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House Ag Republicans feel blindsided by reconciliation bill

The Ranking Member of the U.S. House Ag Committee is calling the reconciliation bill a Trojan Horse for American agriculture.

Congressman Glenn “GT” Thompson says the bill is set to undermine the farm bill process by extending partisan priorities beyond their expiration.

“We’re talking about spending $4.3 trillion and less than $90 billion is for rural American and for agriculture, and of that zero dollars if for production agriculture,” he says.

He’s disappointed the Democratic members of the Agriculture Committee have at least some feel for the direction of the funding, but all the Republican members have been left absolutely clueless.

Republican Congressmen Austin Scott of Georgia continued to press the Chairman about the bill during their last business meeting questioning if all Democrats had seen language to the reconciliation bill and why it was not shared.

“Mr. Chairman, it’s an honest question—have the Democrats on the committee seen the language?” he asked.  “That’s not privy for me to say at this time,” Chairman David Scott replied.

The bill was voted out of the House Budget Committee over the weekend with funding focused on climate-smart agriculture conservation practices, extending current farm bill programs, and providing farmers payments for cover crops along with other provisions.

American Farm Bureau has said will likely oppose the measure.