Stabenow threatens to block new farm bill this year over GOP demands

Senate Agriculture Chair Debbie Stabenow said for the first time Tuesday that she'd rather continue punting on the farm bill than strike a deal with Republicans to limit climate funding and social safety net programs.

The parties have been at an impasse in the farm bill talks for months now over those and other competing priorities. Stabenow (D-Mich.), who is retiring at the end of this Congress, has increasingly argued in private that her legacy is contingent upon protecting climate funding in the farm bill, in particular, as well as anti-hunger programs, according to three people familiar with the talks.

At a White House anti-hunger event Tuesday, Stabenow made her starkest public comments yet on the fate of the farm bill, telling an audience of nutrition advocates that she wouldn’t agree to any GOP plans to limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan, which serves as the basis of the country’s leading anti-hunger program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“I'm not going to do it. So, if that means we continue the policies of the 2018 farm bill, which were pretty good if I do say so myself, then that's okay,” Stabenow said.

Republicans note their plans to limit updates to the Thrifty Food Plan wouldn’t impact current SNAP benefits for the more than 40 million low-income Americans who rely on the program.

“That's okay with me, because we're not going to go backwards on feeding people, and we're not going to go backwards, by the way, on the climate conservation money that we also have there that is so critical,” Stabenow added.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack nodded in agreement as he sat next to Stabenow, calling her "tough."

As POLITICO has reported, Stabenow has reached out to vulnerable House Democrats and urged them to oppose House Agriculture Republican proposals to repurpose some climate and other agriculture funding to pay for farm support programs and other bipartisan priorities in the farm bill.

House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) aims to advance a farm bill through his committee in the coming months. The current farm bill authorization expires at the end of September.