James Beard Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group are also part of the effort. “Restaurants and local producers — including farmers, fishermen and ranchers in every community — that supply them are directly connected,” the chefs write. “When one of us is harmed by climate change, it harms us all, including the people we employ and the local economies we both support.”
| | | — Raw milk sales are up despite health officials’ warnings amid a bird flu outbreak in dairy cows, per The Associated Press. — China said its official responsible for agriculture, Tang Renjian, is under investigation by an anti-corruption agency for “serious violations” of law, Bloomberg reports. THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line and send us your agriculture job announcements or events: gyarrow@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.
| | A message from CropLife America: 360+ agriculture groups back the bipartisan Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act to protect our food supply, U.S. national security, farmers’ livelihoods, and the environment. Some states are trying to enact pesticide labeling requirements that directly contradict scientific guidance from the EPA, jeopardizing farmers’ access to pesticides—a critical input for growing crops.
If not addressed, this will create an unworkable patchwork of regulations that directly impacts the availability of these essential products for farmers—lowering yields, increasing farmers’ costs, threatening our domestic food supply and national security, and ultimately, raising prices for consumers while erasing decades of conservation gains. The Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act ensures these products remain available while not affecting state and localities' ability to restrict pesticide use, or any individual’s rights in the legal process. Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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