Top 10 Ag Stories of 2023: No. 1

Editor's Note: Each year DTN publishes our choices for the Top 10 ag news stories of the year as selected by DTN analysts, editors and reporters. This year, we've been counting them down from Dec. 18 to Dec. 29. On Dec. 31, we will look at some of the runners-up for this year. Today, we end the countdown with No. 1: How the drama in Congress led to the collapse of the 2023 farm bill as the House of Representatives struggled with spending bills and changes with the House Speaker.

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OMAHA (DTN) -- The farm bill was never going to get done in 2023, but that doesn't mean there weren't great expectations.

The question now is whether there will be a new farm bill in 2024.

NO LIFTOFF IN 2023

Shortly after announcing she won't run for re-election in 2024, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, went on NBC's Meet the Press last January to say she intended to get a farm bill done in 2023.

"The big issue that has bipartisan support to actually get done this next year is what we call the farm bill," she said.

Stabenow's interview, though, came just days after it took Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., 15 ballots to win the House speakership he would lose less than nine months later. The interparty turmoil over McCarthy's speakership would end up as yet another "first time in history" moment for American government.

Plans to draft a new farm bill eventually failed to gain any traction this year as the House was in constant turmoil over government spending passed by the last Congress. Republicans were also committed to passing bills with only GOP lawmakers' votes. McCarthy erred by relying on Democrats in early summer to pass a debt-limit bill negotiated with President Joe Biden.

Throughout the year, McCarthy also repeatedly championed the push to get a farm bill done sooner rather than later.

If frequent-flyer miles could have helped pass a bill, then House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., would have locked it down. Thompson spent the better part of the year holding bipartisan listening sessions and agricultural tours with congressmen across the country. Thompson typically hedged on the timing but made it clear he wanted to pass a bipartisan bill in the House.

Thompson explained a fall vote could happen. "Everything is dependent on when we get a week designated on the floor for running the bill." That became, "We're probably going to need an extension. I hope it's a very short one."

HOUSE SPEAKER CONFLICT

McCarthy then relied on Democrats to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September. That would prove to be McCarthy's last act as Speaker. Led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., eight Republicans voted to end McCarthy's leadership and locked up Congress the entire month of October trying to replace him.

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La. is now House Speaker, but Congress still has a lot of unfinished business closing out the year, including the annual appropriations bill for USDA. Congress will come back in January staring at unfinished appropriations bills for a budget year that began Oct. 1.

The last short-term spending bill waved goodbye to the 2023 farm bill by extending the 2018 legislation until Sept. 30, 2024. That move appears to have given Congress some breathing room to get a new bill done during the next nine months.

IRA DOLLARS AND FARM BILL

Tied to the farm bill debate are the $19.5 billion passed in the Inflation Reduction Act, along with billions more for renewable energy and forestry. Rolling those dollars into the farm bill would boost the baseline. It might also help expand the safety net for farmers, but none of these issues have been worked out so far.

Despite their calls for cuts elsewhere in the budget, Republicans also are sticking to their guns that they want to raise reference prices for commodity programs. Yet, a 10% bump in reference prices adds $20 billion in costs over 10 years.

The legislation also is scored to cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years, nearly 43% more than the 2018 farm bill. The higher spending is driven heavily by a USDA adjustment to the "Thrifty Food Plan," which added $300 billion over 10 years to USDA's main food-aid program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) costs. That cost change raised a lot of questions about how USDA could make such an expensive cost adjustment without going to Congress first.

Republicans plan to continue focusing on SNAP costs. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, threw down a marker earlier this month with a letter to Congressional leadership looking to roll back SNAP spending to pre-pandemic levels. Grassley and Roy also want more restrictions on how USDA uses the Commodity Credit Corp., (CCC) "which has become a bureaucratic slush fund with little oversight." Vilsack used $3.1 billion out of the CCC to create the Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities.

Lawmakers have forgotten the Trump administration had tapped the CCC for $23 billion in 2018 and 2019 to offset the costs of the trade dispute with China. At that time, it was Democrats questioning the use of those dollars.

Grassley's also among those wanting to increase reference prices, but the longest-serving member of the Senate Agriculture Committee is also in the camp of those who don't know where that money would come from.

PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

Rolling into 2024, plans to get a farm bill undoubtedly will be mired by presidential politics. There have been times when Congress navigated through a farm bill during a presidential race. The 2008 farm bill was enacted in June that year overturning a veto by outgoing President George W. Bush -- the last time a farm bill was finalized. But that bill was completed with conference negotiations after the House and Senate had each passed their versions of the bill in 2007. Though less than two decades ago, 2008 also seems like a much more congenial time in Congress and presidential politics than now.

According to Politico, Thompson has said he wants to get a farm bill passed in the first quarter of 2024. Yet Politico also alleged in mid-December, "Privately, House Republicans increasingly don't believe House Democrats want to pass a farm bill this year, arguing that Democrats would rather push the bill into 2025 when they could retake the majority."

Still, Stabenow likely wants to walk into retirement having helped guide another five-year farm bill into law. Agricultural policy in 2024 also could be fueled or clouded by Thompson's health. Earlier this month, he announced he has prostate cancer and will be undergoing treatment.

To see more about our DTN countdown, see the Editors' Notebook blog at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

To see the other top stories of the year:

No. 10: "Livestock Producers Lean Into USDA's Livestock Risk Protection Coverage (LRP)," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 9: "Supreme Court Rules on Two Major Ag Cases," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 8: "EPA's Plan to Protect Endangered Species From Herbicides Draws Criticism," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 7: "The High Cost of Some Inputs Fall, But So Does Farm Income," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 6: "Ongoing Drought Slows Cow Herd Expansion During Year," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 5: "King Corn Gives Up Its Crown as US Export Share Remains in Decline," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 4: " 2023 Wild Weather Caused by Quick Change in La Nina to El Nino Ocean Temperatures," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 3: "The Crop Year of Surprises," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

No. 2: "Interest Rates on Farm Loans Soar to 20-Year Highs as Fed Fights Inflation," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Check out the latest Editors' Notebook blog on why DTN selected its choice for the top story of the year, at https://www.dtnpf.com/….

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ChrisClaytonDTN

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