| | | | |  | | By Garrett Downs and Meredith Lee Hill | | | — Lawmakers left Washington for the monthlong August recess without a farm bill draft. MA has the latest on where the farm bill stands when lawmakers return in September, ahead of a looming Oct. 1 federal shutdown if Congress can’t pass a full suite of appropriations bills. — Republicans in the House are still trying to work out the Agriculture Department-FDA spending bill before that deadline. MA has the details. — Virginia Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger told Democrats she will run for governor, a major shakeup for House Agriculture Committee Democrats if she follows through. HAPPY MONDAY, July 31. Welcome to Morning Ag. We’re your hosts, Garrett Downs and Meredith Lee Hill. Send tips to gdowns@politico.com and meredithlee@politico.com, and follow us at @Morning_Ag.
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| | FARM BILL UPDATE: Congress packed up and left for the monthlong August recess. They left behind a lot of unfinished business. The House left with a blunder. After only two-and-a-half hours of debate in the Rules Committee, Republican leadership was unable to muster the votes for their Ag-FDA spending package and punted it to September. Neither chamber has circulated a draft of the farm bill, either. The massive farm and food spending reauthorization package is expected to top $1 trillion. Both the appropriations government spending fight and the farm bill have rapidly approaching deadlines of Sept. 30, which Congress is expected to miss. The farm bill: While the farm bill expires on Sept. 30, lawmakers have a bit more wiggle room with timing. In the House, Ag Committee Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) has said he wants to circulate a draft in early September. According to one GOP lawmaker, the House draft is “pretty much ready to go.” Thompson has repeatedly told reporters that he plans to spend a large part of his August recess in Washington working on the bill. In the Senate, Ag Committee ranking member John Boozman (R-Ark.) told Meredith that he and Chair Debbie Stabenow(D-Mich.) are going to be “working hard” through the recess and have committed to meeting in person or by Zoom. However, Boozman said the “biggest challenge is [CBO] scores.” You’ll remember Ag Committee lawmakers from both chambers have been complaining that CBO scores for the farm bill are taking too long and delaying the committee’s work on getting a farm bill draft together. Timeline: As we’ve reported, Senate aides have largely ruled out September for the upper chamber to have a final draft of their farm bill, given the jam-packed schedule. But they’re increasingly optimistic about October, pending any additional delays from the negotiations or CBO. CBO Director Phillip Swagel told lawmakers earlier this month that he could not hire any additional staff for the farm bill, but that he was making changes internally to speed up work on estimates for farm bill programs.
|  Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.) | Francis Chung/POLITICO | | | APPROPRIATIONS BATTLE: The House Ag-FDA funding bill sputtered out last week amid an intraparty Republican battle, throwing off leadership plans to pass the bill before recess ahead of a looming government shutdown Oct. 1. A dozen House GOP moderates are roiled by the bill’s rider to bar mail delivery of the abortion pill mifepristone, and the hard right House Freedom Caucus wants stiffer work requirements on nutrition programs and deeper spending cuts across the board. Meredith has more of the final hangups. Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Meredith last Thursday that "we've got more work to do" on the Ag-FDA funding bill before the full House can vote on it. Still, he said he was “very” confident that Congress could avoid a government shutdown Oct. 1 amid the time crunch, adding that his goal is to keep passing spending bills until then. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarthy’s top negotiators, told MA that Republicans will “continue dialogue all during the month of August and just continue working through it." SNAP waiver focus: Graves said he believes there is “additional progress or savings that can be maximized” within federal food assistance, pointing to ag appropriations amendments that he and others put forward that would limit states’ ability to waive some layers of work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries — a perennial issue for Republicans. “We kind of got what we could get in the debt ceiling," Graves said. “I think we're gonna continue working, whether it's approps, farm bill or others to keep building on it.” There is also an ongoing effort from key ag-district Republicans to save as much agriculture spending as possible from the chopping block as the Freedom Caucus comes for steeper cuts. “I would like to see if we can save as much as possible, the same as it was in committee and I think there's gonna be a push for that,” Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) told MA, after meeting with McCarthy several times last week. Valadao, a prominent Biden district Republican from an agriculture-heavy region and a member of the ag appropriations subcommittee, added: “We'll see how the amendments come to the floor and make decisions as they come."
|  Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarthy’s top negotiators, told MA that Republicans will “continue dialogue all during the month of August and just continue working through it." | Francis Chung/POLITICO | FLOOR CRUNCH: It will be a crowded fall in the lower chamber. In addition to the time-consuming government spending fight, the House Ag Committee Republicans are also trying to get their crypto bill on the House floor for a vote, as they juggle what’s shaping up to be an intense farm bill negotiation and fight. "Clearly doing the appropriations bills right is going to take some floor time,” House Ag member Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) told MA. “But I know leadership is attentive to that … and they budgeted time for that. And the farm bill is a priority,” Johnson added. “And so I think if there's a clear shot toward getting momentum behind the farm bill, and getting it passed sooner rather than later, I do think the leadership on [Ag] Committee and in Congress would prioritize a farm bill” over the crypto bill.
| | | | SPANBERGER TO GO FOR GUV: Virginia Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger told Democrats she will run for governor, our Ally Mutnick and Sarah Ferris report, a major shakeup for House Agriculture Committee Democrats. A centrist, Spanberger has told multiple people in her party she will run in 2025 to succeed Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Since winning her seat in Congress, she has carved out a lane as a dealmaker and policy mind on the Ag Committee — and has also been elevated to party leadership. Context: Youngkin, who won a bellwether campaign against former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 that many saw as a precursor to a red wave, will be term limited in 2025. Virginia governors are not allowed to serve two terms concurrently. That same year, Spanberger kept her seat in a purple Virginia district, beating back a bid by Republican challenger Yesli Vega, who ran a campaign that leaned heavily into culture issues. What it means: Should Spanberger forgo a reelection bid in 2024 to set her sights on the governor’s mansion, it would open up a hotly contested election that could determine the House majority. It would also be a blow for farm interests, who have found a receptive voice in Spanberger. She was awarded this year a “Friend of the Farm Bureau” award by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the farm lobby.
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