The House approved a five-year farm bill Thursday after removing a law on liability protections for pesticide manufacturers.
The 224-200 vote sets the stage for follow-up action by the Senate, but the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee has yet to introduce any significant measures of its own for food, agriculture, and rural development.
Fourteen Democratic senators voted in favor of the bill (HR7567). Three Republicans opposed it: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, and Andrew Garbarino of New York.
“This is a great day for American farmers and American consumers,” House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) told reporters after the vote, adding that Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman (R-Arkansas) would also move to pass the bill soon.
“Speaker Boozman has been waiting for that,” Thompson said of the House’s action.
Democrats criticized the bill for lacking support for farmers facing inflation, low commodity prices and declining incomes, according to the USDA.
They also criticized Republican leaders for scheduling the debate late at night. Most of that happened just after midnight Thursday morning, after hours of negotiations involving various branches of the Republican Party.
“They’re like vampires. They’re afraid to talk about this in public,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a member of the Agriculture Committee and the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee.
Thursday’s passage marked a victory for Thompson and most major farm groups. The previous version (2018) called for a farm bill to be enacted since it expired in 2023, with only short-term extensions in place as the economic burden on farming nations increased.
The bill passed the House Agriculture Committee in March, with support from all Republicans and seven Democrats.
However, this proposal could take a long time to become law. Boozman said he wants to avoid controversial topics that could hurt the chances of a strong bipartisan policy proposal.
Is the pesticide problem still alive?
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) sponsored an amendment to the farm bill’s pesticide provisions. |Jacqueline Martin/Associated Press
As originally proposed, the House bill would give pesticide companies limited protection from lawsuits by people who claim their products cause cancer and other illnesses. But if the company had been the “bad guy” and lied about the chemical’s known effects, the lawsuit would still have been allowed, Thompson said.
After the vote, Thompson said he doesn’t expect the pesticide problem to go away, noting the bill still awaits consideration in the Senate as well as House-Senate talks to hammer out final details. He said removing it from the bill would be “dangerous” because different states could have different pesticide labels.
“I refuse to stand still and allow that to happen to the American people,” Thompson said.
This language has become a priority for pesticide companies following lawsuits related to the herbicide glyphosate. Getting rid of it has been a top priority for the Make America Healthy Again movement, which is aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but has recently faced tension within President Donald Trump’s political base.
“This is about the American people, and it’s about protecting the American people,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said during a floor debate Wednesday, introducing an amendment that would bash the pesticide language. It passed 280-142.
Rep. Cherry Pingree (D-Maine) supported Luna’s bill and said she was “surprised” that Republican leaders included it.
But Thompson said during the debate that the measure is more about labeling than the actual chemicals, a sentiment echoed by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.).
“This has nothing to do with the actual pesticide in the jug,” Scott said.
Other issues
Although the loudest debate has focused on just a few provisions of the bill, the bill covers a wide range of USDA programs, with a focus on research, conservation, forestry, and rural development programs.
The measure builds on changes to farm programs made in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which covered most of the farm bill’s costs. But most of the Farm Bill’s policies remain addressed in the bill considered Thursday, Thompson said.
Among other environmental and energy policies, the bill expands assistance programs for fruit and nut trees damaged by storms, an area of growing concern related to climate change.
It would promote “precision agriculture” practices in environmental quality incentive programs and create a new conservation easement program in forestry to prevent conversion of productive forest land.
Major farm groups support the bill, but others, such as the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, urged lawmakers to vote against it.
NSAC and other groups said the bill does nothing to solve staffing shortages at the USDA, which last year encouraged thousands of employees to postpone retirement, and does not do enough to help new farmers and organic farmers who rely on the agency for help with start-up costs.
“If this bill is enacted into law, the impact of these shortcomings will be especially acute for small and medium-sized operators, young workers, and other underserved farmers and ranchers who are the backbone of agriculture and help ensure resilience in times of national crisis,” the group wrote in an April 24 letter to House Republican and Democratic leaders.
biofuel battle
This bill is also notable for one item it does not include. That is the lifting of summer sales restrictions on E15 fuel (15% ethanol, a key issue for biofuels and agricultural interests).
Republican leaders abandoned efforts to tie the E15 issue to the Farm Bill, either through an amendment or as a separate measure that could be approved and added to the already approved Farm Bill. Instead, the House will vote separately on proposal E15 on May 13, Thompson said Thursday.
Minnesota Democrat Angie Craig, a leading agricultural figure, said she had doubts, given the opposition of some Republicans to the E15 provision. The proposal would also revise the EPA’s biofuel blending exemption for small refineries to ease some of the requirements, but the industry contends this is insufficient.
“Pardon me for being a skeptic,” Craig said.
Amendment passed or rejected
The House approved several amendments, including the following proposals:
- Promote composting as a conservation activity in USDA programs, regardless of whether it is built in any structure.
- Directs USDA to create a tree-planting grant program aimed at reducing residential energy consumption.
- Directs the Department of Agriculture to report on assistance available to Arizona agricultural producers for Colorado River water losses.
- Permits continued enrollment of land under the State Acre Reserve Conservation Program for Wildlife.
- Exempts tractors and other farm equipment from Clean Air Act emissions requirements.
Lawmakers voted 210-216 to reject an amendment by Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) that would have expanded the definition of renewable biomass in the Renewable Fuels Standard to include residual wood materials from forestry projects and sawmills.
