Bloomberg Government’s Lillianna Byington reported that “the Senate’s version of the farm bill isn’t expected to be put to a vote in the chamber before the election and instead senators and House lawmakers will informally conference to work out differences, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) said Thursday.”
“‘We’ll get together with the House and the Senate and discuss and figure out a path,’ Boozman said,” according to Byington’s reporting. “‘We don’t have time to put it on the floor right now, so we’ll be conferencing until after the election.'”
RFD-TV’s Marion Kirkpatrick and David Nelson reported that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said “I do think it will wait until after the election. We have one week remaining on the Senate calendar before we break before the November elections. So, I sat down with Senator John Boozman this morning, and we were strategizing on how we move this forward. But unfortunately, it will be a little bit of a wait until we get after that election cycle.”
And KLIN’s Johnnie Adcox reported that U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts “said committee Chair John Boozman is negotiating with Democrats over when states with high error rates in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would have to pay a larger share of benefits. He said Democrats want a two-year delay, while a one-year delay has also been offered. Ricketts said Boozman sounded optimistic about reaching an agreement when they spoke late last week.“
Analyst Says Compromise Bill May Be Needed
Agri-Pulse’s Noah Wicks, Kim Chipman, and Olivia M. Bridges reported that the farm bill “legislation needs bipartisan backing to pass the full Senate, meaning negotiations for a revised bill need to begin in earnest as soon as possible.”
“A compromise bill could potentially be passed in the Senate by being attached to ‘must pass’ legislation this year,” Wicks, Chipman and Bridges reported. “‘I don’t think this is going to see the light of day on the Senate floor,’ says Randy Russell, who leads The Russell Group, a government relations firm specializing in food, agriculture and energy policy. ‘It’s much more likely that they work together at the staff level, try to come up with a compromise on the farm bill between the House and Senate, and then add that on to what is a conference report before the end of the year,’ Russell says in a recent Agri-Pulse Open Mic episode.”
Senate Ag Committee Advanced Farm Bill Earlier This Month
Progressive Farmer’s Jake Zajkowski reported on Sept. 17 that “the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced the 2026 farm bill on a 12-11 party-line vote Wednesday after resuming a recessed business meeting and rejecting an effort to reopen the bill for another amendment. The bill advanced after Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., returned to the committee following an extended absence.”
“…The bill includes key farm priorities, including year-round E15, mandatory country-of-origin labeling (MCOOL) and measures to address high input costs, such as the Fertilizer Transparency Act,” Zajkowski reported. “Those provisions are encompassed in the 34-amendment en bloc package, or manager’s amendment, and by a separate amendment, passed by a 16-7 vote in August, in favor of MCOOL.”
But The Hill’s Mira Bhakta reported that “Democrats on the panel have pushed back against a provision in the bill that would require states to help cover the cost of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding alongside the federal government if payment error rates in a state exceeded a certain point.”
