The House passed its version of the 2018 Farm Bill last Thursday by a vote of 213-211 after previously failing in May over unrelated immigration issues. The Senate is currently debating its version of the bill, with an expected passing vote to take place Thursday or Friday.

The House bill contains several regulatory relief provisions NAAA and other industry partners have been advocating for that would be extremely beneficial to aerial applicators, including a fix for the duplicative National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit by eliminating its requirement for pesticides registered under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).  The House has passed this same provision at least half a dozen times in the last nine years. 

Additionally, the House bill includes much needed improvements to the endangered species consultation process for registering new pesticides under FIFRA as well as language on cooperative federalism recognizing states as coregulators of pesticides, prohibiting local governments from advancing pesticide rules. This would prevent bans on crop protection products such as Lincoln County, Oregon’s efforts last year banning aerial application of herbicides to forestry.

While none of these regulatory relief provisions are in the Senate version of the farm bill, NAAA is meeting with members on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate to encourage these provisions are included in the conference bill when members of the House and Senate meet to reconcile the differences in their bills.

Senator Crapo (R-ID) has introduced a bipartisan amendment to include the NPDES-PGP exemption in the Senate bill, and several senators are expected to use this as an opportunity to discuss the importance of eliminating the duplicative permit requirement. The amendment is co-sponsored by Senators Risch (R-ID), Fischer (R-NE) and McCaskill (D-MO), but a formal vote on the amendment is not expected for procedural reasons.

The White House released a statement urging major changes to the Senate farm bill, saying in part, "The bill lacks meaningful regulatory reform, and the Administration opposes dozens of additional burdensome requirements for new reports, studies, and pilot [programs]."

There are many differences between the House and Senate farm bills, the most contentious of which are changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as food stamps. The House bill contains work requirements for able-bodied adults with no dependents between the ages of 18 and 59.

House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway (R-TX), a champion of the work requirements, will be outnumbered when the bills go to conference. House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson (D-MN), Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) and ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) all oppose making major changes to SNAP.

"The only upside to its passage is that we're one step closer to conference, where it's my hope that cooler heads can and will prevail," Peterson said. "The Senate's version isn't perfect, but… I look forward to working with conferees to produce a conference report both parties can support, which is the only way to get a farm bill enacted into law."

"I think that's very unfortunate that's where the House wants to go," said Roberts earlier this month, referring to the SNAP changes in the House bill.

The Senate requires 60 votes to pass the farm bill, so Roberts will need support from Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents.