In an often-contentious hearing on Wednesday, members of the House Committee on Agriculture fired shots at each other over the Biden administration’s attempts to regulate farm pollution.

But the hearing on environmental regulations covering agriculture also exposed the wide, if predictable, fault lines that have developed between Democrats and Republicans over the farm bill, the massive piece of legislation that governs the country’s nutrition and agricultural policy.

In his opening comments, the committee’s ranking member, David Scott (D-Ga.), slammed Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) for his “stubborn refusal to engage on a bipartisan farm bill,” calling the delay in moving it forward “irresponsible for the American people.”

The dueling parties often struggle to get the sweeping legislation over the finish line. But this year the disputes over the bill, perhaps more than ever, have centered on climate issues. An especially divisive and fraught presidential election year appears to be complicating and stalling the process toward passage.

“It was not written to be used as a serious bill,” Scott said. “It was written to be used as a campaign slogan.”

In May the committee moved its version of the bill—officially called the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024—to the Appropriations Committee after divisive negotiations that persisted for the better part of the year. The last farm bill, passed in 2018, expired in September 2023 and is running on a one-year extension. Congress negotiates a new farm bill every five years.

The farm bill’s role in addressing climate change has grown more prominent in recent years, since it functions as a safety net for American farmers as they face climate-induced weather extremes and consider conservation measures that can help control greenhouse gas emissions. The current law offers incentives to leave land unplanted or to plant crops that help stash carbon in the soil.  

Despite its importance, not just in addressing the climate crisis but also for anti-hunger programs, land conservation and the farm economy, few Americans know about the farm bill, one of the biggest pieces of legislation that Congress tackles. A survey released this week by researchers at Purdue University’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability found that one-third of Americans had never heard of the law and another third don’t know what it covers. 

“The farm bill encompasses hundreds of millions of dollars and touches every part of the food system,” Joseph Balagtas, the report’s lead author, said in a press release. 

One of the central sticking points during the negotiations this year was over President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which funnels more than $18 billion toward climate-related agricultural programs. This version of the farm bill would direct the Department of Agriculture’s management of those funds.

Republicans and Democrats ultimately agreed that any unspent funding from the IRA will be incorporated into the permanent baseline of the farm bill going forward—meaning the overall total that Congress authorizes under the bill will be larger, even going past 2031, when the IRA funds expire. 

But the Republican-led House version of the bill says those funds can be used on any conservation practices, even those that don’t reduce greenhouse gases, as the IRA requires. Democrats have opposed removing those climate “guardrails.” (Making matters more complicated, critics argue that some of the practices deemed “climate smart” and therefore qualified for IRA funds are not, in fact, good for the climate.) 

“The farm bill encompasses hundreds of millions of dollars and touches every part of the food system.”

The larger obstacle centers, as it often does, on the government’s funding of the anti-hunger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps more than 40 million Americans buy groceries. Roughly 80 percent of farm bill spending goes toward SNAP. The current version of the legislation is the costliest ever, at an estimated $1.5 trillion.  

The farm bill covers both agricultural and nutrition policy by design. In the 1970s, lawmakers moved the food stamp program, SNAP’s predecessor, under the farm bill to encourage urban lawmakers to support programs that mostly benefited rural farming areas and incentivize lawmakers representing rural areas to support a program that mostly benefited the urban poor. 

Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry have released “framework” proposals for their versions of a bill, but that committee has not worked out a final version. The Senate Democrats’ framework calls for greenhouse gas reductions through the bill’s conservation programs.

But Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has indicated she won’t move forward unless the panel can produce a bipartisan bill and has said she will not cut SNAP funding that Republicans have said they want to redirect.  

With both the House and Senate stalled, many advocacy and farm groups are concerned that hard-won, bipartisan agreements aren’t making it into law.

The House version of the bill and the Senate proposals both call for expanding two major programs popular with farmers—the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers to adopt certain conservation practices in their operations, and the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays them to stop farming on environmentally sensitive land.

Meanwhile, some farm bill watchers say they’re concerned that IRA funding isn’t being maximized.

“We need to pass a good farm bill as quickly as possible so we can cement the funding well into the future,” said Michael Happ, a policy specialist with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a progressive advocacy group based in Minnesota. 

Happ explained that of the $18 billion from the IRA for practices deemed “climate-smart,” nearly $14 billion has not been spent. That amount would be incorporated into the permanent baseline; if the farm bill gets delayed another year, the $14 billion would be cut by $8 billion. 

“We’re not going to solve the climate crisis by 2031,” Happ said, referring to the expiration of the IRA. “We’ll still need that money for climate-smart agriculture.”

While Wednesday’s hearing provided a platform for the panel to voice their concerns over the lack of progress on the farm bill, it also presented an opportunity for Republicans to air their grievances at a hodgepodge of environmental regulations.

Republicans called the hearing to focus on the Environmental Protection Agency’s “action” on agriculture, which they consider an overreach. Thompson accused the Biden administration of waging a “war on agriculture” by imposing an “onslaught of regulations” aimed at curbing agriculture’s impact on the environment and climate.

Among these regulations are moves by the Biden administration to reduce wastewater from livestock operations and protect endangered species from herbicide use.  

Thompson noted that he invited EPA Administrator Michael Regan to testify before the committee, but Regan declined.

In a letter responding to Thompson’s most recent invitation, the EPA noted that Regan testified before the committee in December, making him the first EPA administrator to do so since 2016 and one of only five ever.

Britton Burdick, a spokesman for the Democratic minority, said Democrats were not “asked to participate in organizing the hearing nor were we asked to assist in requesting the EPA Administrator to appear before the Committee.” 

The four witnesses represented the sugar beet and livestock industries as well as the National Farmers Union and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. 

Senate and House appropriators this week approved spending bills for the Department of Agriculture that quantified the gulf between the parties. The Republican-led House committee proposal would cut $308 million from the agency’s budget, while the Democratic-led Senate committee version would add $831 million to the budgets of the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration.