House Ag farm bill markup could last 2 days
The House Agriculture Committee markup started at 6 p.m. Tuesday, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., announced late Monday.
That is a change from the previously announced 5 p.m. starting point. An earlier markup was postponed due to weather.
A committee source said the markup is likely to recess at midnight and resume at 8 a.m. Wednesday and continue until finished, “potentially into the wee hours of Thursday morning.”
Thompson released the bill and a summary on Feb. 13.
Many members have filed amendments.
The event will be livestreamed.
The American Farm Bureau Federation has called for passage of the bill, and its Market Intel service has published a title-by-tile analysis of the bill, which covers the sections of the farm bill that were not included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But a coalition of anti-hunger, public health, environmental, labor, and small farmer organizations have called for its defeat.
Democratic members of the committee are expected to offer amendments to reverse the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that were in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center said Thompson’s draft text “misses a critical opportunity to fight hunger in America. Instead of strengthening the very tools designed to support food security — during a time when an alarming number of households are struggling to put food on the table — Chairman Thompson’s mark fails to include funding to restore the historic $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and harmful SNAP provisions enacted in the budget reconciliation law (H.R. 1).”
The United Food and Commercial Workers urged a “no” vote on the grounds that the bill “paves the way for big meatpackers to tighten their grip over the sector, cuts workers out of training programs that should be ensuring their safety, and does nothing to make groceries affordable for working families.”
A provision to cut money from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to fund other initiatives is expected to be controversial.
Measures that would overturn Proposition 12, the California law that limits the sale of pork in California to meat coming from animals raised under certain conditions, and limit states’ abilities to regulate pesticides, are considered poison pills that could generate opposition from both parties.
Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., has filed amendments to lengthen the time for the implementation of a law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages and foods made from hemp. That amendment and others like it are popular with the hemp industry but opposed by the liquor industry and public health groups.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., ranking member on the committee, has said she will find it difficult to support the bill, and very few Democrats are expected to vote for it.
