The House yesterday passed H.R. 2642, a five-year U.S. farm-policy bill that does not include Title IV, which is the Nutrition title. The measure was approved along party lines on a 216-208 vote with no Democrats voting in support.  “Breaking up the urban-rural coalition that for decades successfully negotiated similar bills will doom any chance the bill has to become law.  I see no clear path to getting a bill passed by the House and Senate and signed by the President,” said Collin Peterson (D-MN), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee.

In a final floor speech, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas  (R-OK) asked for support for the farm-program-only bill.  “Pass the farm bill so that we can begin to work on nutrition,” he said.   Lucas said members have his “personal pledge” that he will lead the committee to work on the nutrition title but said he cannot guarantee what the product will look like.  He also noted that the food stamp program is an appropriated entitlement and that, if the Agriculture Committee and the House cannot address it, the Appropriations Committee can deal with it.

The legislation had been stymied largely because of the food stamp provisions. The bill rejected last month, H.R. 1947, would have cut spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), by about 2.5 percent, or $2 billion a year.  SNAP funding alone makes up more than three-quarters of the total farm bill cost.

Also included in the revised House farm bill is language that will repeal federal policy that reverts to permanent law that was established in 1938 and 1949. H.R. 2642 makes Title I, the Commodity title, permanent law.

Conference on the two bills will take place in September after Congress returns from the August recess. The White House has declared that, if there is no nutrition title in the bill, that it will not be signed into law.