The House and Senate are fighting over food stamps.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program makes up most of the 2018 Farm Bill, and major differences in the way the House and Senate attempt to reform the program has stalled passage and put critical agricultural programs in danger of lapsing.
“Eventually there is going to have to be an agreement,” Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters last week.
Roberts said committee staff are working to smooth over minor differences between House and Senate bills, but some lawmakers on the Senate panel are now fearing the bill will remain unfinished this year in part because of the food stamp fight.
In addition to food stamps, the bill authorizes farm policy and dozens of programs until 2023, including crop insurance, conservation and subsidy programs.
Roberts said last week lawmakers have figure out what the path forward will be.
“That is to be determined,” Roberts said.
Current authorization for farm programs ended on Sept. 30. While most programs are funded into December, the uncertainty hurts the nation’s agriculture sector.
The major disagreement stopping the House and Senate from finishing the bill stems from a work requirement for food stamp recipients.
While many able-bodied food-stamp recipients are required to work under current federal law, the House farm bill expands eligibility for work requirements in part by raising the top age from 49 to 59. The bill would also make it more difficult for states to waive the work requirements, which House GOP aides said was happening through the manipulation of unemployment data.
The bill also diverts $1 billion to a worker training program for unemployed people to get job skills.
Democrats have denounced the amped-up requirements and the job training, which they argue steers money away from ensuring ample nutrition for the poor.
The House approved a five-year farm bill by a party-line vote in June. Every Democrat voted against it, citing the food stamp changes.
“Instead of making smart investments, Republicans are wasting taxpayer dollars on vast, untested and unworkable bureaucracies that will increase hunger and poverty across the country,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
Senate Democrats also oppose the House changes to work requirements and their votes are needed to clear a final bill thanks to filibuster rules in the upper chamber. Their version of the farm bill, which excluded the changes to food stamp work requirements, passed in a bipartisan vote, 86-11.
President Trump this year signaled his support for enhanced work requirements in a meeting with Roberts and House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas. And Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is pushing for the House changes, which are a central part of his longtime goal of reforming entitlement programs and returning people to work.
Conaway, in an interview, said House and Senate lawmakers are still negotiating the food stamp portion of the bill, but he said there are also disagreements over the other dozen sections of the bill, including farm credit and trade.
“All 12 titles are wide open,” Conaway said.
He called the food stamp program “a sticking point,” but added, “there are major sticking points of equal weight for several of the titles.”
Conaway is a strong advocate for the work requirements in the House bill, but has signaled he understands the changes can’t make it past a Senate filibuster.
More than 80 percent of the $867 billion farm bill is dedicated to the food stamp program, and about 42 million people were enrolled in the program in 2017, a decrease of about 2 million from 2016.
Conaway said House and Senate lawmakers are trying to work out a deal on the farm bill in October.
The House won’t be in session again until a week after the Nov. 6 elections, but negotiators will be working on the legislation this month.
“So when we get back right after the election we can vote on it,” Conaway said.
