LegiStorm

Summary:

The farm bill is an omnibus, multi-year law that governs an array of agricultural and food programs. It provides an opportunity for policymakers to periodically address a broad range of agricultural and food issues. The farm bill has typically undergone reauthorization about every five years. The 115th Congress has considered a new farm bill but has not enacted one to date. Both the House and the Senate passed versions of a 2018 farm bill (H.R. 2) in June 2018. Conference proceedings officially began in September 2018 but have not reached agreement. The farm bill provides an opportunity for Congress to choose how much support, if any, to provide for various agriculture and nutrition programs and how to allocate it among competing constituencies. Under congressional budgeting rules, many programs are assumed to continue beyond the end of a farm bill. From a budgetary perspective, this provides funding to reauthorize programs, reallocate funding to other programs, or be taken for deficit reduction. Budget for a 2018 Farm Bill (dollars in millions, FY2019-FY2028) CBO score Farm bill titles CBO baseline House-passed Senate-passed Commodities 61,151 +284 -408 Conservation 59,754 -795 +0 Trade 3,624 +470 +515 Nutrition 663,828 -1,426 +94 Credit -4,558 +0 +0 Rural Development 168 +0 -2,340 Research 604 +250 +685 Forestry 10 +0 +5 Energy 612 -517 +375 Horticulture 1,547 +10 +626 Crop Insurance 78,037 -161 -2 Miscellaneous 2,423 +566 +517 Subtotal 867,200 -1,320 +68 Increase in Revenue - +465 +68 Total 867,200 -1,785 0 Source: CRS, compiled using the CBO Baseline by Title (unpublished; April 2018), based on the CBO baseline (April 2018), and the CBO cost estimates for H.R. 2 as passed by the House and as passed by the Senate (July 24, 2018). The farm bill authorizes programs in two spending categories: mandatory spending and discretionary spending. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline is a projection at a particular point in time of future federal spending on mandatory programs under current law. When a new bill is proposed that would affect mandatory spending, the cost impact (score) is measured in relation to the baseline. Changes that increase spending relative to the baseline have a positive score; those that decrease spending relative to the baseline have a negative score. Federal budget rules such as "PayGo" may require budgetary offsets to balance new spending so that there is no increase in the federal deficit. Discretionary spending may be authorized in a farm bill but is not actually provided until budget decisions are made in a future annual appropriations act. Since 2000, farm bill budgets have varied: The 2002 farm bill increased overall spending, the 2008 farm bill was essentially budget neutral, the 2014 farm bill reduced spending, and the 2018 farm bill is projected to be essentially budget neutral. The April 2018 CBO baseline for farm bill programs, used as the official benchmark in 2018, contains $867 billion over FY2019-FY2028—77% of which stems from the nutrition title ($664 billion) and its largest program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The remaining $203 billion baseline is for agricultural programs, mostly in crop insurance, farm commodity programs, and conservation. Other titles of the farm bill contribute about 1% of the baseline, some of which are funded primarily with discretionary spending. The budgetary impact of the 2018 farm bill proposals are measured relative to the CBO baseline—that is, what the 2014 farm bill (current law) would have spent had it continued. Relative to the baseline, the House-passed bill would reduce federal outlays by $1.8 billion over 10 years (-0.2%), and the Senate-passed bill would remain budget neutral (+0%) over the same 10-year period. These overall relatively small scores are the net result of sometimes relatively larger increases and reductions across individual titles. Some of the overall scores within a single title of the farm bill are the net result of sometimes large changes in individual programs that may reflect changes in the direction of policy. The House bill would achieve its overall 10-year net reduction primarily by reducing net outlays in four titles (Nutrition, Conservation, Energy, and Crop Insurance). It would increase spending by less than the total of these reductions across five other titles (Miscellaneous, Trade, Commodities, Research, and Horticulture). The Nutrition title has provisions that sum to a $22 billion reduction over 10 years (including those for work requirements) and provisions that would add to $20.6 billion in increased spending. Similarly, the Conservation title has provisions that sum to a $12.6 billion reduction (including repealing the Conservation Stewardship Program), as well as provisions that add spending totaling $11.8 billion. The Senate bill would achieve a budget-neutral outcome by reducing net spending primarily in the Rural Development title but also in the Commodities and Crop Insurance titles. It would increase spending across seven titles (Research, Horticulture, Miscellaneous, Trade, Energy, Nutrition, and Forestry). For some of the programs without baseline, both the House-passed and the Senate-passed bills would provide continuing funding and, in some cases, permanent baseline.