Boozman plans farm bill text, markup in June

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said Tuesday he plans to release the text of the Senate version of what’s known as Farm Bill 2.0, or the skinny farm bill, in June and plans a committee markup of the bill the same month.

Boozman made the statement to The Hagstrom Report after a committee hearing on fertilizer.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member on the bill, told The Hagstrom Report she and Boozman are supposed to meet about the farm bill next week. On the sidelines of a reception sponsored by the Plant Based Products Council, Klobuchar said she hopes Boozman “with work with us.” The most important issue, Klobuchar said, is to make changes to the section of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that shifts part of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to the states based on the state error rates in SNAP payments. In order to win the vote of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to pass the bill, Republican negotiators agreed to give states with the highest error rates, including Alaska, more time to comply with the provision than states with lower error rates, including Minnesota.

Asked if she hopes that bills she has written to address fertilizer problems can be made part of the farm bill, Klobuchar said that would be fine, but the highest priority is to address the SNAP issues. She also pointed out that the Democrats have not asked to reverse all the changes to SNAP in the OBBBA, only to address the state share issue.

Boozman and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., both have said they have no plans to make changes to the SNAP provision in the bill. Analysts have said they don’t think the Senate can find 60 votes to pass the bill without changes to SNAP and that they question whether the House would pass a conference report with changes to SNAP.