Because it receives appropriations outside of the farm bill process, it does not need to rely on the farm bill for continued operation. Second, federal crop insurance is permanently authorized by the Federal Crop Insurance Act.
This means that it would continue unchanged if the current farm bill were to expire. SNAP currently serves about 40 million people per month. Traditionally, SNAP is updated and reauthorized as part of the farm bill. With regard to funding SNAP, that is contingent on the appropriations process. These highly controversial provisions are currently on the table at Conference. However, if Congress is unsuccessful at Conference or the President vetoes, the whole Farm Bill drafting process would start over with a Congress that might be more friendly to anti-hunger and left-leaning organizations.
Because SNAP carries on in its current form even if there is no new farm bill, some groups that want to protect and promote SNAP see the expiration of the Farm Bill without reauthorization as preferable to the passage of a new farm bill that, like the House version, makes major cuts to SNAP. The Federal Crop Insurance Act of permanently authorized Federal crop insurance, meaning that federal crop insurance will continue to exist even if the Farm Bill expires without reauthorization or extension.
However, the Farm Bill enhanced coverage. This means that the bulk of the crop insurance program would stay intact, but losses not covered under the original Crop Insurance Act would again not be covered.
The most important change for farmers would be the discontinuation of the Shallow Loss Program, which was first included in the Farm Bill. Assuming there is a new FY Budget, crop insurance will be funded. Some programs, instead of expiring completely without a new or extended farm bill, would revert back to being governed by the original permanent law that created them.
Most programs created with permanent law in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of and the Agriculture Act of have been changed and modernized through subsequent farm bills. But, these changes only last as long as each farm bill, and without a new or extended farm bill, the programs would revert to being governed by old permanent law that might no longer makes sense in the modern world.
Other programs that are important for sustainable farming, minority and beginning farmers, rural economic development and more have also been frozen. Even the programs with permanent authorization, however, do not continue indefinitely. In practice, the threat of reverting to permanent law is used mostly as an incentive to get a farm bill passed on time, though it has not been a terribly effective threat in recent years. Now that the farm bill has expired, Congress has two options for action when it returns in November.
The first is to hash out the remaining sticking points and pass a new farm bill by the end of the year. If that is not possible, Congress can instead pass a short-term extension of the bill.
Several extensions were passed in the two years that it took to pass the farm bill. A farm bill extension is better than no bill at all, but some extensions have failed to reauthorize the so-called orphan programs, leaving them in limbo and without funding, sometimes for a year or more.
While intended as a trigger to force Congress to act, it appears to have become less of a motivator than it once was. Under an expiration scenario where there is no reauthorization and no extension, these programs would cease to operate on October 1 — grants that had already been made and contracts that had already been signed before October 1 would be unaffected; however, USDA would have no authority to administer the programs.
All of the other farm bill conservation programs — Conservation Reserve Program CRP , Conservation Stewardship Program CSP , and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program ACEP , are only authorized to operate for fiscal years through , and they would be trapped in a no-mans land where they have funding to proceed for sign-ups, but lack the legal authority to do so.
As a result, under the expiration scenario, there would be no sign-ups or further implementation of the programs until such time as Congress either agrees to a new farm bill or passes an extension of the current farm bill. If that happens right away, the agencies implementing the program can continue on without missing a beat. If, however, there is a short term or longer-term delay, the agencies will find it impossible to implement the programs in a timely fashion during , with producers left holding the bag.
This disruption in conservation program sign-ups and implementation would be devastating for the farmers and ranchers who utilize and depend on this assistance. It would also place enormous strain on USDA when they are ultimately asked to implement the programs without sufficient time to do the job.
The Specialty Crop Block Grant program is another example of a program with permanent mandatory farm bill funding, yet no authority to implement the program beyond the expiration of the current farm bill. Another example is the Seniors Farmers Market Nutrition Program — it has permanent funding, but USDA would have to cease delivering the program if there is not a farm bill extension. This paper will summarize the issues, including the mandated reversion to farm legislation more than 60 years old, if no new farm bill or extension is forthcoming.
Many programs have continued baseline funding after the expiration of the farm bill. This baseline funding, which is based on cost projections by the Congressional Budget Office CBO , is used to determine funding levels for programs in the next farm bill and ultimately provides built-in funding in the next farm bill Monke, However, 37 farm bill programs do not have extended baseline funding past the expiration of the farm bill.
With the extension, the disaster assistance programs did not receive funding and were not continued. Although the current farm bill has now had two expirations and one extension, the House and Senate agriculture committees have worked tirelessly to pass a new farm bill. However, budget issues and the current political environment have made passage of a new farm bill impossible up to this point.
The process of writing a replacement to the farm bill began in , following the passage of the Budget Control Act in August Ironically, the process of preparing the new farm bill followed a rather untraditional process in the beginning because of provisions in the Budget Control Act. Instead of the usual process of hearings and deliberations, the farm bill was quickly drafted with little time for problem framing, debate, or public input.
The agriculture committees wanted to submit the farm bill to the Super Committee to include as part of their cutting package to potentially avoid deeper cuts to farm programs, but the Super Committee failed to reach an agreement. The agriculture committees then went back to the drawing board, this time following a more traditional process. The Senate passed its version of the farm bill in June , but the House farm bill never made it to the House floor after being passed by the House agriculture committee in July The farm bill expired without an extension until the American Taxpayer Relief Act of was enacted in January The Act also postponed sequestration until March The impact of sequestration on agriculture included a reduction in agency personnel necessitating a slowdown in service, as well as curtailing of some services.
For the most part, primary, high visibility programs have continued. Once the cuts go into effect for the next fiscal year, larger impacts to major programs will be seen, according to many analysts and agency officials.
For example, programs using appropriations will be cut another 5 to 10 percent. In , the House and Senate agriculture committees had to restart the farm bill process due to the new th Congress. The Senate passed its version of the farm bill on June 10 with little debate, but the process did not go as smoothly in the House. On June 20, the House defeated its own agricultural committee farm bill. This marks the first time in nearly 50 years that food programs were not included in the comprehensive farm bill, perhaps signaling the end of the contract between urban and rural representatives.
Several months later, the House passed the nutrition portion as a separate bill H. In late September, the House passed H. Table 1 shows the major differences between the House and Senate farm bills and the farm bill. The House leadership named the farm bill conferees in mid-October and a farm bill conference should happen soon. So, many are now wondering about the possibility of yet another extension. Without a new act or extension, USDA is mandated to revert to permanent legislation.
Agency planning is already underway to meet that contingency. Table 1. Although it is fairly common for a farm bill to expire without enacting a new one only two have been enacted prior to the expiration date , extensions are really not that common see Monk, Aussenberg, and Stubbs for a detailed discussion of prior expirations and extensions.
When a farm bill expires, Congress has several options: 1 pass a new farm bill, 2 extend the current farm bill, or 3 revert to permanent legislation. A little wiggle room does exist as recently evidenced following the three-month period following the expiration of the farm bill in and the extension in It is important to note that even with an extension, the impact of farm bill programs is not equal due to how the programs are funded and how they are included in the farm bill.
Programs receive the authority to operate through an Authorization Bill and the authority to receive funding through an Appropriations Bill.
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