The climate fight that’s holding up the farm bill

The last farm bill was passed in 2018 , and in 2023 , Congress extended the previous farm bill for an additional year .

That extension expires today , and Congress seems poised to settle for another one.

House Republicans and Democrats ’ primary dispute is over how much funding will go to food programs like SNAP and the Thrifty Food Plan .

Rep. Glenn Thompson proposed stripping the “climate-smart” label from the IRA money.

This would more or less negate the intention of the Inflation Reduction Act , funneling the unspent portion of the $20 billion from that bill into EQIP ’s catchall fund.

If all the money can be used for anything, then the chances that the agriculture industry meets the goal set by the Biden administration — to cut the 10 percent of emissions generated by agriculture — dramatically decrease.

Some research suggests the EQIP program hasn’t had its intended effect on water use.

Farmers in the West need to use their entire water allocations each year or else risk losing their water to other users.

The difficulty of measuring EQIP ’s effects on climate and water usage has made the debate over the farm bill difficult.