The Scoop Podcast: The Farm Bill Looms Large

After the mid-term elections, ARA’s Hunter Carpenter says it’ll take a focus on getting things done in a bipartisian fashion for the 118th Congress. 

“I will also say that we are going to see a lot more bipartisanship necessary. If the Republicans have the house and the Democrats at the Senate, they're going to have to come to some agreements, and there’s going to be some people in the middle in both chambers that control which way this thing sways. So the centrist Blue Dog Democrats and dealmaker Republicans are going to be the people that kind of hold all the marbles in this game. So it'll be interesting to watch how this dynamic plays out,” Carpenter says. 

Carpenter says for agriculture, the Farm Bill is already soaking up a lot of attention. 

“The Farm Bill looms large with needing to be reauthorized in 2023,” Carpenter says. “The folks that are in leadership positions in the House and Senate Ag committees have done a great job of getting out in front of the Farm Bill to make sure it didn't sneak up on them in the next Congress and have already had discussions in rural America with farmers and with retailers and folks that work in the ag industry.”

Carpenter references some statements of wanting to get the bill out of the house by July, but there will take a lot of work. 

“There are some issues that have already kind of been solved like in the conservation title with funding getting advanced in the Inflation Reduction Act earlier this year. I do think that once again, SNAP payments and commodity title are going to be the big drivers of discussion between the chambers,” he says. 

In the near-future, legislation priorities before the yearend are led by the bills to fund the government, which has to be done by December 16. 

Other highlights ahead include two key infrastructure issues in WRDA and the freight rail system’s potential strike.

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