While Thompson has scheduled markup of the 802-page proposal on February 23, critics are not waiting for the bill to be dismantled, which goes with The GOP’s 2024 proposal was also harshly rebuked. The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), He said From what she’s seen so far, the new legislation “fails to meet the moment farmers and workers face,” she said.
“Farmers need Congress to act quickly to end inflationary tariffs, stabilize trade relations, and expand year-round domestic market opportunities. E15“The Republican majority has chosen instead to ignore Democratic priorities and focus on pushing the shell of the Farm Bill with poison pills that only complicate if not impede the chances of getting anything done,” Craig stressed. I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to abandon the political charade and work with House Democrats on a truly bipartisan bill to address the real problems the farm country faces right now — before it’s too late.
Brett Hartle, director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly criticized the GOP legislation on Friday, declaring, “This Republican farm bill proposal is a hideous, record-breaking giveaway to the pesticide industry that would free Big Ag to accelerate the flow of dangerous toxins into our nation’s food supplies and waterways.”
“This bill would prevent people with pesticide-related cancers from suing pesticide manufacturers, take away the EPA’s ability to protect rivers and streams from direct pesticide contamination, and give the pesticide industry unprecedented veto power over extinction prevention safeguards for our nation’s most endangered wildlife,” he said, referring to the EPA.
“If Congress passes this horrific law,” Hartle warned, “it will hasten our march toward the dawn of a very real silent spring, a day without fluttering butterflies, twittering frogs, or chorusing birds at sunrise.” “No one voted for Republicans to allow foreign-owned pesticide conglomerates to control policies that affect the safety of the food every American eats. But this bill leaves no doubt that that is exactly who is making all the decisions.”
Food & Water Watch (FWW) Managing Director of Policy and Litigation Mitch Jones also serves Sound the alarm about industry-friendly poison pills, arguing that any bill containing a “Cancer Gag Act” that would shield pesticide companies from liability or an Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act — which would stymie state and local policies designed to protect animal welfare, farm workers, and food safety — “should be dead on arrival.”
Sarah Amundson, president of the World Humane Action Fund — formerly called the Humane Society Legislative Fund — has also made a case against targeting state animal restrictions like California’s Proposition 12, which the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to pass in 2023, in response to a challenge by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“Once again, the Republican majority on the House Agriculture Committee is bending to the will of a backward segment of the pork industry by trying to force a measure to override voter preferences in more than a dozen states, overturning court decisions all the way until the Supreme Court tramples states’ rights all at the same time,” Amundson said.
National Alliance for Family Farms Highlight “Instead of addressing the broad concerns of family-scale farmers—ensuring fair prices for farmers, improving access to credit, addressing corporate land consolidation, and creating a business environment that benefits producers—this bill perpetuates a status quo that enriches and empowers corporate agribusiness. The result is an accelerating agricultural crisis that continues to hollow out rural communities across the United States.”
Thompson has also faced anger over other policies that were left out of the GOP legislation — particularly one calling for restoring $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump imposed last year through the so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1).
“HRP 1 shifts unprecedented costs to already cash-strapped states, expands term limits, and strips food benefits from caregivers, veterans, older workers, people experiencing homelessness, and non-citizen humanitarian workers.” male Crystal Fitzsimmons, President of the Center for Food and Action Research.
“H.R. 1 is a merciless attack on America’s hungry, dismantling our nation’s first line of defense against hunger,” she continued. “However, when given the opportunity to correct this damage in his latest farm bill proposal, President Thompson unveiled a package that would only deepen hunger rather than fix it. Hunger is not something Congress can afford to ignore.”
FWW’s Jones said, “Families and farmers are hungry for federal policy that supports small and medium-sized producers and keeps food affordable. Instead, Chairman Thompson appears poised to check off the industry’s harsh wish list.”
He stressed that “America needs a fair agricultural bill.” “It is imperative that this farm bill reverses all of Trump’s SNAP cuts and restores full funding for this important nutrition program; halts the spread of factory farms; and supports the transition to affordable, sustainable food.”
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