WASHINGTON — Republicans who may take control of Congress in next week’s midterm elections have not been very specific about many policy goals — but the farm bill is an exception.
Members of the GOP in the U.S. House and Senate are sending strong signals they want to strip climate funding from the massive legislation in 2023 if they take control. That would thwart farmland conservation advocates, who had hoped to make it one of the most significant investments ever made for climate-smart practices on American farmland.
Both House and Senate GOP members of the agriculture panels sent letters to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in late October asking for justification for the administration’s recent investment in “climate-smart agriculture,” and protesting what they said was a lack of consultation with Congress.
Vilsack had announced in September $2.8 billion for research and pilot projects to support climate-friendly food production. The agency plans to announce a second group of “climate-smart commodities” projects later this year.
Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, asked Vilsack on Oct. 27 for a report on the department’s rationale for its spending.
And a group of House Republicans said Congress should have been consulted before launching the climate program “in this difficult farm economy when so many are struggling with rising input costs, drought, and an ongoing supply chain crisis.”
“We are dismayed at the lack of transparency and congressional consultation throughout the development of this process,” Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., wrote in an Oct. 28 letter along with eight other Republicans from the Congressional Western Caucus, a group of lawmakers that purports to be a “voice for rural America.”
Every five years
Lawmakers must rewrite the sweeping farm bill every five years to set both policy and funding levels for farm, food and conservation programs. The next farm bill needs to be authorized by September 2023.
Both agriculture and environmental advocacy groups have geared up for the next farm bill to potentially have a significant section for “climate-smart” farm practices, such as funding for farmers to plant trees and cover crops, use less water or leave soil untilled.
If so, it could be the first farm bill in more than 30 years to explicitly address climate change. The Biden administration has come out in support of such practices — notably using a general fund designated for farm support to finance new research on farmland climate mitigation.
Agriculture Committee members tout the bipartisan process they use to write the farm bill, but the question of how much focus to put on climate change is one that clearly already is dividing on party lines.
The Republican Study Committee, whose members make up 80% of all Republican members of Congress, proposed drastic cuts for the farm bill in the draft budget it released as a “Blueprint to Save America.” It rejects investment in a “radical climate agenda’ and outlines a plan to defund farm bill conservation programs that pay farmers to retire environmentally sensitive croplands.
And a major dispute centers around the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed in August. It has a slate of programs to address climate change, including more than $20 billion for climate investments on farmland. Congress could fold that into the next farm bill for unprecedented farmland conservation spending.
The Inflation Reduction Act would provide about a 47% increase over previous farm bill levels, according to an analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
But the top Republicans on both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have said they may forgo additional investment in climate provisions.
Boozman categorized the funding for agriculture…
Read More: Climate funding could suffer in the farm bill under GOP control of Congress