800 326 9054All eyes are shifting to the Senate following the House passage of a farm bill Thursday. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman, R-Ark., is targeting the end of May or early June for a bill markup as Democrats prepare for fights on pesticides and food assistance.
The House “going ahead and passing something was really helpful to us,” Boozman told Agri-Pulse at the Capitol Thursday. “Congress wants to get a farm bill done.”
The Senate is not expected to be in session the last week of May. A recess is slated to begin May 23, with lawmakers returning June 1.
Unlike in the House, where the bill could pass with a simple majority, the Senate version will require 60 votes to clear the filibuster, which means securing at least seven Democrats.
The top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, says she wants to revisit the design of a policy to shift a substantial portion of the costs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program onto states, as required by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The House Agriculture Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., is also urging Senate Democrats to press the issue.
In a statement after the House vote, Senate Ag Committee Democrats said, “We have been clear that the farm bill must address the needs of American farmers and families. With a five-year high in small-farm bankruptcies, the farm bill must address rising input costs, provide new opportunities for domestic markets, and fight for a trade agenda that works for everyone. Senate Democrats are committed to ensuring all states are treated equally by delaying the new SNAP cost shifts and addressing the needs of farm country.”
Boozman, however, has insisted that reopening debate on the SNAP cost-share is a non-starter.
“We’re not going to revisit that,” he reiterated to Agri-Pulse Thursday.
One issue that is on the table, Boozman said, is whether to include language on pesticide labeling that featured in the base text of the House bill, but was eventually stripped after a successful amendment vote led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.
The provision, which would essentially make the Environmental Protection Agency pesticide label the law of the land, faced pushback from Democrats and Republicans aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement, who argued it offered a legal “shield” for large chemical manufacturers.
The House’s stripping of the controversial provision was the “result of a movement of people that are trying to get pesticides off of our foods and chemicals out of our foods,” Ag Committee Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, N.J, said Thursday.
“And so now in the Senate, we’re going to have a similar fight, and I’m going to be one of those people that continues to push to clean our food system and rid it of these toxic chemicals that are linked to so many cancers and other diseases,” Booker said.
Booker introduced a bill this week with fellow Democrat, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, to ensure glyphosate manufacturers can be held liable under federal and state law if the chemical is proven to cause cancer.
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Booker said discussions on the Senate farm bill are “just starting to happen,” but he’s hoping Boozman will work with him and his team on the pesticide issue.
Boozman acknowledged Thursday that the pesticide labeling provision in the House bill had been a “controversial” issue. He said conversations are underway to determine whether a similar provision would be included in a Senate farm bill text.
“We’re talking with our Democratic colleagues, and if no Democrat is going to vote for it, it makes it more difficult [to include],” Boozman said.
House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., is also anticipating further fights over pesticide labeling.
The amendment votes, Thompson said, “were based on emotion,” adding that lawmakers will “keep talking about it.”
Senators could also face squabbles over a measure that repeals animal-welfare state laws, including California’s Proposition 12. The provision came under intense debate in the House Rules Committee, but the panel ultimately blocked an amendment that sought to undo the measure.
Boozman told members of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Wednesday that he remains “very much in support” of a fix to Prop 12, but acknowledged that it remains a divisive issue in the upper chamber.
“I don’t think there’s a single Democrat that would vote for it,” Boozman said. “In fact, I’ve asked for one to be identified that we could work with and so far nobody’s [been] provided.”
The Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12 in 2023. That law prohibits sales in the state of eggs or pork derived from animals that were not raised in line with California’s animal housing standards. The National Pork Producers Council and other farm groups have been advocating for the House farm bill provision, arguing that many small producers cannot afford to make the necessary operational changes to preserve access to the California market.
“We’ve offered some alternatives” to generate bipartisan support for a partial fix, Boozman said. “Maybe grandfathering the states that have done it and precluding other states in the future.”
While he didn’t clarify if a Prop 12 fix could be included in the Senate farm bill text, he added that “we really are talking. We’re trying to find some compromise.”
If the Senate passes its own farm bill, Thompson and other House lawmakers will have another opportunity to weigh in when the two bills go to a conference committee to be reconciled. Thompson stressed to reporters Thursday that he plans to defend the House bill’s Prop 12 language at that venue, if necessary.
“I’m going to fight for that provision,” Thompson told reporters.
California is “imposing its will on the rights of every other state. And that’s just wrong,” Thompson said.
But he acknowledged that the Senate has different dynamics to the House.
“Senator Boozman, who’s a dear friend, has got to do whatever he can to get 60 votes in the Senate, and I respect that,” Thompson said.
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